What "Clear" role you want to give "Militia Line"?

[fleuret]

Then let’s show a infantry dream. It may be a hint to use them.

Infantry Fans Will Love This Game!

I also practice a tactic that is making farms, defending with siege monk, and go longswords. Their powerspike today is in later castle age (not early).

[Martinurello]

Great game, but still proves the actual drawback about playing militia-line… You only can win if you play all-in and have the surprise factor by your side. This never happen with others power units.

[DemiserofD]

@SMUM15236

I see your point. But it is impractical to spend 100f in Feudal. That’s why I want a new Feudal tech at 25 food, 45 gold that will increase the speed of MAA only.

I mean, Bloodlines costs way more than that. In fact, Bloodlines costs as much as Squires and Supplies combined.

And yeah, archers will still counter them, but do we really want that not to be the case?

[KHANATTILA]

@SMUM15236

I see your point. But it is impractical to spend 100f in Feudal. That’s why I want a new Feudal tech at 25 food, 45 gold that will increase the speed of MAA only.

But why not simply reduce the cost of Squires in Feudal Age? I don’t see the problem.

For the Lithuanians civ bonus? Here fixed:
→ Spearman line and Skirmishers move 10% faster from the Castle Age.

[SMUM15236]

@Skadidesu

I think the Milita Line (and similar UUs) should have their own armour class too. Something like “Heavy Infantry”. So there can be units (or technologies for existing units) that counter those Infantry unit without countering other Infantry units

I really like Warrior Priest design.

@Skadidesu

Warrior Priest

I thought they are an experimental unit to see how an infantry performs in general/multipurpose situation but also have a pure trash counter unit.

[AbuzzJam4677680]

Or make militia-line an effective counter to all siege, especially halbs+siege. And LS can be cheaper alternative support for xbow player, compared to knight as support. Almost all civs have either arbalest/HC/CA to deal with infantry. Civs can counter militia-line properly without scorpions or onagers. Celts and Bulgarians are exceptions but their own militia-line are stronger than generic one.

Currently scorpions become effective counter against xbow and CA while mangonel remain strong counter against xbow and scorpions.

[SMUM15236]

@Martinurello

As a experiment, this fewture could be applied to forests as a civ bonus.

I won’t mind it. Kinda similar to Bishop from Chinese chess. So maybe a new Chinese civ in the future.

@Skadidesu

All Upgrades are halved in cost and research time

That’s broken.

@Skadidesu

Two Handed Swordsman

• +10 HP
• +1 Attack (Same attack as Champion)
• -5 second training time

Very broken with your halfed cost techs.

@Skadidesu

Arson

• Removed
• All Castle and Imperial Age Infantry units get +2 attack vs. Buildings

I second that.

@Skadidesu

Scout Line

• Scout Line gets Eagle Warrior Armour class
• Now they are hard countered by the Milita Like
• Winged Hussars and Magyar Hussars get the armour class too but with some resistance

New Milita Line counters

Axeman Unit

New Castle Age Barracks unit.

Since you are making Militia line so good in general, maybe keep LC line as a trash counter instead of adding a new unit.

@Skadidesu

Which units are Heavy Infantry

All Infantry with a base movement speed of less then 1.0:
Teutonic Knight, Warrior Priest, Dismounted Konnik, Serjeant, Flemish Milita, Obuch and of course the Milita Line including the Legionary.

Huskarl and Ghulam is heavily armored btw.

[Skadidesu]

@SMUM15236

That’s broken.

The Long Swordsman is comparable with a Knight, but the Knight has 0 upgrade cost.
The Champion is only really comparable with the Cavalier, not the Paladin but required 2 upgrades from the Long Swordsman.

Also a civ with free Milita Line upgrades exist (Bulgarians) and they don’t even use them that much (and they have more bonuses for them on top).

@SMUM15236

Very broken with your halfed cost techs.

The Cavalier is a strong unit, especially fully upgraded. So why should the Two Handed Swordsman not allowed to be strong?

