Especially goth halbs who lack final armor upgrade.
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I doubt that Turks Feudal Age Skirms can kill Goth Champions effectively…
I think it’s bad that Lithuanians lost access to Supplies some patches ago, especially vs Goths that can be a very important upgrade.
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Elite Leitis with a few relics, plus elite skirms in the back, can deal with halbs better than more than half the civs in the game.
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Yeah exactly…
24 hits for turk skirm vs champ
18 hits for lith skirm vs champ
I think both are pretty bad and not an option… Especially when we factor abysmal ROF and minimum range…
At least vs halbs it’s like 8 hits…
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Honestly massed HC with a meat shield is probably gonna be the best you can do. Obviously the goths are good at their strategy, but the good news is the goth flood should never surprise you, if you’re playing against them you know exactly what they’ll be doing. So you have the whole game to prep your strat.
Leitis/Skirmisher or Knight/Skirmisher is the way to go. People saying to go champs are nuts, the only reason people go champs vs Goths is because their civ has full upgrades or some type of bonus- Lith champs have the exact same stats as Goth champs except Goth champs are discounted and produce at lightning speed.
Leitis are really powerful and deal with halbs better than any cav unit except cataphracts. Skirms soft counter halbs as well.
Going xbow or HCA doesn’t really make sense either vs Goths. Play to your civ’s strengths which for them are their bonused skirms and powerful leitis. Having faster moving skirms helps them to stay with your Leitis and have them fight together.
You can make some hand cannons but I don’t think they’re essential.
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They don’t get arbalests.
Lately I’ve been playing the Lithuanians a lot (e.g. Arabia, Arena, Four Lakes, Valley, Cenotes) and I have to say that the more I play them the more I have to agree that they really do lack something against massed Halberdiers.
They don’t get
- Arbalester (Castle Age Xbows are countered easily in Imperial Age)
- Plate Mail Armor (so they almost always lose Halb-vs-Halb-fights with equal numbers)
- Supplies (Champs won’t work efficiently and most likely are not even worth upgrading)
- Parthian Tactics (Heavy Cavalry Archers won’t perform very well)
- Heavy Scorpion (also no Siege Onager and Siege Engineers so Siege is no option)
They do get
- Hand Cannoneers (see discussion “Hand Cannoneers bad state confirmed”) but with no bonusses
- Fully upgraded Elite Skirmishers (even with Tower Shields - which doesn’t help vs Halbs though)
- Leitis (yes, they do perform better than other cavalry units against Halbs, especially with some relics behind BUT at the end of the day they still go down reasonably fast and it’s still 50 gold per Leitis vs 0 gold for a Halberdier and gold will run out eventually)
While they do have some options to hold for some time, they lack any GOOD option to counter mass Halberdiers and this is a problem because a Civilizations shouldn’t be able to be outplayed by trash.
Now I haven’t thought about any specific suggestions for changes that could be made, so here are just two quick thoughts that came to my mind immediately:
-
Add +1 melee armor to Tower Shields (so the Elite Skirmishers could hold a little longer and their Halberdiers could take equal fights against other fully upgraded Halberdiers)
- This just gives them a fair chance against massed Halbs without giving them any dangerously strong potential
OR
-
Some kind of a bonus for Hand Cannoneers
Maybe -20% food (since the Italians Hand Cannoneers are 20% cheaper overall and the Portuguese Hand Cannoneers cost -20% gold). This would fit well with the Leitis production behind. Not sure if saving 9 food per Hand Cannoneer is enough of a buff though- This could buff the Lithuanians a tiny bit without making them overpowered either. In the end Hand Cannoneers cost quite a lot of gold and a late-game-go-to-army-composition of Leitis/Hand Cannoneer is still very expensive and requires a lot of different upgrades)
OR
-
Give them one of the units/technologies listed at the beginning (“They don’t get…”)
(There might be some that could make them overpowered though, especially Arbalester wouldn’t be a good idea.)
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Hand Cannoneers don’t require any upgrades to reach them. They only really benefit from the archer armor techs which aren’t that pricey. Sure they don’t have Siege Onagers / Siege Engineers but they have regular Onagers which are perfectly fine against Halberds. Also Leitis trade almost cost efficiently in total resources against halberds though obviously not in terms of gold but they trade cost efficiently with Hussars even when using market price gold. So the Leitis completely counters two of the trash units with market price gold while providing better value against halberds than most cavalry except Cataphracts
Additionally, Lithuanians are over 50% win rate across all elos in games that are 40+ minutes so I don’t think there’s much evidence to suggest they are weak in the very late game
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Build skirms and archers then. You ant just build the same thing every game. Gotta adapt.
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As far as I know no one denied that HC do counter halbs. And they are still super good at it, just build some and go nuts. Furthermore, I would add that no one ever had problem with halbs when playing as Persian before DE, which had bracerless skirms with no bonus, AND nothing above longswordsmen. Hand cannoneers were enough.
