What on earth do the devs have against greatswords? We currently have 2 units that use them: The landesknecht which is widely known as a completely garbage meme unit no serious player would ever make. And the condotierro which is arguably even worse because not only is it bad in general, it is even bad against the type of unit it’s hyper-specialized against.
I think greatswords are incredibly cool. They can be a very elegant weapon and were often a weapon of elite warriors. Plus at the time of their use they were a high-tech weapon due to the craftsmanship needed to make such a large sword. So why AoE 4 is it literal trash in terms of performance and with animations that in no way reflect the grace with which they were often used. Disgraceful and deplorable.
But curiously, not the Bor, or the Hirdman, the Shiedlmaiden or the Berserker has one of them. The only other unit of Vikings I think they could have with 2-hand Dane Axe, is the “Jormsviking” (which gonna appear in AoE2)… or maybe the Hirdman or Berserket with a unique tech that change his weapons… i don´t know.
I think a daneaxe would be a fitting weapon for the berserker. I remember hearing a real-world story of a berserker who single-handedly held a chokepoint at a bridge by wildly swinging a daneaxe.
The problem with Landsknechts in AoE4, well, there are actually three problems:
They are too weak against ranged units.- They are practically made of paper (9 shots from Feudal Archers or even Crossbowmen kill them).
They cost too much gold.- There is no justification whatsoever for a troop that will die in 3 seconds to cost 160 resources, 100 of which are gold. IT’S RIDICULOUS.
They should be called Doppelsöldners.- since they are not normal Landsknechts, but rather the kind that use a two-handed sword to fight, which were generally suicide troops. The normal Landsknecht was a “Pipeman,” a true “Elite” pikeman, not a common spearman.
In fact, there are currently no “True Pikemen” in the game, with a long spear and a large damage range (0.75 or 1.0), so they can attack from behind the line. Many spearman represent “Peasant leavy” who fight with short spears.
Pikemen
In fact:
Speaking of pikemen, the next DLC will finally have a new pikeman unit: the Scottish Pike, and it will even have a schiltron ability.
Now that there will be pikemen, it’s possible to consider giving the Holy Roman Empire (HRE) Pikemen and their own Ladnsknecht Pikeman in the future. That’s good.
The truly ridiculous part is that real doppelsöldners wore plate armour. In fact we see this in AoE 3. So why in AoE 4 do they have literally no armour.
