Improve Teutonic knight speed

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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Example: Mongol’s don’t get FU HCA. So the Mangudai are the obvious choice - they’re better. If you had the choice between Saracen HCA and current Mangudai all things considered, it might be a harder decision because the UU isn’t as unique.

In the case of the Mongols, thier CA aren’t the best choice because they miss Ring Archer Armor. The Mangudai are balanced around this, so they’re the obvious choice.

In the case of the Teutons, they have FU Champions. If you have FU Champion, they’re supposed to have a use for that civ. Teutonic Knights, then, shouldn’t step on that use, because the civ is balanced around that. They should provide a unique use. Look at Leitis, for example. Look at Konniks. Look at Kipchaks. Look at Chu Ko Nu. Even Longbowman.

They’re all VERY unique, and have significant trade-offs when compared to the other unit options.

You brought it down to this question: “Now why shouldn’t the Teuton militia-line be underused in favor of making their UU better?” I have a counter-question: "Why can’t the Teuton militia-line keep its purpose while still making their UU better?*

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Mongols missing last archer armor upgrade is balanced by the fact that they fire a lot faster than anyone else. Both the HCA and Mangudai are missing that last upgrade so that is not an argument at all since it is not creating any distinction between those units. If only the HCA was missing them but the mangudai wouldn’t, you could actually use that as an argument. Now it serves no purpose at all in this discussion.

Well the balance can be changed away from that then, if that’s so terrible to you. :smiley: The most important thing is, that the UU has a use. It doesn’t matter if a generic unit gets stepped on, if it does then it does. What of it? Magyars also have their UU that makes hussars obsolete, they are FU too. What’s their use over the Huszars, other than monk killers? Which really is a moot point tbh. You should be making Huszars since the cost is the same and it’s just the better unit.

The Chu Ko Nu is a unit that before Kipchak had no unit alike. Yes, some unique units are more unique than others. How unique is longbowman truly though? It can outrange keeps and castles. Other than that, the arbalest is pretty much the same unit when you are playing as britons.

The point is, it is not a necessity to preserve champions usefulness, if you can, great, but if not, it’s not a loss. Having a UU that is useless, is a loss. You can play those generic units on most other civs, losing them for Teutons is as meaningless as losing them for mayans. It’s not such a bad thing if Teutons only had champions as a backup plan for a time when you just can’t get a castle and their UU out. You tried to get a castle up but it get rekt. You don’t have stone to get another, let’s go for champs instead. There, it has it’s use. Completely legit. That the cool thing about generic units, they are bred inside trees, not rocks, so if your masterplan fails, you can still use the inferior unit. And with a +1 armor, boy what a backup plan do you have. This is miles better than introducing tower building knights, when knights aren’t even supposed to be doing any labour at all.

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Actually, Knights built loads of fortifications themselves while on the Crusades. There were hundreds of towers and castles built on the way to Jerusalem! So it’s perfectly historically accurate.

If all you’re doing is replacing one unit with another, they might as well not bother. What’s the point? The objective has never been just ‘having a UU that people build’.

I still fail to see your rationale behind wanting a unit that’s just a slightly superior champion. What’s the point? After all, Mangudai’s main benefit is their siege bonus. That makes them play far differently from CAs, even if all their other stats were identical.

With your suggestion, you’d end up with tankier champions vs functionally identical faster Teutonic Knights, and their gameplay wouldn’t change whatsoever.

Why? Just to watch the capes swish?

Unique Units are supposed to provide a unique feature to their civ, not be a boring reskin of a unit they already have.

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Actually that is the minimum objective that needs to be achieved.

TK isn’t supposed to be “slightly” superior. More like light cav vs knight.

If they are useful but the gameplay stays the same, what’s the issue? Why do you insist the gameplay needs to change completely? TK is providing a unique feature. 10 base melee armor. That’s about it. Pretty cool huh. ;o

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Because if nothing changes, then your work isn’t necessary. For example, imagine if the devs added a unit for all civs that was exactly like Arbalests except with one more damage. Does that change the game? No, it just means Arbs are never going to be built, and these new units will be made instead. The game has remained identical, just the names changed.

That was a waste of the devs time, time they could spend on actually making the game more interesting.

This is all a bit irrelevant the more I think about it. The only difference it would make is that Teutonic Knights will be better at countering Champions, a unit that no sane person would send against Teutonic Knights in the first place. They’ll be no better against Paladins, as they’ll still outrun them, just like they outrun champions. They’ll be no better against archers, as they’ll still be countered by them, just as they counter Champions. Moreso, to be honest; despite their better pierce armor, their much increased cost means in terms of cost effectiveness, TKs are substantially worse than Champions in that matchup even if they had identical speed.

