Only burgundians have an activated ability, and that’s not even activated, it’s timed. You have zero control
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It is not even activated, just a timer you cannot even control when to reset.
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ES had the experience from AoE1 to decide whether it was a good thing to keep monks. Turns out it was a good thing. And through playtesting they decided to not include various active abilities they considered at some point.
Then no one would call them gimmicky. Just like no one called stirrups, or bagains, or tower shield, ect… gimmicky, as those merely change the stats of one or various units.
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I wouldn’t be surprised if he meant gimmicks in general. Which they have a number of.
Relic bonus (arguably an activated ability it requires the storage of relics but still arguable, again imagine a pleb on this forum recommended it before it was implemented you would have a heart attack) . Armour negation.
Insta swarm of units.
A small boost to their movement speed will be great.
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The problem with swordsmen is not that they have too few health points or shields, but that they have too little mobility, which leaves them almost completely passive against trebuchet, which can do devastating damage to swordsmen . Therefore, the movement speed of the swordsmen should be appropriately increased, so that they can avoid the damage caused by the trebuchet even if they lack the movement speed upgrade
Maybe an alternative is making infantry’s specific techs much more impactful but exclusive.
Lets exagerate, for example, Squires could give infantry +25% movement, but some civs should lose it, like incas, mayans, goths, etc…
Or, add a new tech in feudal that gives +10% speed to infantry. And then most civs could have this tech but lacks squires.
Same with arson, gambesons and supplies.
Is swordsman + RAM good comp? RAM with 6 men moves by 0.9 now.
Idk if it’s a possible thing to do, It would be nice for long sword to have a charge speed ability (not charge attack) that increases their movement speed for a short distance of 3-4 tiles. If anyone every play zealots in StarCraft 2, I mean exactly like that (without the charge damage of course).
Buff m@a speed to 1 to prevent hit-and-run from spears and skirms. Add anti-light cav dmg to LS or merge light cav into eagles armor class.
+make Long Sw available at Castle Age
This ^
Give more units the Eagle Warrior armour class. Maybe rename it to “Shock Trooper” similar to the “Shock Infantry” tag from AoE3.
There are some UUs that could potentially also have it (like Ghulam or Shrivamsha Rider) but that would require some more balancing.
Since the Militia Line does so much bonus damage against Eagles (+6 in Castle and +8 in Imperial) it might be good to give some units a +4 Eagle Warrior armour.
The highest bonus damage outside of the Milita Line is +4 from Teutonic Knights, but they already destroy anything they can touch.
Man at Amrs only have +2 so it would be easy to leave the Feudal Age balance unchanged. But giving them +1 vs Scouts might not be so bad either.
But they are already.
Do you mean Two-handed Swordsmen?
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THS I meant sorry. 20 characters
The problem with buffing the Milita Line is that you have to rebalance a lot of civilisation bonuses and techtrees.
Also the Militia Line does not have a hard counter other then Hand Cannons which only half of the civilisation can train in Imperial Age.
Knights and Crossbows are strong but they are both heavily countered by Pikeman end Elite Skirmishers.
Those 4 units make the corner stones of AoE2 balance
Knight > Crossbow
Skirmishers > Pikeman
Pikeman >> Knight
Skirmisher >> Crossbow
(at last in theory)
Scouts, Monks, Siege, Camels, Cavalry Archers and also the Milita Line are kinda at the side line of those core units.
If the Militia Line is supposed to be pushed into a more central role then it every civilisation needs a reliable strong counter against them.
I tested and found that swordsmen have as same power as half of knights (equal res). In line formation swordsmen are defeated be knights because half of swordsmen run very long for attacking. However, in staggered formation
swordsmen win and remain a few, reducing that loss time.
Some issue remains; how to mass and move them. Those issues make good power balance now.
Also they lack pierce armor vs buildings. If you want to take a forum with long swordmen, you need at least 20 and you will have nothing left.
So even an all in strat with spamming them at feudal age to surprise the opponent is not working.
With japanese maybe it can work.
The Militia Line has a very strange history and it seems like this story is not finished yet.
At the beginning
| Name | Long Swordsman | Knight |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | 60F 20G | 60F 75G |
| Training Time | 21s | 30s |
| Hit Points | 55 | 100 |
| Attack (melee) | 9 | 10 |
| Rate of Fire | 2 | 1.8 |
| Armour | 0/0 | 2/2 |
| Armour class | Infantry | Cavalry |
| Speed | 0.9 | 1.35 |
Ignoring Husbandry, Squires and Blacksmith upgrades because they are the same for both.
