I guess it’s less weird when you look at how they perform at different stages of the game.
In early and mid game it’s easily the best counter unit as it is basically a two in one counter. Besides archers it counters spears. And since archer spear is quite common for a lot of non-cav civs this one unit counters the whole comp these civs would naturally play.
However in late game it’s probably the worst of the common units as you stop microing down single units at this point and your skirms just shoot at the melee meatshield next to them. So if you make skirms vs someone who plays hussar and has gold ranged units behind skirm is usually a losing option.
So yeah skirms are kinda both the best and the worst generic unit in the game, just not within the same frame.
so i guess many are in favor of some sort of tweak/minor buff/ change to the skirmisher in a imperial age fashion, so at least it was not a crazy idea by my part ahaha
maybe we could make a list of possible changes to this unit, or potential final updrage in IMP age, that we would like to see. if it’s true that there is a new DLC in the future, it could be a perfect (and maybe even last…) chance
Besides, if imp skirm becomes a generic unit for some civs, vietnamese should receive a new team bonus
yeah i sayd that also. my proposal was to make a unique skirmisher buff, so that a vietnamese player and its team could still feel a skirmisher theme, or the vietnamene imperial skirmisher could be reworked entirely into something a bit bifferent, so that a vietnamene player could chose between an imperial updraged skirmisher, or the unique unit. it’s just a minor inconvenience tough, and i think that the benefit for the whole game would justify a little tweak to a single faction for the sake of the entire game
I wouldn’t give Imp Skirm to all civs, but it would certainly be nice to see it given to more than just Vietnamese. Rattans do everything Skirms can do, but better, countering enemy archers and spears, while also moving faster, killing villagers, and surviving defensive building fire.
I’ve suggested making it a regional unit for the SEA civs before, Burmese could certainly use it to counter archers, and both Malay and Khmer would benefit from a trash unit that can protect their elephants from mass spears. Maybe also extend it to Indians, since their Imperial Age units are poor overall. I would not give Imp Skirm to Persians, because they already have a unique way to protect their war elephants, Kamandaran crossbows.
I’m certainly open to other civs gaining this upgrade. Which ones would be fitting? More Asian civs like Chinese and Japanese? Or are thete other civs that die to archers? Maybe Incas, since they rely on Skirmishers a lot without Light Cav, and do not have great Skirm bonuses like Aztecs and Mayans.
well i think the “fitting” civ would be something outside only historical/logical arguments, but more related to balance. but i do not think a imperial update for a trash unit would make a balanced civ OP by itself, so it’s not like we are playing with fire here
imho an upgraded variant should be more effective against spears, to function in trash fights as an actual counter to halders. so maybe the imperial update could add something like bonus speed (+5%?), +5 HP, +1 melee armor, and +2 hidden bonus vs spears, or no armor increase and more HP bonus (+ 10 HP total?). that way, the skirm is more resilient to halberd when reaching to them giving them a chance to return to safety and shot, while not impacting archers a lot, who would still avoid skirm like the plague anyway.
The only real thing that I would consider doing to the Elite Skirmisher would be to give them a very low bonus damage against Bombard Cannons. That in itself would greatly raise the unit’s value, and force very different gameplay. It might be too much.
I’d personally like to make skirmishers melee attack barracks units as well as to give them an imperial age upgrade.
Genitours would be a stable unit rather than an archery range unit.
Skirms would become effected by melee attack and defense infantry upgrades, and genitours would be effected by regular melee type cavalry upgrades.
They would be unaffected by the cavalry archer class.
(Genitours would no longer be part of the cavalry archer class.)
And they would both be uneffected by ballistics and thumb ring respectively.
I believe the shared units can be useful, but such civs should have two team bonuses.
For instance:
Vietnamese - Imperial Skirmisher upgrade available in the Imperial Age and gain +2/2 armor. something along those lines, or something to make the team units more efficient in trade cart heavy gold unit games without making them overpowered in 1 vs 1.
Come on, you made tons of post to say skirms are bad but now you want them to not get ballistics?
With an imperial age upgrade and their attack to be switched to melee(helps even further against archers) yes. This would also make rattan archers mainly anti archer archers while becoming more susceptible to skirmishers which will in turn attack their melee armor rather than the pierce armor, this would also possibly help vs huskarls, but wouldn’t likely still be made against them, since skirmishers would then be used mainly by melee type civs anyways.
Archer civs should have the option of skirmishers, but obviously, not all archer civs should have the fully upgraded counter to their own archers, much like how infantry civs currently tend to not have fully upgraded counters to archer civs that archer civs instead have…
Let’s reverse that, shall we?
@CactusSteak2171
Most infantry civs don’t have counters or not fully upgraded counters in any case to their own infantry, (and most of those cost gold)it should be the same for archer civs in terms of their archers either lacking full blacksmith upgrades or for that matter the castle age or the imperial age skirmisher upgrades respectively.
With skirmishers being effected by infantry upgrades they will be faster than most foot-archers which will also offset the need for thumb ring or ballistics or the extra range from archer upgrades for that matter.