That unit already exists in the game. It is called “Serjeant”.
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Similar, but Serjeants are not good against Cavalry. I feel like their high cost is caused by the building towers gimmick, and the fact that you can use First Crusade for an instant army. Serjeants are strong against Skirmishers, but die to Knights or Cavaliers, this unit would be the opposite. Basically a super Halberdier, but unlike Kamayuks or Flemish Militia it would have the spearman armor class. With one obvious weakness to trash, it could have many strengths and fairly low cost without being overpowered.
Maybe the Centurion from AoE1 would be a good comparison? I’m not sure since I have not played that game much. I’m also not sure which civilizations were known for heavily armored spearmen in the middle ages, it may or may not fit with any future civs.
Excuse sir…
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I think Serjeants just don’t have enough HP for their cost.
And Sicilians lack a strong ranged support unit. Hevy armored infantry without a good support is just weird.
But I think the Obuch is actually already a step in the right direction.
Optimally I would like to see a “elite” infantry unit that also comes with accordingly high cost (comparable to camels or knights, but with a slghtly lower gold ratio), a viable trash counter and some micro potential.
I just had the Idea that the heavy inf unit could have the “monk” classification. This would lead to interesting counter scenarios as the unit would be countered by scouts, eagles, Cav Archers and Siege while being about equally matched with the other gold units.
Their bonus could be to share 50 % of all taken damage with all other heavy infantry and a slow health regeneration of 10 HP / Minute.
Then it would be revarding to pull back all damaged units and safe them from dying. If you manage this, you could slowly get the military advantage with several engagements and preserving the numbers. (Similarly of how cav archers work but as a slow frontline unit instead of a fast backline unit - you slowly get the military advantage by preserving the numbers of your valueable units).
I have currently no other idea how to make infantry more micro revarding, which would be needed for any kind of “viable” power unit among all elos.
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After reading everyone’s comment (and thinking further about my buff suggestion), I suppose certain buffs are perhaps a bit too powerful. So taking into account of everyone’s suggestion, I have modified my buff ideas to the following:
Man-at-Arms: 45 HP, 6 Attack, 1 (+1) Normal Armor, 1 Pierce Armor
Longswordsman: 60 HP, 10 (+1) Attack, 1 Normal Armor, 2 (+1) Pierce Armor
Two Handed Swordsman: 70 (+10) HP, 12 Attack, 1 Normal Armor, 2 (+1) Pierce Armor
Champion: 80 (+10) HP, 13 Attack, 2 (+1) Normal Armor, 2 (+1) Pierce Armor
Note that with regards to applying the buff in stages, it would be preferred to implement the pierce armor improvement first. Afterwards, if the militia line are considered not too strong, then we can start with the longswords attack boost, followed by the HP boost. Again, I know that certain civ bonuses need to be adjusted so that they do not become overpowered. This can be done once we have determined the stats of the generic swordsman.
Some common gameplay scenarios to address, to show that the upgrades are not overpowered. For the sake of arguments, I have considered an opponent that heavily focuses on using the militia line:
- Early Feudal Pressure:
To reduce the snowball effect of early man-at-arms aggression, man-at-arms now only has 1 normal armor. During early Feudal attack, if you use an archery civ, nothing changes, as archers can kill them just as fast. If you play a cavalry civ, and hate the idea of spending money on archers during Feudal, you could go defensive man-at-arms + transition into scouts (with priority on bloodline).
Note that while man-at-arms only take 2/3 (2/3.5) the time to create when compared to scouts (archers), in early Feudal, food production (with farming economy not yet setup and villager production also needing food) will be the limiting factor in man-at-arms production. So opponent man-at-arms really shouldn’t be outnumbering your troops too much at this stage of the game.
-
Late Feudal Push:
With 1 normal armor, the fight between man-at-arms and scouts are surprisingly close, with man-at-arms only winning 1-5 HP remaining depending on who strikes first (tested in Castle with Teuton man-arms vs Chinese scouts). While man-at-arms have no trash counters, unless you go full spears+skirms, they shouldn’t be too difficult to take down.
If you want to play with mainly scouts, try to focus on a single straggling man-at-arms at the beginning of a fight, and refuse bad engagements. You should also raid the enemy’s economy (scouts are faster than man-at-arms), as after supplies, they could out produce you on a 3:2 basis if they have a full economy. If you spot that the opponent starts walling off large sections of their base to deter raids, then you should consider either transitioning to Castle age, or start mixing your own man-at-arms (upgrade probably done during the early Feudal) into your raids. Your man-at-arms don’t need to beat theirs, but to break down palisades/houses for your scouts. And unless your opponent is the Celts, they can’t really catch up to your man-at-arms. If the enemy mix in their own spears with man-at-arms, then you should really consider mixing in your own archers/skirms (but then this is the standard response even in the current state of the game). -
Early Castle Age:
There are three scenarios.
A. The first is a transition from another unit into longswords. In this case, the longswords need to be created from scratch, and is definitely not overpowered with the armor buffs. By the time the enemy has done the necessary upgrade and started their longsword production, you should also have crossbows/knights production running.
B. The second scenario is that you are in Castle and your opponent is still in Feudal. This should only happen if you feel that you have sufficiently crippled their economy or managed to wipe out enough of their man-at-arms army prior to age advancement. The main idea here is to setup knight(preferred)/cavalry-archer(preferred)/crossbow/longswords production ASAP, as the opponent is effectively on a timer.
C. The third case is that both you and the opponent have a massed army upon reaching Castle age (perhaps a passive Feudal game). If you have massed up archers, you should upgrade crossbow ASAP. If you have massed up scouts, you should upgrade to light cavalry then follow with knight production (for pop efficiency). And yes, even with the +1 attack, bloodlined knights still beat longswords pop effectively (I tested this with burmese longwords, which has a +2 attack, against Chinese knights). While knights may not cost effectively beat longswords (it is a very close fight in my tests), knights are much more versatile, as they can raid, retreat, chase down stragglers, etc.
(Note that if your opponent is in Castle with a sizeable longswords army, but your are still in Feudal and have no response army, then you probably lost. And this is fair, as this means that your opponent has a significantly better economy over you.) -
Late Castle Age:
By this time, the food situation should be stabilized, while gold exhaustion is still a non-issue (unless you are getting raided on your gold site). You would also have a castle, if you choose to. This is when longswords are the weakest, as longswords die to arrow fire and any gold costing units. If your opponent still uses mostly longswords, it is probably for one of two reasons:
A. Your defense is bad (Goths, Aztecs, …, cannot wall everywhere) and that a group of longswords is a faster building buster than a siege ram or mangonel. This is the envisioned usage of longswords in late Castle. The pierce armor buff is to make sure that they actually survive long enough against archers/castles/TCs (they still do die though, as does the current Malian longswords) while attacking their targets. The attack buff is to make sure that when the longswords group scatters or bumps into one another when engaging with a smaller group of knights, they can still come out cost efficiently.
B. The opponent is preparing to do a “two-handed sword flood” and transitioning to Imperial. If that is the case, you should attack your opponent with whatever gold-costing unit of your choice. If he just sunk 800 gold and have mostly longswordsman, you can probably do a lot of damage. -
Early Imperial:
By this time, the opponent probably has the two-handed swordsman upgrade (I believe it is the cheapest unit upgrade in Imperial). However, crossbows should still be able to kill them relatively easily (from 20 to 24 shots). Knights are still pop effective, although you should refuse straight 2-vs-1 fights now. However, once arbelest or cavalier are researched, then two handed swordsman is again relegated to a easily massable (and killable) damage dealer. Again, the buff here is only so that two-handed swordsman lives long enough to do actual damage, and not actually beat knights or archers man-for-man. -
Late Imperial:
By this time, champions should mainly be relegated to spawn busting, shielding archers or siege, targeted building buster, otherwise arbalest can beat champions when massed, and cavalier/paladin can be beat them pop effectively. And hand cannoneer probably have a purpose now (a tougher champion means that hand cannoneer is more necessary, rather than an indirect crossbow replacement).
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Serjeant fulfill the description you gave on your 2nd comment that I quoted. Yes, it does not fulfill your 1st description where you basically asked for a tanky Flemish Militia but vulnerable to archer and skirms.
They 45-65-85 HP which is higher than all infantry UU but TK and Obuch. (and they also cost more than all the infantry uu expept TK). How much more HP you want?
I like the proposal overall between the attack and the HP increase but I dislike the increase in the PA
Militia line should be “weak” versus archers (IMO it is right now)
Another thing that could work is a small bonus damage against cavalry (like someone proposed), maybe start with the LS +1, THS +2, and Champion +3; but I would wait to see how the last changes shift the infantry in general
Sure. Give them a bonus against cavalry. Then give them a trash weakness because otherwise cav civs will be grossly disadvantaged against them. Especially since you can start making them in dark age and knights don’t hit the field until castle. Infantry already trades cost effectively with knights. And that’s judt generic. Not counting militia with bonuses. And then you give them an attack bonus? How would a civ like Spanish handle them in early castle age?
Viper posted a YouTube video yesterday about a game from one month ago titled “(New) Longswords Are Viable !” with Viper as Bulgarians vs. Hera as Khmer. It shows excellently that full Long Swords are not good vs. Knights, however; Long Swords + a few Pikes is now a legit counter to Knights. With Arson + Chain Mail Armor + numbers giving an infantry army the ability to snipe TC’s better than Celt Mangonels. Slow mobility matters less as well when the infantry player has a enough numbers to have 2 - 3 armies hitting many areas at the same time.
Infantry still dies hard to Archers and Scorpions. But that’s okay. I feel the combat triangle of Infantry > Cavalry > Archers > Infantry is fully realized with the new infantry buffs! And doubly so with the many UU infantry buffs coming next patch!
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Really? Which changes are coming? 
Longswords HAVE to be worse then kts and xbow, because they have no such hard counter.
If they were so strong a game would be over once a player gets a lead in feudal age. Then she could just make longswords which would be very safe to not throw
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