Buff infantry, nerf ES

Just make some changes that could give more options to the game than xbows and knights. Also skirms are mostly fine, they just have become a viable counter to many units that were not originally intended.

+10hp for every inf UU and extra 5hp for elite UU (15hp total)
+5hp for each upgrade of the militia line (20hp max) and halb line (10hp max)
+1/1 armor for men at arms and another +1/0 for two handed swordmen (+2/1 max)
Maybe some minor changes for some UU armor stats
Reduce some civs buffs, like goths cheaper inf and barrack tt
Just a minimum reduction to ES bonus against “cav archers” or “archers” with melee or gunpowder attack

This is just an opinion, feel free to like it or not

3 Likes

I think the ES are fine, actually they need to reduce their elite upgrade cost, at least you can have them faster to stop this stupid death ball of xbows. About buff the infantry this mean buff all meso civs that they are already have many good things especially their stupid eagles, in general i don’t think the infantry need anything but i totally agree about nerfing the stupid Goths because they are sick especially with their 20% discount in dark age, i think deleting their 20% discount in dark will be enough

I think a blanket buff for infantry UUs isn’t the wisest. Huskarls for example are in a good spot I’d say, and an ext 15hp on elite would make them very hard to handle. Same with Woad Raiders or Berserkers. Samurai on the other hand could receive this buff right now imo.

I also dont think I agree with extra piece armor and HP for the infantry line, I’d say maybe pick 1 of those. Another buff I’d say we should look at is the cost of champion and 2 handed swordsman upgrades, reduce that cost a bit. The utility of the infantry line for most civs is a tech switch to counter trash or eagles in the later stages of the game, reducing the upgrade cost for that switch would make them more viable without changing any other stats I’d think.

For elite skirm you’re advocating for a nerf specifically against gunpowder and CA? Personally I’d rather the fix for CA be frame delay reduction. I’m afraid that lowering their bonus attack against CA would add even more buff to Mangadai, Kipchaks, Conquistadors, and Camel Archers, which are already dominate units.

For the reduction against hand cannons I’d support that outside of your infantry buffs, but with your infantry buffs you’ll see more hand cannons fielded just due to how many more infantry people will start fielding, by buffing the situation where HC are used, we are indirectly buffing the HC, so nerfing their primary counter would not be the wisest imo.

3 Likes

I think he’s talking about just buffing Militia line. Which would be an indirect nerf to Eagles, since militia line is their primary counter. His proposal would nerf Mayans, but I think would buff Aztecs because even though opposing civs will have more counters to their Eagles, they themselves will have even better Champions to flood.

3 Likes

But all meso civs have full militia line with full blacksmith upgrades except the Mayans who don’t have champs and thats not a problem.

1 Like

If militia had all these stat increases they would absolutely need a price and training time increase.

2 Likes

Just to be clear

I’m not proposing a buff for eagles

Maybe You are right, buffing hp and pa will hurt archers a lot, i don’t want archers gone, just to reduce their viability a little so inf could be more common.

But i would insist in the HP and melee armor, i want them to be a cheaper frontline unit that can take a punch for a while being supported by archers.

UU are diff to buff, they are so many, but they should have a little love too if halbs and champs gets some.

ES, well they are ok for the most part, i just want to reduce their bonuses a little against unit as mamlukes, hc, jennisaries, units that are not really archers or CA but needed a trash counter. My only worry is that conqs will be too OP, but i was not proposing reduce the extra dmg to, for example, the mongols magudai.

Also a reduce bonus against gunpowder would allow them to be more viable in this scenario with buffed infantry

1 Like

@Gaturro7777
Buffing militia line against archers could be really simple actually. Give them +1 or +2 extra base pierce armor, then tweak it according to need. This has a historical basis too, as in real life infantry isn’t nearly as vulnerable to arrows as AOE gives you the impression of.
Historically arrows was usually a much bigger issue for cavalry, as horses are a pretty big target, that it is quite hard to protect properly.

That said, the AOE franchise has a history of overvaluing cavalry. Seeing a cavalry only army was almost unheard of IRL, outside of nomadic tribes in the northern steppes of Asia. While seeing an army specializing in either melee or ranged infantry with no cavalry what so ever was rather common.

3 Likes

and how would you balance this out? now that infantry fair better against archers, are insanely fast to train, and cheap too, how do you counter them effectively?

3 Likes

@MatCauthon3
It depends. +1 or +2 to champions wouldn’t make them so resistant to archers that they can steamroll them. So archers would still do work, they just can’t slaughter the champions as easily as before. Knight-line, and other melee based units would still be as effective vs militia-line as they used to be.
Hand Cannoneers would still have a field day though, and same with slingers. Considering that historically slingers was about as common as archers, depending on the society in question, slingers are actually very underrepresented within the game.

That said, real life warfare was very infantry dominated, something we don’t necessarily want to see in AOE2. That said there is no doubt that currently infantry is ridiculously easy to counter. When Heavy Cavalry is more versatile than standard Infantry the logic has already gone out the window.