Now
| Name | Long Swordsman | Knight |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | 45F 20G | 60F 75G |
| Training Time | 21s | 30s |
| Hit Points | 60 | 120 |
| Attack (melee) | 9 | 10 |
| Rate of Fire | 2 | 1.8 |
| Armour | 1/2 | 2/2 |
| Armour class | Infantry | Cavalry |
| Speed | 0.9 | 1.35 |
With Supplies, Gambesons and Bloodlines.
Originally they thought Gold would be a lot more valuable resource in Castle Age. So having a unit that costs the same amount of food but 3.75x as much Gold seemed to be like a good deal.
Also not being countered by Trash units (Pikeman and Elite Skirmisher) was considered a powerful trait since the fact that they don’t cost Gold was considered a major advantage.
Since Gold collects faster then Food and doesn’t require expensive Farms this idea was very wrong.
If you directly compare Knights with Long Swordsman you have a unit that costs 2x as much but also has 2x as much HP and also the advantage of +1 Meele armour (originally even +2/+2 armour) and also faster movement speed.
It would feel naturally if the Militia Line would be seen as dismounted knights (especially looking at how matching some of the skins look like) but it’ strange that they lose armour when doing so originally even going from 2/2 to 0/0.
Maybe Long Swordsman and beyond should just have 2/2 armour (with Gambesones).
This would give them a little more of an edge in a direct fight against Knights. This doesn’t make them a Knight counter at all but it at lasts would make them hold up in a fight a little longer.
Combined with some bonus damage against the Scout Line (by giving it Eagle Warrior Armour class like suggested by many people) this would make them a lot more versatile on battlefield without making them too strong.
Their current role as a Trash killer would be reinforced.
The other thing that should happen is a “clean-up” of the technologies in the Barracks.
- Arson becomes free for everyone like Tracking (Goth bonus adjusted)
- Gambesones becomes independent of Supplies (which allows for more tech tree options)
I do love the idea of a dedicated generic anti Infantry unit that would allow to generally buff all Infantry units across the board.
But that change might be a little too much to ask for.
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Yet, most players prefer half the number of knight rather than double number of LS. Mobility and food cost are factors as well.
This has been suggested in some shape or form before but I’ll do it again anyway.
Axeman
| Name | Long Swordsman | Axeman |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | 45F 20G | 20F 40G |
| Training Time | 21s | 20s |
| Hit Points | 60 | 55 |
| Attack (melee) | 10 | 15 |
| Attack vs. Infantry | 0 | 10 |
| Rate of Fire | 2 | 3 |
| Armour | 2/2 | 1/0 |
| Armour class | Infantry | Infantry |
| Speed | 0.9 | 1.0 |
Long Swordsman get +1 attack and +1 Melee armour.
This makes them all-round better vs. units in melee. They are cost efficient vs. Knights but Knights can still pick their fight.
The Axeman is a little cheaper and more Gold heavy in it’s cost, which is an advantage in Castle Age.
They have 50% more attack as Long Swordsman but attack slower which results in the same DPS against unarmoured units. They have +66% DPS vs. Infantry compared the Long Swordsman.
They have a little less Melee Armour (-1) and a little less HP (-5) which makes them generally worse as meet shields.
They are also a tiny bit faster (1.0 vs 0.9) so they can catch up with fleeing Long Swordsman.
But they are a lot weaker vs. Archers.
Generally this unit would not be very good in most situations so it should not shake up the general balance of the game too much.
They are not really a competition for the Jaguar Warrior since that unit offers +100% DPS vs. Infantry and more importantly has 2 Pierce armour which makes them a lot more flexible as a unit.
Why Axeman
Axes or Poleaxes where very common weapons around the world during the Middle Ages. From China, over India to Europe.
There are currently not many unit in the game that use Axes a unit using a big two handed Axe is completely missing from the game so far.
The closest we get is the Obuch.
Elite Version
The units should have an Elite upgrade in Imperial Age but it doesn’t have to be as common since more options to counter Infantry are available.
The higher Gold cost make them a little less cost effective in the late game though.
Availability
I would give them to almost all civilisations.
There are only a few civilisations with a dedicated Infantry Counter in Castle Age, which includes all Native American civilisations.
Civilisation bonuses
- Burmese: +2/+3 attack
- Celts: move 15% faster
- Goths: 25%/30% cheaper
- Incas: Cost -25%/-30% Food
- Japanese: Attack 33% faster
- Malians: +2/+3 pierce armour
- Portuguese: Cost -20% Gold
- Romans: Receive double Blacksmith Armour upgrades
- Teurons: +1/+2 melee amour
- Vikings: +20% HP
Unique Technologies
- Aztecs: +4 attack
- Slavs: Trample Damage
- Dravidians: ignore armour