It’s good advice, but Skirmishers also need the range upgrade or the crossbows will have an advantage. Also it’s easy for the crossbow player to make a few scouts or knights and take out your whole skirmisher group. Adding a few spears doesn’t really work against archers, they’ll be dead instantly.
Range upgrade is default lol.
Depending on your micro and your opponents civ you should go for different compositions- ethiopian xbow play that mixes in a few knights can be dealt with by going skirms and adding a monastery to scare him off and get conversions.
If it’s a lithuanian or a berber having xbows and then doing a knight transition it’s pointless to try and counter it with a trash comp. Double gold comp is always better and easier to micro. Therefore if it’s early castle age you should either go for a cav switch yourself, or defensive monastery and siege workshop. But then again playing skirmishers against a cavalry civ is off because they are expected to transition to knights, so you would have been better off making crossbows or knights yourself.
But also double gold comp is either early castle age pressure where he can’t afford seconrd armor on the knights, or it’s a late castle age all in which can be stopped with a defensive castle and a faster imperial.
So yeah, castle age combat is very varied and interesting, so it’s hard to write out possible combinations.
I wouldn’t mind a skirmisher buff, but if that’s the case, pikes should probably be buffed too. I always feel like even though skirms are faster than archers im spending too much time chasing him around the map except if I’m lithuanians.
Either we buff skirmishers and spearmen to be better counters (or cheap counters) or we buff them so they can better survive against other units
Agree that knights are THE power unit in the game, they don’t need as much micromanagement as archers and it takes few units to deal damage to the opponent (100 HP, 10 Attack, and 2/2 Armor is too much in early Castle)
If you play counters, you are already left behind in the game. Counter unit upgrades are expensive and slow
And in all this network of power units and their counters, there is no place for the Infantry
The Light Cavalry and the THW / Champion are late Imperial units when the trash wars are starting
Problem is, against skirmishers your opponent can just add 2 Knights and the skirmishers are gone lol
Still don’t get why the upgrade to elite skirmishers is more expensive in DE tbh.
That’s why I proposed to give (elite) skirms higher melee armor. They would still die to their counters, but at least not as fast as currently, so there would be options to like add pikes or whatever to help the skirms out a bit.
I think of all the trash units skirms are probably currently the easiest to counter, so it just feels natural to buff them a bit there. They are countered heavily by better units, that are also much faster and therefore can force favourable fights - so no wonder they are currently in that bad state.
But making skirms better in dealing damage against archers can possibly work, too. There are many ways to rome.
Ok agreed. Maybe the issue is more upgrade costs then. Archers + Crossbows often delay armor upgrades, so countering them requires double the investment at the blacksmith. If the archers have ballistics then the skirms need ballistics, and the elite skirm upgrade is more expensive than the crossbow upgrade. Someone can double check me on this, but for equal resources spent it seems like the skirms could be in a losing position unless both sides have large numbers.
One thing more.
Yes, archers not costing food “allow for a quick age up”, and skirms dont. But this is not 100% true.
To make an archer army you don’t need to invest in farms. On the contrary, to make skirms and scouts (an usual combination) you require lots of farmers, so the moment you stop unit production you will be able to gather all food required for castle age very quickly. Thus, the thing is not only the cost of the units, or if they cost wood /food/gold, but if you can adapt your eco and maximize the unit efficiency. A skirm against an archer should win, so it is a los for the archer player, not for the skirm one.
Alright, I looked at the numbers a little. For simplicity I’m considering 1 gold = 1 wood = 1 food.
Crossbow upgrade with Ballistics + Fletching + Bodkin requires 1125 resources spent.
Elite Skrimisher + Ballistics + Fletching + Bodkin + Padded Armor + Leather Armor costs 1685 resources.
That’s a difference of 560 resources just getting to upgrades. It means that 8 crossbows can be made before even breaking even with skirmisher upgrades. Or 7 Elite Skirmishers can be fielded for the same price as 14 crossbows (the skirmishers should still be able to win this fight, but are more vulnerable to any other units). And if you consider the value of food at that point in the game it looks much worse for the Skirms (given the unit costs food and the armor upgrades cost food).
