Sentinels are weak for their pop, right? We all think that. So, we can not use them extensively. even if they are wonderfully designed.
Too much solutions have been discused on this forum. Well, I propose a new solution. What if they benefit from Tongue cards?
Like, French Tongue improves their resistance in 10%, or Spanish Tongue gives them +1x vs infantry, Russian Tongue gives them siege bonus.
What do you think?
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The thing is sentinels are pretty solid mid game
You can already LARP og japan by running around with annoying musk units that cant be caught by their counters and then add rockets. However, by age4 they do fall off hard as musk are supposed to be a massable unit and 2 pop is an issue.
Generally if the rocket card made them 1 pop or they got buffed by age4 tongues it could still be balanced. But the mid game tongues like spanish or port or brits might be a smidge to good. Its a tricky unit to balance.
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So, French and Russian? What if they get a +15% resistance ranged and +15% Melee for each one? I think the Sentinel should be very resistent, if they should be unique in some way.
hmmm that could be too much 15/15% maybe just 10% to start. I’m a bit conservative of overbuffing units but the idea to me seems solid enough
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Maybe we can play a weirdest game. I like the idea, but the Sentinels should feel like “few, but powerful” and provide defense. What if Sentinels occupe 1 pop only if you have more than 4 forts/Fixed Guns? Or maybe a big resistance be enough.
I advocate again for this.
Until now I tried it, and for the first time since I played with Maltese the Sentinels were useful for something, they didn’t just fall without doing anything.
It’s okay that they don’t have a very high attack, with the card they level out.
It’s okay that they have low HP, so they are easy to heal, a specialty of the civ.
Giving them ranged and melee resistance makes them come back alive from battle and can be healed.
Give them +10% Ranged resistance with French Tongue and +10% Melee with Russian Tongue.
<Tech name="DEHCFrenchTongue">
<effect mergeMode='add' type="Data" amount="0.10" subtype="ArmorSpecific" newtype="Ranged" relativity="Absolute">
<target type="ProtoUnit">deMalteseMusketeer</target>
</effect>
</Tech>
<Tech name="DEHCRussianTongue">
<effect mergeMode='add' type="Data" amount="0.10" subtype="ArmorSpecific" newtype="Hand" relativity="Absolute">
<target type="ProtoUnit">deMalteseMusketeer</target>
</effect>
</Tech>
In my humble opinion it should be 1 pop but increase food cost to 70f-40c (10f less than ashi) and increase +5 hp to 160 hp (10 less than ashi). The aura bonus nerfed to a flat 10% (no 7.5% to 15% bs) att and hp near allied buildings and with card near enemy bldg. The rocket card would also need to be nerfed so it’s not too broken. No 45% increase in food or att and hp now it just gives you +2 range and los with the rocket shooting at 16 range with a slight buff to its base dmg from 18.4 to 20. This way the rocket ability is buffed and won’t break the game unless the people want it lol I guess a 101f and 67c at 1 pop isn’t too broken. My idea for it, is that it acts like a lesser version of an ashi but with an aura and continues to get better with each age up.
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I like the idea of a new unit, with his own niche.
Tell me, isn’t Malta the civilization that resisted the endless siege of the Ottomans? Is not La Valette the unbreakable wall, the shield of Europe and Christianity?
Well, let’s make the defenders of that impassable wall also fearsome for the Ottoman cannons. Let’s give them siege armor, good ranged armor, and good melee armor.
They are quite expensive in terms of population, and they don’t do much damage. Let’s make them special like this, because surviving battles and being able to be healed synergizes very well with the theme of the Hospitaller civilization.
EDIT: and add 1 range for melee attacks to represent the halberd attacks would’ve very welcome
Your proposal is a good idea. I really don’t understand why there are players trying to justify that the sentinels are worth the 2 population spaces, I think this is a request that has been made many times in the forums to realize that a buff is evident, I guess the devs have a More conceptual than practical question in why this unit should be 2 pop despite being so mediocre (at least in treaty or late-game).
