Pop efficiency, better all around unit than halbs
Probably they would be the Main infantry unit for the civs that get this pike, same way than eagles for mesos with the difference that they would be better against cavs than archers
Maybe they won’t be very necessary in castle age, but i think it would be a Nice imperial age option
I already had posted on idea to include the the “Landsknechts”. But it might actually be more fitting to use “Swiss Mercenaries”. As they are Mercenaries, they don’t benefit from any bonusses or blacksmith upgrades. To recruit them you need to research them in the university for a quite high cost, so high that you can’t just go fast castle into swiss mercenaries. The hardened upgrade in Imp should cost about as much as the paladin.
Swiss Mercenary (Gewalthaufen/Hardened)
60 G 70 F
150 HP (200 HP)
2.7 ROF
14 Atk / + 6 VS Cavalry (17 / +10)
2 melee / 3 pierce armor (3 / 5)
.95 speed (1)
Note that the cost is as much as 2 longswords/champs. The unit can take about as same amount of arrows as heavy cav from a cost efficient perspective but has less dps and moves slower, so it is soft-countered by archery besides it can take some ranged damage. The low melee armor and dps makes it vulnerable to the militia line and also a bit more vulnerable to all kind of trash than many other unit types which aren’t counter by the respective trash. Still, trash is no good idea, but will deal better with it than p.e. with champs.
Really? I would argue the balance is slightly in favor of cav civs right now. The only “bad” cav civ are the spanish atm. Whilst we have several non-cav civs (koreans, viatnemese, malay, byzantines… all worse than spanish) in really bad spots. Besides early eco bonusses seem to be the most important factor to be a “good” civ, having no good cav in addition makes you almost automatically a bad civ overall. Meso civs are different because their eagles are a good supplement at least in lategame and they have all a quite good early game, too.
And that’s without the expected improvement in pathing, which is still much worse than it was in HD.
In the top Ranks we have many cav civs: franks, berbers, malians, huns… and only a few other civs can crack their domination.
I think there is a slight disbalance between archers and cavalry and a heavy infantry unit could solve this disbalance and furthermore enables many new and interesting army comps instead a often just archer vs knights game were the trash is just “filling skirmish material”.
it’s also not that much variety, every second game is “archer vs knights” matchup. OK right now we see also some more camel and cav archer play and some civs have good inf/siege, but most games are the same matchup in the core units.
Lithuanians have the Leitis which should have no problems at least matching the swiss mercenaries (Gewalthaufen). Leitis is still insanely strong against every melee unit, also holding good against them who should counter it (halbs/camels). I don’t think lithuanians would have any probs dealing with the swiss mercenaries.
200 hp!!
But with that hp HC won’t be a counter, i know You are proposing a really expensive unit but it would be 2x el dorado eagles and 3x a regular infantry hp
But i like the big attack and lower rof
That doesn’t sound like a power infantry though. It sounds like a different halb
Imagine thinking Byzantines and Vietnamese are in bad spots
Well, flemish militia have less dps to paladins, but in 200vs200 they are twice as effective with only 15 extra hp and 1 ma.
And they are kind of the same level than a champion in everything else.
This new pike could be something like that, maybe with higher dmg and 2.5 rof, if they ver choose for a pike regional unit it doesnt need to be only good against cavs.
I think hc would be a good counter because the high hp will mean less overkill. Also Target micro could be easily performed by the hc then, which is atm a bad idea to do with hc against most infantry. Thing is HC needs a buffer unit anyways to be effective, so in a direct duell the swiss mercenaries could win cost efficiently, but I think HC would perform better against this unit than against many other infantry units atm.
first need nerf to crossbows than knight 
bruh, what is your elo really ? crossbow better(maybe balanced) than knights. this is way archer civs top tier civs. they are cheap, can shot at once, no pathfinding issue like knights. faster imp. Big powerful spikes of crossbow and arbelest, you can’t mass knight from feudal. but you can get a lot archer and change them with crossbow upgrade which really cheap and fast researching
nerf xbow then a little buff pike line to ensure militia line is a better way to counter pike line. I think
you mean buff pikes for make them better counter for knights ?
i suggest more pierce armor and speed for militia line and delay increase for hit and run tactic of crossbows
Is it me or this devolved into “nerf everything until longswords into castle age become common”?
its almost like people don’t understand how the game is balanced.
