Malta musketers: sentinels are bad units by 2 population
Commandery units are useless:
They cost 10% more and have 10% more damage and resistance. But this 10% affects only base parameters. So in 3 age for example, they are only 8% stronger but they remain being 10% more expensive.
Units in commanderies can´t be improved by shippments (like another civs that for sxample can send 15% more damage or resistance by their units, etc…).
Added to the previous point, commandery units are not affected by maltese bonus that increase 2% resistance of its units per each shipment. So they lose the biggest strongpoint of the civ.
Due to previous point, practically all commandery shippments are useless too.
Commanderies are bad buildings
Commanderies can´t be updated. So they become useless as defensive buildings in mid-late game
Commanderies replace stables. But while stables cost only 200 wood, commanderies cost 250 wood and 100 gold, almost twice as much. So if you want to create cavalry you are forced to build a building that is almost double expensive even if you don´t want to play defensive or if you are in late where commanderies are useless as defensive buildings.
Lets compare the previous point with blockhouse for example. Replace barracks, but only cost 50 more wood. So it cost like a tower too and it even gives you 5 of population with what could be considered amortized those 50 of wood. If you play in late, you can update blockhouse like towers, so they dont become useless.
(Edit) Church card is useless: I dont need to explain this point
Due to the previous points, Malta that is a civ with apparently it has many outlets, It is all the time condemned to the same strategy of crossbows and pikes
Now, in a different message, I will propose an idea to rework the civilization. I encourage you to propose your ideas as well
I am going to list several points that could be interesting when reworking the civilization.
Remove the outposts from the civilization. Have the commanderies take their place, similar to the blockhouses with Russia. However, allow the commanderies to be upgraded like the outposts.
The units from the commanderies should benefit from the Maltese bonus of 2%. Maybe removing the current 10% bonus to both attack and resistance.
Replace the outpost with the battery tower (same could be done for the italians).
Give the commandery it’s old skin (the one on the historical map) as the current one feels very out of place.
Give the maltese a unique church model.
Remove the depot. It’s just stupid imo and I wonder why the Maltese were given the depot in the first place.
Make the fixed gun a limited HC shipment.
Give the hospitalier proper upgraded skins, matching with the era please.
Overall, as many people have already pointed out, the Maltese look like a mere mod and an excuse to squeeze in old SP campaingn assets. I think they still deserve a place in the game (they’ll stay whether we like it or not) but I do feel they need some more authenticity.
I don’t think it would be a good idea tbh. Who would ever rationally train 2pop crossbowmen or pikes? And making the hospitalier a 3 pop unit isn’t better. I don’t think it’s good design to discourage players from training a civ’s unique units.
I’ve played a lot of Malta both 1v1 and lategame focused modes and have a couple point of contention with you.
Order units are honestly great and here’s why you’re why—by
First, the increased cost should not be thought of a downside due to their increased stats, but rather due to Order units Shadowteching And their 10% increased stats. Now this only matters age 3 to early age 5 but let’s look at them in that time frame. to show them at their best. Upon hitting age 3 your hussars instantly veins veteran hussars, which normally would have cost 400 resources total. What this means is that the increased cost of the hussars only becomes worst After you have built 20 hussars (the hussars cost 20 extra resources so 20x20=400)—age 4 it becomes 80. Now it’s a bit more complicated than this, because many times it’s better to build more units than upgrade them, but I think looking at them like this puts them in a better light.
Second, you have access to this amazing little unit called the Hospitaler. Now he may not look like much with just his base stats but, the absorption ability can be way better than people expect. This is due to cover mode, which makes them gain 50%rr and 50%sr which applies to their absorption ability. This means if you have a group of hospitalers in your group of Order Cassadors, Order Dragoons, Order Lancers, or even just your normal army of xbows or sentinels, then your hospitalers will be able to soak a Ton of damage allowing the rest of your army destroy many (or most) other ranged damage comps. Whether that be musk/falc or skirm/goon.
