These suggestion are more about retaining civ identity than fixing a civ for being under or over powered. Lithuanians suffer from two main awkward inconsistencies that make them less interesting and enjoyable to play.
Scout Line
The winged hussar upgrade is a decent bit more expensive than the hussar upgrade, but because lith lack blast furnace they end up with the same attack and just +5hp.
Spear Line
The spearmen line appears to be upgraded by the unique tech, but all this does is get their pierce back to normal while leaving them with 1 less melee armor. This means that the unique tech is just a weaker version of what generic civs already get for their spear line and it makes the function of this unique tech contribute less to the civ identity. And since this is a castle technology it is automatically more difficult to research. On top of this is the fact that their halbs no longer get blast furnace. If a Lithuanian halb fights a generic halb then the lithuanian’s halb takes 3 more damage per attack, despite benefiting from both a civ bonus and a unique tech.
To address these two awkward unit situations I think the team could take one of two approaches:
1. Bring back relic bonus for scouts, give last infantry armor
Since they are missing blast furnace this would mean that the scouts would at most end up with net +2 attack for their hussar in the best case scenario when they get 4 relics and it would justify their regional reskin as something meaningful.
With the last armor upgrade the halbs have a more dynamic role for the civ. While they would be -2 attack against generic halbs, but they would now be up 2 pierce against archers. Making them better than generic in one area and worse than generic in another makes the civ bonuses mean something.
2. Trade Paladin for open blacksmith
This is a much more drastic change but it also fixes the two issues. If they get blast furnace then winged hussar are better than hussar instead of equal to them. Losing paladin but getting back the last attack upgrade would mean that Lithuanians could still end up with more attack on their cavalier than generic paladin. I also think because they already have such a powerful cav unique unit in the leitus that they are capable of filling the role of the paladin with this alternative.
I hope that the balance team gives these suggestions some consideration. This is not meant to be criticism of the hard work they do to keep the game fun and interesting.
I think the pattern of removing paladins after giving a civ a strong and unique knight line upgrade would be consistent with the second change suggestion
Want to remind you that relic bonus stopped affecting Light Cavalry years ago because Hussars with all upgrades and potential +5 attack with also strong skirmishers and halbs was broken in trahs wars, without mentioning that people was just abusing high attack Hussars. What makes you think that bringing it back to even better Hussars is good? Lithuanian Winged Hussars are fine as they are.
Man cmon, go and check why Malians in the past also lost Halbs, Halbs with extra PA and extra speed is stupidly OP for raiding.
LIthuanians are already designed with strong Paladins in mind and removing Palas is simply damaging their identity, Lithuanian Paladin can’t get such high attack anymore and for a high attack cavalry unit go Leitis, and Leitis can’t fill the role that paladins do because the lack of HP and Pierce Armor, if they were just same or better than Paladin in most cases, is then a broken unit and that was already seen when they had 2 PA.
Also why are suugesting to change a civilization that’s pretty much quite balanced at this point? Don’t get it.
I like your ideas. Lithuanians are so strange now. They have the worst halberdier in the game despite having a bonus and a unique technology for them. That makes no sense.
They still have the speed bonus. I would take them over vietnamese halberdiers and over any civ missing halberdiers, in particular Malians, Aztecs, and Vikings who are “infantry civs” with buffed pikes worse than halberdiers.
By the way, Franks HCA and Gurjaras spears are also solid candidates for worst unit of their type despite having a bonus.
This is also like saying several of the common units but not being FU despite having some bonus for them is bad design/making no sense. What, does Malian Cavalry not make any sense despite having several bonuses and UT for them either? Cheaper Stables, more gold income, UT that gives you more attack, but you lack Paladin and Hussar.
Lithuanian Halberdiers are fine as is, they’re faster which is really the main thing (on top of, y’know, being Halberdiers - you already have a leg up vs Pikemen). You take better engagements against Cavalry.
That’s fine, they have Winged Hussars (stronger than regular Hussars) and the Leitis (that pretty much hard counters melee units with 2 relics), they are more than fine vs cavalry and camels.
I think you’ve convinced my Lith are in a good place balance-wise. I guess I just don’t like the idea of a bonus being given to a civ when an incomplete tech tree partially takes that away. Like I get why turks can’t get siege engineers, or malians can’t get blast furnace, or teutons can’t get bracer, but it can feel like getting short changed from the promised bonus even if its for the best.
I know that technically just about every civ has some form of counterbalancing when a unit gets a strong bonus, but some of them are more intuitive to me than others, like when the counter balance affects a different aspect of the unit. (goths,huns,malay etc with a cheaper unit type that also gets weaker armor and teutons with slow, heavily armored melee units)
Something to keep in mind with Lithuanians:
Before Imp, their spearline is fully upgradeable an has the speed bonus. That results in one of the vest spearlines untilä imp and fot their main purpose ix countering cav, they keep viable.
The only thing I woul like is a decrease in cost for winged hussar upgrade.