I’ve been thinking about the militia line and i’d like to share my opinions
1- Make it as fast as skirmishers (to 0.96 speed), this makes it so you can’t counter man at arms with skirmishers, which i believe the man at arms should counter.
2- Give the militia line a bonus damage against cavarly, this completes the circle of archers beats infantry, infantry beats cavarly and cavarly beats archers, i’d say about +2 on Man at arms, +3 on long swords, +4 two handed, +5 champion (in feudal it should be enough to trade nicely against bloodline scouts).
If this is not enough to make them appealing to deal with spear, skirm combo or knights, then another change could be to make supplies permanent and not an upgrade.
(of course, if any of this would be implemented, one should look out for civ bonuses that makes infantry op, thinking about goths discount, vikings chieftains, celts speed, etc)
All in all, i don’t mind the current state of the game, i’m just a guy who loves infantry, so let me know what you guys think!
I would actually make the Swordsman line 0.97 speed instead of 0.96, so it can slightly outrun archers. This gives it a clear utility in Feudal Age and means it won’t just die to archers.
i would not increase the speed. Thats always the solution to fix a unit: increase the speed. At the end there is only fast running units in the game (overexaggerating) and there is nothing won. There must remain a speed delta.
I would propose to make it cheaper. That would more play into the character of infantry
This wouldn’t change much in that interaction. Archers will still just be retreated to the next nearby garrison building (mostly TCs) and the milita have to abort the charge. And with good micro the outcome will be basically the same as atm even on open field.
What would help in these early interactions with archers is stuff like “shared damage taking” (nearby units of the same type take part of the damage) and/or a slow health regeneration ability which would increase the amount of “damage resistance” of the unit. Meaning it will require more enemy military investment to push the militias away which than allows to tech into the counters (like skirms).
The issue for the line in the early stages i currently see is that after the timing window where they can inflict a lot of damage when the opponent struggles to defend against them they lose their utility very quickly. They usually have a hard time to deal damage to the opponent and they get picked off very easily.
The “power uinits” on the other hand can way more maintain their value.
Too bad there’s no other unit you can make from the same building that excels against cavalry. It would be such a nice addition. It could possibly even be a trash unit basically only with a long pole as weapon…
Too sad we don’t have that in the game already.
Tell me you missunderstood the point of the post without telling me you missunderstood the point of the post, archers should counter infantry, thats ok, my point is militia line should counter skirmishers.
Second point, i know there are counter cavarly, but spearmen only deal damage to cavarly, they can’t raid, they can’t deal damage to buildings and they can kill skirmishers, so militia line being more effective against cavarly should make scouts a little less appealing since they are fast, have more health and almost the same damage, scouts are borderline op on feudal, they only lack range
You won’t achieve this either with such a minor speed boost.
SKirms will also just be retreated towards the TCs and you would be very stupid to try chase them.
One concept I proposed on a different occasion for infantry would be to give them a few javelines they themselves could throw at archer type units (that recharge very slowly). This would make it harder to counter them with only a few archer type units - especially skirms with their terrible damage output.
I don’t say the speed boost would not have an impact but it would be quite mediocre for the cost of “making units more and more similar”. There have to be some slower and some faster units. And i see the current tendecy of just bringing them closer and closer together very critical. The art of designing is to get different units to interact “fair” with each other - and if a unit has a disadvantage like that terribe speed that can and should be compensated with something else.
That’s why you mix them. Look at the Goths comp. Each infantry unit has it’s purpose in that mix.
And it’s also not different to other army comps. When going cav and adding skirms, the skirms are only there to fight against other archer type units, nothing else.
In general Cavalry is pretty OP. At all stages of the game.
What do you think about something like increasing the militia line’s defense as the number of units increases? I mean, the more militia units in a formation, the greater its pierce armor. Do you think this would encourage its use?
Of course, I imagine that alone it might not have much effect, so it would be combined with increased speed, reduced creation cost, and whatever else is deemed necessary afterwards.
Before making such a thing as “snare” I propose to give this a try:
I personally would like if all “slow” melee units would have a speed charge of this kind. Possibly even different, especially in length and boost effect.
You should reduce the cost of militia line by 20%. No other change is needed. Make then throwable. or Create a new unit with 1/3rd the price like a peasant with pitchfork 1/3rd pop cap, 1/5 the strength.
Should Archer line be slower than skirmisher? Gold cavalry is 10% slower than trash cavalry. Gold infantry is 10% slower than trash infantry. But for archers, their speed is equal to skirmisher.
No. Knight wear heavier armor and slower than hussar. Swordsman bearly have heavier armor and slower than spear. (But this is unnecessary) Skirmisher actually have heavier armor than archers but have the same speed.
In stats skirmisher have more armor, but if we are looking unit models skirms only have shield, helmet and probably padded armor or just clothing while crossbow has helmet and cuirass and arbalest have cuirass or half plate with helmet.