Have you even read what I wrote?
And no, if you know what archers and knighs are good for, you would know that the best players in the world will always prefer the knight over the archers in arabia. Even if mass archers are due to the pathing and stacking issues, which are ISSUES, mass archers counter knights if the knights would try to engage them.
The key is to know that you don’t have to engage the archers with your knights. So even IF the opoonent goes full archers it is a good idea to make some knights to counter that strat, But I’m not here to explain how to beat mass archers and take away their utility.
I know that there are some elo regions were the opportunity is “archers are OP”! But if you become better you’ll see that knights give you so much more utility they counter archers - even if they can’t engage them due to the pathing issues and stacking.
that’s why archer civs are a very common pick. i’m gonna ask you to source this claim. also even on the old data only 3 of the top 10 picked civs on arabia would be those that rely on the knight in castle age at the highest level of play.
and i’m gonna ask you to source the fact that stacking is an issue. if stacking wasn’t supposed to happen, why are archers allowed to do it but knights and infantry aren’t? seems like the design of the game DISAGREES with you.
so again - back up your claims
Melee units shall not stack because they could oblitterate everything, like it was shown by the stacking of the steppe lancers.
Think twice before you write something like this.
Besides that a little amount of stacking is possible in the right circumstances, also for melee.
so why can archer units stack then?
your claim was that stacking is an issue and not intended. if that’s the case why can archers stack?
source your claims.
furthermore you claimed that top players prefer knights over archers.
https://aoestats.io/map/arabia/RM_1v1/1650+
and yet only franks, lithuanians, and huns rely on the knight in top 10 in pick rate, meanwhile Mayans, Chinese, Celts, Aztecs and Britons in the top 10 all prefer crossbows. hmm…
not nearly as much as archers can stack though. that tells me that stacking is in fact intended to happen, and not, as you put it “an issue that needs to be addressed”
So again. IF THESE TRULY ARE ISSUES BACK UP YOUR CLAIM WITH SOURCES. FROM THE DEVS.
That’s a unproofed claim.
where’s your proof?
As stacking hasn’t be a thing for most time aoe2 exists I think it’s pretty clear it wasn’t intendet.
Maybe now some of the actual devs accept it because it somewhat balances the game (before the game was designed around the OP knight line).
But still, even with that stacking and pathing issues, knights are really strong choice to counter archer play.
One available source to all is that the official counter guide explicitly says that knights are designed to counter archers.
its proofed by the fact that it hasn’t been changed, and by teh fact that archers can stack better then infantry and knights. if archers weren’t intended to stack so much, why can they stack better then infantry and cavalry? and it would have been nerfed to help make cavalry better, especially last year before the pathing nerf. but instead they chose to buff pathing.
you could stack back in the original game too, it just was harder due to lag.
if the knight line is op why did we spend the first 10 years watching hun/ cav archer wars?
only when you get them up in enough numbers to do so. its also much more expensive then the archer.
and archers literally say “good vs units at range” and again - most the top picked civs are civs that rely on the crossbow in castle age…food for thought. we’ve literally seen enough games to know that the archer line can do very well against the knight,
There are several reasons for it. But Knights only soft-counter archers. Archers have also higher raiding potential, earlier powerspikes, less food intensive… As there are so many other factors, yes, archer nations can beat cav nations. But not because archers would counter knights.
Yes I know that there are some elo regions were there is a thinking, archers would be op and counter knights, but even there usually knight civs dominate archer civs in the winrates.
Its a bit silly because archer civs are always picked more often, in all elos, than there winrates justify. It’s just a general misconception that they would be better, even with the known pathing and stacking issues.
And it also fits with my experience. I know how I counter archers because I know the utility of my units. And knights are my preferred choice to deal with them in castle age. If the opponent then tries to mass the xbows I add mangos. It’s not that hard if you know how to use the mobility of the knights to your advantage.
Archer civs can beat cav civ, for sure, but not because archers would beat knights. If you make archers to defeat the enemy army in open maps, you haven’t understood the utility of archers. They aren’t designed to defeat all kind of army, they are designed to damage bad protected eco.