Squires should be moved to the Feudal age
Arson should be moved to the Feudal age
Scale mail armor’s cost should be 75f (from 100f), research time lowered to 30s (from 40s)
And most importantly, nerf Crossbows and Archers, and we just might see a more diverse meta.
b-but eagles
Eagles will be easy to nerf at a later point. Besides, the only OP meso civ is Mayans and their bonuses could be toned down anyway. Yes, in the latest patch Aztecs have a lower win% than Byzantines.
All of these are useless
First two suggestions probably wouldn’t work if the current price is kept, the rest is probably decent?
With their very long train time I still wonder if they would even be OP in feudal.
They aren’t the buffed castle age version either.
I think it’s a buff to dravidians though, as they can afford all this tech early enough to justify it. Most other civs will likely have to delay til aging up.
I wish Devs would be more willing to try these things out, at least in the PUP, even in the main game they can always revert it. It’s not like they’re giving a civ nukes or anything.
I honestly don’t think feudal squires or arson will have much an impact.
They will have on getting set up for a longswords transition earlier. Supplies should be faster to research too, and pikemen cheaper.
Imo if we want to have more infantry we need 3 things:
A) More micro potential for infantry (how?)
B) More raiding potential for some infantry
C) A or multiple good counter mechanics against infantry play
It’s really not about techs or pure fighting power or whatever. It’s just how infantry is currently implemented in the game makes it basically impossible to see more of it (or we would live in a goth spam world).
It’s too expensive for feudal age, there isn’t any point getting it here. Even when you on your way to castle age you want to prioritize getting units out and upgrades (as that’s already quite expensive food wise). So this would change literally nothing.
I’d be open to discussion about buffing Infantry in Feudal Age, however considering how awful our meta is, we cannot allow that, it’s all about Infantry into Archery Range. (into full walls and 3tc/4tc boom)
Once meta is fixed to where it was before, I’m down to consider these changes, especially the blacksmith one.
I can see japanese maa with arson would be problem since houses have negative melee armor in early stages of game. they would go down pretty fast, not that i mind. more infantry aggression the better.
squire on the other hand in feudal would be nice, mioght even see some more infantry play
jap maa are already kinda strong vs palisades and houses tbh
u gotta chop those walls u know
That would negate the Celts bonus. If everyone can do it, the Celts have one less thing going for them.
Infantry is fun and all in principle as a “shake the meta” concept until you actually get to play vs it every game. Bam, suddenly civs like Bulgarians, Celts are top tier and unstoppable and all Knights civs bottom tier.
Careful what you wish for. Infantry is not meta but also the least interesting form of gameplay. And anyway, Pikeman is a bit hard to tech into in Castle Age (lower upgrade cost to fix this), Halbs are totally fine, Champions could use some buff that makes them trade better vs Hussar which is the main unit they have trouble against in their “trash killer” form. Maybe +1 MA or something.
Other than that I see no reason to buff infantry at all, especially in Feudal where its main counter is getting kited back to the TC.
i’ve never seen someone slip on a slope so hard
D) Reducing Champion upgrade cost and time to justify getting 1 less MA from the upgrade.
E) More barrack techs for Militia line. Squires 2.0 but only for militia line. Or +1PA.
F) Free Arson like free Tracking and add option E.
Do they though? Squires is slower and paid for compared to Celts. Is the cumans bonus negated due to husbandry?
Franks bonus isnt negated because knight civs have blood lines and that’s a direct copy
If anything the existence of Celts justifies moving squires to feudal because it proves that even +15% speed FREE is not OP…
I agree arson is very niche. But squires is useful. Simply due to fact of being able to more likely catch feudal Vils/archers. It also means you get the speed sooner if needed to counter eagles in castle
There’s probably some kind of argument for taking squires on a MAA rush BEFORE supplies. Due to the utility it provides for your MAA rush
Wrt arson. I wonder if they changed goth bonus from 1/2/3 building dmg to 2/2/3 it helps them more where they need it. Without being oppressive
And thinking about it what if Celts were buffed to 15/15/20 feudal/castle/imperial. Tweak woads if required
I’ve been out of the game since last year and I came back just to check if something was done to fix infantry. Sad to see everything is the same.
I had a great idea back in 2021 that would make infantry viable and fun to play. The thing could be something like:
When infantry is put in defensive stance, the units get a buff of +2 in pierce/melee armor and -2 in attack. When infantry is put in attack stance, the units get a buff the other way around. Testing should be needed to get the right values. Maybe aggresive stance could buff infantry speed instead of attack, maybe they could add a coldown of 10 seconds between switching stances. The idea is making infantry flexible and involving some micro and fun while using it.
Now that we have ratha, a precedent has been set so the idea isn’t as unattainable as it used to be. Certainly opens up the opportunity for micro on a generally lower micro unit.
I’m assuming players will switch into defensive stance when fired upon by archers. So definitely need the cool down to prevent abuse.
I like the idea but not sure if Devs would be willing to go to that level of effort. It would require a lot of balancing and testing to get it right. My initial assumption is you always move in aggressive stance, when you reach the opponent you simply stay in defensive stance(if the cool down is too long for excessive micro like the ratha)
If it functions like that then you essentially get a Teuton +Malian militia line which could be OP
Interesting idea, but prone to abuse based on civ bonuses, especially if it applies to infantry UUs. For example, with Malian infantry vs. Ranged units, it’s worth it to stay in defensive stance the whole time, since losing attack is worth taking only 1 damage from Arbs and many other ranged units. Similar situation with Teuton/Bulgarian swordsmen fighting melee. Or civs like Aztecs or Burmese could stay defensive the whole time since they can spare some attack and having 2/2 armor would make them more effective. Maybe this could be a civ bonus for 1 civ, but it’s too hard to balance well across the range of civs with strong infantry.