they are not fine, they are terrible and the least effective unit at all costs in the game, and he did not fulfill the role he should play in the game.
they lose trade to any other musket infantry in the game, either in amount of resource invested or population invested.
Malta just doesn’t have musket infantry.
In late game whether in FFA or treated or Sup.
There comes a point where the composition of the unit is so costly in terms of population that simplistic use of Maltese units does not pay off.
The strongest builds in terms of units for the Maltese and resource or outlaws or the commemdary units, like lancer + cassador.
In other words, Malta only shines when she doesn’t use her units and that’s sad, because you don’t take advantage of the civ’s unique units
The idea of the redcoats is a good one.
I don’t know about the others, the broken population number seems to be something very non-functional. And buffing cards that buff the sentinels I don’t know if it’s a good one either, considering that Malta has many important cards and space inside the deck and something very difficult for Malta to invest 3 or more cards in the sentinels is very complicated. Currently, the strongest treaty deck only uses the card that enables the construction of Towers and forts for the sentries, otherwise it doesn’t even take a card focused on them because it’s so bad
- Allows Sentinels to garrison Outposts, Commanderies and Forts; Buildings garrisoned by Sentinels will increase attack power according to the DPS, like how AoE2 works.
- The Wall Guns card allows Sentinels to garrison walls and gates; walls and gates will gain basic attack power when garrisoned by Sentinels, and increase the attack power according to the DPS.
Just my two cents.
I respectfully disagree with the Order Recoats. Having Sentinels (hopefully boosted) for defensive fighting and then giving them access offensive musketeers means we’re giving them everything except any nuance. They lose the quirk that they are a defensive civ by covering all bases (but with the defensive focus on-top).
Their playstyle should be about a defensive crawl - building fortifications on route to the enemy and using the Sentinel repel the enemy before using your more offensive units to push.
I think Wall Guns should have the perk extend to all fortification - Forts, Walls and Towers (these Heavy Muskets, afterall were historically used within defensive structures). Aesthetically they should infact change to Wall Guns (longer, bigger musket ) to give a visual queue to the enemy and player.
I also think that pop limit shouldn’t decrease even with cards - Sentinels should instead be really very tough on home ground (next to your buildings). Heck they could even be the best musketeers when fighting in home territory, just to hammer home their quirk/playstyle as well as justify their pop cost. I don’t think they should gain any Ranged Resistance as that’s going against their unit type and would be OP.
WIth that in mind, I agree with the Hospital suggestion - I do think Sentinels should be able to build Hospitals by default.
As an aside (linked still, via the Sentinel’s building ability) maybe the De Redin Towers shipement could actually allow a totally optional upgrade via tech to individual Outposts, called ‘De Redin Towers’ (wow, original!) - which when researched ‘promotes’ that selected Outpost into a buffed (more HP/Resist) Battery Towers (renamed to De Redin Tower of course) with the orignal shipment’s production functionality with unit production (to further focus on ‘fortress Malta’ notion). I’d love a proper De Redin Tower skin/model (big, square towers) however the Battery Tower is a perfectly fine model to illustrate a more established tower over an Outpost.
With all that in mind, a summary:
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Wall Guns applies to all fortifications (Walls, Commanderies, Towers, Forts, etc). Aesthetically their musket model changes to the longer, Wall Gun within buff range as a signifer to the player as well as enemies.
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Defender Aura now adds an additional +1 Line of Sight near allied buildings and doubled to +2 by attacking buildings (bringing Sentiinels up to the standard Musketeer LOS - also makes sense as a Sentinel means lookout/guard/sentry - you know, someone who has to keep a watch for the enemy!).
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Sentinels can construct Hospitals by default (slower rate to Settlers, with it in mind that you’ll probably have a group of Sentinels building, rather than a single unit).
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De Redin Tower shipment allows any Outpost to independently (via its own Tech upgrade) upgrade to a De Redin Tower. This upgrade (which is still available from Age III and allows the same unit production) changes the Outpost to a Battery Tower (renamed to De Redin Tower) model (ideally a new model - such as the real Redin Towers - the square, squat towers in contrast to roune ones - but this is fine!) which adds an additional +500 HP, cannon attack and +2 Line of Sight). Can be upgraded at any point regardless of what normal upgrade the Outpost has.
Redcoat Musketeers (or at least musketeers in red uniform) aren’t entirely inaccurate, either:
I
Truthfully, I was hoping the Knights would have looked more like this, than the Medieval/Renaissance look.
Likewise, Cazadores should appear as this:
If anyone played Empire TW, I made the Knights of Malta mod, and my colleagues and I used these as references.
Sentinels need further buffs, wall gun card should apply to all frontier fortifications so anywhere sentinels get their defensive buff wall guns should also effect them.
I think the age 4 card should buff them further too so they become a 2 pop unit and have the cost of a 2 pop unit. Make it buff the stats to soldado level to reflect the 2 pop, maybe a bit lower to account for the defensive bonus. Alternatively remove the stat buffs from the card and have the card make them a 1 pop unit.
