Against infantery, yes. Against cavalry no, not really. Steppe lancers are basically light cavalry with +1 range (pretty much same damage output, same HP, with less pierce armor, lower movement speed, no anti monk bonus and less line of sight) at the cost of a knight. Nah, favorable engagements against knights are only possible if you have infinite APM or completely neglect your eco and then still are not very effective.
Im not saying that giving them anti archer attack necessarily is the way to go, just that right now they are laughably bad and taking a favourable engagement against knights, is not really possible. Even against light cav I doubt they will come out on top with a significant advantage, unless they are massed, and well if you mass Steppe lancers you only hurt yourself.
depends on the cavalry. yeah knights in castle age and paladins in imperial age hold up pretty well to archer fire, as do tarkans and keshik but leitis? the scout line? those would be shredded.
sorry favorable engagments was a bad way to word it (against cavalry anyway), but they have inherent advantages due to their range, that, especially when coupled with ranged units, give them an advantage against other front line melee units. because of those advantages, and the advantages they already have against archers due to stacking and range, they absolutely should not be awarded a bonus against archers.
I agree SL needs a buff. SL is neither good at melee fight nor damage support from the back. Knight is usually a better choice in melee fight except certain circumstances. CA always outclass steppe lancer for hit-and-run or damage support.
I would prefer at least the damage output should be improved a bit. If middle ground between scout and knight is impossible, then make it like a glass cannon somewhat likes mounted shotel warrior.
What about simply reducing their training time? I mean 5 SL can snipe a vill while in box formation, if they have both attack upgrades you need just 4. That it’s already the thing where they excel at, but they take still time to be trained in castle age.
Just to trow down some TT for comparison:
- LC takes 30s
- SL takes 24s
- Knights takes 30s
- Camels takes 22s
So the SL is already training faster than a knight, but there is room for improvement. To mass enough SL for a raiding party, it takes you between a minute and a half and 2 minutes.
Making them more spammable, like bringing the TT down to 18s (or even less may be the solution for improving at raiding, and giving them a niche of a faster alternative to knights (even if eventually you’ll want to transition into knights) or as a spammy/emergency cavalry unit.
The only problem would be that cumans UT already halves SL TT, so it may become to spammable after that. But steppe husbandry already affected LC and CA too, so in the case the TT of SL would become too low, it would be enough to exclude it from the UT.
this brings into play the problem of effectively countering it.
by making it 18 seconds training time you can literally mass them up faster then even their supposed counters.
9 second base with the UT becomes insanely fast when you couple with a Hun Ally and Conscription.
Im not sure, I think it could work, since they don’t really need any counter, but just lose any straight up fight against other gold units.
But then again it feels like the only place you would ever use it would be an early castle age all in that could be quite strong, and beyond that they will never be seen, although if they also got an anti siege bonus, they could be used as quickly produced counter against that, while they also can get killed quickly by any protecting military.
But they don’t straight up lose to any other gold unit. Thry cost the same gold as archers do and they beat them 1v1. They beat most infantry 1v1 as well.
And once you factor in the insane creation time this would give them with cumans unique tech it would be insanely easy to go “goth flood” with them. You could easily overwhelm your opponent with raw numbers.
Except they have more health mobility and of course 1 range.
Well, they aren’t strong as when released anymore, so archers, pikes and camels should do the trick.
And as for steppe husbandry I specified that it shouldn’t affect SL anymore.
For huns, 20% faster TT would help, but I don’t think that it would make them OP, since in post imp hussars or paladins would still be a better choice for other reasons.
Also, I think that huns should too receive the steppe lancer. Historically, they used such cavalry, and it would incourage their use at least with them.
They cost 70 food, crossbows cost 25 wood. Therefore you can easily calculate them as being twice as expensive as a crossbow, but yeah even then they should slightly win. Assuming crossbows get 2 shots out before the Steppe Lancer reaches they will deal a total of 64 damage before they die. So the Steppe Lancer survives with 16 HP, assuming he has both, blood lines and +2 defense. So, okay I guess you are right. In low numbers they dont lose straight up to X bows. Not sure how it looks like in higher numbers.
They are also much more expensive than any infantery. 70 food is no joke, more than twice the gold cost, and they are never cost effective if not microed. Champs will shred them until they are properly microed against them, which with a flood can be pretty difficult.
more likely scenario is that steppe lancers are fine and it’s knight+xbow that’s overpowered
trying to bring everything up to knight+xbow power is always going to be viewed as silly (even if the proposal is correct, which i’m not saying it is or isn’t)
nerf xbow. nerf bloodlines. nerf franks.
then see what happens
Nerf everything that has been in the game for two decades, and is available to most civs, so that a unit introduced a year ago and only is available for 3 civs becomes viable… Not to mention that said unit would be more heavily affected by a blood lines nerf than knights are.
No thx.
I like the OP idea of increasing the speed. Perhaps not to 1.55 but just 1.50 for Elite ( same as Husar).
However, the problem is their role!
They are supposed to be good when massed. But it is very hard to mass them when they cost 70food.
This means they are a lategame option right now. But for a lategame option the cost of 45gold is pretty high…
They need to be either stronger → so the pay off for massing them and spending all that food is worth it. Or become more of a lategame option → perhaps changing the cost to 80food / 30gold.
Assuming thry have a mass of them and can keep the SL numbers down.
Debatable.
But with a flood there’s lots of numbers that the champs can’t keep up with. N2m the mobility and range advantage
i didn’t say nerf everything. just nerf the units that are literally preventing 80% of the game pieces from being played
there’s no unit variety with position-picking. it’s just xbow+knight spam all the time.
But xbows and knights are pretty much the basis of the game. Everything else is balanced around them, and except for unique units every other unit is frequently seen in the game.
Trash units: All are seen throughout all ages.
Militia line: frequently seen in dark, Feudal and Imperial age.
Camels: Frequently seen in early castle age.
Elephants: frequently seen in team games, ocassionally in 1v1s.
Monks: frequently seen in castle age
Eagles: Freuqently seen.
Siege: All of it is frequently seen.
Cavalry archers: Frequently seen.
The only pieces not frequently seen are many unique units, hand cannoneers, steppe lancers
and siege towers.
all of this is wrong for teamgames
it’s xbow+knight spam forever
Team games are a completely different dynamic and hard to balance around because of this concept called UNLIMITED GOLD.
Take trade away from team games and you’ll see other units.
Furthermore I’ve seen elephants, siege, monks, pikes, cav archers and light cav line all used in team games.
Yeah of course, but it’s not that impossible, unless you are on a choke point. And they would still cost the same, so it’s not a full spam, it’s more of an help on getting those raiding parties faster as soon as they hit castle age.
Now, SL with a hun ally, takes 19.2s instead of 24s. With 18s SL, a hun SL would take 14.4s.
I don’t see them that OP, since they aren’t that good outside of killing vills.
And how about with conscription? Numbers are a quality all their own.
Basically your entire answer to the spam is be ahead.
They would take 8.46s, just for comparison franks knights in post imp takes 8.1s, and are one of the strongest unit in the game. With a hun ally they take 2.1s.