The OP is about Castle Age, the majority of the thread is entirely about Castle Age, and the current discussion is on Longswordsman. Bringing Hussar into this doesn’t really fit.
Pikes can run from Longswords. But yes, LS shred pikes. Pikes are typically only on the field for Knights/scouts, though, and are never a main army composition. Skirmishers are there to counter Archers, but archers are on the field in castle age to fight Infantry and Knights. Why would you mix LS with archers? Why not LC? They do better vs Skirms.
Regardless, I didn’t say all trash. I said “a” trash unit - and the point I made was “Why do LC beat Longswords?” No-one seems to be able to answer this.
Better to do in-game tests than mathematically. It ignores the large pathing advantage LC get from being faster. They win those fights in real-sized groups. I didn’t take Supplies into account due to the cost of the upgrade being more overall than the cost of LC. If you use Supplies, the Longswords do win, but still barely.
Which is why I’m against speed and pierce armour. I guess I haven’t stated that as of yet. That doesn’t make any sense, IMO. Archers need to be faster, and they need to win vs Longswordsman because that’s their purpose. This is the exact same reason why Longswordsman need more attack or 1 armour, because they can’t really beat a mobile trash unit on equal footing. You may say they’re even with Supplies. Fine, they trade evenly. But that doesn’t make sense. Mobility SHOULD have a trade-off in stats. Why are we okay with mobility being free?
Edit:
Japanese FU Longswords trade basically evenly with FU generic Knights in real-world tests. That’s the best infantry in the game, I’d argue, that also don’t have mobility. Okay, that might be okay performance. That’s a baseline we could aim for. On that note, I didn’t want 2 damage; I wanted 1 to start, or possibly 1 armour. 2 could be too strong.That would level the playing field in a reasonable way while still giving knights a clear advantage (which, I’m still not convinced makes logical sense).
My guess is it is because Light Cavalrey was the last Scout line upgrade in Age of Kings (the original game), and they wanted it to be a quasi-Imperial unit to ease you in to the Imperial Age.
Light cav is definitely a better unit than longswordman overall, I agree, but LS still would have its uses if it only was more available or faster to create.
and yet they still trade supply for supply with light cavalry. despite your assertations.
are you controlling only one group? if both are engaging optimally they trade supply for supply.
yeah if you’re engaging with only part of the infantry against all of the cavs the cavs win.
why wouldn’t you take supplies into account? you’re taking bloodlines into account. hardly seems fair.
mobility isn’t free. mounted units tend to cost a lot more then unmounted units.
except they don’t beat long swords. they trade evenly supply wise.
If Supplies is researched, it’s even, yes. If not, LC win (but it’s close) I already explained why I didn’t include Supplies initially, due to the cost difference in investment. But it doesn’t really matter, because even with it researched, the trades are effectively even. They should not be even.
No, both sides are patrolled into each other with no interaction by AI or myself. I don’t see any benefit in micro on either side. I’ve watched the fights tested multiple times and I don’t see anything out of the ordinary.
In this case, they don’t cost more. The cost is virtually the same, they trade even with a much slower GOLD UNIT, and counter other units far more effectively than the LS.
You need to train 17 longswords just so that supplie lines actually worths it you to save 5 resources!!
If you make supplies and make 15 longswordman after it, you have spent more resourses than the guy that made 15 LS without supplies. I really think supplies should be way cheaper.
honestly? supplies shouldn’t even be a thing. it should be built into every civ baseline.
but the fact is that if you’re going talking about optimal use and your even factoring in that the light cavalry in use is from a bloodlines civ (which isn’t always true), then why shouldn’t supplies be factored in?
i meant all civs. thus goths would get it. ie, supplies wouldn’t exist anymore, swordsman line would just be 45 food. if you need to adjust for balance, make it happen in the castle age, the same way tracking is done now in the feudal age.
not a big deal. slavs is a solid civ as is. maybe give them 150 food and 100g when hitting castle.
(fyi i’m not saying it needs to happen, i just don’t like supplies because i see no reason for the militia line to cost 60 food baseline after the castle age is hit).
This is simply not true in any real-world scenario, as I explained before and below. Test it yourself.
I can understand the assumption that Supplies should be included, since it’s relatively close in resource cost. I said why I did not include it multiple times and explained why at least once before. You need to go from Militia to MAA to LS, then Supplies. LC needs a Stable, LC and Bloodlines. It’s about 50-100 res cheaper to start pumping out LC with Bloodlines. However, I don’t see why this is a major point, since regardless of Supplies LC still trade nearly even with LS cost-wise. They should not be close fights. LS should beat LC every time.
Correct. I don’t agree with your point, here - I don’t see being a micronerd in a melee fight working in the army sizes you’d typically see in Castle Age. In a 4v4 or 5v5, maybe? But that isn’t a realistic size. You shouldn’t have to micro this. They should win.
LS is 60 food, 20 gold. LC is 80 food. Same cost. Supplies decreases the cost, but they still don’t really beat LC. It’s basically even. 1 or 2 LS left in a 10v12. I’ve been testing this multiple times before I write these posts, I’m not making this stuff up.
