I feel like this shouldn’t have to be said but JPK have one massive thing that halbs don’t have-- a 3x multiplier against heavy infantry. Who wins JPK vs halbs? JPK. who wins JPK vs muskets? JPK. Who wins in halbs vs muskets? muskets.
Halbs SHOULD be better against cav because JPK break the rules of the game and they need to be softer for it.
And anybody testing melee infantry against skirms just stop. These are completely useless comparisons that will never matter in a real game b/c melee heavy infantry will never and should never beat an equal mass of skirms; and if they do then the game will have gotten completely out of control. Even the AI’s micro skirms so what is the point of these “standing still” fights?
Seriously though, the devs need to be super careful with JPK b/c they are one of 3 default-trainable units in the game with multipliers against two unit types. Let the buff go through (and YES it is a buff), see how things play out, and then complain some more when JPKs still cant beat skirmishers. We don’t need to encourage the devs to break more things.
*They have no good skirmishers (Ottontin are super weak and have poor range, still are more expensive than strelets in long term because of lack of aztec eco)
*They have no cannons, so they are unavailable to ‘fast’ counter infantry masses.
*Also, they have no siege attack in the early-mid game, so they only rely on JPK and Puma (which get easily countered by skirmishers). Forcing players to choose between age 3 booming or train expensive and not good siege AK’s.
I tested it many time and you can easily get from 20% to 40% of halberdiers to survive in a 50 VS 50 Vet. Musket
In that test, 14 survived with minimum micro, though you’d lose if you can’t attack on the side (a weakness shared by all melee units)
Is JPK better against Musk? Yes, but they are weaker against cavalry and can’t win VS skirmishers, a possibility halberdiers have.
Not true. As mentioned before, halberdiers kill skirmishers easily once they are in melee.
The point the previous poster made was that JPK would lose in melee to skirms.
He thought JPK should win in that specific scenario.
Some players have pointed this should not be the case, as they feel the unit would now be OP.
I simply pointed out that Halberdier, a unit widely considered underwhelming, already wins against every type of base units when they catch them off-guard.
The whole argument was about that specific scenario: what happen if you catch units that don’t try to run away/are snared?
Is that a likely scenario? No, but catching a batch of units when your opponent is not looking there is far from impossible.
First of all, halbs cost 176 VS worth of res, and muskets cost 130. this means 50 muskets = 37 halbs, not 50 to 50.
Secondly,
NOBODY who knows how to play the game at all loses their muskets to an equal set of halbs. Only in a scenario against a bunch of AFK units in an open field with 0 terrain will this ever happen. Stop wasting your time with impossible best-case-scenario simulations. Melee units never get that best-case-scenario in practice. never. With simple kiting, the halbs lose every time (and currently so do JPK), which is why slow, expensive melee infantry have always been so bad. they lose to literally everything except cav and buildings. This is by design. The musketeer is supposed to be the most well-rounded unit in the game, which means they beat other heavy infantry units. This is why the JPK has problems. They aren’t strong enough to effectively counter the thing they’re supposed to counter. The buff might help, we’ll see.
I should be more specific. They soft-break the counter system b/c they have multipliers against units that they shouldn’t have multipliers against. As far as I know (maybe africa expansion changed this), the only other trainable-by-default units that do this are Lancers and Rifle Riders.
JKP will never be a cost-effective unit without redesigning them from the ground-up. They are heavy infantry melee units - the one unit class that is entirely useless past a certain point in the game. I think the only melee heavy infantry unit that might change this a bit is the Puma Spearman because it can reach a movement speed of 6, making it only slightly slower than the cavalry it counters.
If you really want to make them effective, remove the heavy infantry tag and reduce their health to 190. Maybe boost their base speed up a little - iirc, the PUP does this, but I don’t know by how much, exactly.
No, they do not. The thing is that skirmishers don’t have a lot of health to start with and generally lack melee damage resistance, which makes them extremely susceptible to anything that gets into melee range with them.
I will need to check again, but I am pretty sure they did, at least before DE.
It is not just the hp and lack of melee resistance, skirmishers are also forced into melee mode and their damage is thus reduced, plus snaring that prevents them from running away. The overall effect can be considered the same anyway, melee infantry does counter skirmishers in melee mode.
Skirmishers have a small attack - about 6, give or take - but retain the multipliers in melee. As they fire at twice the rate but have half the damage, their effectiveness into heavy infantry is largely unchanged in melee combat.
But melee HI has melee res and higher attack. They win skirmishers at melee, the issue is to get close.
I think that JPK would be fine with currently stats + bonus speed without a cost reduction. They dont have to counter everything.
To kill skirmishers I would give coyotes a bonus like nagitatas have (adjusted obviously), chimus have one vs artillery…
Well, I think it was worth trying to see how JPK would perform in melee combat with Veteran Skirmisher.
Considering his upgraded speed (4.75) and Stealth ability it is likely scenario that you surprise Skirmisher army and force them into melee fight.
its been over 15 years and we are still having people think musketeers do melee damage to skirms…
nope. coyote runners.
skirms do bonus in melee to heavy infantry, actually, and thats buffed by counter infantry rifling iirc. its just the total stats of each unit that end up slightly favouring the muskets in melee and i believe that advantage vanishes with CIR
think this isn’t quite true. rodeleros stay relevant throughout most of the game, and all they have is high speed and high melee resist. JPK doesn’t really have either of those things even w/ the .25 speed buff, but since they beat muskets (rods don’t) they might be useable in their own way, especially against musk/huss comps.
This would create all sorts of weird problems. Suddenly asian cav and other light infantry counters would have no penalty against JPK and would likely trade well against them. It would be much better to give them ranged resist if you’re worried about how easily skirms tear them up.
