More accurately run away a bit better than they do now.
Problem is primarily with low HP. You run out of 70 HP pretty soon compared to other units before making a proper hit. You survived a fight but you lose significant amount of HP to re-engage in another fight in future.
This… is so underrated. Everyone forgets that Sword line is just not trash killer. It also kills light infantry (eagle, ghulam, Karambits), camels, and buildings.
This is just in theory, in practice all these units except skirms and habs outrun militia line. Unless there is a straight up fight, militia dont counter hussars or UU infantry faster than them. This is why gamesons will likely not be a significant in boosting use of militia line. Just add additional speed in militia once the hit caslte age, like scouts gain spped in feudal.
this is a very good suggestion
Yep I thought giving extra pierce armor to infantry line is a terrible idea. What’s the point of just trying to make infantry more like knights by just making them more survivable? They are still not going to be as good as knights in their speed and survivability so any civ that can make knights will just continue to do so, not to mention in castle age you get a unit (knight) outta the gate that is already better without any upgrades.
Infantry need a complete redesign, their own purpose on the battlefield. They just don’t serve any purpose at the moment. They need their own identity.
Here are some random ideas:
Square formation when used in conjunction with guard should center the selected unit without need for micro.
Imho scout-line should get Eagle classe armor and just +2 armor period. This way they would not take bonus in feudal, but in Castle and Imperial yes, but no scaling for the armor.
Make them affected by gamberson is the easyest router but giving that UU are so diverse it could cause problems as well or not change anithing. The individual approach is the best, and imho devs should look into each weakish infantry UU being Samurai, Jaguars, Serjeants, Woads, maybe i forget others.
Not all of these are equally weak. Some like serjeants just need to be cheaper, some, like woads or samurai, need to better represent a role or fill a niche
Scout rushes are pretty strong. Giving MAA +1 attack against Scouts might be a good idea.
For Hussars, year maybe +2 armour is enough. Then they would take +1 damage from a bunch of Infantry UUs but that’s probably not a big deal, the +6 from Two Handed Swordsman and Champions is a lot more.
Magyar and Winged Hussars could have +3 armour though.
Other potential units:
They would get a little stat buff in return though depending on how much Eagle Warrior armour they get.
Just some thoughts.
Maybe it could be a nice idea to add a “Heavy Infantry” armour class too in the future.
That would be used for the Militia Line and all the heavy and slow UUs like Teutonic Knights, Dismounted Konnik, Serjeant, Obuch or Flemish Militia.
This way you could prevent those units from becoming to powerful in some matchups by giving certain civilisations something that has bonus damage against them.
serjeants hardly would be a problem in any given matchup as they are just tanky champions with very weak damage. they would be strong if sicilians had a way to deal damage with them, like Obuch + Skirms composition, but as they are now, they are just slow to die and slow to kill anithing
It’s hard, even with Malians, to keep infantry as core part of the army in feudal age.
You have to hit hard in early feudal, killing 1-2 vills or denying gold mines. If not, the game becomes hard even if you full upgrade your militia.
Simply, archers will chase and kill you, or will attack your economy and it’s hard to keep them away: creating more m@a or skirmishers will affect your castle age time. And you have to reach castle age before your opponent if you want to mass enough infantry to deal with archer and start a counter-attack.
In castle age Malians are far better vs archers, but it’ because thei gain another +1PA bonus.
Even then, massed archers will be a trouble so you have to attack and deny gold before it happens.
+1 PA is not a game changer, it could help but in the middle/late game.
Like I said in the other topic, Militia line needs a way to be competitive in late feudal age:
In castle age Malians are far better vs archers, but it’ because thei gain another +1PA bonus.
Even then, massed archers will be a trouble so you have to attack and deny gold before it happens.
But Crossbows get also +1 attack. With even upgrades the ARcher line does alsways 2 damage against Malian Militia line. Longswordsmen have more HP, but in Castle age I think the fact that Crosbows can be massed more than in Feudal makes it a bit more difficult for the Malian militia-line. For me it feels like that fighting Mailian Man at arms requires too much micro.
Imo what is somewhat of a problem for infantry is that people advance to Feudal age too fast. Militia is the only military option ind Dark age, but it is just over very quickly. If you could make more militia in dark age, upgardes would make more sense in Feudal, and with the upgrades making more Man at arms would also make more sense in Feudal.
