Burmese Longswords beat Frank Knights at a ratio of 7:4

i have literally seen someone suggest 4 buffs in one post, just stat wise.

i have seen others state they want them to be able to compete with knights and archers. you think that’s going to happen without massive changes to the unit?

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man pls stop. We are not talking about having 275 res less, we are talking having more wood/gold instead of food. So the real cost is NOT the 275 food, but the res you need to convert the gold/wood (or, to be a bit more precise: Villager time) INTO food. Thats 120 or 60 wood. Im not saying its nothing, but it is NOT prohibitive.

Again, if having -275food but +275 gold/wood is such an immense dealbreaker, why do we ever see kts over xbow?

my opponent has invested 100 extra gold into units, and 175 extra wood into production. i can easily use those resources that i saved to gather extra food to offset the more food i am using.
and i already showed you that the actual food used on units isn’t that much different either.

also this

4 << 7, so if you’re right your claim about “the forum” still doesn’t hold true

but even so, could you find that post? Unless it’s someone like Equalizer, I suspect it might allow a more charitable interpretation.

We’ll see right?
Apply small buffs until the unit sees more use. Flatten some of the infantry civ-bonuses. No doomsday, and we end up with a better game.

To me the claims “This unit needs large buffs to be able to compete with knights and archers” and “this unit is perfectly balanced” seem incompatible.
I know you’ve advocated for Longsword buffs yourself too, so you disagree with the 2nd statement, so why are you putting so much effort into disagreeing with people? Wait until they’ve been buffed to a level you’re happy with before advocating they shouldn’t be buffed any more?

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its not just one post. theres multiple posts like that.

we already see. look at burmese. they get 2 extra attack in castle age. do we see them going for militia style play? no.
what about teutons - extra armor. do we see them going for militia style play?
malians - extra pierce armor - we actually see this from time to time, but not much more then that.
japanese - attack faster. do we see them going for militia?

so no. in order to get what those people want your gonna need a lot of change.
you even said it yourself.

apply small buffs, aka multiple. then we have to turn around and nerf pretty much every infantry civ bonus.
but hey now that we have the infantry line competing with knights and archers, shouldnt they, like knights and archers have a trash counter? guess we got to change that too now.
and you say we end up with a better game? according to who? you? sounds like months of game being out of balance to me.

the proof is in the civ bonuses alone as it stands. how many civs with militia bonuses go for militia as standard gameplay? and yet they get stuff like attacking 33% faster, 2 extra melee attack, free upgrades, extra pierce and melee armor, etc.
you would literally need several buffs all stacked together to even make them compete. thus when i say stuff like "giving them extra attack, 1/1 armor, health and speed, its not hyperbole, its literally backed by what you see in the game as is.

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I think we are at cross purposes. Knights cost food and gold. LS cost (less) food and gold. Let’s assume both players have the exact same amount of villagers and can distribute them according to their strategy.
The Knight player needs to invest res like Mat pointed out and has four units he can use to pressure the opponent. He also has resources for both economy upgrades when hitting Castle.
The LS player needs to invest res like Mat pointed out but because he has the additional UPGRADE cost in order to make militia into LS, that can compete with knights when having numbers, his economy is slightly behind. In addition one of his barracks is idle while researching the upgrades. Therefore opening LS is a bad strategy because you will fall behind economically and your opponent has the more mobile unit.

And I don’t know if that +4 (+8 for 2 stable) farmers (that need wood first) that the knights player has on gold will actually help you that fast with the upgrades. (It is something I genuinely don’t know, it just seems off timing wise for really early Castle. I will however try this again in ranked)

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but he also needs to gather less wood and gold. that means you can use that 175 extra wood for an extra farm or two. you can also pull villagers off gold to have more villagers farming.

except i can make man at arms during feudal age, or while aging up, he can’t make knights. so when i get to castle age, all i have to do is research longsword and go to town.

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See, you’re right, this is an issue. But if i were to create LS, there are about 200 more pressing problems (e.g.: Im dead if the opponent goes x bow. Im dead if the opponent goes 3-4 tc boom. Im dead if he goes monk/kts.) . You for some very strange reason just ignore all those more pressing issues and go on a crusade about how important food is. And i really cant understand that. Again and again: If food is such an immense dealbreaker, why create kts over xbow?

Have you tried this in a ranked game though? From my experience (Vikings) this doesn’t work too well in a real game situation.
If you attack with MAA in Feudal your opponent goes archers and your strat is hard countered, so no need to upgrade to LS when you hit Castle.
If you are fast castling and want to produce on the way up then you dont’t have the food to create double barracks MAA and afford economy upgrades when you’re up.
Maybe my strat wasn’t fleshed out enough but in early Castle you are in a very fragile position.

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I think my point was that in order to have competing units you are either sacrificng economy or numbers. Something crossbow or knights do better because of their low upgrade cost.

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I’m not talking a real game situation. i’m talking if they got all the buffs the “militia should be on equal footing with knights and archers” crowd wanted.

you don’t need to attack with them, just start making them.

and again, i’m not talking “as the game is now” i’m talking post “militia = knight = archer buff” make that crowd happy.

Looks like we are having two different discussions haha. I thought we established that the super buff proposals were a bit over the top and would discuss the as-is situation.

