I had my hopes high that steppe lancers get some buff or rework with Dynasties of India. I really like the concept of regional units and the latest DLC doubles down on that. I love that the indian civs lack the knight line and made me think that steppe civs could loose it too and have the steppe lancer be reworked as their main cavalry.
How would you guys rework it to give knights up? I’d make it trade reasonably with knights while maintaining the flavor strength/weaknesses: lancers being weak against archers compared to knights against spearmen. I’d give the lancers an additional melee armor and health, and increase the cost. The exact numbers would be balanced around a delicate trade with knights, where one-on-one the knight wins, early castle age numbers trade equally and bigger battles snowball to lancer’s favor. Cavalrier would turn the tides more towards the knight line, elite lancers would turn it back (with lower upgrade cost), then paladin would turn it again. This way the steppe civs would be incentivised to an agressive play and carefully chose the engagements utilising their faster speed compared to knights.
honestly steppe lancers with their 1 range are tricky to balance, the were OP at their launch, and now they are trash. it’s not easy to find a middle ground, but conceptually to me they should be good at raiding and should be somewhat a “medium cavalry”, heavier than scouts but lighter than knights in both cost and raw stats
What would the perfect game be for you? Why are you still here if you seem to hate everything the devs ever do? How would you change the game, while still keeping it enjoyable for the majority, because you seem to be heavily in the minority with your opinions?
they were given the biggest nerf hammer in the history of the game. that doesnt make them tricky to balance. it just means they completely over did the nerf
someone said: “these are the options to make the SL more balanced, pick some”
so someone else took it as “these are the options to make the SL more balanced, implement all of them”
im sure the SL will eventually get buffed, the question is simply how long it will take. for example the Elite SL will surely get a buff or tech price reduction
just so we’re clear on the level of nerf, they had a 33% dps reduction(before armour, so its likely worse after armour), 0.05 speed reduction, 15% cost increase, collision size increase, cumans could make them 21% faster (nerfed down to 15%)
so instead of simply nerfing cumans speed, and increasing the collision box, devs nerfed literally everything about them. that is not tricky balance. that is laziness
Steppe lancers need a role to fill. The only thing I think it can do that other cav don’t do is hard counter archers while not using much food. I wish steppe lancers would be more like the Ghulam. Low food, high gold cost for high pierce armor and an attack that hits the unit behind the unit being attacked. It would help steppe civs counter archers with much less farming than using knights.
All the Steppe Lancer needs is to be noticeably more effective vs. archers than Knights, and it’s golden. Ideally the buff is good enough to fully remove the Knight line from Steppe civs. The Steppe civs still have Camels and Cavalry Archers for gold answers against Knights.
i think it can, if they make the SL as more of an archer fighter (like the ghulam) so the civs function more like hindustani, relying on counter units more instead of power units (camels v cav, SL vs archers, siege and raiding)
they could balance it with bonus damage, iaw give it low MA and base damage, but bonus vs siege and archers.
and even give it negative armour class (like EA have -7 CA armour) SL could have -2 cavalry armour for example, so even though it can still kite halbs, IF halbs catch them, they pop like baloons
up the gold price, lower the food price, so its more attainable in castle age, while nerfing its oppressive raiding potential late game
Why not just make the lancers dedicated to fighting infantry?
Like the lancer of AoE3, give them some bonuses against infantry and keep them weak against archers so they pair nicely with other stable units without taking each other’s jobs. Knights deal with archers, camels deal with cavalry, lancers deal with infantry, and using hussars to raid and be tank when no gold.
do they keep the range they have now? if so that’s probably way too strong, they train in 2/3 the time of the knight, have 1 range, and are cheaper. elites literally better then a cavalier.
especially when you start factoring in some of the civ bonuses (mongols hp bonus, tatars armor bonus).
yes, they still have +! range as it’s their signature. You do pay a lots more to get them to elite compared to cavaliers, so naturally they should be better than cavaliers.
Of course, the number can be changed around to balance out if you find it too OP, but the idea is they should be a side grade to knights and elite version should better than cavalier because of the much higher upgrade price tag.
And yet its cheaper then a knight and trains much faster, also range advantage.
Food for thought the tatar one will have 150 hp, 5 ma and 8 pa. Meaning it takes 75 shots to kill from arbs and still has range on melee units. What is its weakness?
Like I said, you can change the number around to whatever you like, because it’s pointless to argue about the stats when everyone has their own opinions to hang on. But the idea is the same, remove knight lines from steppe civs and buff lancer to the point when they can compete with knights.
