Before jumping into poll, let’s compare Champion upgrade with rest two second Imperial Age unit upgrades - Paladin and Imperial Camel Rider.
All three are very different unit and I won’t look into their stats. Rather I’ll focus on improvement compared to previous first Imperial Age upgrade. For this reason, I’ll use multiplication factor to analysis cost, HP and attack. For example, Cavalier upgrade gives 20 HP but Paladin upgrade gives 40 HP. So multiplication factor of Paladin HP is 2x. Other things like 1PA of Paladin is hard and misleading if we consider like that. They will be mentioned as it is.
Paladin upgrade compared to Cavalier Upgrade
Cost : 4.33x food/2.5x gold/3.41x total
HP : 2x
Attack : 1x
Special : +1PA
Imperial Camel upgrade compared to Heavy Camel upgrade
Cost : 3.08x food/1.39x gold/2.19x total
HP : 1x
Attack : 1x
Special : -2 seconds TT
Champion upgrade compared to THS
Cost : 2.5x food/3.5x gold/2.75x total
HP : Infinity (Don’t let it deceive you as THS doesn’t give any HP)
Attack : 0.33x
Special : None
Champion is just ridiculously overpriced for its stats improvement compared to other 2 upgrades. One last thing before the poll, upgrade time needs to be reduced to 75 seconds from 100 seconds regardless of which one you vote.
How will you justify Champion upgrade?
Reduce Upgrade cost
Improve Champion stat
0voters
Some of you may want both. But I just want to see which one most players want to see.
The champion is seen enough but the upgrade is just bad design imo. Its an small advantage that is expensive but barely changes anything. Its a boring tech
Imo Paladin is really only because heavy cav otherwise has such a hard time in the lategame as you burn through your gold so fast.
The militia line has a way lower gold ratio. Also harder to counter especially without gold.
It’s a huge difference between these units in the lategame atm. I don’t think a comparable upgrade to paladin for the militia line makes sense, as there is no trash counter against them.
Then Bulgarians, Malays can be too strong or difficult to balance. Having two upgrades gives more variation between different civs. The problem is Champion upgrade gives too less stat increase. It gives at least +1 more MA (maybe also some Infantry UU can increase stat littlebit to adjust.)
Already some infantry civs getting big bonus for their militia line (Champion). If champion become exclusive and huge stat increase, these bonus might need to be adjusted as well. Just a little more stat increase (like 2 base melee armor) is enough.
This comparison is mostly meaningless. What matters is the expected RoI in various situations. Your methodology here might get the same answer but its basically p-hacking; youre fitting a methodology which happens to align with your priors rather than using a robust methodology in the first place.
For example theres no reason the diminishing returns (rising cost per stat point) have to diminish at the same rate for each unit. Do you think if there was an arbalest upgrade with 1 more attack and 5 more HP it would follow the same diminishing return schedule as, e.g. paladin? Heck no that thing would cost like 3k res despite the arbalest upgrade costing like 1k. This analysis would make such an upgrade look underpowered but it would probably be fine. Or what if there were 2 smaller upgrades?
As another example if the 2hs upgrade were expensive this would show the champion upgrade as being fine, even though it may not be fine. The upgrade relative to its predecessor would have similar ratios to other upgrades.
Point is this methodology is not robust and shouldnt be used. It has no ability to refute a hypothesis which is the whole point of choosing a methodology in the first place.
The 16% HP increase and 8-15% attack increase isnt stellar and you could bump it up or make the upgrade cheaper/faster. But thats only if the RoI is too low in situations where it should be higher.
c) neither - just give it +5 vs Scout-line and call it a day (adjust Light-cav interaction accordingly so that MAA are not too strong vs Scouts in Feudal and LS isn’t too strong vs LC in Castle).
Eh, no need to rag on OP. The comparison isn’t ideal as others have mentioned, but the bigger focus is on the poll, in a forum where swordsman-line buffs are a common topic. But IMO the swordsman line as a whole should have been included. Champion upgrade is just the biggest stand-out due to its high cost/time.