Sentinels aren’t that bad for 2 pop, at least if you’ve sent a couple cards already. Are they great? No. Do they shine in mass? No. But they are a fairly good unit for defend your lighter units against cav, with their having high melee multiplier vs cav.
Where you’re right, yes commandaries should be upgradable, their stats fall off way too much for their cost. And yes sentinels are bad lategame, especially due to their low siege (even with rocket ability). And yes Order units fall off Lategame even with Hospitaler support, but giving them the 2% hp isn’t possible, imp cuirs would be crazy. What kind of buff they should have I don’t know (maybe an age 4 card that makes Order units nearby your grandmaster get buffed)—but they for sure aren’t terrible.
Am I saying Malta is a good civ? No—I think we can tell this from their winrate pretty easily—honestly they’re probably the worst civ in the game.
How we got here was this: people complained that they were annoying to play against, it’s that simple. They were never super op (except wignacourt upon release), but people didn’t like that they couldn’t easily quickly win against them. Which has led to constant nerfs to their defensive abilities—those abilities being the only reason Malta was any good. So now Malta is bad.
Replace the outpost with the battery tower (same could be done for the italians).
The objetive of my Idea is make commanderies usefull enabling them to be upgrated.
The current problem is that if we enable commanderies to be updated at the same time that we Have outpost, Maltese would have to many defensive structures.
(EDIT) if commanderies can be upgraded, they could have several skins.
Remove the depot. It’s just stupid imo and I wonder why the Maltese were given the depot in the first place
Depots do that buildings and gunpowder to shoot faster
I have never seen high-level players sending command deck cards except for the Germans occasionally. Right now, Malta is one of the worst civilizations in the game, and that is not something up for debate.
We have a civilization that, despite its apparent variety of options, is practically only played with the pikes and crossbows strategy. So my idea is buff all the commandery gameplay.
I rather like the style of Malta, they look great. I like the “last of the crusaders” feeling.
The Crossbowmen should imo remain a core unit. The problem is they need more than just xbows, and they should have 2 unit comps that don’t include them.
I think 0 pop Order units with limited numbers isn’t the best idea. In team games some times you need more of a given unit type.
Problems:
You Need wood late game. You also only get 1 factory.
There is a lack in good anti cav in the late game.
You also have very limited 1pop units. This forces xbows/cass and pikes. This makes splitting the army to deal with multiple fights difficult (someone pointed this out in a different thread).
As you pointed out, going for cav early is rough. Commandries cost a lot.
Order Units are basically only good due to the shadow tech.
Rework:
Malta becomes a Crossbow + Halb + heavy cavalry civ.
#1: Add a card:
“Mills and Estates trickle wood based on the number of workers working at them. The rate becomes better in the imperial age.” I’d suggest 0.06 in age 4 and 0.09 in age 5 per worker. This would cause it to cap at 8.91 wood per second. Slightly better than a factory, but a lot slower to set up and worse in age 4. This would be an age 4 card.
#2-3: Hospitalars are reworked towards being a halb/dopp hybrid.
Cost: 70f 70c
1pop
180 hp with 20% MR
Speed 4.5
Hand attack 15, 4x vs cav. 1aoe and 1 range.
Siege 30 with 6 range.
They retain the absorption ability.
With the lower pop cost they become more useful.
#4: Age Ups:
The Age 2 Politicians now grant half their normal reward, but grant a Commandery wagon.
It’s an easy fix, basically 50% off the cost of the first one. It seems well calibrated to fix the early problem. Later you can factor in the utility of teleportation and suddenly the cost doesn’t seem bad.
#5: Add a card “Teutonic Order” perhaps:
“+10% Order Unit Hitpoints. Order Units receive +1% attack and Hitpoints for every 3 minutes of the game so far (caps at 45 minutes).”
This card does a couple things. One, it is shifted towards the late game. This means the shadow tech is good early, and if you wait for the card to max out they get the late game help they need. A flat card would help too much after an FI or semi FI. This card could be available in age 2, giving the option to send it early for less benefit.
