let’s not deviate from the topic of the thread please. this is not a “nerf the sicilians” post. which btw, are nowhere near OP imho. any source of winrates i checked indicates they are average. we are not talking about chinese or mayans, not even franks or anything like that.
sicilians also do have weaknesses, like no HC, no good arbalest without thumb ring and last armor (so they have to rely on good cav in late game to beat infantry), no BBC, no cavalry archers, situational team bonus, and luckluster eco bonus…before hauberk change they were severely underperforming, and it’s not like they are now this powerhouse of a civ. they have great cavalier yeah, but so do Bulgarians, Berbers, or even teutons with +2 MA and conversion resistance for free, and also paladin upgrade available
so let’s simply stay on the topic of the serjeants without derail too much
if the serjeants is usable and balanced in light of the rest of the roster available to the civ then fine with just the cheaper elitè upgrade i guess
Even if they have average winrates they have some things that credit nerfs, check pre nerf arambai for example, burmese is in a bad spot but arambai was broken.
i do not argue about that, i purely said this is not the right thread for this topic also if a civ is balanced, and you nerf something for it, even if its broken ( i do not see hauberk as broken for example while we have all sort of good cavalier in the game from bulgarians, to berbers, from teutons, to poles) then you have to give something else in compensation, so this is a tough topic, for another thread
also sicilians were for long time considered weak to even very weak, receiving lots of changes and tweaks over the past year, so i guess the devs are already keeping track of everything.
And all ended up being either not enough (serjeant buffs, first crusade changes, TC and reduced damage nerfs, access to siege onager) or just out of hand (Hauberk, the team bonus, which was changed two times!).
It just shows how poorly designed the civ is.
As long the OP cavaliers are still a thing there isn’t any reason to use serjeants.
it is for sure a civ that has still room for improvement balance wise on that i agree, but i’m quite content with the way they are now tbh
i do not even consider they cavalier OP when we already have berbers and poles with dirt cheap cavalier or bulgarians with extra damage, and haubrk is not cheap as well. they are strong no doubt about that, it could just be made more expensive if its too strong.
considering that before hauberk they were below average in performance, if you nerf that single tech, you already need to give something big in return, like thumb ring or buff on serjeant or something else, which then leed to further months of trials and errors to see if the change was for the better good. so yeah, it’s not as simple…
but again, my point was simply that its not a matter for this thread which is about serjeants
didn’t know HC was such a staple unit that is the new standard to balance civs around. I guess let’s buff Aztecs cuz they don’t have Paladin then.
last armor literally is irrelevant on Arbalest, it’s only useful on Skirms to trade vs Imp units, as for Thumb Ring, yes you can’t play Arbalest long term but you can do fast imp with it which is all that matters.
you can’t argue about Serjeant buffs without noticing that the civ is already on the “very strong level”. Your trial to dismiss this simple fact doesn’t make it any less true, if you are unwilling to listen to differing opinions without condescendence, you shouldn’t use this forum.
But anyway, you are wrong, Sicilians are overperforming right now, it might not be clear on Arabia, but on other maps where it’s less about the first 10 min of the game they are very OP.
Exactly, product of pop culture, lack of authority, a content creator should have the dignity and commitment to his own values and standards rather than being attentive to the vast majority (which are plebs/noobs for the most part)
Indeed, Serjeants are a great unit, and Donjons could easily be viable, it’s basically a free Guard Tower.
Not sure we can do anything at this point, developers seem to be stubborn with their agenda.
dude, i merely sayd this is not the thread to talk about it. want to talk about this topic? open a different thread. is how a forum works. also i added: “if the serjeants is balanced in light of the other asset of the civ, then ok” so i’m not disregarding anything
also, judging by data here: Age Of Empires II: DE Global Stats - Age of Empires , it seems to me that sicilians has consistently an average winrates of 49%, so i don’t know why you say they are OP, especially considering that in this game we have mayans, chinese and franks and other civs like that that haven’t been touched with serious nerfs in ages.