Something needs to be done to make them a lot more viable, malta has so many units that cost 2 pop and the fixed gun is high population as well, late game it’s so hard to play with most of the units because you end up with an army half the size of your opponent unless you go bow/pike.
jogar com piqueiro e arqueiro e muito chato e sem emoção
Why does no one suggest reducing the other units population cost then?
Because the other units are worth 2 population by their stats alone. Fire thrower is a grenadier/skirm hybrid and all grens are 2 pop, huss and dragoon are obviously going to be 2 pop and the hospitaller is basically a doppel so it also must be 2 pop.
The base stats of a sentinel are very similar to a standard musketeer it’s just got 0.25 more speed, a bit more hand attack and 5 more HP and it costs a little extra due to it’s defensive bonus. It should be a 1 pop unit.
No other civ has such pop heavy units, japan have a 2 pop samurai but their ashi which is better than a sentinel is 1 pop, mexico have a 2 pop musk but have great 1 pop skirms. Maltas skirm equivalent is the fire thrower which is 2 pop and their musk is also 2 pop, take into account as well the reliance on fixed guns which also cost 7 pop each.
That is why you see almost all maltese players just go xbow/pike because it costs half the population compared to fire thrower/sentinel or fire thrower/hospitaller. You can’t go xbow/sentinel because it’s harder macro and they have different combat cards it makes no sense. I’ve had some success going fire thrower/dragoon but again it’s considerably more pop space than any other civ going skirm/goon.
A larger army will almost always win against a smaller army even with equal resources due to lanchesters law which is why malta absolutely suck in large battles like in treaty, 50 units vs 100 and it’s often worse than that due to fixed guns occupying more pop space.
Oh yeah of course - I agree.
Personally I wanted Renaissance to 1800s, so we have plate armour knights (i.e. not the horribly backward chainmail ones) then onto a typical Musketeer.
If I had my way Sentinels would be the current Hospitallers. Their armour and melee equipment is what the Knights used. They would retain their polearm, lose their musketeer function the same as current knights. Standard Musketeers would replace Sentinels meaning 1 pop and nothing special. However they would retain all the current shipments including a new one to allow building towers (instead of by default) and all friendly buildings would have an aura that replaces the Sentinels ability instead - meaning that ability isnt lost plus it effects all Malta’s units within the radius of a friendly building.
You could even have some sort Grenadier card to reform Fire throwers into Grenadiers - because Malta did in fact have standard looking Grenadiers as well as musketeers!
The stats of the Hospitaler or Fire Thrower could be adjusted to be a 1 pop unit (not both at the same time).
The Sentinel is not designed to be an efficient unit. You are not supposed to make them the main part of your army. If you want to play with Musketeers you have many other civilizations to pick from.
I know the are currently underwhelming but instead of making them even more boring to justify 1 pop it would be better to give them mode other strengths that aren’t just raw stats.
I dont see how for the hospitaler considering it has near identical stats to the Doppelsoldner and even slightly better cost since it cost less gold
That would be a lot more difficult, the sentinel is already the stats of a 1 pop unit, there are far stronger 1 pop units in the game. The sentinel needs to be viable as the main part of an army so you’re not forced to go xbow/pike every game as the sentinel synergizes better with fire throwers and hospitallers. They don’t need to make it 1 pop necessarily but have some way of making it worth 2 pop, make the age 4 card buff it’s stats and cost more so it’s not so inefficient late game.
Right. I get that the idea behind Malta is its dependence on fortifications, but even those aren’t as advanced as other civs like Hausa. Malta can only build 5 forts, which are the only structures that can produce armies in adequate time.
Because flame throwers and hospitalliers are, by comparison, more pop efficient considering their fully upgraded stats
Yes but their stats could be changed to make them 1 pop units.
The Hospitaler could be more like a Halberdier for example, they already only have half the AoE as Doppelsöldner.
xbow/pike doesn’t solve the problem of Malta’s weakness, if so then no one advertises from time to time a post about the sentinels pop cost, sentinels are the key to buff Malta in treaty.
2 pop sentinels are really, really good in supremacy. the civ would become broken if they were to cost 1 pop imo
I think it would be fine because the main suggestion was removing the +45% cost, attack, and hp from the age 4 card and charge it to -1pop. This would mean the age 4 card is no longer a power spike. The power spike is good in 1v1s so in early age 4 it’s a nerf.
I honestly would like to see Malta’s turtle nerfed and the other parts of the civ buffed. A 1pop musk late in the game would help a lot
Malta is all about turtling it’s the design of the civ and what makes it interesting. For those that dislike it there’s lot’s of aggressive FF or rush civs they can choose from but there’s not that many that turtle well It’s pretty much dutch, portugal and the new civs italy and malta. Prior to the kotm dlc the choices were very limited for defensive players.
I’ve been using the sentinel a lot since it got buffed and it’s a great unit but as you said I’d like the card in age 4 to make them 1 pop instead of buffing their stats because malta often ends up with an army half the size of the opponents in late game unless you play xbow/pike.