Yes, although maybe with some form of minor stat change to justify Malta using a different tower model (which fits in much better). Maybe Maltese could get a minor Melee Resistance aura from the towers to reinforce the defensive gimmick.
Not sure about this one. A Commandery was just a base for Knightly sorts and were commonly forts, large houses and fortified churches. I dislike the model, however it makes more sense than the original/scenario building of the tent camp, especially if we factor in it being a defensive building (an armed tent?). I’d personally ‘just’ change it’s texture to that of the sandy/white brick and stone used in fortifications in the Mediterranean - it would look much more appropriate than the wood skin (though keep the current roof).
Absolutely. They deserve their own design.
Depot is an odd one. Currently this is one of the buildings that seems very Mod-like, however there is a thematic link here, somewhere! Like my suggestion about the Commandery it firstly needs a skin change as well as a name change. Change this wooden ‘old west’ depots to Gunpowder Magazines. Wood texture goes out for the same Mediterranean masonry style and there you go. If our civ vibe plays off the whole ‘Fortress Malta’ thing, well Magazine buildings were built near many Maltese fortifications (also more of an obvious name and role to new players). Gameplay wise, up their Rate of Fire bonus to 12 or even 15% - play up to the defensive nature of the real Malta as well as making Depots a concern and focus for the enemy.
Fixed Gun - I’m not sure on this, though I’d rather they were Basilica-style wagon shipments via the Commander over solely HC shipments.
Yes, I agree - plate half armour and fancy trousers.
Malta doesn’t need huge changes just a few small changes to make it a viable civ.
Revert the xp penalty, this was added when all units recieved extra 2% hp, since then artillery got knocked down to 1% extra and the fixed gun gets no extra HP.
An order unit combat card like +15% attack and HP on all order units. This would be perfectly reasonable as malta has no general upgrade cards that effect them like cav or infantry combat.
Rework the church card, other than the 1 tech that gives sentinels and hospitallers their bonus near enemy buildings the church card sucks. The tech for hospitallers which gives them +25% attack in exchange for -20% speed is terrible, change it to +25% hp for -10% speed for example.
The other tech that costs like 2500 wood and gives 1 hospitaller per hospital built is also completely unviable and just a far worse version of other cards which give hospitallers per commandery/fort etc. Perhaps make it an age 4 tech that ships 2 fixed gun wagons and gives them their guard tech for a certain amount of coin. Or perhaps a shipment of commandery wagons and it enables them to be upgraded like towers are.
Just give them a second factory card, at this point I fail to see what incredible eco advantage malta have by age 4 which justifies only giving them 1 factory. Same with italy since they got nerfed. By late game wignacourt just becomes an aura dependent exotic hardwoods and lombards for italy in no way compensate for the lack of a factory either.
Sentinels age 4 card needs an upgrade because by late game population efficiency matters more than cost, increase the overall stat boost and increase the cost to match, make it 55%.
I understand, however I think the best solution would be to simply reduce the build cost of the commandery so it’s more affordable early in the game and give its “teleport” feature to forts instead.
I know that. I’m just not a fan of the explosion mechanic and the building in itself doesn’t feel very maltese.
Fair enough. I agree the best option would be a brand new appearance. The current one is so bad.
Maybe, I don’t know. I’m just not happy with how it is currently. It shouldn’t be easily accessible imo.
Agree, sentinels suck as 2 pop units, the solution is to make them 1 pop unit and balance them according to that.
Malta concept civ is not based in numbers. But less units that other civs but with defensive bonus.
I understand, however I think the best solution would be to simply reduce the build cost of the commandery so it’s more affordable early in the game and give its “teleport” feature to forts instead.
Commanderies are good in age 2. The perfect balance for that building is to able them to be upgraded, even if this rewuire to delete outpost.
(making commandery units usefull as I said)
The units from the commanderies should benefit from the Maltese bonus of 2%. Maybe removing the current 10% bonus to both attack and resistance.
