Infantry units are multi-purpose units, not a special force. Having a lot of them is advantageous as they don’t need much micro management in comparison (that’s why you see Infantry with faster producing Aztecs and cheaper and faster producing Goth).
But as a non-infantry opponent ages up he/she unlocks units that are immediately stronger than beforehand useful Infantry (like Knights, Mangonels, Monks in Castle Age or to an extent Gunpowder in Imperial Age). Hence, I think catching up tech wise faster could lead to more games with an infantry core in Late Game.
Long Swordsman Upgrade Time 40 seconds, costs 150 Food, 50 Gold (45/200/65 before).
Two Handed Swordsman Upgrade Time 60 seconds (75 before).
I have another idea for Core unit diversity, but it doesn’t sound like AoE2, tbh:
Spearhead(or Partizan/Spetum) Technology introduced in the Barracks or Archery Range in Castle Age (200 Food, 50 Gold, 40 seconds). After researched, it can be toggled in each Barrack for upcoming production. Existing units not affected. Spearmen +1 Range and Militia + 2 Attack, but -1 Armor and -1 Pierce Armor. Maybe visually different with longer weapon.
Longshield(or Scutum) Technology introduced in the Barracks or Archery Range in Castle Age (200 Wood, 50 Gold, 40 seconds). After researched, it can be toggled in each Barrack and Archery Range for upcoming production. Existing units not affected. Skirmishers and Militia + 1 Armor and +1 Pierce Armor, but -20% Speed. Maybe visually different with (bigger) shield.
do you? do you really? let’s say you do infantry beats cavalry beats archers beats infantry.
in this case the counter to infantry is archers - so what do spanish do if the infantry player forces them off gold? or hits them before they can get a castle up? what option do they have in EARLY CASTLE AGE against infantry?
what about archer civs against goths who now can flood huskarls the second they hit castle age?
what about archer civs against malian infantry?
Spanish can also go infantry. Being out of gold before castle age, or in castle age should be a win condition for all civs anyway. You still can make spears and skirms, but the situation remains as other civs will also lose eventually when they have no gold access.
Also not saying you can spam you UU without a castle, but it should work the same way Anarchi does right now.
but how are their infantry going to do against burmese infantry with extra attack, or teuton infantry with extra armor, or goths infantry which is cheaper and trained faster, or japanese infantry that attacks faster? these are the types of things you have to consider.
i didn’t say being out of gold. i said FORCED off gold. i come in and camp your gold mines. you can’t mine gold. against archers you can make skirms.
against cavalry you can make pikes.
what do you do against man at arms line?
but against knights or archers you can use those and trade super cost effectively and take your resources back. good luck doing that against infantry.
so now infantry civs get 3 unique techs. still doesn’t answer how archer civs would handle malian infantry though.
furthermore now that you’ve changed that - you’re initial complaint was “you didn’t like that infantry civs had to use archers or knights”.
but now you’re forcing archer and knight civs to do the same thing depending what civ they are matched up against.
archer civ against cavalry? too bad, now you gotta use infantry.
cavalry civ against infantry? too bad, now you gotta use archers.
infantry civ against archers? gotta use cavalry.
You can then adjust it tu be only in imp. That would give you time to also build your own army comp the way you like. And in imp you will be able to defeat a full infantry comp with the options you still have.
My complain is not that it is impossible to use infantry civs, I love Goths. I’m saying most infantry civs are not even played as an infantry based army civ. And that is just plain sad. How many times have you seen shotel warriors being used? Or teutonic knights? Samurais? etc. There is just no way to make them work in high elo play. There are just cheaper options, stronger options, more flexible ones.
I had that experience with Japanese Samurai. Somehow they ended up being my only option to take down some buildings during a game, and they did it very well
As you said, infantry provokes fights in two ways:
a) protecting the thing that the opponent want to kill (manly siege). Halbs are used for this, not militia.
b) Being the menace themselves. That is the purpose of arson and the damage bonus to buildings. When infantry kills buildings the opponent is forced to react fast. The problem is that knights destroy buildings while better resisting the arrows. Arson does little for infantry in that sense. Goths dont have arson but deals extra damage to buildings and the huskarls tank castle fire better than knights.
Maybe militia or arson should have an damage bonus to more precious things, like villagers, monks or siege.
Definitely more than Mamulukes, War Elephant, Ballista Elephant, Elephant Archer, Boyar, Genoese xbowman, even Tarkan and Leitis, maybe even Konnik and current Coustilier. I honestly saw those infantry UUs (except TK) more than Plumed Archers ever since DE.