When the Milita Line gets buffed to the point that it’s actually useable without strong civ bonuses then some upgrades have to be removed from many civilisations techtrees to make up for that.

@SMUM15236

Since you are making Militia line so good in general, maybe keep LC line as a trash counter instead of adding a new unit.

You mean Light Cavalry as a Milita Line counter?
I thought about that but there are 2 issues:

1. Light Cavalry is already good.
2. It makes little sense for Light Cavalry to counter Heavy Infantry.

@SMUM15236

Huskarl and Ghulam is heavily armored btw.

Light Cavalry has the same amount of Pierce Armour as a Knight but it’s clearly a lighter unit. Eagle Warriors are also clearly a light unit despite having good Pierce Armour.
Pierce armour is not really that logical in the game tbh.

Generally the idea was to exclude every infantry that clearly has a different role.

[Martinurello]

@SMUM15236

Since you are making Militia line so good in general, maybe keep LC line as a trash counter instead of adding a new unit.

Make the counter faster than the unit will make them totally useless in 1v1 and rely only to the surprise factor.

[SMUM15236]

The problem of trying to turn all swordsman like infantry into anti-cav is it won’t work. We already have spearman line which is half the cost, have 2x higher DPS as well as moves faster.

I understand that Serjeant (and Obuch) are great unit. But it is not just their multi-purpose ability that made them good. Berserk is also a nice unit against both archers and cavalry. But you won’t see them much because they are restricted by castle. Remove Donjon from Sicilians and see how good Serjeant is. I bet you will see them just as much you see War Elephant. And Sicilians will be yet another Knight spam civ.

[bigbossbro08]

@SMUM15236

The problem of trying to turn all swordsman like infantry into anti-cav is it won’t work. We already have spearman line which is half the cost, have 2x higher DPS as well as moves faster.

Spear + Siege is possible, Archer + Siege and Knight + Siege. But can you even say the same with Swordsman? I just dont even know what unit Swordsman should be mixed with and has tons of upgrades which feels over investment with no real return.
Not a pure rather some soft bonus like Eagle can still be very very helpful. Even though Eagles doesnt win the fight, you can still feel comfortable using vs Knights/Hussars. Issue is the army composition where Swordsman doesnt belong to any composition unless you vs against only 3 Meso civs or some gimmick spam like Goths. (In 2025, I dont think Goths current design shouldnt exist but devs kept it for nostalgia purposes. Historically they were Cavs + Infantry civ not Infantry spam. Ensemble made it stereotypical approach where they tried to portray it as invading Barbaric Hordes against Romans.)

@SMUM15236

I understand that Serjeant (and Obuch) are great unit. But it is not just their multi-purpose ability that made them good. Berserk is also a nice unit against both archers and cavalry. But you won’t see them much because they are restricted by castle. Remove Donjon from Sicilians and see how good Serjeant is. I bet you will see them just as much you see War Elephant. And Sicilians will be yet another Knight spam civ.

Im not sure how much I can agree and even hard to tell otherwise. Hindustanis’ Ghulam is quite widely used against mass Archers as well. I still think utility does indeed plays a factor. Serjants even in mix feels like they survive the fight atleast but hard to tell the same with Militia-line.

[SMUM15236]

From reddit comment.

ML has only 1. It is cheap. Personally I used to prefer toughness (HP+armor) like Serjeant and Obuch but now leaning more towards speed.

@AbuzzJam4677680

I prefer to have synergy units before any counter units.

Fair.

@AbuzzJam4677680

Knights, being the most viable castle age units, seem to get the most synergy units, like xbow, skirm, scorpions and even with its own counter units pikes and monks. Almost units from all military buildings synergize with knight.

Also mangonel.
Back in 2023 when RoR was released, I thought of some ideas to make scorpion the synergy unit. The Romans civ design gave me some ideas.

