I know. Maybe next patch, right?
Eh, Iâm not surprised. Most discussion took place midway into this patchâs development cycle, not exactly time to even test basic changes.
And seeing as increasing their movement speed is completely ridiculous/out of the picture, and most other suggestions are more complicated, I could easily see internal testing taking place even past the next patch before we see anything.
I was expecting atleast something for TKs too.
I doubt it wonât happen though, because its obvious that TKs are underpowered overall.
Until they do have a buff, how about trying Teutonic Knights against civs that lack Arbalester and good Heavy Cavalry Archers? Hand Cannoneers should be a tolerable fight, because the Teutonâs economy ought to make it very easy to mix in Elite Skirmisher, and Hand Cannoneers are an obvious counter-pick for civs without Arbalester and good Heavy Cavalry Archers thatâs easy to see coming.
And supposing a civ with a weaker Archer and Cavalry Archer line tries those lines anyway, Teutonic Elite Skirmishers can still take okay fights by only lacking Bracer and Thumb Ring.
Lacking those two is pretty harsh. Teuton Elite Skirms are outranged AND you need 25% more of them to have equal DPS to even FU E Skirms, let alone ones with actual bonuses.
For example, say you try ETKs against the Indians, with their Hand Cannons and Camels. The Skirms will be obliterated by the HCs due to the massive range difference, and the TKs will follow quickly after.
That said, Skirms are probably the best unit to combo with TKs, so you do have a point there. The question is, at that point, why bother with the TKs? They donât offer anything that other units canât do better. IE, Halbs and Siege will both kill cavalry and kill buildings much more effectively. And Knights, even without husbandry, will kill infantry and villagers more effectively.
Then how about giving Teutonic Knights an indirect buff against archers by buffing Teutonic Skirmishers with Bracer? Just make Crenellations -1 range and cost a bit less. Bracer would also be an indirect buff to Crenellations infantry arrow damage. Could make Keeps more appealing too for a civ with so many fortification bonuses they probably should have FU towers anyway. And for a lack of Dry Dock and Shipwright, I donât think Bracer would mess with the Teutonic navy either. Neither would it be too big of a buff for post-Imperial trash fights, because Teutons still only get Scout Cavalry without Husbandry.
This thread is too long to read it all, but Iâll throw in my 2 cents based on some ideas I spotted.
First of all, Teutons are designed as defensive and deathball civ (slow UU, paladin without husbandry, SO, BBC, BBT, HC, no light cav and bad archers). Itâs the typical medieval European civ that builds strong castles (crennelations, garrisoned infantry fire arrows) and have deadly melee armies. Pros wont like slower civs in general, thatâs something that will not change and I think we have to come to agreement with this. With the same reasoning people could ask to remove black forest entirely because pros never play it, I think we all agree that that is a stupid idea. Letâs make Teutons viable enough to be enjoyed by a majority of players, just as with black forest, without taking away their identity.
Making Teutons better doesnât necessarily mean making their UU much better, there are more ways. I agree that halb+SO is probably a more useful composition in a lot of cases than TK+SO, but in a late game with enough gold (by lots of trade) you could as well make TK+SO since the speed of the siege already restricts the movement speed of your deathball composition, you make better use of pop space and the TK survives longer and counters things that halbs+SO might have trouble with (eagles, shotels, karambits, cataphracts, and if enough can close in then also champions, samurai, jaguar warrior).
Therefore, ideas I donât like:
- TK as fast as champions: this is against the idea of the unit and the civ and quickly makes them OP.
- TK cannot be converted: not really needed because you make more of them in general than with elephants, so a few individual conversions are less of a problem. No need for another peculiar exception in the game. They already made Teutons more resistant to conversion, youâre better off tweaking the strength of that bonus if needed.
- TK extra pierce armor: they are designed around insanely high melee armor, they are meant to be countered by archers. Having 2+4 pierce armor and 100 HP is already exceptionally high for a unit that is supposed to be countered by archers, this is probably done to offset their low speed.
- TK building towers or walls: again I think this exception to normal game mechanics is unnecessary. If you have many TKs in the middle of the enemy base then your death ball has reached its destination and you just wipe the floor with the enemy base.
- Giving Teutons bracer: they donât have this because they are not an archer civ. Adding this tech makes you need to nerf several other things to compensate, which makes everything more complicated.
Ideas I like:
- Make TK a bit cheaper
- Reduced cost and/or research time for upgrades on the mangonel-line (as counter to archers). This is only a buff in imperial age, but it is only in imperial age that their archers, skirms and towers etc. fall behind due to lack of upgrades.
The trouble is, the Teuton civ as a whole is already quite balanced. Pretty much everything supports this, their win rate, pros agree as well, theyâre not a broken civ, theyâre just slow and boring.
