One of the big problems with the Militia Line is that they don’t do any one thing particularly well. They’re decent at everything, but excel at nothing. The challenge with this design is, why include them at all? Generally speaking, you’re more likely to win a game with one big spike of power, than via a more complex force that might have less counters, but also doesn’t do any one thing as well.
So generally, you typically end up with armies of all one unit; all knights, or all crossbows. From there, you build specific units to deal with specific threats as they come.
So it strikes me that infantry need something special they can do, something that sets them apart and makes them distinctly useful.
What if they could build palisade walls?
Now, my first idea was that they should be able to build all defensive buildings(walls, towers, castles), but honestly it feels like that might be a bit OP, plus it would devalue sicilians too much. But Palisades? Those are something that you could actually legitimately use in a battle with some quick micro, whether to protect siege or corral a fleeing enemy.
The nice thing about this bonus is, it encourages the use of a handful of infantry, but not more, and that’s exactly where infantry already excel; as a resin mixed into other units to hold them together.
Well I guess the immediate result is that we will see a lot of dark age resource walling.
I actually think that brining vills to archer army and build gates would be the next level micro possible, but we probably dont need militia line at that moment.
I think is counterintuitive. Militia line, is more an offensive unit than defensive one.
If something they could build, I think siege weapons is a better choise.
Militia / man at arms are already seen very frequently in ranked games. Either 2 or 3 militia Drush FC. And MAA into archers. Or even MAA towers occasionally. Just because you don’t use them, doesn’t mean they’re a useless unit. MAA is a great counter to scouts play.
The early game, I would agree that they are an offensive unit more than a defensive one. But in the late game, that shifts, and instead they function more as a utility unit, making armies more balanced, in addition to tearing down buildings.
My mental image is more like the Army Corps of Engineers; soldiers, yes, but also more than that, doing everything needed to facilitate the full power of other troops.
They balance the composition, mostly. If you can afford them, adding even a handful of champions to an army of almost anything else can make it dramatically stronger vs its counters without sacrificing much power against the things it’s good at.
If they could also make palisades, they’d become really good at supporting other units. Say you’re facing a bunch of cavalry archers; a few quick palisades at the right time could corral them and force a good confrontation. Same goes for cavalry, really. Wouldn’t do as much about siege, but even there it would buy you a few seconds, and you could protect your own siege, too!
Maybe have this be an extra bonus for Sappers, to make it more of a lategame bonus?
apart from walling in resources the other huge issue here would be militia quick walling. i can only imagine drush vs drush becoming a complete mess with palisade foundations going up everywhere