Spearman unit is supposed to be a strong counter to cavalry but in reality they die too quickly to everything including cavalry. This is further strengthened by terrible unit AI which makes infantry often block each other and run in circles. Yes, spearmen are a cheap unit not supposed to be especially tanky or damaging but when it does not do the only thing you designed it to do, to the point most players have no fear charging into large group of spearmen with knights with minor archery support, it certainly means something is wrong. Spearmen in age 3 are completely outclassed by every other unit and basically never used again unless very deep in trash wars with enemy spamming scouts. I think spearmen can benefit from minor survivability buff (maybe 10-15% more health) and much higher damage to cavalry.
Spearman have been mentioned on stream them and crossbows are getting better at killing mounted units, that said they currently are a very commonly built unit.
They are commonly built, because they are the only option you have against french/rus early knights if you aren’t french/rus yourself at age 2. As I said, after age 2 they are only taking population limit and are a dead weight because they lose to every other unit including MAA who become an option at age 3 and only slightly more expensive. That is, if you max out their upgrades too. Simply comparing it to MMA you realize that MMA at age 3 starts with 4/4 armor while spearman stays at 0/0 meaning they will be dying from any sort of damage very quickly. I do hope they will get better but what I’m trying to say is that they need to be buffed by a lot.
They will get buffed on the next patch.
Until then just mass springalds and u will be fine 11
MAA is supposed to counter spearmen and be tanky arrow spunges and lock knights in drawn out combat. That’s their role.
I guess I’m not completely clear with my intentions but it’s not the fact that they lose to maa, but the fact that they are completely unusable against maa even in groups as they deal no damage because of 4 base armor. Tbh the trash units in aoe4 are really bad because of absurdly high base armor for 2 of 3 gold units.
Agree, spearmen need a buff, currently they are just to weak and get recked by basically everything there is no point in building them. I’ve just been building crossbows to counter knights instead
Well, spearman are supposed to be a specifically anticav unit, that is their role, they just need to be more effective against it. Against civs that have early MAA I think that the best option is fast castle and get some crossbows or knights out.
They should be buffed although spears were largely outdated by the 1400s. I’ve no idea why pikes, halberds and other polearm infantry are absent in this game.
I think they are right where they should be vs cavalry. They are cost effective very much. Problem is that they get beaten too hard by their natural caunters so if enemy brings few archers and mangonels they are near useless and cav reigns Supreme.
I’m maybe alone with this opinion, but I really think the main problem ppl have with knights is not knights in general but, especially vs feudal french, the things around them right now.
French absolute overbloated civ bonuses paired with the hp regeneration of the chivalry tech, makes any engagement in which you don’t get a kill super unrewarding.
Playing against rus knights feels way more solid and rewarding.
Buffing spears could swing the pendulum in the complete oposite direction and make turtling around longbows/crossbows/siege from really hard to basically impossible to engage.
Knights are already not beeing build by anyone but french and rus cause of their early stable commitment.
That spears and crossbows will get a buff is pretty much set, I personally just hope that it’s gonna be absolute tiny and they rather focus on pathfinding so better unit control is more rewarding in fights.
How to use spears correctly
I do think they are cost effective against any cavalry
I’m actually sick of hearing they are ‘cost effective’. They aren’t supposed to be cost effective, they are supposed to be a direct counter, as in clearly dangerous to be engaged with by cavalry. Being cost effective does not make them to be actually effective, because cavalry is much stronger and more flexible than spears and trade favorably with everything, while spears trade favorably with nothing and only cost effectively with cavalry. That’s obviously not how it should work.
Knights are built by mongols and pretty much anyone in late game because there’s no better generic unit than knights which also have no real counter. The only reason you don’t see knights completely dominating in age3+ is because siege also comes into play.
Well, then we have a different opinion on how it should work. No problem. Let’s wait for the balance patch.
Cav needs to be faster compared to spearmen. Faster compared to all infantry. But spearmen need to do more dmg to cav. Right now cav can fight spearmen, but they can barely catch up to units. If knights are chasing spears or archers or someting, them stopping everytime they attack lets the infantry get away. Very stupid. Cav is supposed to be able to punish people getting caught. They are not
I sort of agree but it may give very radical changes to the game’s flow because of the map sizes.
Kinda. But right now I dont feel cav is that good just for their mobility. They are good because they are good at fighting. Horsemen are slightly faster but they are too weak. If anti cav get much stronger now I dont think ill be building much at all. People are already using quite a bit of xbows. And as we saw in genesis, viper actually won french vs french mirror vs cav by not using cav.
I think the general issue with cav is their poor AI and large size. It’s rather easy to block them off between buildings so they die for nothing. The other thing is they are not strong enough vs siege as siege is too fast for them. Siege is supposed to counter archers/xbows but cavs deal too little damage to it while it’s supposed to be its direct counter.
Imo spears should do more base damage. Right now they do 6/8/9/11 damage, but triple vs. cavalry. I would just buff it to 9/12/14/17 damage, double vs cavalry, keeping the total damage vs. cav approximately the same. That would make them much more cost effective in other situations.