Some thoughts of militia line tech improvement

[Neo]

Just some thoughts, open for discussion.

The main idea is to compare the cost and effect of archer and cavalry.
The food cost of infantry upgrades seems like too high. The infantry needs lots of food and time to mass and is easy to kill.
Here are the changes.

1.Militia cost from 60 food 20 gold to 50 food 20 gold.
The basic cost of militia should be 50 food 20 gold, make pre-mill drush more viable and reduce men-at-arms rush cost.

2.Militia gain 1 bonus attack against standard buildings.
To make militia could cause some damage without scout. Quick wall can trap the militia line is also a little stupid,since the context says that Strong vs. buildings and infantry.

3.Move all techs in the barrack to feudal age, except the militia line, spear line and eagle line upgrades.
Make men-at-arms as their name lol. Fully upgraded men-at-arms still countered by archer.

4.Change all tech food cost in the barracks to wood,except Gambesons and arson.

5.Supplies cost from 75 food 75 gold to 50 wood 25 gold, the effect of Supplies from Militia line cost -15 food change to -5 food.(or simply remove the Spplies and militia line cost 45 food 20 gold)
The original Supplies needs 5 units to pay back for food,which means that we still need to spend 300 food in feudal age,delaying the castle age time.
40 food militia might be too cheap.It needs some actual gameplay. Besides, Goths bonus adjustment might be another problem.(Too cheap)

6.Arson cost from 150 food 50 gold to 150 food 100 gold, research time from 25 sec increase to 50 sec.

7.Men-at-arms upgrade research time reduce from 40s to 20s.(Research time is less than 2 vils build stable or range.)

8.Squires research time from 40 sec to 25 sec.

Let’s compare the scout rush.3 scout(total) cost 175 wood for stable,160 food for scout.
With the above change, basic 3 men-at-arms rush cost 150 food 60 gold and 100 wood 40 gold for men-at-arms upgrade.

The total resource for 3 scout rush is 335, and men-at-arms rush is 350.The cost difference is only 15.
Men-at-arms upgrade cost wood to decrease the food intensity.Just like build a stable. After this change, civ without eco bonus use Men-at-arms rush could have the same feudal uptime as other rush.

As for archer rush. 4 archers with fletching cost 175 wood for range, 150 wood for blacksmith, 100 wood 180 gold for archers, and 100 food 50 gold for fletching.
4 archers cost 755 in total, 100 food, 425 wood, 230 gold. 2 archers cost 615 in total, 100 food, 375 wood, 140 gold.

If we want to mass the men-at-arms and runaway from archers, it cost 350 men-at-arms rush mentioned above, 50 wood 25 gold for supplies, and 100 wood for Squires.
Cost 525 in total. 150 food, 250 wood,125 gold. If we want to be tanky, need 150 wood for black smith, 100 food for Scale Mail Armor,100 food and 100 gold for Gambesons which serves a strategic purpose.

The cost of Gambesons is comparable to the cost of Bloodlines.

Arson in feudal age might be too strong, but provide the possibility of a feudal siege. It’s cost also needs more tests to be fixed.

9.Goths • Infantry cost -20% in Dark, -25% in Feudal, -30% in Castle, -35% in Imperial Age decrease to • Infantry cost -10% in Dark, -15% in Feudal, -20% in Castle, -25% in Imperial Age

10.Slavs remove free Gambesons
They got farm buff recently.

That’s all. Thanks.

[Holzfäller]

I think the core direction here makes sense: infantry in Feudal often feels too food-intensive and too timing-sensitive compared to scouts or archers, especially for civs without eco bonuses. A lot of your proposals are clearly trying to solve the “M@A investment delays Castle Age too hard” problem, and I agree that this is one of the biggest reasons infantry openings are niche outside of specific civs/maps.

A few thoughts:

Militia at 50F 20G feels reasonable. Pre-mill drush has almost disappeared outside high-level play because the investment is awkward compared to the payoff. This would probably make Dark Age openings more diverse again.
Moving barracks tech food costs into wood is actually the most interesting part of the proposal. Food is the bottleneck for Feudal uptime, villager production, eco upgrades, and military all at once. Stable/range openings distribute costs more naturally across resources, while infantry stacks everything into food. So I think your economic reasoning is correct.
The reduced M@A upgrade time also makes sense. Currently the timing window is so tight that a small delay often means arriving after walls are already up.

