I have a suggestion to change the samurai in a different kind of unit.
Currently the Samurai occupy a niche and I don’t see them used very often. I do think they are historically an important unit and should receive some love.
My suggestion would be to make them cav archers who dismount into a melee samurai. This would make sense considering the samurais and would give them some love they deserve.
Japanese having access to better than fully upgraded cavalry archers already represents mounted samurai.
A real fun’s killer machine…
I’ll say this in every thread WRT Samurai:
Give them their originally-planned ability to switch between melee and ranged, making them foot versions of Ratha so that they can actually fight against ranged UU. All that would need to be done is to tweak the base ranged attack so that ranged Samurai can’t overshadow melee Samurai in regular situations.
How about giving them the ability to do critical strike (30% doing 2X dsmage)
They should have a special armor against unique units so they don’t die against half of them.
This.
Give them the same ability the Shotel Warrior gets with Royal Heirs just for Unique Units.
-3 (or just -2) Damage from Unique units would make them a lot more resistent against ranged UUs in particular because they usually have lower damage per attack compared to melee units.
Currently Samurai struggle against ranged UUs since they die before they can reach them. Bonus damage doesn’t help you if you can’t get close enough to attack.
Once chemistry is researched they should have the ability to use a hand cannon when switched into a ranged mode.
What about counters? Would their melee also die to skirmishers like Ratha?
I think they should turn Samurai into a unique upgrade for longsword that’s available in the barrack like how Legionnaire is a unique upgrade for longsword for Roman. Then give Japanese a different more useful Unique unit, I would love Dev to add Ninjas as their new UU that are invisible on mini map and can go over walls without siege tower making Ninja a raiding units. This unit already exists on the editor but their purpose is anti hero unit.
I’m not sure if this is permissible by the current game engine or game mechanics, but I’d wish the Samurai to be a unit that could actively dismount and remount. The default mode coming out of the Castle would be the horse archer mode, but it could dismount and become 2 units the Samurai and the unmanned horse. The dismounted Samurai would have the same stats as the current one, and the unmanned horse would be similar to the wild horse from the Scenario Editor. And the dismounted Samurai would have the ability to remount back onto his horse and become a horse archer again. This would make it different from both the Konnik and the Ratha.
If they can’t apply such features to the Samurai then I wish to see such abilities on another UU for one of the potential steppe civs (Gokturks, Jurchens, Khitans, and Tibetans).
Normally wouldn’t want to drastically change the function of a UU, but getting access to a ranged attack would actually allow Samurai to counter Ranged UUs, and give them a distinct role over Militia.
Switcheable unit types has a lot of issues because armour classes can’t change.
Since unit switching is instant (engine limitation I assume) it can’t change the armour classes or else it would be overpowered.
Imagine switching from archer to infantry for a second every time the volley of Skirmishers hits you or switching to Archer against the Hand Cannons.
The Ratha has the same armour classes in both cases but that only really means that the melee version has also has the Cavalry Archer armour class.
It would be really strange if the Samurai would always have Infantry and Archer armour classes.
So the best way to make Samurai better against ranged UUs is to give them a special armour that reduces the damage from UUs.
Giving them a +3 armour vs. Unique units (maybe at the cost of some other stats in return) would make them a lot better against ranged UUs.
This change alone would likely allow them to counter almost every UU.
Some UUs like Cavalry Archers can still hit and run them forever of course.
I doubt. Think about Trebuchet.
Why not replace the Cavalry Archer line for Japanese with Samurai Archers or something.
hmm true. But that’s kind of a building.
Maybe they decided against it for Ratha for gameplay reasons.
AoE3DE units can quickly, but not instantly switch between ranged an melee (also automatically when attacked in melee) and they now added some units that can mount and dismount with an animation that takes some time but then the horses just vanish and appear again out of thin air.
The horse can stand next to the Samurai. It can be killed when the dismounted unit is killed.
By now there’s at least 3 units with the charge ability originally given to the Coustillier and 3 with ranged melee attack (not counting the Onager line), idk why this switch ability is still exclusive to the Ratha.
If Samurai had a ranged mode with low attack (like skirmisher), they would die to non-unique ranged units like any other infantry. They don’t need to change armor classes, they can keep their current class and it would be fine. Afterall, Ratha does not change armor classes when changing modes.
Keep the infantry armor class in both modes of Samurai. Then they would still die to HC regardless of the mode.
Ranged UUs would still use micro to run and kill Samurai. And if there is a meat shield, +3 would not be enough since many UUs have higher attack than other units.
I think that would just feel wrong.
You have a strong looking Archer unit that does no damage.
The Ratha is a cavalry in both cases just a cavalry archer on top in one case so sharing the armour classes doesn’t change that much.
Infantry and Archer are very different armour classes.
Samurai don’t need to be able to counter every UU in every situation or else you would basically remove every UU from a game with Japanese in it.