So anything that buffs the civ as a whole is out. Their main problems are a bad UU and being boring.
As a quick summary of their flaws as a unit: Theyâre too slow to engage enemies and not tanky enough to handle their counters. Their âresistanceâ to conversion in being a cheaper unit is actually far more of a weakness, as archers can quickly cost you gold and weaken your army where an equal cost army of elephants would remain at full strength for far longer(theyâre not especially more population efficient than, say, Paladins). They canât force engagements and donât do anything other units canât do almost as well while still being cost effective and offering much greater versatility besides.
So you need something that fixes both of those things(boring+UU), ideally in a single stroke. I canât think of anything better for that than letting TKs build towers. It offers massive synergy with their team bonuses, differentiates them definitively from champions, and forces the enemy to engage them. And once theyâre inside the enemyâs base and with a place to retreat to instead of just being obliterated by archers, theyâre in a situation where they can actually fight rather than being ignored and run around indefinitely.
It solves both problems of the civ without making the civ as a whole overpowered, and is thus nearly a perfect solution to their problems.
Not gonna lie, guys, all these arguments about speed, cost, armor, whateverâthey donât fix the problem.
@DemiserofD has already clearly stated their issue: bad UU, boring UU.
If you make it faster, youâre degrading itâs identity.* If you make it cheaper, itâs still just as useless and situational.* If you change the armor, itâs again loses identity (lower melee) or becomes overpowered (pierce armor). If you change the civ, youâre playing with balance that is already pretty good.
The only thing majorly wrong with Teutons is the UU, and it needs something that lets it stand out and be a threat. IMO, the best suggestion here was already stated: let them build towers. It gives map control, it gives places for TK to hide and heal, and lets them push effectively. All areas that they struggle with, yet that their bonuses are geared towards. I really like the idea.
*To be clear: a speed bump isnât out of the question, nor is a cost drop, but those two things are a) mutually exclusive options, and b) do not solve the main issue.
2 Likes
Being slow and useless isnât the the identity of TKs. The identity of TKs is to be tanky and well armoured, the cost and speed are to balance out the tankyness, but this concept of balancing it out isnt working well currently, because the disadvantage of being slow/costly is far bigger than having good melee armor/decent attack.
Again, there is no need that a military units, such as a TK can build buildings, even if itâs just towers. This will not make TKs more viable, or more often used. Itâs way easier, cheaper and faster to use villagers for building towers and advancing, even if villagers die faster than TKs.
Iâm experienced thousands of games of voobly 18++ TGs, on pretty much every availbable map, but mainly arabia, LN and BF (probly where i played most of my games). I can tell you this isnât useful in practice, you really need to get to a point where res absolutely dont matter at all (far above the 1h mark) to really comit into TKs for building towers. Even then itâs probly smarter to stick with normal vills and invest the extra gold into buying stone, than fancy TK Tower pushes.
The solution that makes the most sence is a speed increase, maybe even combined with a slightly lower gold cost, to make the affordable in 1v1s. Since teut champs/halbs with their +1 melee armor are now âsmallâ TKs it makes sence to have a similar base speed for TK as champs have, which means around 0.9 instead of the current 0.7. For the base cost 85 food 30 gold seems reasonable for 1v1s, while itâs barely affecting TGs where mostly the overall cost matters due to trading.
3 Likes
Being slow and heavily armored is the only thing differentiating them from Champions.
All buffing their speed will do is make the player build TKs instead of Champions.
It wonât change their gameplay. It wonât make their civ more interesting. It will just make them more powerful. This is especially bad, because Teutons as a civ are already balanced. They donât need overall buffs, they need specific changes to their UU, and not in a way that just makes them a better version of a unit they already have, but in such a way that gives them a specific purpose, a reason to exist.
Buffing their speed can never accomplish this. It will just switch what unit they use from one to the other and make the civ overpowered in the process.
Buffing their speed is a bad idea. It does absolutely nothing to address the fundamental problems, ruins the identity of the unit, while breaking the balance of the civ in the process. There are literally no upsides.
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By contrast, being able to build towers keeps each unit distinct and allows them to function in their own niche. It gives the Teutons something different and interesting no other civ can do. It synergizes with a vast number of their civ bonuses. It increases the degree of tactical options available while leaving the civ balanced. It solves all their problems with no downsides.
Seriously, you have yet to point out a single problem other than âIâd never use it!â.
Which is fine. If you never want to use a tactical option available to you, more power to you. You donât need to build a Cuman Feudal TC either if you donât want. But donât deny others the option just because it doesnât align with your inflexible playstyle.
2 Likes
I canât see how this is a bad thing at all? TKs are still made from castles only, champs you can spam from barracks. You arenât necessarily meant to get both anyways, if a choice had to be made which one is mostly used, then it should be the TK and champs should just be an option if the need for them arises.
