I believe what we need is to add sort of Advance Anti-Cavalry Unit to Every Civ, available in barrack after age4, which is very professional to kill cavalry, but very vulnerable when facing range attacks. This unit may not very powerful, even not frequently used in each game, for its high cost, but, we do need it for an univeral unit.
As you know, not every civ have Ribauldequin, Janissary or Camel. And spearmen are very weak in late game. That means not every civ have method to fight against knight spam in the late game fairly.
The key point is we need a method to inhibit our opponent from training Knights only. It is nothing about wether this unit is OP.
Grenadier is a good counterexample, this is a powerful unit, but its appearance will not prevent French players from training knights. But it’s almost impossible for French players not turn to range attack after they saw Janissary.
Playing knight is fun, but knight spam will ruin the fun.
We do need an universal advanced anti-cavalry unit that doesn’t need to be OP enough to prevent knights from game, it just needs to specialized enough to stop knight spam.
Like giving every civ with handcannoner and arquebusier, the handcannoner become universal Janissary as a advanced anti-cavalry unit, and the arquebusier replace current handcannoner. As for Ottoman, we should buff its handcannoner for keep characteristics.
Perhaps there are many other possible plans, so what do you say?
Spearmen can only restrict knghit but not beat them in the late game, it is still fine in solo game for the map is small, and the game always end earlier, but spearmen’s low efficiency will become a problem in the big map and team game.
So addng musketeers or dragoons like AOE3 in the age4 will be far better than spearmen.
Also, we can keep knights in game by increasing the cost of these anti-cavalry units.
Crossbow’s problem is very similiar to spearman, because it relies on large number, and troubled by low speed. It is very useful in Castle, but gradually becomes weak later.
Handcannoner is better, but it just turn into an anti-MAA unit in this patch. It won’t be very professional to kill knight.
But you do remind me that we might need sort of unit like Dragoon which have high speed to chasing knight in late game.
How about we shift Handcannoner to Universal Janissary?
Look at those massive Knights and Archers in team game. Is handcannoner still a good unit in this patch?
We don’t need another unit to anti-MAA, we already have Crossbow and Springald, you could just add an upgrade in university to make Crossbow can hit MAA harder. Actually, MAA is weak enough in this patch.
So it’s better you turn Handcannoner to sort of anti-Knight unit, it is expensive enough which means it can be counter with easily, you could even make Handcannoner can not fight with horsemen to nerf its usefulness.
In this plan, we can restrict the Knight Spam while keeping Knight in game. And the exist of Handcannoner will also not be so embarrassed like now.
I gotta emphasize that the Spearmen are never enough to counter Knight Spam.
Because Spearmen are too cheap!
The cheap price means that Spearmen can only consume the resources of Knight players, you gotta group a large number of spearmen if you wanna beat Knights. So Spearmen always very passive in the late game, for there are too slow, and you can’t train more because you reach the pop limit.
Also, simply Buff Spearmen can never solve the problem fundamentally, that will lead Knight out of late game again, which is not acceptable.
That’s why we need new Anti-Knight unit whatever you creat a new one or shift some old unit to become it.
1). PIKEMANS.- But not spearmans, but “actual pikeman” for the IV age?
Because near every civ that i remember in the renaissance age have those. At least, England, French, HRE, Chinese, Japanese, have a corp of those. Even new civs like Spanish has one.
2). HALBERDIERS.- Like a sustitute for other civs could be the “Halberdier” or polearm unit.
At least would be disponible for civs who didn´t have pikemans corp in Imperial Age. Well, Rus Streltsy has a Bardiche, and the order of the Dragon is enough powerful to have pikemans, also their Landsnecht can improve its weapon to a halberd.
3) UNIQUE SPEARMANS.- Civs with improved and Unique Spearmans didn´t have the last options:
Like them: Bizantines (Limitanei), Mali (Donso, Mansa Musofadi Warrior),
4) ANTI-CAVALRY CIVS.- Civs with extra anti-cavalry unit dont need pikemans or halberdiers, also historically thats the reason they didn´t create a corp of those units
5) MOUNTER ARQUEBUSIER (Harquebusier) like the AoE3 Dragoon, but not an actuak dragon which dismount to attack, but a cavalry ranged unit that shoot and Arquebus or pistol.
That’s very cool, honestly.
This must be one of the considerable plan.
But what I’m worried about is whether Devs have enough time to creat these new models of units or weapons.
The final plan may be like this, the Advanced Pikeman have MAA’s model in Castle, and hold the imperial billhock, and the Old Spearman hold the feudal weapon from beginning to end.
I’m just not very optimistic about the efficiency of the Devs LOL.
Yep, so Spearman gradually became passive in the late game, but excessively buff this cheap unit will also make Knight out of the game. That’s why we might need a new unit to replace spearman in late game.
And new anti-cav unit would not make Knights out of the game?
No, we do not need new unit.
Spearmen is that, what we should focus on with a late game knights, not “excessively buff”, but balanced buff would be right
Will Janissary makes your Knights totally out of game if you train enough archers as assistant?
Don’t worried, if that new unit do harm the usefulness of Knight excessively, just increase its cost, game will finally got new balance.
Janissaries are not effective as before they lost +5 bonus damage top on that they lost their +5 bonus damage from chemistry.They got +2 bonus damage with unique tech.So they now do -8 less damage to cav and results are tremendous they cant kill cav as before.Is it balanced now?Maybe
Maybe we can add two imp age technology:
1.Pike Phalanx,give spearman a pike,make them have more powerful anti-cav damage or base damage,because pike equal powerful to anti other infantry.
2.Pika Strategic mobility:give spearman a skill,just like delhi’s “force march”,spearman can get 100%speed faster to march,so they can follow cav’s speed
just elongate spear’s model,and a little numerical adjustment,spearman can more stronger in anti-cav battle,and price of elite tech and these two tech will spend more player’s resource&time,I think it’s balance
But abbasid can get that in feu age,and if other civ only get this in imp age,I think its no problem because abbasid already get these advantage so long time when other civ get this,and pike phalanx will more powerful when pike palanx to deal with another different infantry in history