Is time for another Leiciai nerf?

I think we’ll know about how strong this unit is for Lithuanians, being seen as OP when had 2 base PA and after cost changes made in 2020, but Leitis often didn’t see the sun light till DOTD (when Lithuanians lost blast furnace but unit’s base attack was increased), also since foot archer meta is almost dead at this point and melee units see a lot action now, Leitis is in fact a quite deadly unit for its cost.

So two possible changes:

  • Reduce their HP a bit (like 10 for both standard and Elite) like ornlu said, so it is more different from Knight line as the high attack, but truly lower HP unit than Paladin.
  • -1 Cavalry Armor Class (Halberdiers and Heavy Camels would then need 1 hit less to kill), currently 2 relic boosted Elite Leiciai can go cost effectively vs both, no other cavalry UU can do that (Cataphracts ofc the exception), Monaspas had to be nerfed in HP because they were doing far too well vs those units as well.
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Change the cost from 70f/50g to 55f/60g.

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It could ve done, but what keeps Leitis relevant for pros is their low gold cost, which is one of the reasons of why the unit is seen currently in tournaments. I would rather keep their cost but tone down their durability a bit.

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Don’t dig too much into what Ornlu says. He also thinks 65% winrate Chinese are in a good spot, considers Dravidians and urumis really strong and so on. A few months ago he made a video saying Japanese CA, Malay infantry armor bonus is OP while talking about power creep which is so far from the reality. Most of his statements come from the point where army has already been massed, yet game is even and stalemate fights are happening in the middle of the map. That’s always an incorrect way of looking at things. In general there are castles, siege, monks involved. Economic differences, cost, training time differences all matter more than actual stats on the units.

My take on the Leitis/Leiciai
First its a melee cavalry non-ranged unit without any bonus damage or conversion resistance. Thus in small numbers its vulnerable to conversions and at very later stages will die to halbs. Imo, castle based unique units need to be significantly stronger than their generic alternatives at some stage of the game to have a clear purpose. Otherwise its simply not worth going for multiple castles and taking that extra time to produce them.

Second, Lithuanians aren’t an economic powerhouse. They got some decent bonus but its very small on pure land maps and one of the least economic benefits relative to other civs, for any category of maps. Military bonus is also mediocre. The skirm bonus is decent against archer civs but bonus on cavalry is not for free and comes after relics are picked up. Given the situation of average economy, average military until after 30 mins, it makes a lot of sense to have a strong unit for the mid game to comeback into the game.

Third, performance of Lithuanians as a civ relative to others. When it comes to tournaments, consistently they have <50% winrates - Nobles Apartment Cup, Warlords 3, Hidden Cup 5 (28%), NAC 5. Quite average in terms of number of picks as well. Ladder - 47% winrate at 1900+ both Arabia only and overall, 48% at 1200+, consistently ranked 30th or worse in the past 18 months. All these indicate they’re a lower-mid tier civ or mid tier civ at best.

So if at all you want to nerf Leitis it has to be done in such a way that Lithuanians are significantly buffed otherwise and become quite a strong civ even when they can’t do unique units (like Georgians, Tatars) on some categories of maps.

And its much better to first nerf ridiculously overpowered units like Mangudai, organ gun belonging to civs with extremely good early eco and very strong military bonuses before reworking melee cav uu.

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What elo? In tournaments?

Nice observation. I think that is correct.

Heaven for hybrid maps. Players thought even after 50 food nerf, they would be good in hybrid maps. Clearly they were wrong.

I wish Leitis didn’t depend on Relic but clearly weaker than Paladin. So my dream Lithuanians design would be - Play Knight line if you have enough relic. Or else play Leitis.

Since I completely agree with your argument, there is no need to nerf the Mangudai (also, there is a bug whereby they do -2 damage against pikes compared to the past). The middle game of the Mongols sucks, the only reason they have become popular especially at low ELO is because of the lancer rush.

They are only seen at a high level when there is so much hunting that their economic bonus becomes really strong.

