When I say skill, I mean specifically micro skill. My statement about “just patrolling” is a bit reductive, it’s true. Every unit in the game requires significant decision-making skills, and I’d even argue that which decisions are easier depends a lot on the matchup, the map and even the playstyle.
The skill with infantry is about deciding where to pick your battles. Infantry are slow. Meaning, you can’t run away when outnumbered. They are also highly vulnerable to siege like scorpions and mangonels. This means you need far more insight into the game to use them effectively. You can’t just run away like you can with cavalry.
Okay, I’m being a bit hyperbolic here in saying that knights require no skill. The point still stands, though. Knights are the least-skill unit by far, out of any mainline units.
I mean, the way I see it, you’re underselling half of the story here. If infantry can’t flee, that means your decisions have steeper consequences, but it also means you make less of them; conversely, if you’re controlling cavalry, you need to be constantly aware of the fight they’re in because you usually have the option to flee and attack elsewhere. Hit and run is incredibly skill intensive at the highest level, both in terms of micro and decision-making - every move you make with the units needs to weight the damage you’re taking vs the damage you’re doing to keep momentum and apply pressure, and it needs to be done quickly to beat out the opponent’s reactions. Knights are just dominant in low ELO because opponent’s reactions are pitiful, causing bad knight play to go unpunished.
You also need to micro infantry in battles for good results. That’s because they can’t pick their next targets as well as cavalry can. They also need more time to move to their next target.
What kind of micro are we talking here, exactly? I can’t remember any examples of that in serious games in recent memory, I’d like to test that out in the simulator and see the numbers before replying to this.
I really don’t know why people keep saying this, this is just not true.
I don’t think it’s controversial to say that a top level player should excel in both macro and micro skills to really claim they’ve mastered AoE II and to provide the plays that keep the audience coming back to watch them. Since they’re melee and on the slower side, infantry mainly checks for half of that (the same way pikes or skirms mostly check game knowledge), whereas other gold units clearly demand both skills to shine; because of that, it’s not uncommon that players prefer to see them as a counter unit themselves as opposed to the main part of an army, and no amount of stat buffs is going to change that. Hopefully that explains the opinion better now.