Should knights do less damage vs buildings?

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
1

The tech tree states the knight is an all purpose cavalry unit which is strong vs. infantry and archers. As a matter of fact the knight is also strong vs. siege and buildings.
Knights deal 10+2 melee attack in Castle Age against buildings (so vs. a barracks thats 10 attack. Barracks have 2 melee armor).
A Long Swordsman, who is supposed to be strong vs. buildings deals 9+2+3 damage vs. buildings (standard attack, blacksmith upgrades, +3 vs building). So they deal 12 damage to a barracks (with 2 melee armor) and 14 with arson, another tech that needs to be researched.

If we compare the price-value ratio is way higher with the knight. The knight is almost as good at knocking out buildings as the long swordsman, but it is also very good at other things. So should the knight deal less damage to buildings to get them more in line with the tech tree description?
Or why is the long swordsman pictured as good vs. buildings while the knight is not? They have very similar performance in that regard. I think it wouldn’t be un-reasonable to reduce their attack vs. buildings to 7 instead of 10. What are your thoughts? :slight_smile:

2

I’m pretty sure long sowrdsman has an inherent +3 bonus against buildings, so you need to re-calculate that and put things in perspective.

I generally find infantry noticeably better against buildings.

3

Also, arson is +2 not +3 I believe

4

The values are as stated: 9 standard attack, +2 through blacksmith upgrades, +3 inherent bonus vs. buildings.

I tested it side by side with FU castle age Knights 10+2, 2+2/2+2 and FU Castle Age Long Swordsmen 9+2 +arson, 0+2/1+2. The test was run in the editor with 5 units each vs. one Castle Age barracks (no masonry, so it has 2 melee armor)
5 Long Swordsmen take 51 seconds to kill the barracks.
5 Knights take 63 seconds to kill the barracks.

For a unit titled as good vs. buildings that is not a hughe difference and I’d rather play knights, since they also offer mobility and the general strenght vs other units.
Of course the argument of cost can be made but I feel the knight could also be titled as good vs. everything then :smiley:

5

I’m a bit confused here, but I would think it should be 9+2(blacksmith)+3(inherent bonus)+2(arson).

There are other benefits of knights of course, speed, HP, extra PA can all be important. It can be fair to say that in Castle age they are similar enough against buildings. (In fact, it’s hard to justify swordsmen in castle age in most situations, not just against buildings. Hence the swordsmen buff rants out there.)

The difference is a lot more obvious in Imperial age though. With champions which most civs get have 13+4+4+2 attack (If you’re the goths that’s another +1, but losing some PA).

Another issue is that Knights already have no bonus attack against buildings. It all came from raw attack.

6

5 longswords are z heck of a lot cheaper and faster to produce over 5 knight, taking 45 less seconds to build. 5 fully upgraded longswords deal 40% more damage then knights to buildings.

5 Likes
7

I said it in another thread. I think yes. Knights should do less damage to buildings.
Greetings

1 Like
8

Not every civ has good infantry. So, this may hurt those civs badly.

Imagine if you were playing someone like the Cumans or something. F-grade infantry.

9

Honestly it wouldn’t be thr worst change out there but how do you actually pull it off short of giving buildings more armor? If you upped bldg armor to 5 the Knights do 7 and ls with arson do 11. It’s still not much more but proportionally it’s over 50% more

2 Likes
10

Cumans at least have good siege. Imagine playing as lithuanians though.

11

Example House Wall:
900 HP / 25 Sec => 36 HP / Sec

Knight DPS:
(12-2)/1.8 = 5.55

LS DPS:
(11+3+2-2)/2 =7

7 Knights to break through a House Wall attempt (525 G 420 F)

6 LS to break through a House Wall attempt (120 G 260 F)

Plus it is really hard to even place 7 knights to attack a single house ;).

2 LS (40 G / 90 F) can outperform a single repair vill, while it takes 3 knights for the same (225 G 180 F).

The margin is quite high, Militia is way more effective against buildings than the knight line. While quickwalling can be effective against knights, LS, especially goth ones, can get effective “trades” by just knocking on wood and forcing repairs, especially when they force to pull more than 1 repair vill.

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All civs has at least FU LS…

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But the game doesn’t end at castle age

14

what would the outcome be with burmese LS ?

I Think its 9 +2(blacksmith)+3(inherent)+2(Arson)

and is it +2 or +3 from the civ bonus?

edit: i know its specific civ for this example but i just wanna know the difference as an example as burmese is also a civ with knights for example

15

Its 9 (base) +3 (civ bonus) + 2 (Blacksmith) +3 (Bonus to buildings) +2 (arson) - 2 from building armor for a total of 17 damage per swing unless my math is off.

16

so seems like a clear advantice if you use burmese ls in this situation over knights

17

as far as i’m concerned there is a clear advantage as is with faster production, cheaper cost, and +5 total damage for the LS with arson.
could it be buffed slightly? sure.

18

i mean would it be too much to maybe bump arson to 4 reduce the ls line attack by 1 and it would get an positive result

obviously maybe a clear disantvantice would be to maybe slack 1 damage of the knights

19

It’s already so easy to delay knights by just repairing houses, so no thx to a damage reduction against buildings 11

Fun fact: in the spin off of AoK for the Nintendo DS, cav does get a half damage reduction against buildings. Which means there elephants are the least cost efficient unit you could think of if you want buildings killed fast 11

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20

Ele DPS:
(12+4+2-2)/2 =8

5 Eles to break through a House Wall attempt (350 G 600 F)

Funny, Eles aren’t really better vs buildings than knights, besides dealing bonus damage.