Sicilians in 1v1 are quite different from Sicilians in team games though. In 1v1 the expensive nature of some upgrades can “hide” some disadvantages of the civ, plus the broken spawn mechanic does the rest.
In team games they’re not very good instead, they lack way too many upgrades to compete if the game reaches imperial age.
No gunpowder, no thumb ring, no last archer armor, no Paladins, no camels, no viable cavalry archers, mediocre arbs, no Hussars, weak walls, weak monks.
And their only military bonus (less bonus damage) is weaker since usually in team games you rely less on counter units and more on gold units.
This at least are my impressions.
Making Serjeants less food heavy could encourage their use, because after all at least they’re fully upgradeable, plus it could be a tool in a flank vs flank situation.
Obviously my main goal would be removing the crappy spawn mechanic as the #1 requirement, from this point came this thread, as a matter of fact, I’m not discussing anything else of the civ, just Serjeant and First Crusade interaction.
this is literally true of any civ in the game. even franks will stop cavalry production as gold runs lower. what bonus you going to give franks to help them when gold runs low?
and in the meantime they also beat the crap out of pretty much every cavalier in the game and being the most well rounded at the same time, with bonuses against literally everything. against cavalry they have extra melee armor. against pikes they have bonus reduction, against archers they have extra pa. against monks they have insane conversion resistance.
so i guess since this is the way you feel you’re going to provide buffs to every other civs cavaliers so they can be more functional in the late game too?
for an archer it’s going to be something like 1 extra point of damage an attack they take. the only impact this change really has is cavalry. which is what i said.
yeah, and pikes but go ahead and keep stretching the truth. it has a UU it can make in feudal age, and its pikes are more resilient to counters. that’s two bonuses on the Infantry front.
doesn’t matter. they get cheaper infantry, insanely cheap infantry. and like it or not, it conflicts with goths bonus.
and yet all 3 discounts are aimed at HIGH COST units and work in different ways. this is a discount that affects an already cheap unit as is. and by your logic we already have many discounts that affect infantry because we have.
Goths Discount.
Byzantines discount (Spear line).
Portuguese discount (as you mentioned gold reduction).
and Koreans who get -20% wood cost on spears.
so there is 4 already. no reason to add a 5th. and like it or not, you are going to receive pushback against changes that are similar to other civs, especially ones that are UNNECESARY.
but Franks Paladin by far stronger than Sicilians Cavalier. Its upgrades more expensive but Franks has better eco until late game. I also want to endgame usages for Franks Paladin by the way. It is very sad to me that not being able to use this great Paladin in endgame.
Why can not Sicilians have best Cavalier in the game and comparable to Paladin. Other civs’ Cavalier is intended as early Imperial unit but Sicilians gain Imperial Age Unique tech. Current Sicilian Cavalier is stronger than my proposed Cavalier btw. Do you complain about current Sicilian Cavalier. If you don’t oppose current Cavalier, you can’t oppose my Cavalier, too because it is weaker than before.
Not only archers also their skirmisher will be weak against other skirmishers. 50% to 33% absorbing is big nerf. It means that skirmisher will get 32% more damage from other skirmisher which is big change.
Yes, they got half bonus damage from archers and Hand Cannoneer but it is itself weak bonus. I buffed this bonus to 66% and give 25% food discount. Both change will make them one of the best infantry civilization.
Japanese, Malians, Burmese infantries is stronger than this 66% bonus damage absorbing, -25% food infantry. Only Halberdier is candidate of best Halberdier in the game probably but faster created Goth Halberdier should be still better than imagined Sicilian Halberdier.
Portuguese and Berbers discount very similar. Berbers bonus decrease food cost as well but they are so similar. I don’t care those kind of similarities by the way, because in big picture, Berbers and Portuguese is very different civ.
Tatars Cav Archer and Turks Cav Archer similarity also doesn’t bother me because in big picture, Tatars has very different playstyle than Turks. However, I am worried about Ethiopians and Britons similarity more. These 2 civ feel so identical. Their bonuses are different but they play with totally same units, arbalest + halberdier + siege (Britons: trebucket, Ethiopians: Bombard Cannon). Both Ethiopian Bombard Cannon and Britons Trebucket has blast radius, too. It is another similar thing. It feels Ethiopians is African version of Britons.
Ethiopian for instance should have Camels -25/-50% gold cost in Castle/Imperial Age and removing Halberdier from tech tree to differentiate from Britons. Now, Ethiopian and Britons gameplay is same. This is big problem from player perspective.
dude i got a hot news tip for you. Paladin isn’t even CLOSE to common in 1v1. most paladin civs will end at cavalier in most games. Franks and Burgundians will see more paladin usage then most, but even then its not common. your change gives Sicilians a Cavalier that will trade equal with Lithuanian or Teuton Cavaliers, assuming the lIthuanian player actually manages to get 4 relics. on top of that, their cavaliers will be conversion resistant, and much more arrow resistant, and much more pike resistant.
coupled with your Serjeant buffs you have a civ that has no clear weakness.
until castle age. that’s it. then Sicilians eco is better.
yeah well you’d have to radically change the game for Paladins to see more 1v1 use.
because Paladin isn’t common in 1v1. it’s that simple.
uh no, Cavalier is where the line draws the majority of the time in 1v1, Paladin is just too expensive.
against Pikes. against cavalry and infantry units that don’t have bonus damage vs cavalry? your cavalier is superior.
i have issues with sicilian cavalier as is. its too all around with no real downside.
not really. how many units actually do bonus damage against the archer class?
skirmishers. huskarls. genitour. that’s about it.
current sicilian archers take 5 bonus damage from elite huskarls. with your change they would take 6 or 7.
skirms? even elite skirm only does 2 bonus damage. with this change it becomes 1-2. so again. it’s only a change of 1-2 bonus damage against most units.
doesn’t matter. the fact is you said they had no infantry bonuses besides the serjeant. which is flat false.
all those civs don’t have the insane late game eco or the incredibly tanky serjeant. furthermore none of those civs have cavaliers nearly as strong as Sicilians.
I honestly think the Sicilians are great the way they are now, I wouldn’t change anything. But damn, the Cavaliers are OP. I’m surprised that it isn’t picked more often in TG.
I also like the Sarjeants, great unit!
The civ has a bad eco and TG doesnt tend to use counter units so your half bonus isnt that great. And those cavaliers just get killed hard by paladin or other better knight civs and arent better than paladins against archers either
Because their Cavalier became obsolete when Paladins, Battle elephanst or certain cavalry UUs (Boyar, Konnik, Leitis) are fielded on TG.
But in 1v1 damn they are soo broken
Everyone can miss little things like Sicilans Spear-line get less damage from archers (1.5 less from arbalests, 3 less from fu heavy cav archer, 5.5 less from HC) but this bonus is too small. Serjeant taking half damage is also very weak bonus. Cataphract and HC still beat Serjeants. Every careful player know Sicilians bonus damage absorbing applied for infantries as well but it is so weak bonus. I knew this information when I writing my comment but I didn’t add this because of same reason.
I think this is a big problem. Devs can nerf Paladin a little bit and can give cheaper and most importantly less training time upgrade like instead of current 1350 food 750 gold, 170 seconds upgrade time to 950 food 450 gold, 120 seconds upgrade time. In return Paladin hp can drop to 140 hp (FU upgraded 160 hp) and Franks cav hp buff can be adjusted as 15-20-25% in Feudal-Castle-Imperial Age.
I didn’t calculate Franks and Sicilians eco. I think Spirit of the Law will do this but I guess that Franks eco is better than Sicilians until mid Imperial Age. Also according to my estimation, 25% cheaper castle is stronger bonus than Sicilians 100% faster castle and TC building time.
Yes, I always want radical changes. Btw game is already radically changed thousands of times. In first AOE2 Kings 1.04 speed, 0 PA Woad Raider is described as archer counterer because at that time Devs thought that archer players wouldn’t use micro. Even Devs didn’t think how can be strong microing archers be. Then, they gave 1 PA to all infantries and speed buff to unique infantries etc.
This game need some changes unless it doesn’t need big changes. Buffing trash units in early game, infantry units in castle age, finding more usage area for Monks not only conversion+healing, nerfing late game raidings especially Hussar raidings, buffing defensive play. Now, couple of trebuckets covered by strong army destroy everything in the game for instance. Devs should support defensive gameplay in flexible way. Of course, I don’t support cockroach defense but Castle should be more resistant to trebucket for instance.
Imperial Age unique techs must be strong. Hauberk is unique tech. If Sicilians Cavalier become weaker than generic Paladin, it will be pointless Tech. Purpose of unique techs make units stronger or effective. Hauberk tech is kind of effective than Paladin upgrade thanks to cheapness and less upgrade time but it must be distinctively stronger than generic Paladin upgrade in any case. It is their design purpose. Teutons get +1/+2 melee armor for free and has Paladin. Teutons has better eco as well. Sicilians Cavalier is probably pair with Teutons, I don’t see any problem for that.
Main problem is not knowing basic Mathematic. +1 melee armor isn’t stronger than 50% absorbing to 33% nerf. I proved that with numbers, 33% nerf is very strong. It decrease all incoming damage absorbing 33.3% (1/3) than current Sicilians bonus. Current castle age skirmisher kill Siclians Sikrmisher in 18 hits in. My proposed Skirmisher die in 14 hits (it die 28% faster than current Skirmisher by other skirmisher. 33% more damage means -25% hp for instance like 75/90 hp Knight. Of course, this nerf is applied against units that have bonus damage. I am only showing that impact and magnitude of my nerf.) by other generic castle age skirmishers. It is only situationally strong against low melee units. Generic Champion still beat my Sicilian Cavalier cost efficiently. Generic Champion kill +2/+2 Sicilians Cavalier 140/10= 14 hits. Sicilians Cavalier kill in 70/12 = 5.8333 ~= 6 hits, 14* (2.0/1.8)/6 = 2.59. Generic Paladin is far better against Champion-line comparing to Sicilians Cavalier. 15 * (2.0/1.9)/5 = 3.16 which huge advantage for Generic Paladin.
Btw no one know Sicilians’ weakness in late game. Sicilians has clear weakness which is lacking trash archer counterer. Cavalier counter archers but 75 gold is too expensive in very late game. When enemy archer player has enough gold and Sicilians has scarce gold resources, Sicilians become death instantly because Sicilians Skirmisher lack last armor upgrade which mean that they can’t counter archers properly. For instance, Ethiopians with enough gold would destroy Sicilians harshly in late game.
Why people compare the serjant with FU champion and other UU infantry with just mutual combat strength? Serjant have 7/8 armor, which means they are extremely good against trash unit, tanky against archer. They aren’t really designed to good at fight vs other infantries like Berserkers/ Samurai/ Jaguar.
I think they need to trade cost inefficiently with FU champion, otherwise they are broken in some matchups. Sicilians Cavaliers are already somewhat problematic and I think Hauberk UT need cost increase to delay their timing. Sicilians are already good civ that pros frequently picked at RBW and don’t need additional buff.
First of all, my proposed buff to the Serjeant was partly to increase its viability, but most important to ELIMINATE FIRST CRUSADE SPAWN which I find really unfit for this game. So it was not a simply stat buff because, whatever.
Then of course the main goal of Serjeants is not to fight champions, but as you could clearly see from RBW V, nobody trained Serjeants to fight archers and pikes/other trash. Guess what they made instead? Yes, knights and skirms, big surprise eh? Sicilians have good skirms up to Castle age (and good even in imperial age only in a skirm vs skirm scenario), and for lategame where gold is scarce, 35G for each unit is way too expensive (TheViper used First Crusade to pay them less, but he was already winning at that point). This is for 1v1.
Then there is the “other” problem. You see, Sicilians are good in 1v1, they have a lot of tools, but in team games, all their units are lackluster, they have good cavaliers, but miss paladins, good light cav, but miss hussar, viable arbalesters, but miss TR and last archer armor, and so on (no camels, no gunpowder, weak walls, etc). They’re left with FU champs, halbs and Serjeants. Now obviously giving them the missing units would be too big of a change, that’s why I would make Serjeants more viable since the start, reducing at least the food cost and the elite upgrade cost which is insane (1900 res).
Serjeants now seems fine because obviously if you spawn them via First Crusade you’re paying them 8f 17g, no wonder they seem very good for the price. 
Even if you spawn 35 then train more 65 (100 in total), you’re effectively paying them 42f 28g, it’s almost the same as the militia line. This is a very cheap way to circumvent the high price of the unit. And a very bad one.
Change hauberk from 1/2 down to 1/1
Decrease Serjeant cost from 60/35 to 50/30
Change 1st crusade to only spawn from 3 TCs for a total of 21 Serjeants. But it also reduces TT of serjeants at Donjons from 20s down to 12s(same as castle tt)
Because people don’t know strength of Serjeant and they use them solely as head-to-head fighter. Serjeant is tanky unit. Serjeant is great meat shield with range behind (I think Sicilians Arbalest should have thumb ring to strengthen serjeant+arbalest play). It is good unit but using in Castle Age isn’t viable because of high 60 food cost and Sicilians Knight’s in Castle Age being strongest unit in the game. Therefore, I propose to give infantries cost -10%/-15%/-20%/-25% food to Sicilians.
Some guys proposed to decrease 35 gold cost to 25 gold but it is simply bad idea. 25 gold infantries in the game has 1 PA only (Woad Raider and Berserk). Woad Raider and Berserk is faster and more damage as well but +3 PA is stronger than extra speed and damage of Woad Raider and Berserk. Also with 25 gold, why I create Champion over Serjeant in any situation. Serjeant is already preferred over Sicilians Champion. In order to make them both viable, I proposed to give Sicilians 10%/15%/20%/25 food discount for all infantries.
In last match of Viper vs Jordan, Jordan simply threw the game. He didn’t make 2 archer armor upgrades and have his arbalests killed by Viper Skirmishers a lot. If Jordan would have 2 armor upgrades, he would win that game. I think he didn’t want to tire Viper’s wrist more. He knew that Viper outplayed him and he would lose in other match. He wanted that Viper should play with max strength in Final Match against Liereyy.
https://youtu.be/5XDrgmy9JdM?t=7979 In this moment, Jordan could take the game in 4 minutes but he didn’t do because he doesn’t want to stall Viper and tire his wrist.
Imagine honestly believing people don’t think of using a unit with all sorts of tanky stats as a meatshield. Sorry bro but you need to stop thinking like this. People are way ahead of you on that front. The most common use I see for them is as a meatshield/grinding an opponent out.
Serjeant being not used isn’t true. In contrast, Serjeant is rare infantry unit that widely used in late game. Huskarl (unfortunately, Goths Civ is only usable in noob games), Woad Raider, Berserk, Throwing Axeman, Gbeto, new Obuch is only viable infantry unit in late game other than Serjeant which make Serjeant now second best infantry unit in the game. Only Obuch is better than Serjeant. Berserk is too expensive to upgrade and Vikings power crash into the ground in mid Imperial Age, therefore I can’t say it is better than Serjeant.
In conclusion, Serjeant is well designed unit. Its cost is high though but decreasing food cost instead of gold is true way to buff them.
I support you explaining your point but unfortunately, you don’t understand game philosophy. I never said that Serjeant don’t need buff. I said 55 food 25 gold Serjeant will be unstoppable against most of the civs. It is very simple. Serjeant can’t be 25 gold unit. It can be minimum 30 gold.