So really, what does it achieve? Nobody builds Teutonic Champions anyway. Giving them a slightly better version of the Champion isn’t going to improve the civ in any meaningful way, and I honestly doubt it would lead to Teutonic Knights being built more.

Of course, it would make them completely and obscenely overpowered in Death Matches, but…meh.

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But I don’t feel that the game is not interesting. It is. Just needs to be balanced. TK is interesting, just needs to be useful.

I’ve suggested TK would get a slight movement speed bonus and perhaps to accompany that, 1 pierce armor for the elite. That could be a start and see where that leads us. These buffs would just make the TK to better force a fight, while they are rolling towards the enemy with halbs and their siege backing it up. You need to get to the siege and you can’t waste all day trying to whittle the TK down from afar, nor can you completely maneuver through them to the siege. And if siege is not a factor, eventually you will have to fight the TK if the archers are taking too long due to the 1 extra pierce armor, so its either you let them in your base or fight them. :man_shrugging: Sure villagers might run away from them but their survivability would ensure that if you don’t try to fight them proper, you need to relocate that base now. This is how I envision the TK to be. And in no way do I feel this is uninteresting.

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Certainly the experience beats everyone’s opinion in this matter, the guy suggesting tk building towers probably has only SP experience and is not even used to the competitive scene.

All balance has to be according the competitive scene, because that is how you reach the limitations of each civ in real games.

Teutons are a generic trush civ in feudal, good economy but into nothing decent, slow paladins that can barely escape from halbs, their towers reaching imperial are nothing compared to the korean, britons or japanese towers, range owns all.

If they can’t trush they can’t win, unless there is a big skill difference or bad luck from the opponent, their UU is just a beautiful icon, their army composition depends 100% on gold units, their trash is bad due the lack of bracer, they don’t have husbandry and light cavalry, they don’t even have Siege RAM which could help them in trash wars.

Everything they have in practice is countered really easy, that is why they are the least used civ even less than Saracens, the lack of husbandry hurts them pretty bad in team games where they should be a top civ because of their economic bonus.

Teutons do not only need a small boost for the TK they also need an upgrade on their tec tree, bracer could be great for them but it will be lame for their current tower bonus, i will be ok if they give them husbandry and siege ram, that could change things, or give them bracer but change their tower tech, and remove one range from crenelations.

As for the balance of the ETK, if they don’t want to mess with the speed, then increase their attack and reduce their gold cost, their 6 pierce armor is tricky they even lose to castle age xbows, so giving more wouldn’t change anything.

But the civ really needs something to be competitive, the farms discount and the +1 armor to militia line was something to calm the waters so they could say they have listened the community by giving that to teutons, but in practice it did nothing.

They now should be afraid of boosting more aok civs, because of what happened to persians, so i think we wont see a decent change to teutons in years.

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That’s provably wrong, actually. Teutons at 2000+ ELO had over 50% win rate in the midgame, and on average they won 48.5% of the time. In fact, they won much more in the midgame(~53%) than they did via trushing, which even with their bonuses only won approximately 48% of the time. And with their recent buffs, that should be slightly higher, and even if that’s just by 1%, that puts them essentially at 50% Win Rate, which is ideal.

Compare that to actual bad civs like pre-buff Khmer, which had ~35% win rate.

Why, exactly, do you think the TKs are necessary in this situation?

Siege counters infantry extremely well, and Halbs counter Cav extremely well. When you have a force of onagers and halbs, your only weakness is against other ranged attacks, like BBCs or other Onagers. Try to send infantry against massed siege and all you’ll do is waste gold.

So why are the TKs there? They’re not doing anything other than costing you gold to sit there and look fancy. Putting TKs around siege is a complete waste of resources.

Even if you gave TKs .15 more speed(I’d call that about 3x of a ‘slight’ movement speed bonus), they would still be ineffective against archers, because of their increased gold cost.

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The thing you’re failing to consider is that Champions serve one purpose; they counter Trash. The enemy builds trash, and you can make Champions to counter their trash and force them into a gold-based counter-unit like archers or HCs. But even in the best of situations, if you’re not goths, you’re not going to make Champions the majority of your army. They exist to push your enemy out of their gold-free units and then they go away again.

But because TKs require far more investment for functionally the same results(For equal gold, champions have 40% more health and 55% more damage), without being buffed massively, they will not ever be a cost effective choice in this scenario. This is especially the case for Teutons, whose Champions are even stronger than average.

So even with a massive increase in speed, they won’t be viable outside their niche, and due to the nature of that niche, they’ll just end up costing you more gold in the long run.

A smaller buff, even with bonus pierce armor, will do nothing whatsoever.

