Obviously not as much as spearman-line. But what would you think of skirmishers doing bonus damage to cavalry? From what I understand, javelins were pretty damaging to cavalry units in real life. In fact, javelins hurt like hell. It’s a throwing spear, that’s going to do some damage.
I understand this could break the game. And cavalry may need to be even stronger to off-set the new bonus. But what do you think?
Edit: This is just a hypothetical discussion.
I think this is an awful idea and cavalry already have a trash counter, and skirms do bonus damage to two types of units as is and don’t need more bonus damage.
I just making this thread as a thought experiment. Hypothetical discussion.
Lithuanians, Aztecs and Vietnamese would be the new Indians, and completely destroy all Cavalry in the game.
I would prefer giving longswordman a little bonus against scout line.
Dont forget koreans if they receive the leaked bonus, together their wood discount.
Not really, at the end of the day, Koreans would just have FU Skirms, and like FU Camels are still not enough to completely neutralize a dedicated Cavalry civ, I think FU Skirms would not be either, even if they had a reasonable bonus vs Cavalry.
Unfortunately i dont think those work here…
As you can see everyone just exaggerates your idea into absurdity and burns it down…
A minor bonus damage of like 1 could work. But what’s the point? The trash units are specifically uber weak against everything except what they’re meant to counter.
By keeping them role specific you increase the reward for paying gold for the other units…
Its almost like a unit that costs a very paltry 25 food, and 35 wood, shouldn’t be able to beat pretty much every unit in the game except the swordsman line in cost effectiveness.
if they got bonus damage vs cavalry units they will become effective vs cavalry, archers, cavalry archers, and the spear line. leaving their only clear cut weakness as swordsman, infantry unique units, and eagles.
we aren’t exaggerating. they have a very slow attack, that means if you give them a small bonus damage, it kind of just says “what’s the point of giving them bonus damage”. if you make it bigger then a small bonus, skirms become a cheap counter to almost every unit type in the game.
What if Archers did bonus damage to Skirmishes?
What if Knights did bonus damage to Camels?
What if Pikemen did bonus damage Swordsmen?
Short answer: It’s a step into the direction of ruining the counter system for absolutely no reason.
Historical perspective that would make no sense if anything skirmishers would always be nice prey for cavalry because they can’t outrun them like they can heavy infantry.
Agree in imperial. But in feudal age their skirms would be able to support their lancers effectively against scout rush civs .
Same with byzantines. Other archer civs would find this interesting. But not scout rush civs
I think feudal scouts are fine for the moment, so the proposed buff is not needed
They would be behind spearmen. But the javelins would do serious damage to horses if hit by them.
Koreans do not have Lancers.
Having skirmishers deal bonus damage to scouts or Knights sounds like a terrible idea. Scouts and Knights are the natural counter units to skirmishers.
There is quite a bit to be said in favour of bonus damage against elephants just from the realism perspective, and it would be nice to keep in mind if we ever get an elephant rework.
I’ve suggested bonus damage against camels as a thought experiment [[balance idea] make camels strong vs archers, weak vs skirms] but we couldn’t find any way of doing it that seemed like a good idea. There would be problems with Indians bring unable to counter knight-skirm, and if camels get a compensatory but there would be trouble in team games.
He meant spears when he said Lancers
Sorry, i meant spears (in spanish, we use “lancero” as both spearman or lancer".
Which means skirmishers own their own doesn’t stand a chance.
Oh really?? Sure looks like it…
But OP burnt himself proving he did want the exaggerated view point… Which is just absurd…
Dude… No… Wtf… You know javelins (pilums) were excellent anti infantry weapons as well… So with that logic skirms should do bonus damage to literally everything except rams. They should even do bonus damage to buildings since pre-chemistry javelins should do much more damage than a flimsy arrow
I gave you the benefit of the doubt 
you deserve the responses you get now…
Imo Total war still has one of the most realistic counter systems /unit purposes, and javs do bonus damage to eles afaik. So could work. But with yet another ele counter imo they would need to buff eles even further…
If anything it’s already absurd how many things do bonus damage to camels for no reason(refer to total war counters here)
But if you’re in the boat that camels should be purely defensive(which i think is wrong) then i guess it makes sense.
Because im guessing mat will say something since i mentioned camels… Eagles only have 1 hard counter and are extremely generalist units with massive civ bonuses and a big part of the reason mesos are so strong (maya) and are only hard countered by a slow, tech intensive, G O L D counter. As apposed to other power units.
Conversely and irrationally camels are also a gold unit limited to certain civs yet literally only one purpose and countered by hordes of units/buildings, and they don’t even do that job that well (ie if even moderately outnumbered they can easily get rekt) . In a similar manner to eagles, camels could be buffed accordingly to become slightly more generalist/less fragile. (aka counters could do less damage to them etc)
Our caveman ancestors took down Woolly Mammoths with javelins. Which are basically throwing spears. Human are smaller targets than horses or elephants.