Steppe lancers are meaning less in the game.
To improve them, they need to have a “charge” attack. To make that, the first frame of the attack need to remove life, and the attack is very slow. They can’t move when the attack isn’t finish.
The attack : 9x4=36
Rate of fire: 2.3x4=9.2sec
The attack will be like 4 arrows shot at the same time, that mean armor will be count four times. If there is 4 of melee armor: Attack= (9-melee armor)x4=(9-4)x4=20
To balance them:
HP 80-20=60
Pierce armor 1+1=2
Steppe lancers will be very efficient against weak unit. In group steppe lancers will be efficient. Against pikeman, they won’t be weak if they aren’t enough to kill them all in one hit but in other case they will be destroy because they can’t hit and run. The fact that they don’t move during the long attack pikeman can move forward and hit them many times.
I think it should be enough to reduce their cost to 60 food and 40 gold and the elite upgrade cost to 600 food and 500 gold. They are super good at raiding and sniping vills as we saw in the Viper vs BacT KotD3 match lately.
I took the cost reduction idea from here (there are other great changes to):
I agree that they are efficient for raiding but not much as CA. With a reduce of cost, it will only make the unit balanced. But all unit should have their purpose. What is the purpose of steppe lancers?
No. They are quite fine. 45 gold is a nice cheap cost. Sure, they cost 70 food. But gold is worth far more than food. Knights cost 60 food and 75 gold. So, Steppe Lancer beat knights in terms of cost. They are a nice gold saver unit.
Perhaps you could make them even cheaper? I dunno. Like 40 gold… or even 30 gold? I don’t know if that would break the unit or not.
I think in more than half of the games involving Tatars or Huns, and a significant percentage of the games involving Magyars, Mongols or Turks.
But you are right, CA can’t compete with archers most of the time, and there are many discussions on this forum to try to solve that problem.
You got it. They would be more different than Knights, less defined by their bonus attack, and they’re proven to work somewhat decently even when there are no Knights around. They still wouldn’t be as good as Knights when the opponent isn’t making cav, but they wouldn’t be completely useless either.
umm, not so sure about this. rarely seeing Cav Archers period these days. Turks, Magyars and Tatars are rarely seen, and Mongols tend to go for their Unique Unit.
how is it better designed then the camel? the camel does exactly what its supposed to do. you act as if the camel is supposed to be some all purpose unit, but the fact that it’s base attack is so low and its bonus damage is so high tells another story.
I think another solution to that idea of cavalry charge might be to give them a damage bonus on the first attack on a unit or every x seconds if the next attack does more damage.
Another option I was thinking about is the possibility that by killing a villager they will give a certain amount of resources and the way make a unit specialized in damaging the enemy economy
In the context of the OP, I suppose I must agree with you.
But the Viper was quasi-trolling that whole series of 4 games, winning whilst using inferior civs and units, just by playing better. This puts Tatar SL at the same level as Portuguese cavalier, perhaps? Anyway it shows they are sufficiently good not to require a complete rework.
I’d be down for giving them a higher attack but slower attack rate, and maybe a bonus against Vills, pikes and light cav. Itd make them a raiding unit with bonuses the CA lack, while also allowing them to be a decent supporting unit to CA or the knight line.
and that is what i am against. they don’t need a rework at all. and frankly, it just wasn’t this game, there was another game in KotD3 where they were effectively used as well. either way. point is the SL isn’t completely worthless, it just needs to have its cost refined. ESL especially.
For you, in which case SL are different from other unit?
SL are they really different to knight?
If you consider that they are efficient in group, you can compare them to CA.
There is triangular of trash unit
Every unit have a weakness
Knight : pikeman and camel
bowman : siege, knight, skirmisher
…
can you make a list of unit when SL are efficient or weak? Does this list will be different to knight?
