Gambeson may look huge buff to infantry on paper but again I don’t think it’ll matter too much.
- Teutonic Knight got +2 pierce armor but again they just hard die to Archer. Same is true with Sicilians Serjeant.
- They will be slightly better at raiding but that itself won’t hold too much due to how low HP they got.
- Gambeson should do Parthian Tactics like treatment. Beside buffing the Pierce Armor. They should recieve +2 Cavalry armor. This won’t change the result vs Knights. However they’ll perform a lot better vs Camels and Hussar. Also surviving a hit earlier and making Knights lose more health thanks to higher survivality will improve the unit.
- Also Supplies and Gambeson is making UU infantry obsolete. They should effect UU Infantries somehow
10 Likes
If you manage to mix Gambesons Longswords with Elite Skirmisher it is win combo
Knights will just murder the combo without a sweat. Even mixing few skirms can take pikes out mixed with M@A.
5 Likes
I doubt it too… honestly, I expected much more
2 Likes
TBH i don’t know what I would pair the LS even really.
They have no “real” weakness (except the mobility) anymore.
But they also have no strength.
Any ideas what could “pair” well with those?
I would wait a bit to see what the meta will tell to judge, but the only thing we can safely say it’s true it’s point 4 of your list.
Infantry UU is gradually less appealing, and just as squires affect them, gamberson and supplies should affect them too in some way. Maybe gamberson could affect UU plain and simple, while supplies could give -5 F for UUs
I think you are partially correct, but only partially.
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Teutonic Knights are slow and expensive, it is an unfair comparison. Serjeants and Obuch are actually decent, as long as you can produce a number so large that you force an engagement. For Longswordmen, and a fortiori Champions, the capacity to mass-produce is there, ### ## ##### #### before late Castle, with solid eco.
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You also have to look at the pairing of long swordmen with e.g. Skirmishers, Pikemen, or Siege. This is where they may be quite promising. But for which exact purpose?
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If you can just pressure the opponent’s base, swordsmen are actually good at forcing an engagement. They have high DPS while not being hard countered by anything except knights and archers. Being more resilient to one of the two is important.
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But… FU upgraded Castle Age, it would take 20 crossbowmen arrows to kill them instead of 15. FU Imperial, 18 Arbalesters arrows instead of 14. Against Skirmishers though, Gambesons makes Swordsmen die in 60/70 arrows (CA/IA, from 30/35 without the tech). So it makes them a lot better at what they are already good at. Now a player with Archers could mix in Swordsmen in an engagement versus Archers/Skirms with a meat shield would provide a tankier unit. There are situations that should be Light Cav or Pikemen, but depending, it could work.
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Swordsmen shred Trash units, but also Eagles and Camels, as long as they can force the engagement. Perhaps an additional effect this tech should have would be to make sure they indeed beat Hussars effectively, and attack versus Camels would not hurt either. However, their clearest counter should still be Knights.
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We should also consider that this tech is mostly suppose to push infantry civilisations to go down that path more often, so boni come at play. They also don’t always have the options for e.g. cavalry.
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I agree about Infantry UU.
In summary, I agree it won’t make them reliable in all cases, especially against Knights, but it would play a role in some decisive matchups, and in combination with some units.
I agree on you. Gamberson only solve their archer problem but they need something vs cav. +1 ap for ls, +2 for ths, +3 ap for champion vs cavs can help them i think.
I ran few tests myself with vs in editor. Yes they’ll probably die later from archers but yet again you can just out micro them. Archer after all is faster. Also if you engage Knights at wrong number then its pretty much gg. Knights can run away and Archer can just make a chokepoint to their advantage but infantry?
Serjeant got an advantage primarily due to Donjon making which can help them into running back to safety. First Crusade tech with free Serjeants makes it a considerable option. Teutonic Knights are faster nowadays more than Serjeant. Just slightly slower than M@A line. But they still die fast even after 2 pierce armor
Teching into swordsman is still a problem. There are 2 techs specifically for M@A. No other units in the game got similar issue. Rather got overlap with Cav Archer and Stable/Archery Range.
they dont necessarily need attack power against cavs. Rather a survivality. Getting +2 armor against Cav can make them kill Camels without a sweat and finally being able to do cost effective counter against Hussar. Hussar is unironically more strong with cost and attack power vs m@a. M@A low HP makes it weak vs Hussar.