As for my opinion, I favor accessibility buffs much more than stat buffs for swordsman line. I would save stat buffs for overly situational infantry UUs, where it’s more needed (and easier to balance than a generic unit). As others have pointed out, champions are decent units, but it’s an expensive, slow tech switch with less opportunity for payoff than archer/cav lines. Particularly, I think the ~3 minutes needed to go from LS to Champion is unjustified, and even shaving 10-15 seconds off the LS upgrade might be on the table. That and a somewhat cheaper champion upgrade would probably do the trick.
I guess so. Ranged units snowballs way faster than melee units. Here all 3 are at least melee units.
Yeah exactly.
I don’t think it will be difficult. Bulgarians will lose 1MA probably and Malay can stay same with a little price increase on UT.
This is the best analysis to show how worthless Champion upgrade is compared to THS and rest 2 second Imperial Age upgrade. THS upgrade is also bad which gives only attack. A melee unit is supposed to get more HP and/armor than attack as an upgrade.
That’s true. Champion no last armor, Champion no supplies, THS with supplies and armor a lot of variations are possible.
Poll update - 8 on improve stats, 7 on reduced price.
Think they should Scout Cavalry/Eagle Warrior treatment. Feudal M@A stays as it is. They’ll get a buff on HP and movement speed. Movement speed makes them equivalent to slightly faster than Archer. Let’s say +15HP on M@A right after Castle Age. If possible buff other infantry HP down the line along with UUs.
No, its not. Let me explain you why your point of reference is arbitrary.
You start with the assumption that 2nd tier imperial age upgrades should be compared to each other, and only to each other. But you never elaborate why, and there is no actual reason for that. If we look at your examples, you compare a unique unit, a anti-archer power unit and a trashkiller. They fill very different roles, actually the only thing they have in common is that they have 2 upgrades in imperial age. But why exlude others? For example, lcav is typicially picked up in imperial age or after clicking up (monk rushes/clownery aside). So the game would hardly change if it only became available in imperial age. So why exclude them from your analysis? Or, since we already include UUs in the comparision, what about byz and magyar UTs - if they changed the units name rather than its stats, they would fit here too. But that hypotethical change would be entirely cosmetic. If a cosmetic change alters your result, your methodology is not robust. You might as well start comparing upgrades to units that wear capes…
Second, you continue by assuming that it would be somehow a good thing if those upgrade costs were in a similar ratio. But you absolutly fail to give any reason why that is. A good game is not made by having similar ratios on upgrades…
Thirdly, you compare the stats in a VERY weird way. Absolute change in HP, dmg and armor have vastly different effects on different units. +1 attack on a unit with lots of attack is less relevant than +1 attack on a weak unit. How much does 1atk/1pa/15HP/whatever help in the fights the unit actually takes? Thats the relevant question.
Fourthly, you run into the problem that castle age balance heavily skews your numbers. If, for example, Kts were nerfed a bit without touching the cav, that would make the PALADIN upgrade look worse (in your methodology). So your late imp analysis is affected by early castle age balance decisions. I think its clear why this is a problem.
Every comparison needs to first establish why the things compared are comparabel. You can’t just skip that step.
Which one is “each” and which one is “other” though?
I’m most definitely not comparing “Champion” with “Paladin” and “Imp Camel”. I’m comparing “Champion upgrade” with “Paladin Upgrade” and “Imp Camel Upgrade”. In other words it is “THS to Champion” vs “Cavalier to Paladin”.
Because they are not a second Imperial Age upgrade.
Absolutely true. Doesn’t change the fact that Champion upgrade is overpriced. Hussar upgrade is even more overpriced. But Hussar is a game changer. Having champion or not makes little to no difference in 95% cases. And rest 5% cases it is due to having a civ bonus that results in different outcome, not the “Champion upgrade” itself.
Which makes Champion even worse as 12 attack vs 13 attack is not seen unless you fight High HP units like cavalry.
That’s a very good point. I’ll improve my analysis next time. Thanks.
I thought everyone is on the same page as me and understands how overpriced Champion upgrade is.
