At higher levels of play, Leitis are only a “better” option to Knights when you can actually field them. Assume your opponent plays properly.
If you plan to go Leitis, that slows you down. Your opponent can have 12 Knights out by the time a castle is up if he goes straight for Knights in Castle. That’s 12 Knights in your economy. Leitis are not always viable to go for fast, and Knights are always strong. But say you get 6 Leitis out. So what? By that point he has 20 Knights and seige at your front door.
Leitis will always be metered by the castle they come from. Especially in Castle Age. They’re still weaker to range than Knight-line, and take far longer to mass. They’re not broken; you need to take other early advantages over your opponent to justify them in Castle Age. In Imperial Age, it’s a nice power spike to help them out.
In my opinion, anyway. And as stated before; if you debuff them, Lithuanians need something else big to help them out. However, I see no reason to do so.
I disagree, the Lithuanian are stronger civ than the Saracens or Byzantines and I already play with all of them enough to decide it. The higher cost won’t change anything.
And I am really glad we can rely on your expert opinion.
The fact remains here that until Leitis are shown to be OP in a balanced matchup at higher levels, this whole discussion is little more than speculation.
Currently knights are better vs ranged units and more spammable from stables. Letis is cheaper (in imp) and stronger vs melee units.
If you nerf the letis by removing its advantages you will never see them anymore.
Clearly plumes are superior to arbalest in basically everything. If you nerf plumes again, we will get to a point where there is no reason to build a castle and go plumes over crossbowman.
and lithuanians will become just another generic paladin civ.
frankly honestly, with all the people who complain about the relic bonus, i’m half tempted to want to see it removed in favor of a more traditional bonus that isn’t gimmicky, predictable, and most importantly, deniable.
i mean think about it, outside of the 150 food start (which is a nice start, but as far as eco bonuses go its really mild), the only bonuses Lithuanians have is faster moving trash and the relic bonus.
Their barracks is solid but missing final armor upgrade, their archery range is missing both arb and tactics, their siege is missing every final upgrade (but does have BBC) and lacking Engineers, and they lack the final gold upgrade.
Lithuanians are literally all in on their Trash, Paladins, and Leitis. They don’t have a real eco bonus, so they can’t boom as nicely as civs like Indians, Slavs, Persians, or Mayans.
To me Lithuanians are a new Byzantines civilization.
they don’t have any stand out economic bonuses, they have good defensive units and buildings, and basically their entire game plan is to sit back, play defense, keep macroing up, defending what gets thrown their way, and hope they can last until they can get to the point where they are in Imp with a solid eco, and go from there.
Much the same way Bulgarians are a new Slavs, Cumans are a new Huns, and Tatars are a new Mongols.
My feeling is that some people tend to prefer that a civ remains where it is. So people say that Turks are fine. That Italians are ok on land. That Portuguese do not need a buff.
Similarly, as soon as teutons or Lithuanians got a small buff, they ask for a nerf.
Are we really sure that Letis is much stronger than chukonu? Ckn is trained instantly, is almost free, and has a huge DPS even vs rams. And it is much more common than Letis or paladin, especially 1v1.
While people ask for nerfing Letis, Khmer or teutons instead? I guess it is just that people were more confident when they were able to beat teutons easily with their standard picks, like Aztecs or Huns.
I am on the opposite side. If a civ become better it is really appreciated.
i don’t really think so.
mongols/tatars - both have very good early eco bonuses to help boost them to feudal/castle, great castle age cavalry, but are really pushed forward by their impressive Cav Archers and Siege.
huns/cumans - both have agressive styles of play that epitomize the offense is the best defense gameplan, backed with heavy cavalry and cav archers, and a solid siege backing.
slavs/bulgarians - both have a mediocre archery range, identical siege, great barracks and stables (Despite missing paladin for both), a Heavy Cavalry UU which is incredibly resilient, and stellar economy.
I don’t think it’s the case. Cumans are waaaay better defensively early on with the second TC and the boosted palissades, while Huns can’t use houses to wall, but they eventually get stone walls. Other big difference is that sure, more accurate treb is nice but clearly siege onager>mangonel. Actual common points are hussar + palas and the complete lack of gunpowder units for an Old word civ and that’s pretty much it.
These ones are even more different. Slavs having xbows and Bulgarian having usable cav archers set apart their archery ranges, their infantry gets different bonuses, the Slav stable is totally generic. Bulgarian monks are quite bad and sure, less stone for TCs is nice but is nowhere near as good for your eco than faster farming.
while those are definiely valid points I agree with @MatCauthon3 on this one… cumans arent a clone of huns, but they sure are more similar than a lot of races(for example compared to tatars, cumans play more like huns, whereas tatars might be said to play more like mongols or magyar)… and if anything his comparisons give a rough idea of what the races generally play like … (imagine you needed to describe the new races to someone that only new the old ones? thats how i see his logic work)
chu ko nu costs 10 less gold than an arbalest and also has lower Elite cost than all other archer UUs. I don’t know what capping it to +3 is going to do. getting 4 relics is a rare luxury anyway
15 for 1 unit scales for a unit that you have to mass during the match. Anyway the point is that people can’t want leitis to be better than a knight costing less than it and can’t compare it to other uu that are better because they cost more, even if it is wood/food.
chukunu also sacrifices 1 range for its deadlyness
Wood is still obtained easier than food and is less valuable than gold. The Leitis has 1 less pierce and 30 less HP than Paladin, which is huge and I don’t think people here acknowledge how much it impacts it. Leitis also costs 10 more food than Paladin btw
The leitis is all but impossible to mass up during castle age, and is inferior in both health and pierce armor to fully upgraded paladins. So just like the CKN the leitis has trade offs.