The Leitis crisis

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
1

The Leitis when released (if you remember) costed 50 food 80 gold (same as Boyars), and had 2 pierce armor in both forms. Since we already are on Boyars, Leitis are now what Boyars used to be melee combat specialist but worse.

The Leitis is the most changed unique unit in AoE2 and surely the devs are trying to bring it in use without making it OP. Compare that to Konniks which were OP when released but now are doing fine. Just a single nerf to the attack rate made the difference. The Bulgarians grew weaker but they were given a new bonus compensation (quite late though).

History of changes:

  1. Released - 50F 80G - 2 pierce armor: usually difficult to mass in Castle Age due to demands of stone and limitations of Castle. Inferior to Paladin due to -1p armor, +5G cost and -30 HP. The Elite Boyar was a very similar unit to the Elite Leitis back then.

  2. Cost change to 70F 50G - the higher food cost made slightly difficult to sustain in Castle Age, but unique unitd are themselves rare at that stage if they have nothing special (like Chu Ko Nus and Huskarls). Broken in 1vs1 Imperial Age since their slightly weaker stats were more than compensated by -33% cost on essential resource (gold) over the Paladin.

  3. -1p armor: the same argument still goes in Castle Age. But now they seem like a variation of Cataphract (2/1 armor) rather than a Boyar (which received +1p armor across the board making it an all round unit). In Imperial Age, the subpar pierce armor is actually hurting. They are still OP in melee combat especially against ETK. The standard pierce armor is 2 (Scout line).

The Leitis are famously known for their ability to ignore armor while attacking units. And their is nothing to take it away. It is great.

So let us discuss the changes necessary to make them balanced. What I mean by balanced is that in 35 to 65% cases, the Player selects Elite Leitis over Paladins.

In my opinion, it has to be an all round unit, with slightly better performance in melee combat. So the defensive stats of the units shall be:
Standard - 100 HP - 1 melee armor - 2 pierce armor
Elite - 130 or 140 HP - 2 melee armor - 2 pierce armor

That is an easy part because I have just reverted it to the previous non-underpowered stats.

The cost is going to be subjective. The devs changed the cost to make it more viable so I am gonna tweak the cost. The tweak is going to be in the same line by increasing the food and decreasing the gold cost, but as compared to the DE release day cost.

Cost as F/G-

  1. 60/70 - same as Konnik
  2. 65/65 - unique cost as of now. +5/+5 over Tarkans
  3. 70/60 - same as in now but +10G cost.

I am vouching for the 2nd option. If you compare 2nd and cost of Tarkans, you might think Leitis are doing more than Tarkans over same price. But is more about Lithuanians vs Huns which I shall not get into.

[[Another slight change which the devs might look into is -1 attack across the board. This actually doesn’t sound much but it actually changes the whole 2 relic formula. Most units in AoE2 have HP in multiples of 20, which means that an Elite Elitis with 2 relics is one of the best options to kill them. Yeah, so that now goes to 3 relics.

With this very optional change, Paladins and Elite Leitis both need 3 relics to 2 shot villagers. Of course the biggest winners are Siege weapons which usually have 0 melee armor, and Paladins + 2 relics > Elite Leitis +2 relics.

Another completely different idea is to do a major redesign this unit (which isn’t necessary) but looks appealing with the long weapon of the unit like the Steppe Lancer by giving it +1 range but taking away the armor ignoring effect. The armor be modified to 2/1 in Standard and 2/2 in Elite with -1 attack across the board.]]

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I think youre going in the wrong direction.

What I mean by balanced is that in 35 to 65% cases, the Player selects Elite Leitis over Paladins.

This is not possible without making them OP. Lith have imho the best pala in the game. Pala is one of the best units in the game. So you want to buff Elite Leitis to the point that they are better than one of the best units in the game? This will not work out. You can’t just make the leitis a “better paladin” as the paladin is already a good unit, and the lith pala even more so.

What could work is to balance the leitis in a way that makes them unique. Its not about Leitis versus paladin. Its about “is there any situation where building leitis is worth it?”. Currently, that situation is when facing civs with terrible ranged options. This is the niche the leitis can fill: A fast unit with strong attack, that dies to archers quickly but can inflict lots of dmg if he actually gets to his target.

