[Poll] Teutons are they good enough now or need more if so what exactly they need?

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
1

So with february patch teutons received some buffs recently goal here is to get how people currently feeling about teutons and discuss where exactly teutons stand as of now for land based maps in general(arabia,arena,golden pit etc).

First question is what you think about recent buffs that they received?

  • Its good they are buffed but need more
  • They are strong no need for buffs for now

0 voters

I also have another poll a biased one actually because I prefer them keep up their theme(slow,infantry,armored,defensive,monkas) so there are no choices like give them husbandry, give them at least Light cavalry etc. Each person has 2 votes so again its a bit generous poll. I would also like to mention these are just base thoughts dont take as granted main goal here is to see how people in general feel about them.Now whether you voted for 1 or 2 in first poll now say if devs decided again they are going to be buffed anway so what you prefer as buff?

  • They should get their current ones replaced or get more defensive bonuses like more town center attack and range(+1attack,+1 range per age starting in feudal) to help them deal with mobility problem
  • Crenellations should remain same for castles but it should also give towers +1 range to compensate for missing bracer
  • Teutonic knights should be made faster to make them viable but champion line should be faster than them too or siege ram should be added to their tech tree
  • Current infantry armor bonus should be made +1 melee,+1 pierce instead of just melee maybe should kick in feudal age to help their man at arms and tower rush theme
  • They should get some sort of relic related bonus like lithuanians like +1 armor units per relic or maybe +1 something else per relic
  • Teutonic knight should also benefit from extra armor not just halb or champs

0 voters

If you also your own ideas or any thought please post here as well.

2

i would go for a little bit different way

  • the +1 melee armor should affect kt line as well (optional: it should be increased to +2 melee armor in imp), this is needed to give the kts someting for the lack of husbandry
  • TKs move as fast as champs (from 0.7 to 0.9 speed) either directly over the civ this could be done over changing the imp UT cernellations to something that gives them +25% speed. Castles get +3 range as civ bonus. Compared to the speed of most power units (UUs, cavalry, eagles), it’s still rather slow and keeps the spirit of the civ.
  • TKs cost 85 food 30 gold instead of 85 food 40 gold, this would make them more viable in 1v1s, where gold is precious, but at the same time not effect TGs that much (where you have access to trade), compared to the total res cost of the unit, this is only -8% res cheaper, barely noticeable.

last one is completly optional: bracer for teut, but the extra castle range is reduced from 3 to 2. This would partially solve out the weakness vs arbs in imp. It could make TK + skirm too strong though, so it might not be that smart. Probly not needed afterall.

TLDR: kts get +1 melee armor, TKs are as fast as champs (maybe over a UT), TKs cost 30 gold instead of 40.

5 Likes
3

Idk why you put the TK speed bonus with the ram option. Anyway, I came up with an idea for giving them some cool bonus related to relics and tk speedDeus vult

For those who don’t want to enter to the link: take away cranellation, give castles +1/+2 range in castle/imperial as a bonus, and replace that twch with “deus Vult” Infantry gains 5% per relic (2 relics max for barracks unit, 4 max for Teutonic Knights)

Basically, we can’t just boos TK speedz otherwise would be OP. With these tech, you have to invest to get a really powerful unit

2 Likes
4

Any proposal that involves increasing their speed is inherently a bad solution. Their entire identity is tied around being slower than average. Increase their speed and you need to reduce their armor to compensate, and at that point you don’t even have anything making the civ distinctive at all anymore.

Reducing their cost is also a bad solution, as it just puts them in direct competition with Champions. Follow that path and you end up with a generic champion expy that does nothing special. Worst case, you basically get an infantry Tarkan.

The correct solution should be something that increases the distinctiveness of playing the civ. A unique ability, or a bonus that promotes a playstyle not seen in other civilizations. It doesn’t need to be something you always use, just an option that is available to them, that isn’t available to other similar civs. Ideally, something that makes Teutonic Knights more than just slow champions, but in fact have a niche where they can exist at the same time as champions and yet offer something different and distinctive.

My ideal solutions would be twofold.

