I first thought that as well, but I did some tests and oh god is that hard to get them to win vs MALAY knights in the first place. I guess it wasn’t helped by the fact right click is bugged and thus you can’t micro them effectively enough.
What about increasing their HP? (and reducing the Mongol bonus of course) Kamayuks have similar HP to equivalent swordsmen units and do OK vs them once massed. But unlike Kamayuks, SL don’t have additional armor and anti-cav bonus so the fact they are made from stables shoudln’t make them OP.
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kamayuks are good unit… they are good when in close formation and massed… which is hard from a castle btw… its ok you simply use onager an down them as they are effective especially if they are close … so even if they would be a bit OP it can easily be countered, but steppe lancer is fast as i tell you it is a hardcore micro unit that is why noone uses it in normal games… i can micro cav archers. but are they cost effective vs arbalests ever? SL can be exploited in the same way as cav archer, that is why it must be so not cost effective. but they are so hard to use effectively that noone does that…
make them a less demanding unit to use, and we will use them.
sry my engish is bad i hope you can understand what i wrote…
They are if they are either Huns or have full armor + Parthian tactics. But anyway the SL’s point isn’t to be good vs archer. I did the comparison with Kamayuks because this unit isn’t 100% outclassed by Champs even if there is no cav to fight. So I guess taking aspiration from it might make the SL a Kngiht alternative that is more or less effective according to the situation. Also, Kamayuks don’t require as much micro as SL do, so I think working for the SL to be like that might remove the “micronerd” aspect.
Agreed. They are really not good anymore making cumans and tatars far less good.
Maybe reducing their cost to the original 30 gold and giving them a slight bonus like versus cavalry or versus villager to match their “raider” identity. (But I agree on the attack speed/damage nerf)
-Other aspect while I’m here, I think tatars could be slightly improved, like changing free parthian tactics for free fletching/bodkin/bracer in each age. Also changing the +1 range for trebs to something more useful like:
Destroying buildings gives you resources (not much, a bit like the hungarian scenario in historical battles.
If only they hired spirit of the law to test their ideas and the top 5 players in the world to test them while T90 commentated before releasing DE. 
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I think they are decent the way they are. I dont think they should get any hidden bonus vs cav that would break the game since knights cost so much more but the steppe lancer is just as great at raiding. I think their main bonus right now is that they are much cheaper than knights so in early castle age its easier to make like 4-10 of them and go raid your opponents base. Atm I think of them like OP light cav to go raid with.
Which would be fine, if their stats where actually better* than the light cav’s stats, while they didn’t cost 35 extra resources, all of which gold.
So that’s basically why I’m advocating a bit of a rebuff.
*Note: of course it’s pretty hard to judge the value of that 1 range. Right now I feel like it doesn’t add enough.
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Well I see your point they have 1 extra attack but 1 less pierce armour and that 1 range thats really hard to put a value on. I honestly don’t think I am a good enough player to make that call. This is why I think every adjustment to that game should have been ran through the worlds top 5 players and T90 since he watched more games than anyone in the world and then tested by the spirit of the law… thats the DE we deserved lol
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They only need to increase their stats again (HP and attack) and they are fine again.
+1 attack and +20 HP and they are neither OP or as weak as now.
Doing that just makes them better than Knights again. They need to be designed towards a niche, not just be a cheaper better knight.
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Someone else suggested on here reducing their attack speed but giving them a high initial attack so they could be used as a “charging” unit which would make more sense in terms of how they were actually used in combat. They would line up and make a powerful charge at the enemy and break their ranks. They could maintain their low pierce armor so that units like archers could still thin their numbers before they close the distance, but if they do close the distance they could do significant damage (like 18-20 attack) but with a significantly longer reload time than other melee units.
I think that’s really the only way to make them useful and also different from Knights/Camels/Hussar.
I have another idea geared toward raiding: why not slightly increase their range (like 1.1) so that they can reliably hit villagers through quickwalls? This way it would carve themselves a Castle age niche without affecting their performance in other roles.
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SL could definitely do with a buff, but like teutons, i find it interesting that there’s so much vocal about a unit that isnt THAT bad, if anything cumans and tatars could get their own independent buffs for the SL, and not a global buff to SL which would push mongols even further up the top tier ranking
but people want to play with new toys(SL), or want their favourite civs buffed(teutons), so who cares about the older redundant stuff right(atheism, tarkans, elphant archers, sheer lack of appearance of factions like italy or porto on land maps)
Atheism won’t move because Huns have been consistantly S tier for years. Tarkans are now usable and are even better than Paladins vs Archers but their bad reputation still sticks to them. Lastly, people don’t ask for an Elephant archer buff because they are all super busy forgetting about them and asking for Battle Elephants on Indian instead. Overall I don’t think people wanna buff Teuton because it’s their fav civ but more because it always had been on the “meh” side of civs since 2000.
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Cavalry attacking trough walls… The pinnacle of logic.
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They can already somewhat do it, just like Kamayuks, but making it more consistent sounds interesting IMO. Yes it’s not logic, but it’s no different than fat kings running faster than horses, siege weapons with magical wheels or elephants mahouting themselves.
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They’re actually great raiding units as is. If I would would make any changes it would be something that would emphasise their raiding role in Castle Age and make them something that can be part of your main fighting force in Imperial Age.
My suggestion is something like this:
Steppe Lancer (Elite):
Cost: 70F 45G -> 70F 30G To make it a more affordable unit for its current sub-par stats
Attack Rate 2.30 (2.30) -> 2.50 (2.20) The unupgraded shouldn’t be too efficient in combat.
New armour type: Spearman 0 (1) I remember seeing the tool tip stating “weak to archers” this would do that and also give some interesting counter-play.
They are already weak enough to archers, giving them the spearman armor class would make them so bad because even basic archers would be able to defend against its raids (+3 damage! https://ageofempires.fandom.com/wiki/Armor_class:_Spearman). And they would eat bonus damage from defenses which is a big no for a raid unit.
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TCs doesn’t deal bonus damage to spearmen and you normally don’t build towers in your base. Also, you might actually need ballistics to hit a small group of raiders before they stop to attack.
If it’s still to much you can finetune their armour class, instead of my suggested 0 (and 1 for elite) you could give them 1 (2), 2 (3) or something, reducing the bonus damage taken. As long as it fits with their cost.