Steppe Lancers actually need buffing now. And so do the new civs

I was just about to make this suggestion a new thread. Having weakish steppe lancers in the feudal age would add an entirely new dimension to wall defense and the rock paper scissors strategy since steppe lancers can attack through walls. Would make melee rushes much harder though tbh such as scouts, man at arms. Would have to mix in archers more often and by the time you have enough archers and melee units to rush your opponent would probably already be in the castle age. Would discourage feudal play and the dark age and feudal age are already short and one dimensional compared to castle and imperial. Dark age and feudal age are usually about getting up as fast as possible while trading damage favorably and this might make it even worse. We need more aggressive options in dark and feudal age, not more defensive options.

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Tatars are great. Most of their options are solid, they have a very good early economy with the extra food (which largely translates into a slight food boost and a good amount of wood savings in early farms not laid down) and that makes early scouts perfectly manageable. Any suffrage they incur in the Castle age is warranted, given how strong their Imperial age army is. Keshiks (esp Elite) are absolutely no joke after the last changes cut their gold cost in half. It’s an expensive army to field, but for good reason in my view.

Steppe Lancers existing as an actual option worth considering would be a pretty nice buff, though right now touching them is a complete waste of gold. Castle Age Mongol Steppe lancers get completely blown off the field by generic Knights with equal upgrades and Mongols have strictly the best kind at that juncture. Having no Melee armor makes them utterly dependent upon micromanaging them to abuse their one tile attack gimmick.

I said it once, I’ll say it again. Steppe lancers should have reversed the triangle. They should be weak to archers and strong against anything that wants to fight up close. They shouldn’t have pierce armor. They should have good melee armor and good damage. That’s all.

Counter them with archers. Counter archers with Knights. Counter Knights with Pikes. Counter Pikes with Lancers or Cav Archers.

Give Skirms the same bonus damage against Lancers that they get against Pikeman and you can use skirms against either lancers or CA in a pinch, though the steppe lancer will still handle skims it’ll be slightly less clean as using a normal Cavalry option, like knights or scouts.

Then, un-ruin the damage on the Lancer and give it the ol’ college try, and tweak where necessary to keep any specific civs in check if they start rolling with too many good build orders.

I was going to let my point sit, but I thought I’d get ahead of the best comparison and shoot it down here:

“The Kamayuk has”

A large bonus damage against Cavalry, which it’s intended to counter, a faster fire rate, twice the creation speed, two extra armor and one extra pierce armor (after couriers). I don’t know a lot of people who will go out of their way to play Incas to use the Kamayuk. It’s DPS is only slightly lower than the Steppe lancer against generic units that the Kamayuk lacks bonus damage against.

It’s not that impressive as far as Unique units go. It’s clearly a counter unit, made to deal with something specific in mind. If I knew where they should be bumped, I’d recommend bumping them up a small bit. But I think my point translates pretty well, which is that this unit is comparing just passably against a unit that few (if any) people I know would pick a civ with them in mind.

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