As was suggested on another thread, the cost needs to be changed to be more like eagles. 25F 50G or something. Even with supplies, the food cost is always difficult to maintain, because unlike knights, you need a lot of them to be worthwhile, while also keeping TCs active.
2 Likes
I didn’t notice this before, but when I saw this I did a double take. I had to check for myself, but I came to the same counts.
Admittedly it’s not 100% apples to apples, but yeah, that seems like a lot.
Which again, I’d like to shout out, @FreeWinPlz1739 for the free arson idea. I really think there’s something to that idea.
1 Like
I’ve always thought a small speed increase would be good. It’s even been a point raised by Hera if I’m not mistaken. If the militia line moved at the same speed as archers before squires how much would that actually help with squires they sudden get a bit more of a mobility spike. That means they can actually catch archers out and better chase and engage fleeing units. Basically their biggest weakness. From my 1000-1200 ELO games almost every time infantry wins a match it’s me pinning the enemy down and sieging them. If I can’t pin them down into a forced situation of having to engage me, I’m stuck in a bad situation trying to attack or defend slowly. You can certainly put the pressure on when you have 10+ long swords shredding house/building walls and they’re surprisingly fast at it.
Problem is if militia line ends up being the go to unit. The soft/hard counter to trash (depending on civ and upgrades). They also tear through most buildings. Then do decently against other gold units, which they borderline do (excluding Eagles which they stomp). They’re better against archers now. Equal resource scenario they’re pretty even with knights on a head on fight.
You don’t want to buff them too far. If you look at fairly recent Spirit of the Law video. He lists like 10 changes that all aimed at buffing the militia line and the unit is now if you exclude the very strong infantry civs decently playable in some situations. You also don’t want to push them over the edge.
My own personal suggestion apart from a movement speed buff would be +5 HP to 2 handed swordsmen. And MAYBE +5 HP to the Champion as well.
The champion buff may or may not be too strong for certain civs. +5 HP on 2h swordsmen helps out a few civs lacking champions but having good bonuses to infantry or techs like Bulgarians and Malay. (In a weird way a lot of the costs decreases to the militia line upgrades were indirect nerf to Bulgarian’s auto upgrade, you still save resources and time but that gap got a lot smaller, weird little gripe of mine that makes that bonus shine less).
2 Likes
I don’t entirely think that the problem is too many techs, because if you’re going for them intentionally it’s not bad, the problem is if you want to switch into them later on.
What if the upgrades researched faster in later ages? For example, MAA researches in 20 seconds in castle age, and LS researches in 20 seconds in imperial.
1 Like
Agreed, but that would be an indirect nerf to Celts, so they would need another bonus to compensate.
Infantry got no problem in late game when food becomes free.
They are insanely bad in early game when you only have a few villagers on food. Almost everything else need food too. Food is the hardest resource to get in early game because you gotta collect wood for farm in order to collect food and you don’t get paid off instantly.
This is why I think they should cost low food in early game and the supply tech will convert the extra gold cost to food in late game.
4 Likes
I mean, they’re cheaper in terms of food than scouts, and people make plenty of scouts.
The problem isn’t the cost, it’s that they’re hard-countered by archers. Moving Squires to feudal would fix that.
2 Likes
SC also got another 2 uses. They can scout, and they can kill monk.
Their counter can’t catch them either in feudal, so they are kind of cost effective.
Militia is beyond useless in early game.
1 Like
Militia can tear down buildings and fight better. It’s just that power is useless if you can’t apply it.
When you have eagles running around an open map, militia line can’t really do anything. Too slow.
When you have militia running around an open map, militia line can’t really do anything.
When you have knights running around an open map, militia line can’t really do anything.
When you have archers running around an open map, militia line can’t really do anything.
People use militia line to fight units when they are kinda designed to be expendable currency to claim ground. Forget all the upgrades, just make a gazillion of them. You then capitalize on that purchased ground with towers and castles and stolen farms and whatnot.
Then you’ll find out that I’m full of Straight Baloney and they actually have no use at all.
4 Likes
Viper had a recent game that showed exactly what they’re for. Armenian Longswords could tear down production buildings as fast as they go up, meaning your enemy can never build the critical mass needed to repel you, and you basically win by default.
But that displays exactly why you really can’t make them too powerful. Too many and you can’t stop them; too few and they can’t achieve anything.
Which is why they just need squires in feudal age. If they could run away they could be balanced around more than just standing and fighting, and they’d probably be fine as-is.
Yes, they cost less food then scout, but they cost a little gold. Even the M@A upgrade costs gold. And Supplies too.
That means you have to set 2-3 villager to gold in order to gather enough to get the upgrades and keep the production. You need to spend 100 wood early for the mining camp too.
