Haven’t laughed this hard in a while. Thanks.
So, new MAA kills a vil in 7 hits, and needs 25 hits from a villager to die?
And champions have 6 melee armor in imp?
3 Likes
i agree with your idea, but your buff is too strong, champion with 80 hp and 12 attack is enough, better than 70 hp and 13 attack. i think squire should give them 10 more hp at the same time.(90 hp champion)
You realize that makes the spearman armor class useless as a trash counter right? Sure skirms would one shot with enough of them but once the gap is closed those skirms are dead. You might lose a few closing the gap but then gg
If I recall correctly Infantry in AoK beta was designed to have a shield wall formation to resist archers and other things
Maybe it would be useful now
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It appears to me that OP is aiming at two things:
- 1 Being able to kill in feudal age
- 2 Having a one unit army while not needing anything else.
Both are not possible the higher you climb up the ladder.
OP probably doen’t realise that the MAA buff alone would give you an equivalent of a light cav worth of stats in feudal age with bonus damage against buildings.
Again, infantry is in a perfect spot and with the upcoming buffs to infantry UU, it is your fault if you still play cav/xbow as an infantry civ
4 Likes
Why we can’t make theoretical assumptions and discussions. Why we must wait effect of recent buffs. you can freely wait effect of recent buff if you want to but you can’t say others must wait and be silence. Recent buff consist of cheap Longsword upgrades and +1 melee armor for LS-THS. New change can’t strengthen LS’s position. It will only nerf Eagle-line because Longsword is created only against Eagle-line. it isn’t necessary to be pro player in order to estimate this. I agree with you about this buffs is so huge that it make Militia-line simply Obuch which is one of the most OP unit in the game. However, your behavior is just condescending and it is like “don’t think just watch” guy. You know purpose of forum is make discussion not saying people to don’t make discussion.
Not only LS also unique infantries are weak (not huge as militia-line but they are still weak) in the game. Solutions for all infantries is that increasing speed of >= 1.0 infantries in order to increase their catching ability and giving PA to slow infantries. I want Longsword turn into resistance to PA, arrow soaker and meat shield like Serjeant but I will decrease their huge 9/12/13 attack in return.
Devs decrease infantry units upgrade costs which boost fast infantry like early Castle or Early Imperial Age infantry rush like gunpowder units. I want give them permanent buff. My proposal is giving +0.05 speed to unique infantries faster or equal to 1.0 like Samurai and Jaguar Warrior 1.05, Berserk and Huskarl 1.1. Giving extra 1 or 2 PA armor to infantries below 1.0 speed. I don’t give Throwing Axeman and Gbeto any buff because they are already very strong. Giving Teutonic Knight -10 food and 1 PA, turning LS/THS/Champion into 2 (+1) /3 (+2) Armor and 7 (-2) /9 (-3) /10 (-3) attack. This change will separate Miltia-line’s role from Unique Infantries. Before that, they had very similar role except Huskarl, Woad Raider, Gbeto.
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You are correct, we can discuss about changes and about how to improve the game.
We do not “must” wait for effect, it is just good practice. Even if you do the math, it is hard to fully understand how much a little change will affect general game balance. And I would not want have the whole broken for a whole patch because of some zealous overtuning. Especially if we aim at a unit without glaring weakness…
Why ? It make them stronger against cavalry and pikes.
Well, it is hard to tell how strong LS are because they are not meta… The developers are no dumb, they try to make a balanced game, and estimate how strong a unit is… in every game. And we all know how frequently some units have been clearly under-tuned or over-tuned.
I do not want that. If I want to catch units, I want cavalry to be the normal option (with exception of eagles and some UU)
I do not want that. I want archers to be the main counter to infantry.
2 Likes
I think this is fair since they don’t get extra MA any more. 750f/350g → 600f/300g would be a good idea.
Excellent way to describe the situation. If Champions get another PA, game balance has to be changed a lot.
