The Jian swordsman is an upcoming UU for Wu, and it features 2 modes depending on its hp :
- high hp : uses his shield + sword in one hand : more armour & PA
- low hp : puts his shield away + sword in two hands : loses the armour but moves faster and stronger attack
As Wu infantry auto heals, this makes a temporary “berserk” mode for the unit, resuming to the shield mode after the battle when the unit is healed. It’s a nice concept for an unit, I did things like that in Mount & Blade (bastard sword + shield), but the issue is the choice isn’t yours to make, it depends on the health of the unit. What if you need the speed and attack now while disregarding the pierce armour to quickly reach the enemy, or if you want it to stay with the shield up as a meat shield ?
Some units like the Ratha already allow switching between 2 modes, so how about doing the same for that unit : add a button to override the automatic behaviour and force switching to either mode (default automatic, force shield and force 2h)
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Honestly Ratha switch is much better than this odd design. As in, I would’ve loved to use Swordsman as offensive/defensive option depending on usecase. Now it feels really bad. I mean speed bump is worthless in a way. Because when you move formation then your entire unit will go by slowest formation selected right now. Thus rendering moving faster at low HP a lot more useless.
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It indeed will only work if you don’t control them, each unit doing its own thing.
Increasing attack speed would have a more reliable impact and be logical : grab any stick or bar of around 2kg and 1m-long to use as a replacement for a bastard sword, see if you can swing it faster at 1h or 2h
if you tell me if it allowed switching between modes then I would’ve been far more interested to play with this unit. Let’s say you are in critical bad fight vs Archer. So having shields up and then slowly moving to your base would create more strategic depth. Or to fight vs easy target as in Trash unit, Defenseless camp raids I would pick 2h mode. Ofc Hand Canons and Swordsman will act as natural counter to every situation.
I kinda feel like a missed potential here. I dont think this “clutch” ability is really worth it for RTS games. Moreso how it is utilized. Would’ve been sense for cavalry but not sure for this. Let’s say you slowly transition from Knight to Light Cav and visually go from heavy armor to no armor at all depending on bad fights you picked. So you go back and become Knight like strong unit again.
Tbh I think the main problem is that you could micro them too much and makf them way too versatile
It remains some melee infantry so the potential is limited. Compare with horse archers who, if microed properly, can face infantry in complete impunity.
Yeah but if you can just easily exploit both modes why not just make it both fast and tanky?
Switching to the high-attack mode the specific frames when it attacks and reverting to the high-defence mode otherwise ?
1- for more than a couple units it would be impossible unless being Skynet, and even then it would monopolise your full attention at the expense of everything else. You’d need to switch back and forth every 2s/game speed so nearly every second in practice, and that’s for one single soldier. For several ones, you’d need managing them while not being synchronised as they are a melee unit, so they won’t all attack in one clean volley.
2- worst case scenario it can be made so the Jian cannot attack for a short delay when switching mode (as moving his shield), enough to make such abuses punishing. If you lost 0.5s for the switch, negligible for a standard situation but trying to do that every second mean you already lose more DPS than you could possibly gain.
Even controlling one single character in a beat-em-all would require some training, such as style switching in Devil May Cry. Controlling several dozens at once… I wouldn’t even consider that a risk.
Im mostly concenred about chasing archers for example. You could use the shield mode in every volley relatively easy while reaching them in the berserker mode more quickly
Then have the unit slowed down for a short time during the switch, similar to making it unable to attack. Just enough to make such a move not worth it.
Oh I bet it would ve very worth it, the diference of survibability is huge
You just need to tailor the numbers right.
Let’s do the math : the unit has a speed of 1.0 in slow mode and 1.1 in fast mode. A crossbowman can shoot every 2 seconds, let’s assume it does. Let’s assume your micro allows you to stay 3/4 of the time in fast more, only in slow mode for 1/4 of the time to catch the arrows. Your average speed would be 1.075, 7.5% faster than in slow mode. You’d thus travel +0.15 tile during the archer’s reload. +0.18 with squires.
Now, let’s put a movement penalty of -0.25 during 0.5s after the switch (cumulative up to 1.0s if you press a second time before the 0.5s is over). In the cycle of 2 seconds you’d switch twice, so you’d -0.25 during 1s so -0.25. Already offseting the +0.15 or +0.18 gained (you lost 0.10 tile/0.07 tile). Done and done !
If you redo the calculation assuming you manage to stay 99% of the time in fast mode but with the double switch the single frame the arrows hit, you’d still lose some over doing nothing.
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Oh its only 10%??
I thipught it was wayy more, like 25%
In that case I guess it would only be worth it in super close ramge
70 hp, auto switch below 45.
Shielded : 1.0 speed, 8 attack (+2 in IA), 3/5 armour
Unshielded : 1.1 speed, 11 attack (+2 in IA), 0/2 armour