Polish Cavalry Balance

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
1

I don’t think I’m the only one, who thinks the balance is just… off.

Here’s the fully upgraded (and updated for this patch) stats and an upgrade list for the same lancers:

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Now, opportunity cost is a major thing. In few games will you ever have the opportunity to do as much upgrading as the Polish lancer (and to a lesser extent the Mexican lancer) require, but even if you do, you did so at the loss of something else. Econ cards, more units, etc. Here’s a breakdown of that:

Poland’s taking seven cards:
Royal Union, Koncerz, Polish Cavalry Combat, Petyhorcy, Polish Horsemanship, Szlachta, Cavalry Combat

Poland’s taking six techs:
Veteran, Guard, Imperial, Cavalry Cuirass, Pancerz (300f, 300w), Golden Liberty (200f, 200w)

Warsaw’s one tech fewer (Imperial) but one card greater (Poniatowski’s Legion).

Spain’s taking four cards:
Caballeros, Cavalry Combat, Liberation March, Unction

Spain’s taking three techs:
Guard, Imperial, Cavalry Cuirass

Mexico’s a bit of a weird one. I believe Plan of Casa Mata for the 5% speed isn’t really viable, so I’ve disincluded it. Also, there’s some real variation from age up choices. Unlike Unction which is hard to keep up on melee units, the Mexican flags are super easy to keep on everything because they’re gigantic, so I’m presenting this with that assumed. Your mileage may vary somewhat, I go Tlaxcala->Coahuila->Guanajuato->Oaxaca so that’s what’s represented here.

Mexico’s taking six cards:
Caballeros, Cavalry Combat, Liberation March, Presidial Lancers, Land of Juarez, Land of Zaragoza

Mexico’s taking four techs:
Veteran, Guard, Imperial, Cavalry Cuirass

Holland’s taking four cards:
Religious Freedom, Riding School, Cavalry Combat, Dutch States Army

Holland’s taking one tech:
Cavalry Cuirass
(But does require you to imperial with the Mercenary Contractor foregoing another benefit…)

My proposal for improving the Polish cavalry situation, generally:

  • Remove Wood → Coin flip in Szlachta for the Retainer.
  • Remove Veteran/Guard/Imperial Retainer techs. Have unit shadow tech instead.
  • Add -1 Population Cost to Winged Hussar Imperial Tech.
  • Add new Age 4 card to Poland; “Viennese Veterans - Researches Veteran and Guard upgrades for the Winged Hussar, delivers 5 Winged Hussars, cost 500f”.
  • Add new Age 4 Infinite card to Poland, for 3 Winged Hussars and 3 Retainers.
  1. This would bring the Winged Hussar up to a much more viable and competitive level lategame, while retaining the high investment, high ceiling, nature of it.
  2. This provides two good card-based opportunities to make an optional smooth unit transition, with Kirkholm Veterans and this newly proposed card, researching the past upgrades.
  3. This keeps the Retainer viable at all points of the game, but limited by its now-permanent wood cost, which gets progressively problematic as the game goes on.
  4. (Opinion) This avoids the best multi-pop lancer in the game being the Red Lancer, followed (distantly) by the Warsaw Hussar, with the Winged Hussar being dead-last in usability due to being the only “real” 3 population lancer, in addition to the gigantic card investment requirement.
2

2pop winged hussar :smiley:

1 Like
3

How about no.

Winged Hussars aren’t Lancers to be thrown into infantry lines don’t compare them to Spanish lancers.

They’re the counterpart of Normal Hussars except they’re expensive you’re meant to supplement them with retainers. Which are meat shields wit their melee resist and pure numbers

2 Likes
4

Seven cards, six techs, for a unit which needs to supplement (or be supplemented by) another unit, which adds additional required cards and techs, to fulfil the role any other of these lancers fills to a similar standard with a far smaller opportunity cost.

On a civ internationally famous or infamous, depending on which side of the Bosporus you hail from, for lancers.

:confused:

Poles Units need a nerf for treaty
5

I think the Spanish Lancer may be muddying the waters here for little reason.
Winged Hussars are arguably a pseudo-Lancer and more comparable to the Chinaco and Red Lancer, having said that, I ran some quick (imperfect) math on them vs hussars.

I’ll be dividing certain metrics by pop for the purposes of fairness in comparing a 2 pop and 3 pop unit. Both have the same RR, so I will leave that out.