3 Likes
Tell me, how can cheaper upgrades and +1 melee armor change gameplay that much? With this change, overwhelming enemy with mass Longsword before enemy mass archers is easier than before. This change only support this tactic. It already passed a long time and Longsword is used as rarely as before like every sane player estimate.
Spear-line die to Longsword without +1 melee armor since 1999 unless you use 1 Longsword vs 10 Pikeman. Longsword is stronger against Knight-line than before but Knight still stomp Longsword. With this change, only +2 attack Burmese Longsword can put up a fight against Knight-line.
I totally disagree. Devs aren’t clever at least if they aren’t dumb. They showed that they aren’t clever by introducing +40/+45 attack Coustillier and Flemish Revolution tech. Whose idea that giving 1.35 speed cavalry to 1 shot a villager ability and hope to it wouldn’t be busted or broken. They nerfed afterwards but Burgundians is still OP civilization. Sicilians was underwhelming when it firstly introduced. They got huge buff and now they are one trick pony. They have best cavalry from early Feudal until very Late Imperial Age but it doesn’t break the game only due to weak eco. However, tech tree says they are infantry civilization. This definition is wrong because Serjeant is only used in late game. Until late game, mostly cavalry and archers is used by Sicilians. Cavalry and infantry civilization is right definition. Tech also say Poles is cavalry civilization but they should add also infantry to definition since Obuch is best infantry unit in the game.
You can don’t want something but you must to explain your point. It is clear that you have no point. I am trying to argue with Longsword is better against Pikeman with recent change guy. I only wrote in order to speak other guys tbh.
I am explaining my point to other guys. Infantry unique units are expensive (50-65 food and 20-35 gold) and they perform very poorly against archers. Berserk, Samurai, Jaguar Warrior all of them die to generic arbalest so easily. Okay, arbalest meant to counter infantries but this countering gap is too much now. For instance, Camels and Pikemen counter Knight but Knight can run away and kill them when it gain number advantage. Camel and pikemen had big disadvantage which they die to everyone other than cavalries. Crossbow is all purpose unit (they work against everything except Skirmisher and Siege) and plus they counter infantries which hurt infantries too much. Most of them perform badly against Cavalries until very late game, too. If they +0.05 speed, they can catch archer at least. Do not worry, 1.05 Samurai and Jaguar Warrior (Jags need additional buff though) wouldn’t counter arbalest. With extra speed, they at least fight back more.
You are wrong again. Slow infantries would still die to archer even with +2 PA because they can’t catch them. I remind that Malians Longsword still die to crossbow. Malians Longsword is stronger than my proposed Longsword but even Malians Longsword is just medium unit. I also want to make Longsword medium unit not OP. Aztecs +4 attack and Burmese +3 attack will be OP I accept this, thus I propose to nerf these bonuses to +3 and +2. Slow speed + low PA infantry is overkill. Devs made this overkill since 1999. Also Crossbow shouldn’t be strong in every field. They are great at villager killings, they even kill Knights and Eagles in large numbers, they are so cheap, easy to replenish, they can kill Mangonels with good micro, their only counter is skirmisher which is weakest unit among trash units. If Longsword gain +2 PA, archer-line get indirectly nerf which they should get.
1 Like
Champion has good attack and Hp for its cheap cost. In fact, it is very good in melee fights. Champion beat Paladin cost efficiently for instance. If Champion-line gain Melee armor, they would be stronger than before in only melee fights. It is still buff but it is mostly nerf against bad archer civilization like Franks, Goths, Bulgarians, Spanish etc. Extra melee only help Champion to counter Hussar and fight better against heavy cavalries and Throwing Axeman. Aztecs, Japanese and Burmese has great melee fighting bonuses (+4 attack, 33% attack, +3 attack) but three of these civs don’t use militia-line still which mean that problem of Champion isn’t melee armor, it is Pierce Armor.
