This crazy runner has speed, sight, bonus damage vs Siege, Cavalry, ridiculous 25 Food Cost, fast production. Eagle Warrior was supposed to be something like Light Cavalry, but it stands in between Heavy and Light. What bothers me more is that pierce armor. They should have been weak against Archers, as any infantry (no Huskarl), but that speed plus armor is just overwhelming. I just watched this match, and I couldn’t do anything else but wonder what could Hera have done here:
Yes I know that literally any infantry deal bonus damage against them, but who the heck is gonna supply the lame infantry in this game, even worst when you consider they’re slow against a speedster like Eagle Warrior? These guys do not need bonus damage vs Cavalry. Let Pikeman do their job.
they are not disposable in 1v1 late game due to the high gold cost, contrary to hussars
they arent pop efficient against cavaliers, making them also weaker in late game when players reach 200 pop
No, they are supposed to be similar to knights in mid game, so they get stats to work similarly to knights against archers.
If eagles lose their bonus vs cavary, then eagle civs lose against skirms+knights in mid game, while also lacking a trash unit.
You can use pikemen when you are low on gold. Remember that trash units are supposed to be worse than gold units.
It is debatable whether they should be nerfed or not. But it is expected that civs without stables will get something to compensate for the lack of light cav and heavy cav.
By the way, people often say that the ladder is heavy on knights below high elo (where xbows, mangonels, and eagles become more prominent)
Against mamy civs, the eagle (25f 50g) player will probably win against the knight (60f 75g) player as eagles are around 50% of the price and 75% of the efficiency (eagles win 2v1 against knights). And the eagle civs have at least above average eco.
Well, I’m in favoring taking the middle position. Reduce the bonus damage by 2 and restore it via a new Barracks tech. One of the American civ, possibly Mayans may not get the tech. And Aztecs faster military production bonus can be replaced by this tech is free.
What about training time?
Pikeman vs knight is relatively faster than Champion vs EEW. Although not in Castle Age. In that case LS vs EW is faster.
You are right, anyway, the problem is not the speed per se. The player that have to deal with eagles should be prepared for that, walling and making chocking points where eagles can’t exploit their speed…
I think this games was before the cost nerf but yes I agree that the bonus vs cavalry can be reduced for non-elite eagles by 1. These stats were designed at a time when there was no “eagle warrior” upgrade. The way eagles was used was much different. Devs didn’t realize the impact of 3 p.armor eagles.
eagles with monks ez. the bonus vs cavalry is not a problem in knights vs eagles. Knights will still wreck them. Its rather eagles killing the early scouts/light cav that try to kill the monks.
Yeah but I don’t think devs will increase their cost only within 2.5 months.
Nah. Champion’s turtle like speed is indeed a problem. And not just against Eagle. Maybe not as big as LS vs EW, but Champion vs EEW definitely is a problem of speed.
True. But reducing will solidify the superiority of knight. They will need 3 more hits (same as LS) to kill a knight. Right now EW performs better or almost the same as LS against knight which doesn’t feel right.
Funny, last time i played with Eagle Warriors they got completely obliterated by cavaliers.
Not to mention the 9 or 10 eagle scouts who died to 3 knights. ;_; Ahh the pleasant memories of the OP eagles.
For the current cost vs value trade that’s fine. Knights should be more effective in fighting against eagles. Its relatively much more difficult to get enough knights to fight and clear a monk-eagle army and even harder to replace if you don’t win the fight. And knights being too powerful is mostly because of the walls being too strong for feudal age units, and mid castle age raids being the optimal strategy. Otherwise it will still be strong with cavalry civs like Franks or Malians but not with all the civs.
I don’t know what this comparison is meant for but longswords are actually a unit harder to mass. You can’t make as many longswords as eagles. Apart from this there are other factors like speed, inability to raid etc. Longswords are much worse unit than eagles. So if eagles kill knights in the same number of hits as longswords its fine.
Eagles cover MOST of the Cavalry lacking (most because they’re still not Cavalry, for example, can’t be used as the multipurpose Knight).
What I dislike about EW is that they somehow compensate the absence of horses, but don’t have their weakness, like a simple Pikeman that costs 1 wood 1 food. Their counter are Infantry, and literally everyone here can agree that they’d rather lose a game than making Longswords.
If the Militia line dealt a little more bonus damage against Eagles, would it suffice? I mean, they would need less hits to worn EWs, spend less time trying to chase then (Turtle vs Hare situation), and wouldn’t be THAT vulnerable to a switch.
I mean, I think you guys have already noticed by now that I’m talking about EWs, but aiming the Aztecs.
Eagles have a short time strong at early castle. Then they melt vs heavy cavalry upgraded. Do not forget that they also melt vs HC, Scorpions and any gold infantry units.
Meaning Eagle being way better than LS in almost if not all situations. Having high PA and speed with conversion resistance you may think they will be worse against melee units but nope.
I’d argue they stay strong until early-to-mid imperial. It is common to research EEW and continue spaming eagles or transiting from xbows to them.
Their “weakness” (compared to knights) are:
lower pop efficiency than knights
higher gold cost ratio than knights
slower than knights
die to LS harder than knights die to pikes
weak to hand cannoners and scorpions
In eagles really were than OP all game long, we would have seem more Incas and Aztecs as pocket in tram games open maps. But they struggle in Feudal and mid-to-late imperial
I understand why you would dislike them though. It is annoying to have a 10 minutes flood of eagle from early castle age onward until you die, just because your opponent put 30 villagers on gold and 10 on farms.
This sounds a little more like LS being too weak than eagles being too strong.
Incas and Aztecs often go xbows even though they have eagles. This shows that eagles are not that imbalanced, even though we could argue for a nerf.
LS on the other hand are still under used, even for civs with bonus. It is both because of their weakness to ranged units (siege & archers) and their average melee performance. They could become more used for example if (1) they had more melee armor and/or bonus vs cavalry, and (2) they had a composition (like with rams/mangonels + scorpions/skirms) they would fit well into with to defend against the ranged units.
But in the meta scheme of Knights vs Eagles vs Xbows along with pikes/skirms/mangonels/monks, I do not feel they are really out of place.
Maybe a new unit type can be introduced to the game where the [Eagle Warrior] will be classified as “Shock Infantry” or “Shock Troops” in the future rather than “Infantry”.
Units that belong to this type will be countered by the Spearman line and other units who have an attack bonus against cavalry, where every anti-cavalry unit in the game will be given a certain attack bonus against Shock Infantry.
Units that behave like the [Eagle Warrior] in [Age of Empires 3] are countered like this.