That said, I think there are a few risky parts:

Feudal Arson could become oppressive very quickly.
Even with the increased cost/research time, early infantry already scales hard when the opponent is partially walled. Giving infantry siege-like building pressure in Feudal could heavily punish defensive play and make certain maps extremely volatile.
Barracks tech overload in Feudal might create too many mandatory upgrades.
If Squires, Supplies, Arson, armor techs, Gambesons etc. are all available early, infantry openings may become very “tech tax” heavy and difficult to balance across civs.
The building bonus damage for militia may unintentionally buff drush too much.
Quickwalling can definitely feel silly against infantry, but adding building damage risks making Dark Age pressure snowball too hard, especially in team games or on closed maps with weak early defenses.
Goths probably become impossible to balance under these changes.
You already noticed this yourself. Any global infantry buff tends to multiply Goth strength disproportionately because of their discount + spam identity.

Personally, I think the healthiest changes from your list are:

cheaper militia,
faster M@A research,
shifting some infantry tech costs away from food,
and possibly earlier Squires.

Those directly improve infantry tempo without fundamentally changing the game’s defensive structure.

I’m less convinced about:

Feudal Arson,
building bonus damage,
or stacking too many Feudal infantry techs at once.

Overall though, I agree with the underlying thesis: infantry isn’t necessarily “weak” statistically, but its economic smoothness and timing reliability are much worse than scouts/archers. Your proposal is basically trying to fix that structural issue rather than just buffing raw combat stats, which is the right direction in my opinion.

[PapiCameron5]

I agree with this too. I also personally think the Militia line could use a revamp. I would love to see the devs go the Chronicles route and do the following:

1. Remove Champion
2. Rename units to: Militia → Long Swordsman → Men at Arms → Elite Men at Arms (seems more historically accurate and intuitive)
3. Add imp tech like Battle Drills (doesn’t have to be this one could be something different or tweaked)
4. Incorporate the above changes you said maybe

[Tourah]

Militia line works in early game and late game but is almost completely useless in mid game, any marginal changes should focus on that. Viability is also heavily tied to civ bonuses, which is unfortunate.

[PapiCameron5]

By removing champion I was insinuating that the stats would be evenly spread out to make mid game swordsman more viable

[Tourah]

Interesting solution, militia line really does have too many upgrades for how little it all matters. But I doubt something so fundamental to nostalgia can be changed.

[smiki5five]

Outright removing Champions seems too radical. Maybe make the earlier tiers a bit stronger and remove Champions from some of the post-Ensemble civs to make them more unique.

[yuksely1992]

I used to think the ‘Conscription’ should also make infantry cost less pop space.

But that was before they removed Supplies. They already have too many tech requirements, I’d prefer using existing techs rather than introducing another one, if that’s needed.

[KnightPandaMage]

@Tourah

Militia line works in early game and late game but is almost completely useless in mid game, any marginal changes should focus on that. Viability is also heavily tied to civ bonuses, which is unfortunate.

And even late is awkward as if you didn’t use it early to research everything to make it usable and it take alot of time.
Only think what should be going for infantry is cost. It has all other disadvantages.

You can simply see how bad infantry was even in aok as you had to give civs massive discounts to make them at least usefull.

@PapiCameron5

• Remove Champion
• Rename units to: Militia → Long Swordsman → Men at Arms → Elite Men at Arms (seems more historically accurate and intuitive)

I agree naming is stupid.
we could split
Militia line in two lines
using old naming:
militia → maa → longsword(1+ pierce armor) → some elite longsword still using shield gaining more pierce armor and health (tanky version).
then you get in imp (locked behind 1 upgrade or not) Twohanded swordsman → champion

So those who would switch to infantry wont have to research all upgrades just to start making infantry in imp.
then i would rename them to:
militia - armored militia - shielded militia - heavy militia (changing names with upgrades is bad imho)
and
two handed swordsmen → elite ths/champion
or rather rather : regional landsknecht/two handed swordsman/berserker/legionary → elite/heavy the same unit…

[ModeratorAoE]

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we’re locking it to prevent confusion.