No. it isn’t true in imp. I see Malian champions are excellent in dealing with FU arbs in imp (Not sure in castle age). Arbs can be Okay if you have critical mass already (that is also not the case in some situation such as in Arena boom game), but you likely dead because of higher gold cost and you cannot trade well with gold-efficiently.
If champion-line get extra PA, it will be OP in some situation especially for civs with other bonus already, and break many matchups. Champion-line don’t have trash counter and archer should be leave as effective counter. I think +1MA for champion or adding bonus damage to scout-line (from LS or 2HS) is way to buff.
2 Likes
Did you read my proposal. My proposed LS/THS/Champion has 2/3 Armor and 7/9/10 attack which mean it lacks 1 PA comparing to Malians Champ (has +3 PA in Imperial Age) and 1 attack. My champ take 3 damage (24 hits to kill) from arbalest while Malians get only 2 (35 hits to kill) which 50% less damage. Btw lacking trash counter isn’t that good because trash units is only good against units that they counter. Militia-line is countered by power units which are knight-line and crossbow-line which make militia-line useless until late Imperial Age. If you give militia-line +1 melee armor, champ would be only used in late Imperial Age as before. You changed anything, you make them better against Scout and Knight-line (still isn’t enough). With your change, champions can’t stick their head out from Barrack while enemy has enough gold to create archer and cav archers just like before. If you have good proposal, you should say. +1 melee armor effect very little and it effect when Hussar production started.
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Just because you think something is balanced doesn’t make it so. Remember what you thought about your completely busted gokturks civ? Your swordsman line might not have raw offensive power but they can survive a lot of damage. Especially when coupled with certain civ bonuses and their insane cheap cost and training time
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Hmm, maybe I wasn’t clear. I wouldn’t change anything about current units or armor classes. I’m just picturing a unique unit that uses a spear and shield, armored well enough to be a cross between a Huskarl and a Teutonic Knight, with speed somewhere between. They don’t need great attack or bonus damage (maybe some against cavalry) just a general purpose tanky infantry, but with an achilles heal to Skirmishers or Archers due to the spearman armor class. Of course Hand Cannoneers would also work against them due to the infantry bonus damage, but Castles and melee units would have a hard time killing them.
Provlem is you give them high base pierce armor. Which means only the bonus damage is really going to do anything to them. So sure. With 30 or 40 of them you one or two shot a couple of these uu when closing the gap but even halbs with their low damage laugh at skirms up close.
True, maybe they would need to be pretty slow then, to allow even skirms to hit and run, or just escape behind gates or meat shield.
Well, cheaper upgrades saves resources. So every strategy using LS is buffed. Tech switching is also easier, as you still produce other units during tech switch, and every penny counts.
LS beat pikes harder now, they get 3 damage instead of 4, so die in 20 hits instead of 15. It creates a snowball effect.
The game is not about 1v1. Knights with bloodlines kill a LS in 7 hits instead of 6 now, while LS kill in 18 hits. Since the knight costs 60f/75g and the LS 45f/20g, you can get 2 or 3 LS per knight on the field. And if you are up against knights, you can mix in a few pikes that counter the knigths pretty well without having to research more techs from the forge. Contrary to a knights / e-skirm composition, you do not have to micro much.
So, at least we agree at least that it is not obvious how to balance the game.
I agree that the civ classification is poorly done.
I have some expectations on how the game should be played and how the balance should look like. Just like you do. Just like everyone. There is not much more to justify.
We could redesign the game such that skirms are weak pikemens and LS and strong against cavalry. Because why not. But this is not how the game currently is, and not how people want it to be. The idea itself is not dumb in itself, it is just far from balance expectations…
Some people say the LS should be a tough unit that can go against anything and survive, and some other people say it shuold only be a situational unit against eagles and trash units. These are just 2 points of view.
So a unit with (at least) two counters…
So a unit with (at least) one counter…
Btw, infantry with squires can run away from archers (0.99 vs 0.96) better than archers vs. skirms (0.96 vs 0.96). With squires, the archers cannot outrun infantry, they have to hope to be in high enough number to clearup, since they die in 3 or 4 hits. This for the archer players to lose his time kiting back while the infantry player does something else.
