it could work similarly to the Malay elephant push?
Norway won a game in the 2v2 world cup using the (slow, brute-force) elephants.
ofc there would be differences, for one thing a longswords push might come somewhat later than an elephant push.
this is precisely the reason I think it should be more viable - it is a different way of playing age.
You don’t “engage”, instead you claim space and/or force the opponent to engage you.
To me it is quite plain that this is a form of “map control” - forcing your opponent not to be in certain places.
I don’t really catch your logic.
Certainly you agree that longswords could be overbuffed to the point that it becomes the only viable strategy? But you seem to say that longswords can never be strong enough, no matter what their stats would be.
Yup, once you get to castle age militia have more units countering them than vice versa.
Killed by knights
Killed by scorpions / mangos
Break even against light cav, and lose against most UU.
They should at the very least be given an extra bonus for being in rams, but more specifically - AP armour. I mean, they have a shield for crying out loud.
Yeah but in castle age when gold is abundant, LS are irrelevant. You still need to invest alot to get champs post imp, and that doesn’t fix the problem of LS or 2HS having no role. OK aside from fighting eagles which are 3 out of 37 civs like c’mon. Knights and many uu can do it better or just fine, without requiring the upgrade, which takes time and resources.
Yes. No matter how it feel. I want to argue that Full MAA is also viable strategy. Same with Full scout. Used in high-level competitive play, then what is the issue?
The problem is, elephant is easily countered by pike and monks. But if militia are not countered by archers/knight, then what unit you would use to counter them? The answer would be just same militia line. That is how Goths vs other infantry civs matchup plays. Even HC are not valuable due to the high gold cost, only trainable in imp and game goes to Full infantry war.
Some player don’t like Goths for their playstyle of brainless infantry spam. I think Goths is good for game variety, but it is not a good idea to give other civs goths-like infantry that it will make game more dull and boring.
LOL like I pointed out earlier, upgrading to LS barely makes sense as Goths unless you can’t get a castle up or are fighting eagles (as the abrasive jerk MatCathon pointed out).
Why are you crying about the Goths? They need a buff if anything. Learn to wall… or play for that matter
Killing trash in super late game and killing eagles. Isn’t that their roles? Insufficient? You want all other units dealing bonus damage against militia line in exchange for them being more viable? The bottom line is, if something is granted, something must be taken away. There must be trade offs, no matter how much you want to love militia line.
Ok but “later” means “when the opponent is likely gonna have castles and army”. In that situation, gold and food are better spent for going imp or get units that allow to go for different approaches
Well, that’s how age is already played, and how infantry + siege push work in imp for example.
In castle that is way harder to do because the opponent can secure areas of the map with castles, that are hard to push in castle age
Of course if you give them 100HP, 10 attacks, 2 PA and 1,35 speed they’re gonna be viable 11.
I meant buffing them without completely change the identity of the unit, and possibly not changing them where they actually work (early feudal and post imp). THIS, in my opinion, is nearly impossible, so the unit should stay in the actual state and used in the situations where it’s strong: as a counter unit and meat shield in imp siege pushes
If there were more super-aggro type players in the game like Hoang, then there would likely be more of the Militia line, if only from those players. For full M@A/Skirms into 1 TC Longswords/Monk/Siege push or Fast Imperial/Champions are viable as high risk/high reward strategies that win hard or lose hard, much like Hoang’s Celtic Siege/Monk/Knight push.
This logic is based on the assumption that the unit in question is already balanced.
It isn’t balanced.
So your logic is flawed.
Eg. Something should be taken away from Indians since they need to be buffed?
A hussar does no bonus damage to a skirm? Does that mean it isn’t a counter? A knight does no bonus damage to any siege weapon, hussar, vil, or archer does that mean it isn’t a counter?
An archer doesn’t need bonus damage to already be an absolute hard counter to sword line. Same for siege.
The sword line does too little damage to too few areas, while being countered by too many units, to be considered a balanced generic unit in modern terms. People are stuck in the old logic thinking it’s balanced that the game is literally centred around playing with 2 different units. Archers and knights.
That’s the issue, in 80% situations knights and archers are better at fighting and raiding. It’s a shame, diversity in AOE is so enjoyable… and however, even among 11 Infantery civs we rarely see them in ranked.
I don’t know how you see it, but from my point of the view they should be one of the main unit in the game, and not just for a 4-5 m@a rush or eventually a late champ trash killers.They already have a different impact than knights and xbows, being better at tearing down buildings and deserve to be more valuable.
Balance changes are complicated, but I think a lot of players can agree on those points :
A little speed boost 0,9 → 0,95 will help them, being easier to play, better at raiding and could finally escape archer’s fire. That’s their biggest downside atm, unlike knights and xbows they’re harder to keep alive.
Upgrades cost and researching time are too heavy, especially for LS or a late game champ transition.
add to that that knights can take better engagements because of their speed.
Remember how much more expensive camels are than pikes, just because they’re faster and slightly more durable.
And it’s mostly balanced, even if Heavy Camels are slightly UP.
If speed were valued the same way for knights / longswords, longswords should win a fight vs knights with equal resources.
Of course, Goths are actually the only Civ with a very good militia-line with two-bonuses. They will need some adjustements if a buff happen.
The others civs with good bonus are in the shadow of the safest current options : like Vikings, Japaneses, Malians will play xbows, Teutons, Burmese, Bulgarians will play knights etc.
Buffing Militia-line will benefit them, with a better interest on going for their intended strength.
Seems that you guys really hate to see longswordsman being severely underused in castle age. I have another idea: delete longsowrdsman upgrade entirely while maintain all other upgrades at their perspective ages. Why? Because LS is not used, deleting it would not matter for most people going for knights. Then, M@A and THS can be balanced accordingly without LS hurdle. Win-win. It also saves research time and cost to transition from whatever to militia line later on.
Knights + Crossbow still does their jobs nicely, just not that effective, which should not be a huge problem for most people.
Another benefit is Knights + Crossbow would no longer have their “unstoppable” crown since 1999. Again, win-win.
but then eagles will be unstoppeble for castle age