I don’t have the data from the last tournaments, but it seems to me that it is lower than 65%. In any case, currently at 1900+ Elo in Arabia:

It will always be too late:

  • Mayans
    → Foot archers (except Skirmishers) are 10%/20%/30% 5%/15%/25%cheaper in the Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age
  • Romans
    → Villagers gather, build, and repair 5% 4% faster.

TTL mainly. But all tournaments except Nobles Apt cup (I think there was some bug which didn’t let players research loom until their negative food turned 0) they were top priority. 70% last 2 seasons of TTL combined, highest draft priority in events with several bans, most double drafted in events with parallel hidden drafting. They’re also 57% overall winrate at 1900+ across all maps combined.

They were nerfed and after that most of the other hybrid civs got buffed - Persian docks and tc started working faster in dark age, Japanese got +2 for their CA vs ranged, Malian got faster gold collection and a few more indirect nerfs. Pros picking them imply they are still good but just not as good as other hybrid civs. And the same story for every category, resource benefits simply aren’t as good as other civs.

Its in theory significantly weaker against ranged units but that’s why they work well when paired with their super tanky elite skirms. Given the current state of all other actually broken unique units, Leitis stats are fine imo.

Ya I’m not saying they should get nerfed. But if the sentiment is certain uu once produced are too strong and need to be nerfed, Mangudai should be the top of the list. Its usually not seen because it has a ridiculously slow training time and everybody is doing CA these days. So if you lose a few Mangudai, it will take quite sometime to reinforce. Plus Mongol can either end the game faster with lancers or go for their own CA depending on the matchup. Similar to certain other powerful but less used unique units, they’re not the usual option in 1v1s. But they’re absolute beast in passive map TGs.

I would just start the discount from castle age. Something like 15% in castle age and 25% in imp

I believe the Roman winrate is sort of fake similar to that of celts due to this phosphorus/hoang/youpudding like crazy rush with scorps, rams and pikes. If at all its needed, I’d reduce the gold discount on scorps instead of nerfing eco of a civ that doesn’t get bracer or gunpowder.

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I can see this point and yes that’s a solid reason, but from what I ve seen and played, 2 relic Elite Leiciai mass can do far too well vs Halbs (3 hits to kill) and Heavy Camels (7 hits to kill), and it seems people don’t see with good eyes Cavalry UUs killing their counters like that while being cheaper than Knights (Monaspas were nerfed because of that as well).

What I even say is simply nerf the unit in a way that is still a high attack melee killer that cost less than Knights but being a bit weaker to cavalry counters, Lithuanians aren’t lacking in that aspect as they have faster skirmishers and hand cannoneers to counter halbs and the fastest halbs to counter Heavy Camels, so if anything, It would push to see those army comps more often.

That would be a very flawed design,and I like how every UU from the TLK civs is affected by either civ bonus or unique technology (Konniks affected by Stirrups, Kipchaks affected by the Cavalry speed bonus, Leiciai affected by the relic bonus, and Keshiks/Flaming Camels affected by the Hill bonus).

That’s the same for many unique units meant for the mid and late game. It would make no sense otherwise to gather so much stone, delaying your imp, to make a unit that dies so fast to a cheap halberdier or heavy camel upgrade. In other words, imo every castle unique unit should do much better than their generic version against common counters in some way. Also the same reason why ranged uu meant for imperial age trade well vs skirms.
And it was my same take on Monaspa nerf, the unit itself shouldn’t have been nerfed this way rather Georgian dark age or church economy should have been nerfed.

All of this is once again from the viewpoint where post imp has been reached with all military upgrades and the assumption that game is still somehow completely even. Cavalry counters are cheap, their upgrades are cheap and don’t need multiple castles. Lithuanian economy/resource benefits is mediocre compared to most civs. So if one person goes halbs/camels and other goes for uu like Leitis its mostly an advantageous position for the non-uu player. With an inferior economy if Lithuanian player managed to go for multiple castle Leitis, they’ve played the matchup well and deserve to win. Something like this doesn’t happen frequently either.

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