Should the Steppe Lancer line be changed entirely?

but its not just TCs shooting at them.

except you know - they are cheap, easily replaced, and 3 shot workers in castle age without any attack upgrades. they also move faster.
meanwhile you’d need 5 knight attacks to do kill a worker. sure, 2 knights will kill a few workers, 3 steppe lancers with my changes can literally run in and 1 shot villagers with focus fire and what did it cost you? 180 food and 90 gold.

the whole point is 30 vs 30 is a dumb comparison. you’re literally saying let’s ignore the steppe lancers advantages and just give all the advantages to the knights. DUMB. this would be like doing a 30 pike vs 30 knight comparison and saying well the knights win so pikes suck as a cavalry counter.

this is true, but its also something that you can’t ignore when you’re balancing the unit. you can’t sit there and say “oh it loses 30 vs 30, so we need to buff it” and ignore that its cheaper and trains faster, because then you’re literally putting yourself in a situation where when you do take advantage of it being cheaper and easier to train it becomes busted again. you need to see what its supposed to do, see how it does in the situations where you want it to be used, and then buff it so it does better in those types of situations.

the unit is clearly not designed to be a team game unit. the weakness vs archers and the fact that its a light cavalry should be a big clue to that.

Because it doesn’t have any lol. Why are you trying so hard to stick up for a unit that everyone else thinks isnt good?

The Knight has better overall stats, so whatever it is, the Knight is likely to do better (which is obviously sensible, since its more expensive)

Yeah, it indeed was a clue, given that I did mention archers in the exact quote, thanks for pointing out the obvious. The point was that it’s one less situation where the unit is viable.

I do not and did not suggest to buff it against Knight-line units. The camel already exists, I know. I suggest for the SL to have lower base damage, and gain bonus vs archer and cav archer.

In your opinion. However, it’s useful to note that it doesn’t really scale well to higher numbers. Which just further reinforces the fact that it doesn’t have any useful role. By scaling I mean, that while e.g. an Elite Kamayuk loses to a Pala, mass Kamayuk start to do better and better as the numbers go up. Mass SL just gets owned exactly the same way as it gets owned in a 1v1 :slight_smile:

being cheaper and easier to mass is advantages, whether you like it or not.

except kill villagers - its not going to do that better.

except its DESIGNED to be weak against archers. and given it has range, that gives it advantages against melee units as is.

For that specific role, Hussar is always king

Only if the unit is actually useful, whether you like it or not.

not vs a 60 food 30 gold unit who can 2 shot workers its not.

and thats why i said you can buff it - but you have to buff it with its strengths in mind, which is why you saying “but the training time and cost doesn’t matter” is just dumb.

let me ask you this - would you throw 10 skirms against 10 knights, watch the skirms lose - and say well clearly skirms need buffs, while ignoring that skirms are good against archers and are cheap and have a fast training time?

no you wouldn’t. so why would you ignore the training time and lower cost of steppe lancers when buffing them?

That’s more expensive than the Hussar… so that’s an argument for the Hussar

Question is, what is SL good against?
Archers? No.
Counters Trash? Not really, only skirms.
Knights? No.
Camels? No.
Infantry? Not really cost effective.
Raiding? Waste of resources if you have Hussar.

Siege? Monks? Buildings?

except it masses up faster, it 2 shots them as opposed to 4 shotting them, and is cheaper to upgrade too. oh and doesn’t require the final attack upgrade to 2 shot workers.

but the point is - you can’t ignore the advantages it has when you do buff it.
does it deserve to be buffed. absolutely. but you can’t ignore that its faster to train, cheaper, and has range advantage while buffing it, so for you to say

is just about dumb. training time, cost, range. are all advantages. do they offset the weaknesses of the unit right now? no. BUT THEY ARE ADVANTAGES and you can’t BLOODY IGNORE THEM. but you are sitting here IGNORING THEM.

Indeed. I meant that in their current status, they are not good against anything. Which is why I would not mind to see them given a specific role (.e.g. archer-counter), a bit like how the camel is specifically good at something.

change it to a singleplayer-only unit

then make it fun instead of completely useless

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and that needs to be fixed - but again. you can’t ignore their advantages.

except they are designed to be weak to archers because their range already gives them an advantage over melee units. as does their stacking.

Or even a cheat unit!

Which is why I proposed a reduced base damage :slight_smile:

except it still gives them an advantage against melee units. think about it. people use hussars as a meat shield for cav archers despite their low damage. what would happen if you pair steppe lancers which have more health and range and stacking advantage…

I think with a low base damage they wouldn’t be worth using as a meatshield over the currently used meatshield unit. I’d like to see the unit reimagined as a fast moving light cav that can catch archers off-guard and decimate them, or at least force them to flee.

how low are you taking their damage?

5 or 6 for SL, 7 or max 8 for Elite, but significant bonus vs archer and cav archer

better then what it is, but doesn’t really help any of the SL civs biggest weaknesses - meso civs.

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I would guess the SL probably wouldn’t be a good unit as El Dorado Eagles would be hard for SL either way, and Kamayuks are even more of a nightmare for most cav units. Unless someone has some very creative idea ofc :slight_smile:

give them a bonus damage vs infantry :wink: