Buffing long swordsman and their upgrades

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
1

Let me start here: This discussion is not about man at arms, because as I have seen in the forums, and according to my own experience they feel balanced now. If anyone disagrees, please create another discussion for that.

Long swordsman (and their upgrades). How often do you seen them in 1v1s or even in teamgames? Nearly never. The reason: They can’t win cost effective fights against cavalry, neither against archers. They have very few points they excel in: Smashing down buildings and killing eagle warriors.

Changes:
-Long swordsman, two-handed swordsman, champions gain +1 attack
-Long swordsman, two-handed swordsman, champions gain -1 attack against eagles
-Long swordsman, two-handed swordsman, champion gain 0.05 speed boost (from 0.9 to 0.95)

Explanation:

-Long swordsman, two-handed swordsman, champions gain +1 attack

Makes them significantly better versus knights and their upgrades, and buildings aswell. Currently, knights are able to force a fight versus infantry, because they have much higher speed, and it is even worth it, since they also trade cost effectively. My goal: To make the knights and longswordsman (of course upgrades of both aswell), when matched against each other with equal resources, have an even fight (with knights still coming out at top by little), and to make longswordsman more threatening against buildings. The reasoning: To open more options with long-swordsmen, for example using them instead of siege weapons or knights.

Some testing assuming knights have bloodlines (only infantry attacking):
-LS (long swordsman) without forging against a knight with chain barding armor: Requires 20 hits to kill instead of 24
-LS with iron casting against a knight with chain barding armor: Requires 15 hits instead of 18
-THS (two-handed sworsman) with forging against a cavalier with plate barding armor: Requires 16 hits instead of 18
-Champion with iron casting against cavalier with plate barding armor: Requires 13 hits instead of 14
-Champion with blast furnace against paladin with plate barding armor: Requires 14 hits instead of 15

I’ve also done some equal resources and realistic tests using some kind methods, but won’t share results here, since everyone has different opinions about what methods we should use (how to factor in creation time, food converted into gold, etc). I can only say that long swordsman made a much better performace, and I think they are viable now versus knights.
If anyone wants to test: For the current meta, just use a generic civs that have no bonuses for infantry or cavalry. For this test, use burmese versus teutons, this way the long swordsman line will be treated as if it had +1 attack both in castle and imperial age. After made both, compare them.

-Long swordsman, two-handed swordsman, champions gain -1 attack against eagles

I think we can all argee that the long sworsman line is already very strong versus eagles, don’t need further buffs against them.

-Long swordsman, two-handed swordsman, champion gain 0.05 speed boost (from 0.9 to 0.95)

Currently archers are meta, so the +1 attack buff wouldn’t do much alone. With increasing the speed of the long-swordsman line, it will be much harder to outmicro them with archers, and LS line will also be a viable option in teamgames, where bigger maps are being used.

Feel free to share your opinions!

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They are mainly a trash and eagle counter. And as a bonus they tear down buildings. They are not even supposed to counter cavalry or archers.

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If enemy is using trash you most likely run out of gold aswell, you won’t use long swordsman just for that. If not, then using anything else is better option, you won’t tech into an other unit just for that.
Against buildings, siege is currently a much better option
Eagle is the only thing theyre used agaianst, but only 3 civ has access to eagles.

I am not saying they are, but they are easily forced to have a battle against them.

4

long swords arent viable bc infantry is bad in the midgame. They are bad in the midgame bc the midgame is about taking map control and taking efficient fights. Infantry is horrible at both. buffing their attack does abolutely nothing.

Archers counter Infantry. They SHOULD absolutely counter Infantry. Making Infantry slightly better will increase the power of Archers. so your “logic” is wrong here.

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5

As I’ve proven above, it significantly improves them versus knights. May I emphansize again, my goal is not to make them better versus knights, if youre facing knights you shouldn’t make long swordsmans. But you cannot attack with LS, if the enemy can murder your troops with knights, just because they are unable to escape unwated fights.

Archers shouldn’t counter anything by core. They are that kind of unit which should be only good when massed up. 1 archer versus 1 infantry → infantry wins.
If a unit is having non zero range, that means basicly this, that is why range was “invented”.

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I agree to longswords getting +1 attack. About the imperial attack buffs I’m not so sure. And I’d rather have no generall speed boost but then maybe only one for champs. That’s just an intuitive gess, though.

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thats the magic: you will never be able to take a fight that you can win against knights bc they are faster. having so much military superiority that you can leverage your power against buildings is a rarity in the midgame.

btw you fogot one situation where Swordsmen really shine: they counter pike/siege.

after all their problem isnt that they arent good at certain things but these things are just not good in the midgame.

8

That depends really, did you or did you not? You could make a few longswords if the opponent has an army of pikes. I’d say if it happened so that both are in castle and for some reason gold is low, making 2 longswords could be more useful than making 1 crossbow. Obviously this rarely happens in castle age. But nonetheless is a possibility. And against eagles, yea. I don’t think it’s a problem really if their usage is that limited on the castle age tbh.

Of course, that’s what I meant, the building damage is a bonus, when you are already using the unit for the 2 aforementioned reasons.

9

And this rarity’s chance should be increased, because currently long sworsman are never seen in midgames.

10

I prefer +1 melee armor over +1 attack. In my own tests in the Scenario Editor with Supplies Long Swordsman vs. Bloodline Knights at equal resources and running the test 10 times, the average number of surviving Long Swordsman is about the same between +1 attack and +1 armor. But +1 armor gives far more consistent per-test results. As for making them better vs. Archers, I’d rather keep an anti-Archer building wrecker to the Battering Ram. Making the Swordsman line cost-effective vs. the Knight line while also having the ability to force fights vs. the much faster Knight through base destruction looks like a big enough combat buff.

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