I dont understand your point regarding indians though, I agree with the rest.
Indians have Anti-Archer unit which is the Elephant Archer, it does better job then Skirm and Genitour, plus it goes extremely well with the economical approach of the common Indian player, which is massive boom, the more TC’s you have the more beneficial the discount is.
The more TC’s you have the longer you’re going to stay in Castle Age, which works great for an Unique Unit that cost food and does well against Knights/Xbows, the problem is how they easily lose to Arbalester and how they rely on Bracer and Imp Armor techs to be useful again, sadly Elephant Archer seems to fail in a prolonged Castle Age situation, and that’s what makes it pointless.
Regarding the overlap, it’s very common in AOE, developers love this one dimensional harmony within the design, absurd examples:
Magyar Huszar and a FU discounted Hussar
Rattan and Imperial Skirm
Camel Archer and Genitour
Berserk and FU Fat Champion
Janni and a fancy HC
Longbows and extra ranged Archers
Plumes and cheap Archers
Samurais and fast attacking Champ
Mangudai and fast attacking CA
Mameluke and over the top Camels
Woad and fast Champion
And the most recent one that shows the systematic poor design:
Teutonic Knight and a Champion with extra Armor!
With that being said some of these UU are justified, overlapping sometimes make sense, in many cases it’s just a lazy design.
You are right when you say “General UUs have a similar functionality compared to other base units”. I can only think of Organ Guns as a UU that has a really unique mechanic compared to other options. But, I don’t think anyone has a problem with that.
Are rattans better than average archers? Yes.
Are Imp skirms better than average skirms? Yes.
That applies to most of the examples you mentioned, and when it doesn’t, it’s because the units have different opportunities to shine (like the Caravel and Galleon, or Leitis and Paladin examples).
And that is great! Having UUs be a powerful and/or versatile option is great in my opinion! But that’s not the issue exposed with this post, but rather the fact that two Unique Units with the same functionality were added to the same civ, resulting in overlapping.
Italians are a case were 2 UU are nicely implemented; Condos and Genovese xbows have different places to shine and result in both being used when needed.
I don’t think Skirms are comparable to Elephant Archers, it’s like saying Persians don’t need Paladin because they have War Elephants, which are in practice really hard to get to (and play differently), same as EA.
Regardless of that, the point isn’t to “add it because they don’t have an anti archer”, but rather to add it to a civ where its presence is not overshadowed by another UU. Another possible example for this would be to give Imp Skirms to Portuguese instead (who once again already have strong skirms).
I don’t think you fully understand the concept of a redundant UU…
Burmese CA is hot garbage
Aztec champ requires a lot of tech to get into, neither is it remotely as cost effective as the JW against. Even against Infantry civs (the biggest threat to Aztec eagles) as Aztec you can basically go all in eagles, and once the enemy has amassed enough LS to counter you, it’s dirt cheap to add in jaguars. As opposed to all the tech for champ + garland wars to be able to beat opposing militia line.
The condo is very different to the Italian champ, it’s far worse at fighting eagles, is much less cost effective in general against most targets, but more importantly has a power spike and different utility due to speed
The Serjeant isn’t made remotely redundant by Sicilian champs
Cousti are a completely different unit to knigth line
I think you are right about these units especially Obuch and champion, Serjeant and champion, Konnik and Cavalier. Obuch and Serjeant is stronger than champion and there is no reason to use militia line over Obuch and Serjeant. Konnik and Cavalier is result of overnerf. Old Konnik was so strong that devs had to nerf. After nerf, using cavalier became always better than Konnik. Konnik’s elite upgrade also way more expensive than Cavalier. Now, I don’t really know Konnik is meant for. Dismounted unit so weak that it doesn’t change much against Halberdiers. Result of Konnik vs Halberdier is a lot of dismounted Konnik which is very useless unit. Dismounted Konnik acutally work against camel line but there is little civ has camel line and majority of them have halberdiers.
Obuch does seem to be a good Champion replacement for many reasons (low gold cost, fast creation time, ease of obtaining stone as Poles).
I disagree on the Serjeant though. 20 Elite Serjeants are evenly matched with 24 Champions, but the resource cost is significantly higher. 20 Serjeants cost 1200 food + 700 gold, while 24 Champs cost 1080 food + 480 gold. If you balance for resources the Champions are much better. There is no reason to create Serjeants outside of First Crusade, building Donjons or maybe as a quick answer to protect a castle from rams. They are far too expensive to justify making an army instead of champions.
Konnik is slightly gimmicky, but it certainly feels unique. I think the intent is to have the mobility of cavalry when heading to an enemy, but being a difficult-to-counter nuisance once you arrive (camels and halberds just die and leave dismounted Konniks in the enemy town).
My exact thought as well.
With scutage you could theoretically spam them a bit and have some gold back, but with the new Hauberk UT, spamming Serjeants is really too expensive, on top of a very expensive Elite upgrade (1100f 800g).
