Recently played a game where I had access to both Highlander (from HC) and Landsknecht (from Saloon). After running some numbers, I have concluded that Landsknecht are significantly worse than Highlander. Specifically:
Cost (Highlander is Better): Landsknecht (250 coins/unit) costs more than Highlanders (200 coins/unit).
HP and Resistance (Highlander is Better): Landsknecht has less base HP (345 HP) compared to Highlanders (400 HP). Also, Landsknecht has 30% melee resistance, which is lower than the 40% resistance of Highlanders.
Speed (Even): Both units have a speed of 4.
Melee Attack (Landsknecht is Slightly Better): Highlanders has lower melee attack (32) compared to Landsknecht (43). However, due to HP and melee resistance, when melee fighting each other 1-on-1, both unit will take 16 attacks to kill.
Other Attacks (Not Directly Comparable, but Generally Highlander is Better): Highlander can do ranged attack, allowing them to shoot-and-scoot and initiate combat. Landsknecht can only do an Oberhau attack every 15 seconds (same damage, AoE of 2), which is only occasionally useful for massed battle and snaring (if you can catch the enemy).
Summarily, Highlander cost less than Landsknecht, is better in the majority of situation, and can trade evenly or better against Landsknecht. Does Landsknecht need a buff then?
Update: Based on the comments, it seems that an alternative interpretation of the results is that Highlander is too strong a need a nerf. If you have this opinion, feel free to discuss it as well.
Neither Sweden neither Dutch needed trainable highlanders/jaegers in first instance. Spammable mercs have turned into a plague that only westerns bennefit from.
Back at DE launch Sweden use landsknecths a lot and due to that they needed to be nerfed. For no reason they got the charged attack too
This is like comparing apples to space crafts. The units serve 2 fundamentally different roles. One is a musketeer, one is a glorified halebardier. Landsknechts are very good at tearing down cavalry and taking out buildings. They are actually quite a menace in the late game.
How so? Both siege and melee dmg are just barely above the 125% they should have compared to Highlanders and all they have to show for it is the AoE attack and I’d argue that a ranged attack(with insane dmg) is more valuable.
It’s been a while since I looked at unit stats but comparing them to musks and Soldados it’s more a problem of Highlanders having insane stats and not Landsknechte being too weak.
And cost effectiveness-wise highlander is actually worse than musketeers. 1 highlander is more expensive than 2 musks, and performs worse than 2 musks. Do you think highlander also need a buff? And there are also even stronger musks in late game like Janissary, do you want to buff the mercs to the level of Janissary?
Why do people feel the need to pull Ottoman units into this? Jans are not balanced units andI don’t know how Highlanders would perform worse than two musks in age3? 400 HP vs 2*180 and and 60dmg compared to 55.
Ofc fully carded age4 Musks will out scale them but early on their stats are more than solid
I guess I was talking about age5 late game. Even in age 3, musk is still a solid choice compared to highlander because musk costs mostly food and highlander is pure gold
As I said Highlander vs veteran musk so 0% on Highlander and 20% on Musketeer.
With equal buffs the Highlander would smash Musketeers but they are harder to upgrade which is why they and most other Mercs tend to fall off in the Lategame
Edit: I read my message again and it seems I forgot to say it’s veteran vs normal Highlander
my bad
Agree. At least allow the Asians to also upgrade mercenaries.
I think they are comparable. Both are anti-cavalry heavy infantry unit, but Landsknecht is supposed to be a melee specialist. The fact that Landsknecht and Highlanders tie in a melee-only fight is concerning, as the latter could also shoot at range. Specifically, this means that Highlanders can kill/weaken cavalry at range, while Landsknecht can only stand there menacingly (with lower HP).
True. But at the same time, we should address game balance based on current situations, and not X patches ago (although it is probably a good idea to not have Super Swedish Landsknecht Spam again).
Just double-checked the stats, and you are right! Where did the anti-cav bonus come from? That is very un-greandier-like!
Stats-wise, 1 Highlander is generally better than 2 Veteran Musketeers:
Against cavalry in melee, 2 Vet. Musketeers can deal 93.6 damage, compared to 64 damage dealt by 1 Highlander. However, if one of the musketeers die (as will happen in melee combat), the remaining 1 Musketeer can “only” do 46.8 damage.
Both move at 4 speed.
So unless you are skilled enough to rotate your Musketeers, keeping them most of them alive in a melee fight (overcoming issues with snaring, pathing, etc.), then Musketeers is a bit better than Highlander in melee anti-cav (only). In every other scenario, Highlander is better. In fact, 1 Highlander should be able to beat 2 Musketeers.
It’s more of a Musketeer with area DMG than a Green but what was the problem a year ago was that they could be instantly trained by Sweden(and some other cigs) which is a bit strong with a unit that kills everything with critical mass and sieges fast. Now they are merged and rarely used tho
200c takes 23% longer to gather than 150f 50c
Most civs have easier upgrades due to cards for Musketeer
Highlander has no upgrade in age4
Highlander as a single unit tends to overkill
Yes the DMG of Musketeers is halfed when one dies but this is only drastic in low numbers - the higher the mass the lower this effect gets
Merc units just cant be analyzed in terms of a single unit being cost effective or pop effective. They are a power spike as a shipment most of the times, an emergency unit sometimes, and as a macro fixing button when overgathering gold a very few times. They cant be buffed or nerfed simply by comparing them to their non merc counterpart. I think mercs should never be cost effective or pop effective when compared one to one to normal units.
True, most mercs are niche and are used in very specific situations, they aren’t supposed to be the backbone of your army, as they are generally resource inefficient to spam. If you can beat your enemy with mercs only, you won the game long before.
Landsknechts are the aoe3 equivalent of tanks, they push the enemy, help thin up groups of enemies, very efficient at tearing down sim-city defensive layers, absolutely destroys cavalry. Should you send them in on their own? nope, they should be supported by other units.
This is theoretically true. However, in Age 3, when mercenaries are most dominant, food is also the most unstable resource to collect. The hauntable near your first TC should have been depleted at this point. Thus, to gather food, you need to do at least one of the following:
Send villagers to hunt further away, and risk being raided by the enemy.
Gather from berries. However, most civs do not have in-market berry gather rate technology, so the gather rate becomes comparatively worse once the mining techs are researched.
Build fishing ships to fish, which is map dependent and requires significant planning.
Build mills, which is slow.
On the other hand, mines do not move around (unlike huntables). Furthermore, settlers and most Age 2 units (musk, huss, pike, xbow) generally costs more food than gold or does not require gold. This means that your secure food source will be depleted a lot faster than gold source, especially if you stayed in Age 2 for a while. Thus, supplementing your army with mercenaries may be an economically safer option.
Right. They can do that. But how are Landsknecht better than Highlanders? Specifically, for a tank, they have less HP and melee resist than Highlanders.
tbh i was thinking about a nerf on landsknecht after i saw a sweden use them as an unstoppable mass, maybe not a nerf but wow, they have a good siege damage and practically can kill any unit, except skirmishers well microed