And the interesting thing about TKs is exactly their tankiness and that fact doesnât need to be changed into building towers instead. Maybe you donât find that interesting, but thatâs merely your opinion.
2 Likes
Teutonic Knights are produced in eight seconds from the Castle, with Conscription. If you want to spam them, thereâs nothing stopping you, especially since theyâve got twice the population density. Thatâs basically a champion every four seconds. That is not a substantial difference in spammability.
And then Teutonic Champions have extra armor, further sealing the overlap.
If you make Teutonic Knights move as fast as Champions, there will be virtually no difference at all. Teutonic Knights will be absolutely identical in function, except, of course, that theyâre far more powerful. Which, as was previously stated, is a buff the Teutons do not need.
If your Unique Unit is virtually identical to a common unit, why bother having the unique unit at all? At that point you could delete Teutonic Knights entirely, give, Champions +2 armor instead of +1, and youâd end up achieving the exact same results.
Except, of course, the civ would be - impossibly - even more boring.
What a terrible idea.
Iâve never said they should be as fast as champions, only to be faster than what they are currently. That is all. So when you say âbuffing their speed is a problemâ, it seems you are arguing against any kind of speed buff, but now you are claiming it is a problem if they were at champion speed, but you are not even considering the middle ground. So tell me your arguement against the middleground speed buff?
And the +1 armor champs currently have is nothing compared to TK melee armor. TK is making many units completely obsolete against it right now. Mamelukes, axemen, all melee trash units (not that skirms are any good either) and camels, atleast. Now if TK was a little bit faster but not too fast, it would be a little tougher to run away from them. Sure you could still run away but not as easy and you would now need more room for that than before.
Also, I canât see why are you arguing it so that the UU should be removed, if the UU would be better than the common unit? The common unit could just be unused itself and the UU could be the one that the player chooses. Thatâs the point of UUs, you use them and if a choice is to be made, you leave the common unit out, not the UU.
1 Like
If theyâre not as fast as Champions then theyâll still experience the exact same problems they currently do, namely being indefinitely kited by archers of all kinds. Theyâll be just as ineffective in their positions of weakness, while becoming overpowered against the things they are currently balanced against. If they are as fast as champions, see above.
There is no unique unit in the game that is just a better version of one of their normal units. Jaguar Warriors are heavily boosted against Infantry, Samurai are heavily boosted against Unique Units. Etc. There is strategy and thinking that goes into whether or not they are used. Always.
By contrast, a fast TK would just be the default best option. You would never produce anything else, and would overwhelm the enemy in a horde of caped crusaders.
And then the unit would have to get nerfed somehow to keep the civ remotely balanced, and youâd eventually end up with a choice between Champions or Teutonic Knights that doesnât really matter, because in order to achieve balance they would have to have comparable stats.
And when you have two functionally identical units, you basically only have one unit. A different skin doesnât mean a real difference in any regard.
A real difference means you can think about the situation and say that one is better in one case and another in another. But the only defining characteristics about the TK are its armor and speed. Take away the speed, and youâre left with a unit that is just more powerful and nothing else.
And that wonât last when the primary moderating effect is removed. It will be nerfed, and then youâve got a unit with no defining characteristics at all.
Improving its speed will inevitably lead to its destruction on a conceptual level.
1 Like
Yeah there are absolutely no differences between TKs and and champs beside, completly different cost, HP, melee armor, pierce armor, being produced at different buildings with different speed and having different speed.
which is exactly whats intended, a UU should be viable, what a crazy world.
This is again wrong. A more useful UU makes a civ more interesting, seem reasonable in my eyes. If teuts are that balanced and good why dont we see them ever being picked in tournaments? I would read too much out of aoestats but if you look at this graph: https://aoestats.io/civ/Teutons?elo=2000%2BI it simply doesnt look like a perfectly balanced civ. I can very well tell you from my game experience, that teutons have huge problems in castle age facing xbows/CA. The point you can turn it around (if you didnt die) is early imp, when you get +4 chevas, but elsewhere they have ather big problems, unless you play a closed map, but even there are enough civs that are better than teut.
Increaseing their speed willl make their usage bigger. And letâs not forget being slow and useless isnât the the identity of TKs. The identity of TKs is to be tanky and well armoured, the cost and speed are to balance out the tankyness, but this concept of balancing it out isnt working well currently, because the disadvantage of being slow/costly is far bigger than having good melee armor/decent attack.