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I think Malta should be able to get 2 factories in the 4th age and train rockets instead of heavy cannons.
The age 4 card should be buffed further. Sentinels as standard are very resource efficient units at the cost of being population inefficient sort of like strelets in that aspect in that they trade cost effictively but occupy a lot of population for their stats.
The age 4 card is sort of a way to make them worth their 2 population spaces in late game where population efficiency becomes more important than cost efficiency. However if we compare them to soldados they are about a hundred hp lower when the sentinel is receiving its buff, even more so otherwise. Soldados also become much stronger if you also add in cards like the church card which gives them +15% attack and hp as they have high base stats.
In most cases the soldados probably won’t have so many cards invested in them because at least 2 of their buffs are tied to age up cards, the church card does act as a soldado combat card though and the training time penalty is almost entirely offset by getting the infantry training tech at the church. They also have no need for the church card just to be able to attack the enemy base while sentinels lose significant stats as soon as they leave defensive buildings unless you wish to send the church card and pay 250w for the tech that buffs them near enemy buildings which would not be so bad if the other techs didn’t suck.
The age 4 card should further buff stats and cost to the point where you can stand and fight soldados head on while receiving the defensive buff but lose outside of the defensive aura.
The maltese church card along with the italian church card also need some revision, the hospitaller tech where you get 1 per hospital is totally useless and costs like 4k wood+church card for 20 hospitallers, the same can be achieved just spamming forts and sending the age 4 card to get 5 per fort. The hospitaller tech for +25% attack at the cost of -20% speed should also be changed to just -10% at the most.
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Ehh make them 1 pop better for the early game so your not stuck using pikes as Malta,
Tbh they could just do this, not to pair with xbow because pikes synergize much better with xbow as they share 3 cards and the same resources but just to make the unit more viable. If it were 1 pop there are still far better 1 pop musks in the game and it only receives it’s stat boost near defensive buildings so you’re never really forced to fight it unless you choose to attack.
Malta currently has the worst win rate in the game across all elos so I doubt even this would suddenly make them OP, I mean all it really does is save you some wood in housing early game. Late game it makes them pop efficient so the age 4 card could just give the rocket attack like it does for soldados.
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wall guns should work off defensive buildings likes its normal aura ( max stat increase to 20%) and give it maximum range of 19 when surrounded by like 10 buildings.
Age 4 card should be buffed further instead of just turning it to 1 pop imo. The reason being is that pop reduction does nothing for tempo, and is actually a short term resource drain since you have to make more units to fill the gap and maltese eco is stable but not that great. Its good for say treaty but if you play supremacy it makes massing sentinels very unattractive
A fast musk that is between a soldado and ashi in stats that has 19-20 range is a pretty formidable unit
Edit: say if it has like 75-80 attack at 20 range and the occasional battle bluster that is enough to me
Wall guns is a terrible card. My rework suggest for it would be a flat range and damage increase, but slower rof
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Well, the rocket card has been buffed several times to try to justify the cost in population of the sentinels, and well, it has never managed to match them to the soldier. Furthermore, the wall cannon card remains as useless as it is situational. Honestly, the solution that would benefit both game modes seems to be for the unit to become 1 population since the sentinel, at least currently, is already an intermediate between a soldier and ashigaru, which makes it mediocre and bad. I think it is almost an agreement among the treaty community that the way to make Malta viable is to make them 1 population, the civ is now at its lowest since the majority of treaty players opt for the units of the Commandery instead of the Maltese as the main composition of his army.
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Now I have a new idea.
Following this justification:
I think I’ve found another solution: like the Marines, give them a bigger attack vs siege units and artillery, and an useful siege resistance. Maybe not from start, but with a card, a church improvement. I would like to debate the exact numbers and the right moment for these upgrades. Any ideas?
Indeed. Soldados have much higher overall stats, and though they may cost more, they get 1 area of effect damage FOR EVERY SHOT.
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yeah, soldado is better in every aspect.
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Having the Tongue cards give bonuses to Malta’s unique units is an interesting idea
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