When you go Scout you have to spend 175 wood for the stable, but you can put these 2-3 vills to wood while aging up and don’t have to build a mining camp. Scouts don’t need upgrades in the early feudal, so you can afford farms and eco upgrades before.
Besides that, Scout have a tactical advantage that M@A don’t have. So they are more sustainable.
5 Likes
You have a good point here. I have proposed a couple of times splits militia-line in 2 different lines. Militia>MAA>LS changed to trash(cost 40F20W), support and fast infantry.
THS>Champion buffed to a really power unit available in castle age.
Another idea I proposed a time ago too is change barracks’ cost to 100W. This offsets the drawback you mention with the require mining camp in early game and helps in castle age letting you add more TCs earlier.
1 Like
Militia can never have range to focus fire or mobility to engage favorable match. Maybe allow longswordsman to build palisade/stone wall and quickly entrap the enemy army with the expense of wood/stone.
I think the ability of build rams would be more useful
3 Likes
Yup, its the upgrades.
Scouts are useful without upgrades and great with upgrades.
Militia are useless without upgrades and not even that good with upgrades.
Combine arson with MAA and squires with LS, Eagle Warrior, and Pikeman. Take or leave Gambesons. Decrease food cost of of militia and increase gold cost. Put supplies in castle age or inperial to switch most of gold cost for increased food cost.
1 Like
The problem I have with merging almost all dedicated techs with upgrades is that you lose the oportunity to make the line a different across civs without specific bonuses.
On the contrary, I think militia dedicated techs should have more impact, but be more exclusive. Similar to bloodlines, husbandry ,thumbring and parthian tactics. Even could be added some more, like “Shield wall” that gives +2 MA, “Siegecraft” gives ability of build rams, ##### a name here" gives +20 HP, etc.
This way you can mix gambesons, squires, arson, supplies and whatever to acchieve different milita profiles.
For example, milita good for riding and vs archers (squires+gambesons), militia good for pushes (Gambesons+Arson/siegecraft), militia good for flooding (supplies+squires), militia good vs cavalry (supplies+Shield wall), etc
I would argue for the exact opposite - more techs for militia line. Why? Because it makes the game easier to balance (not that devs really care about such mundane things). But, I do agree that the cost of militia units should come down as well as a increase in base speed and PA.
We have already seen that Squires +5% (Celts) doesn’t do much to the militia line. So, let’s increase the base speed by 5% and give Celts 20% speed bonus (current squires +15%).
Give the Champion’s stats to 2HS and make Champion a rare upgrade (like paladin). Champion have shiny armor so give them a resistance to gunpowder and bonus damage.
Major identity of militia line is trash killer. With extra speed and PA they deal quite well with skirms and spears. They fare badly against scouts (not talking about straight up fights - wait, do they even cost effectively win against scouts in straight up fight?) and give them a little bit of bonus damage against scouts
The issue isnt that they have too many techs its that they NEED these techs and even with all of them really only function at the very start (before most techs come in) or at the very end when gold is a rare commodity and the techs are already researched.
There is honestly no middle ground to be had except for the 1 in 15 chance the civ you fight has Eagles
Im not sure if adding more Eagle civs would alleviate the issue of not enough swordsman use
4 Likes
I don’t know if I’d go so far to say moving squires would be the necessary fix, but your point about MAA being hard countered by archers is definitely true.
The reason I’m quibbling is because a tech just being available isn’t enough. it must also be researched which cost resources. Squires is the cost of approximately two MAA. It’s a cherry picked example, but I think three MAA w/o squires is better than one MAA w squires.
And really to get super into the weeds, MAA because they don’t have a ranged attack and are slower to move than scouts, the utility of a group of MAA grows more slowly with increased numbers than compared to the other two.
If you haven’t watched SOTL’s video on Lanchester’s Square Law I highly recommend it, but basically for those who haven’t, given certain assumptions, if you double the amount of your units, your force isn’t twice as strong but 4x as strong.
No aoe2 unit 100% satisfies all the requirements, but archers are like a 1.9 exponent, cav is a 1.7 exponent, and infantry is 1.5 ish.
Basically if there are two battles, one with 5 archers and 5 MAA, and another with 10 archers and 10 MAA, i’d expect the 10 archers to fair better proportionally than the 5 archers.
All this to say, you REALLY need to mass up MAA if you’re going to compete with scouts or archers being massed, and missing out on two MAA hurts a lot. If you can’t force an engagement with your faster MAA cause you don’t have enough of them, then wait till you have more, well presumably so then will your opponent, and because lanchester is helping out the other guys archers more than your MAA, was waiting to have more even advantageous?
Adding techs to the barracks hasn’t really moved the needle much. We’ve added arson, added supplies, added gambesons. I do think the castle age techs helped more than the feudal age techs, but still it’s this two steps forward, one step back approach, and I don’t think another tech, especially in feudal age, is really going to help.
2 Likes