testing the inca and seeing if there is a viable way to utilize macemen. imo they are still a waste of resource, but the potential is there.
reduce their cost to 120 food 100 gold, reduce pop cost and aoe to 2, and increase move speed to 4.5. then the unit will finally be worth making as a tanky frontline aoe brawler.
otherwise they really have no point in existing.
The maceman has the purpose of besieging and tanking damage, it is the equivalent of the Iroques ram / mantlet or the Aztec skull knight, you cannot reduce the cost, because it would be very efficient, and you cannot give it more speed, because it will defeat its counters with relative ease. For me, the unit itself is fine, that shipment of 3 - 5 macemen can save you the fire in the kitchen after a FF.
its not good at tanking for its current cost. it has even less hp per pop compared to the 80 resource pikemen, at 107 hp per pop its practically as tanky as a crossbow while being much more expensive. every melee infantry that costs 100 resources or more has greater hp per pop than the maceman, for a slow extremely expensive melee unit thats a death sentance.
even if you count in their ranged resistance, thier ranged hp reaches 400. meanwhile 3 musketeers reach 450 ranged hp, and 563 melee hp. all the while doing high ranged damage.
it costs the same as a cuir yet with 2.25 less speed and 105 less hitpoints. the same hp as a hussar, which is 2.5 speed faster, yet the macemen is 50% more expensive.
at its current price, the slow mantlet is more useful and makes more sense. it has more hitpoints, more ranged resistance, and is ranged even though the maceman again costs 50% more.
when would you ever want a maceman over the much cheaper and ranged hauraca. you can have almost 3 for the cost of one maceman, and they deal incredible siege damage from long range. they snipe cannons and infantry with ease, and are so superior that even if macemen cost is reduced hauraca will almost always be the better choice.
how does one look at their stats and their costs and justify to an incan player that they are ever worth considering?
here is some food for thought. if the inca had access to the gendarme, which costs the exact same as a maceman, do you think they would train them?
Yes, you are right with everything you say, but you don’t have to think of the Maceman as a Doppelsoldner or Samurai, you have to think of it as a ram or a mantlet, why? Because he has a siege label, this means that defensive buildings will inflict less damage on him, that is their main purpose, to besiege. If you compare it with the huaraca, the maceman is superior in his work, he has more siege and more rate of fire. 480 of tanking against skirms is not bad at all eh. I think the design is fine, it is not as OP as the Skull Knight, and it is not as weak as the RAM.