Some of those things are in AoE 4 and imho there infantry doing pretty well. The entire counter system in AoE 4 is much better, tbh.
A Little buff to LS is not going to make them Better than knights anyway. They should juste be a cheaper option, but atm they are not even really an option. They should be stronger than knights if you manage to mass and upgrade them, which is hardwr than xbows to Mass, so you should get punished if you let the opponent do so
Right now militia have plenty of hard counters. Xbow line and gunpowder are hard counters to them, and knight on equal resources slaughter them
So the problem of them being without a counter Is non-existent to me, since atm they are so far behind that they would need a massive buff to becomes problematic. And honestly no one is arguing for that kind of a buff, but bonus vs scout line (make them and Eagle the same armor class) and discount to Imperial Age upgrades cost and time, and some other tweaks, would not be a huge buff but would make them already much more decent
And honestly yes many UU infantry can be buffed. Aside from obuch and chakrams and kamayuks, all others could get a slight adjustement, even in cost, since supplies do not applies to them, and some of them are really bad, like serjeants
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Gunpowder units only become available in Imperial Age.
Crossbows are very good against them but would they still be good if they had more pierce armour on top of for example the Malian Pierce armour of Goth discount.
Crossbowman have 5 attack and Long Sowrdsman have 1 pierce armour so they do 4 damage.
They already only do 2 damage against Malian ones. With +1 Pierce armour they would only do 1 damage.
Against Knights Long Swordsman are actually equal with equal resources.
Just that Knights are better against Archers and for raiding.
If Long Swordsman would get another +1/+1 Armour they would be a serious competition to Knights since they beat them with equal resources and now also resist archers equally well.
That would also make them even better siege units since they can outlast Town Centre or even Castle fire a little longer.
My idea would be to give Infantry +1/+1 armour in Castle age on top of a new technology that replaces Arson.
Giving either +10 HP or +2 Attack to all Infantry.
This way Long Swordsman would actually be cost efficient against Knights while being a lot less vulnerable against Archers.
On top of that the Scout line would get +2/+3/+4 Eagle Warrior Armour so the Militia Line gets some bonus damage against them starting in Castle Age.
I would introduce Cavalry Archers as a hard counter vs. Infantry.
Cavalry Archer are available to all civilisations besides the Native Americans that all have unique anti Infantry units, Bohemians, that have hand Cannons in Castle Age and the 3 Elephant Archer Civilisations.
Give Cavalry Archers and Heavy Cavalry Archers +2 against Infantry but take away 2 of the bonus damage against Spearman.
Not sure if they are good enough to be worth using without Thumb Ring, Bloodlines and Parthian Tactics in this situation.
There are so many possible matchups to consider.
What if crossbows have 1 minimun range? Like skirmishers. (maybe turning back the costs’ last nerfs).
This way, with low numbers, crossbows have the adventage, but when the numbers increase, crossbows start to overkill and LS have the chance to reach them and stacking archers would not so powerfull like today.
Is a great nerf against cavalry too, but I’m ok with that… crossbow should never go alone throug open warfare.
Maybe reducing the knigh PA to 1, making light cav a better option against archers and riding and knights not so opressive.
just raw ideas…
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Low tier archer civs will even suffer more.
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To the historic discussion
I know it’s not the way this kind of discussion would be entertaining.
I tried this stuff before but I must admit:
A) I am very bad in finding this kind of stuff and showing it. As my Brain works different I only remember the content of things, but can’t remember where I got it from. That’s why I chose to do stuff where I don’t need to remember this stuff. So I would be a very bad historian.
B) I don’t see this discussion is really worth the time to put into such a research. I’m sorry but my time is limited and the discussion point is already too far outside of the topic imo.
I don’t want to dismiss the sources brought forward. But for me it looks like they were just Cherry-Picked to sustain the claims of that person. Argueing against this is even for professional historians very tough task. I didn’t responded to the sources in this way as I don’t see me experienced enough in the discipline to argue against this the correct way.