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have been playing Leitis quite a few times. Feel like 1P armor is way too low as it is UU which aren’t easy to mass (unlike imperial camel old version). So they struggle against archers. The low gold cost do make them sustainable long term but weaker in early imperial than Paladin

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Isnt it obvious?
Leitis is designed as goto against cav civs, palading against archer civs.

As UU it’s hard to mass, so even against many cav civs you have no choice than going for the suboptimal knight line.

I don’t think it needs any change. The Leitis is actually still one of the best UUs - opposed to many other UUs it is a goto unit and not “situational”. it’s just not that easy to mass them as they are castle UUs.

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5

FFS are y’all paid to necro threads or what?

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Well we all have preferances. And everybody is free to decide which themes are important for him or less important and post his opinion to this.

But I don’t like if somebody tries to make an open forum his “Territory”.

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Then he could just open his own topic. And having “preferences” for the rules is like 100% normal 11

8

Just get back their 2nd Pa and they will be fine, they were not OP at all with their 2nd Pa but people always crying

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I agree Leitis are a great UU. No complaints. It is just that they have a strong competition at the Stable, which makes their use limited.

10

true, but how could it be different?

Knight line is the strongest line in the game, a UU which is just better would break the game completely.
I think the current design of the Leitis is a good solution right now. If we want to have more “goto” UUs we need a “tic-tac-toe” power unit triangle so every “designed high power UU” has still it’s power unit counter or at least equal.

But in the current gamedesign there is no room for high power cav UUs to carry the civ.

11

i think its better if leitis keep the 1 PA… remember they are EXTREMELY good vs melee units(i cant express how important this is) when you start stacking relics and you’re able to mass them… they need to be countered cost effectively by something, and thus the lower PA, a unit doesnt always have to be good vs everything… lith has amazing skirms and very good heavy cav (i mean they get the attack bonus as well) so they already have decent options for fighting ranged units…

to now make it so the leitis is better than a cavalier vs archers (for a fraction of the cost) sounds just like fanboism… aka you want the unit to be good at something just because you like the unit…

it already does an amazing job, it doesnt need to counter everything in existence… as a reminder since people are quick to forget… in the late game, when you have multiple castles and food isnt an issue… a leitis is 53% the cost of a paladin, beats it 1v1 WITHOUT ANY RELICS how the eff do you expect civs to fight the leitis if it doesnt have a weakness??

even when you dont have multiple castles, you can supplement your knight numbers with leitis to swing melee fights

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12

Exactly, unless the leitis cost is increased there’s no ground to buff their stats.

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yeah, leitis underrated rightnow. there is no reson to go them. extremly bad against archer civs also. give my old leitis back

14

Liths live and die by relics. If they get relics, knights are good enough. If they don’t, both knights and leitis suck. Leitis are pretty good in teamgames tho.

Now you compare them to Boyars but Leitis are superior in almost every way: Faster, much more damage, food heavy cost and can be boosted a lot with relics. Slavs do not have the luxury to go Paladin either. I would say to buff Boayrs, not leitis. Elite Boyar 130 → 140 health.

15

The Leitis is fine. It needs a weakness to archers to make it balanced. It’s good in melee, and that’s fine. Post IMP it beats a paladin 1v1, and is cheaper in terms of gold to make. You basically have a unit that’s a camel and is good vs other units.

Just don’t make so many Leitis if your foe is massing archers.

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they are not good on team games. because there is always a archer player on opponent team. better on 1v1. lithuanian players only using paladin which is more overall for team games

17

UH what? how is a unit that sucks vs archers good in a game mode where the half the opponents (minimum) are going to go archers?

so basically team games, against archer civs, against a lot of the infantry civs, or against cavalry archer civs.
which means the leitis is only good against say…celts, franks, teutons, bulgarians, and a few other civs.

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Even against siege, the Leitis lacks the HP, which the Paladin has better.

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19

If it has higher pierce armor, then it must cost more resources to make. You basically then have a unit that has no real weakness overall and is cost effective at the same time. I dunno, unless being made from a castle only is enough of a nerf.

Population efficiency wise. A single Leitis will beat an Arbalest in a 1v1 fight. Yes, a group of Arbalests could be deadly. But the Lithuanians have fairly good trash to help them with that.

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Leitis has been nerfed enough, NO more changes please.