Poles and... Lack of direction?

Poles have strong points, and a strong castle she, that falls abruptly in imperial. They can produce cheaper knights in late castle. For that you need the tech, and them to mass the knights to make use of the discount.

Their imperial cavaliers are not worth to produce thought. They also have the binged hussar, with low armor but with trample. Is kind of weird to invest in the knights and then to invest in the winged hussars and their trample because the cavaliers are that bad.

This reminds me the Bulgarians in their first patch. Strong konnik and really strong and fast to build krepost. The team bonus helped to upgrade the konniks, but that was it, not any other of their bonus helped them in that direction. Like the insta upgraded militia and bargains. Now, they have cheaper blacksmith techs and cheaper siege upgrades, which helps them to obtain certain identity with power spikes.

Maybe poles need something like that. Tone down their strongest points, but give the cavaliers some use that don overlap with the winged hussars. Give the winged hussars some benefits with the castle UT. So the investment into knights is still useful in imperial.

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Just made a proposal regarding this:

TL;DR I don’t think Poles necessarily have to be a cavalry civilization

For what I understood (correct me if i’m wrong) you don’t fully agree with the way their Kinght line works, as in: you only have a boost going for knights in the castle age, but only in the small gap where you can get the castle tech before imperial.
While it is true that, if you want to play Knights with Poles, that is your strongest point, I don’t think that’s necessarily how you want to/have to play the Poles.

Follow me on this thought for a minute. If you are massing Knights (in the Castle Age), you first have to ask yourself: Why am I doing this? Their knights don’t scale that well into imperial like you said. So why force yourself down a “bad” path for your civ? If you’re producing knights, it should be to use them in the castle age, not to hold them or mass them for Imperial Age. If you really want to play stable, it could be a good idea to add hussars into the mix, which we can agree scale better for the poles.

Nevertheless, it is true that you can’t solely produce hussars in castle age, as they will likely fall against other gold units. So, in order to find a solution to this situation, why not play with archery range units? Poles have a nice range, only lacking last armor. Following this gameplan allows you to have a very solid archers + lightcav comp, which turns out to scale very well into the late game.

At this point, arb + winged hussars will do very well against any other cavalry civ. Poles’ incentive to mine stone will also allow you to get castles faster and gain map control that way, a very nice thing to have when playing archers.

The harder matchup will be against other archer civs, where the lack of Imp armour for hussars will definitely hurt, but then again, poles are very flexible and can add great skirms, rams or even bbc into the mix.

As for the castle age tech, I think its best moment to shine is if you intend to go all in in the castle age (delaying your imperial age until ~130 vils), and go for that tech with a lot of farms to spam. It can also be nice in imperial, as a flexible resource, but as I already mentioned I don’t think that’s their main go-to.

I think Poles are definitely different than other civs, but I think they are very nicely designed. Think outside the box and play to their strenghts, and they can be great.

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They are strong, no doubt about that. But maybe too strong with their current bonusses in castle age, but maybe a bit weak against archery civs in the lategame.

It literally says in their description that the Poles are a Cavalry civilization. Which makes perfect sense historically, they had some among the best knights in medieval Europe.

I agree with you, I think they are most favored against other cav civs as you mention. I haven’t had the same experience were I think they are “too strong”, but I definitely see it being possible. I think it’s crucial to adapt your strategy when playing Poles, and when playing against Poles, in order to either exploit or “dodge” their advantages, respectively.

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First time I agree with this person. Szlachta Privileges possibly (would need to be tested more) allows for too easy knight rushes in Castle Age and should get somewhat nerfed. However the Poles’ Imperial Age is lacking a lot.

No Siege Engineers and Onagers means they are weaker to Archers, which isn’t helped by their Skirmishers and Archers missing the last Armor Upgrade and Thumb Ring.

Trash Cavaliers means they basically are irrelevant if replaced by Hussars.

As they neither get Paladins nor Plate Barding Armor, their Cavalry is prone to arrows from Defensive Structures and Archers, hence can’t compete with stronger opposing Heavy Cavalry and Camels - especially when population efficiency and unit production speed becomes more important.

Since they don’t get Halberdiers either, the Poles often have no cost effective answers and must rely on Obuchs for which you need many Castles to get them out fast enough. Otherwise they are easily overpowered in small numbers.

tldr; nerf their Castle Age and buff their Imperial Age in return, i.e. give them a more specific tech tree with at least one definite strength

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I agree, from a historical standpoint it would make sense for them to have better cavalry. I was focusing on the gameplay balance aspect. As for the description, it can always change. It is the tech tree that matters, not the description.

Fair. Still unfortunate that they couldn’t give the Poles better Cavalry than just trash units.

Well they literally state that poles are designed around mass > individual power.
Even if I don’t totally agree with that, it’s devs decision and it actually makes poles very unique.

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I wouldn’t say trash units make them a unique civ. I also feel they promised to much when calling it “Medium Cavalry”.

Civ is absolutely fine. They have a solid tower rush. So they can make things happen in feudal and close out the game during early-mid castle the latest.

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what the â– â– â– â– ? no, just because poles arent shoehorned into one unit like franks or britons or burmese or spanish are, doesnt make them a bad civ, in fact it makes them more interesting, not less

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I think everybody appreciates that poles, even if stated to be a “cav civ” are actually one of the most versatile civs in the game currently.
At least with their openings and mid-game potential.

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Are you serious? A civ that must rely on tower rush and is doomed in anything past Castle Age?

Versatility is always much appreciated but to an extent and not at cost of having insufficient counters.

They’re not relying on that. It’s a strat which is favoured considering that mining stone also grants them gold which is really useful.

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Let’s see how long until they nerf that too. Will make them pretty predictable though, always having to go for Towers or Castles.

Calm down buddy 11
Poles just happen to have their best opening being maa trush currently
I think they will change that a bit. Poles can open archers and scouts aswell.

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I’m not concerned about their openings one bit, it’s their late game which has me worried.

Lategame isn’t everything…
Openings and midgame is king currently, and poles happen to excel in the midgame actually ^^

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