Militia do not have bonus damage against Standard buildings at the moment, while the upgardes have +2/+3+4/+4. It would make sense to give them at least +1 against standard buidlings. Also supplies is a bit costly, it doesn’t really pay off in feudal age itself, it is more like a tech for the late game. Imo it would make sense to lower the food cost of Supplies, so the the option would be basically a choice between saving gold (if you don’t reasearch it) or food (if you research it).
This is too easy to abuse, you can basically then have an endless supply swordsmen without ever paying any gold, as each dead one will pay for the next one in line. And by late game food is not really an issue, so this would essentially make it a free unit and for civs that get very good infantry this is clearly broken.
Makes absolutely no sense. Why would adding armor add speed? If anything the more heavily armored the unit, the slower it should technically become.
Maybe all gold return is too much. Half cost could work.
The name is the less important thing here. Name it as you like. The point is buff the militia speed for late game dude…
It’s not a “fun” game mechanic.
It doesn’t feel good to use that feature. They removed that from Saracen Monks for a reason.
Gambeson is a good start and on right direction. If further buff needed, we can discuss. Remember infantry-line will never be as good as archer-line or knight-line until it gets a trash counter.
I’m assuming you meant +2 attack bonus vs cavalry?
As someone else mentioned, its not a fun game mecahnic and I’d have to agree. Just make them cheaper and be done with it.
Even so, infantry already get one tech that gives them a speed boost, now you want to add another on top? I mean how fast do you want them to get? They can’t possibly be as fast as mounted units, they have to be fairly slow for them to feel like “infantry”.
As I said, I don’t think tweaking infantry attack/armor/speed stats is going to cut it. They need a purpose in the game and they don’t currently have one. Giving them more armor and more speed and more attack and all thsoe things is just an attempt to turn them into a knight which they are not.
Definitely wasn’t my first choice, and it makes some infantry UUs more awkward, and with less room to improve them without mimicking the Gambesons change. That said, I don’t see them rolling it back, so best to find ways to make it work rather than pretend it didn’t happen.
This is more along the lines of what I’d have done. Doubling down on accessibility via lower Training/Upgrade Times, locked behind existing techs if needed.
Why is any of this needed. Pikes for the cav units, and all of the specialist infantry here are already countered well enough by generic infantry, heavy cav, or anti-infantry units. Ghilman and Huskarls are strong within their anti-archer roles, while faring poorly vs. most melee units already. I get the allure of an expanded “Shock Trooper” armor class, I just don’t find it necessary here.
In general I understand why people propose making swordsmen better vs scout-line specifically, but I don’t actually think it’s very useful. It’s a buff if you’re mono-comping champions for some reason, but its already easy enough to mix in some pikes for a similar effect. We’re already going to see that Gambesons will improve a Champ/Halb composition vs. Hussar/Skirm.
IMO the mechanic is fine (not for champs ofc), and could be reintroduced as a (free) bonus for monks, siege, or some other generally low-volume unit. The Madrasah tech was bad because it required a high investment (including a Castle) that interfered with the timing of an effective Smush and didn’t net you any kind of advantage that wasn’t negated by the loss of momentum you’d sustain in losing enough monks to make the tech “worth it.” Rather than a “Win-more” tech, it was “Lose-less,” in theory, but the cost/timing made it useless for all intents and purposes.
The more I look into these last changes the more I dislike them. Watching Ornlu’s videos on YT its clear that archers now cannot be relied upon to defeat infantry. This is just too much of a nerf to archers IMO. What is the role of the archer line now if they can’t kill infantry? Just to kill spear line? That is too expensive for that role.
And now it’s also clear all the previously anti-archer infantry units are now just completely useless. Why make huskarls or eagles when you can just make swordsmen?
And now even steppe lancers have more pierce armor. I mean what posessed the devs to just slap on more pierce armor on top of everything? Now none of the steppe lancer civs will ever need to make knights. I think the only logical thing to do would be to make the steppe lancer a complete replacement for knight line for those civs that get it.
Ornlu didn’t do a proper micro tbh. Engaged Archers from very close range but yet amount of damage infantry took is still too much. You can’t use them for future fights after taking that much of damage.