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You’re absolutely right on that but still Hand Cannoneers feel underwhelming though. They are very pricey, have a long training time, are not able to hit-and-run and die super fast once your enemy has closed the distance. But there’s another threat with 345 posts on it to discuss what exactly they’re missing. Maybe buffing the Hand Cannoneer a bit overall would even be enough for the Lithuanians to help deal with the massed Halberdiers.
Yes - 50.14%, which is by far not outstanding. I’m not trying to argue that Lithuanians are a bad late-game-civilization overall. There is just this one counter that I feel they have a huge problem with. So this always depends on your enemy’s civilization as well.
Skirms are usually my first choice, yes. But no matter if you go Xbows, Skirm or Hand Cannoneer, the moment your enemy has a few Onagers (and maybe even some Hussars) you’re screwed. And if they’re protected by a mass of Halberdiers then the Leitis can’t do a lot either.
I didn’t deny this either, I just don’t think they’re good enough at what they’re supposed to do and could need a little something. And I think a lot of people are with me on that because there wouldn’t be such a discussion going on over there if I was alone with that thought.
Before DE Persians did have fully upgraded Halbs as well so they could go for even trades with a (most likely) superior economy behind.
And besides that they got Kamandaran which makes it even easier for them to deal with massed Halberdiers now.
Skirms are really fine against halbs in most scenarios. Just keep a critical mass of them. Their faster movement speed also helps here to not let them die against whatever counters them. Leitis and FU skirms with tower shields is a really deadly composition.
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Grinding down bajillions of halbs between each other isn’t really “countering” them. Plus the opposing civ either has better skirms or bonused halbs or even both. So Lithuanian aren’t really to complain about.
They really can be fine, I agree. But as I said, just a few Onagers may already cause huge trouble then. And if they have Siege Engineers or maybe even Siege Onagers then even the 10% faster movement speed is almost useless.
I said “go for even trades”. I don’t want them to counter enemy Halbs, just give them a fair battle.
But lets take a look at the civilizations that (at least partially) rely on Cavalry and what they can do against Halberdiers:
- Berbers - FU Champs (and Genitours)
- Bulgarians - Two-Handed Swordsmen with Bagains plus Heavy Scorpions and Siege Onagers with Siege Engineers (and maybe even the Konnik to some extend)
- Burmese - FU Barracks units with extra attack
- Cumans - FU Champs (no Supplies), Kipchak, Heavy Cavalry Archers with extra speed
- Franks - FU Champions, Throwing Axemen, Heavy Scorpions with Siege Engineers
- Huns - Cheap Heavy Cav Archers
- Indians - FU Hand Cannoneers with extra range
- Khmer - Supreme Heavy Scorpions
- Magyars - FU Heavy Cav Archers with extra range, FU Arbalester, Heavy Scorps with Siege Engineers
- Malians - Gbeto, Siege Onagers
- Mongols - Mangudai, faster firing Heavy Cav Archers, Heavy Scorpions and Siege Onagers with Siege Engineers plus extra speed
- Persians - Trashbows, Heavy Scorpions
- Slavs - FU Barracks units with trample damage, Heavy Scorpions and Siege Onagers with Siege Engineers
- Spanish - FU Champs, faster firing Hand Cannoneers, Conqs
- Tatars - FU Heavy Cav Archers, Heavy Scorps with Siege Engineers
- Teutons - FU Barracks units with extra melee armor, Heavy Scorps and Siege Onagers with Siege Engineers
And what do Lithuanians have? Nothing of the above.
They have Hand Cannons, which you listed above for Indians and Spanish. Hand cannons are anti-infantry specialists, and while they may need a buff generally, they’re still good at cleaning halbs.
Also, where people say they fail is when comparing to arbs, since lith dont have arbs that comparison doesnt matter. I’d rather have hand cannon countering infantry then Persian trashbows for example.
Also also (second edit) Lith has the best cav in the game arguably between relic booted Palidans, and armor ignoring Leitis. So I dont think anyone feels too bad for them that they are mildly inconvenienced by having to build HC when they see halbs.
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This is the only part I do not agree with.
Trashbows are way better than HCs, by virtues of costing no Gold, and higher rate of fire.
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So many bad answers here.
Lithuanians skirms are one of the best in the game. So Leitis + Skirms are great vs Goths. But always add some HC when playing vs Goths.
HC may be weak vs certain UU infantry units, but they melt halbs easily, are good vs Champs and are OK-ish vs Huskarls…
And Leitis deal with Huskals/Champs/Skirms of the Goths.
Consider adding Hussars if you don’t have enough gold for the Leitis.
Lithuanians champs are not worth imo.
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I guess it’s irrelevant since Persian trashbows and Lithuanian HC aren’t two options one player would have lol. But yeah I see where you’re coming from, with gold cost trash bows are the obvious choice.
Although with the same range and the HCs 17 attack vs. 8 attack, depending on how much gold you have I could see the persian player situationally still choosing HC. But yeah doesn’t matter in this conversation haha
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Skirms still exist. And anyway, all civs need weaknesses right?
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