tbf, ill repeat the point, you cant talk about buffing a unit without considering the civ as a whole, you can choose to ignore this, but it doesnt make you right
in the same way, although jags are arguably underpowered, you cant simply buff them without considering how strong aztecs are
in the same way, you cant discuss reducing the cost of the elite serjeant, without understanding how good they are aside from this unit. especially (as others pointed out) they have a tech that gives them 35 of said unit for the fraction of their cost
im also not saying they are OP, i just think there are many other civs that are better contenders for buffs (or nerfs like you mentioned)
sicilians if anything do not enjoy a very high WR due to how long it takes for their eco to get going, it has nothing to do with castle age onwards. iaw, reducing the elite tech cost, just makes them strong where they are already MUCH stronger than many other civs
if you actually bothered to read what i said, you would see i want the opposite. pre-UT cavaliers are not broken. as i pointed out in my post, and devs were aware of this. (low WR)
again, i sayd "“if the serjeants is balanced in light of the other asset of the civ, then ok”, which means “if the civ is already strong then i’m fine with how the serjeants are now”. so it’s not like i’m asking for anithing. this whole post is not a “buff the serjeants” thread, is just to learn their place into the civ, so it’s not like i’m not considering rhe civ as a whole, i was merely saying that since the civ is as this state in this very moment, then fine. if the balance will change in the future, then we will talk about it.
for example, before hauberk, sicilians were very below average in winrates and kinda bad. hauberk may be very strong, but its carrying the civ that is now balanced in terms of winrates, so supposing hauberk is nerfed in the future, like +1/+1 instead of +2, that should be accompanied with a buff for compensation on other parts, like serjeants buff, or a new unique bonus for their infantry which is generic for an infantry civ, or hauberk applying to serjeants as well, or something else, but since we do not know the future, i am merely saying that i agree on the fact that serjeants may be okish for the time being and the current state of the civ
only thing i would make it happen asap for serjeants is reduce the elitè upgrade cost a bit cause its riddiculously high atm
Once First Crusade is scrapped or reworked, Serjeants can be buffed, until then they will continue to suck and never be used, even more when the civ has probably one of the strongest Cavalier around.
But let’s think for a moment about Serjeants. Trained regularly they cost 60F 35G and 12s (castle) or 20s (Donjon), okay, I’d say they’re pretty expensive and more or less balanced from the training time perspective.
Now let’s factor in First Crusade.
300F 600G and 60s.
35 Serjeants => 8f 17g 1,7s training time each => 74% discount
28 Serjeants => 11f 21g 2,1s training time each => 66% discount
21 Serjeants => 14f 28g 2,8s training time each => 55% discount
14 Serjeants => 21f 43g 4,2s training time each => 33% discount
7 Serjeants => really?
If you manage to spam 35 of them via First Crusade, you manage to save more than 2400 res, even more than the Elite upgrade. You can see that is ridiculous. Even more, with just one Castle you would need 420 seconds to train them, instead you can cut that time to just 60.
Basically the whole Serjeant balance revolves around First Crusade. This is really bad game mechanic because it prevents any buff or tweak of the unit because it might suddenly be totally overpowered due to “summon from warp storm” mechanic.
Until First Crusade is around in its current form, forget any meaningful/widespread use of the Serjeant.
I say this with a little sadness inside because I like Sicilians a lot.
i do not argue that first crusade is a bit wonky, i just want to point out that the cost of first crusade need to take into account for the cost of 4 extra TCs to be maxed out, which may be rushed to get more benefit for first crusade at the cost of other aspect like balanced economy or army, and requires a certain timing to be effective, so there’s that.
that said, i agree it’s a strange mechanic, but it is also cool in my opinion that is very unique in the game, so yeah if they manage to change it with something equally unique and cool and then buff the actual unit then i’m all for it
I used to think the same.
Then I realized that with the 100 extra stone you already have the stone for 3 extra TCs, so you just need 100 for the fifth. Plus with the faster build time you could research First Crusade on the way to imperial age and while it’s researching you could build the extra TC(s) with 3-4 vills each, you don’t even need 5 TCs, 4 are enough to still have 28 Serjeants with a hefty (66%, 1760 resources) discount.
Horse Collar giving you +150food to farms saves you quite some wood, now I don’t know precisely how much but I suspect it would be enough for at least one extra TC.
And obviously extra TCs are good for defending key resources, so they’re not useless buildings like, I don’t know, extra Universities or Blacksmiths, and put in perspective, usually to mass a good number of UUs you need multiple castles, which require a lot of stone, with Sicilians you could have 35+ Serjeants with minimum stone investment (650 for just one castle + 100 extra for 5th TC).
This if you want to go for Serjeants, if you go for Knights, different thing and you can just do whatever you want, no “constraints”.
But even if the access to Serjeants is so easy, compared to other UUs, they’re still largely underused, this speak volumes on their performance within the civ.
