See, that’s your problem. I would call the improvements you described as a result of my suggestion (even though I think they are far more minimal than I believe they would actually be) quite good. I think that if you achieved that degree of change, plus slightly more, they would be in a perfectly good state.
The obsession with massive changes is exactly why none of your suggestions will ever actually get implemented. A simple, elegant suggestion leaves only two choices; to do it, or not to do it. If you suggest something complicated and convoluted, they are going to come up with something on their own, not take your suggestion.
Nonetheless, I will clarify. Assuming that my suggestion makes a small, yet notable difference, but not yet sufficient in order to make them viable, what would you suggest doing that would meet the following criteria;
A: buffs them enough at a high level to make them viable for tournament play.
B: makes no substantial difference in terms of balance to them at the average ELO.
Because, as Hera rightly points out, you cannot make wanton Buffs to Infantry without completely ruining the gameplay for the majority of players.
All of these suggestions would make them blatantly OP at the average skill level, while making relatively minimal difference at the highest levels of skill. You need the opposite of that. Suggestions that make the majority of the difference at the highest levels of skill, while making almost no difference at the average skill levels, where infantry are already quite powerful.
I though a weird idea.
Thinking in how militia could be the specialized unit in assault cities but in general bad in open field battles.
In addition to its bonus vs buildings, What if militia-line has the ability of take cover?
This mean that militia gain +2/+2 armor when stays next to buildings (lets say 2 tiles). Including own, allies and enemy buildings.
I know is a weird idea, but thinking on it, could be an interesting mechanic with some micro and tactical potential and the unit could become a really good option for push a base without being too OP in general.
Some considerations:
-Defensive buildings don’t count as a cover option.
-Could be a different behaviour between allies adn enemy buildings. For example, enemy buildings just give +1/+2 cover and allies +2/+2. This way, in an infantry vs infantry scenario, the defensive player have a litle advantage.
-Some techs could be added to reduce or extend the cover capacity of buildings.
It’s not a weird idea actually. It sounds a bit like the Age of Mythology “Destroyer”:
It’s a good unit with plenty of uses.
Another point, I’m not 100% sure why Knights should be cost-effective fighting against Longswords in prolonged battles. In Total War, calvary has a charge bonus, but doesn’t do very well fighting forever without micro. That would be another tactical niche for Longswords, being slightly cost-effective vs. Knights.
True that massive changes are not going to happen right away. But I’m saying those might be the minimum necessity to make these units good to use in earlier stages of the game given how its played today. The small incremental changes are not going to have enough impact for units like these. Small changes to battle elephants, or some unique infantry like Samurai or Jaguar in the past, presumed to be enough weren’t actually good enough for most situations.
I feel the same too. I think you didn’t read rest of my comment about the changes I posted. Most of it were related to modifying tight builds and feudal gameplay used at higher elos. Bringing changes centered around dark age builds, towers and map scouting is extremely geared towards pro games. I didn’t recommend much of changes to the stats of maa itself. Like I never said they should get 10 attack, 70 hp, 2 p.armor or something like that.
I’d say that changing the rest of the game to make a single unit viable is even more massive than giving them an absurdly massive statistical buff.
They aren’t going to completely rework what already works just fine to make a single unit better. Any changes need to be restricted to that specific unit.
In any case, if changing the rest of the game could make them more viable, we would expect them to be viable in certain Maps or situations, but they really aren’t. Because their main problem is the phenomenal weakness to archers in the feudal age, which is a universal constant.
So with that in mind, the new restrictions are, it must make them better at a high skill level, it can’t make them better at a low skill level, and it can’t change other units or Maps.
I mean the whole game already changed a lot during late WK and DE release. Originally there was no deer pushing, woodlines used to be 15-20 trees around a pond, bigger wood used to be miles away, gold used to spawn on the other side of the forest or like 15 tiles away.
I mean either the unit feasibility itself needs to change allowing prolonged production in standard settings. Or the map layout needs to change. Or competing units need to get harder to use. If none of these are changed, the unit will stay niche and the minor improvements will keep making it stronger and one-tricky pony in such niche situations.
Purely map layout related changes are specific to high skill levels though. It would make early scouting more beneficial, enable maa through effective tower follow-ups or forward feudal. These aren’t going to make maa any stronger than now at lower skill level.
No need to change its weakness to archers. +0.1 speed and +2 vs scout class (eagles/light cav) make swordsman work in feudal age. Light cav and eagles have same scout armor class.