Heavy Cavalry doesn’t work against 25 gold Serjeant in very late game because Heavy Cavalries need high gold cost and Sicilians can easily add Halberdiers. Archers are too expensive and don’t counter Serjeant properly. Serjeant tank 43 Arbalest shots which is more than generic Cavalier which is 35 shots. Legendary Franks Paladin tank 64 shots for instance. Only Berserk and Obuch can barely stop Serjeant. Other than that, all civs would die 55 food 25 gold Serjeants if game goes to late game. Therefore, I proposed decreasing food cost instead of gold. You are talking like I said Serjeant need no buff. I didn’t say that. I said it need buff in different way. I hoped you understand my point now.
I agree searjant is well designed. My post has nothing to do with that. I was pointing out that your post is bull. Do you really think that people wouldn’t realize a unit is a good tanky meat shield? Seriously? People use units like hussars as meat shields for cav archers. Why wouldn’t people take judt 1 glance at the serjeant and say “hey this would be good support for arbs”. Oh wait. They did and do
Oh? I don’t understand game philosophy ? That’s rich coming from you.
I understand the game fine Mr “no one uses the serjeant as a tanky meat shield and cav archers with +2 range wouldn’t be that good against melee units”.
I understand your point fine. I just disagree with you and your let’s give the Goths treatment to sicilians. Furthermore I disagree with your sentiment that no one uses the serjeant as a tanky support unit and is using it wrong.
You’re claim that I don’t understand game philosophy is at best hilarious when you’re making claims that no one understands the serjeants role
Most of the player use Serjeant as head-to-head fighter. A lot of guys complained about Serjeant can’t beat other infantries cost efficiently. They don’t know that Serjeant’s only weakness in post Imperial age is it can’t beat other infantries cost efficiently. They wouldn’t say this as a argument (Serjeant can’t beat other infantries), if they knew Serjean’ts late game power. You think general fanbase is much more clever.
I didn’t say that no one use Serjeant as meatshield. I said that using Serjeant as a meatshield is very good and make Serjeant is usable. I didn’t say “Hey guys, I found very good tactic, no one know this tactic, it is only me”. They think probably it isn’t that good and they are right somehow because Sicilians arbalest lack thumb ring. Therefore, I proposed giving thumb ring to Sicilians.
Stop basing stuff on the low elo comments and go look at how rhey are used at higher levels.
Yes. You did. Right here.
You literally state that people don’t know to use it as a meat shield. Which is false.
For over half the playerbase this is like saying water is wet.
I know fanbase know Serjeant being used as meatshield because Viper used them as a meatshield. 90% of fanbase only watch pro games and they imitate like monkey (fanbase) imitating human (Viper) behaviour. If Viper even says arbalest counter Huskarl, they would blindly believe this completely false statement. You overestimate public opinion.
I am satisfied with Serjeant meathshield role but lacking thumb ring hinder this satisfying role. Therefore, I proposed giving thumb ring to arbalest. Anyway, I declared my proposals and I am leaving. Have a good conversations.
I’ve also stated my proposals, at this point it’s all in the hands of devs or whoever is in charge of balance changes.
But please remind this when you consider the training cost of Serjeants.
RIGHT NOW, when you field 100 Serjeants (35 spawned via First Crusade) you’re effectively paying them 42F 28G each.
When you field 200 of them, you’re paying 51F 32G each, 200 is a very high number, but even in that case you would still spare 1800F 625G over regular training, this is not a small amount of resources, the First Crusade discount is very, very powerful.
I don’t think a buff that brought their cost down to 50F 30G, and at the same time took away the First Crusade spawn could be called a straight buff, in effect, until you train almost 200 Serjeants, this would be a nerf, the only different aspect would be that you wouldn’t need a castle, and 5 TCs, to get that discount.
I think First Crusade name change to Crusade. It should spawns 5*5 = 25 25% faster Serjeant with 250 food 1250 gold (10 food 50 gold each). Tech should unlock after every 12 minutes, you use upgrade like real world crusade.