I’m a guy interested in many topics. I’m not a professional historian. But from the Knowledge I collected from various different sources (also from people who are into medieval weapons) I know the Sword was very rarely used on real Battlegrounds. It was more a duelist Weapon. Not saying it was never used, but many other weaponry saw way more use. And that Cavalry usually used weapons with high range and/or high angular momentum as you can use this while running around. A sword as a duelist weapon on the other hand is actually, even if it has the range, quite dangerous to use from horseback as it may get stuck and you would have to let it go. We have even sources that somewhat imply that many medieval lances had the same problem. This was the reason why the Polish made then Lances which were intended to shatter at the impact so the rider was comfortable in continueing to gallopp with his horse which allowed new manouvers which gave the polish cavalry a huge advantage and was a big part of what made the Winged Hussars so successfull.
Most Cavalry, at all time, was primarily designed to use the movement advantage so it wouldn’t be forced to stay at one location. Cause this is how people die. Weirdly enough in this game the Cavalry is actually designed to stay longer in stationary combat than the Infantry. Which is one of the big reason why the Infantry sucks, as the Cavalry takes over the one advantage Infantry could bring to the battleground, that they just die Slower, buying more time for your other military to deal with whatever the opponent has.
In the current game we have often Cavalry needing to tank arrowfire cause the Infantry would just immediately die to it. Which is like… what? Who would bring his Cavalry troops forward to stay in ranged fire? You use your most expendable units for that, when necessary.
Whilst I agree with that. Derivated fom the stuff above, the best Pairing with Xbows in the current state of the game is actually the Knight as meatshield. That’s also what we see in TGs (and vive versa).
And to a big part to the tankyness of the Knights. They just have that super high Health Pool which qualifies them as meatshield.
So when we talk about this we need to have units that are good pairings with XBows. Optimally at least 2 different, one of which against Cavalry (which the current spear line somehow can, but probably not in the fashion we need as it’s too expensive to get to and at the same time frail) and another one agianst Archery type units. Both could be Infantry. But for both they would need seizable amount of Health/Holding power to be part of a real “army composiion” rather than just a throwaway unit like the current Spearman line.
We already have a few examples of Infantry units that pair well with archery. Serjeants and Obuch. Serjeants are still a bit too expensive to get rolling to and for obuch you need catles.
The main Issue I see is that for this idea, which I totally support, the current needed double blacksmith upgrades + potentially unit upgrades of two different lines at once is just too expensive in the midgame. In order to do that we would need to reduce the midgame upgrade costs of techs like xbow, pikeman, ######### and mail armor by a seizable amount. Otherwise it’s just not possible to compete with a mono-unit comp like the current Knight spam. Or ofc the other way around, make it more expensive to go for Knights/Cavalry.
For some longer time I already work on a redesign of the Archery so they are a bit more expensive for their Damage output but have higher Health in compensation. This would in my opinion lead to ####### ###### balls which then want to have a good frontline to protect them specilalised agianst the type of units the enemy ###### ### it’s complicated as there are so many different interactions to think about. And as I said, then the upgrade costs for the units have to be tweaked in order to make it feasible.
Nah… Let’s just think of if there’s no other Solution of the stacking issue, no need to get that creative.
I would rather prefer when all melee units had just enough range so they would be able to hit their target that tries to slide behind others. This would already make the “pathing” problem way more acceptable.
Ofc this would need to be compensated by a general buff to archery if they couldn’t use that to their advantage anymore.
Minimum range always leads to really weird unit behaviour and tbh in the current way xbows are used this would basically completely kill the unit. Make it basically unusable.
Yes but just slightly.
I don’t think so.
I’m pretty sure he doesn’t. Also I wonder why he didn’t introduce this tech in AOC? He introduced BL and TR and enforced the “Knight-Archer” meta. He added Huns and PT to include CA into the game as well as Aztecs with monks as he made these 2 units underpowered due to the experience of previous game. (Priest and Chariot Archer in AOE1 were too strong). But he didn’t reduce the cost for Infantry. He added +1PA for entire line though, which is a must needed one tbh.
