Now you mix again up “infantry civs” ws civs which actually PLAY infantry.
You are making something up, again.
And then you want to target spefically the few infanry units which are viable to play. I must say, I don’t like it. Infantry need to be more viable, not less.
Steppe lancer is raiding unit, which means this unit doesn’t even has a military fighting class, so it is only good for raiding, giving them more Pa will be too strong especially with their +1 range and with their speed. I think the only thing that steppe lancer need is just more cost reduction, so if it become 65 food, 35 gold will be more than enough.
they are labeled infantry civs. just because you want infantry to be something different then support has no bearing on what the actual gameplay is right now.
to change how infantry civs play would require a complete redesign of the games balance.
again, go prove that infantry can be balanced vs archers and knights and then make all the other balance changes to make it work - keep in mind that after infantry trades effectively with knights and archers they will need trash weaknesses, and some civ bonuses will have to be toned down.
Your argument is kinda cherry-picking, isn’t it? Goths have 3 types of units that counter pretty much everything and also a 40% discount on the prices. Try to spam like goths without the discount…
Sometimes it is useful. Like there is this DM tournament going on right now, and after watching some games I learnt that SL spam is the only viable opening with Cuman, because halbs and paladins don’t train fast enough to keep up and hussars are defeated. Ofc it doesn’t happen in RM just because no one would spend the cost of the elite upgrade+steppe husbandry when they could get paladins or hussars instead, so ig a solution could be to make the elite upgrade cheaper and even change the gold cost for a wood cost. So at least there is some gold savings when compared to hussar, and by buffing the elite upgrade it shouldn’t buff Mongols too much since their elite SL are the worst of the bunch anyway.
Steppe Husbandry ftw 
And yeah exchange gold for wood… great idea… I already see the memes. Best idea ever.
Tatars: “Lets just spam cav archers/keshiks. If they die, nevermind. We still have steppe lancers to back it up.”
“Golden PIt? Who cares about the center. I just mass my steppe lancers!!!”
I meant changing the cost of the upgrade. Ofc SL that don’t cost gold would probs be too good.
Ah sorry… No I think the upgrade is too costly for a unit which hopefully will be changed into a more utility role.
If they consider to slowly buff it until it competes with the other strong options these civs have, the gold cost of the upgrade is completely justified. Especially as steppe lancers have a quite low gold ratio in comparison.
I think steppe lancer can not just good at raiding, which makes their roll too similar to hussar. The cheaper upgrade cost or cheaper unit cost are both effective way to go, yet as long as steppe lancer cost gold, they may still need a stat buff to separate them from hussar.
That’s very strong man. You have to remember the range and the fact that this unit is not available for all civs. 2 should be good.
I think just restoring their reload time to 1.9s should be enough. That seemed OP before Dec 2019 only because of the tight box formation, speed and the 30 gold cost. But I guess now if they restore it to 1.9, they’ll be usable.
Yeah I hope steppe lancers will be stronger at some field and justified their gold cost. They lack a specific role in current state.
My design is to make them good against ranged unit and bad at melee fight. Of course it may seem too strong if they can take similar amount of arrows as knight, yet their food cost in castle age is actually really big investment. Steppe lancer need to be strong to earn their roles and justified the cost.
It’s a really good change, which make them good at melee fight again. I think steppe lancer need to be good at either absorbing arrows or melee fight, and only good at one of them. In this case their 0/1 base armor will be fine, or maybe 1/1 for extra melee ability.
I’d add Siege Onagers to that.
Siege Onagers cannot reliably hit Cavalry Archers. Cav Archers are just too fast.
Siege Onagers are never even seen in 1v1 either.
And I will choose hussar to counter SO over steppe lancer, for gold cost perspective.
1 range and 3 p.armor for a fast moving cavalry is quite strong. They’ll raid and roam around town centers for quite sometime. Tatars and Mongols will be borderline OP. Mongols will get a super strong unit in castle age that can help them get the advantage to transition into Mangudai and Tatars will just kill everything early imp with 8 p.armor Lancers. It will become December 2019 all over again.
I think the best buff is exactly what they’re doing. Lower the gold cost. At some point we will get to a balance point where they’re easy enough to mass that they can really start using the utility of their range, more units attacking at once. In a way think of them like the archer line, power in numbers. The steppe lancer can never be good in 1 unit vs 1 unit situations because that would snowball to quickly in larger numbers. So I think it all comes down to cost.
That’s what I want to achieve with that high cost: Give steppe lancers the role to raid as well as countering range units, and run away when the enemy’s knights or pikes come just like cavalry archers. More PA can further separate steppe lancer from cavalry archer, whose weakness is happen to be range units. If 3 PA is indeed too strong, I will rather lower their melee ability or increase the training time, just to give the identity to steppe lancer.
Steppe lancers with 3 PA will die it melee fight. Mongols still gain a new strategy and will definitely be smoother in mid castle age, but I don’t think this will make them overpowered.
Tatars are the problems in my design. Not only the 8 PA steppe lancers will be unbalance, but also the roles of keshiks and steppe lancers may be too similar. I think both the unique tech and the stat of keshik should be adjusted if 3 base PA steppe lancer really come true.
I want to see 2 things:
(1) -10F
(2) Elite upgrade cost reduced to 350F/300G
The stat of steppe lancers right now are way too weak even in group fight. They are only good at killing villagers, so once they cost gold, they will never be cheap enough to become a better choice over hussar.