  1. Make the Crenelations ‘infantry fire arrows’ bonus a civilization bonus available earlier. At least in the castle age, but potentially even in the Feudal age. This is probably Teutons most distinctive bonus at the moment, but it’s virtually never used. In exchange for losing this bonus from Crenelations, have the tech also give +1 range to towers, to compensate for the lost range from not having Bracer.

  2. Let Teutonic Knights build walls and towers. Again, right now, Teutonic Knights are basically slower, more population efficient Champions. With the recent armor bonus, two champions only perform about 10% worse than a single ETK, while moving substantially faster. This puts TKs in the unfortunate position of having no real purpose, other than the ignominious duty of ‘emergency castle ram killers’, which is in no way sufficient purpose for a UU. Letting them serve as discount, more durable villagers for warfare would allow them a purpose, even if a limited one, and would directly synergize with the huge majority of their civ bonuses. I don’t think you’ll ever see a huge number of them, but you would want to have some in your army, just so the options they provide would always be available.

Do those two things and you’ll go a long ways towards giving them an actual theme, and difference in playstyle, which is, in my opinion, their largest deficiency at the moment.

1 Like
5

Making Teutonic Knights cost -5 food to 80F 40G (same as the original cost of Huskarls).

6

Uh, what? That’s their main weakness/reason that they’re not used. How is addressing what makes them bad inherently a bad solution?

Not their entire identity by any means. Someone made this point about Teutons in another thread, that basically “slowness” is just a weakness, not really a key part of a civ’s identity.
What (theoretically) gives Teutons their “identity” is their strengths that are supposed to justify their slowness. Certainly their slowness is part of their identity, but usually people pick units based on what they’re good for. Nobody says “hmm, I really want to make a unit that can get picked off easily by enemy ranged units. Which unit has that identity? Ah yes, the Teutonic Knight. I hope their identity never gets changed, otherwise I’d have to make non-converting monks when I wanted my units to get picked off by enemy ranged units.” Their speed could be buffed to that of a champion (or a pre-squires champion), and they would still be “slower than average” for units in generally, and certainly for infantry UUs.

Exactly! Just like how Persian War elephants lose all their armor once you research Mahouts. Oh yeah, and they also have an identity crisis and become Heffalumps. Same with the Turtle Ship, when you research Panokseon they lose 50 hp, along with their identities, and become Turtle Soup!

This is not a bad idea, but it’s a very indirect “buff” to the TK, and likely wouldn’t be used often.

So your solution to fix a unit with bad mobility is allow it to create immobile objects? Got it. This solution is like a fat guy trying to lose weight, but instead of the obvious solution (diet, exercise), he decides to tie 5,000 helium balloons to himself so that he feels lighter.

Seriously though, this ability, while creative, is mega-niche and won’t make the TK any more useful a vast majority of the time. In order to use it effectively, you need:

-Not only [at least one] castle to produce TKs, but also quite a few hundred (or thousand) floating stone, including what you’ve probably already spent on multiple TCs to sustain your eco
-A narrow chokepoint or critical area that can’t be bypassed by your enemy so that you can execute this dubious strategy effectively.
-A counter to enemy ranged units, which can murder your TKs until you get at least one tower up.
-A counter to enemy siege, especially trebs and BBC, that can destroy your towers from afar.

If you want to build towers, why pay 85 food and 40 gold when you can make a unit for 50 food that can build towers and more, and is much less likely to be a bad investment than the Teutonic Knight? While the TKs are obviously more durable against melee units, if you can’t protect a few villagers, you probably can’t protect a few TKs much better. So yeah, even with this “buff,” I see a lot of issues with using TKs as expensive, limited use villagers, and you’d probably get a better value investing in almost any other strategy. And outside of some idealized situation where this strategy would actually be a decent idea, TKs will remain bad and overly situational.

Don’t take this personally, I commend your articulation and your creativity. It’s clear that you’re very invested in this idea, but chances of it being implemented are about as good as Indians getting goldless battle elephants that can “forage” e.g. generate food when idle.

7 Likes
7

About to say this. Melee armor should make up for the slow cavalry weakness. Apply for infantry and cavalry.
Teutonic Knight shouldn’t get strong in my opinion. But make it a bit cheap instead. They got serious damage output and their melee armor is hard counter.

8

As usual I find myself agreeing with Teutonic Tanks.

