Steppe Lancers as a replacement for knight

[Mahazona]

Mugals used gunpowder delhi sultanate would be a better comparison.If you look at it like that magyars bulgarians lithuanians slavs too should have them.

[Ifavorwining]

yes but Mangudai requires castle and +30% Hp plus bloodlines is ridiculous

[Juggernaut8704]

But Mughals were Central Asian, Delhi Sultanate Middle Eastern

[FurtherLime7936]

@AlphaCreator727

Neither Huns

pfff wtf Huns literally were from steppes

@Ifavorwining

and +30% Hp plus bloodlines is ridiculous

it ends up with 98 HP steppe lancers, barely even close to compete with Knights

[Mahazona]

Delhi was a mamluke sultanate right with turkick origins?

[Juggernaut8704]

Weren’t they the direct successor of Ghorids and a fragment from early islamic expansion both Sindh and Delhi and thus diplomatically tied to it.
Unlike the Mughals who had nothing to do with Middle Eastern Politics.

[TungstenBoar]

Ghurids are messy to catagorize. However pretty sure the Mamluk dynasty was Turkic and integrated steppe warfare into their strategy somehow

But tbh the current Indian civ is the Mughals aka the heirs of Tamerlane

[Juggernaut8704]

Yeah you are right the Delhi used their own cav archers against the cav archers of Mongols as per “kings and generals” video.
I agree then. Delhi and Mughal both relate to Central Asia to various extents.

[VenaticJungle18]

I think steppe lancer is about at the right price now. maybe the elite upgrade cost like -400 food then will be perfect.
+1 melee armor is also a good choice.
If the gold and food cost further cut, it will be an S grade unit in late imperial.
Their damage output should be comparable if not better than paladin!

[VenaticJungle18]

@casusincorrabil

Again, imo the steppe lancers need to have a destinct role to be useful in small numbers like sniping siege and adding some extra punch to cav formations. The way they are still designed just doesn’t fit the civs they are in, as these civ have such strong cav archers. Either the steppe lancers become totally OP again or they stay almost useless if they are in that competition with these cav archers.

at top level like nicov, viper, themax, they already use lancers to snipe monks, siege, vills and thro the walls.
Just the problem is in imperial war it almost never has a role.
Tatars one should be nearly usable, but they have the crazy-value keshik…

[VenaticJungle18]

@casusincorrabil

Really, I jsut made some tests with steppe lancers. Once you have a group of 40 + they trade efficient against almost every melee unit in the game (with the patrol stacking micro). Yes even Halberdiers and Paladins.
But these civs just have better “mass to win” option in the cav archer (UUs).

i think the tight patrol is a big limit of usage. unlike archers, it only has 1 range. If I am the halbs player, i wont engage fight at that situation

[casusincorrabil]

I also don’t like it how it currently works, as only experienced players can really make use of it.
It would be much better if they had 2 range then also less experienced players who don’t know how to stack get them to attack all at once.
The 1 range is just really bad in that context, it makes it basically impossible that players below a certain level can ever make effective use of that unit.

[Lepigozzus]

Plus the unit itself if left alone would just attack as soon as the enemy is in range, which means no stacking at all, no unit would advance to close the gap allowing the second line to attack at the same time, meaning unless you always micro them or in big battles where enemy is literally everywhere, you’re never going to use that range properly.
I desperately want to like them, but they offer very little imho.

[casusincorrabil]

@VenaticJungle18

i think the tight patrol is a big limit of usage. unlike archers, it only has 1 range. If I am the halbs player, i wont engage fight at that situation

That’s true. It is still possible to patrol in enemy units, but it is more demanding and also offers the opponent to get some “free hits” while performing. Also it’s not possible to stack the lancers as much as they used to.
But I can’t really test it as it is so heavily depending on the micro of both players. Minimal timing + positioning difference can lead to completely different outcomes there.

[SMUM15236]

@casusincorrabil

Steppe lancers aren’t that bad. They are just with the wrong civs.

I’d say both honestly.

@casusincorrabil

Again, imo the steppe lancers need to have a destinct role to be useful in small numbers

@casusincorrabil

adding some extra punch to cav formations

I agree with you and want to replace Camel for SL civs. I’ve see n literally hundreds of post asking it replace knight line or scout line but I’m the only one asking to replace camel…
And none of these is happening.

@Ifavorwining

If the Mongols Hp bonus applied to knights giving them 150 or 147 Hp that would be incredible broken and yet no one really makes Mongol Steppelancer at least not at the Pro level despite what would otherwise be a Game breaking bonus.

Because Mongols SL have much less HP than that and also 1 less PA.

[Ifavorwining]

@Mubashir158

Because Mongols SL have much less HP than that and also 1 less PA.

Thats my point it there is no reason to make Generic SL over knights

[LordPolcat]

I believe that steppe lancers should be a second line cavalry that you mix with knights/keshiks/light cavalry. It’s range will naturally position them to be protected by tanky or cheap units and gives your cavalry an extra punch. For this purpose their stats are fine. They are “glass cannons”.

Rather their cost should be brought down a bit to incentivise them more. I’d reduce their gold cost from 40 to 30, and maybe their food cost from 70 to 65. And more importantly, I’d reduce their elite upgrade massively. e.g. reducing food cost from 900 to 600 and gold cost from 550 to 500.

While for this role, they don’t miss that melee armor, thematically I also find it silly that they visibly have armor and yet have 0 melee armor. Adding 1 melee armor would give them a little defense against cavalry that could otherwise easily run around the first line of meat shield.