Don’t listen to this guy just get on twitch or youtube and watch the top 10 or top 50 players use the unit and SEE for yourself just how “weak” they are…
Lastly in a feudal fight you still want your horseman in front merely to absorb archer fire NOT to eat charges from early knights SINCE the automatic brace mechanic make spearman ROOT ALL cav in place for almost 2 seconds and completely NEGATES all charging dmg AND french DO NOT get their bonus since their charge attack DID NOT land.
Please stop trolling, because here we talk about serious things.
You are wrong.
I got this from u/123mop on reddit. Posting here as I feel it’s a better place for the devs/players to see things. https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe4/comments/r5b2f6/horsemen_are_weaker_against_ranged_units_than/
Horsemen received +1 ranged armor and reduced hit points in this patch. Obviously this makes them weaker against everything that isn’t ranged units, but what about against ranged units? Well, it makes them weaker against those as well. For this post we’ll assume that for every ranged attack upgrade the enemy has, you have the corresponding ranged defense upgrade. There is a potential niche situation where you have the ranged armor upgrade and the archer player doesn’t have their ranged attack upgrade in feudal, and in that one case the horsemen are more durable against archers, but like I said it’s pretty niche.
Archer vs horseman:
The classic feudal age matchup.
Pre-patch: 5 damage per hit vs 155 HP. 31 arrows to kill.
Post-patch: 4 damage per hit vs 125 HP. 32 arrows to kill. One MORE arrow to kill, so a very marginal benefit for the horsemen here.
Veteran archer vs Veteran horseman:
Pre-Patch: 7 damage per hit vs 190 HP. 28 arrows to kill
Post-patch: 6 damage per hit vs 155 HP. 26 arrows to kill. Two fewer that pre-patch
Elite archer vs Elite horseman:
Pre-patch: 8 damage per hit vs 225 HP. 29 arrows to kill.
Post-Patch: 7 damage per hit vs 180 HP. 26 arrows to kill. Three fewer than pre-patch
Town center vs Horseman:
This one is quite important for the horseman’s ability to raid the enemy. As town centers have more damage than all archers before the elite upgrade this will be even worse for the horsemen.
Pre-patch: 8 damage vs 155 HP. 20 Shots to kill
Post-Patch: 7 damage vs 125 HP. 18 shots to kill, two fewer than pre-patch.
Veteran horsemen:
Pre-Patch: 8 damage vs 190 HP. 24 shots to kill
Post-Patch: 7 damage vs 155 HP. 23 shots to kill, one fewer than pre-patch.
Elite horsemen:
Pre-patch: 8 damage per hit vs 225 HP. 29 arrows to kill.
Post-Patch: 7 damage per hit vs 180 HP. 26 arrows to kill. Three fewer than pre-patch
So even against the lowly archer, where the 1 pierce armor matters the most, the horsman is weaker except in feudal age where it can survive one additional arrow. Every other ranged unit has more damage and so is less affected by the one armor, excluding the zhuge nu. The zhuge nu is going to be worse against horsemen. Crossbowmen, mangudai, longbowmen, horse archers, hand cannoneers, tower war elephants, and camel archers all kill horsemen much faster. As an example let’s do the crossbowman.
Xbow vs veteran horseman:
Pre-Patch: 12 damage vs 190 HP. 16 shots to kill
Post-patch: 11 damage vs 155 HP. 15 shots to kill. 1 bolt fewer, but this is a larger difference than for the archer because it already takes fewer bolts. The % difference in time to kill is larger.
Elite Xbow vs Elite horseman:
Pre-Patch: 15 damage vs 225 HP. 15 shots to kill
Post-Patch: 14 damage vs 180 HP. 13 shots to kill. As above, 2 bolts fewer so actually not as many individual shots fewer as for the archers, but the overall boost to killing speed will be greater.
Regarding post imp with biology and incendiary arrows, I’m not 100% sure how decimal value damage is handled in AoE4 so I can’t speak to this with certainty, but I’m fairly confident that post imperial age technologies make this disparity WORSE, causing horsemen to die proportionally even faster if both players have these techs researched (notwithstanding unique biology variants of the mongols and french).
So the horseman before the patch vs after, are worse against virtually every ranged unit at virtually all stages of the game. On top of this they are also worse against every non-ranged unit by a substantial margin, and spearmen have become stronger against them as well. Before this patch horsemen were not considered particularly good, failing to be a powerful counter to ranged units as they were intended to be. After the patch I would recommend against making them in basically every situation. They were bad before and are worse now.
