Yeah, that makes good balance. LS isn’t cavalry. Knights are fast and strong but weak to pikes. LS are powerful and having less anti-unit but slow tempo. Infantry strategy will be different from cavalry’s one.
Don’t you think that giving to all civ an easy to mass counter to LS would reduce even more the opportunities to use infantry?
I often play infantry, it’s a sort of challenge for me, and I can tell that a M@A into LS is mostly difficult and all-in vs many civ, but I struggle especially vs Incas.
That’s because they have access to an immediate hard counter when they hit Castle Age: the Slinger!
Even Bohemians make special trouble, but they have to build an University and research Chemistry in order to dispose Hand Cannoners.
I can imagine that, if every civ could have an hard counter to infantry avaible from the beginning of the Castle Age, I couldn’t use anymore Long Swordsmen. And the fact that nobody would use them would make useless even the Axeman, since it would act only as deterrent and would die to anything that is not infantry.
A big part of the problem is production speed. You need a 2:1 ratio of longswords to knights to win, but longswords produce in 21 seconds vs 30 for knights, when practically they should produce in 15.
Honestly I think this is a big part of why Goths are more successful. Their 20% faster barracks means that drops to around 17 seconds, which is MUCH closer to what is actually needed to succeed.
But once again, I’d caution that going too far in base stats will end up making a ‘goth flood’ style attack too possible. I’ve already seen several games where someone got an early infantry advantage, and just flat-out won because they could tear down buildings faster than their enemy could build them.
Well, crossbows and knights already have easy to mass and cheap counters. Still are meta.
Knights have the drowback of beinh available one age later than its counter. Still you see a lot of knight play, even with civs that lacks bonus for them.
Yeah, Knight and Xbows have cheap counter, but:
- they have tactical advantage (speed or ranged attack) and that’s why they are meta
- their cost efficiency allows you to train troop and sustain a 2-3 TC boom in the same time (not very possible with infantry)
- to be effective, the counter has to be upgraded in the castle age (Elite skirm/Pikeman) and this takes resources and time
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I had ideas of generic gold-hefty anti archer and anti cav units that synergize well with Longswords instead before, forcing tech switch/double gold comp
Currently, monks are more often heal high-hp expensive unit like knight instead of swordsman.
I think it wont upset balance a lot to make swordsman heal 1.5x-2x faster from monks. Make monks regain faith faster when healing swordsmen.
I had an idea that a new siege with movement speed of 1. 7 pierce atk and 9 for upgrade with rof of 2.5-3 and 4 bonus dmg against xbow but unaffordable gold cost if pair with monks and not preferable in imp. Swordsmen take reduced dmg from it.
The problem is that Infantry can only really be buffed if there is a counter to it.
Currently most civs don’t have a dedicated Infantry counter because good Knights or good Crossbows beat good Long Swordsman.
I thought about making the Axeman line start in Feudal Age (would even be more fitting as an upgrade from Militia but that would be a whole different level of a rework) and giving it a Castle Age upgrade that is more expensive then Long Swordsman (since they require Gambesones), that way this unit would have the same issues as Skirmishers and Spearman in Castle Age.
Training speed, Food to Gold ratio and population cost are all things in favour of the Knight vs. the Long Swordsman in Castle Age.
Eagle Warrior?
Kinda.
What if both units existed, the one you suggested and the one I suggested.
Sharing the same slot in the Barracks but only one being available to any civilisation. Also mutually exclusive to the Eagle Warrior.
I proposed an Infantry with 2 modes:
- Shield mode with extra pierce damage
- Two handed mode with extra bonus damage vs. cavalry
This way they are good at 2 jobs but not at the same time.
They also get Eagle Warrior armour class to be countered by Infantry.
Hot Take
AoE2 Alpha had the better concept
| Dark Age | Feudal Age | Castle Age | Imperial Age |
|---|---|---|---|
| Militia | Spearman | Pikeman | Halbedier |
| Man At Arms | Long Swordsman | ||
| Two Handed Swordsman | Champion | ||
(I know it was originally supposed to be a little different with a Heavy Pikeman but I’m using the current ingame units for it)
Spearman are the main Infantry, they counter cavalry.
Man At Arms are the tanky all round infantry, Basically dismounted Knight.s
Man At Arms use the same weapons and armour as a Knight, Long Swordsman use the same weapons and armour as a Cavalier.
The Two Handed Swordsman is the anti Infantry unit with AoE damage or something like that.
Does that look familiar? That’s pretty much the HRE from AoE4.
I know this can’t be reverted to this but it’s interesting to keep in mind.
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- Long Swordsman upgrade getting cheaper. (Costing less food to upgrade. Becoming nearly as cheap as Crossbowman upgrade.)
Yes.
- Long Swordsman onwards having +1 melee armor.
- Long Swordsman being as fast as Castle Age Crossbowman.
- +5 HP to Two Handed Swordsman.
These changes would make little difference, and the speed thing nah.
Personally I think there should be an upgrade after Supplies which makes swordsman line cheaper again, or take up slightly less than 1 pop per unit.
Swordsmen need extra speed when they enter the imperial Age. Otherwise they could not face the threat of knights, archers and siege weapons
Even if the ratio of swordsman to knight was 2:1 the swordsman could not win, the overall strength of the knight was far greater than that of the swordsman. Only Roman soldiers and swordsmen of ethnic minorities such as Slavs and Japanese could fight knights
I think that is only when you factor in bloodlines.
Afaik Bloodlines was added later - and I think that’s where a lot of the balance issues for Infnatry come from too.
Seemingly at that stage nobody cared about Infantry, everybody just wanted to have these amazing Knights - that were actually way overtuned - but when people figure out something so overtuned and they like it, they want to use it themselves.
And when I’m honest I don’t want Infantry in it’s current state to be competitive with Archers and especially Knights. Why? Cause Infantry is boring. There is nothing you can really make with them to get an advantage. They are slow melee units with no special features.
Imo they need something to use microwise. Therefore I made that thread here
Swordsmen can win and remain a few men if that situation. Test it with staggered formation.
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Sometimes,but my champion swordsmen were Janpanese, Vikings and Teutons,I think with a 1:1 population of cavalry and infantry, swordsmen must be above average
I still think +2 cav armor with Gambeson will solve many things about Swordsman-line. Firstly won’t change the result much vs Knights. Atleast will stay alive much longer. They’ll outperform Hussar and Camel atleast. Finally becoming a proper trash killer and a counter to Camels.