I think the following picture will describe my question better than my words.
You can totally disagree on my opinion on “Current Counter System”. For example, you can believe Knight totally stomps Militia Line or vice versa.
My question is how do you want to fill those blanks in the above picture? (If you want to change “Militia Line” on the first place.)
Longswordsman have faster timing than xbow. The upgrade cost and research time can be half of those of xbow-line.
Scorpions and onagers may be split? Scorpions are better than mangonels to counter CA in Castle age.
I think Trash units should not be removed from this grid.
Atm they counter Spearman and Skirmisher but are not really cost effective against Hussars, especially when Gold runs low.
I think wanting to change that dynamic would make sense
Many people want the Milita Line to be better against the Scout Line for example.
Camels and Hand Cannons are only available to half of the civs so they could be part of the consideration too. Cavalry Archer are effectively similarly rare then those units.
Trash grid will be quite clear tho, same for camels and HC.
I wanted to include them initially. But the picture was getting too big.
Right. But in the end, it won’t make too much difference from Knight line vs Militia line dynamics.
Again, this time it is reversed. I wanted to skip CA but decided to add because of the current meta.
Maybe this comment is out of the topic, I think militia-line is like Kin(金) on Shogi(将棋). They are good at defending your base (with fast training and with other counter unit) and finishing the game (with breaking enemy base). I think the counter relation is ok now and want 15 or 25 wood cheaper barrack (except 1st one).
As said someone before, I think trash units should be added. Even, I’d include standard buildings and stone defenses as two differents classes.
I personally think that the Milita Line (or Infantry in general) should have a bonus damage against the Scout Line. Just simply by giving it the Eagle Warrior Armour class.
I get that. I guess it’s always debatable how big this grid should be.
But I also don’t agree on the counters on the current grid.
Crossbow with micro are not that much better against Long Swordsman then they are against Knights.
The problem with the Milita Line is that no generic unit in the game besides the Hand Cannon actually really counters them and the Hand Cannon is only available in Late Imperial to half of the civilisations.
Especially against opponents with bad micro the Milita Line is pretty strong.
If the Milita Line is just generally buffed without a new counter then it might become kinda viable on high level but it would dominate low ELO.
I think the Militia-line should move past the whole “anti-trash” thing as this is very niche and there are many civs that are built around using them as their main unit instead of cavalry. They should be strong enough that at least for these civs they can actually rival cavalry but at the cost of being slower. If they were stronger they might also fight more on par with Hussars and actually become anti-trash as well.
This should however come with the change that not all civs can get Champion just like not everyone gets Paladin. Champion should be strong but limited to fewer civs, especially since its upgrade is fairly expensive.
Well… Militia as a knight’s support unit vs spears work well… they share same attack upgrades. The problem, as always, is the food cost and the MAA and LS upgrades that make you falling behind in eco…
Militia line is a bit of a generalist. They’re good against Eagle Warriors and handle trash units perfectly fine, but are meh at best against other gold units (excluding eagles). The militia line also doesn’t take a lot of gold. Militia-line would trade somewhat well against knights, except the knights can choose when to take the fight (giving the knights a way to flip the matchup once they have sufficient numbers). The militia line also does okay against buildings (due to bonus damage and arson) and synergizes well with battering rams (though not as well as spear-line does). The other advantage of militia is that dedicated infantry counters are somewhat rare (you have hand cannons, slingers, and jaguar warriors, all of which cost gold)
So the end result (imo) is that the militia line is somewhat strong, but doesn’t excel. And they take a lot of investment to really get going (as they are very dependent on their techs: knights are strong out of the gate, but militia-line is really weak without their upgrades). Once they have been invested into, they are quite dangerous. But the investment required makes using them a bit of an all-in strategy (at least until the late-game). The exception to this is against Eagle warriors from the meso civs (where the militia-line is a general counter unit, similar to pikes against knights).
| CB | KT | CA | Siege | Spears | Skirms | Lightcav | Camel | Buildings | Stone Defenses |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| - | 0 | - - | + | ++ | ++ | ++ | + | ++ | 0 |
I would prefer xbow instead of longswordsman behind to support knight currently. I propose longswordsman to support xbow and knight better.
For years, I’m thinking about expanding “Eagle” armor class. But not to light cav. Instead “Regional Unit”. I’m just trying to fix both Militia Line and BE in one change.
They need to counter pike skirm and destroy building better, especially in feudal age.
I really hope devs can increase their attack bonus against building, and maybe even more bonus against foundation as well.
I don’t think that is a good design since regional units are very different units.
Having one unique units counter other unique units is fine since it’s only one civilisation that has that feature.
But if every unit has a anti regional unit unit it really devalues all regional unit. It also makes very little logical sense.
I would rather expand the Eagle Warrior armour class to units that are somewhat similar to Eagle Warriors and currently don’t really have counters.
Units like Huskarls or Ghulams are mostly just countered by being not cost efficient vs. Cavalry and Infantry but if they have a critical mass you can’t do much unless you play as one of the civs hat has one of the few dedicated counters like jaguar Warriors.
The Scout Line is also very strong compared to the other 2 trash units.
Spearman take bonus damage from almost every ranged unit.
Skirmishers do almost no damage vs. Infantry and Cavalry (besides Spearman).
But Hussars are only countered by Spearman, a unit that they can easily outrun.
They only cost food unlike the other trash units that cost Wood too.
They are also the only trash unit with a fast attack speed.
Giving the Scout Line Eagle Warrior armour class would make them not that much weaker since they are already weak against Spearman but it would make the Milita Line more flexible and more viable instead of Spearman in more situations.
But I also think Milita should be a bit better against Knights and cheaper to tech into in general.
But making them better against Archers would probably ruin balance, especially in Low ELO.
My modest proposal:
I am fine with the current counter table of gold units, and only need LongSwords/Champions to be a winning move after denying gold from my opponent. For that I need 20 LS to beat 5 crossbows and champions to beat hussars more convincingly (currently in mass battles: LS vs LC: 9 hits=18s vs 10hits=20s / champions vs hussars: 7hits=14s vs 10hits=19s).
I am aware that this implies LS still wont be a teamgame unit (unless we get a “no trade” setting).
