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?
Most civs don’t get Gambesons including Goth, Maya, and Inca.
And the Archer line will be still rather good against Swordsmen in realistic scenarios, where the Swordsmen can not chase the Archers forever without any defensive buidlings or choke points.
Huskarls will still be much better than any other Infantry against archers, especially better than Goth Champions who can not get more than 3 pierce armor.
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.
Well you can’t use the dead archers either. On an open field this kind of fight is better for the Infantry, because only the Archer player has to spend time for the micro. 1 minute of microing to barely win? The problem for the infantry is rather a castle behind the archers.
I think is good that meta tends to make mixing armies necessary.
In the case of archers I find it specially logic, you shouldn’t deploy archers alone, even against infantry.
And now, with the pikeman upgrade buff I think knights will go in a similar path.
Ornlu hardly maintained proper distance vs infantry. That is true for Cav Archer and other tests even. I mean Ornlu is hardly a micro guy. In campaign relies on spamming and responses to attack pretty late than a pro player or others who are good with micro will do. Even so infantry barely made it out. In real game situation Archer will hardly engage in that open field. Even vs Knights or any other units.
Yea but the point of a counter unit is you’re not supposed to have S tier micro to be able to use them. 99% of the player base won’t have better micro that that and we are not balancing civs based on Viper’s abilities.
Ah yes you are right, I forgot Goths don’t get it.
Yea but this makes them way too vulnerable in open field. Although that may be by design. Maybe the devs want to completely need archer play in open fields and relegate them to being a defensive unit. If that is the intention I don’t mind seeing how it plays out.
Hmmm that could be a positive I guess, but it remains to be seen how it will play out. The main issue with mixed armies in AOE has always been that multiple units are expensive to tech into so most compositions focus on 1 unit type then a counter to whatever your enemy makes if necessary. I’m worried this change will just make so that people don’t bother with archers at all and just tech into infantry and spam that and so your just replacing one monolithic army type with another rather than encouraging mixing units.
I never said any of that was needed.
Those are the potential units that would make sense to potentially give the same treatment as a way of balancing them.
Shrivamsha Riders got their cost increased and their rate of fire reduced in the last PUP for example. They could have given them this new weakness instead.
Ghulam and Huskalrs are in some ways similar to Eagle Warriors, especially the Ghulam.
So giving them the “Shock Trooper” armour class could be something worth considering if those units (or the civilisations that can train them) need to be balanced again.
Hussars are often used in combination with Cavalry Archers that do +6 against Halberdiers when fully upgraded.
Champion + Skirmisher could become a good way of dealing with this combination when Champions have +1 Pierce armour on top of bonus damage against Hussars.
Xbow or knight? Just like they don’t have any direct trash counter, they don’t have any good trash partner either. Originally ES wanted them to be paired with your xbow/knight army. So another gold unit is probably your best choice.
Yes, you have a good point. This is why i proposed a barrack’s rework adding two generic units with different support roles:
Light Infantry Line: Cheap and fast infantry. Resistent to arrows. Strong vs siege and soft counter archers. Weak vs everything Else. A barracks’ light cavalry replace, a kind of eagle warrior lite. Good for mixing with other mounted units against pikes or skirms.
Shieldman Line: Slow and tanky infantry. Good melee armor, but weak attack. Strong vs Infantry. Weak vs everything else. The generic infantry counter, good for mixing with ranged units, specially against infantry.
This way, you always have a trash support alternative from barracks, more accesible easier to tech into and mix with your gold unit.
This is the link to the post, if you feel curious about it: Soft Barracks Rework
This is untrue. Archers still do fine vs swordsman, they just don’t bully them as much as before.
You now need a bit of attention or proper numbers, similar to how crossbows fight against knights, with the difference that to get militia going you need to invest into this tech which is not cheap, and is not available to everyone
If PA would completely counter crossbows, then Archer civs should hard-die to serjeants no? Since they have 3 base PA in Castle…instead this is not happening, because speed and micro is a factor, and they get killer no problem, just not as fast
Which means that a infantry player, if they really want to go for LS in Castle Age, have to pair them with skirms, which is an expensive transition ti get ES upgrade, build ranges, and get at least some Archer upgrades
I don’t see this working really. Xbows and Knights already have their “ideal” trash partners in pikes and skirms. Imo the militia line would actually in most cases just a “downgrade” that costs additional gold.
In theory it might now be better against both full trash and full gold combos, but with using the gold units advantages in range and speed I don’t see this working against double gold (except against eagles with later addition of xbows).
And I made a topic discussing how a new Gold Infantry could be designed.
For me it’s pretty obvious that’s the best if we would just add another Infantry unit that just “fits” better into how the game is currently played. Cause the current ones have still their place and trying to “fi” them will most definitely just make them broken on other ends whilst the desired effects most likely won’t be achieved.
But ok, let’s see what will happen with Gampesons. At least we need to give it a try. I just doubt it will “fix” it atm.
That is exactly the problem. They are becoming more like knights and that is NOT a good thing. Xbows’ performance against infantry shouldn’t be “similar” to how they perform against knights…
I feel like, this is going to break the counter system as more players end up throwing more infantry into the mix which only encourages the opponent to add infantry as the best way to deal with it, which will just mean any civ that doesn’t get top tier infantry is now at a disadvantage.
This was not what we were asking for when we said “make infantry more useful”
oh nono, i merely sayd that, just like against knights, you now need to put a bit of brain and strategy in how and when and where to fight infantry instead of just steamrolling them. nowhere i sayd it’s the same thing
Are you sure you are talking Archers and not Militia-line. Squires researches at the Barracks.
Then we could say goodbye to the Parthian tactics as a whole or make it as Persian UT. We can also make Gambesons to be a universal thing, like we did with Galleys, Demolitionships and Fireships. Just one button and everything is upgraded. I mean, making Gambesons for Archers, Barracks and Stables.
Personally, I was leaning towards separating Supplies and Gambesons.
I also would rather have Gambesons for Britons, Chinese, Mongols and Tatars rather then Aztecs.
Speak for yourself, because this is exactly what I wanted from infantry.
I’d like to add a trash melee counter for militia line (which I explained above).
Yea and what I am saying is that THAT is a problem. You shouldn’t have to micro manage archers to this extent to get value out of them against infantry. Against knights its understandable since they are not supposed to counter knights. They are supposed to counter infantry on the other hand. Now people will just make infantry against infantry and we might start to see archer use fall off.
why not? swordsman cost more, and basically the same even after supplies. are much harder to get value from, while crossbows while in numbers can literally win games. no one ever tapped out while seeing 10 longswords sneaking into his base, while if there are 10 crossbows…
imho you are overreacting to a change that would merely make players be more careful around infantry, and yes, archers should be microed always, not just against knights, and infantry should be no exception.
now if this tech proves to be problematic, it can always become more expensive in the future to compensate