Champions should be like Paladins, exclusive, expensive, and powerful

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
1

There are 3 mainline units which have two imperial age upgrades, Knight line, Militia line, and Mangonel line. Two of those are completely game changing. Paladins are significantly better against archers, and Siege onagers are the strongest siege weapon in the game. Champion, on the other hand, is a required upgrade if you want to even use them. Why?

This entire upgrade is sort of redundant, in my opinion. It inhibits infantry play, and champions aren’t that strong even against hussars.

So, here’s what I propose, make the upgrade significantly more expensive. Say, 1000 food, 800 gold. Increase the time required for the upgrade as well. Then, make the unit stronger as follows:
Champion:
HP: 80
Melee attack: 13
Armour: 2/1
Rate of fire: 1.9
Speed: 1.0
Attack Bonus: +5 to buildings, +8 to eagles, +2 to scout-line

Afterwards, restrict the unit to mainly infantry and archer civs.
Now, you need to buff the two-handed swordsman to a more usable level. So, here it is:
Two-handed swordsman:
HP: 70
Melee attack: 12
Armour: 1/1
Rate of fire: 2
Speed: 0.9
Attack Bonus: +4 to buildings, +8 to eagles, +2 to scout-line

To make a comparison, Cavalier upgrade is sufficient, paladin is just an extra. However, Champion upgrade is a requirement, two-handed swords are a weak unit.

Before anyone starts saying “BuT ThEY WiLL HavE No CoUnTER”, let me point out 2 things. First, archers will still work as a counter, so will cav archers. Every civ without good archers/cav archers have hand cannoneers. Of course, you also have units like the scorpions, and unique units like organs guns and cataphracts which can do the job.

“BuT No TRaSH couNTER”. Note that this upgrade costs 800 gold. That is a huge investment from your opponent, and you should have similar amount of resources as well. Buy yourself 20 HCs and you should be fine.

But also, that’s kind of the point. This is an end-game move, expensive and difficult to get to, and your enemies are going to have a hard time dealing with it. Same with paladins, same with siege onagers.

I accept that militia line is going to be garbage in castle age. Fine, it is what it is. But then, make it useful where it is supposed to be. i.e, late imperial age.

Let’s talk about trash counters for a minute.
All trash units are countered by other trash units. Halbs by skirms, Skirms by hussars, and hussars by halbs. This will work with just basic upgrades.

So, why on earth would you waste your precious gold countering trash units of all things? You need it for trebs and bombards to begin with. Let’s be clear, the idea was nonsensical to begin with. If you have a gold advantage, you’ve won anyway. And, you are better off spending that gold to upgrade something else instead of upgrading the militia line. This concept itself is a bit silly. We have no need of trash-counters.

EDIT:
The change to two handed swordsmen was added as an edit to better clarify the post

11 Likes
2

These chnages would make them more similar to heavy cavalry. I would prefer to emphasize the different qualities they have. This is that they are cheaper. They are faster to mass and you can re-make them long term because of low gold cost. This makes them good in imperial age already. Having high amounts of them is important, because they have to close gaps, what means that arrow fire subtracts a fixed amount of them. But that fixed amount matters much less if the numbers are high. So higher cost for upgardes are annoying.

If there is a buff for imperial age, I think it would be an idea to make infantry cost less pop space. But I don’t think Infantry in imperial age is too weak.

Imo what rather should be changed is supplies. You spend ressources to make the unit cost less ressources, what does not work out properly. Either you make just a few MAA and don’t use the tech early, or you have to somewhat go all in with MAA in feudal age to make the tech worth. And the second option seems to be something high elo players just evaluate as bad, and those are the ones who mainly complain about Infantry being to bad. Either the tech should be much cheaper or the order of Gambesons and Supplies could be changed. Gamesons in feudal age would maybe mean that more MAA are produced than with Supplies. And Supplies is more directed towards the late game, so it would not hurt much if it could be researched 1 age later.

3

By imperial, this is true for everything. What are you going to do with 5 paladins or 10 arbalesters?