Edit: If you skip armor upgrades for both then the difference is 160 resources, and you can make 14 crossbows for the same price as 12 elite skirms. I wouldn’t recommend this route though, as skirmishers benefit a lot from armor. In fact 7 armored Skirms can theoretically beat 20 unarmored crossbows, but 12 unarmored skirms lose that same fight.
Armor upgrades are more important for skirms actually. But both will trickle in the upgrades when they can. Skirms need less production sites aswell… So the whole comparison is a bit whacky. Maybe I will use my old tool for evalueating upgrades at some point for that.
The whole thing is, that’s weird that both units need the same upgrades basically. That’s also a big downside of skirms, as you have to make upgrades just for the sake of countering that you don’t want to use anywhere else actually. And the same upgrades as your opponent… Skirms without the armor are basically useless against upgraded archers, so you need to do it.
Mangonels + defences on the other hand don’t need any upgrades to work as counter, giving the player a huge advantage in timing over the supposed counter, the skirm.
In general, I think counter units should have less upgrade cost and time than the units they counter. You already have the disadvantage to react to the opponents forces. So if this takes also more ressources and time to upgrade your counters, the whole concept of “countering” is actually flawed. You want your counters to be on hand and you want to save ressources with them when fighting the units to counter.
Counter units that need more initial investment to be viable as counter are just weird. That doesn’t make sense in the whole context of counter mechanics.
Skirmisher kill archers in equal numbers while pike doesn’t vs cav. I think Skirmisher already do a good job. Besides, more skirmisher production= fewer feudal archer rush. This pushes the meta more towards Men at arms or scout rush and the game become less diverse.
You know that’s quite common also for non-archer civs to open archers?
Archers into knights is also a very strong opener, as knights hardcounter basically everything you can do against archers. And most knight civs can do very decent archer rushes aswell.
I know that at the highest levels they often prefer to open scouts. But you need a lot of experience and apm to get that high value of them as the top players, so archers are for many players just the easier opener to execute.
Skirmisher kill archers in equal numbers while pike doesn’t vs cav.
Weird comparison tbh… you don’t make same amount of pikes against knights, do you? ^^ I mean you could also argue that skirms don’t counter ele archers in equal numbers. Does this make ele archers op? No, because you just make more skirms and then they will trade cost efficiently.
non-archer civs to open archers
Sometimes I can even see Spanish feudal archer rush which shocked me at the first time. But I think skirmisher buff seems an overall nerf to all archer civs, most of which are a bit underwhelming.
Or 7 Elite Skirmishers can be fielded for the same price as 14 crossbows
Yes, and skirmishers win this. Generally speaking, when making skirms, make half the amount his archers as skirms, unless he is ethiopians/britons, or you are lithuanians/byzantines and plan on playing skirmishers long term.
In general, I think counter units should have less upgrade cost and time than the units they counter. You already have the disadvantage to react to the opponents forces. So if this takes also more ressources and time to upgrade your counters, the whole concept of “countering” is actually flawed
Disagree. If you use archer/knight offensively, you have to send your archer toward opponent’s base. It already give time for opponent can prepare and react. If the counter unit is already cheaper, and also tech earlier than offensive option, isn’t it completely deny the offensive archer play? Unlike knight/scout, they cannot use mobility to raid eco and escape from bad fight.
You know that’s quite common also for non-archer civs to open archers?
That is because archer can upgrade xbow in castle age except two civ, but knight can only produce from castle age. Not because archers are strong. Just nerfing archer play and scout-knight play become dominating is underwhelming. Most archer civs don’t deserve nerf.
isn’t it completely deny the offensive archer play?
Only if you go blindly. So every time you go any other opener than a blind archer rush you would easily win against a blind skirm play.
Just nerfing archer play and scout-knight play become dominating is underwhelming. Most archer civs don’t deserve nerf.
We also want to buff the spear line btw. And currently there are way more strats to counter archers than knight actually. Skirms is only one of them and imo actually one of the weakest ones as it is quite easy to counter (knights need almost no upgrades to counter skirms eg.