There is already negative armor in the game, why is negative attack bonus impossible?
My intention was for Scorpions to no longer be effective against infantry units, especially the Militia line.
Rather than making the Militia line cheaper or purely better stats, I don’t think either helps much.
Without considering the civ bonus, they should not be the main force like Knights and Archers, let alone counter these units, because those positions are already occupied.
In my opinion, they need new capabilities other than against Huskarls, Ghulams and Eagles, and I just chose to give them the ability to counter siege weapons well (except for the Organ Guns maybe).
So basically healing Infantry?
It can only be so high before they start healing Elite Huskarls or Incan Eagle Warriors.
I like the idea of making Scorps less effective against Infnantry.
But you can just reduce the base attack and give it bonus damage against Cavalry and/or even Archers.
And ofc you could give it Ballistics effect. And/or even reduce the amount of damage spreading, make it more Single-unit damage focussed.
Because the game does two calculations, one for the normale damage and one for the bonus damage (or rather, one for each type of bonus damage). And if the result is negative (because the targets armor is higher than the value of the bonus damage), it will just be set to 0.
The only one here trying to properly adress the lack of an infantry heavy counter is @Skadidesu .
If people want the swordsman line to be an viable generalist unit they need a hard counter (like skirms and pikes are to archers and cav respectively) after any buff they were to be given.
Otherwise, what would happen when you take a lead with a viable swordsman line? How does the opponent react? There would be no way to stop the snowball.
Now, my oppinion on the topic:
As Sandy says, they need something, a feature, going on for them. And I think “numbers” is a appropiate one, both historically (easy to rise levies) and in terms of intresting gameplay.
Try to open your minds and envision how the army management and microing possibilities of infantry with this characteristic feature would play out, and what the approach to the “war game” would be. Archers can kite, focus fire, snipe objectives, kill vils etc; knights can choose their fights, surround, make a surprise raid, and others; swordsmen (in mass with their increased numbers) could endlessly charge ahead onto the enemy, overwhelming with numbers, divide the army to take on multiple objectives, assault a base (and this would be their main strength) from a broad front making it difficult just to wall behind and forcing reactions, etc.
So, I would achieve this by:
- Decreased cost
- Decreased training time (by a lot)
- maybe additional pierce armor to help them dealing with archers and having better assaulting potential (dealing with tc and castle fire).
Now, they would need an appropiate trash hard counter. And I’m divided with this one. The idea of a new generic unit line is very disruptive to the game, but if its speciality is to specifically dealt with the swordsman line, then I think it could be implemented.
I imagine it could be a mace wielder or something like that.
And expanding on the trash counters, I can see the whole hard counter system working like this:
Arrow means “win against”
And then you would have soft counters and utility units, like mangonels, scorpions, monks, light cavalry, etc.
Of course every infantry civ bonus should be modified accordingly and taking the spearman line in consideration. Technologies like arson and supplies may be modified or completely replaced as well.
I don’t dare to give any numbers. This is just concept design brainstorming.
I already designed one such Infantry counter in my thread about a possible “Power Unit Infantry”:
Note that the Lightbowman is intended to counter the Militia Line which is though to be the main counter of the new Power Infantry unit. That Power Infantry unit is supposed to get some Infantry Armor then so the various already existing Infantry Counters (like Cataphracts, Slingers and Jags) aren’t as effective against that. These counters were designed for the current very low Gold cost militia and not against a more gold-heavy power unit. They would probably totally crush that unit if it doesn’t gets at least a bit of protection. The Lightbowman would still counter that Power Infantry unit, just not as hard as it counters the Militia line.
I made it this way as in my Opinion the current militia line is imo already used up and won’t make a good Power Units because of various design flaws. Including the obvious one of don’t being “iconic” in any way. I think it still can serve well as a nice tool in various Situations and want to keep this property.
hmm I’m not sure if it would be healhy and well recieved to implement two generic unit lines at once.
