They actually basically only soak arrowfire. Skirms have no higher dps / cost against archers than archers themselves.
Imo a “counter” should have considerably higher damage output against the units it is supposed to counter. Otherwise we see this absurdly strong powerspikes in xbow and arb that dominate feudal skirms or castle elite skirms respectively.
Everybody knows this yet we haven’t discussed that these powerspikes are just way too OP as the so called “counters” become countered in reverse. This is an absurdity that shouldn’t be in the game.
Yeah tech advantage is important, but it shouldn’t overwrite or even reverse counter mechanics.
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i’m all for buffing skirms bonus dmg, it’s my favorite unit. But don’t forget to take the cost of archers vs skirms into consideration, skirms are the cheapest unit to produce!
But i agree that some units need a little bit of a buff. Yesterday i played 7 team games or something, 2v2, and in 6 of them we all went knights/crossbows lol if you try other units you lose, it really is a shame that these 2 units dominate the game. (going a bit off topic here but it is somewhat related)
It’s more an adjustment, not a straight “buff”. More dps vs archers but less armour.
To mention this: Only the damage against archers should be increased, not against pikes in the early or midgame - in the lategame they can get more bonus damage vs spears than currently, but not in the early or midgame. Their currently good dps vs spears is actually the main reason they see so much play. But it’s not necessary at this stage of the game, the bonus vs spears was introduced for lategame trash balance (and there it is actually too low currently).
i don’t understand why give more dmg and then take away pierce armor. Won’t the skirms die more easily vs the archers they’re supposed to counter? What about britons with 11 range on their arbs, how are you gonna get close with skirms if they have even less armor? Even in castle age the skirms would have a hard time countering xbows.
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There are multiple reasons for this. I already explained some of them here.
In general the skirm design has several flaws:
A) Same class as what it counters
B) “Passive countering” by soaking damage instead of high damage output
C) Counter of a whole common unit comp
D) Very depending on single upgrades (elite skirm + armor) and tech advantage
E) Countered too hard by mangos and cavalry
F) Can’t kill archers fast enough to force them out of the eco - archers shooting vills while under skirm fire is very common and gives positive value in most cases
G) Backline-vs-backline unit => if the opponent has a good meatshield, they don’t automatically target the units they should
The best thing would have been if they had split that unit in 2: The current skirm that fokusses on killing spears while under ranged fire (less damage vs archers) and a genitour-like ranged light cavalry unit that is specialised in killing archers and has minimal bonus (1) against cavalry to also deal with cav archer + hussar comps.
This unit will be underused. A trash counter solely to a trash unit.
Burmese armabai has atk bonus against archer yet they don’t have good pierce armor. Are they good against archers?
Whats the problem? Bombard cannon counter all siege. Onagers counter scorpions. Do those need to be changed as well?
If they only counter uncommon unit comp, skirmisher will be underused. I dont see wahts the prpblem of countering spears and archers. Skirmisher are already counter by all melee unit, except spears.
Actually spears also rely on single upgrades (halbs+ armor)
Swordsmen depend tons of upgrades and tech. They still cant compete against archers or knight.
Skirmisher are ranged unit and naturally countered by mangonels amd cavalry.
Spears have a large bonus atk vs cavalry. But on equal numbers, they still get beaten by cavalry. Cavalry harassing vills while under spear is also very common and gives positive value in most cases.
Thats why rams have a good use outside destroying building. If they are melee unit, they need both high PA and speed to beat archers. You want eagles for every civs? You can micro skirmishers.
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Point A is a non issue. Like who said a unit has to be a different class from what it counters? It’s actually a quite common occurence.
Point B isn’t an issue either since skirms do kill archers quite fast but they can beat archers while outnumbered, halbs don’t have this luck.
Point C is weird, everything you say imply skirms are bad but now they are too good (and you suggest a unit that beats a more expensive comp by itself later!)
Point D is nothing new either (you don’t kill eagles with m@a or kts with spearmen)
Why is point E even a thing? Do you want to get away with mono skirms or what?
Point F is just dumb. Archers require to be massed so throwing them all just for villagers is bad. If you speak about micro then it’s just because there is no ballistics in feudal age, and there is nothing to be done about that.
Point G is a necessary evil to avoid running in the issue of a melee counter being blocked by a meatshield ig
tl;dr If skirms truely had so many issues someone would have taken notice long ago
They actually don’t. Old manipur’s effect would read as “cavalry and arambai” now it’s “cavalry” only. And you can test it in the scenario editor too.
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I just said less bonus vs archers, not no.