Hussar:
Cost in Villager Seconds (VS) ~276.26 (or 138.13 when divided by pop)
6.75 speed
160hp
15 hand attack (1.5 rof)
10 siege (3 rof)

Winged Hussar
Cost in VS ~392.86 (or 130.953 when divided by pop)
6.75 speed
120 hp
10 hand attack with 1.5x vs infantry (1.5 rof)
6.667 siege (3 rof)

Now, this notably doesn’t account for the Charged attack, so we should expect the WH to look worse on paper, but the attack and hp differences look pretty bad off of base stats. They perform in-line on damage only against infantry when adjusting for pop. It’s weird that it doesn’t over-perform vs something.

Currently, the issue is arguably largely dealt with by the 20% discount in age 3, but that helps a pop inefficient unit less in the late game.

I think the unit needs some increases to its base stats and the civ needs a little card reworking. I don’t think 2 pop Winged Hussars is a great option. I’d suggest something like this:

Increase WH siege attack to 30 (in line with a Hussar per pop), increase their charged and melee attacks to 39 (about 13.33% lower than a pop adjust hussar vs non-infantry) but due to the bonus vs infantry about 30% higher vs infantry. Then with Vet add 0.25 speed so they can keep up with Cavalry Archers.

With regards to the cards I would do roughly the below. You save a card slot and have some gains and losses on Winged Hussars and some losses on Retainers.

Cavalry Combat (III) - removed.

+15/15% to cavalry attack/hp.

Koncerz (II)

Deliveries 2 WH. +10% WH all actions damage. +1 AoE and 2 range to the charged attack.

Polish Cavalry Combat (II)

+10/10% on Retainers, WH and CA.

Petyhorcy (II)

+15% hp on CA, WH, and Retainers. CA use hammers in melee.

Polish Horsemanship (II)

Cavalry train faster and CA get Trample mode and WH get stampede mode.

Szlachta (III)

-10% WH cost, -10% CA cost. +5% all cavalry attack and hp. Winged Hussars gain an additional +5% attack and hp.

Team Lithuanian Cavalry Combat (III)

+15/15% on light cavalry for the team.

Riders of the Apocalypse (II)

Retainers, WH and CA +30% siege.

Obviously my card descriptions are a bit vague, but I think you can get the idea. Given the base damage increases the remaining stat boosts have a bigger impact on Winged Hussars.

Early estimates I’ve heard suggest Poland might be strong in 1v1 and treaty, so some nerfs elsewhere will of course be required. I’m not trying to buff Poland. I just think design wise they may have missed on Winged Hussars which are a core cultural unit associated with Poland. They should be a staple unit rather than one that gets overshadowed by a random cheap 1 pop cav imo.

Unified Thread on Poland being op
Unified Thread on Poland being op
6

I don’t hate this.

There’s definitely something to be said for buffing the base stats and curtailing the card dependence and Retainer monopoly.

7

you know there are 2 more 3 pop cav you could compare it to

The stats are not that off for a 3 pop unit there are clear tradeoffs between the units, they are always more cost efficient per pop but not stat efficient per pop

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8

I’m assuming you mean Cuirassiers? They’re a different type of cavalry which fit into a different role. Think of those more like a halberdier on a pony. Very much a generalist cavalry which doesn’t trade too horribly even in a bad matchup.

Lancers are more specialised for killing artillery and things on foot. They’re soft or hard countered by everything on horses.

EDIT: Ah, you added pictures. Yeah, look how much better that Tokala soldier is. And remember how much less investment that Tokala soldier required to be that good. Far fewer cards and techs.

1 Like
9

the Tokala is a unit that stilll requires 7 (8 if you want the siege) cards to max out mind you and it is not trainable which is a very clear trade off.

If you need the WH to be closer to the tokala stats then that is a clearly OP unit.

That would be like comparing the Cuir to the Sipahi and saying that it needs to be that level.

Even if they are different role they are still of the same pop class and their stats reflect that

the Wing Hussar is still dealing more damage in melee then the Cuir

it has more range HP

and it deals more damage to infantry that is not clumped

and it has the charge attack

Its a fine unit for the context of the civ which also gets very strong cav archer with extra range and armor and still a broken eco

1 Like
10

Winged Hussars need some base stat increases to justify their heavy card and tech investment and 3 pop costs.

By contrast, I’ve been seeing Retainers spammed like mad. Even Cossacks weren’t spammed this much, though Russia can spam all their units quickly. Poland’s infantry train speed is pretty bad in comparison to other Euro civs.

11

Who needs winged hussars when you have retainers?:joy::joy:

12

That’s the whole point…It’s not that retainers and winged hussars are imbalanced by the devs…you haven’t figured out the balance.

Retainers are the cav spam…but they do however have difficulty in alpha strikes, raiding or getting through enemy lines to enemy riflemen or artillery…for that winged Hussars are better.

