Nerf Archer Plan 1: Change Skirmisher to be an infantry

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
1

Archers dominate the game from feudal age to imperial age.
Especially in 1v1 game, archer is even more difficult to be fought against than knight.

The first reason is the unfair blacksmith technology.
Both Forging and Fletching cost 150 units resource. Forging can +1 AT for the melee units. However, Fletching not only +1 AT but also +1 range for range units. How it is so friendly to the archers. Infantries and cavalries must upgrade the LV2 armor, archers usually only upgrade the LV1 is enough.

The second reason is, if you have to defence from knights, you can just make many spearmen from Barracks without any blacksmith technology. However, if you have to defence from archer, first you have to build an archery range by 175 wood. After that, you must upgrade to Elite Skirmisher. Also, you have to upgrade at least Fletching, Bodkin arrow and Pedded Archer Armor. You may even have to upgrade Ballistics. Otherwise you can’t fight against archers effectively. You have to sacrifice a lot to defence from archers and follow the opponent’s rhythm. You have to make many range units to fight against the archers. But your civ may not be strong in archer so they may not able to become a reliable main force even you have upgrade many related technologies.

So, it may be a good idea to change Skirmisher to be an infantry and be created in Barracks and count as melee attack.

Skirmisher:
AT: 2 → 1
Range: 4 → 5
Attack bonus to archer: 3 → 4
Attack bonus to spearman: 3 (unchange, otherwise it would be very easy to kill them)

Elite Skirmisher:
AT: 3 → 1
Range: 5 → 7
Attack bonus to archer: 4 → 6
Attack bonus to spearman: 3 → 5
Attack bonus to cavalry archer: 2 → 4

Imperial Skirmisher (Become a common unit)
AT: 4 → 2
Range: 5 → 8
Attack bonus to archer: 5 → 7
Attack bonus to spearman: 3 → 5
Attack bonus to cavalry archer: 3 → 5

Also, +1 melee armor to Battering Ram, Mangonel and Scorpion so that they would not be destroyed by the new skirmisher so easily. :joy:

*The speed, attack, attack speed, HP, armor, cost bonus from Celts, Aztecs, Burmese, Japanese, Vikings, Teutons, Malian and Goths will just work on Militia line and their UUs but no longer work to spearman and the new skirmisher. And so Aztecs, Vikings and Malian can deserve Halberdier. :laughing:
Please don’t feel odd this idea, the relics bonus in Lithuanians also just work to knight line and its UU, the cost reduce in Magyars also just work on the Scout cavalry line.

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Why?
What would this achieve?
Infantry civs do not need their bonii to apply to Skirmishers, but Foot Archer civs do.

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Even Knights with 0 upgrade will roflstomp unupgraded Spearmen. And it’s not like you can just outrun them and go raid elsewhere.

So basically all Halberdiers become almost the same regardless of the civ? Why would anyone want that?

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In fact, both the archer cost reduce in Mayans and the archer faster fire speed in Mayans and Ethiopians do not bonus to Skirmisher. Only the Yeoman technology +1 range to skirmisher in Britons and +HP in Vietnamese. But they have wide range Longbowman or Rattan archer which are already strong units to against archers.

5

Ok first, archers are a huge investment themselves, you need villagers on gold and wood and a blacksmith upgrade. M@arms and scouts don’t necessarily need blacksmith upgrades to be effective unless it’s a long drawn out feudal game, at most players will get bloodlines or scale mail.
Man-at-arms don’t have direct non-gold counters, the opponent has to invest into archers. And archers are only effective against them after fletching. Scouts are highly mobile and can avoid spearmen. Spearmen themselves are terrible vs anything but scouts.
Compared to that, skirmisher hard counters archers. Skirm without any upgrade still beats an archer with both fletching and padded armor, skirms can hunt archers all over the base. Opponent adds scouts to counter that? you add a couple spearmen.
If you scout archery range, you add a range yourself and ruin all their investment.

Now second, what the heck would making skirm an infantry even accomplish? I tried to read your post a few times but I still dont understand what it would do

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What I gained from this post is… you want skirmisher to be infantry… so vikings, aztecs and malians can get halbs… profit?

Why you want them to get halbs <_>

8

No. My focusing point is to lower the expense to against archers.
It is still fine to keep skirmisher be created in archery range, but at least they need not to upgrade Fletching. Change them to a Hand Cannoneer-like unit so that it don’t need Fletching is a good idea.

9

It is already lower by the fact you are using a trash unit.

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10

Anyway, you’re going to buy Bracer to strenghten your TC. So having to buy it for Skirms isn’t a big deal really.