Dear devs.
In this game knights are used as a frontline DPS unit, but they shouldn’t be like that. Knights should have a lower melee damage but high charge bonus and armor. Knights should charge in, break formations, soak some damage then retreat and charge again. This should be the role of knights in AOE 4, Knights just currently feel like a infantry unit with faster speed.
The current knights devalues any use of infantry late game, and they can be spammed late game. The charge mechanic is hardly used in this game and once knights engage, they just melt everything, except spears.
It will be nice to see knights used as a formation breaking unit and an opening soaker. Instead of playing trial and error with stat numbers, mechanical change that introduces change in playstle and role of a unit will be a better way to balance than boring number crunching.
Knights were always shock cavalry in many of the civs.
thanks
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have you heard about spearmen and their auto-brace mechanic they got in the latest patch? It’s pretty cool man, you should try it out sometime
spearmen is one things, this does not have anything to do with spears, if you see spears don’t go near them with your knights. Cavalry charges are used from the back, flank, not from the front if spears are ready.
brother, this is not a Total War game, if you can’t micro well enough to have your spears on top of cavalry - it’s probably just you sucking at micro
He’s not saying they’re too strong, he’s saying their role sucks.
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Although devs “encourage” us to diversify unit combination, I do agree that the position of Knights/Lancers in this game is just feels like better version of MAA or Horsemen at the moment. If you have enough resources to mass Knights/Lancers there is really no reason to make MAA or Horsemen because Knights/Lancers are better than them in almost every aspect making it somewhat pointless to invest in them. If devs really want things to be more diversified, then Knights/Lancers need clearer role in the battle not just being all-round-multi-purpose melee unit that can outperform almost every other melee unit.
On that regard if modifying game mechanic is too much of a change, then I suppose we could start by adjusting some numbers to still make it feel better with something like this.
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Reduce Knight/Lancer lines movement speed so that they are faster than infantry but slowest among cavalry.
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Slightly increase charge attack damage but decrease regular attack damage so that they have to rely more on their mobility and charge attack.
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Instead of flat timer cooldown for their charge attack, make them move certain amount of distance before they can activate charge attack which will be canceled if they stop moving.
I think these sort of change won’t be game-breaking enough to dethrone them from strongest melee unit in the game. But it would definitely add more things to consider when you use them and be mindful of when and where you are charging into with Heavy Cavalry based army.
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hi very well articulated and nicely written, thank you.
Well, I think knights need stampede damage and charge push effect of enemy units.
This would make them much stronger and useful to break enemy formations and deal a significant amount of damage at the same time and almost accurate illustration too.
I remember we had this push effect in LOTR BFME and it was the coolest unit to play with as it would push and drop units on the ground and its kinda stun effect to those units and knights get enough time to put some damage on them. It was the best illustration of knights and still, no other company really managed to do it better or add it than EA. Which is truly sad.
I think damage and charge damage is just fine. It just needs additional charge effect as I mentioned before.
push and trample will be too much, currently their role is to replace MAA.
Then heavy cavs will be useless. People will be just spamming spears since they cancel charges 100% now.
Your suggestion would make the community mad as it is actually nerfing to the point where the unit is useless.
You must consider the force coming from the top with inertia from a person who is riding a horse. The logic is the physics. The higher, the more force goes to infantry troops as they are considered low. Melee infantry force goes from bottom to up which means they must deal less damage to Cavs except for spearman.
Moreover, spearmen are a cost-effective counter against cavs and it would own heavy knights if they implement your suggestion. You must consider all kinds of things.
Have you considered a sort of charge effect like the cavalry in Battle for middle earth 2 game? would you like it? it could be the type of game that is the most similar game considering the units. (i think that total war, especially with that engine, couldnt be taken as an example to compare)
Honestly I’d say MAA are more common than Knights in a late game army. Cheaper and just as tanky to protect the xbows and seige dealing the damage from behind.
Once springalds get nerfed I could see Knights becoming a bit too strong but that’s a conversation for another day.
I don’t think my suggestion would make Knights useless because they would still have tanky HP, armor and still more mobile compare to regular infantry. Besides, this has nothing to do with Spearman VS Knight interaction. This is more about Knight being superior replacement for MAA and Horseman in every aspect which is just like original AOE2 20 years ago when everyone just spammed Paladins.
There is an actual example of what I suggested in AOE2:DE. In that game there is a unit called “Coustillier” which is basically melee cavalry unit with charge attack ability similar to Knight in AOE4. However they work quiet different in terms of role in battle. Compare to regular cavalry, Coustillier has noticeably lower regular attack damage. In fact, it is even lower than regular infantry. But it has extremely potent charge attack damage that can inflict at least 50% HP damage to most infantry unit and it can outright one-shot most foot-archer type unit. But due to its low regular attack damage, it cannot sustain long drawn out battle in one position. So you have to constantly dive in and out, trying to make most out of its charge attack ability and fall back to castle if things aren’t looking good. I would say this type of shocktrooper-esque design is more suitable for AOE4 where devs are “trying” to make hexagonal interaction between light/heavy units and infantry/archer/cavalry units.
And one last thing, personally I really don’t care much about realism when it comes to video game. I would prefer enjoyable-unrealistic game rather than boring-realistic game. I believe game design can always shy away from realism if it can make the game more entertaining. If I wanted realistic medieval experience I would start practicing horse-riding and jousting in real-life rather than sitting in my comfy chair playing video games.
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