I think the reason is their attack bonus vs building. You can protect your base with wall and building longer against knight and xbow. Xbow must need siege to destroy buildings. And knight can be slowed down by monk. Infantry while has higher dps against building, usually also comes with way greater number.
I have a slightly different perspective on solving the infantry problem. Look at how much an militia-line costs, 60 food 20 gold. In comparison, a knight costs 60 food 75 gold.
That is the same amount of food, which is a bit odd, since food is a much more expensive resource in the feudal/castle age.
Of course, with learning supplies that cost 75 food 75 gold, swordsman will cost 45 food 20 gold. But supplies pay off after 10 infantryman, that’s the problem. And also need to make upgrade in long sword for 150 food 65 gold. It’s also very important to make squires for 100 food. And of course 2 upgrades on armor in blacksmith, so that our infantry did not die from anything, the total cost 300 food 100 gold. Do you realize what the problem is? Whereas the knight doesn’t really need any upgrades. He’s mobile, with lots of health and armor, and good damage.
Drawing a conclusion from what I wrote above, going into infantry in the castle age is a very costly venture.
I will not write that the unit itself is weak, historically infantry should not be stronger than cavalry or archers, but it should be a lot.
Therefore, I think it is necessary to reduce the price of upgrades, and the price of the infantryman himself. For starters, reduce the price to 55 food 20 gold without supplies. I think it will promote the infantry meta quite well. If that’s not enough too, you could consider a cost of 50 food 20 gold. And I don’t think it will have much effect on the opening of militia/MAA in the feudal age. It saves literally 15 food, not much at all.
I realize that goths will probably become very strong, but right now they are considered pretty mediocre.
What do you think?
1 Like
- Supplies is a cheap & big tech that reduce the farm demand of swordsman.
(5 swordsman cover food cost 75.) - Swordsman has half HP of knights and can get 2 pierce armor same as knights with cheap gambeson.
- Swordsman can make in feudal and be mass.
- Knights with no armor is weak to archers and need stable techs.
So I think swordsman buff is enough. It’s time to make swordsman strategy.
I wonder if they could implement a hotkey which you have to hold down for all selected infantry to raise their shields. You can’t attack while shields are raised but the shield lasts maybe 10 to 15 arrows before breaking.
Can infantry garrison in rams faster and easier like able to garrison to rams from 2 tiles away?? Or directly buff longswordsman by auto-upgrade m@a to LS and have some window in early castle age.
This wouldn’t fix militia lines problems but it would be a great QoL buff to make rams less cumbersome to use with infantry. I personally use garrisoned rams often and the number of times I have to spam right click on the ram to get my infantry in is kind of ridiculous. It should only take one click to load up the boys standing next to it but usually you have to spam click many times.
2 Likes
And if I have 2 or more rams, I should only have to click one ram and the infantry should automatically garrison into all the rams when the first ram is full
1 Like
I think click and shift-click will be easier to program, like villagers build order that finish 100% first building before starting another one. Garrison to the first one until 100% full garrison slot and then the second one.
1 Like
You’re right in theory, but there are just a few problems that break them.
If you go mass MAA in feudal, every civ can go archers and hard counter them. Archers can both run from them AND chase them down, so MAA are guaranteed to die in this matchup. This means you enter Castle Age with no MAA built up, and also your enemy is likely already teched into archers, which counter them even harder in castle age.
Once you reach castle age, you need to research longswords AND you need to match the production of a knight civ. But you need twice the numbers they do; since Knights produce in 30 seconds, vs LS in 21, so to keep up with 2 stable production, you need three barracks, and given all the techs you need(squires, LS, gambesons, supplies) probably 4 barracks. Meanwhile, Knights start out powerful and stables can immediately be used for full production.
This once again shifts you into the weakness to archers, because they can build 2 archery ranges and beat your 4 barracks investment.
This is why i want to move some of the castle age techs to the feudal age, most notably squires. Having squires means MAA can at least run away from archers effectively, which means you reach Castle Age with some MAA still alive, which means you can get by with maybe 2 barracks instead of 4, which means you aren’t so hard countered by archers there either, and instantly, infantry play opens up over the entirety of the game.
1 Like
We don’t have to battle feudal archers and go longswordsman only. We can add other units. If LS get stronger stats, LS meta will destroy everything; the meta can’t be held even by archers, knights, and scorpions.
I’ve seen the tests demonstrating that with equal resources invested in units (with 1 gold = 1 food), knights can beat Longswords.
But suppose you’re right and the Longswords have a tiny edge.
Knights would still beat longswords, because knights can always have more resources present in the fight. Longswords need a lot of upgrades (which translates into less resources available for units) and they have less mobility (which translates into part of your army being on the wrong side of the map, ie not in the fight).
I’ve never seen straight Longswords smash it out agianst straight knights in a game and win. And if you go straight Longswords, your opponent probably won’t even tech switch into xbows or anything, he’ll just make more knights. And win.
