So the devs have pretty clearly been trying to make the militia line viable in the mid-late game, which I think is a great idea. But I don’t think that continually buffing their stats is a great way to do that. Gambesons/ supplies was a good start but ultimately if somebody with cav/ archers wants to avoid a fight with infantry they can. Cav can just run away and pick off reinforcements and archers can just kite them in to oblivion.
The one very interesting thing I have seen some people trying to do is going for the TC in early castle age with the new gambesons tech, and I think that is the way forward for them in castle age is as early building killers. If the militia line are a serious threat to essential buildings then you cant just hide behind quick walls while you let your military numbers build. And if the opponent goes xbows they cant just stack them in a 1x1 corner for a favorable engagement while they wait for numbers to build. With militia taking down TC they would be forced to bring archers into the open to take down militia, leaving them vulnerable to knights/ scouts. I think it adds an interesting new mechanic where cav/archers are the best in a straight up fight but have to look for opportune targets when hitting economy. Militia can hit anything they see but will get wiped if the enemy can build up numbers with a better military.
To this end I think the two things they should be looking to buff are arson and training time. Arson is the most directly impactful, since if militia could take down houses/ military production in a reasonable time they would be more of a threat. But lowering the training time for longswords would also be good, since their primary threat (in my opinion) is from 10-15 longswords showing up when the enemy is not prepared for them, which punishes playing too defensively without proper visions. And a training reduction would help them to mass earlier without having to spend all that money on barracks. It seems like a fair buff since archers also get a reduction in training time for their castle age upgrade.
In short, I think the way forward with castles is making them pseudo-siege weapons that you can start building up in late feudal instead of having them compete with knights/ archers for viability. To this end you could buff arson/ training time to make a ball of militia a threat that has to be dealt with immediately instead of turtling behind walls and TC fire.
I wished this tech became free for infantries but spear and eagle line.
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The best way to fix infantry is by reducing the costs for skirmishers and pikemen. Maybe give infantry an anti trash units buff as well. This will make power units less dominant, give infantry a unique role and keep the balance archer-cavalry as it is right now.
Squires and supplies baked into the longswordsman tech and were good to go
No other changes