Historically Infantry was most of the time the backbone of any warfare.
There were only few exceptions. One of them was the time of the medieval Knights in Europe.
But less because of an advantage but more because of the feudal system that lead to a class of professional warriors which were named Knights. They fought the battles because they were supposed to do. There are various reports of Infantry just watching the Knights fight and whoever won the Knights fight won the Battle. The Infantry / non-professionals weren’t supposed to participate and have an influence in the outcome of the battle.
With peasant uprisings and so on very fast it emerged a “Infantry revolution” that put that Knight class to the realm of myths very fast.
Do you know that a lot of polearm weapons were forbidden? And for a very simple reason, they were too deadly for Knights even in Armor
But yes keep up the myth that Cavalry was superior to Infantry on the battlefield.
Ofc they are if you forbit weaponry that is effective against them…
Once Pikes and other similar anti-cavalry polearms were established (through the peasant uprisings), Cavalry beceame almost obsolete for a long period of time. Only Napoleon revived it, but that was an entriley new type of cavalry. Super mobile and had very specific tasks, by no means a generalist unit. And by that time pikes were also almost completely gone from armies. Cause, yeah Cavalry didn’t played a role for a long time already.
The reality is that a lot of players wants Kniights to dominate in the game. But please just say that and don’t post some bogus as rationalization.
There would be several ways to make Infantry better in a fashionable way instead of making them super cheap or “stat monsters”.
Like “historically accurate”: Give them the abilitiy to build something and collect ressources. AMybe not at the speed as Vills, but enough so they become useful outside of combat.Then it’s not even relevant wether militia line can actually beat knights.
Stuff like this.
Infantry building rams could be a good start… it works very well in Aoe4…
Which infantry? For Pikes I think they just need to become better in their job vs cavalry in the midgame a bit. Otherwise they are perfeclty fine.
For militia line I don’t see this tbh. It’s not enough to make them viable in the midgame. One reason for that is how good mangonels work vs rams in AOE2.
Infantry was much more useful when in formations in history. But how can you make use of formation of infantry against knight/archers in aoe2?
Yes, but you have to take in count others factors:
-Timing: without the need of build a siege workshop you can start pushing before the enemy have a mango. Plus, if you have the militia line the ability of repair siege (an a lower rate than vils of course) you can sustain a push for more time (while rise your eco, or rush imp or make a unit transition).
-Resources: without the need of build a SW you save wood that could be used for pump your eco (farms or even more TCs) or make the push even stronger with 1 or 2 more rams.
-Mobility: You can easly push in more than one point or move the push without the need of building another SW (saving resources and vils’ time)
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Towers maybe, like Serjeants? And repair Siege units (except Rams)? In Company of Heroes series, infantry is used to build specific defensive structures, to help themselves in the front.
I like the idea, for the militia line. The forward villagers, for such military tasks, kind of look out of place.
The problem is that devs should make completely new visuals, for the units while hammering (Serjeants are reskinned villagers I believe).
Then serjeants would not have a purpose anymore, and they are already bad as they are. Made militia ablento build things and you then need to give serjeants a brand new unique quirk
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We are getting Gambeson. Let’s see how it plays out. Until then, I think we don’t need to discuss further in this thread.
The PUP is already live so we can already talk about how it starts affecting the game and if it even changes anything.
Which utility? All of useful infantry units either good against cav (Halberdier, Berserk) or archer (Ghulam, Eagle Warrior, Huskarl). Making good against cav or archer is only solution. In my opinion, 75/85/90 hp, 10/12/14 attack, 0.95 speed, in return +12 bonus attack from Light Cavalry/ Hussar is one of the solution for Miltia-line.
I still think no matter how much you buff them you run into 2 problems. Cav and Archers can delay an engagement by use of their range and speed until the fight is more favorable. Other issue is that they can’t quickly react to pressure or raiding as they are limited by their speed. A logical utility would be that they can trash buildings quickly and force engagements from cav and archers who have to decide to take fights or loose infrastructure.
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If ypu want you can look up some ideas in my thread:
https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/how-could-a-new-power-unit-infantry-look-like/221320
And add your own ones aswell. If I like them, I will try to #### # ##### unit concept arount them.
Another raw idea is give militia line the ability of capture (convert) buildings… and take away that from monks.