Wrong.
Don’t try to deflect. I only said “less armor” not “no armor”.
It’s about the main unit lines. And normally siege units are countered by cavalry so your argument doesn’t holds really.
It would be ok if this wasn’t the main archer vs knight unit comp. But this unit in the skirm counters a comp that is just there in every 2nd game - and very effectively. And yes it is a problem as unit comps should actually be about the individual unit matchups: you have one unit that counters one of the opponent units and is countered by the other and another that is vice versa. But skirms counter a whole comp and therefore defy the concept of unit comps as a hole in making the games more interesting than just a simple unit v unit matchup. You try to get the better engagement by getting your counters work against the opponent, but if one side has a unit that counters the whole enemy comp there is nothing with interactive gameplay anymore.
well if you let your cavalry be attacked by spears while you kill viils it’s basically never worth it, cause the bonus damage is just way too high.
Well a lot of people have noticed thigs already. Not only me. I am just the first to explicitely name the issues with that design and try to explain why we often have this kind of “weird” things happening when skirms are in play. Like archers firing at vills while under heavy “counter” fire.
no it doesn’t lmfao
and that’s exactly what champions do, and damn well they do, only caveat being they might be hard to mass sometimes
and do you know which other unit which doesn’t cost gold is great against halbs?
go test them then, you’ll see champions are not an effective counter to hussar cost-wise
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Why are people who clearly know nothing always so conscious they would know everything?
Champions are only not a good choice against hussars long-term. But they beat them on a pur cost-efficient basis quit convincingly.
all of this depends heavily on
-which champions
-which hussars
-how much you value gold: is it 100g = 100f, or is it 14g = 100f
-do they fight 20v20 or they fight with equal resource value. if with equal resource value, how do you value pop efficiency. how do you value movement speed?
in general aoe2DE is in a really good place balance-wise. skirmishers dont need a buff. one of the reasons they are a bit weaker on a per pop basis is that they are the most wood-heavy of the trash units. food income requires more space, more attention to set up, and is easier to raid, so units using more food should be stronger.
Well normally “it depends” is right. But here it is quite clear.
From all the normal Hussars, none can beat a FU Champ on pop efficiency perspective which also means cost effectiveness for a long time until gold becomes really scarce. And then we should speak about “value” and not “cost”.
Only Polish winged hussar with their trample damage can have the upper hand here.
Maybe also you can test with Bulgarian Hussar. They beat FU champion in pop effective-wise in my test (battle is close).
“It depends” is more right answer. And also generally, Hussar is more versatile unit with good against archer/seige. Therefore, train champion against hussar is not really good choice in most case. Just go with your own Hussar(if it is also FU) is more right choice.
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Yeah I forgot bulgarians. You’re right.
Actually funny: The bulgarian hussars only win because of their higher movement speed. In 1v1 champs win barely.
hussar are not part of this thread tough 
the point is skirmisher does not deal well against spears in very late game
and do not have an imperial upgrade.
honestly, why so many players are against the simple proposition of adding a new cool unit to the game to make this trash unit comparable to all others generic units (both trash and not trash)?
Vietnamese have an upgraded variant, and they are still one of the worst 5 civ win-rate wise, so it’s not like adding this unit to the game is going to make anything OP or break the balance
Just to point out that Vietnamese itself rarely uses skirm in late game, their UU is an upgrade of skirm so this point is kinda invalid
Well if skirms were THIS bad in trash wars, you would expect people to skip them entirely no? Mono halberdier with just enough hussars to be annoying would be the best strat everytime. But it’s clearly not the case. So buffing skirms for such a dubious reason for only a part of the game (gold doesn’t run out instantly you know) is just a bad idea.
Skirmisher are meant to counter archers. They do the job effectively.
missing halberdier and hussar is considred a big weakness in a civ tech, because halbs can do much more than just deal with cavalry, and hussar can do much more than just deal with skirms in very late game. Skirm on the other hand sucks against hussar and are not great either against halbs for what should be the counter, and cannot do anithing else efficiently because they relie on their bonus to do damage since their base stat sucks on top of the gimmicky of minimum range
this is not a problem, we are not talking of a bad unit, just a non-efficient counter that could be better with just an added bonus, and infact the imperial skirmisher has a +5 bonus vs spears iirc, and it’s not a huge asset for vietnamese as far as i can tell
on top of this, still, we are talking about the ONE AND ONLY generic unit without an imperial upgrade. which does not make sense at any level in this era of the game, considering we already have an imperial upgrade available for vietnamese