And the dev, as “not clever” as they may be, just acknowledged this fact by buffing the infantry UU in castle age. So they are going in a direction that you should like…
Do you mean “Teutonic knights” only ? Because I think they are the only ones that cannot catch up archers (except if you play POR/KHM/MAG who miss squires…). And as said, if you kite with archers in late game, you are loosing so much everywhere else, to the point it is only worth it if you have to gold left to produce archers and must keep them alive at all cost…
LS have 0.99 speed with squires against 0.96 for crossbow. Yeah corssbow are very strong in castle age because you still do not have so much else to do. But if you throw 4 malians LS (or 2 knights) to 15 crossbows, sure your LS will die, but they save you some time, time you shuold use to make a proper counter.
This does not work against knights if you have a few archers or skirmischers, as they die in 3 or 4 hits and deal next to no damage. You need to either have pikes, or monks, or double the amount of knights in either LS or crossbows…
And I do not see how I am “wrong” wanting to beat infantry by massing archers. I would rather have the archers being weaker against cavalry than weaker against infantry. Nothing wrong in wanting that.
So your point is : “Crossbows are situationally strong against what should be their counter (cavalry/eagles/skirms), so we should make them weak against what they should be strong against”. I do not like this logic…
I do not know whether the archer line should get a nerf, and if so what kind of nerf they would need. But giving more PA to the LS does not sound like a good choice to me…
3 Likes
You mean, decreasing the archer line speed from 0.96 to like 0.86 ?
- -LS have 0.9 without squires and 0.99 with squires
- -skirms have 0.96
Not such a fan, if you really need to nerf archers, I would rather increase the speed of skirms from 0.96 to 1.06 (so that everyone has LIT skirms). But this is already getting away from OP topic abouve buffing the LS line.
The recent +1 MA buff for LS/THS is reasonable. However, +1 PA buff for THS/champions is not reasonable because archer has way lower base atk than cavalry.
Swordsman can take 1 more hit from knights with +1 MA while tank 3-4 more arrows with +1 PA. This seems a nerf to archer civs, most of which is quite underwhelming and already weak to cavalry civs in open maps. With +1 PA swordsmen, archer civs will have more unfavourable matchups.
I agree swordsman can do better against light cavalry. For example, classify eagles and light cav as scout armor class and give LS/THS/champions bonus damage against scout armor class. Champions upgrade can be cheaper.
1 Like
Crossbow can kill 0.99 speed militia-line with shoot and run. Even 1.0 + 10% squires Samurai struggle to chase and kill arbalest, therefore I wanted to give +0.05 speed to fast infantries and give +1/+2 Armor to Militia-line by exchanging lose their high attack (LS/THS/Champion 2/3 armor and 7-(2) /9 (-3) /10 (-3) attack). Of course, Longsword and even Teutonic can run away from Crossbow but they can’t chase and kill Crossbow. They can only repel them with cost of taking casualties.
I made enough explanation for my point. You should read carefully before answering. I am explaining again in summary. Longsword can’t keep 0.9 speed and 1 Pierce Armor at the same time. It is too much a weakness. Either they should get speed buff which I don’t like because it will make militia-line resemble too much to unique infantries (I don’t want same 2 unit, one is in castle and other is in Barrack) which make unique infantry units redundant (Japanese Champion make Samurai redundant for instance). I buffed their PA greatly by sacrificing their melee strength moderately in order to make militia-line viable in every age. Right now, Champion is only very late game unit. Even Goths use Champions only in late game. Only civ that can use militia-line outside dark and early feudal age (famous militia-maa rush) is Malians.
You hope that extra melee armor solve Champion’s problem. In reality, extra melee armor will only help them in late game which already they are good at. Longsword need to gain usage in Castle Age not late Imperial Age (they are already good in late Imperial as I mentioned one sentence earlier).