As for your comment on Supplies being innate - that could make sense. I still don’t feel LS are strong enough in general due to the lack of mobility, and I still don’t think Knights should be that strong vs LS, but it’s a good starting point.
you tested it without micro. you tested it with patroling, which means the unit with more mobility will always win, because they will always move to engage faster.
now tell me. why would i knowingly patrol my swordsman into light cavalry knowing this? i wouldn’t. if anything, i’d put myself in a situation where they have to come into me and they don’t get the advantage of having more enaging at one time.
except i don’t need a stable to make a barracks, i need a barracks to make a stable. therefore if anything, it’s more expensive to start churning out the light cavalry.
not only that, but food is by far the most useful resource in the castle age due to villager booming and saving for imperial age.
furthermore the infantry are massed more quickly then the light cavalry are.
because if they just patrol who is going to get a headstart in the fight? the faster units. that means the further back cavalry engage before the further back infantry. this means more cavalry are engaging earlier on, and giving them an advantage.
now if i put myself in a situation where this can’t happen, i take away the only advantage the cavalry have.
LS is 45 food 20 gold. LC is 80 food.
its even supply wise, not resource wise. also, you ignore that it takes longer to make each light cavalry, and that food is far more important resource in the castle age.
If you’re talking micro, then as the enemy you split your LC and attack from the sides. Micro counters micro in melee fights, and the unit with mobility will always have the micro advantage anyway. The units performance speaks for itself. I tried doing micro with the LS, and it didn’t make a difference of more than a few % at best.
Very good point - I didn’t take that into account. Thanks for bringing that up. You definitely win this round
They’re patrolled from 9 tiles away, parallel to each other in a line for optimal fighting efficiency. Just so you know how I organized the fights. All units engage almost simultaneously. If anything, the LS start attacking first.
Supply wise, it is close . LC win with 3 remaining. Resource wise with Supplies, LS win with 1-2 remaining. Food is more important in Castle, but universally Gold has more value - and LC costs NO gold. It’s a trash unit. Why does a trash unit trade well vs a gold unit that has no mobility??
except like i said, i’d put myself in a position where you CAN’T engage the way you want. yeah hitting me from the flanks gives you an advantage. why would i put myself in a situation where you can hit from my flank?
except heres the thing.
XXXXXXX YYYYYYY
XXXXXXX YYYYYYY
pretend the x are light cavalry.
the ones in the second row? will engage before the ones in the second row of the of the Long Swordsman do. not smart of me to engage that way with long swords.
no, they win with 3 remaining assuming you just patrol them. which means nothing. you’re using a slanted test that favors the light cavalry.
that would be like testing archers against cavalry but putting a cliff between the two of them, why?
also again, the light cavalry take almost 50% longer to mass.
so those long swords? lets say 20 on 20? from one barracks the long swords take 420 seconds to build (7 minutes).
by comparison the 20 light cavalry take 600 seconds to build (10 minutes).
Light cav vs LS is balanced. Its nice. The infantry player can add 2 pikemens easily, knowing that he is already making infantry, so pikes will fit really fast. and he will win. Only 1 or 2 pikemens. While the cav player might need to switch to other tipe of unit like crosbow.
I mean light cav is always a better aproach if you have a civ with good (or average) cavalry like spanish, but if you are civ with an infantry bonus (take burmese or teutons) long swordman should be an OPTION. Now its not really an option but in the future with maybe free supplies or cheaper/ faster infantry technologys/creation time, LS should be actually decent to mix with cavalry as a frank to fight pikes, or as a briton to defend against skirms. Thats what LS are supposed to do.
Actually you can see a lot of players nowadays adding champions to their imperial age militar mix, but i never see LS. And that makes me think that it is not that much because LS don’t have any use, but its more about LS being unavailable.
At imperial age this is not that much of a problem because at imperial age you don’t need to age up faster than you opponent, and you have a lot of resourses to spend. In castle age its different.
LS should be usable, they should be an OPTION, but still being slow and hard countered by archers. Still being LS. But more available. playable.
I think I’m done here for now…trash trades with all-purpose gold. That’s what’s happening, when it clearly shouldn’t. I don’t know what else to say. It seems that everyone just drops the arguments and agreed upon standards for units the second it starts to break the established ‘meta’ for LS (which is, effectively, nothing except for rare niche situations).
Seems ignorant of the units purpose and the balance of the game as a whole to me. Anyway. My final reply on this:
There’s only one row of units. It doesn’t affect anything. They all engage at the same time.
Again, incorrect, based on what I explained above.
LC do take longer. Fair statement. I still do not think it fits the idea of this game in any way, shape, or form for a trash unit to beat or even come CLOSE to beating the Militia-line on a supply or resource basis, the supposed “trash counter”.
guess whose gonna get their extra units into the fight earlier? the light cav will. because they are patroling they are moving towards each other. except the swordsman are slower to react thus they will reach the fight slower then the light cav.
meanwhile if i just sit and make the light cav come to me, i take away that advantage.
your test is flawed. no one would patrol long swords into light cav that way because you’re giving the faster unit the advantage. which is why your test is flawed.
Light cav upgrade has always worth it. Even more when you still have feudal scouts alive.
Light cav upgrade is very cheap and way better and usable than the LS upgrade, in which I agree is almost never researched. Because its not worth it. You see the price of LS upgrade, and then you see the price of supplies, and you just don’t go LS
And thats not good. Never seeing a unit its not good for the game. LS unit should have a roll in the game, should be playable but you only see it vs eagles. I am not a fan of that.