There is simply no need that a military units, such as a TK can build buildings, even if itâs just towers. This will not make TKs more viable, or more often used. Itâs way easier, cheaper and faster to use villagers for building towers and advancing, even if villagers die faster than TKs. As experienced voobly 18++ player i can tell you, this that extremly limited useage. You really need to get to a point where res absolutely dont matter at all (far above the 1h mark) to really comit into TKs for building towers. Even then itâs probly smarter to stick with normal vills and invest the extra gold into buying stone, than fancy TK Tower pushes. It is simply not cost effective and useful for anything else than helping Viper to make a new Mastapiece video.
A tactical options which comes never into play, simply because villagers already have it. In lategame you usually even delete quite a few of them, if you was a few dozends for wasting towers its the best you can make out of them. A cuman feudal tc is a big eco advantage, usable in early stages of the game. This cant be compared by any means with TKs. This isnt about inflexible opinions, this is about constantly pushing a feature that is going to be close to never used for a unit that is barely used. Itâs a waste of dev effort honestly.
Except of course that TKs counter cavalry, they even beat paladins in 1v1 combat, which champs dont
And as last, dont take it personal, but writing stuff in cursive doesnt make it more true/less nonsensical.
5 Likes
Well mangudai is pretty much superior to cavalry archers in any way, except cavalry archers have a little more damage vs halberdiers, the only thing making cavalry archers better is that they are made from archery ranges, but the mangudai bonus damage against siege really makes cavalry archers obsolete if you manage to have those castles. And if you wanna have both mangudai and HCA, then you might as well be having champions and TK. Still the champions is more easily spammable than the TK since you probably make barracks to spam halbs too. Theres nothing wrong with TK being the default option vs champs, nothing at all. Champ is a unit used by most other civs, if teutons switched so that their useless UU became useful and champ became less useful or close to useless, even that would be a great move. Since the champ would still be more useful than many other civs champs IF you were forced to use them, ie. you just canât get those castles. Champs should be the backup option, TK should be the go to option. That is completely fine.
And no, if you buff TK speed by a little, their ineffectiveness at their weakness, WILL NOT, be as bad, it might still be bad, as is probably supposed to be, but not as bad. Theres a difference. As I pointed out, you would then need more room to maneuver than before and that does affect gameplay. And especially since the TK still isnât supposed to be used alone, they uselessness gets weaker. You are completely handling this situation in a way that it is EITHER useless, or OP. You canât see that thereâs a middle ground. Buffing by overdoing it can lead to OPness, but if you buff without overdoing it, will not lead to it being OP.
Also, many civs have many completely obsolete and useless units in their compositions, making champ one for teutons in most situations is meaningless if the TK becomes a used unit. TK matters, the champ does not.
2 Likes
Mangudai would never be built if not for their massive bonus against siege.
By contrast, not only do TKs not have a bonus against anything specifically, they actually have less bonuses against Eagle Warriors and Buildings. Theyâre not just effective against cavalry, theyâre more effective against everything, because theyâre a flat-out superior unit in every regard except for speed.
Which means giving them equivalent speed would result in a simple buff to the civ as a whole. Which for, what, the fourth time now? Is not something the civ needs.
Teutons are balanced. Teutonic Knights are not. They need a solution that makes the unit stronger specifically while maintaining the balance of the civ as a whole.
Those are called italics. Theyâre a literary device used to convey emphasis.
But it is making HCA somewhat obsolete cause you donât need HCA to complement any mangudai force, unless you donât have enough castles to produce enough mangudai, in which case you have to tech up both units. Thatâs the only reason to make HCA as mongols. Nothing else. Mangudai is the better unit. And if you can muster castles, you save a few resource for not teching into HCA.
Is this sentence supposed to counter-argue yourself? Cause the only thing it is making out to be is, make champs to kill buildings and eagles instead of the TK⊠which would serve in favor towards having a meaning for the champion in the Teutonic arsenal. Which is of course is not true since TK would actually perform better, not because of bonuses but its pure stats. Btw, to correct you, both TK and Champ have +4 against buildings, according to this
and
Same attack speed, both affected by arson. I canât see where you are making it out that champ has better anti-building capabilities.
Champ has +4 more against eagles than TK, but TK has 4 more melee attack, so they both do the same damage, except eagles do 1 or 4 damage to ETK, depending on civ.
Buffing teutons a little doesnât make them unbalanced either. The way you are making it sound to be is as if teutons were now perfectly balanced, the ideal template for other civs to be, which is completely untrue. If there are civs that are constantly sitting on the top of the ladder and civs that are never getting near those winrates and some civs being put there for a moment and then dropped out in the next and this trend will continue to happen, thereâs no harm in making teutons getting themselves bumped up from their spot to the next. That is a completely non-issue if they arenât been made OP.
3 Likes
A very good idea is that unique technique of imperial age in the castles will be increase the speed of Teutonic knight as a champions with a cost of 800 F and 600 G