I’m not necessarily saying they should make this change though. I’m saying logically and historically it would make a lot of sense to do that if you wish to make militia-line more usable. It also wouldn’t be so much of a gamechanger that it could steamroll everything, the way units such as paladins already can.

2 Likes

except you’re only looking at the late game. imagine feudal m@a with an extra pierce armor, they train super fast and archers come out in 35 seconds each. furthermore they cost twice the gold, and lack essential techs like thumb ring and ballistics. what then?

but again - you can start massing up infantry earlier, and supplement your militia line with pikes and laugh at the knights.

again you’re talking late game, what about in the early game? slingers and hand cannons don’t exist.
also why should a unit that costs only 20 gold be so tanky against archers?

they are also insanely cheap, fast to produce, and receive bonus damage from very few units as a whole. there is a reason why they die so easily. its a game, not a history simulator. furthermore, how did those infantry fair beneath the likes of the huns and mongols?

considering they cost almost 4 times the gold, it makes sense. this game is not and never claimed to be historically accurate.
in real life you have armies of thousands and your standard infantry was cheap conscripts with whatever they brought from home.

logically the militia line doesn’t represent anything in real life - in real life your standard infantry wasn’t carrying a sword and shield because they couldn’t afford it.

you want buffed militia to actually be a unit that can be fielded as the core of an army? go ahead - just make sure you balance them accordingly and add in actual counters and adjust the price and training time as necessary.

oh and don’t expect people to wait months while we balance your new infantry

3 Likes

That or increase xbow upgrade cost

1 Like

basically if you want the militia line to have a more prominent role there is one major thing holding this game back.

population (and thus the need for population efficiency). remove the population limit on the game and make infantry a dirt cheap easily spammable option and what you are asking for might just be an option, but that isn’t a realistic option in a video game.

except the paladin has a cost 4 times as high in gold, trains almost 50% slower, and has an insane cost to the paladin upgrade, and is easily trounced by two pikeman, or camels.

can you say the same thing about the militia line? oh wait. it doesn’t have a trash counter.

this isn’t real world battles its a video game, and everything needs to have its checks and balances.
infantry are fast and easy to mass and take no bonus damage from any trash unit, but lose to most gold units in the game.
knights and archers are more expensive, slower to train, but have their own weaknesses to skirmishers, pikeman, and other such units

3 Likes

While we are at it, I also want to re-emphasise this point: this game was never designed for historical accuracy and bulletproof logic. Mameluke can be archers and camels can be ships. There’s nothing wrong with that. Heck, the sheer fact of having a unit ready to fight in 30s is already defying any logic, since irl training a soldier takes months or even years.

@MatCauthon3
I’d actually like to see that tested in feudal age, to see if it would provide a significant balance issue. If it does, you could just add an extra upgrade in Castle or Imperial Age that provides the extra pierce armor for militia-line.
I may test that in the scenario editor, and post a video here sometime later to see the results. Will have to get help from a friend to test it properly though.
You are forgetting a key detail here though. The current balance on this was made when the standard pop was 75 pop. In a 75 pop game archers are way weaker than they are in a 200 pop game, as archers get stronger when massed, which is partially why they are currently overrepresented in the meta.

Adding slingers as a standard unit would be a nice touch though. Would be easy to make them available in Feudal Age as well.

@MatCauthon3
“logically the militia line doesn’t represent anything in real life - in real life your standard infantry wasn’t carrying a sword and shield because they couldn’t afford it.”

Please stop saying things you know nothing about authoritatively. How common swords were depends entirely on the society in question. In some armies every single soldier would have a sword as backup weapon, while in others, they wouldn’t even consider carrying one.
And yes swords was as a general rule always a backup weapon on the battlefield.

@MatCauthon3
oh and don’t expect people to wait months while we balance your new infantry

Are you always this salty? I come with one suggestion of a possible balance change, for the sole reason that there was a thread dedicated to that topic, and you behave as though I just shat at your lawn.

1 Like

Don’t forget that they also cost 60 food. I don’t know where this obsession with gold coins from. Did you know scouts cost 0 gold? And they’re generally considered more useful than M@A. OP!
Gold doesn’t really matter in castle, there’s a reason Knights/archers dominate in Castle age.

2 Likes

and the game has had balance changes since then, first with aoc, and then later on throughout all the various expansions.

and frankly i don’t think archers are over-represented in the meta, like i said before - if the militia line is supposed to be the core of an army, why does it not have a trash counter, the way archers and knights do? furthermore why does it have such a very low cost and a very low training time compared to the other two as well?

why am i salty? first of all i wouldn’t say salty. but i am trying to point out the issues with your ideas, because no one considers the long term ramifications or the actual implementation of the stuff like this. they sit here and propose buffs like this but don’t consider “well how do i keep this from being an issue in x situation, or how do i keep this balanced” they just propose what they want or think they want and move on.

this very thread is full of examples with no one who is proposing buffs to infantry factoring in the other side of the balance coin and pointing out how they would keep those units from being broken. furthermore let’s say you give them even +1 pierce armor. now look at malians. there champions now have 9 pierce armor base. there pikes have 7 pierce armor (or more, if this bonus just applies to all infantry instead of just militia), how do you beat that?