I think we can even extend the damage done by m@a +watch towers by
(1) Longswordsman upgrade research instantly.
(2) Tower upgrade available in towers instead of university
These above should be enough for almost all civs to use swordsman more often
For infantry civs,
(1) Longswords+monks; A new barrack tech (replace arson after arson become free in castle age) allow militia to receive healing when nearby militia is being healed by monks. (Within 3 tiles distance)
(2) Longswords+scorpion; A new siege workshop tech allow militia to buff movement speed of nearby scorpions (7 tiles away, +0.2 speed)
I don’t think they are. Knights are generally 60f/75g (for a total of 135 res) while longswords (with supplies) are 45f/20g (for a total of 65 res) - which puts them at roughly half the price. And 2 longswords should win against a knight (assuming equal blacksmith techs). However, knights have enough mobility that they can choose to simply not take that fight in favor of doing damage elsewhere - and if knights have roughly equal numbers against the long swords (or a numbers advantage), they can choose to take that fight (which they would win). The advantage of mobility is that you can wait to take a fight.
Yes, two Longswords are stronger than 1 Knight, but in groups they still lose. I remember watching this video from SOTL:
At 5:10, there is a test where Knights win against Longswords at equal resources. Probably it’s because Knights are faster, while Longswords can lose a lot of HP walking around.
Sure; but those changes occurred for a wide variety of reasons, not simply to make one single unit type more viable. The Natural Evolution of a game across months or years is a completely different thing from a single balance change, especially when the vast majority of the game is functioning perfectly well.
The goal is to improve infantry specifically, not to impact anything else which is already pretty much perfectly balanced. Anything which steps Beyond those bounds has already failed, because you are creating more effort that will inevitably require additional rounds of tweaking and balance.
So anything you suggest along those lines is pretty much guaranteed to be rejected, and really isn’t even worth bothering talking about.
Like I say, any changes to infantry need to improve them specifically at high skill levels, make no difference or little difference at low skill levels, and change nothing else.
Which is, conveniently, what moving Squires to feudal age does.
I think those suggested changes are pretty bizarrely complicated. They would be better suited to Unique Technologies, not broad General Technologies.
The big problem with the suggestion of plus 0.1 speed and plus two damage for free is that it will make infantry much stronger at lower levels, not just higher levels. The nice thing about doing it via Squires is that Squire’s costs resources, which makes it a tactical decision that higher level players would be better suited to making. That shifts the relative balance point upwards substantially.
Bear in mind, the fight you are pointing out was before the armor buff he is analyzing. In practice, infantry can win consistently against Cavalry as long as you engage with adequate micro. For example, if you start with a split formation and then converge, getting the majority of your units fighting right away.
As far as melee is concerned, I think that swordsman are actually pretty dang well balanced. They can win with proper micro, that’s pretty much ideal. They are also extremely powerful against buildings, dealing basically double the damage per resources compared to cavalry.
The primary weaknesses, as I mentioned above, are the amount of time it takes to produce an equal amount of resources worth, and the inescapable weakness to archers in the feudal age. But if you could go into the castle age with an existing Mass, then you could make up for the slower production speed, and force the enemy to play much more conservatively for a substantial amount of time. If you force the Cavalry player to sacrifice the advantage he has from using cavalry, you are already winning the game.
And that is exactly what Squires would do. If your enemy has a moderate group of infantry behind his base, he can never really afford to attack your base with full strength, because long swordsman can break through buildings and walls so quickly and efficiently, if he leaves himself undefended, he could rapidly lose substantial amounts of his economy. But that requires being able to keep those infantry alive, which in turn requires being able to run away from archers.
It would depend significantly on how well the MAA Rush went. If you already did a substantial amount of damage, and you kept your MAA alive, then getting Squires could mean keeping them alive rather than losing them, and that means spending 100 resources to save 240.
The thing is, infantry are already quite well balanced against everything except for archers. They can trade evenly or better than evenly against pretty much any melee target. Extra damage won’t really change their dynamic, it will just make them more overpowered where they are already quite decent.
And that’s ok, Squires in Feudal would be good for Infantry play, that’s sure.
But the moment the game goes up to Castle Age, it become less sustainable than Knights and Xbows, because the amount of resources needed to build numbers (Barracks + Troops) simply does not allow you to add much eco, as you must stay with 1 TC when the opponent can train a competitive army AND add vills from 2-3 TCs. If the opponents stays with 1 TC, he can build an army that can destroy you. That’s the truth.