This change is so bad it makes me wonder if they were intending to reduce the resource cost of horsemen but found it made them too strong, and reverted that changed without adjusting other changes they had already made.
Edit: As a special bonus note, horsemen now take one fewer shot from springalds to kill in both castle and imperial age.
I got this from u/123mop on reddit. Posting here as I feel it’s a better place for the devs/players to see things. https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe4/comments/r5b2f6/horsemen_are_weaker_against_ranged_units_than/
In any case, they are only used late game when a player runs out of gold or needs a priority gold unit that isn’t the Knight.
There is a reason why we are seeing a lot of Scouts. Nearly the same health, half the cost.
I only did the feudal horseman vs base archers which proves horses got stronger vs those units; but you are CORRECT that horseman fair WORSE vs ALL other range units and even basic archers once castle+ upgrades are considered…
Having said all this Feudal skirmishes is the only place I can think you’d mass horseman to fight outside of running out of gold for knights.
Thank you for sharing additional matchups
A light touch to the HP would be stomachable, but not the egregious hit that was given.
What role do you think Horsemen should have?
Tbh, I wouldn’t mind if they were a cheap unit like the spearman or the archer but they cost 50% more. I’m really not sure exactly what the role of the horseman is supposed to be after feudal (they still work fine in feudal). I’d rather raid with 4 knights over 10 horseman any day for example)
You mean because currently 4 knights are more effective, or that’s what you think their role should be?
Whelp there you have it folks !! Devs said the horsemen overperformed vs units it wasn’t meant to counter!!! This is why they nerfed it BUT they at least admit horsemen do not do well vs archers in mass so they are looking into it…
ERIC DID NOT mention how horsemen got weaker vs speciality range towncenters and all elite upgraded range units…
Imo they can return the hp But move their dmg to be more heavily bonus related.
Or add just 10hp bk!!! But also allow horsemen an additional blacksmith range armor buff (+3 in feudal).
135hp horsemen with 0/+1 armor vs longbow 6 range dmg goes up to 27 shots to die in feudal. BUFF
135hp horsemen with effective blacksmith upgrades 0/+2 vs longbow effective 6 range dmg goes to 34 shots!!!
135hp horsemen with 0/+1 armor vs towncenter 8 range dmg goes to back to 20 shots.
Lastly to address the mass on mass fights give horsemen the crossbow treatment and upgrade the range bonus with elite upgrades. For example current elite upgrades starts the bonus at 11? Make it 15 for the first elite upgrade which would make the horsemen hit range for 2 more dmg than a knight in castle age!!
Now you’d really only make knights to fight maa and to mix in with your horsemen for charge dmg and meat shield.
Can you answer me, what does Delhi or China do to counteract (or endure) an MAA push in second age? I wait your answer.
Absolutely dogshit nothing in the case of delhi now… but!!! HRE got nerfed so their maa ram rush is weaker also.
China got a major major buff!!! The repeater archer is overturned IMO in masses the mow down castle knights?!! China is very very safe vs early maa.
But I agree delhi in trouble vs early maa 
You know that the English can also have MAA, right?
The Chinese have to keep making the second Landmark and the number of Chukonus is not going to be greater than a push from MAA and battering rams.
“ERIC DID NOT mention how horsemen got weaker vs speciality range towncenters and all elite upgraded range units…”
Eric, Horsemen are far far too expensive to be in the state you have put them in now. They need to drop to cost 80 total resources.
What role do you want them to have?
Watched the video, sounds like they want it to handle mass archers, and … that’s it. 3 Range armor would be the only way to do that at this health.
Or ranged units need to as others have suggested to have a minimum range, where they melee instead at a much lower damage rate (lower damage and or attack speed).
what many chinese players seem to be doing is buidling tight bases with barbican of the sun to protect gold and wood, and an early second TC to protect the main TC (basically right next to it) and any food workers. Then trying to progress to castle age quickly to get clocktower springalds.
English maa are nothing compared to hre, China can eat those slow an weak units for a snack.
They are useless now, This nerf was unwanted they were dying like tissue paper, now they die like wet paper. This unit was never a problem and nobody reported any issues with it. Please change back the nerfs and return the horsemen to normal state.
Speaking for everybody else? “Nobody wanted this”
Cavalry in general was too good of a unit against spearmen, and had too many run-by capabilities to do damage. Maybe find another way to attack.
nope horsemen were weak AF in dark and feudal, they were good at veteran, but by that time you can spam knights. Spears needed a HP buff as they are still weak now.