Here’s my solution to balance that shouldn’t break the civ in the least.
Early game:
Revert the 2% XP Penalty nerf
2 Church Wagon Card should also add +25% XP gather rate for churches and arrive fast.
Depot cost increase reverted back to 50c 50w and take 3s faster to build (still slower to build than original).
Reduce cost of German Tongue to 425w.
Mid-Game:
Upgrade Auberges to also decrease training time of Commandery units by 10%.
Late-Game:
Age IV Sentinel Card increases Sentinel HP/Attack by 55%, increases cost by 35% only, and gives +2 LOS (no change) as well as +2 range and +2 melee range.
Shadow tech range in which sentinels receive HP and Damage buffs by all buildings by +4 range each age-up starting from Age 2 → 3.
This will literally put the civ on par with other B or A tier civs like France.
I like your Idea about sentinels and german tongue
But I think that these changes are not enough to make commanderies and their units usefull. I reiterate my proposal to them (they can still be 10% more expensive if they benefit from the Maltese bonus)
These are units that cannot be upgraded in any other way, unlike other units that can be upgraded from the metropolis. (example +15% damage and resistance would be equivalent to 15 shipemnts with Malta)
If you take away their current +10% bonus to damage and resistance that they have, they would only be stronger than they currently are with more than 10 shipments.
They are still 10% more expensive than those of other civ.
The additional stats aren’t really that relevant because the unit costs 10% more anyway and you aren’t getting an entirely better unit for the extra 10% cost as the unit doesn’t also get +10% in resistances, speed etc. So as a baseline all you’d get is a maximum of +50% hp should all HC cards be sent, compare that to french gendarmes which can get +30% attack and HP from cards, +10% from RG upgrade (no additional cost to the unit) and have a card to reduce the cost of the unit significantly. So I don’t really see how a +50% hp gendarme is better than a +40% attack and HP cheap gendarme.
The +50% would only be achieved in late game like in treaty which is when the regular gendarme would also be fully carded. In most sup games you’d get +30% at the most.
Contrary to what I’ve said I do actually agree that the units should not get the 2% hp but mainly due to the fact in extended age 2 you’d have incredibly strong hussars.
My suggestion is a simple order unit combat card to get +15% attack and HP, the order units are incredibly expensive in the first place often requiring over 1k wood plus a shipment to be sent and even in treaty where people fully card everything +15% attack and hp on a few units is nothing compared to triple carded RG musk/cass, triple carded gendarmes etc.
This would be an Extreme late game. French Gendarme obtains +40% damage and +40% resistance in late (+15% damage one card, +15% resistance another card, +15% damage and resistance another card and +10% damage and resistance because it is royal guard).
French cuirasier would remain being stronger in late than maltese even with my suggestion…
Malta gets 50% reduced villager costs, if you EVER get 2 reasonable locations on a map in the mid game and can hold them with Wignacourt & also those 30% cost reduced T.C.s… then you are going to be able to utilise those 10% more expensive units which are technically also then more pop-efficient.
Malta with the now 1% growth instead of 2% is insanely capable at all stages of the game with unit types that require ABSOLUTE countreing from other civs & they must counte hard any infantry. 48% with only 1 repeatable shipment or 50% extra Maltese Infantry H.P. makes you able to tank with cheap units & considering unit dead & build Exp is the same that makes it far far far more worth for Malta into the late game.
Even early game the 750 wood & coin card means you DO NOT need any techs into coin gathering until you transition out of Bow Pike, saving you immensely since archaic versus archaic is almost always in your favour.
Basic Order Hussars are all that are needed… 132 food & 88 coin is not that expensive & they will be more capable units. Your other Commandarie units are not necessary for any major Malta Build. Cuirassiers seem the most reliable ones, but you can easily base a Commanderie unit on specific maps with specific natives on them with Cav upgrades or gunpowder for Cassadores. Longbows are usually unecessary, but with Jagiellion you can do well even on Crossbows alone given their 20 range.