What is “natural”? Its not like Arabia automatically changed this way. Map scripts were modified and balance changes were done by the devs to probably make it easier for beginners but probably overdid it. Anyways such changes won’t be just to make militia line useful. You could bring back 2 range forward feudal, tower rushes, dark age militias plus forward vills for walling off opponent resources. Opens up more possibilities, supplies maa being one of them.
How are other things balanced? Markets are almost always used and the player who goes for it earlier has a much better chance of getting ahead than the one who delays it. Walls are crazy powerful as well, they were nerfed twice and yet they are built every single game. Once built it takes forever for feudal units to take down the walls. Towers were buffed twice since DE and yet they are rarely used offensively. You no longer see 5 militia drushes, pre-mill drushes are rare, very few players like Straydog go for forward range feudal. So its not just maa, many strategies are weak. People always go for scouts into light cav/kts or archers into xbow/ballistics a lot because those are much more easy to use and a safe option.
Yes, I know that has been the sentiment and also probably the reason why militia line kept getting better at lower elos but remain unusable at higher elos. If you don’t address the usability limitations, alternate balance changes are only going to keep making them more powerful in niche situations where they are usable. Like maps with fishing and scattered resources.
First, this might be a decent change in the right direction but its definitely not specific to higher skill levels. At lower elos players don’t kite and use ranged units as effectively as higher elos. Making militia line faster might just result in low elo players losing more archers to their opponent’s maa due to mis-micro. Second it might even end up having more impact in lower elo games where maa is played quite often.
There’s no reason to get squires for 3 maa. That 240 (+140) resources are gone once you’ve produced 3 militia and got the maa upgrade, afterwards its just about value. You get squires too soon, you either have huge idle tc or your range follow-up and f letching gets delayed which is much worse than losing more hp on those 3 maa. Late feudal its not worth getting squires just for the 3 maa, better to save that food and go castle age sooner. Feudal squires will have some impact if there’s a situation where you can get supplies and do more maa in feudal, eventually get longswords in castle age but not otherwise for 3 or 4 maa.
Sure - and I don’t expect infantry to ever dominate the game, except in niche cases with civs with potent bonuses.
But what you COULD see is Infantry used as an ASPECT of a strategy, similar to how siege or monks are usually used in tandem with other units. Imagine if you could get to Castle Age with two battering rams already at your opponent’s base? That’s a pretty potent attack, one they’ve gotta respond to.
Broadly speaking, infantry have relatively different counters, which allows you to control the flow of the game, IF you can keep them alive long enough.
That’s the goal, here.
Gradual, holistic changes made over time to bring civs into relative balance. Civs are in a better state of balance now than they’ve almost ever been, and there’s no real good reason to throw all that out for the hope that we can make one unit type better.
I’d say it is. Having a benefit offered at a cost is inherently a higher skill level bonus, because it requires a good game sense to know when to get it and when not to get it. Certainly a higher skill level bonus than just giving bonuses for free!
I’d say that actually makes Squires all the more valuable. After all, you’ve already invested 380 res into them, so spending another 100 saves that entire 380 res investment!
Well, value is relative to skill level. A big part of WHY they get little value at high elos is BECAUSE they have nowhere to go! If it goes even reasonably well at high elos, it’d be worth it; by contrast, at lower skill levels if it’s going REALLY well it could actually be a negative, as it means less damage in exchange for speed which may not be necessary!
You need to know when to get it, and that naturally shifts the balance higher.
The point is that Infantry, in order to be used, must rely on numbers.
To build numbers to be competitive or even useful, you need an amount of resources that does not allow you to make almost anything else.
Taking your example of “istant Castle Age siege” option, in order to work it needs:
LS upgrade
Arson
Blacksmith upgrades
Gambesons
Without this, you could not break in the enemy base. I would argue that, even with this, it could be hard since opponent could kill your army with archers/Xbow and repair. Maybe only Malians and Romans could do it due to armor bonus: that’s why, even after Gambesons introduction, players rely on Siege for this task as you would only need a Siege Workshop.
It’s not like speed would solve this: if you spent a larger amount of resources, you don’t only need to survive, you have to do damage to compensate, otherwise your opponent will be on advantage.
While you can get value from cavalry (because their mobility means actual damage to opponent eco since they can overtake villagers) and archery (due to range attack that bypass walls, easier to micro, and has no collision size limits), the same does not apply to Infantry, especially with the current pathing issues. The game is not worth the candle by now, and speed alone won’t change this.