Actually, elite Serjeant upgrade is the most expensive of all infantry elite upgrades, by total cost (1900 res) and by gold cost alone is the second behind Samurai (875g).
Not even Teutonic Knight or Berserk upgrade cost that much.
Serjeant’s 4 pierce armor make them so tanky against arbalests and arbalest is very common unit. Champion die arbalest in 14 hits and Serjeant in 43 hits. There is very little circumstances that going champion is better than Serjeant. First of all, enemy should have bad archers but bad archers generally has good cavalries. Against cav civs, you must go halberdier. Champion is actually fine against cavalries but it is very slow to tech champion against cav civs. In conclusion, only against infantry civs, going champion is correct strategy like Goths, Celts. That is all, there is total 39 of 2 civ that have both bad archer and cavalry and good infantry.
Why would you train serjeants or champions against arbalesters? Even with high pierce armor Serjeants are no Huskarls, they’re much slower, hit way less harder (no bonus vs archers) and cost more.
Sicilians have FU light cav and more than adequate knights/cavaliers in ealry imperial age, even without Hauberk FU cavaliers are a big threat to arbalesters. Not to mention that Sicilians have FU siege lacking only bombard cannons.
Like you said, I’d build heavy infantry only against other infantry civs, and in that case Serjeants cost way too much as Champions replacement.
And let’s not forget that if you don’t have multiple castles or donjons, you can’t train serjeants that fast, while it’s more than possible that you have several stables from castle age.
Arbalest+serjeant is very common tactic in pro games. I also think Hauberk Cavalier is better than Serjeant especially in early imperial but our debate among champion and serjeant. Champion advantage is its low gold cost. Thus, using champion can be better Serjeant in only very late game. Sicilians power fell in late game and generic Sicilian champion doesn’t change anything in late game I guess. Serjeant also better against all trash units. I still think using Serjeant is better than using champion almost every situations.
Arbs + Serjeants is an army composition very slow and vulnerable to siege and very expensive. Sicilians can do knights + skirms for almost the same price, to have a little better mobility (not the skirms, obviously) and to better (ab)use the bonus damage resistance.
I wonder how many Serjeants are trained in those pro games, and how many spawned with First Crusade.
In late game, he used Serjeant more but I think you are very right about new Hauberk Cavalier stole Serjeant role which is high PA armor meat shield unit. Cavalier also has mobility thus Cavalier seems mobile and better version of Serjeant.
I think Sicilian 50% bonus damage reduction should change to 33% for cavalries and archers and 66% for infantries because 50% bonus damage reduction is OP for cavs and archers.
Hauberk (its name can change) should be aggressive bonus rather than defensive. I propose +5 knight-line attack. It looks similiar to Malians bonus but much more strong due to 33% damage reduction and blast furnace.
Def 33% less damage to cavalier and +5 attack is just broken, also is just a poor copy of Farimba, we need to stop right now repeating bonsues and techs lol
I don’t think it is broken. Current Cavalier die to Halberdiers in 7 hits and kill them in 5 hits. My proposed Cavalier die to Halberdiers in 6 hits and kill them in 4 hits like Franks or Teutons Paladin. In conclusion, it is only little better than old Cavalier against Halberdiers. +1/+2 armor isn’t too much worse than +5 damage. My Cavalier die to arbalest. Current cavalier ,in contrast, counter arbalest. +5 damage only make knight-line strong while farimba boost all stable units. Therefore, it effects differently than Farimba. Farimba cavalier is bad unit in late game and isn’t great in early imperial age either but my cavalier kill villagers in 2 hits and melt buildings. It is so scary unit.
In AOE2, Problem isn’t repeating bonuses. Real problem make illogical bonuses sake of introducing different things. New Poles and Bohemians suffer from this wrong strategy.
33% trample damage doesn’t work for Hussar for instance. It is too weak bonus as well as doesn’t compensate lack of last armor. Devs probably think like we made faster attacking Hussar, +1 PA Hussar, faster moving Hussar etc. What didn’t we do?.. Trample damage Hussar. Let’s do this.
Obuch PA decreasing ability is OP. If it is only applied for melee armor, it should be fine but PA too much and weird.
Hussite Wagon 50% damage blocking is small 66/75% should be better. Hussite Wagon also overall useless unit. It is too cumbersome. Making only HC, arbalest and halberdier is much better than this Hussite Wagon. HC and arbalest is weak against cavalries and Hussite Wagon do nothing against cavalries. Another bad designed unit. How can it be fixed? Basically make them slower like ram in return give a lot melee armor and 4 garrison space (archer can fire inside Hussite Wagons but Houfnice not. Yes, it also can contain siege units but just 1). Thus, enemy must bring siege units to counter your HC and Houfnice composition. Trash monk also just stupid.