Long swordsman tech buff

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
21

The mere fact that the swordsman line is thd only one without a trash counter makes it obvious that its not supposed to be on the same level as archers or knights.
This is furthermore supported by checking the description of archers, knights, and swordsman in the tech tree.

No. Because the otger gold units are much more gold intensive, and take bonus damage from at least 1 trash unit. Whereas the swordsman line does not.

I do think a slight buff would be okay to further solidify there role, but that’s it. I already suggested gicing all 3 trash units a new armor type and giving swordsman a bonus damage against it, along with a slight speed boost.

It honestly doesn’t mattef if you buff the long sword specifically because unless they completely change game design entirely, the swordsman line will still be inferior to knights combined with skirms and archers combined with pikes, and likely won’t see them used much in castle age

22

Your suggested changes are truly the least we as a community could do for the pitiful Longswordsmen.

The changes really needed to fix this unit-line only start from here, honestly.

3 Likes
23

what about burmese ls like something i never tryd but seem interested is m@a into ls and go for arson chainmail armor and it would benefit a +2 damage from their bonus

24

i noticed that if my math is correct its 12 atk 2MA/3PA in armor if you just take forging and both defensive upgrades and +5 against buildings

25

Comment and observation from a relatively new player, after playing and watching hundreds of games in the past seven months:
Militia and Men-at-arms are seen often (Drush and MAA into something very common). If a player played these openings, Two-Handed Swordsmen and Champions are common in the Lategame as well, at least for some Civs or against Meso-Civs, so no complaints here.
But especially in Castle Age the Swordsman line (-> Longswordman) seems underrepresented. You see a lot of Crossbows vs. Knights, you see Pikes + Siege or Monks + Siege, you see Castles, so basically all the things that are (more or less) immediately available and are useful. Hence, the LS is the least used unit and is practically skipped. As a new player, this annoys me. Don’t get me wrong, I do not want LS to be Meta or OP, just a viable option in Castle Age.
So, why is LS in Caste Age bad? I think because it’s not exceptionally good against something. You base your early Castle Age strategy around what you’ve seen from your opponent so far and make the counters. For example, if the opponent has Archers you go for a Mangonel, if there are leftover Skirmishers, you throw in a Knight, since it is immediately useful, even in small numbers. You get the idea. But the only situation I could imagine, where instant LS make sense is against a bunch of Spearmen, which doesn’t happen. So, if the Swordsman line is supposed to be good against trash units, why isn’t it as good against Scouts and Skirms as other options (Spearmen and Knights/Scouts respectively).
Long story short, my suggestion is:

Longswordmen (and 2HS and Champs) get +2 Attack against non-Gold Military units.

2 Likes
26

maybe ls+1 2HS +2 and Champ +3 also wouldt it also just be against pikes ?

27

In a reasonable Upgrade situation, an Elite-Skirmisher is currently killed with 4 LS hits, 4 with +1 as well, 4 with +2 as well (4/4/4). For Light Cav it’s 9/8/8. For Pikemen it’s 7/6/5. +1 or +2 does not seem to do much, I mean at all…
+3 would be 3 hits for E-Skirm, 7 for Light Cav and 5 for Pikemen. Would be the wanted slight Power Spike for Longsword Tech, but is 2HS and Champs with +3 Attack against Hussar, E-Skirm and Halberdier too strong? Would benefit some Gunpowder Civs, if Infantry is more present.

28

i mean it could also scale up depending on who the LS is facing

like i know it would be unwise to stack it to high but for differtation if it comes up to +6 as LS vs cav

  • 4 as LS against Skirms
    and +8 against pikes ?
29

also would it be reasonable if it stacks from m@a to champs ?

30

I do agree it would be nice if LS were somewhat viable in castle, but I don’t think this

Is a good idea.

The militia line relies on its raw stats, and in most phases of the game that works great.

My analysis of the problem would be that gold units need to be able to damage the opponent’s economy. Militia, M@a, champions, Knights, crossbows, magonels… All of these can deal significant damage to the enemy economy.
Only LS and Camels are practically impotent.

1 Like
31

Yes but its either to give them more certain advantice over trash or make them more potent tearing down buildings

and either way is hard to balance out if you go for a state of game were giving them PA seems to bad nerving archers is no option neither knights

and damage against trash like Spear/pikes/Halb LC/Hussars and Skirm/Eskirms woudlt be unclear to stay on a general point like +5 vs all pikes 7 vs cav and +4 vs skirms or if it should stack up from m@a to champs

32

Sorry but further buffing LS damage against trash is a terrible idea. This is just powercreeping the game without addressing any issue.

Goth have LS that cost -30%, Japanese attack 30% faster, that’s much better than +4 vs trash. Yet we are still not seeing longswordsmen with these civilizations. That’s showing the problem is unrelated to their efficiency vs trash.

