Teutonic Knights are a fairly niche unit, and rarely used in the best of cases. Unfortunately, this means that any case where they encounter units designed to counter infantry or armor, they instantly shift from mediocre to bottom-of-the-barrel terrible.
Against Leitis, Cataphracts, or Gunpowder, they are downright suicidal, and this means that investing into them in the first place is a very risky move, making them even rarer to see.
It would be really cool if they had some hidden armor against these units, to preserve their identity at least a little bit.
I’m not asking for their complete armor levels, just enough to give them a small semblance of their normal strength. Something like 3-5 anti-infantry armor. Cataphracts, for example, would do ~8 damage instead of ~11, which seems like a lot less, but it’s still a lot more than the 4 they’d be doing if they only did normal damage!
By softening these hard counters a bit, it would make this cool unit a bit more broadly viable, which would be nice seeing as it’s one of the most popular units!
I like this idea. While the TK remains good within its niche, not only is it off-meta, and is countered by a variety of units that don’t need any kind of bonus or gimmick to be effective (most ranged units), but it has also been somewhat power-crept by other units that are also fairly tanky or pack quite a punch with fewer drawbacks (Obuch, Boyar, Teuton Swordsmen and Knightline, even Urumis). And also, as you note, the decent conglomeration of units with either an anti-UU, anti-infantry, or anti-armor bonus. IMO having 2-4 non-ignorable armor would be appropriate. There is even an attribute in AGE/Scenario Editor listed as ignoring armor ignoring attacks, but I don’t know that it’s used for anything (maybe siege?)
Overall, I think the armor-related bonuses in the game are slightly underdeveloped related to the attack-related bonuses. Off the top of my head, I’m only aware of Sicilians and Cataphracts having any form of the former.
Condos, Capped and siege ram as well. But seems Devs like to give negative armour but very rarely positive
Definitely room to add a little here and there, possibly like battle elephants or ratha
Camel archers used to have a little
TKs could probably do with a little ##### but I don’t think you should be fielding them in mass in those cases anyway. Even with full infantry armour HC and plumes will still rek them, and it’s ok if catas rek them(at least TKs are still doing huge damage back at the cata, catas themselves are just as niche as TKs
Like I don’t think it will hurt, but it will increase their viability like absolutely minimally
Share the same strengths with most infantry unit mean it can beat Halberdier + BBC combo, and not too easy to be eaten by Skirmisher.
Share the same weaknesses with most infrantry unit which weak against ranged unit.
Different from Teutonic Champion that TK is a rare infantry unit that is high pop efficient and beat Paladin
Dravidians is so weak that I don’t need to discuess here.
For Lithuanians, Leitis need relic control and castle to mass to make it great. If a Lithuanians player can fillful this two objective I cannot see why Leitis cannot counter TK AF
For Cataphracts, same as Lithuanians, if someone can affort both Elite and Logistica upgrade, I think Cataphracts should counter TK AF.
Sorry I am not explaining anything but I think the power level of TK should not be so good againist these 3 civ when Teutons have one of the best farming bonus and arguably the best paladin in this game. Teutons really have option
Seems I misread the OP slightly by projecting my own preference onto the situation - rather than give them anti-infantry bonus resistance, I would give them a small anti-armor resistance (which again is already programmed into the game, even if it’s currently unused). They would still perform the same vs. Handcannons, Samurai, Jags, etc, but would take slightly less bad matchups vs. Leiciai, Dravidian infantry, and Obuchs could only reduce their armor to a certain level. Either suggestion I think is decent.
(Also, in my defense, the thread title suggests Anti-Armor Armor, the thread itself suggests anti-infantry armor).
It’s true that either my suggestion, or the OP’s would improve their overall utility only by a small margin, but I think something like this is a valid flavor buff that gives TKs something to further differentiate them from Champs. And makes it feel less bad going against, say, Dravidian Halbs, which are stupidly effective for a cheap, goldless melee unit against which TK is usually a hard counter. I would like to see a few more small changes to niche infantry anyway, and this is more or less in line with the small incremental infantry buffs we’ve seen over the last couple years.
IMO they’re in a somewhat similar boat as battle eles - a powerful unit, but too slow, hard to mass and easy to counter to make them relevant in most situations.
It’s true that Teutons probably don’t need any kind of general buff, and this is something that a lot of civs with niche infantry UUs run up against - the availability of a very strong generic option.
