It is better though. The lower attack doesn’t matter, because once it removes all of the enemy armor, it tends to end up doing a lot of damage, especially with ranged support behind. It is also incredibly cheap and fast to produce. Also, because of the Poles mining bonus, castles tend to be more affordable than with most civs.
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so you are just assuming the Poles do a reasonable comp like Obuch + Arbalest while the enemy sits there and takes the armor reduction?
The unit still dies to full Crossbow play like every other infantry unit, and crossbow also happens to be the strongest unit in the game.
I mean I don’t care too much if they get nerfed but I think we should let 2-3 months go by before crying nerfbat. Poles just released and are a fairly complex civ unit composition-wise. It could be that people haven’t figured out the counter to Poles yet and frankly 1v1 tests are ultra dumb anyway, go test Elite War Elephant 1v1 tests will tell you that it’s the best unit in the game by far.
Obuch’s training time is extremely fast, plus their “lower attack” gets higher the longer they attack an enemy unit and strip off their armor.
The reason most Briton players (me included) go for Crossbowmen/Arbalesters instead of Longbowmen, is because Britons’ literally have faster Archery Ranges, making their Arbalesters train fast as heck.
I am sure if you were to take away that +20% bonus, that you would see more Longbows being trained instead of Arbalesters. But looking at the Longbowman himself: while he is cheaper to be trained (training less gold cost for only slight more wood cost than a regular Arbalester) he only adds +1 more range and +1 more pierce armor compared to regular Arbalester, who is trained very fast at wood-cost only buildings. So of course, Longbows are not really preferred. But they are still used by some players if they can manage to build up a few Castles (especially in team games)
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Obuch + Skirm + Siege is my favorite comp for Poles. Honestly Obuch just needs to be more gold intensive just like Serjeants. Make them 35 Food 35 Gold.
I am certainly not calling for Obuch to be nerfed…but Champions need to be buffed in some way.
It depresses me that the only time Champions are “viable” if with a Gothic player. Seldomly do I see their be Champions used in a massive capacity in Ranked and team games nowadays. Not even Viking Champions are much used, despite having a impressive HP increase; most Viking players just prefer Berserks instead!
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you literally get +1 attack which is the main selling point. And no you are wrong, it’s not only faster Archery Ranges but also iirc Longbow is 45w vs only 25w of Arba and 45w is A LOT, secondly archers = good only when massed I.e. 40+ and getting 40+ Longbowmen from 1 Castle takes forever, next time you get Arabia do drush FC UU build, you will see that you can’t keep up the production while you could if you were making Mangudai for example so in short archers which are not a very pop efficient class need shorter training time to be viable if you make them from a Castle.
Even Japanese Champions are generally ignored by players, since most often Japanese players go with Arbalesters instead (you cannot really train two gold units, Champions and Arbalesters, if you want to maintain strong numbers) or the Japanese player is going with Samurai (because they are cooler than Jap Champions and actually do something useful in being an anti-Unique unit killer)
Only time I have seen Champions recently being used in a large capacity…was when I had an Malian opponent make them.
…but that was only in ONE game. Other enemy Malian players I find go with mass Ghettos or cavalry.
I also think Obuch is too good in its current state as a super cheap more than well rounded Infantry unit. It is probably the strongest infantry unit in the game at the moment for its price and for how easy it is for poles to get a castle up compared to other civs with the gold for stone bonus.
Spirit of the Law has well demonstrated the power of them especially in combinations with other units. It was extremely impressive how they were far better against Paladins with only skirms as support than a same number of Champions + Arbalesters!
Their unique armor reduction effect is underrated for sure on top of the great stats.
I guess an increase in price would be the best solution. E.g. if Serjeants cost would be as low as Obuch it would be considered OP.
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Ahhh…I forgot the extra attack Longbows get. You are right.
Now…I myself love making Longbows but I do tend to mix them in with Arbalesters. And if I am hard pressed to fighting an enemy…I usually only stick with Arbalesters. This is not to say that Longbowmen are worse and should not be used…it is merely a matter of timing when and with what economy you are going to make them at.
Whenever I play Britons, and watching how the Pros play Britons is similar, I would TC boom while maintaining a steady stream of Crossbowmen production in early Castle Age, and only build 1 Castle for defense and to research Yeoman upgrade. The tech upgrade to Arbalester is VERY cheap compared to Elite Longbowman tech. But you can still go for Longbowmen if your position is secure, and you see that the game is going to be a long and drawn out one, in which case switching to Elite Longbowmen is preferred, due to them having improved range, armor, and attack to regular Briton Arbalesters.