That’s what it is trying to be adressed in this post in the first place. An specific swordsman counter would exist as consequence of the swordsman line becoming power units. And it should be meant to counter swordsman only, not infantry in general. Or at least not the spear line. A differentiation of heavy and light infantry armor might be a solution.
I don’t know how the eagle warrior would be affected by these changes tho.
Eagles would probably suck against the Lightbows.
But I designed the Lightbows in a way they suck a lot against Archers and Skirms which the Eagle civs tend to do a lot aswell, with good eco behind.
I don’t know if this is enough to compensate it. But imo it’s actually good in general id there is one more Eagle counter, this gives actually more design freedom for this unit. Eagles could eg get some more Bonus against Cavalry or just a bit more HP or whatever.
Also like with the “Powe Unit” Infantry, eagles could just get a bit of Infantry Armor, as they already have the Eagle Armor class. It’s a small tweak but it would make some of the current “eagle killer” units less oppressive against the mesos.
There is no need to seek new trash counter unit, Light Cav line is convenient for Longsword counter. My idea is:
MAA / Longswordman / THS / Champion.
- 60f 30g cost (45f 30g with supplies).
- 50/80/90/100 hp
- 0.95 speed
- 6/10/12/14 attack
- All of them 2/2 armor.
- Get +4/+12/+12 bonus attack from Scout/Light Cavalry/Hussar.
No one proposed to increase LS Pierce armor as far as i Remember, not me for sure…
Also knight no they are better with equal res because you need to take into consideration upgrade costs. 10 knight + bloodlines cost 1600 res, while with the same res you can only get like 17 LS considering supplies and upgrade for MAA and LS, which ends in a slaughter in knights favor
So no, atm militia line has nothing going for them in castle Age, and is simply to expensive and slow to upgrade in Imperial Age compared to other units
This is not the way to go, imo. Better stats and more expensive don’t adress the problem of nothing special going on for them. Here you’re just making them more similar to knights.
Light cav are heavily countered by pikeman. And you can easily transition between pikes and swrodsmen.
Actually thinking about it, no it’s not possible.
Condottiero have a unique armour class and all but gun powder units that do bonus damage against Infantry also do bonus damage against them.
It would have been much easier to give the two gunpowder units units that do bonus damage against Infantry some negative attack against Condottiero.
I had a similar idea but a bit less extreme.
Elite Skirmisher just have +3 damage against Spearman but are already very good against them.
| Name | Composite Bowman | Reflex Bowman |
|---|---|---|
| Armor Class | Archer | Archer |
| Produced at | Archery Range | Archery Range |
| Production Time | 25 s | 25 s |
| Production Cost | 40 W, 30 G | 40 W, 30 G |
| HP | 35 | 40 |
| Speed | 1.05 | 1.05 |
| ROF | 2 | 1.75 |
| Attack | 4 Pierce | 4 Pierce |
| Atk Bonus | 3 vs Infantry | 3 vs Infantry |
| Range | 5 | 5 |
| Accuracy | 85% | 90% |
| Melee Armor | 0 | 0 |
| Pierce Armor | 0 | 0 |
They cost equal resources as a Crossbowman but are more Wood heavy. That makes them a little cheaper in the late game but not really in Castle.
They are not a trash unit but in most situations (including fighting against the Spearman Line) they are inferior to the Crossbow.
In Imperial Age they get a little higher rate of fire instead of more damage. Their Imperil stats are intentionally a little worse because they cost less gold.
This unit should be pretty good against the Militia Line while not being too efficient against Eagle Warriors.
Their effectiveness against Eagle Warriors could be a problem though.
Giving them +1 Pierce armour would allow them to survive longer against range units and also allow them to be more dangerous to buildings.
I was thinking the smilar thing. Increase defence of buildings against sieges, archers and knights. So they will heavely depend on higher number of sieges to push enemy base but infranties should have huge amount of bonus damage to buildings. Also infraties can improve defence of buildings. Like %1 extra hp per garrisoned infranty.