Almost never in my games, no. Only if one of the players pays no attention.
I prefer playing.
Only britons archer can push now. But it usually means something gone completely wrong and one of the player should already have called gg.
not sure what you’re doing wrong then.
archer civs remain insanely popular at the highest level. including chinese and mayans. and vikings are also a top civ, among others. so no, its not just britons.
You don’t play archers to push. It’s that easy. Maybe you shold learn what units are good for in the first place.
Yes archers are strong, especially in the early to mid game. I often open with archers, also with cav civs.
But for the reason they are made for.
Maybe you can tell me: What’s the reason to make archers?
That’s cute and all to claim you know what archers are for, but what’s the use if you fail to see people would never use a HCA that lacks +2/+4 armour anyway?
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so how do archer civs win if they can’t push with archers?
because they are cheap, easy to mass, easily microable and if played well you won’t lose that many while taking insanely favorable trades against melee units?
but go ahead mister i know what archers are good for and how they are supposed to be played - if what you say is true - how do archer civs win games? how do the pros manage to push and close out games, with archers, if archers can’t push?
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Archers are made to play the map (if there are a lot of chokepoints pe), take control of important ressources and damage the eco, especially if the opponent has exposed res.
That’s why archers are so strong. Especially in certain maps.
Yes, mass archers can be devastating, too. But against players with good mangonel micro… good luck.
You don’t need to push every game to get the gg, just damaging the eco, especially early on, can be enough.
BTW Arabia is maybe THE cavalry map. Many archer civs are only on the top of the ladde because of their insane eco bonusses ;).
maybe go watch some pro games and then come back.
we’ve literally seen pros use archers to outmicro mangonels.
nah archers can push, just because you don’t think so doesn’t mean anything.
you could say the same thing about cavalry civs. Franks were a terrible civ until their eco got buffed. and now are one of the best. Slavs used to be one of the best, but now are middle of the road after their farming bonus was reduced. Khmer went from terrible to one of the best civs in the game. pretty much every good civ has some sort of strong early eco bonus to carry them.
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maybe you should do, you’ll see that i’m right with that.
why we are talking about pros? And why do pros actually make mangonels vs archers?
What a nonsense. At some point you just have to learn how to micro mangonels and you’ll see how devastating they are vs mass archers. And outmicro a mangonel with archers is like a penalty shootout: you have 6 options. 4 of them are right, 2 are wrong. The enemy already shot 4 goals and you have 5 tries. It is possible, but most of it is just luck. Even with cav archers, besides it is much easier with them, it’s mostly luck.
How do you push with archers? Only if the enemy has no defences left. But then its gg anyway.
And much faster with siege, too.
Only becaue the wall nerfs have made it so that early eco now means everything. Since knights come at first in casltle, most of the games are already almost decided at that time, because usually the player with the better early eco made use of it in feudal.
Because of the general delay in the powerspike, cav civs actually need a slight eco bonus. Not because archers would be better, but cav comes later. So being a cav civ without eco hurts even more than an archer civ without, it makes you even more vulnerable early on.
Nevertheless there are several cav civs with only few early bonusses which are strong in arabia: Berbers, Teutons (bonus comes in later), Bulgarians, Magyars.
And meso civs are technically also cav civs, the eagle is just not classified as cav, but it works exactly the same, the counter is just the militia instead of the spear line.
Chinese and Mayans are actually both extremely versatile in arabia, they have also some of the single best early eco bonusses. They can open with archers and then play as cav civ (if needed) with good eco bonus. Since in arabia you often have exposed res it’s just the perfect fit. They have both bad navy and siege, their boom isn’t the best and are therefor not as strong in many other maps.
I am not going to vote, because I honestly do not know if the Serjeant needs a buff in the first place. They are a rather good unit I think: not too powerful, but not too weak either. They are a “mini-Teutonic knight” that can can give infantry a run for their money, and will surprising resist arrow fire like a “mini-Huskarl”.
From what I can find, Serjeants are easily countered by heavy cavalry (Cavalier, Paladins, Boyars, Cousilliers, and melee Elephants) and some unique infantry (Teutonic Knights and Berserks and Druzhina Slavic Champions) but they defeat everything else, including Hand Cannoneers and Conquistadores (unless intense hit-n-run micro is used)
Unfortunately whatever you found is misleading…
For one… Generic militia line beats them cost effectively. Nevermind being able to out spam them aside from 1st crusade.
Intense hit and run on conqs? No. Just average micro and the conqs should win.
What I would change is:
-Reduce gold cost by 5g
-Increase attack by 1
-Increase speed to be the same of samurai
Perhaps lock some of these things could be an additional effect of the first crusade tech. Right now, they are simply a bad unit.
Spanish are a cav civ without an eco and are not the worst performing civ. Conversely Italy and porto have ecos and are stil some of the worst performing. There is no clear cut line.
It is purely the magnitude of the bonuses.
Burmese have better HCA than the one you are suggesting for sicilians, and nobody ever touches the Burmese HCA because it lacks TR.
Like literally almost everything you have said here is pure theory and highly subjective. Nevermind the times you contradict yourself.
Im not a pro and even at my level players will occasionally out micro mangos. Especially single mangos. So that thing about soccer is like wtf?
Yeah that’s not how any ranged unit should be used. It’s the reason why archers should be eating teutonic knights for example… You should always try to move them even if you can’t micro like an ace.
What I found is that generic Champions fail to defeat Serjeants. Not even Pikes of Halberdiers scratch them. Teutonic Champions do a bit better… Slavic Champions (with Druzhina) are fantastic against Serjeants, and defeat them easily.
Surprisingly…I have found that Berserkrgrang Viking Berserks also easily defeat Serjants, thanks to former’s the super-healing.
Mocking me is not going to improve the AoE2 discussion nor contribute to the improvement of the game…you are only stroking your own ego, mate. 
In equal numbers yes, but I seriously doubt that serjeants are cost effective against champions, as they cost 15f 10g more (and are also harder to mass). On the other hand I don’t get why you would try to kill serjeants with pikes or halbs, of course they would get shredded.
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I found that Serjeants are not that hard to mass. They can build donjons wherever, so Serjeants are great for quickly making a push forward. Although I would say that sending some villagers forward as well would still help, cause I’ve often found it beneficial to mix in either pikes or skirms with Serjeants (depending whether you face a cavalry or archer oriented opponent)
I would limit this to donjon and castles.
Both buildings cost stone and both produces sergeants.
However, their castle buildng speed should be slower than villager one (even without sicilian civ bonus)
Allowing them to build only wood buildings can be abused because of the sicilian farm bonus.
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Serjeant being able to build anything besides donjons is an horrible idea. Because unlike a villager, it doesn’t stop building when damaged, which would make a castle built by serjeants even harder to deny than one built by Sicilian villagers. Reducing the building speed woud be pointless because first crusade would provide you with enough serjeants to make up for that.
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I did some further thinking, and elaborating some more my previous ideas:
- Raise the movement speed of serjeants (starting from feudal) to 1.0 (same as samurai). Gives them a bit more mobility and versatility.
-Add +1 damage to the elite upgrade. If you notice, the serjeants have always 1 less damage than the militia line counterpart of the same age, except in imp where they have 11 instead of 12 base damage (comparing to champion here). Given how expensive the elite upgrade is, I think 1 extra point of damage is warranted.
-Add permanent effect to First Crusade: serjeants cost 10f and 5g gold less, a bit like a supplies. Adjust the cost if necessary.
- Optional: if that’s still not enough, add some extra damage against buildings, but it’s probably not needed.
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