To achieve the results you want, they would need to be so powerful as to be virtually unstoppable. If they’re not countered by archers, they’re fast enough they’re basically immune to monks, and they’re still invulnerable to melee damage, what’s left? Massed siege? To counter a single unit? That’s incredibly overpowered.

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Good arguments, not going to lie. The Magyar Huszar is a clear example of a UU that handedly replaces the standard unit. I can’t think of a single time the Hussar would be better because the whole identity of the unit is a better Hussar.

The question is: do we want that with the Teutonic Knight? If so, then we can go from there.

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Explain woad raiders, berserks, samurai and jaguar warrior and the existence of FU champions in these civs’ tree. All 4 of these units are a much better version of champions, yet champs are used over them in most games

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It is a gimmick since it needs you to garrison infantry, while their ungarrisoned towers are weaker due to lacking bracer. Demiser is playing a fantasy game, since games don’t play out like this tower stalemate, it’s a bad joke that wastes stone. Towers can’t help you push, it’s something that can be easily treb down. 4-5 additional towers are not making your opponent squeal “■■■■, I can’t push this impenetrable fortress”. Buying stone is even more worthless since you’re draining gold with a civ with one of the worst trash lines

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Berserks have health regen, Woad Raiders are extremely fast, Samurai are far better against Unique Units, and Jaguar Warriors are far better against infantry. Each has their own specific niche they fit into. When outside that niche, you don’t build the unique unit.

As for towers; actually, towers are quite resistant to trebs, being small enough they are missed fairly often. That said, the objective is not to be an unkillable unstoppable strategy, but rather to be a tool in the player’s arsenal. A Teuton Tower garrisoned with infantry hits almost as hard as a castle for a fraction the cost, while healing the units inside at the same time and protecting them from archers. Only an idiot would build five towers in the same place. Instead, you build a tower on the enemy’s gold, a tower on their stone, a tower on their wood line, a tower on their trade, etc, and seize map control while simultaneously creating safe zones for your troops to retreat and regroup.

If your enemy is forced to use siege to take them down, then the strategy is working exactly as intended; you’re dictating your opponent’s strategy while preventing them from using their desired counters to your units.

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They have these extra feats but they’re also objectively a better unit statwise than a champion, does it make champion useless? If TK is made actually useful and balanced cost wise and training time, it will not invalidate the champion, since its still the cheaper unit and is produced from barracks that can be easily placed anywhere on the map

Instead, you build a tower on the enemy’s gold, a tower on their stone, a tower on their wood line, a tower on their trade, etc

What is this? Feudal strats in imperial? there’s a reason trush doesn’t work after feudal, castles, siege, more military presence, actual pressure on you. Your strat also implies that you’re ahead of your enemy but its not usually the case because Teutons lack mobility of other civs, you’re assuming your opponent is braindead.

working as in doing little damage while you throw away precious stone on mediocre buildings

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Towers give you map control and protection, two things that Teutons most desperately need to counter their greatest weaknesses; archers and speed. Teutons have always had significant bonuses to their towers, but up until now they’ve simply lacked the means to actually use them.

And because Teutonic Knights are substantially more tanky than Villagers, it takes an equivalently larger and more aggressive response to stop it from happening. This is why the idea works so well, it’s not just an aggressive tower, it’s an aggressive tower being built by the equivalent of four times as many villagers as you have Teutonic Knights(or more like 20x against melee units). Building a tower with 5 villagers is easily stopped, but building with 20? That’s normally reserved for a desperate defense, but the Teutons could do it as a matter of course, heal up afterwards, and then be highly effective defensively once recovered. It takes every aspect and puts it on steroids.

That’s why it works, and why only Teutonic Knights can effectively make it function.

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I am afraid guys we need to put all the ideas into live game to see how each proposal works in reality. Otherwise you will argue here until the end of the world :slight_smile:

Nevertheless, something must be done with Teutons and it must be a big change.

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I think there’re only 2 options for the tk to be viable: either they gain a little speed, somehow, becoming a good tanky unit, slow but usable, or their gain a lot of speed (let’s say something similar to a champion) and they become quite more expensive, and became something similar to a war elephant.

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So, a lot of stuff has been said about how to make teutons viable again. Most of us agree on two things: They’re boring, and TK are to slow to be useful. At the same time, some of their bonuses seems useless. So, after thinking, about it, came with this wacky amout of ideas, that gives them a make over, and keep their identity at the same time. First, let’s take a look at the bonuses they have, currently:

Civilization bonuses

Monks have double healing range.
Towers garrison twice as many units.
Murder Holes and Herbal Medicine are free.
Farms are 40% cheaper.
Barracks units receive +1/+0 armor once the Castle Age is reached.
Town Centers can garrison +10 units.

Team bonus: Units resist conversion.

