Thre’s a lot of controverys around the Battle Eelephants and Indians and the conclusions seem so obvious but with the Steppe Lancer I think it depends. Pros:
Better Historical accuracy (Huns at the end were nomadic steppe people.)
Can be affected by the Cav archer discount.
More variety to the Hunnic armies.
A bit of more flexibility in the army composition
Cons
Balance problems (Huns are a civ with solid winrates, especially at the pro level).
Issues with hotkeys (Tarkans take the same place as the Steppe Lancer).
Lack of a niche.
Possibly goes against the civ design ( Mongols, Cumans and Tatars have a unique UI interface, don’t rememember if Huns have it).
The Huns are already a Paladin civ, not to mention their unique unit is also melee cavalry, in addition to being available at the Stable, in the Steppe Lancer’s spot, after a unique tech is researched. Also, the Huns were more famous for being cavalry archers, anyway. The Steppe Lancer was good for the Mongols because their melee cavalry was surprisingly poor and was a fitting substitute for the Knight line.
Giving Lancers to stronger civs would make buffing Lancers trickier. At least Mongols didn’t really have a cavalry focus in the long term where they’re strong. And giving Steppe Lancers to Cumans and Tatars and not Mongols was weird anyway, Huns are from a different timeframe so that’s okay
The truth is Huns are probably the most played civ for the last 20 years because they are well know as the most flexible civ in the game. Only reason why they have lost the spotlight is because walling is more important and eco bonuses benefit boomers rather than people who goes aggresive in feudal-castle. I dont think that lancers will benefit huns at all.
Steppe Lancers cost much less gold and have the extra range. If used right, it’s more worth it for Mongols to focus on lose instead of Cavaliers, especially considering they lack Plate Barding Armor.
oh i’m not saying they aren’t worth it under ideal circumstances, but they aren’t going to do nearly as well as cavaliers in many circumstances.
especially when you consider that they have much lower armor, lower health, slower attack speed, and lower attack and the elite upgrade is much more expensive then cavalier.
the only advantages they have is they have range, lower gold cost and can be massed up faster.
Usually I’m always in favor of balance over historical accuracy and gameplay diversity, but thinking about it, I don’t see why SL to huns would broke the balance.
I mean, I know it would be superfluous, but it wouldn’t either make them OP, since they wouldn’t be affected by any bonus, and SL itself right now is far from being OP.
Indians have the highest teamgame winrate of all civs, solely because of imp camels i assume. We should remove the remaining camel pierce armor bonus to balance them.
But indians have then no viable cav unit in castle age which has a easy fix. Give indians acces to non elite battle elefants as an option.
Many people wish for this and two problems would be solved at once!
Lastly the argument that it would be op together with the indian eco, i say it should be tried first. malay have 30% cheaper elefentas and acces to EBE so their castle age elefant rush should not be worse than indians new option. It is most likely balanced, no reason to deny the unit further.
Pretty sure it wouldn’t hurt the balance if they didn’t receive elite but not sure how often they would be used. I guess it would be there just for the sake of history.
I think it doesn’t mind, because SL is an underwhelming unit. First it should be buffed to be viable, and then we can discuss if Huns should have access to them or not
First devs should make Steppe Lancers (and Cavalry Archers) viable then we can speak about giving Steppe Lancers for Huns, Turks and Magyars, however Huns are strong in the midgame (not considered as a strong imperial civ in 1v1s) while the Mongols got the useless Steppe Lancers to compensate their bad midgame and the nerfed hunt bonus.
