I haven’t tested SL after the +1 damage buff patch, but before that, 20 SL vs 20 light cav, light cav won 100% of the fights, with 4-7 left standing without any micro or anything.
My idea would be reducing food cost by 15-20 since gold cost was increased by that ammount and see if it’s more appealing in early castle and maybe a +1 pierce armor on ESL so people could actually try them against archers in imperial age (or reduce upgrade cost or something).
Balance team should never nerf too many variables at once. They nerfed movespeed, rate of fire, atk damage, gold cost and colision size all at the same time
Edit: it was actually 30 hussars vs 30 SL, no upgrades. Not 20 light cav vs 20 SL
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That makes me wonder about how well Steppe Lancers could perform in a siege pairing, which is a pairing I haven’t seen yet, for running down weakened units that would otherwise run away from other civs using slower units with their siege.
Yeah they made a big nerf at once to SL
you might have tested using mongol hussars. Currently 17 cuman SL beat 20 turk hussars. With 10 losses. I can’t imagine 1 damage swung the odds so much
But the SL does definitely still need a buff. But we have to consider micro because it amplifies the power of higher level play. Just like the kipchak shouldnt be compared in a straight up fight without micro.
my bad, it was actually hussars vs steppe lancers (dark age, no upgrades) and it was 30v30 instead of 20vs20 inside a palisade arena where I controlled the hussars (just attack move in the steppe lancers direction)
Back in january when I did it, I had a lot of surviving hussars. Tried again today (with +1 attack from patch) and AI was victorious with 4 steppe lancers left.
IIRC, both were britons for fairness
I don’t know what to think about this issue, so I won’t opine on my own position, instead making a note that Viper thinks they’re exceptionally good, and worth the investment, as a raiding unit. Namely, the extra range makes picks very quick and very clean because it’s easier to engage with multiple units, all at the same time, and get an instant kill. A small raiding party of half a dozen Steppe lancers can be a nightmare raiding troupe that can even invalidate one-tile wall-ins or quickwalls and prevent repairs on palisades unlike the conventional cavalry counterparts.
I have a long-held opinion that they hurt the lancer in all the wrong ways, but if pro players are finding an avenue to use them, I’m okay with that. As long as it has a place. I wouldn’t be against slight buffs to specifically improve the role that certain players have found for them, but I wouldn’t want them to be a knight replacement again.
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Its better to test them in the state they are in the game. Not some weird state that will likely not happen.
Post imperial with the respective civs that will give them their full upgrades. Example turks and cumans or tatars. Im not going to waste my time trying to determine how much the lack of bloodlines and upgrades affects your outcome because your outcome was not natural.
Not that the SL suddenly becomes a monster. But in future it gives more accurate results.
yeah, but there are numerous variables to test it. Group up, staggered formation, civ bonuses, both for SL and hussars and any other unit that I find interesting, cost effectiveness of gold vs trash. I’ve been using them in multiplayer against AI and they seem pretty good (mongols), but still, feels too expensive
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I know that, that’s why I said no one would fight lancers vs other armies when attack rate is that low.
Yeah they are completely usless except in killing vills!!! So if they are only like scouts or for raiding or light fight then they should be cheaper
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Why don’t we make them into real raider units? Weak stats, but they earn some gold whenever they kill a villager or a trade unit. They would give them a niche role that no other unit is covering.
I’m not too fond of how the gold bonus works for keshiks, I think it’s much better to get some fixed amount whenever say a villager is killed. This could make a careful executed raid beneficial to your eco too,
It’s OK to restore the stat before nerf but remain the current cost. The cost is just right imo. Their effectiveness increase drastically with the quantity.
For a raiding unit that useless in fight, their cost is very high 70 food and 45 gold is really high cost not cheap for a weak unit like steppe lancer!
Why pay gold for a raiding unit when you can just use light cavalry / hussars with no food cost? I think shifting the steppe lancer towards that just shifts the problem to overlap with the light cav line
My proposal is that they are knight replacements for the nomad factions. Remove the knight line for them and beef the steppe lancer up and make them more gold intensive. In comparison to the knight line I think you make them less HP, low attack rate but with very high attack, higher speed and the +1 range to make them more unique. The tactic should be to have them do a ton of initial damage but micro them back while their attack recharges similar to how lancers should ideally function with cycle charging
No, you can earn the gold you spent and more back if you ride properly. Light cav is just something you toss away.
That’s just going to wreck the balance without really achieving much, since the steppe lancer will need to cover exactly the same role as the knights you just removed. At that point it would just be faster to remove the steppe lancers from the game and use it as a skin for steppe civs knights.
You want steppe lancers to earn back their 45 gold by killing villagers / trade carts? How many villagers / trade carts will that need to be for each steppe lancer? Also there is a significant micro use you are not considering. Why would I care to build a lancer unit that has an upfront gold cost and requires micro vs. building a few stables for light cavalry and setting rally points that require no micro?
The question you need to ask from a game perspective is why would a player spend 45 gold for a raiding unit that requires micro vs. using a light cav unit that requires neither? If it is to potentially earn gold then how much gold / villager would that be? My guess is that unless that gold value / kill is very high it’s not worth the micro compared to throwing away no gold units
It would be a melee cavalry focused role but different tactics. That would be like saying why do Boyars exist given that they overlap heavily with knights. The steppe lancer is almost a unique unit given it’s only available to a few civs and this creates a role for them as knight replacements with somewhat more historically correct attributes
That being said - the steppe lancer as conceived right now is pretty mediocre and I don’t think it adds value. So if people want to remove it I don’t think it’s a massive loss
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I find steppe lancers fun to use. There are done situations where they feel strong - though I have no data to back that up. Eg recently when I was facing HC from a Turk fast-imp push. lightcav + SL wrecked. They also just feel good. I wish I had an excuse to use them more often.
In the aforementioned game I had to switch into Paladin when the Turk player switched into heavy camel.
Could SL receive bonus damage against eagles?
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THIS
DO THIS, DE
This is like the one problem that the Tatars really suffer against and this would make sense as an effective tool against it.
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Steppe are way better than light cav at raiding though. I would decrease their price and allow them to “loot” stuff.
Steppe lancers are an example of adding content for the sake of it imo. They have no role to fill at the moment and so far they have been a poor addition to the game. They look cool though.
We need to come up with some kind of role for them to fill. Perhaps some kind of “mercenary” unit which costs only gold and is trained very fast?
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step lancers are like useless units. way to expensive and dying so fast to any counter unit. even against archers.
even the super fast mass produced step lancers of kumans in DM can be countered so easy with halbs and some onagers combo. they are way way to expensive