ETK are one of the most powerful lategame units in the game. If not even the most powerful cause against most civs they shut down the melee pats entirely. And TK are also extremely strong against skirmishers. ETK are the strongest anti-trash unit in the game plus they even counter basically all cavalry and other infantry.
So yeah… I see absolutely no reason to change ETK.
About the castle age version we can maybe talk after the buffs to the other infantry lines, but ETK is one of the most powerful units in the game and there is absolutely no reason to buff it.
One important note is also that you don’t need many ETK in your army to achieve your desired effect. The high armor design of them makes them counter most melee unit so hard that you can completely oblitterate entire armies with just a few of them. But this threads seems to completely neglect that aspect.
If the opponent makes an infantry counter you have several tools as teutons player to your disposal: HC, Paladin, Siege and even your light cav can sometimes work against some of them.
All I’m gonna say about this is, I think you’re going to be extremely hard-pressed to find people who agree with this, outside of a very limited context (vs. unsupported melee units with no bonus against them). As someone who likes to play a lot of 4v4s that go late, an enemy making TKs doesn’t exactly strike fear into my heart, especially compared to a couple dozen other lategame units that are harder to deal with and can more easily wreak economic devastation.
It is true that they’re strong enough in their niche such that expanding that niche much (via increases in speed or PA) would be a bad idea. But strengthening them within their niche (of being strong vs. melee damage) is something that should be on the table as far as I’m concerned. It’s not strictly needed of course, but I’m all for little buffs to make [mainly infantry] UUs more interesting.
But “these units” are supposed to counter a unit like TK. It is like saying lets give knights armor against pikes to make pikes less effective. Another thing Teutons don’t need a buff, and their infantry and stables got huge one already by having +1 melee in castle and +1 in imp.
If you take this perspective, then it’s weird to design a whole UU and Imp UT around mainly fighting a niche UU that already has ample counters. But ignoring armor is already a solid gimmick, and Leiciai and Imp Dravidian infantry don’t need to be fighting TKs or Boyars for their ability to be useful. Maybe this ability could be given to a new unit, but for now it makes sense for the TK as being armored is central to its identity more than any other unit.
I think you’re are overstating the impact this would have. These units would still counter TKs, albeit in a slightly less lopsided way. It’s like how some people are calling for halbs to do slightly less vs. Battle Eles. You don’t have to agree with it, but let’s not pretend it will turn all the counters on their heads.
It is a weird niche. Its a pretty poor design but giving the TKs armor against those just makes them just really makes the UT and the UU extremely boring
Its really not. Without the exagerated effects against Boyars and TKs its really just a mounted Shotel or Garland Wars without attack vs buildings
Don’t see how that’s bad. Garland wars is a strong tech, and Wootz could be weaker than it and still be useful (although I’ve always thought it should be more accessible - definitely lower priced and maybe even moved to Castle Age). It’s true that the devs could have been more creative than reusing the Leitis gimmick (although I’m glad they didn’t go with something even more boring, like +5 Attack), and it’s weird for them to have chosen to make it most effective against a couple units that are already pretty easy to counter.
So at some point, it’s kind of a balancing act between wanting to make a UU/UT feel useful, and wanting to make a different UU feel useful (by not being hard countered by everything but slow melee units). So maybe you’d prefer the other suggestion. Then again, I don’t think TK needs a buff as much as several other units, I just like the logic behind this one.
I totally agree with this. By the time when Dravidians release, if Dravidians was too OP i think developers will nerf Wootz Steel that it will only affect UU like Viking. but when Dravidians is underperform like right now, I think Wootz Steel should be a civ bonus given that it is worse than Garland wars and even Burmese Infantry +1 attack per age bonus in some situation. When Burmese bonus can be free, Wootz Steel should be free too
I disagree with giving them infantry armor. It does not really add to the identity of the TK, but rather subtract from the identities of Cataphract and HC. Teutons have other options like Paladin vs Byzantines.
TK is suicidal vs. anything with range, not just HC. The bonus damage of HC is not the problem.
It would barely affect their viability. Cataphract and HC are themselves rarely used and hard to get to.
I would prefer a food cost reduction to TK. I think it costs too much for what it does. Over time, champion has power crept on the TK’s niche (with supplies and extra armor) and the TK has not been rebalanced to account for that.
I kinda agree here… give them anti-infantry armor… like maybe 5 ( maybe 10 for elite or would it be OP?). However, this does not do anything vs the Dravidian unique tech or the Leitis… and these are either unique units or unique techs… let them remain that way. The Leitis has even been nerfed in the past… this would hurt them more.