I disagree. The main advantage of heavy cavalry is that they are fast. They are good against archers. Being cheap in of itself is not a quality. The unit needs to be good enough, and champions clearly aren’t. For example, it is never worth it to buy gold to make militia in late imperial against hussars. The unit is just that weak.

Also, what is wrong with similar to being heavy cavalry? These are heavy infantry units. That’s kinda the point.

How often do you think we see infantry in imperial age? what fraction of games? At least for pro games, I am confident that it’s less than like 7%. That means they are weak.

What you are saying here is only relevant to feudal age. That is a good conversation to have, but I’m only talking about imperial age militia.

Now, I don’t think the devs will implement this change. That’s not the point. Aoe2 is fundamentally a game about cavalry and archers. I’m just trying to communicate my ideas with the community.

4

I totally agree with your idea. I think Romans do a very good test of how strong infantry can affect the game. And it show that one of the strongest infantry Legionary is still not broken against cavalry and archer. But at least it is usable

1 Like
5

I agree that the champion upgrade is quite expensive. Some of the players even complain that there are too many upgrades for militia line. Maybe change THS and champion to 2 different upgrade paths like hussar and winged hussar.

1 Like
6

Making them expensive makes them even less viable. One of their strengths is being able to produce a lot of them at a late stage in the game when your opponent is on a timer with their own gold heavy units and is slowly transitioning into trash, which champions will absolutely shred through. Champions already demolish buildings, even without Gambesons. Unless your opponent has a ton of heavy cavalry units, hand cannons with scorps etc. champions flood can be hard to stop if you’re not prepared.

1 Like
7

I hate to repeating this, but this is not true. Please stop saying this. Champions are not cost-effective in the late game against hussars. Not to mention those special hussar varieties.

No, you have to prepare for it. I didn’t include it here, but two-handed swords need a little buff too. What I’m proposing is similar to the paladin or siege onager. You need to identify when to transition, and then do it strategically. It won’t always be viable, and that’s fine.

1 Like
8

Agree

image
image666×854 47 KB

4 Likes
9

Shouldnt we compare generic versions of generic Units? There are always exceptions.

Screenshot_20230712-135016
Screenshot_20230712-135016720×1600 89.7 KB

Screenshot_20230712-135024
Screenshot_20230712-135024720×1600 72.5 KB

4 Likes
10

Hi, for late game if we take the gold to food ratio to 2 or more, hussars will cost-effective

3 Likes
11

No. If champions are supposed to be trash counter, there cannot be exceptions of this type.

Champions are fine till gold rate is around 34. Below that, it isn’t worth it. Rates do go below that in late game very often.

5 Likes
12

Im not saying that champions are a general trash counter and i agree that the cost efficiency gets even worse the longer the game goes on.

Halberdiers are a cav counter but theres the exception of cataphracts (i know its an extreme example) i just wanted to note that conclusions from unit comparisons are more easily understandable If generic units are compared Not some better or worse Versions.

13

Actually, that’s not true. Catas are never cost-efficient against halbs, ever. It is only by a sliver of a margin, and not that applicable in a game where population is limited to 200. But, you will save a bit of resources if you play halbs against catas. This is especially true in the late game, when gold is running out.

There are no true exceptions to this rule, although a few do come pretty close. Skirmishers are always good against all archers, and halbs are always good against cav.

1 Like
14

Just make Gambesons having more resistance from Cavalry attacks only. Like +2 armor against Cavs

2 Likes
15

Here is the result when champion have +2 armor against Cavs. If we count gold to food ratio to two, Hussar still win in terms of resource

image
image675×866 47.2 KB

If it is about Hussar, an old idea is that adding Eagle Warriors armor class on Hussar so that Champion can have +8 bonus damage on them

4 Likes
16

still a reasonable balance. They can beat Camels too. Make Gurjaras and Hindustanis more easy to deal with. Also im not that much of fan applying bonus specifically to Scout-line only. Its fine they lose to Paladin but more pop efficiently

1 Like
17

By imperial, this is true for everything. What are you going to do with 5 paladins or 10 arbalesters?

Paladins have a lower numbers threshold to do damage because they close the gap faster. You basically need less, until do something compared to Infantry. You lose the first x meele units when you send them to fight a castle/TC or group of ranged units. In relation to the price this number is higher for infantry. So infantry depend a bit more on high numbers than cavalry.