On the +1 melee armor for cavalry, it should be a given. Instead of having Teuton cavalry strictly inferior, it would stay slower but have the superiority in melee fights. Fits the civ perfectly.

For TK, I think an original solution would be to have them affected by Fervor. It would make them move +15% faster, going from 0.7 to 0.805, and fit the theme of crusader knights, as well as being completely original.

12 Likes
9

That’s a solid idea. In other threads I’d proposed that Ironclad be renamed “Crusade,” and have the same effect on siege while adding 15% speed to TKs, but fervor would do the job as well. But yeah, my bois need a little pep in their step for sure.

2 Likes
10

Because ‘fixing’ a civilization by making it as generic as possible isn’t a solution, it’s a suicide note. At that point you have a civ with cheap farms, and


???

Nothing else.

Fixing a civ is about more than just buffing the places it’s weakest and calling it good, it’s much more complicated than that. It’s about integrating their strengths and weaknesses into an interesting and unique dynamic that makes playing the civ genuinely interesting.

If you’re going to remove everything that makes a civ distinct, just save everyone’s time and delete it entirely.

That was me. My point wasn’t that their weakness should be removed, but that it should be one half of a greater whole. Which removing their slowness fails to do, it just makes them completely and utterly boring.

I’ll be honest, I think those techs are bad as well. Speed is such a powerful stat in this game that those techs are basically mandatory. In which case, why bother having that as a separate tech instead of just including it in the cost of the unit? Then you could have a unique tech that actually does something interesting.

Which is exactly why I suggested they be able to make Walls and Towers.

Teutonic Knights are the absolute ultimate unit to be garrisoned in towers in this game. Most civs don’t ever bother researching Herbal Medicine - Teutons get it for free. Most infantry don’t have enough health to survive long enough to be worth healing inside a tower; Teutonic Knights have the most durability of any infantry in the game. Most civs can’t afford to waste even 30 seconds healing units inside a building; Teutons can shoot arrows WHILE they heal. Teutons are uniquely weak to archers, which are directly countered by towers. And to cap this all off, Teuton towers have double the garrison room.

Literally every part of the Teuton bonuses are focused around garrisoning Teutonic Knights in towers. And yet, we never, ever see it.

Why? Because Teutons have no serious way to protect their villagers from anything. Everything they do is weak to archers, so any attempt to build a forward tower will be a wasted effort.

If you want to build towers, why pay 85 food and 40 gold when you can make a unit for 50 food that can build towers and more, and is much less likely to be a bad investment than the Teutonic Knight?

A TK is FAR more durable than a villager. Double the health, double the armor, it takes something like 5 times the effort to kill one than the other. Which means stopping a TK from finishing a tower would take a much more serious effort, which means they could be used and placed MUCH more aggressively. Building a tower with 10 Teutonic Knights would be like building the same tower with fifty villagers.

And because they have herbal medicine, once the tower goes up, any damage they suffered in the building process will be quickly undone, leaving the enemy with a garrisoned tower and up to 10 full-health teutonic knights in the center of their town.

That’s not a niche strategy. That’s just using all their bonuses in a synergistic way. For the first time in their entire existence, the Teutons would actually be able to use their bonuses.

And most importantly, it means they would play different than other civs.

1 Like
11

This. We should enhance the TK strenghts instead of removing its weaknesses.
If you remove its weakness then it’s just another generic unit.

I’ve suggested this in another thread but:

  • Immunity to conversion for TKs.

TKs are inherently good for defense and currently bad for attacking. If one or more of them gets converted during an attack on the enemy base not only do you lose one unit while the enemy gains one, but he will be defending(ideal for TK) and you will be attacking which exacerbates the problem.

2 Likes
12

What about the unit’s balance in DM? It looks usable there, so any buff for RM should also take this fact into account.

It’s only their unique unit.

Given what Turtle ships and elephants can do to the enemy you really want something to tone them down so they aren’t “full power” right from the start. Also, the second tech of each of these civs is good enough already (to be fair Ironclad is ok too)

SO?

Siege kills both easily.

