The unit was designed to address certain difficulties in combating cavalry at Norse. Therefore, it was given the role of a hardcounter unit. It has poor trades with units that don’t have the “cavalry” tag.
For some reason, the developers didn’t integrate it into the civilization structure or individual gods. This creates the feeling that it was added by a mod rather than a fully-fledged part of the game.
First, the Economy:
The production time is like that of a Jarl (and the Jarl is a versatile, one of the most powerful units in the game) - this is insane for a situational hardcounter unit. Besides the fact that you must scout out the upcoming mass cavalry spam in advance, you also need to build 1.5x Longhouses to ensure the necessary influx of units onto the battlefield. Its HP and armor stats are the same as the Berserker’s, it has significantly less DPS, but it has a multiplier against cavalry. In other words, it has no secondary function. It’s simply a Berserker against horses, which is 5 resources more expensive.
In the case of sudden cavalry spam, you can’t build a Hirdman; it’s too slow to build, so you’ll still have to react with Berserkers, which is now ineffective.
The problems with cavalry remain. Nothing has changed.
Second, there’s the strategy:
The unit doesn’t have any specialized upgrades or bonuses from the gods that give it any flexibility. It’s just an anti-cavalry button. It doesn’t scale into the late game. In the old game, there was a problem where Bragi were always used against mass cavalry due to the Swine Array upgrade, which improved Berserkers’ trade against horses. This upgrade remains. It’s just that now, in matchups with mass cavalry, Bragi is always taken to upgrade Swine Array, which improves the Hirdman’s trade with cavalry. Nothing has changed.
However, the Berserker still scales into the late game through Forseti/Bragi/Tyr and completely replaces the Hirdman at age 4.
At the same time, there are no unique mechanics for the Hirdman among the god’s upgrades, unlike those of Anubis/Ptah/Horus/Athena.
Thirdly, there’s role confusion:
The Berserker used to provide flexibility. He countered cavalry, but also performed well against infantry. Now, the Berserker is no longer necessary. If the enemy has cavalry, you build the Hirdman, and if they have infantry, you build a Throwing Axeman. The Berserker has lost its versatile frontline role. It’s unclear which matchups to build him in. This is now the Berserkergangr, age 4 unit.
They both receive the Dwarven Chestplate upgrade and all other upgrades except for the +10 HP from Bragi. So, the choice is always obvious: Hirdman if you need to counter cavalry, Jarls/Huskarls as a frontliner, and Throwing Axemen as a backliner. There’s no slot for the Berserker in the army.
Hirdman remains an option only for fighting Hetairos in the late game.
Conclusion: this unit fails to solve the original anti-cavalry problem while introducing additional structural issues. Hirdman replaces Berserker only in cavalry matchups, while failing to establish itself as a general-purpose or scaling alternative. As a result, the Berserker loses its original flexible frontline role without receiving a meaningful replacement or compensation.