Militia vs camels doesn’t matter, because it almost makes more sense to make pikes to counter camels, not Longswords.
And people won’t make camels when you’re making Longswords either.
1 Like
I’ve seen the tests demonstrating that with equal resources invested in units (with 1 gold = 1 food), knights can beat Longswords.
What were the numbers and start placement of the units?
I tested it myself in the editor, and it depends on numbers and placement of units. And there are a lot of scenarios were the Longswords win. Low numbers and open battlefield are good for Longswords.
I’ve never seen straight Longswords smash it out agianst straight knights in a game and win. And if you go straight Longswords, your opponent probably won’t even tech switch into xbows or anything, he’ll just make more knights. And win.
This depends on the opponent and the situation. You can not generalize this. Last time I won with Longswords for example:
Militia vs camels doesn’t matter, because it almost makes more sense to make pikes to counter camels, not Longswords.
It matters because if you are Huns or Franks for example, and the opponent has tons of Camels then you have Longswords as an alternative to cavalry. Its not so great to make Longswords as Huns, but its the best choice, because cavalry gets just countered.
And people won’t make camels when you’re making Longswords either.
Yes, but this can weaken Camels civs.
1 Like
Barracks’ techs (except upgrades) could cost wood instead of food.
Barracks itself could cost less, like 100 or 125 wood.
Militia-Line could cost more gold but less food.
Man at arms upgrade could be free for all civs. Like scout auto-upgrade. Bulgarians overlap is not problem because they still have ls ams ths for free
No Hun or Franks player is making militia line to counter camels. This might be a thing you see for low elo players but no intermediate or pro player is going to do this.
1 Like
Huns and Franks both have halberdier (so do most paladin civs btw), so why would you ever want to make longswords? this is completely independent of extra speed etc
Huns and Franks both have halberdier (so do most paladin civs btw), so why would you ever want to make longswords? this is completely independent of extra speed etc
Halberdiers are overall weaker than Champions. Camels are not strong enough to make Halberdiers necessary. Weak counter units are only good if there is an overwhelming enemy force that needs a specific counter. Paladins for example can make Halbs necessary, but Camels rather not, so I would just go for the overall better unit.
Huns don’t have Supplies, that is an argument for Halbs, but Franks have a very good Militia line. Franks are probably underrated as Infantry civ.
Lol no. No Frank or Hun player is ever making Champs to counter Camels. It’s dishonest to claim this is a valid strategy for Franks or Huns. We’re talking average players and above. Even if you cherry pick the one in 1000 games where this has happened it is still irrelevant to the discussion.
You have to understand - Champions technically beat Camels, but they do it slowly. If you want your Champions to protect your siege or even your Paladins from Camels, they’re not killing them fast enough to protect anything. Meanwhile, every Camel civ has strong Archers, Cavalry Archers, or Hand Cannons, all of which kill Champions much faster than Champions kill Camels.
Teching all the way up to Champions just to counter Camels is completely suicide. They respond with Archer, CA, or HC, and your Champions drop like flies. Meanwhile their Camels are still viable to field because Champions cannot quickly kill Camels. The Camels can still dive siege weapons or bully your Paladins because Champs kill them so slowly.
3 Likes
You don’t need to go all the way to champions to be effective against camels. Longswords, for example, trade very effectively against them. I once saw a game where Viper went for persian longswords against camels, and it worked pretty well. Two handed swordsmen also trade very effectively against heavy camels.
At that point, your investment is fairly small; far less than if they go all the way into arbs to counter you.
Swordsman can trade well against camel but not enough to deter camels. Knight+pikes is commonly seen against camel civs but not knight+LS. Swordsman can deter eagles not camels. Pikes can win camels with equal no but swordsman cant.
Lol no. No Frank or Hun player is ever making Champs to counter Camels. It’s dishonest to claim this is a valid strategy for Franks or Huns. We’re talking average players and above. Even if you cherry pick the one in 1000 games where this has happened it is still irrelevant to the discussion.
You have to understand - Champions technically beat Camels, but they do it slowly. If you want your Champions to protect your siege or even your Paladins from Camels, they’re not killing them fast enough to protect anything. Meanwhile, every Camel civ has strong Archers, Cavalry Archers, or Hand Cannons, all of which kill Champions much faster than Champions kill Camels.
Teching all the way up to Champions just to counter Camels is completely suicide. They respond with Archer, CA, or HC, and your Champions drop like flies. Meanwhile their Camels are still viable to field because Champions cannot quickly kill Camels. The Camels can still dive siege weapons or bully your Paladins because Champs kill them so slowly.
I don’t know, it feels like we are playing a different game. Playing Infantry results for me in elo-gain.
A lot depends on the player and the map, and I think exchange of ideas via the Internet leads to an alignd playstyle for many players that is somewhat unjustified. I don’t buy it. Overall the game is balanced, and you can do just different things.
Your expectations for Frank Infantry seem so low, that it must be easy to surpass them. They have fully upgraded Infantry + Infantry UU.