nah facts are that a unit tipe is never seen in competitive play outside of extremely specific niche, and that is blatantly obvious, and should not be the case for a generalist gold unit. simpl as that. also DEVS themselfs proved militia need help by buffing them constantly over the years. so if everything that doesn’t suite your narrative is “misinformation” then let’s judge by real games and get the proper conclusions, and by doing that you see pros that never go for militia ever, even with civs with bonkers infantry bonuses like Japanese or aztecs and the like, and that’s enough sayd
They could move shrivamsha riders from Gurjaras to Dravidians. Two birds with one stone.
Historical accuracy? What’s that? 
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Dravidians should indeed have buffs like giving them access to the Knight line (upgrades on the Knight line are still disabled).
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I don’t think that would happen
One of the main themes about the Indian civilizations, in particular the DLC civs, is the lack of the Knight line
You can add to this the Elephant Archers and the Armored Elephants
Similar to Burmese lack of second Archer armor
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I mean, their tech tree description implies that they are supposed to be a generalist unit: “All-purpose infantry unit”, which is blatantly false. From that perspective, they are poorly designed as they are not fulfilling the role that developers themselves think they should fill.
I also don’t subscribe to the idea that they counter trash units (a non explicit and probably not intended use of the unit btw). Yes, they are good (although not amazing) vs halbs and skirms, but they lose to Hussars long term (I know you can mix halbs, but any gold unit mixed with proper trash support is supposed to be superior to any full trash army anyway, and the presumed point of the Champion is to be good as a stand alone antitrash unit), they also need to be at least fully upgraded to be a reasonable option, and you need gold income, so you cannot really use them in actual trash wars, so the antitrash label is only true in very specific circumstances.
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Exactly said by TheViper recently.
Yo played very well by taking the advantage of Dravidians. But 95% of the map doesn’t have water and Dravidians are just arguably the worst.
and that’s literally their role. if they were supposed to be more explain why the tech tree literally says otherwise.
if they were supposed to be a generalist unit (or power unit, as they are sometimes called) capable of standing toe to toe with arches and knights, they would have been designed with advantages vs both cavalry and archers. they have neither and the tech tree makes it quite clear they aren’t supposed to either.
there is a different between making them better in their given role and making them into a unit with a gold triangle with knights and archers. if they are supposed to compete against knights and archers why aren’t they faster to catch up with cavalry and close the gap with archers, more PA to survive to reach archers, and have either more armor to survive against cavalry, or more attack to fight them better with?
the buffs they have been given are stuff to make them more affordable, and slightly better in combat, but nothing in the buffs they have been given screams “infantry is supposed to fight knights and archers”.
Never Ever? it’s literally one of hte most common openers in the game. but let’s discard that and focus on more then drush/maa openers.your claim was Never Ever. therefore i present to you examples of a pro going militia in tournament games.
Jordan vs Tatoh Games 4 and 5 (Game 4 had Samurai, Game 5 had Jags and Militia)
Hera vs Jordan game 2.
Vinchester vs Nicov even saw shotels in game 3.
Viper Vs Villese game 5.
Villese vs Vinchester Game 6
That’s just in the most recent tournament, in the PLAYOFFS and we have 5 games already where Militia or Militia type units see use, another game where shotels see use. you want to continue to say they never see use?
the developers also state
Create Militia (6020)
All-purpose infantry unit. Strong vs. buildings and infantry. Weak vs. archers at long range.
and
Create Archer (2545)
Ranged unit. Strong vs. units at long range. Weak vs. Skirmishers and units at close range.
and they also state
Create Knight (6075)
Powerful all-purpose cavalry. Strong vs. infantry and archers. Weak vs. Pikemen, Camel Riders, and Monks.
so it seems to me that infantry is right where it’s supposed to be. it loses to archers (at range) and knights, exactly as the tech tree says it should. so where are they not holding up to what they are supposed to be?
they are all purpose. they are not “powerful” all purpose. they are cheap (gold wise), fast to train, and have no trash unit weakness like the knight and archer do.
for the record, to the both of you. the only buff i think Militia line needs at this point is a bonus damage against scouts, just to give them that extra umph against hussars. but that’s literally it. and that should only start with LS onwards.