Welp, are you sure? It might just be a coincidence. You could do the same with say, Hand cannoneers in a Castle. Or if you want a beefier unit, you could garrison Paladins. Sure they won’t fire arrows but they will be able to actually reach what’s outside. Much more useful than shooting some more arrows, especially if what’s outside happens to be trebuchets. Crenelation sounds more like a tentative back in AoC to justify the “infantry civ” tag of Teutons. For free herbal medicine, I guess it was so people would actually try the buffed version.

13

This is illogical in my opinion. The question is why one of the best melee infantry unit should be allowed to build towers if it has problem with archers. Why with 17 attack should I be allowed to build tower? With this attack isn’t the unit designed to fight? I do not know why with such an expensive infantry unit build anything.

It means that when I spot archers I start to build towers? Isn’t it better to have villagers behind the army? I mean it seriously, I cannot imagine that :slight_smile:

In AoM the Norse soldiers build buildings but every Norse infantry could build buildings and it was a feature of Norse. But here
 I am perplexed.

In my opinion the issue is speed or armour. I voted according to that.

1 Like
14

True, but starting to build a tower while in direct fire from siege is a user error, not a flaw with the idea. This isn’t supposed to be an ultimate, unstoppable strategy, but rather an extra tool in the Teuton player’s arsenal.

I’m quite sure. Teutonic Knights are the only unit that is tanky enough, and Towers are the only option that it reasonably increases their offensive power against the target units. After all, archers are weak, and will typically die under castle fire in about the same amount of time whether garrisoned or not. Towers take many more shots, so the enhancement from garrisoned infantry makes them far more effective. Hand Cannoneers are an anti-infantry unit, not a realistic anti-archer option, and despite their high attack, their slow fire rate actually makes them surprisingly ineffective when put in towers.

You can justify any one of their tower bonuses away, but taken all together? It paints an entire portrait that’s much more difficult to dismiss.

Knowing when and how to build a highly offensive tower is a skill all in its own. But the one thing you CAN’T do is build a tower with villagers while being pressured by enemy archers. Teutonic Knights simply can’t defend anything, even themselves, from enemy archer fire.

The strategy being blocked so effortlessly by the enemy makes it basically impossible in its current form. That’s why making the option available to Teutonic Knights would be such an important change.

Why? Because right now, Teutonic Knights can basically be ignored entirely, until any more dangerous units have been dealt with. They’re certainly not going to be catching up to anything.

By allowing them to efficiently use that time, time they’d otherwise spend standing around looking cool, it makes them an immediate threat, not a convenient way to waste the enemy’s gold once you kill the rest of their army. Sure, you can ignore them, but at your own risk.

And above all else, that’s what they need; a way to force the enemy to engage them. Not by speed, but by tactics.

1 Like
15

Exactly.
I wish I had your patience to explain it that well.

16

I got your point. However, I am not convinced. I wish to have TK as a fighting unit not a bystander waiting for his moment :slight_smile:

Thank you

1 Like
17

Thank you for being open minded.

Bear in mind, they’d still be able to fight just as well as currently! They’d just be able to do other things, too!

1 Like
18

Yeah, this might work, but I think it only kick in in castle as well.

I’ve been defending my proposal on the UT deus Vult, but i have to say I like aswell your idea. It’s simple and effective

Great suggestions!

2 Likes
19

In my opinion TKs need a buff but not a bonus that makes them radically better vs archers, they should still be weak versus them. However, they should be incredibly strong versus infantry and cavalry (who has melee damage). But currently they even suck versus units that deal melee damage, just because they cannot force even one fight. All in all, their movement speed should be increased, so they are only a bit slower than regular infantry, but shouldnt be increased by much so they will still be weak vs archers and they shouldnt gain a pierce armor buff. In my opinion the best and most balanced value would be 0,05, so their movement speed is now 0,75 without squires (instead of 0,7) and 0,825 with squires (instead of 0,77).
They should also get light cavalry, because every civilization needs a raiding potential. Their identity will still be the same, since the TKs will still be slower than champions and they still wont have husbandry.

20

Actually I liked your relic idea thats way I put it on the poll, as for siege ram its a simple stuff to do(just adding one more tech) thats overall very good unit not only counters their slow speed but also archers etc and synergies with their ironclad tech too.

I liked cavalry and fervor idea too its keeping up with slow-armored-zealous theme.

Again a nice idea without being too complicated easy to implement as well.

I agree