This effect is even larger against very fast or high damage units like CA or HC:

Lets say against microed CA how much Champions do you need to do damage? Maybe the first 40 die. But if you have 80 Champions you can still do damage against the CA with Champions (maybe, all depends on the situation ofc). In the same Situation with Paladin maybe just 5 or 10 die before the first are close enough to do damage. So for Champions it is more often true that you need very high numbers before they do anything.

Also, what is wrong with similar to being heavy cavalry? These are heavy infantry units. That’s kinda the point.

Maybe you can buff something unique about Infantry instead of making them more similar to Cavalry (faster and tankier). You also suggested more bonus damage against buildings. I like that more.

How often do you think we see infantry in imperial age? what fraction of games? At least for pro games, I am confident that it’s less than like 7%. That means they are weak.

I think about the difference between pro games and average elo games isn’t talked about enough. What do we know about that regarding infantry? Regarding pro games it seems like Infantry isn’t common enough. But I would like to know the whole picture. I personaly play Infantry all the time (currently 1111 elo.)

What you are saying here is only relevant to feudal age. That is a good conversation to have, but I’m only talking about imperial age militia.

Another possible change is that Suplies reduces the food cost by 5 more for example. That would effect imperial age.

18

No. If champions are supposed to be trash counter, there cannot be exceptions of this type.

Champions are fine till gold rate is around 34. Below that, it isn’t worth it. Rates do go below that in late game very often.

Trash units are better if there is no gold. But when there is gold Champions are the best gold unit against trash.

Winged Hussars are improved Hussars. They should be only compared to imroved Champions. Or just compare generic units.

2 Likes
19

I agree with the idea. The Champion should be super good. But currently they are limited to M@A upgrade.

They don’t feel great to just tie with legionary 1vs 1. Champion should be as fast as halbs to couter them effectively.

2 Likes
20

I understand and agree with your point that it’s lame for it to have 2 upgrades in Imperial but still not being very good. But as it currently is, the main problem with the champion line is during castle age. I understand that you accept that, but i still dislike it. Of course it could be made slightly better in Imperial too, assuming the champion upgrade gets proper adjusts, like the ones you mentioned (e.g. harder to tech into, make it more exclusive to less civs).

So, here is my take regarding making the militia line better:
The main thing the unit needs is better walk speed, not attack bonus vs the Hussar line. I understand the rationale of them being the anti trash unit, but i’m not a fan of doubling down on that direction. They do OK vs halbs and skirms, and thats fine… just like the other gold units do fine vs trash units that are not their direct counters (for the most part).
If the unit moved slightly faster, then the unit would be more useful in general… not just so it’s not so frustrating to use against archers, but also in general. Them moving as fast as archers is the bare minimum. I don’t understand why they didn’t do this already. Even with that, the ranged units should still be at the very least soft counters. So, buff the walk speed with the LS upgrade, and then lets watch closely the results of that change…hopefully this will be the last buff needed for the champion line.
Now, will this finally turn LS into a viable option when compared to Knights or crossbows in castle?
Atleast for Infantry civs i think thats a good possibility. Either way, assuming the unit ever reaches that state, it has to have proper counters.
Regarding it having counters… thing is, even with that buff, i doubt it would be considered a “power unit”, so it’s OK for it to not have a trash unit that is also a hard counter… a soft counter is enough. So, with that in mind, IMO the Champion line SHOULDNT have attack bonus agaisnt the Hussar line, because if you do that, then buffing it to be better in general can get very tricky. Let Hussars be a soft-counter (atleast for the late game, economically wise, since they dont cost gold). And, of course, Archers and HCs will still be counters, as it currently is, and on the late game Hussars will be decent vs them too.
Also, It´s very possible that in the near future Scorpions will also receive general buffs, so that would also be another compensation for Infantry buffs.
Or, if you really want to make the Champion be anti Hussar, then atleast make it like what you proposed, so LS and THS don’t have that attack bonus, only Champion, and then Champion should also be made much more exclusive and harder to tech into.