For an MaA rush you usually train 3 Militia in Dark Age (and thus having to collect only 10 Gold) and walk over to your opponent’s base. As you advance to Feudal Age you start to collect Gold, and research the MaA upgrade upon aging up. That way you have 3 MaA in your opponent’s base almost immediately upon reaching Feudal Age.
If the Militia-line would cost 50 Gold instead it would be almost impossible to get 3 Militia on the field in Dark Age and reach Feudal Age at at competitive time.
The problem with infantry in the Castle Age is that you don’t get more HP per resource compared to Knights.
You have a Knight in the Castle Age with the same durability, better population efficiency, and the ability to counter archers and siege units. That’s why the militia line is still not viable, despite numerous attempts.
They should have provided the cheapest HP per resource to make them viable.
Although, infantry’s fate was kind of sealed the moment they introduced Bloodlines and Thumb Ring. Introducing more elephants didn’t help either.
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What an odd thing to bring into this conversation. Huh… interesting
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Adding to this, cavalry has the advantage of not having a ranged hard counter being widely available.
The biggest change here is that infantry can escape archers now - which includes the fact that are still being chased away.
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You actually get things done in time, however, after you’ve researched MaA what do you do with all vills on gold? Do you keep spamming MaA? Like they are eagles that produce in 21secs instead of 50secs?
Ehh, that would be really bad.
as suggested before. Giving some soft counter bonus against Cavalry or getting more resistance against Cavalry can still make them more durable. Feudal issue is solved but I still wonder how to solve Castle Age+ issue. Feels like we are back to square one at Castle Age+. Same old issue again. Just no response to put against what exactly.
Huge thumbs up to the speed boost honestly. Easier to engage fights.
Slower speed is now a drawback rather than what makes them undesirable to use.
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Hard to guess.
You used to use Militia / MaA to keep your opponent in their base so you can either go Fast Castle or train a critical mass of Archers before they attack you.
With how aggressive the meta has become I doubt a Fast Castle strategy will become widely popular again. However, as it is now easier to keep your MaA alive against Archers MaA into Skirmishers might become a popular strategy.
I saw some people suggested this idea back then, one of my dream for this game would be a new armor class called “light cavalry” and apply it to scout line, some “light cavalry” like steppe lancer and ranged mounted unit. Then, give a small bonus vs “light cavalry” armor class to militia line.
My experience with similar strategy games is that generic infantry-type units always provide the most HP per resource. That’s their trademark—just like cavalry has speed and archers have ranged attacks.
HP is often more important than attack for slow melee units, to offset their disadvantages.
Knights, or even Pikemen, provide more HP per resource than Long Swordsmen.
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Yea this is a really good point and part of why it just never feels right making infantry. I am always thinking why bother when I can make knights. I would be interested to see a massive price drop to adjust the cost/HP ratio so its more bang for your buck so to speak. I don’t think it should have more HP though because by then you are basically just turning the unit almost into a knight.
Infantry can also chase archers/skirms, pushing them back (and buying time). That may be dangerous for the infantry units, but sometimes time is what you need more than units (especially if you have an economic advantage like a villager lead)
From what I’ve seen on Hera’s videos (and I haven’t watched all of them), it does look like infantry is doing well enough to be viable at a high level. And they combine nicely with skirms.
You have options. There may be situations where spamming more MAAs is appropriate. There will also be situations where you can use the MAAs to buy time while you get up to castle age. You can also use the gold to transition to archers. Or you can move the villagers onto another resource (or use them to wall). Or even go forward and build a tower on the opponent’s archery range (allowing the MAAs to tear it down, thereby removing your opponents counter-unit production). MAAs doesn’t require a lot of vils on gold: I believe 1 or 2 is usually enough.
Hear me out. The milita line should have a small bonus against siege so they can have a clear role against gold units. They are fast enough to chase down siege and cheap enough to do a fast switch.
For example, training them can be justified when you face a bunch of scorpions and managed to open a path to break their formation with cavalry or your own siege. Ofc against rams, trebs, bbc, onagers, etc they will perform better.