IMO the problem is they are too hard to train for a situational purpose. Let me explain.

LS are already very good against:

  • all trash units
  • buildings
  • eagles

But these things are all marginal in castle age, and not something you actively need to be ready to take down. So LS are good in a niche that is very situational.

Now the issue is, because of the absurd number of techs needed just to train them (Man at arms, Longswordsmen, Supplies), you have to plan before you want to go LS, which makes no sense: no one will plan beforehand that they will make a unit that is extremely situational.

That’s the true reason we never see them. Even if you’re playing against an opponent that makes only skirms and pikemen, you won’t go LS, because you won’t research 3 techs to counter something that your opponent can just stop making when he sees your longswordsmen and just react with knights that require 0 tech.

So, instead of making LS stronger in an unexisting niche, we need to start by making them practical to produce. The tech buff is a good idea imo, but I would even go as far as suggesting:

Techs:
  - Man-at-arm, Longswordsman, Supplies, researched for free in Castle age.

More controversial, I would also suggest the following stat tweaks:

Longswordsman:
   - HP +5, +1 melee armor.
   - Bonus damage against Eagles and buildings removed.

Nerf to bonus damage is because this bonus damage serves no purpose, it just hinders their overall buff potential while making them unnecessarily strong against eagles and TCs. The stats changes will compensate for this by making them slightly better against knights and archers (against which they still fare terribly).

With free techs, they have a new niche of “thing you can train quickly from a barrack”. They also get a new niche of early castle rush unit that can be massed quicker than archers. Just like we see sometimes non-cavalry civs make 1 or 2 knights when they hit castle.

2 Likes
33

the true reasons we don’t see militia line in castle age are that:

  • they don’t have as good stats and mobility as kts
  • they don’t have extra range like xbows

that’s it: they are literally not meant to be the core of a castle age army and they simply don’t have what it takes to replace xbows or kts in that role

4 Likes
34

Pikemen, monks, don’t have good stats, mobility or extra range, yet they exist situationally in castle age.
LS are NEVER seen even against the things they counter. There’s a difference between not being the core of a castle age army and not being played at all.

2 Likes
35

People counter Skirmishers with Mangonels or Knights.

If you try to counter Pikes with Longswords he adds 3 unupgraded kts and RIP your LS army. They’re just useless.

2 Likes
36

Pikemen deter knights, monks can pick relics, can convert units from range, are an excellent counter to mangonels and knights. LS can’t do any of that. They only have one strategy, all in TC destruction

37

They do not cost gold and are great at protecting siege by countering cav (their greates weakness), meanwhile the siege counters the archers/skirms, that slaughters pikes.
Pikes are also common because they are an exceptional meathshield against one of the two most common gold units in castle age (kts) and that’s why you usually see them in composition with xbows

monks are needed mostly for three things:

  • picking up relics
  • healing expensive units (and yeah, many pros including Viper and Hera do that)
  • most importantly converting kts, once again one of the most common units in castle age
    on top of these three things, they can also be used defensively against siege or offensively in a smush

Pikes are not the core, they are a support units. Monk can be a core or a support. LS don’t have anything to be either and since they are gold units they should be compared to what gold units usually are: the core of an army.

Once again, the reasons why you don’t see LS in castle age is simply because they are the worst unit and there’s nothing you can do to make them the core of an army in castle age without overbuffing them because:

  • they will get overpowered by kts (better stats)
  • they will get microed down by xbows (extra range + lack of mobility by LS)
38

No need to enumerate all things pikemen can do.

LS can also do things. They clean a feudal army pretty badly. They are quick to mass and don’t require a specific building. Pikemen + LS also wins against Knights + skirms which is a common strategy. They are situational, but that does not mean they have 0 use. The problem is we won’t see any of this use due to the absurd upgrade cost.

If you needed to spend 3 upgrades to make a monk we would not see them either.

1 Like
39

A thing that kts or xbow (if properly microed) can easily do

what? plus, going for such a thing can also be easily countered by adding 3 scorps

the point is that they are REALLY situational, but for sure the reason you don’t see them is not only related to the upgrade cost. They are simply a bad castle age unit

1 Like
40

Nope. Knights lose to spearmen, crossbows to skirms. LS rekt both even when heavily outnumbered (which is likely to happen if your opponent still in feudal).

And ? Just like Crossbows are hard countered by skirms ? And knights hard countered by monks ? Doesn’t mean we don’t make these units. Besides crossbow would be a much simpler counter than scorps here. But I can just add one mangonel to counter either.

Look, I’m not pretending LS is a good unit, I’m just saying there are situations where you would make them if the stupid upgrade was not there. We’re not looking at making them META, we’re looking at making them see at least situational use just like monks or pikemen.

1 Like