By calculating this is what you get vs Camel and Hussar.
Hussar and Camel does 7 damage to Champs. Champs got 2 melee+2 cav armor=4 armor. 7-4=3 is huge
I also do not expect Gambeson to fix anything. But I Swordsmen should do better against light cavalry line from castle age onwards. Get bonus damage against hussar such that winged hussar is no longer able to defeat swordsmen.
WR, samurai, Condos, JW can get +1PA as well at least for imperial age. Just like infantry UU got +1MA after buff on longswordsman.
Globally, we should wait and see…
I feel lile Gambesons may be a bit pricy though for its current effect, at least for Castle Age play.
Extra attack against light cavalry is fine, but that would require to create a new armour class.
As for infantry UU, I giess there are two schools of thought: either let them benefit from Gambesons, or buff the base stats, or make them cheaper. I would advocate to make them a bit cheaper: comparing a Samurai to a FU Japanese Champion is panful on cost and ‘spammability’. And to also let them double down on what they should do (more attack vs Infantry or Cavalry for Jaguar, more pierce armour or HP for Woad, more melee armour or attack for Samurai).
2 Likes
Knights are not a hard counter to LS, they trade evenly resource-wise.
1 Like
Small changes to cheap units have a huge effect.
Sure, the militia line isn’t really cheap to tech into, given the long line of techs involved, but for civilizations that get help in shortcutting the procedure a bit, one extra pierce can be really meaningful for a unit that’s readily spammable. I think this was a safe change to make, and I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see it have an impact in some specific matchups.
3 Likes
If you watch some of the games being played with the patch you can find weird strategies with the civs that got something. It’s hilarious
IMO Jaguar Warrior could be used if the late meta turns more to Infantry line but could be too late to make the change if you are playing Eagles/Archers, you may used your own Champion
Yes I agree it won’t matter to most of the civs and civ matchups. For a few civs like Malay, Bulgarians, Slavs, Vikings, Celts it could be a slightly more feasible mid game option.
Yes, either that or their base cost or speed.
Overall its a step in the right direction even if it might not be sufficient to make them a part of the meta for most civs.
1 Like
Just give it the Eagle Warrior armour class with enough resistance that they only take bonus damage from the Militia Line that does a lot more bonus damage against it then any other Infantry.
If the Scout line had +1/+2/+3 Eagle Warrior Armour then the Militia Line would to 1/4/5 bonus damage against them in Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age.
The only other unit that would do bonus damage would be the Teutonic Knight, which doesn’t really make a difference though.
All other none Elite UUs only have +2 and Elite +3 against Eagle Warrior or less.
That armour class could also be added with similar resistances to units like the Ghulam and Huskarls for consistency so they take a little bonus damage from the Militia Line.
The armour class would be renamed to Shock Trooper.
3 Likes
I wonder if Gambeson would be better a 2nd squires.
Move squires to feudal age and Gambeson in castle age.
- Teutonic Knight got +2 pierce armor but again they just hard die to Archer. Same is true with Sicilians Serjeant.
Malian Man at arms in Feudal age feel good for me against archers because of +1 pierce armor. So I think its a good change. It is also not supposed to remove Crossbows as counter for infantry. It is not supposed to turn the game on its head. It is just supposed to make Infantry a bit better.
- Gambeson should do Parthian Tactics like treatment. Beside buffing the Pierce Armor. They should recieve +2 Cavalry armor. This won’t change the result vs Knights. However they’ll perform a lot better vs Camels and Hussar. Also surviving a hit earlier and making Knights lose more health thanks to higher survivality will improve the unit.
Knights cost more gold than food, so that is better for the mid game. Champions cost more food than gold, that is better for the late game. The units have just different timings imo.
- Also Supplies and Gambeson is making UU infantry obsolete. They should effect UU Infantries somehow
It is the problem of the UUs. It does not make sense to make them just better Swordsmen, because that makes Swordsmen obsolet. UU should have something special like Samurai bonus damage against UUs, or TKs tons of armor. So rather increase the speed of Woad Raiders etc. but the stats should not be just like a better champion.