Unique units
Teutonic Knight (heavily armored and powerful but slow infantry)

Unique technologies
Ironclad (siege weapons +4 armor)
Crenellations (Castles +3 range; garrisoned infantry fires arrows)

So, let’s start

Free murder holes are gone. Sometimes murder holes it’s useful, but all in all we can get rid of it. Towers no longer garrison twice as much units. They’re enough and betters civs to go for a tower rush. Insted of that, we gonna give them something that may seem useless at first, but will sinergize good with our final idea: Siege Tower garrison twice as many units, and cost no gold.
Next, we gonna get rid of free herbal medicine (who would think about it ?), and instead , gonna give another bonus to the siege tower: Units garrison in siege units regenerate (rate similar to a regular tower). This is affected by herbal medicine.
Next, we give TK a speed boost: +5% per relic colected (max 3 relics) OR being affected by fervor (I preffer thefirst option tought)
Last, Crenellations affects siege towers.

So, this would by the result:

Civilization bonuses

Monks have double healing range.
Siege towers garrison twice as many units, and cost no gold.
Units garrison in siege units regenerate.
Farms are 40% cheaper.
Barracks units receive +1/+0 armor once the Castle Age is reached.
Town Centers can garrison +10 units.
Team bonus: Units resist conversion.

Unique units

Teutonic Knight (heavily armored and powerful but slow infantry, that gains speed by colecting relics)

Unique technologies
Ironclad (siege weapons +4 armor)
Crenellations (Castles +3 range; infantry garrisoned in Castles, Towers and siege towers fires arrows)

What’s the final result: now the teutons can rely on siege towers to move their slow units. At the same time, siege towers have more armor (due to Ironclad), and can deal with archers (ST shouldn’ tdo that much damage, but it will help Teutons lack of responses agains archers). At the same time, TK could defend ST from melee attacks. Also, TK gets faster, but not That much, just fast enough for being viable.

So, what doyou think? I now I’m changing a LOT of stuff, but let’s be honets, Teutons have a lot of bonuses because they keep adding thinks cause noone knows what to do about them

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Honestly, the second part of this hasn’t really been agreed on yet. Earlier in this thread people realized that even if you do buff their speed, they still won’t be useful outside of their niche, and their higher cost would make them less preferable to champions even if they outperformed them, since Champions already carry out their anti-trash role more than well enough.

Or in other words, buffing their speed might make them an alternative to champions, but their higher price(and relative inferiority against archers) would still keep them from being used to fill that niche.

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So most of the rest of your suggestions kinda fall apart.

Bonus speed from relics is, again, not gonna make them useful outside their niche or viable inside it. As well as being a blatant expy of the Bulgarians.

Healing inside Siege isn’t going to be any more relevant than healing inside buildings, since you usually use siege to get to fights, not to leave. If you’re at the point of needing to run away, the siege is gonna die anyway.

And increasing the garrison room on Siege Towers also doesn’t particularly help, certainly not enough to be a fully listed bonus. After all, all you need is a single siege tower to ferry your entire army across their wall.

And in exchange you removed Murder Holes, a very nice bonus to have even if it’s one most players don’t get, Herbal Medicine(which, while rarely used, is at least funny), as well as removing the entirety of their Trushing potential via removing their tower garrison bonus.

Frankly, I don’t like any of it. I don’t think it would make the civ better, and in fact I think it would make it quite a bit worse.

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Lithuanians

Really useful

Well, your TKS get out of the siege to defend it. Then get back in the ram/tower and keep moving forward

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I was merely using the siege as a means to quarantee the TK eventually gets to the enemy base and the enemy has to try to engage them.

Champions have basically 3 jobs, counter trash, counter certain gold units like the samurai (which is a matchup where they outperform the TK), eagles etc. and are a pretty good unit against buildings.

This is all good math, but if you are comparing health you cannot forget armor at all. TK is superior in both armor classes to champs, so in any possible scenario that exists, armor makes that health more valuable for the TK so the difference will be less than the 40% you described, especially on any melee fight aside from samurai. Kudos on the damage calculation, on that you made a more accurate assumption and seem to have taken into account that in many scenarios blacksmith upgrades end up being just a +1 to damage output instead of a +4. However, again this is not taking into account the inherent armor of any units, but even at best, aside from Boyar and the TK itself it would only come down to 50% more damage. But then again, population efficiency must also be taken into account.

They would still be countered by archers, just not by so much. HC would obviously still be as good a counter as before, since its attack is already so high that -1 means very little to it, unlike in the case of arbalests. Chu ko nu also would probably not be too much affected by this, which is a good thing since chinese don’t get the HC. Now arguing that it does nothing, is simply not true. It gives them more survivability but still not too much. If a unit survives longer in the battlefield, it has meaning.