The problem with buffing Militia is that a generalized buff would also effects Infantry civs like Aztecs, Malians, and Goths so by adding a new tech you can avoid buffing Civs with already solid infantry. However most of the the civs that lack Gamberson are non infantry civs with the exception of Goths and Malians. I believe that Celts, Japanese, Viking, Teutons, pre-seige discount Dravidians, and also Britons Deserve Gamberson. However I am unsure about Bulgarians, Malay, and Aztecs. The good thing about this buff is that Gamberson can easily be removed from the tech tree of any of these civs that proves too powerful. I also like the reduced upgrade time for several Militia line upgrades as it makes teching into champion in the late game faster.
Vikings got a free obuch upgrade as their champions will tank lots of arrows in addition to gain some gold and killing cavalry.
The guys in the lower elos would feel the pain with such buffs as they are unable to micro properly, those champions and most infantry civs will eat archs civs and kniths civs as long as they have halbs.
Vikings actually lack halbs
I doubt it.
Malians had free Gambesons with every age-up for how many years now?
Where is the Malian infantry play?
They also lack Blast furnace and I have seen Champskarls at a competitive level
Champskarls are strong agree. Especially with the malian longer lasting gold it’s really tough to deal with in the lategame.
But I speak about the midgame. I’ve seen basically everything from malians (it’s a very flexible civ) with the exception of Castle age Longswords.
Champskarl is weaker than upcoming Viking Champskarlyuk.
What do you mean with “weaker”?
That they are beaten by them? Well this was the case before anyways.
Both have different stats, so idk if they are that comparable.
Champskarls still maintain strength agains (cav) archer civs, Chieftain champs were always kinda strong when Gold run out. Now they are even stronger.
And I still doubt we will see Vikings making militia in the midgame with that update.
I honestly think this upgrade does very little. Midgame it’s useless for sure, because Knights vs Swordsmen didnt change and archers can still outmicro and also deal decent damage even with the new upgrade.
Lategame infantry spam becomes a bit better, but taking 18 instead of 14 shots to go down (FU Champs vs FU Arbs) isnt turning them into Huskarls.
I like the upgrade and maybe for some civ which had decent Champs already (Celts, Japanese, Vikings…) it’s enough to make it a viable lategame strategy. Other than that it wont change anything. As other people meantioned already: Malians had a stronger version of this for free and even for them it was/is just a situational strategy.
Problem with Malian infantry is not late game. The problem is feudal age and early castle: it’s quite hard to have a competitive infantry army even with the PA bonus. You have to strike early and do damage, then manage to keep the enemy outside your base while you go to castle age. Then you have to outnumber the enemy army.
In late feudal FU m@a is melted by FU archers. It’s not necessary to have many of them, even a few archers can destroy the army with a little bit of micro skill. Vs scout it’s better if you add some spears.
Here we have the 1st problem: infantry speed can’t keep up. If Squires was a Feudal tech, it could be researched while aging up.
Second problem is keeping the army competitive in castle age. You can indeed mass tropps while aging up, but you can do it even with archers. You cannot do it with cavalry, but you don’t need it: Knights are way stronger. Infantry is maybe cost-effective if you add pike, and in the PUP this tech is cheaper. But the real problem is that you must keep numbers to be effettive: you have to produce x3 or x4 of the enemy army. This means adding 2-3 barracks while aging up and in the early castle age: difficult to sustain.
Maybe the solution could be speeding up Barracks?
Another problem for me is the economy. While cheaper buildings is nice, I dont feel it is that strong. And that is probably the reason why Malians droped hard when their free gold mining upgrade turned into longer lasting gold.
We have to see if the Vikings can do anything with the PA.
I like the idea of speeding up the milicia line production.
quote=“Albeman3246, post:10, topic:227423”]
Knights are way stronger. Infantry is maybe cost-effective if you add pike, and in the PUP this tech is cheaper.
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Actually resource wise, regular LS are roughly equivalent to kinghts with BL. But yeah, you should add a few pikes, which should be easy as they share most upgrades.
A problem is still that knights wont fight you unless they are sure to win or you are destroying their town. And if you attack their town, they will probably easily beat LS with equivalent resources due to knights having a way easier time to group and pick on a smaller group while your other LS slowly go to the fight.
They have overall weaker performance. And even against archer Vikings Champs are not that far as they fight back harder and kill arbalester 1 hit sooner.
Vikings Champion is an all rounder. Huge attack against cavalry with decent HP and good PA.
Nobody is making militia line in midgame unless they are facing eagles - gambeson or not.
True, you have to force a fight by attacking builldings and/or villagers and meanwhile organizing a sort of “flood”. That’s why you need 3-4 or even 5 barracks to compete vs just 1-2 stables.
In the PUP this could be solved by the new gold bonus, a sort of mix of the earlier and actual bonuses.
Anyway Malian proof that having +1PA in castle age could help vs archer civs. But it’s hard to mass infantry while aging up to castle age as meanwhile your army is melted by enemy arrows and unable to properly run away.
Malians can somehow deal with archers and gain time, but to keep the enemy away you need many soldier, and that’s incompatible with an early castle age. I manage to do it, when you go to castle age then you gain another +1PA and that’s another story.
Vikings is worse, more HP but less PA, with their economy you can make 1-2 more m@a maybe. It won’t work
Celts can run away, but if the archers attack your base they cannot deal with them as they get killed.
Goths can perform a better flood, but it’s even more all in.
I think Gambeson is a good feature, and goes in the right direction. But it’s far to be the perfect buff.
Militia line needs a way to be competitive in late feudal age:
- Squires avaible from feudal age
- Switching the effect of Scale Mail Armor (+1/+1) with Plate Mail Armor (+1/+2)
- Making Barrack work faster in general (could be even a secondary effect of Supplies)
An FU Champion takes 14 arrows from Arbalests. With Gambeson it will take 18 arrows.
An FU Champion takes 35 javelins from Skirmishers. With Gambeson it will take 70 javelins.
That’s a pretty dramatic improvement and definitely makes infantry more viable and is a pretty heavy nerf for Skirms IMO which become useless against militia line.
Does this tech give any increase in move speed?
As skirmishers should be.
More than half of the civs don’t have this tech. So skirmishers will still do quite a good job.