13

That 4 area-of-effect damage on their charged attack basically turns them into a mini-cannon—literally, a mass of them would wipe out at least the front line of musketeers.

1 Like
14

Yes but also no; It’s an Alpha Strike along with the trample it allows you to burst a hole to reach the back line, It’s not for fighting infantry like a true heavy cavalry they’re "light’ cavalry just as normal hussars are light cavalry.

If any buff maybe it’s anti-villager damage or more range resist…or more sight range. Or promotions…nothing that changes the theme of the unit.

15

Come now, winged hussars are weak for their price and pop cost. The retainer can be carded to basically fill in the same role but with 3x more units. The winged hussar should either:

  1. Be 2 pop
  2. Increase base stats by about 30-40% and keep 3 pop
16

I ran numbers comparing the Winged Hussar with a pop adjusted Hussar earlier in this thread. I don’t think it actually needs a 30% boost to all stats. Mostly just attack increases and maybe some card rejiggering. I think they’d get pretty nutty at 2 pop.

17

They die too fast. They only get to use their ability once. If you match their stats per pop with hussar, you get basically 50% base stats increase. And if you adjust for the ability, which is pretty underwhelming btw, you get a 30% stats increase for a 3 pop unit..

18

Definitely possible. I find it a bit hard to judge the value of the charged attack and they do end up cheaper on a per pop basis. I also found their attack to be a bit more offensive than their hp, and with higher attack stats they will cut through more before going down.

Edit: another consideration could be boosting their armor a bit with their attack. Uhlans have low hp, high attack and higher than normal armor.

19

I didn’t want to accuse you of presenting your argument in bad faith, but when you wrote this, it didn’t smell right to me at all, even as a non-Lakota player. Haven’t had a chance to sit down and put a reasoned argument back together until now, apologies for the delay.

The collage of lancers I posted in the original post are fully upgraded, given a particular point in the game. You as a user can say “I wouldn’t go quite this far” for either or any unit and be pretty reasonable in concluding you don’t have that much deck space. This makes Poland look better on-paper than it actually is, because these stats are not really obtainable outside of treaty or long AI games, unlike for example the Dutch, who can very reasonably access absolutely top-tier units at a functional population discount with little investment of cards and techs. And Poland’s lancers already aren’t looking great on paper.

Anyway, if we fairly put the Tokala Soldier next to the hussar, it looks a lot like this:

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Poland’s taking seven cards:
Royal Union, Koncerz, Polish Cavalry Combat, Petyhorcy, Polish Horsemanship, Szlachta, Cavalry Combat

Poland’s taking six techs:
Veteran, Guard, Imperial, Cavalry Cuirass, Pancerz (300f, 300w), Golden Liberty (200f, 200w)

Lakota’s taking 8 cards:
Ogle Tanka Un, Friendly Territory, Cavalry Damage, Onikare, Cavalry Combat, Nakota Support, Blotahunka, Akichita.

Lakota’s taking 3 techs:
Bonepipe Armour, Battle Anger, Cavalry Cuirass

This is done for parity of course, if we want to add Old Ways to the Lakota, then Advanced Arsenal gets added to Poland. If we’re going to add Horsemanship, we’d be adding Mass Cavalry.

So where does that leave us?

Overall investment: Similar.
Damage vs Artillery: Tokala soldier clearly wins. Both do well, but the Tokala is doing much, much more.
Damage vs Skirms/Crossbows: It’s fairly even. In theory, with enough bunched mass, the Poles can have an AoE damage edge, but Tokalas will be more consistent.
Damage vs Heavy Infantry: Clear Tokala victory. Every day and twice on Tuesdays.
Damage vs Villagers: Almost the same, but the Winged Hussar does actually have an edge, here.
Survivability: Clear, overwhelming Tokala victory. Massively more HP, plus the elusive and highly coveted siege armour class being present.
Speed: Clear and overwhelming Tokala victory.
Attack Speed: Tokala victory.

The winged hussar, decked out in the best munitions-grade steel plate on the field at the time, armed with a hollow lance to reach over European pike hedges, the quintessential greatest lancer the world ever saw, is absolutely BODIED by a chap who’s great-great-grandfather had never seen a horse and is half naked. This doesn’t make thematic sense.

Then add in that the Retainer is ridiculously good in comparison, totally overwhelming the winged hussar, it makes no sense from a gameplay perspective either.

I hope this is enough to convince you, this unit needs a buff. I don’t know about a 30% base buff as suggested above, perhaps with some hp/attack cards removed sure. But, something. And not something small.

20

Yeah, and if we’re being honest here, the Winged Hussar is rather comparable to the French Cuirassier than the Spanish Lancer.