Here is an analogy. Paladin needs a buff since you don’t see them used in games. Why? Because it takes too long to get to them. No, that isn’t the case at ALL. Paladin does not need a buff to it’s availability, it’s a late-game option that needs a LOT of time and resources to get into.
This is exactly the same with most UUs. The issue isn’t the game balance, it’s that there are simply more available options unless you’re allowed time to get to these units. Most opponents play well, and they try to stop you from getting to that point. Boyar, Mameluke, Genoese Xbow, Leitis, Konnik, even Elephant Archers are all incredibly strong units. I’d take Elite Boyar over Paladin anyday. Mameluke is an insane unit. Leitis is strong. Konnik is strong. You need time and investment to make them, though, which you often can’t afford in a typical 1v1.
That is fine. They can see use in drawn out games or games where many Castles and good game planning is a factor, and they see use in TGs all of the time.
against melee units only. how many series are there where the opponent doesn’t have reasonable archers to counter leitis?
team games are out of the question - your options basically are teutons, franks, bulgarians, and celts.
I don’t understand the point here. You took one unit into a narrow situation outside of the context of the discussed point and picked it apart, when it still doesn’t really affect the point. Leitis is one of the best options in the game against any cavalry or infantry. So being weaker to archers completely nullifies this fact? If you can get to the castles and get to the mass, they’re incredible. Lithuanians have 2 great lategame powerhouse units for different situations. They have great monks. BBC. Great trash (although not applicable in TGs). Getting at least 3 relics on your side is much easier in a TG than a 1v1. Yes, Leitis have less pierce armor. However, Leitis still wreck archers if they get on top of them. 2 hits and they’re dead. The only other unit that can do that is the Huskarl. Assuming you have the support of a teammate or siege, the archers become less meaningful - and if they’re a real issue, you have Paladin, but that doesn’t mean Leitis are bad, it means they’re not as good when huge masses of Arbs or CA are involved and they have an endless meatshield. That definitely doesn’t happen in every TG. It also assumes the armies don’t get split, in which case the Leitis will also shred.
Regardless of that, apologies, I realized I’m kind of derailing the entire point of the thread here:
This is the truth, it takes too long to get to infantry UUs. It’s too expensive for the payoff, unless things go late or you’re afforded the time, which is rare. Same with most other UUs. Besides that, infantry isn’t designed to be the strongest unit - either you flood with masses of cheap infantry and try to level a base (Goth-style), you use them to counter trash (any civ), or you use them as a counter or deterrent themselves (Halberdier). They tend to be a support unit outside of specific scenarios, such as…the entire early game.
And at the same tiame 25 Arablests with micro kill Leitis in few volleys, als Archers are cheaper and easier to mass, Leitis don’t.
Try to do Leitis in a TG, archers just destroy them.
Leitis was somewhat viable at TGs before nerf to take on another Lithuanian pocket with Paladins.
I
I know leitis did take a big hit when this pierce armour nerf happened, but y’all realize the enemy doesn’t always have arbalest, right? Imagine you’re Lith, you’re fighting Frank or Teutons and they took all the relics. If you try to use cavaliers or paladins you will struggle, but leitis will get the job done without breaking a sweat. Especially since it’s not those kinds of “no arb no bracer no thumb ring” civs that will be able to abuse their weak pierce armour. And while I don’t buy Sotl’s whole “leitis are trash units with market abuse” delirium, the low gold cost is hella convenient for those no relic situations. And their elite upgrade is literally among the cheapest in the whole game.
Anyway regarding that whole infantry “problem” it’s brough up all the time, but objectively, it boils down to “longswords bad in castle, samurai and TK meh”. Quite minor if you ask me.
I would like to see more militia-line in team games.
+1 attack to longswordsman might be a good idea since Militia is useful, man at arms is meta, but in castle age the longswordsman is useless against xbows and kts.
It’s almost like rhey serve a different role. And giving them extra attack isn’t going to change their use. Burmese don’t use their LS and they get 2 extra attack for free
Though burmese have a beast unique unit in castle age that neglects other options, you have a good point in your logic.
Maybe they can change infantry speed from 0.9 to 0.95. I’m curious how that would work out since spear line speed is 1, so it wouldn’t be crazy fast with this change i think.
Maybe with this 2 changes we would see longswordsman in castle age.