Serjeants don’t need to be insanely tanky with 4/4 base armor and also good damage dealers. Champions don’t beat them, Archers take forever to beat them, and Paladins barely beat them. Raise their attack a bit more and they become the ultimate unit with no weaknesses.
True. One could argue thar hauberk cavaliers are a thing, but at least they need a lot of techs for becoming powerful.
Well, Champions cost 45f 20g, Serjeants 60f 35g, they do beat them cost effectively.
Also Bulgarians THS, Aztec, Japanese and Burmese champions (+ Dravidians after Wootz Steel) are on par/beat them 1v1.
Serjeants are a joke in the current state. Ridiculously overpriced and add nothing to the civ.
But you can also notice that playing the single player campaign, where you can just mass knights and win that way every battle.
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so fix their main issue, too high gold cost.
Why raise their attack which is totally fine.
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I’m totally in favour of just lowering the gold/food cost, which is a buff that wouldn’t impact First Crusade at all.
Any other stat buff would have to consider how could be exploited with First Crusade.
Obviously if First Crusade is reworked that’s another story.
8 Attack in Castle and 11 in imp is Just low. They night be tanky but they still are slow as heck, and they take Forever to kill. Champions do not beat them 1 vs 1 true but they are much more cost effettive in melee. For example, 12 Champions will barely beat 10 serjeants, despite costing a lot more
Paladin shred them. Do not know why you say they barely beat them, that’s just false…
In Castle Age, even with their armor, their low Attack means that a teutonic longswords lose by just 5 HP despite costing 30 res less
So yeah, being tanky Is not bad, but it’s not the same thing when they take Forever to kill something and are slow
Other slow UU like TK have insane stats, and other UU that have low attack have ways to deal extra damage (look at ghulam, urumi, obuch). We can say they are tanky, but i would not use a 95 res unit to just tank damage
I propose the Attack but i also propose the simpler -10 G approach. I was Just thinking 1 more attack would have been more interesting
Yeah something like -5 Gold would be a small buff but actually useful without impacting First crusade at all
I am fine with buffing their attack but then armor needs to go down. They have 4/4 armor in Elite version and even if Arbalest can kill the (2 damage a shot, you do more damage to Paladins…), it’s micro time that you might not have when the Sicilian is also raiding and dropping Castles like crazy.
Teutonic mounted Knights also beat Camel Riders 1v1, your point? You cherry pick an example from 1 specific civ in an attempt to prove the point? I’m not convinced at all.
The idea of the unit is that its tanky in return for average attack. If attack has to go up, armor must go down. Can’t have 8 pierce armor Champions after all who unlike Huskarls are good vs melee units also.
I’m fine with gold cost decrease without any compensatory nerf for it tho as I think gold price is too high.
I do not need to convince you. Facts states that no one trains serjeants outside First crusade because even if they are tanky they are slow and can’t kill anithing Quick enough even when they finally reach a target, even if they are on paper easier to train than other UUs, courtesy of their low Attack and High Gold cost combined, so at least one of those problem should be addressed
I’m fine with that too as i said in the opening post. It’s not like they should have more attack AND be chaper, pick one and do just that. Gold cost decrease would be easier and fine i guess allowing them to trade a bit more efficiently res wise
How would you do that? -10 G? -10 F ?(since they are uniquely trainable in feudal a food discount would not be bad at all) -5F and -5 G? Just -5G?
I don’t think food price is a big issue because in Imp when you want to make them you will likely have a lot of food anyway though the gold price probably needs -10g imo.
Buff serjeants only in attack is fine but tuning down the armor is really a poor idea. They are designed as mid-ground of teutonic knight and huskarl. Losing armor simply makes it worse and more generic.
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On the other side tough -10 F would make them more usable right from feudal, which would make use of their “thing” of being the sole UU present since feudal
Maybe -5 F and -5 G would get the best of both worlds?
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the way I see it, it’s an Imperial unit, in Feudal Donjon + Serjeant rush is already OK, and I don’t think food cost makes this strat unviable atm. In Imperial tho, food is a trash resource, 30g on the other hand is quite a lot.
In my view -10g is a stronger buff but -5f -5g is a potential buff also that is less strong.
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Well i agree and that would Indeed be a good buff
Your suggestions totally make sense, Serjeants are underwhelming.
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There was a beautiful game in The Resurgence tournament that somewhat showcased why Serjeants (and maybe Donjons) need a change. It was Game 2 between Mr.Yo (Sicilians) and Saymyname [Smn] (Cumans) on Arabia.
I’ll spoil what happened in the Dark Age and Feudal Age now. It was a really entertaining game, so anyone who wants to rewatch it might want to stop reading here 
Yo opened with a 2 Militia premill drush and got one villager kill iirc. He didn’t see a Barracks and noticed the early up-time, so he rightfully assumed that Smn built a second TC. What then followed was a beautiful display of how to play agressively against the Cuman’s 2 TC boom. Yo sent 3 Villagers forward to build an Archery Range about where Smn wanted to wall and then started adding Donjons, since Cumans can’t even place a defensive tower after spending 100 stone on the 2nd TC. He denied some farms, so Smn felt the need to go onto stone to be able to build some defensive towers of his own to not let the Donjon rush go out of hand. After losing 4 Villagers to Yo’s Archers while building a tower on stone Smn felt the need to add some Skirmishers.
Yo then wanted to get up to Castle Age as fast as possible while Smn built a market to buy food (to go up about half a minute later as well).
In my eyes there were two things that showed the Donjon/Serjeant problem.
1st: The wood cost of the Donjon held Mr. Yo back from getting some more farms early. (Yes, he was on stone with 3 villagers and had 3 villagers forward, but just watching his resources, he did a very good at spending his wood for how messy the game was)
2nd: This for me is the bigger problem and it’s somehow connected to the 1st one. Since Yo didn’t have enough farms, he could only produce Villagers and Archers and not Serjeants as well. Even when Smn added Skirms, Yo didn’t add any Serjeants. I feel like if he would’ve added just a few Serjeants he might have been able to continue his agression way better instead of going up to Castle Age. He even could’ve sent the Villagers home (at least one or two of them) and build more Donjons with the Serjeants.
I think reducing the Donjon’s wood cost from 75 to 50 (like a tower) would be a good thing. If that’s not enough, reducing the Serjeant’s food price would be the next logical step.
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Yeah i also proposed donjon 50 wood cost in another tread about donjons. Or make donjons add pop space to save wood from houses.
Also serjeants -10 res, with my favorite -5 F -5 G to be a bit less food heavy being available since feudal
That would make their combo quite ok
One Idea I take with me for a long time already is to
A) give Sicilians free infantry armor (this would also help with maa archer rushes)
B) Increase the melee armor of serjeants by just 1 or 2, so they can hold better.
Serjeants are imo designed around their tankyness but as far as I have experience with them, this currently only works against ranged units. Many melee units have so high attack that they decimate serjeants even with their current “comparably high” melee armor.
With this change Sicilians would finally get the twist towards infantry they are also advertised at. And it would allow to adjust or remove the silly hauberk tech aswell.
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