Poles do not get any boost to mining Stone like Koreans do… so it is not “easier” for Poles to get a castle up than, say Koreans or Franks. But if you revise your statement to mean that “Poles can train Obuchs easier from the extra gold gathered from Stone Miners” then that would agree with your statement that Obuchs are too good of a unit.
Personally, I think that Obuchs are good, but can be nerfed maybe a wee bit. My primary concerned is the state that Champions are in: they are a unit that has been in the game for so long, and are yet seldomly used in any major capacity and who are laughably bad at properly fighting even Hussars.
I want Champions to be better. I even want the Sicilians Imp tech of Hauberk to extend to Sicilian Champions and not just Sicilian Cavaliers.
I also agree. Obuch needs to cost more gold. However, Poles should get something else in return. Their winged hussar isnt that much better compared to other hussar. Lithuanians, Turks, Magyars are better cav civs and also get paladin. Turks at least get camels.
About the Champions and their versatility.
I think they are definitely not meta and are mostly used with civs who have a great bonus for them - and sometimes even these don’t use them much.
I am pretty sure they would instantly see a lot more use if they had 1.0 base speed which in my opinion shows what is holding them back the most. They could at least get some hits on archers in feudal and in castle age onwards with squires they couldn’t be kited as easily.
They would also be a lot better at catching villagers so their raiding potential would be better too.
But the movement speed might need to get staggered like militia 0.95 speed and only starting at man at arms the 1.0 speed.
Also upgrade time and upgrade cost play a major role in holding them back.
As others mentioned Cav has speed and Ranged units obviously have the ranged advantage. Infantry only has the bonus that there is no “real” trash counter - but Scout/Light Cav/Hussars are not horrible against them.
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What I meant is that you have the option to start collecting gold a bit later thanks to the bonus where you get 50% gold from every stone mined.
Other civs have to make more sacrifice somewhere else to get that castle up while for poles when you put 6 on stone its like if you also placed 3 (free) vills on gold on top without spending the 100 wood for a 2nd mining camp - at least until you need more gold income.
That makes it easier to go for a castle since you don’t sacrifice as much as other civs would to get that castle up.
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On a historical basis, it is odd that Poles do NOT get Paladins, especially considering that Lithuanians DO get Paladins as a direct reference to the Polish-Lithuanian union.
But… on a gameplay standpoint, the devs clearly were bringing back the idea they had for Burgundians initially in having Burgundians get 50% gold cost returned for fallen Knights. So the devs for Poles had them get discounted Cavaliers. Personally, I am fine with this, as the Cavalier is an underrated unit, that is also largely looked over because the Paladin exists. It is the same reason why Malay and Burgundians have no Champion upgrade, but get boosted Two-Handed Swordsmen instead because THAT unit is looked over in favor of the Champion.
Hmmmm… 
More speed you say?
Now that I think of it, that is why Celts player will go for Champions, because of their amazing high speed. Obviously we cannot have EVERY generic Champion civ get the +15% bonus of Celts. But making all Champions get higher speed would be nice.
FU Champ would be faster than Celt Champions are now if they had 1.0 base speed so everyone would have a better version of Celts speedy militia once they get squires in Castle Age. Celt Infantry would on top still be even faster than others and have the edge in feudal age.
I would love to have 1.1 speed militia line with squires. That would make them FAR better.
Another way to indirectly buff all infantry would be to give crossbows and all archers with especially low frame delay double the delay before they shoot.
That way infantry would have a chance to get up to them to deal some damage - no more insane archer micro. But the outry would be massive because it would change to feel of archers so much.
Also it wouldn’t help the militia line with raiding potential.
Even with the 1.0 base speed change archers and knights would still be meta but the militia line would see more play.
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Now that I think about it…isn’t it weird that since the beginning of AoE2: DE that the devs have tinkered with cavalry archers’ and unique cav. archers’ frame delays but NOT foot archers? 
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Maybe if the change was TOO drastic. One thing I like about SOTL, is that he will take what the devs have done, and completely test them on it…he literally is double checking to see if the devs have done what they say they have done, but also SOTL gets more thorough and finds things that even the devs may not have known about! Example being that the Japanese “Infantry attacks 25% faster” posted since Age of Kings days actually was 33% !
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I think it is because cav archers are a much better hit and run unit if you can reach the numbers and upgrades, due to being able to, you know, actually run, instead of walk away.
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Considering your whole proposal to increase the Militia-line’s speed slightly, I do not think that it would automatically make archers be defeated by infantry all too much.
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