So, serjeants aren’t that great unit that seemed at the release of LotW. Building donjons and being the only UU trainable in the feudal age makes them unique, but stat-wise and cost-wise, they aren’t worth. And even first crusade was nerfed, and will most likely see some other change in the future.
They have good armor, but the same speed of champs (0.9, 0.99 with squires) and less attack (11 vs 13). Considering also that champs cost both less gold (20 vs 35) and less food with squires (45 vs 60), how the serjeant should be improved?
I think 35 G / 45 F is enough to make it viable.
I also would take away the eagle and building bonus to let the militia line a situational niche for sicilians.
I would give them a small amount of military everytime the age up: 2 serjeants in feudal, 3 archers in castle and 3 knights in imp, to maintain the characteristic of the “power spike” design of the new civs.
Als the eco bonus could be changed into “farms provide 60 % more food”.
They trade equally (1v1) with maa but cost 15 g (and 15 f with supplies) more in feudal. They are actually one of the best ideas to throw a game in feudal right now.
Their good scaling is their selling point right now. Still, even in imp, sicilians have usually better options, especially for raiding. And this for one of the worst civs in the game.
Thats why i was saying add attack each age. If I donjon rush someone they have to deal with the unit and arrow fire. In castle is when i should consider it a stand alone unit. I always thought of them as with a donjon in feudal. After all why build one just to send them forward with no support.
Yeah the donjon rush is dead. Both suck in feudal. The donjon rush had a time whith first crusade in castle, where it was broken, but right now both donjon and serjeant are underwhealming.
I also don’t like the design of the donjon to fire arrows for free, it makes the balancing of both uniques nearly impossible, especially among different elos. If they would change the donjon to only fire arrows when garrisoned with ranged units and reduce the cost accordingly, it would allow both, donjon and serjeant, to be buffed in a way the play around them would be viable. Right now it isn’t viable because of the problem the synergy between serjeants and the arrows poses.
In the early game, Donjon’s are too expensive and too weak compared to towers. They have a wider base and so are more difficult to wall.
Two options:
Give the Sicilians towers (as well as Donjon) and let Serjeant’s build them both. So, the early game could be villagers->Donjon->Serjeants (villagers go home or to neutral stone)->Towers.
Or, allow serjeants to be created in the barracks.
Well they already get a drastic stat increase in castle age, so this isn’t the solution.
Really I’m all behind the idea of reworking first crusade to something else that could, potentially, help the serjeant. Or it could be something else entirely, removing the tech would remove a reason to leave the unit weak.
There is no need to improve the Serjeants or replace the first crusade tech.
You just need to learn how to use them best. They are meant to be a mass spam unit, being v created from many donjons that you’ve built in the middle of a battle or enemy base.
60 food and 20/25 gold or more attack.
They are tanky and that seems to be useful only when building Donjons, but in combat they are really bad for their cost.
They aren’t bad overall, only bad because of their high cost.
The ways are two: buff their cost or improve their strenght in combat.
IMO i wouldnt want to play sicilians if serjeant is so similar to malians champions but costs 35G. I think change to 25-30G, or increase speed to 1.0 at least, are needed
Is it so?
I think serjeant is maybe the one unit hindered the least by lack of mobility. The high pierce armor makes them take much less damage from archers. Their production building should be placed very close to the enemy base and also works as an emergency garrisoning building which can be reached quite easily.
Also, as a frontline damage soaker, the lack of mobility is not that big of a problem. They are designed to take a lot of damage, especially arrowfire.
I don’t question the mobility helps a lot, for all units. But I think the serjeant is actually the single unit type which can be useful with bad mobility. But right now they are just underwhealming for their cost.
This might be true. For raiding, the main usage of serjeants, the higher speed would mean they could possibly get some more vill kills occasionally But the same would be true if they were just a bit cheaper. And usually you get more value from the idle time than the vill kills also with the best raiding units which are cav archers.
Well, that’s actually a point which is debatable. I think they should be able to tank a lot of arrowfire. But I’m not a fan of any infantry designed to be an archer counter. It’s OK for goths and meso civs, but only because they have nothig else really. But sicilians actually have also ok-ish cav available and the serjeants can also just be used to be the meatshield for skirms/archers and siege. So it’s not necessary to make them killing the archers themselves to be a good choice vs archer civs.
It’s maybe good they can be outmicroed by mass archers because this actually means you need to support them with some other units rather than just spamming a pure serjeant flood pretty much like goths inf spam.
Their early game is already solid, they have more food on farms and their scouts and archers take less bonus damage. Their only problem is their vulnerability to Trush strategies.
But this topic is about only the serjeant, not the sicilians as whole.
But this is the same food cost of a champ with supplies, but still more gold cost. Why choosing serjeants over champs?
Except that spamming champs from barracks is way better…
It doesn’t matter much having high PA if you are slow and archers can micro you down, unless you have really high PA and HP, like a ram or a elephant. If you look at huskarls and eagles, you don’t simply have high PA, but also high speed.
The inability to force fights and be kite down, really hurt the serjeant.
But LC will always be better, since it’s cheaper and more mobile, so the enemy can’t out-flank you.
I personally believe that even just a small 5% increase on their base speed can make them more viable and useful in feudal age.
Well, i figured out that a very good usage of them is to just take 10 of them, run with them underneath a tc and reinforce with the donjons.
A fully garrisoned TC loses much more ressources via the idle time than you lose via the serjeant deaths, as elite serjeants only take 1 damage per tc arrow.
So i don’t let my serjeants being kited by archers, I just ignore them because I can. At least if the opponent doesn’t have like a 50 stack of them.
And after some time the serjeants just kill the TC.
Thing is just, that they are too expensive in general right now and you rarely have the opportunity to invest in the donjon rush + an overpriced raiding unit.
yes we may have all used serjeant bit wrongly coz of the first crusade. They maybe actually a raiding unit which build donjon to destroy towns. 2 or more donjons aren’t easily killed by armies without ram.
In imperial war, they are too slow to justify the 35G cost
Yeah but you are talking about elite serjeants, so probably you are in post imp. Are you telling me that in post imp the enemy doesn’t have any other solution against 10 serjeants other than garrison the TC?
And again, why don’t you use champs instead? They take more damage, but cost less and deal more damage to the TC.