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The tech tree descriptions are usually very misleading. For example, in the part you mention Knights to be explicitly strong vs infantry except Pikemen, but with the Militia description there is no aclaration that says they are supposed to be weak vs cavalry (or at least heavy cavalry). It also states they are strong vs infantry, which for most civs comprises only Pikemen and other militia line units, which is weird because in the second case you cannot state a unit counters itself because that would be a draw, not a counter; for unique units this isn’t clear either; it is true they can defeat many infantry UU’s cost efficiently such as Shotels and Woad Raiders, but they also die super hard to others like Urumis and Obuchs, and pretty much all of their matches against infantry UU’s are bad if you go by population efficiency, so, if they are supposed to be at least a decent counter to other infantry I don’t really see them fulfill that role too well outside of Pikemen (and Eagles… kind of). My point with the descriptions is that even though they say something is supposed to interact this way, there are discrepancies in real application, and devs should either update their descriptions to make each unit’s role clear, for example, removing the “all purpose” and putting instead “slow, cheap infantry with moderate attack and HP” in the Militia line description would solve the issue altogether (a lazy solution, but a solution nonetheless).
Again, going by the description, they are supposed to be an “all purpose” (generalist) unit. This is also a false dichotomy, by stating that a generalist unit has to have good match ups against Knights and Crossbows, as you can give units a wide variety of other applications and utilities (fast to train to have overwhelming force vs unprepared opponents, cheap and quick to upgrade for surprise attacks, good vs any non gold units, decent raiding or demolishing prowess, none of these completely true in this case imo).
In the “generalist” category. You are making the assumption that I want them to counter those units when I never stated they should (again, assuming they need to have good matchups vs those two units to be considered generalist). They are not a unit you see and say “yeah, they are an okay choice in 50% of games as knights and Crossbows are”, because they have very few viable applications (a niche unit). You also state that they are okay as a “niche unit” but if a unit is only useful in niche situations, it’s by definition “not generalist”, and if you want to go by the descriptions the game provides, they don’t actually fill that role, which is the thing I’m arguing here.
If they are not powerful enough to justify being used in many (just to be clear, not all) situations, they cannot be “all purpose” because they don’t achieve the supposed purpose. I agree they have those strengths you mention to a certain degree (I think those strengths you list are more like half truths due factors external to the unit itself), but I think those strengths are not large enough to make players decide to go for them more often to the point where they can be tagged without a doubt as “all purpose”. If you think the niches they already fulfill are enough that’s fine, but going by the declared intention of the developers, not others’ opinions (as valid as they are), the roles that they are supposed to fill are not accomplished, thus my criticisms about how the unit has been handled).
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there is. by the fact that the knight says “good vs infantry except pikes”.
you can’t look at stuff in a vacuum, you have to look at the whole picture. can you complain that pikes and camels aren’t good vs cataphracts when you neglect to look at the cataphract?
you read my statement wrong - I never said they have to be good vs archers and cavalry, I said IF THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO BE
except they actually do pretty decent against knights if you have more numbers. so yes they do. they also do well against most infantry units on a per cost basis, and ofcourse most trash units. the only units that outright shred them are archer units
the problem is they are a cost effective option in a game where pop efficiency is going to matter more in most situations. can they actually be used against knights cost effectively? yes. the problem is that you need numbers on your side and in most situations you’re better off going pikes.
are they all purpose? yes. the only clear cut time when they outright are terrible is against archers. the problem they have with cavalry is the game favors units that can be more population efficient instead of just using numbers to win.
like i said - the only change i would make to them is giving them bonus vs scouts from the LS onwards.
For those like evilpanda who want them to be something else…i’d say at this point you’re looking at a complete rework of balance.
Either way - Even pros find time and place to use the Militia line, even at the tournament level, despite Evilpandas claims otherwise.
Thread escalated from whether Dravidians is poorly/lazy designed to whether militia line is poorly designed.
I don’t think neither is poorly designed. Militia line is almost okay.
For Dravidians, They are badly designed. I don’t know if poorly designed and badly designed are same thing. Their civ bonuses are really good. UU, UT and Tech tree all are problematic.
In the case of the Cataphract it makes more sense as it is a unit special to a single civ and having to incorporate every single little UU matchup would be counterproductive. Knights and Militia are common units, so the descriptions of each unit should be enough on their own to have a complete picture of what the unit does without having to look elsewhere (that’s something called uniformity, something this game lacks in terms of descriptions).
