I agree with you. The thing with free barracks upgrades though is, that they also affect the pike and eagle line which are already quite good.
I think supplies is just the weirdest tech in the whole game. Apart from being an absolute noob trap, it is way too expensive in early game and doesn’t really matter in Imp. Also why does it cost as much as bloodlines while only affecting ONE unit line whereas bloodlines is a permanent buff for up to five units in one tech tree. In my opinion supplies needs to be changed or the cost has to be shifted to mostly gold or just a bland big discount on food.
Also a speed increase to 0.95 is too fast, as Celt LS would be as fast as eagle scouts. LS is an expensive unit but has still quite good stats. Idk if that’s a bit too strong.
Supplies still some deal in imperial…a bit like byzantines trash discount. The cheaper the food cost, the more army u can have and the less the villagers u need
Champions are actually my favourite generic unit because of how incredibly useful they are in most cases and because they look cooler than everything else.
They are a good trash counter in the mid to lategame, but beware making them in trashwars. There your Gold is better invested in Siege.
Supplies made them actually viable in certain lategame situations with well protected bases and that’s exactly how we see them used right now, at least in pro games. But these states rarely occur in standard 1v1 because these games are often decided by mistakes of one player and lategame + siege push is only a thing if nobody made a huge mistake before. Finally they have a nice usage, but it’s still situational and I would never advertise making them for newer players if they don’t know why this works in that kind of situation and which are the parameters to decide going for that strat or trying something different.
As I said, I think champs are now fine in that role, besides I would consider just giving them a slight buff so they can execute it even more efficient.
But I would like to see a different lategame heavy infantry unit to actually complete the tic-tac-toe principle of the game. I don’t think Champs should be buffed to compete with arbs or heavy cav because they have their situational usage and I like how they play it atm.
I don’t like that it may trick unexperienced players into stupidly playing militia. That’s why I prefer to add a different line to the barracks to make clear the purpose of militia is to push and force the enemy to invest a lot of gold in fighting back that push. Archers and Heavy Cav are still the stronger lines and Champs can’t really compete with them, because they lack both range and mobility.
Is there actually any reason to make longswords? I mean MAA is still quite useful for an early push/rush, but longswords?
except no such principle exists except on water and the trash units. gold units don’t have a tic tac toe or rock paper scissors.
knights can beat archers but archers can also beat knights.
i’ve seen longsword pushes in early castle age with increasing frequency lately. especially against eagle civs on maps like hideout.
how often do you honestly see champs used against cavalry. be serious here. and i’m not talking against the ai.
yeah they are cost effective but they aren’t supply effective. i’d be better off investing into pikes/halbs which would be just as supply effective but cost much less.
so basically you need something like a 2 to 1 champ to knight line advantage to win.
which means you need more units. which means you’re using more population/supply to win battles.
which means you’re not being as population/supply efficient.
Looks like knights beat them, also considering you need less upgrades for knights, they are more mobile and food is actually more valueable at this state of the game than gold.
Speaking of Champions, I discovered a bug with Viking Champion HP in-game and I was wondering if it would affect gameplay, could anyone look into it? Here’s the link the to the thread: Viking Champion HP Bug.
Well in melee vs melee the effect isn’t that big considering if both players have the same level of micro. And if the players micor the one with higher mobility and better pop efficiency will always have an advantage. So even if micor is involved, I think the knights perform even better,
And if we set up a theoretical 1 knight vs 2 ls, the knight wins with 15 hp left. It’s quite a close matchup, but I think knights have still the edge. And I would wonder if it wasn’t like this - why the knight rush is still the most favourite play in fc if ls would beat knights?
A knight/paladin costs 75. Where as a champion costs 20. Plus knights are easily killed by non gold costing halbs. Champions far outclass them in the very late game.
To speed up teching into champ, why not have the militia line branch/split after LS. 2HS or Champion, depending on civ tech tree, instead of having to go through 2HS to champion.
Bulgarians definitely are using them, albeit in relatively low numbers as support units to kill off pikes. The rest I can see only being used vs massed eagles or similarly niche situations.
