There are few Cavalry Unique Units (not CA):
Against Both Konnik and Cataphract Samurai is much better choice, also against Coustilier Samurai is much better - Will survive almost 2x longer because of larger HP, and will deal overall greater dmg due to much faster attack.
Why not increase the samurai pa (or specifically anti archer armor) and speed? So they can close the gap better against cav and archers?
Thatâs not how things work 
33% more speed can be the difference between dying to archers or surrounding them, it can be the difference between losing your siege or screening it successfully⊠the list could go on. As of berserks they are the best infantry UU, as the elite version has 2 base melee armour and 14 base attack (same as a paladin) So those two are better than samurai for sure.
You donât need samurai against cataphract because arbs and HCA are better at killing them, and halberdier are still waaaay cheaper and convenient to use against coustillier, not to mention if the Burgundian dude does paladins halbs will still be efficient. So only target left is the konnik. Thatâs like one unit in the whole game.
Try that against Teutonic knights. Dealing 1 damage 50% faster is still a lot less then their bonus damage against UU. Try that against jaguars, same result. Try that against sergeants or boyars, same result.
And with all due respect why would you make Samurai against those units as Japanese?! It is already a wrong decision.
Which option would you choose as Japanese against aztec eagle/jaguar mix? What do you do in trash wars when your opponent mixes a few etk in? Of course you have other options usually and often it would be your archers, but thatâs not always possible. And itâs not only about making them as a counter itâs also about increasing their value on the field when your opponent starts to make those units after you made some Samurai.
They are all perfectly fine UUs which donât need to be changed.
Champs+CA/Arbs in the back for example? Yeah I agree in general that the best case for Samurai is vs Jaguar but still as Japs you have many options which will put the Samurai bonus far away.
ETK?! How many times you see it?! And Japs already have FU CA and FU arbs and with their generic units with their 33% faster will be good, and the Samurai already die vs TK even with its bonus vs UUs.
It dies 1v1 yes but can be still Ressource efficient.
Etks not seen often, but against other inf civs itâs a nice addition for siege pushes.
The bonus is situational, but may be useful. And thatâs the case for some other UU as well. Like jaguars for example, with plus 4 champions you usually donât need an anti infantry unit. Why do Britons need an archer UU when they have arbs with additional range?
Because the longbow has even more range.
Yes except a paladin has 28% more speed, which can be the difference between dying to archers or surrounding them, it can be the difference between losing your siege or screening it successfully⊠the list could go on.
Everyone seems to love their âOne unit is the best unit and mixing in other units is dumb because then youâd HAVE to upgrade 2 unitsâ heuristic.
Imperial age, non-elite samurai still do very well against imperial age elite unique units. Arbs + non-elite samurai will kill any infantry UU faster and with less up gold cost than either could alone. Not to mention that 1 castle is worth 3 ranges in terms of production speed.
Other notable matchups for Samurai:
The unit is fine. Obviously if you hold the belief that a unit is useless unless it can be fully upgraded youâre going to believe that most units on most civs are useless. But one you realize you can save thousands of resources by not over-upgrading units a lot of them start to look a lot better.
I donât, the bonus is good as it is. Yes it only works in niche cases, in certain match-up, but it is very potent in those cases, so I donât see any reason to change it.
First Iâm having trouble believing that using samurai to kill organ guns or chu ko nu is a good idea. Iâm also pretty sure Japanese pikemen are enough to take care of Tarkans. Second if we talk double unit compositions, then there are still issues. Arbs+halberdier is easier to get than samurai and is a more than effective enough way to to take care of konniks, onagers+trash is better against chu ko nu, ectâŠ
I compared the berserkâs attack with the paladin to show why itâs good. But thatâs the only relevant comparison since they are, you know, one cavalry the other infantry? While samurai, woads and berserks are all infantry UU.
Considering we have 2 new and good infantry UU and we are getting at least another one in next dlc, I think samurai bonus is getting more viable.
I hope we continĂșe to get better infantry UU un the future⊠To have a more diverse meta is always better for any game
Just because itâs not optimal doesnât mean the unit is bad. You will not trade extremely effectively against CKN for instance. However if you happen to be in a team game or something and the enemy builds CKN and you have samurai there exist ways to leverage the 2 hit kill ability to trade well.
With organ guns you can definitely use rams and samurai.
Halb + non elite samurai is just as good or better than Halb + arbs against konniks. 1 castle + 3 barracks isnât much of a bottleneck when you counter konniks at 1:2 cost ratio. Optimality is only part of the picture anyway. You can use arbs + halbs if you happen to have arbs from castle age and that works too.
Point is against some civs samurai are very strong because they negate the strong UU. On some others they donât really negate it but if you happen to have samurai you can still use them
The idea of Samurai is to have a slightly better Longsword/Champion that require only one tech to upgrade (aside from blacksmithâs and squires), with the UU bonus on top of that.
I think the Samurai is a solid unit. It is not a staple unit, but it comes really handy when you really need that type of infantry and donât have the time for so many upgrades or so many barracks. Yes, you need castles for them, but in several cases you do have more castles than barracks. And you still have the posibility of canceling out unique units which are truly common to use in other civs, such as Woad Raiders, Huskarls, and others