I made that comment because the way you are using this statement seems to conflate the hypothetical need for the unit to be good vs archers and knights with the hypothetical need to be a generalist. I wasn’t arguing their usefulness vs those units in any moment (it’s clear they are not meant to deal with those two), it’s something you brought up in the discussion.
I really don’t know where people get this idea from. Even in the optimistic scenario with no micro, no archers, somehow forcing a fight vs heavy cavalry, Generic Champions lose to Generic Paladin cost efficiently, let alone population efficiently. They do beat Cavalier cost efficiently, but again, you have to somehow force the fight and invest more and wait longer for the Champion upgrade to kick in compared to the Cavalier player for a unit with less potential for offensive moves. Also I haven’t seen or experienced situations where Champions convincingly beat on their own heavy cavalry in the long term. If you can give me enough examples of this I might change my mind, but I really can’t recall a single case of this.
They are also pretty bad at defending from cavalry raids, to raid the enemy base, to make timed attacks, to sustain the momemtum of a push (transitions and movement speed are too slow), not population efficient, and not very resource efficient either (archers and knights don’t need to risk themselves everytime they engage, the Militia line has no other option but to engage or receive many losses to retreat).
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Yeah, sorry about deviating from the topic, but I had to make a point about those units that I consider to be still under tuned (albeit not useless). I think Dravidians are an interesting design honestly, if a bit rough around the edges.
Nope. You’re wrong here because the lack of knights isn’t and shouldn’t be one of the main themes about the Indian civilizations because there were Indian states that fielded heavy cavalry. The design of the Indian civilizations was rather inspired by the Indians from AoE3 which doesn’t use heavy cavalry units.
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About the only thing i would consider them undertuned against would be scouts. and there they only need 3ish extra damage a swing.
Eh I dont see it. Vs generic vills it wont make any difference
I agree that new civs have bad design but Wootz steel has much more potential than Garland wars. And Urumi is almost broken with its crazy melee damage. It can do splash damage, charge attack AND ignore armor. You definitely don’t want to engage them with your melee units. Lol champs will never become that good to make you not go melee.
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Not really your fault. Things are related.
Have both excellence and flaw in design. Having a terrible weakness against siege is good in my eye actually. A civ should always have some sort of weakness. But having almost zero answer to siege makes no sense. And then there is Urumi that doesn’t fit in the civ at all.
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oh wow a lot of people produce 3 militia for the entire game! astonishingly good unit! aside from the fact that they are the only available opener in dark age, so it’s not like you have a choice there, players do produce the usual 2-3 militia and that’s it. nowhere to be seen after that. if that sound like good design to you then ok enjoy
nope. a unit that is deisgned to be useful in specific niche is a counter unit, like camels, but militia is not supposed to be a counter unit. unless you think counter 1 unit that 3 civs in total have count as a counter unit, and then again, ok enjoy.
militia is a inherently flawed unit and the fact that infantry civs never use them literally does not need anothing to be sayd in addition. obvisouly no one wants militia to be as competitive as an option as knights, they are not supposed to, but the literally are not an option most of the time.
but hey, if you think militia is super great as it is then enjoy your game. climb the ladder using only militia and enjoy
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tell me you didn’t watch any of those videos without telling me you didn’t watch any videos. tell me you don’t have a clue what you’re talking about without telling me you don’t have a clue.
welcome to ignore - if you can’t even admit that you were wrong about pros never making the miltia line you have proven you can’t be honest at all, and you are only here to promote your own agenda, truth doesn’t matter.
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Dude, you know that everyone can search the web and find like a bazillion videos that “proof” anithing and nothing? For every video you can find about militia being made, there are other 100 where is nowhere to be seen.
Also you claim infantry is supposed to be as niche as a counter unit, while your beloved tech tree blatantly says otherwise, but then if someone points out that infantry civs do not play and win with militia infantry moat of the time, you reply with the “civ clasificiation means little” agenda. So pick a side dude, you are contraddicting yourself
But hey, if after years of this game being cav vs archer every day you still are so delusional to believe that infantry is as good as it should be then ok, enjoy. I won’t stop asking for them to be better just because you want them to suck you know?
I will always want militia to have bonus vs light cav line, and cheaper Imperial upgrades, to make them able to fulfill the niche they are supposed to (countering trash)