Hi,
With the new tech supplies, the militia line are now cheaper and much more viable. Way more than most of the infantry UU, which I think need some rebalance.
Maybe a discount in food might help. What do you think? 
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In general ? No.
Taking Hidden Cup 3 as an example, we’ve had games where Vikings went longswords, others where they went Berserks. Similarly, Celts went woads in some occasions, champions in others.
It’s an extremely small pool of games but it shows that each unit fills a different role : champions as the cheap and accessible unit, and UUs as the more expensive but more durable, versatile and pop effective alternative.
Sure, some individual cases of infantry UUs are indeed underused and suffer from the comparison with cheap champions (jaguars, Teutonic Knights, samurais maybe) and could receive some buffs in cost and/or train time. But these are individual cases, there is no overall viability problem with Infantry UUs.
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The samurai are the ones who are the most affected (taking into account the amount of new civs).
From the now 35 civs only 9~12 have unique units to which the samurai are cost-effective against. I don’t know which solution could be good but that’s the big problem with them. You could only use their special ability effectively on ~1/3 of the civs, they have an extremely specific ocassion where they are good.
Teutonic knights are a… problematic case. Personally I think that they need a buff on speed and a nerf on other thing (pierce armor/HP). I understand that they are supposed to be a slow but powerful unit, but it does not translate well most of the times (with the war/battle elephants it is another story).
I think that the others infranty UU are ok, a little discount in food could be good but no extremely necessary.
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I agree that Supplies has made them less effective by comparison.
Samurai have always been somewhat ineffective by comparison. They’re supposed to be a UU counter, but they’re not fast enough to really counter many of them effectively. If they were to be buffed, it should be a little extra speed, to better deny fast archer uus.
Teutonic Knights getting more speed and less armor is a terrible idea, it invalidates everything about what they are. Just let them build towers, it fixes literally all their problems, including differentiating them from champions.
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Thank you for the reply 
Obviously, adjustments would be needed on individual UUs and not a generic discount on all … maybe the most correct question is whether the infantry UUs are less valid choice or cost-effective than the other UUs?
In HC3 I think Vikings and Celts have been chosen more for the particular map and eco bonus than anything else… moreover if they could they would have made knights i think (of the have had decente cavarly xD)
Thank you for the reply
Yes, you’re right… samurai have an effect that is not very usable and statistics similar to a champion so they struggle to be trupped …
same goes for TKs that are very difficult to modify but at least with their statistics they can be useful under their own castles 
Thank you for the reply
Exactly, that was also my opinion. however I have no idea how the individual UUs should be changed but I wanted to have feedback from other players who maybe have more experience than I and different opinions
Speaking of Supplies, besides helping Slavs, I don’t get its use before Imp. You need to train 10 swordsmen before it pays off in food (gold is “lost”), and unless you’re Malian (or maybe Burmese/Bulgarian?) you’re not going to mass longswords in Castle anyway. And unless you’re hopeless to defend against Eagles I don’t see people ever buying Supplies as say, Persian or Tatars…
I feel like they do deserve some rebalance. Their speed is just too slow also 0 melee armor. I would prefer Long Swordsman+ having 1 melee armor and similar movement speed to crossbowman. Also doesn’t handle cost effectively to Hussar despite being gold unit. Right now they are just too easy to counter despite being cheap. You won’t really make Long Swordsman unless Champion. (Bulgarians and Malay are exception since they have a good bonus). That’s for Long Swordsman side.
For UU some can get a bit cheaper. Slightly cheaper bonus will make them much affordable. Don’t just put 45f on everyone. Like Teutonic Knight cost going 80f to 70f/65f. Some swordsman like Samurai becoming 50f.
I was referring to lower their pierce armor (anti projectile armor
) or the HP (like the boyard, high melee armor but a relatively mediocre HP), not the melee armor which makes them special.
in general i think infantry civs need love altogether.
yeah people use celts and aztecs and japanese in tournaments but how often do they actually use the infantry units from those civs? they usually use arbs and water.
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the change that would probably make the biggest difference is reducing the cost of the elite upgrade. Many unique units are perfectly usable even in their current state, but needing to produce a castle first, and then the elite upgrade shortly afterwards, sets a bar in front of actually producing them in a real game.
By reducing the cost of having the option to use them, you could fairly easily lower the bar preventing players from including them in a typical lineup.
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I think the Castle Age stats of all the infantry UU’s need to be buffed. Besides maybe huskarls, no one uses infantry UU’s in Castle Age, their stats are pathetic. They all get huge power spikes with their elite upgrade, I think their Castle age stats should be buffed and their elite upgrade costs should be reduced, right now they’re way too expensive for the unit you’re getting.
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Ahahah yes a lot of love xD
True, Woad rider are ridicoulus, they should be useful to raid but they have 1 Pierce armor and are worst than hussars… it’s very rare to see Them and also samurai, and TK for example
Good idea… in particular the food cost Is very important for most of infantry UU like berserk or Shotel or Woad rider for example …
Yes, they have no armor, are slow (with some exceptions) and easy to counter…
just wanna add here, the moment Unique infantry start getting buffs, samurai will have more targets (and therefore see more use), so simply increasing their speed slightly might be enough, if other factions unique infantry are buffed enough to see them used more…
i still (and probably always will) disagree on towers for the TK, it needs some kind of other changes, and a minor speed buff (0.5 maybe) certainly couldnt hurt. building towers will make still keep them worthless vs for example koreans that will blast em with onagers while they’re building, shoot the towers with anything, and force the player to spend even more precious stone where they might not have wanted to(especially with their UT not effecting towers)…
now the SAMURAI have a bonus attack against the other UU of 10 (in imperial), why not decrease it and give a bonus armor against the other UU in return? Like 5 attack bonus and 5 bonus armor for example… this would make them much more resistant to UU with pierce damage and if accompanied by skirmisher (or archers) they could form an excellent combination…
Good point on the samurai. make infantry at unique units a more viable choice, and the samurai will instantly become better as well.
As for TK’s… I mean, good? Nothing should be able to complete a building while being attacked by Heavy Siege equipment. The point is to give them a purpose distinct from Champions and a way to force engagements, not to make them invincible and unstoppable.
Most infantry UU are still balanced and have their place and situations where they excell.
- Jaguars still counter infantry
- Samurai still counter unique units,
- Condottiero still counter hand cannoneers,
- Huskarls still counter archers
- Woad raiders are still excellent raiding units.
That leaves us with Teutonic knights, Berserks, Shotel and Karambit:
- Berserks are still strong and well rounded, but they dont have as clear of an edge against the champion line as they used to.
- Teutonic knights are still really strong against units that deal melee damage, but havent been meta relevant in a while.
- Shotel are now underwhelming compared to the champion line, my gut feeling tells me they dont trade cost effectively against champions anymore but before supplies they did trade cost effectively (? citation appreciated)
- Karambit similar to shotel used to be a good cheap alternative and are now pretty useless compared to forced levy/supplies swordsmen.
So yeah, those 4 units might warrant a rebalance now after supplies, with teutonic knights and berserks only needing a tiny balance change and shotel and karambit needing a larger one.
You could reduce the shotel gold cost from 35 gold to 25 gold and increase karambit pierce armor from 1 to 2, but really any buff is good imo.
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