As there are way less counter strats against knights, just a small buff to the spear line would have a much bigger influence there than a skirms buff for archer play.
Skirms is only one of them and imo actually one of the weakest ones as it is quite easy to counter
That’s true. But only direct counter in Feudal, and also in early castle age when siege is too expensive to produce. It would affect early game balance heavily if we touch upgrade cost of Elite skirms and stat of non-elite skirms. I can agree of some minor stat buff like adding Melee armor to Elite Skirms.
Only if you go blindly. So every time you go any other opener than a blind archer rush you would easily win against a blind skirm play.
Interesting point. But if it become very easy to stop archer play, it is better to spend resource to other unit like Scout in first place.
As there are way less counter strats against knights, just a small buff to the spear line would have a much bigger influence there than a skirms buff for archer play.
Also interesting point, but I feel like spear line is Okay in general (Maybe except in Feudal age). If the purpose is increase the unit diversity, I would propose buff on Monks to nerf knight play to make game’s counter mechanics interesting to diversify counter option.
But if it become very easy to stop archer play, it is better to spend resource to other unit like Scout in first place.
Ofc it needs to be tuned. I don’t mean it should be super cheap, but just a bit cheaper than the upgrade cost of the archer line would be nice.
And I also would like it if they would open with scouts. So you could add spears and he adds skirms to counter your archers + spears. I think this is the way openers should develop. Whoever manages to balance his comp the best and gets the best trades should have the biggest success.
I think this would be optimal if the game would develop more in this direction with a lot of military standoffs already in the early game.
I would propose buff on Monks to nerf knight play to make game’s counter mechanics interesting to diversify counter option.
Also a good Idea. But could potentially overbuff monks in arena/closed maps?
Once I had the idea to make scorpions soft-counter cav. But I think as the whole concept of cav is to use mobility against range this might be a bad approach. But I still think, that there should be more counters to knights than just camels, pikes and monks (or defences ofc). It is too one-sided. Even against archers we have way more counter mechanics in the game.
I think a bit more diversity in countering knights would benefit the game, maybe even more than buffing the already available counters.
And tbh of al, strategiv choices I like raiding the least, as it is so cheap. Just bypassing the enemy military to kill vills… I mean, if this wasn’t a game what tells this about your character? Are you a psycho?
Ok wtf is going in here anymore? Should I keep reading?
To make an archer army you don’t need to invest in farms. On the contrary, to make skirms and scouts (an usual combination) you require lots of farmers, so the moment you stop unit production you will be able to gather all food required for castle age very quickly. Thus, the thing is not only the cost of the units, or if they cost wood /food/gold, but if you can adapt your eco and maximize the unit efficiency.
Farmers gather food 15-20% (I don’t know exact ratio) slower than miners gather gold and each farm need 60 wood for future 175 food. Therefore, food is 50% more valuable than other resources in Feudal and early Castle Age. Skirmisher’s 25f *1.50 + 35 = 78 resources is more expensive than Archer’s 70 resources.
High cost of Skirmisher’s upgrades are also big weakness. For comparison, Halberdier upgrades are much more cheaper than Paladin’s and, besides, Halberdier even don’t need blacksmith upgrades to counter Paladin (Tatar Halberdiers laughing Frank Paladins because they still counter them with no upgrades).
Halberdier Upgrade = 300 food 600 gold and 50 seconds.
Cavalier + Paladin upgrades = 1600 food 1050 gold and 270 seconds (Paladin also need blacksmith armor upgrades to be useful).
Increasing bonus damage from +3, +4 (elite) to +6, +8 (elite) with decreasing 1 Pierce Armor (2, 3 (elite)) will end Skirmisher’s dependency of armor upgrades but it won’t damage skirmisher’s archer counter ability. I also thought buff for other trash units and militia line. I will share these proposals tomorrow.
Actually knight without armor are countered by skirms, and therefore getting your first work-able knight is definitely not cheap. If your opponent can mass knight, you may as well do the same thing (and gradually transist to archers yourself)