no they dont they are weaker than skirmisher pop wise and they do lowered damage to canons(yes against canons they are little bit better than skirms but they cost more pop and weaker against what skirmishers strong)
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Wait, Iâm a competitive player now ?! 
More seriously though, as a screenshot I took was used for justification, let me add context:
There was an analysis linked to it, here it is.
An Age3 carded and with infantry breastplate (portuguese age-up) Shotel Warrior has these stats.
- Why can this be a potential balance problem ?
If we look per population, a 1-carded elite shotel warrior has, in age 3, the same DPS, and HP as a 3-carded+CavCuirass British/French Veteran Hussar, while having a 1.25 multiplier against all infantry. - Another problem is that units have lower multiplier against Shock Infantry than Hussars :
To give you an idea, this Shotel Warrior needs 16 hits from an abus gunner to go down, compared to 22 shots for a hussar twice the population !
- Are there balancing factors ? Yes ! You can only output 5 population-worth of Shock Infantry per batch, compared to 10-pop for Hussars.
- 2 Shotels are more expensive than Hussars (110f-100c VS 120f 80c), and Hussars fight with 100% attack till they die, compared to 2 shotels who loose half their damage when the first unit dies.
So the balance question becomes : is giving a very effective swarm unit a combat card a balance issue ?
Now that the facts have been presented, I invite competitive players to comment on this as theyâd like.
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This kind of analysis is good and it would be great with video tests displaying what you are stating.
Sure let us just take your word for itâŠ
This is another way to present an analysis, mostly comparative analysis:
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This is exaggerating their strength. All of those French and British cards also apply to Cuirassiers and/or Dragoons and 2 of them are available in age 2. The new Shotel card is just for Shotels and not until age 3.
Hussars also get a +30% guard upgrade vs +25% for Shotels so they catch up more later on.
This is probably the least representative example you could possibly pick. Comparison vs a Dragoon would be most representive because is covers the disparity in multipliers and range resistances. In that case a Shotel takes 6 shots and a Hussar 10. Vs Pikemen will favour Shotels a little more.
And Iâm not sure what numbers youâre using because against an Abus, Hussars should take ~180% of the shots a Shotel can.
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Italy definitely needs a nerf, they can go FI by 9.40 and you cant punish them because they simply make 10+ free outposts with their architect. Once theyâre up they got crazy eco too, absolutely ridiculous
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âMalta unitsâŠwere clearly overperforming according to statsâ
This is patently false, Malta has a slow start and their main civ bonus is not an economic one but rather a military one that finally pays off mid-game.
It is not a boom civ nor a rush civ (a rush can be done at the expense of eco and will auto-lose if any mistakes are made), and for being a âturtle civâ is still very vulnerable early game due to their eco not actually kicking off until way later.
So when you take into account their slow start, their âsuperior HP unitsâ can only be tapped into once the other player is outplayed for long enough - as it should be in any RTS.
We donât take the civ in a vacuum and say that the stats per pop are better in a Post-Imperial Treaty-type setting. The civ overall was underperforming despite the strong cards and interesting mechanics.
I could agree to a 1% HP boost to artillery and a slightly worse Fixed Gun by way of HP late-game, but with a slight boost to sentinels and early economy by way of reducing the cost of German tongue by 25w, for example.
Sorry buddy, you do not speak for the âcompetitive communityâ just because you made a post claiming such. And even if you did, it doesnât necessarily make your opinion valid as many have stated here already.
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Malta doesnât have a slow start, ages up at 2:20.
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It can age up fast but it has a slow start in terms of itâs eco paying off like the settler wagons and late game the wignacourt does not make up for the loss of a factory. 2%HP bonus is also not that great unless youâve sent 20 cards especially on low hp units like the xbow.
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The card that replaces a factory for the Maltese is Sicilian Supply (Villagers gather from Mills 25% faster; grants a trickle of 2.75 food). I like this card because even though you canât choose what to produce, itâs like having a factory that only generates food but canât be destroyed. With this you can have fewer settlers gathering food. Or you can gather tons of food and then use Barrakka Gardens to exchange all food for an equal amount of wood. Then with the wood you can build many EstatesâŠ
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@LevitexIslam I could agree to a 1% HP boost to artillery and a slightly worse Fixed Gun by way of HP late-game, but with a slight boost to sentinels and early economy by way of reducing the cost of German tongue by 25w, for example.
Good ideas!
But there are other points with which I do not entirely agree.
Iâve been playing malta lately, the crossbows+culvs+fixed weapons and her turtle style are too strong.
Improved crossbows and their ranged siege are op.
The culverins that can withstand one more shot are OP.
Fixed weapons for 700res that can be repaired are OP.
The problem with the crossbows is mainly due to the steel bolt card, and now that the light inf is worse vs cav they will be less powerful.
The 2% health increase is the problem for culverins and stationary weapons.
Wignacourt economic card is crazy. But it has been nerfed.
the pike rush that Revnak talks about at 2:20 can be too oppressive. At the expense of running out of echo, it is true.
But Malta is still considered in many cases of a lower level, not being able to deal with aggressive ffâs or late game many times.
And in treaty it is rubbish.
They should improve the sentinels, the tongue cards, probably add a shipment of 2 falconets, and of course give them chances in treaty.
Italy may also be too strong with their FI, despite having other clear deficiencies and also being treaty rubbish.
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Letâs use the wood for estates⊠but my estates have 20 range and steel bolts 
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Artillery shouldnât get any HP bonus, it changes counters to malta by a lot, requires 1 more hit
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Malta bow pikes are so much cost efficient itâs possible to spam them by a lot with just even a lower economy, cheap units with a lot of upgrades behind is a balance concern
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From what Iâve seen of the pup being played on twitch malta certainly are weaker now, especially the xbow seems to be heavily effected by the changes to light infantry vs cav. Iâve seen just loss after loss so we might move away from massing only xbow now and we might start to see more sentinels which are not a bad unit at all, 1 of the most cost effective units actually for itâs stats itâs just they use a lot of pop like strelets.
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Well, everyone thinks of Russia as age2-only civ, but in age 3 they get +30/+30 on their strelets in 2 cards, while Malta gets there in 3 for XB. Please explain the difference, and why you think one is considered weak, while the other is considered OP.
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the difference is the basic stat, 15% on a strelet does not have the same value as 15% on an xbow
for example cav combat on a cossack will be weaker than cav combat on a hussar
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Not since the patch. Abus gunners have .4 versus SI and .5 versus cav.
So Shotels have 25% more effective HP. Add to this the fact that 2 shotels have about 7% more base HP, and you get the fact that shotels, per pop, have 33% more base effective HP against skirms than hussars. If we go with
your sentence, the Hussars can take 150% more shots, but are also 85% more expensive.
The reason why I am choosing the abus example, is because SI and cav can easily be used as a skirm-shot barrier for ranged infantry.
I however have shown multiple balancing factors like harder massability. Itâs not all black or white, as previously stated.
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But Abus is a bad example because they do siege damage and ignore the range resistance that comes into play in every other case.
I still donât see where your numbers are coming from. A fully upgraded age 3 Shotel should take 17 hits, and a fully upgraded Hussar should take 27.
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I have shown my reasoning, feel free to add analysis to this, that was the point of my intervention 
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Strelets have much lesser damage, doesnât scale to a point where it kills itâs counters and stays in the range of unit counter system, while malta bows become the most cost efficient unit in the game with delivering very little experience for a huge amount of power it has.
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