They are. The biggest issue for archer play one 1v1 is the higgh gold cost. At some point you just can’t replace them anymore. These Skirms you could replace forever and you even can pair them with various Gold units (you could even add knights to snie enemy siege…
Yes the skirms fire slower than archers but they also cost a bit less ressources, it’s even easier to get to the “critical mass” with them. Though it may be harder to micro them cause of the slower attack and minimum range, but with some meatshield you can actually micro dowm most melee targets. The only “threat” would come from paladin and siege, both of which cost a lot of gold. The other remaining option for the opponent would only be to make mass skirms himself which would actually have a disadvantage of 1 damage per shot in castle age and 2 damage per shot in imp. So it would only be possible to come out on top with way higher production.
The result would be a trash unit that is almost as good as it’s gold counterpart but can’t even be countered by the intended trash counter… That’s just a really bad idea
Give this civ in the hand of viper and he will be basically unbeatable with it.
(I don’t say that the civ would be OP on lower parts of the ladder, but for sure for the top dogs, as they exactly know how to cover the few remaining strategic weaknesses reading the opponents game. (imo the best gameplan would be to try get 1 TC less than the opoonent, try to get some map control and then transition to a faster imp that gives their skirms basically the same powerspike as it does for arb civs currently. The only way for the opponnent to counter this would be going also to imp and then full skirm play, trying to outnumber. Then the vlachs would just add siege - and in a fight skirm + siege the vlachs player would just have the upper hand cause his skirms are just so much stronger. He would just outgrind the opponents production. And if the opponent goes 1 TC all-in you can just go full turtle mode with that civ - if you are not a terrible defender you should always come on top here with skirm+siege behind walls defence.)
Persian xbows have 5+3 atk in imp, these skirms would have 3+7. Yes they fire slower, but that only means that these skirms would be so much more effecive against all units with 2+4 to 4+4 pierce armor. Which are the ones which actually are the only useful and to all civs available against skirms. (even siege onagers and houfnice have this amount of armor). But the biggest difference is in the play against cavalry. Cause these skirms can actually shred FU cav in imp (with some meatshield) - kamandaran archers can’t on an open field.
BTW Kamandaran is very expensive tech to get in castle age. I’ve hardly seen it there, let alone working. It’s basically as costly as szlachta privileges (considering the eco of poles even more costly actually) but has way less effect in overall cost and the scaling of the affected units is even worse.
Nevertheless Kamandaran is one of the most impactful trash war techs cause it allows their trash backline to have about 3x the dps against hussars. These here suggested skirms would have 4x the dps but even less weaknesses as they aren’t countered by the opponent’s backline.
These skirms would just build a huge ball with only a few other units as meatshield so the minimum range doesn’t comes into play. And it would be almost impossible to stop that ball
The idea is basically equivalent in like giving sicilians hussar, farimba and the turks +1 PA.
One of ot would already be strong, but all three together are just OP as hell.
Now you are exagerating. Sure, the bonus is ridiculously powerful and the civ should be missing either bracer or get the bonus an age later, but compared to Karamandan they are only substancially better against 7 pierce armour units since Kamarandan archers fire practically twice as fast.
ofc it’s more complcated… there are some things to keep in mind.
Against 6 pa units I agreee it’s basically the same, but a small difference is there also as the skirms with +7 atk could build smaller balls while remaining effective in comparison to the trashbows. The trashbows on the other hand could be more effective in bigger balls ( the problem for trashbows is then the higher pa targets, but i will come to this later.
Against 7 pa targets (mostly paladin actually) I see a clear edge for the skirms +7.
Then we come to the 8 PA targets which are mostly either siege or skirms. Against siege dealing 2 instead of 1 damage is way stronger than rof actually. Against skirms the +7 skirms actually have an insane advantage over the trashbows. They actually can beat most other skirms in the game, whilst the trashbows get shredded.
And that’s the biggest difference imo, that the +7 skirms are way stronger against the counter units the trashbows struggle against.
You maybe don’t wanna fight siege with them in the midgame (that’s why you want to add your own siege or monks, maybe even some cavalry), but in the trashwars you possibly could risk losing some of your skirms as you can so easily replace them in comparison to the enemy siege that costs a lot of gold to make.
Imo +7 atk elite skirms basically have no reasonable common counter in the very lategame. That’s not an exaggeration.
And even in castle age with only a few pikes as meatshield only siege remains as an option.
Even with +3 in imperial. You can always take advantage of the fact that Skirmishers have a minimum range and are overall weaker than Archers.
You can beat a Skirmisher + Halberdier army with infantry. Or infantry + archers provided archers stay far away from Skirmishers. And you can do massive damage to Skirmishers with Paladins if you manage to avoid or engage the Halberdiers with other units.
And Onagers.
If you get into trash wars, the Vlachs are clearly going to have an advantage, but that is true for any civ that is good late game.
Not to mention, just like the Franks. 90% of players assume you are going to do a knight rush and they will be prepared to counter that. The same will be true for Vlachs.
A good unit, to be sure, but OP? not at all.
It’s a very interesting roaster to have essentially: Trash unit skirmisher anti-archer but also decent against anything else, not archer level but not bad either. Semi-slav infantry that deals damage to nearby units (I still don’t think Champions should be banned because of this, the author said he wants the player to use the castle units but I can think of stiuations where the default champion would be more useful and a knight line with +1 damage but -2 pierce armor late game and -10% cost making them especially useful but also especially vulnerable to archers, which is the one think the skirmisher counters.
Making for an interesting battle army where you have to flank without being flaned, which is very historical given that Vlach often relied on tactics to beat more powerful armies like the Ottomans. Protecting your cavalry from archers while trying to kill the archers with your powerful skirmishers.