45 food with supplies, which if you’re making infantry better like this, will absolutely be researched.

did you know scouts get wrecked by just about everything? scout line wins against 3 types of units - skirms, monks, and siege. pikes, militia, knights, archers and most unique units all wreck them.

then you would have no problem increasing the cost and training time of the militia line and introducing a trash counter to them if they got buffs right? since clearly according to you the gold cost shouldn’t and doesn’t matter. furthermore you have to consider more then just the castle age.

what about late imperial age? golds running out, you’ve basically just turned champs into an unstoppable killing machine.
right now champs take 2 damage an attack from elite skirms, with full upgrades. even 1 more pierce armor means skirms now take a full 70 shots to kill a champion. now i’m not saying skirms should be good against champs, far from it, but that’s just absurdly efficient. look at all the people crying about the leitis and you just turned champs into a monster.

@MatCauthon3

@MatCauthon3
why am i salty? first of all i wouldn’t say salty. but i am trying to point out the issues with your ideas, because no one considers the long term ramifications or the actual implementation of the stuff like this. they sit here and propose buffs like this but don’t consider “well how do i keep this from being an issue in x situation, or how do i keep this balanced” they just propose what they want or think they want and move on.

This is perfectly understandable, and I’m all for constructive criticism. What I don’t want is the argument to be personal instead of objective, as in “your new infantry”. Or for the argument to take an inherently negative tone.

I want to be clear on that I am not, and never was advocating that this change should be made. All I have said is that it probably wouldn’t be OP if it was, a statement I am willing to test and post a video about later.
Since you mentioned it, I can include Malian infantry as well, to test how it affects them.

On regards to historical accuracy, and logic.
And @VioletTexas3273 I’m including you on this as well.
While it is true that the game does not, and should not revolve around bulletproof logic or historical accuracy. There is no denying that it has a clear historical basis. So when putting any new thing into the game, or changing an old one there is nothing wrong in taking inspiration from things that have a historical or logical basis to it.
I often see people have the same perception of fantasy that includes magic actually. People arguing that because magic does exist, everything is suddenly magic, and logic or physical realities shouldn’t apply anymore. Just because magic does exist, that doesn’t mean you should always disregard all basic logic.
The same goes for AOE. Just because the game isn’t historically accurate or always realistic, that doesn’t mean we should never take inspiration from those things.

Also 30 seconds IRL is about 15 years in game, so spending 15 years to train 1 swordsman is actually quite a lot. Again, that doesn’t mean it should be changed, as 30 sec IRL is still really fast, and the IRL time is what we balance it by, not the in game equivalent.
It would ironically, and probably coincidentally also be rather realistic as 15 years of age was a common age for many young men to start fighting on the battlefield.

2 Likes

This could be balanced appropriately… Just like how the huns CA discount was decreased… Sorry i gotta point it out again. But instead of looking at someone’s proposition and thinking “how could this work” you’re instead saying “how can i find flaws in it”

A mali m@a gets +1PA. So we already know how they fair. They aren’t unbeatable. So we know this could already be implemented without breaking the game.

If need be goth could get some adjustments.

But i still liked your idea of minor speed increase at least.

But we can’t deny the fact that as more non legacy players play aoe2, and see faults in comparison to modern games things might have to change with the times.

Its no longer acceptable to have 5 civs absolutely dominating the meta.

Maybe it’s becoming no longer acceptable for an entire gold line to have so little use.

There could be a castle age tech which halves the pop of militia, spear and skirm lines for example.

This is also very important. Militia line is useful in tiny numbers at the start of the game and then at the end when food isn’t important… If the food cost was reduced maybe this would change…

An example :change base cost - 10f +5g. Tech in castle or imperial age to remove 5g or even invert it. Adjust goths accordingly.

There’s so many different ways militia line could be buffed.

3 Likes

which is what i am doing - i’m making them consider all the angles, instead of having someone else point it out to them.
so many people come in and say “what if we do this” and don’t look at the downsides. i’m trying to make people think about all the issues, instead of just giving them the answer. obviously i could have easily said “hey Malians bonuses would have to be reduced” but that isn’t my job, as the person who is proposing the change - it is there job to consider to consider the ramifications of there change - the point of balance changes is balance, and if people aren’t considering all the angles, they absolutely should be.

whose idea of faults? just because someone sees something as an issue does not mean anything, if they don’t understand all the factors involved. Infantry are dirt cheap and train very fast compared to knights and archers, they also have no real trash weakness. the downside is they are slower and lose to other gold units. you start reducing those weaknesses and they have to have a downside to compensate. the downside of archers and knights is training time, cost, and of course, weakness to trash units.

so little use? did you watch kotd3? they saw plenty of use. one of the most common openers. commonly used in castle age against eagle civs. and lots of late imp use.

3 Likes