Currently only Huskarls can be made out of the barracks and as a consequence we actually see them used.
Considering I have used UUs over militia line for all the infantry civs like… 3 times at best, mostly due to needing castles for it, what’s the point? Why wouldn’t I just use the discount 45f 20g Champion that mostly performs equally 1 on 1 in place of a Woad that costs 65f 25g for the same battle effectiveness, bar speed?
Viking Champs with +20% HP, forgetting about all the super expensive Elite + UT? Japanese Champs with +33% attack rate?
I mean, I get that with the last patch the devs kinda wanted to make UUs really feel like a stronger version of the militia line, but infantry, especially in the Castle age:
Needs to be massed
Is slow
Needs upgrades
And literally all of those will be solved if Woads, Zerks, Karambits, Samurai etc could be created from the barracks, at a slower rate of course.
Because right now most, if not all, of the infantry civs are played as if they had no Unique Unit to begin with.
Here is a hot take:
Unique units aren’t meant to be a civs primary unit, but rather a unit that compliments the civs or covers its weaknesses.
Your suggestion is bad.
I think it’s a good idea. Infantry units are underused (even after the longswords buff) so this would make them more viable. Probably needs a university tech to unlock it in Castle Age though.
Sure, that’s the case with Gbetos, Throwing Axes, Plumes, Jaguars, War Wagons and like… most unique units in the game.
But not with the “generic” infantry ones which are basically just a better version of the militia line.
It obviously wouldn’t make sense to have Mangudai in the Archery ranges, but why not Woad raiders? Or Berserks? Or Samurai? What was the last time you saw any of those in a 1v1? Or a TG that wasn’t Arena/BF?
I play Japanese and Vikings quite frequently and can attest that the UUs are in a decent spot now. First of all, they are, compared to militia line, much more viable on water and hybrid maps, in situations where you quickly need a decent melee unit for putting land pressure, supporting/protecting siege, etc. Take maps like Islands or Migration for instance, where you don’t even have a barracks early to begin with.
Second, they are preferable when you want to go infantry/skirm long term (perhaps after opening imp with arbalests) and have at least two defensive castles at your disposal anyway.
In other situations champs may be the safer option (especially if you opened with m@a already), but that’s fine. If this wasn’t the case, ordinary champs, for which both civs have strong boni, would find no use at all.
I think it kind of comes down to the civ. It might make sense for something like the berserk, but for Samurai, for an example, because they were literally the social elite class, it mskes historical sense they can only be trained at a castle.
Obuch from barracks 11 Then there are donjons crying in the corner after getting even more useless. Woads, berserks and shotels/karambits from barracks doesn’t sound very smart either.
More seriously, infantry UU are better than champions so the trade off is fair. It’s availability vs strats.
Samurai were not actually trained in castles. They went to specialized schools called ‘ryu’ or studied with a teacher / master. Typically there was a principle ryu for each domain ‘Han’, so the children of the highest ranking samurai in that domain might all train in that school.
I agree that we should make infantry UUs more viable, but I don’t think this idea is good.
I can imagine that when we do so, the swordsman line will be more and more rare. The problem just moves from UUs to swordsmen. Moreover, some people of community will start to urge that cavalry UUs, archer UUs and so on also have to be trainable at the stables and archery ranges. The balance will be a mess.
In my opinion, let the infantry UUs have more mechanics or functions is the correct solution. Makes them no longer have to compete with barracks units, allowing them to play in situations where barracks units are not good at it.
For example:
Jaguars also have attack bonus vs cavalry or gunpowder unit, to make them able to fight cavalry more easily without halberdiers or to fight hand cannoneers just like Condottiero.
Berserks get attack bonus vs cavalry in basic stats, and they with Chieftains can make them do halberdier’s job more well for Vikings when the player have enough gold. This can change the current situation where the pikemen are better than the Berserks in terms of price or attack power when fighting against horses.
Woad Raiders get attack bonus vs monks and siege weapons, to make them replace hussars more well, which is how people usually use them.
Samurai is tricky issue. Even with the attack bonus agaist UU, it is still unable to fight against UUs other than infantry UUs, however its own stats already make it strong against infantry and does not need the bonus. Japanese spearmen are good enough that samurai don’t need bonuses against cavalry. We have to find a way to make them more useful against ranged UU. Otherwise we probably have to create a new mechanic for them as the second function. I had suggested that create a new UT named Bushido and replacing Kataparuto to increase their move faster by 10% and to give them +2 pierce armor.
What’s the problem of infantry civs using their infantry UU over generic militia line? And militia line just used for non infantry civs as situational support?
So you want the swordsmen of those infantry civs to be the another lancers which people ignore as like they never exist.
And there will be more and more. Cavalry civs ignore their knights or hussars. Archer civs ignore their crossbows. Mongols will never use the cavalry archers.
Being limited to be trained only at castles is basically meaningful. Some infantry UUs that rare to be seen is because their current value is not enough and not worth a castle, not means that they do not have meaning to be the castle unique units. It is broken that the player can immediately start to spawn lots of berserks or samurai in better economy once hitting the castle age. And there will be more situation worse than this example.
This is not so lineal, but in cases that UU is a better version of generic unit yeah! Let Mongols go full Mangudai instead of CA, Magyars go Hussar Magyar instead of hussar, chinese go Chu-ko-nu instead or crossbow, Britons go Longbowman instead of crossbow, etc…
Franks (Cav civ) still will go Knight-line, Ethiopians (archer civ) still will go archer-line, Malians (infantry) still will go Champion line (because a PA bonus), because not overlap with Gbethos, etc…
I think what he mean to say is that Infantry UU should be a late game transition for infantry civs. They should rely on swordsman in Castle age and Early imperial age to maintain balance. This is somewhat like Britons arbalest transition to longbow or viet arbalest to rattan.
They become not to need a castle, meaning that the player do not have to prepare stone. Therefore the economy will be pretty better than before, and able to support the player to spawn lots of those powerful units just since hitting the castle age.
For example, it will be also broken that the Frank player can easily form the combination of throwing axemen and knights in the very very early castle age to counter the opponent wanting to fight against the knights with spearmen.
Even not mention to the non-infantry-UU civs.
Mangudais + knights, Conquistadors + knights, etc.
Well, most people ignore the swordsman line anyway, so making unique infantry more viable won’t change anything, especially in team games where the meta is still cavalry + ranged units.
Change is not necessarily a bad thing. I understand the desire to be conservative about a 20 year old game but you must agree that the game in its current state is long overdue a reform