So if we are talking buffs I would either reduce the cost for the LS upgrade or increase their movement speed from 0.9 to 0.95. The movement buff would not apply for 2HS and Champion (similar to how scout and light cav movement speed is handled).

i agree with you, but you got people like toughertracker who want what they want.

Well, better make up your mind, would make any discussion easier :smiley:

You just switched your point from “the total cost doesn’t matter, its the food cost that is an issue” to “the total cost doesn’t matter, its the cost of the upgrades that matters”.

And both are wrong. How can i tell? There is a civ that gets LS for free. Thats right: The all important upgrade cost is a big flat 0 for Bulgarians. Yet they usually go kts over LS.

order to have competing units

The real issue is…in order to have competing units, the units have to be actually able to compete! And LS just can’t do that. The get outperformed as standard unit by both kts and xbow and only fill a role as a counter to eagles, pikes and sometimes monks.

PLEASE

That’s misrepresenting me.

We all agree Longswords are trash. You too

And yet half the time you sound like you’re arguing that Lonswords are broken OP and shouldn’t be buffed if it was the last thing on earth to be done

And you defend yourself by saying “But longswords would be OP if @Toughertracker got his way”.
This just seems like trolling.

I don’t want longswords buffed to the point they’re broken OP

You can’t swing between “you would literally need XXX to even make them compete” and “XXX would make Longswords broken OP”, at least not if you’re trying to be logically consistent.

Since you seem so keen to tell people what I want, I’ll correct you here, and please please remember for the future:

I’d like to see Longswords receive a small/modest buff, and then in 1/2 months time if they still see little use, to see them receive another small/modest buff, and then 1/2 months after that if they still see little use. Repeat until japanese & burmese use Longswords as often as they use knights. (Not necessarily as a main strat.) Nerf japanese, burmese & goths as the need arises.
Small changes are thing like +5 hp, +1 armour, +1 attack, +5% speed, XXX+5%.

Through this process, it would be practically impossible to end up with Longswords as the only viable strat for any civ, and it would be equally impossible for a civ to get a win rate above 55%, and it wouldn’t require much thought effort or creativity from the devs either.

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Ok @Temudschinn think i have completely lost your point here.
I try to explain again what I meant. I think LS is a good unit in Castle Age stats wise. It beats crossbows in equal numbers when they get close, they chew through buildings and the unit cost itself is quite strong. They also trade pretty well with knights. They do have a lot of weaknesses though which makes their use something to consider, since there are better options in the game.

I have no idea what you meant by this:

My point was the same throughout the discussion, so I’m sorry if I formulated it not to be understood easily. The main weakness the LS has from my experience and understanding is not the stats, it is a good and easily affordable UNIT. The cost to GET TO THE UNIT however is too expensive for early Caslte age, so opening with militia and upgrading it to LS will cripple your economy as opposed to a player who opens knights, who has a significantly lower upgrade investment (yes food wise, the most important res in Castle).
So as I said before, if you are opening LS you are either sacrificing economy or numbers.

Bulgarians are the only civ that do not have this drawback and could easily go for this strat. Why are they not doing it though? Likeley because generic knights are still a better choice than LS since they don’t have this many weaknesses (such as no pikes in early castle, can run away from siege or monks or even engange etc. you listed the weaknesses yourself).

trash? no. in need of some slight tweaks? yes.

no, but if you guys got what wanted? you’d literally have to re balance the entire game. buff the longsword? sure. make it compete with archers and knights? no thanks

except its true. look at some of the bonuses out there. Malians get +2 PA in castle age, do we see them frequently go for the Infantry line? not really. proof that you’d need more then just giving them extra armor to make them useful.

and to prove that its going to take several of those by your standards. burmese have +2 attack. and don’t see standard use. Teutons have +1 armor and don’t see standard use. Vikings have extra health and don’t see standard use. Japanese have +33% attack speed and don’t see standard use.
so when i say 4 buffs, i’m not just talking out of my butt. the existing bonuses literally tell us that.

and then you have to adjust civ bonuses around the newly buffed infantry. also now that infantry compete with archers and knights, shouldn’t they have a trash counter? seems fair to me.
more rebalancing of the game. so when i say its going to take a lot of changes - its not a lie. the game literally tells us that already.

I don’t get this obsession with LS. I get they are very rarely seen, but even paladins are in 1v1. But I don’t see any “buff paladins topic” just because most of the cavalry civs transition out of knight line in imp

Ok see you in 2028 when we’re gonna play AoE5 :slight_smile:

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they would need at least 1 pierce armor and extra speed to even be able to catch archers.
they would need at least 1 attack and 1 melee armor to be able to compete with knights.
they could also probably use some extra health to help with survival in general.

Are you trolling me?
Malians having +2 PA isn’t enough, and is not broken OP.
Malians having +2 PA +10hp might still not be enough, or it might be OP, (we don’t know and it’s safer to test +2 PA +5 hp first) but it can’t possibly be Not Enough and OP.

4 is the number of small buffs you think will be needed. No-one else said 4. And you claimed other people (including me) want 7.

If a unit is not OP despite not having a trash counter, why complain?

So you want to give them these buffs?
You seem to have argued successfully that even with these 3 (!) buffs, Longswords still wouldn’t be OP, despite not having a trash counter.

It would only take 8 months maximum, and there would be noticeable improvement even after the first patch.