[Pulikesi25]

Decent idea if its followed by nerfed stats to the archer line and appropriate nerfs to eagles, light cav, knights and thereby CA, camels. 20 wood 30 gold archers but just 20 hp, 3 attack and 3 range. Crossbow moves it to 25, 4 attack and range and Arbalester moves it 30, 5 attack and range.

@DemiserofD

• Allow milita line to build light fortifications, including outposts and palisade walls(and, potentially, towers). This will greatly help in the early and middle game, as you’ll be better able to assert map control. However, they should probably build slower than villagers; maybe at half speed?
• Allow militia line to repair siege and ships. This is something that everyone probably SHOULD be doing(especially ships), but nobody wants to pull villagers off their economy to actually do it! Allowing players to do it with military would make this much easier to justify.
• Allow militia to fire arrows while garrisoned by default. At present, this is exclusive to the Teutons’ Crenelations upgrade, but it’s a tiny portion of that tech; allowing ALL militia to garrison in towers and fire arrows would make them synergize dramatically better with towers and improve them significantly overall

These are some fantastic ideas. Will need some rework to Sicilians and Teutons but quite solid ideas otherwise. I like this idea better than the nerf to alternate units.

[SMUM15236]

@Skadidesu

It’s there to make the techology more affordable and punish players less for training Milita before researching supplies.

Just remove the tech and reduce the base cost of the unit by 10 food. Or remove Gambeson as well and give it for free. Saving 23 units equivalent resource is more than worthy.

[FearfulSugar350]

@Pulikesi25

Decent idea if its followed by nerfed stats to the archer line and appropriate nerfs to eagles, light cav, knights and thereby CA, camels. 20 wood 30 gold archers but just 20 hp, 3 attack and 3 range. Crossbow moves it to 25, 4 attack and range and Arbalester moves it 30, 5 attack and range.

@DemiserofD

• Allow milita line to build light fortifications, including outposts and palisade walls(and, potentially, towers). This will greatly help in the early and middle game, as you’ll be better able to assert map control. However, they should probably build slower than villagers; maybe at half speed?
• Allow militia line to repair siege and ships. This is something that everyone probably SHOULD be doing(especially ships), but nobody wants to pull villagers off their economy to actually do it! Allowing players to do it with military would make this much easier to justify.
• Allow militia to fire arrows while garrisoned by default. At present, this is exclusive to the Teutons’ Crenelations upgrade, but it’s a tiny portion of that tech; allowing ALL militia to garrison in towers and fire arrows would make them synergize dramatically better with towers and improve them significantly overall

These are some fantastic ideas. Will need some rework to Sicilians and Teutons but quite solid ideas otherwise. I like this idea better than the nerf to alternate units.

I don’t think archer line needs anymore nerf, they already kinda disappear from the meta because of CA and scorpion. If you want to specifically nerf the foot archer in feudal age only, then maybe. Other than that, just leave them be as they are in castle age onward.

For second point, Millitia line in AoE 4 can build Ram and siege tower on the field without siege workshop. AoE2 can copy to encourage more infantry play. I made this mod for aoe 2 years ago, it worked like Sh*t but at least it was something…

[Pulikesi25]

@FearfulSugar350

they already kinda disappear from the meta because of CA and scorpion.

You could say their frequency has reduced compared to the drush fc times but far from "disappear"ing. Anyways if you read it again my response to the comment includes appropriate nerfs to eagles, light cav, camels, knights and CA. So you don’t have to gatekeep xbows based on the current stats of other units, but rather think a scenario where all regular military except longswords are nerfed in different ways. Reducing xbow cost by a lot without nerfs to their stats will actually make every other unit niche and longswords will actually disappear.

@FearfulSugar350

For second point, Millitia line in AoE 4 can build Ram and siege tower on the field without siege workshop. AoE2 can copy to encourage more infantry play. I made this mod for aoe 2 years ago, it worked like Sh*t but at least it was something

Siege towers in aoe 2 are shit and not worth their ridiculous cost. And people wall with houses in majority of the games while siege towers don’t transport beyond houses. So its just a waste of resources. Rams are somewhat ok in a few situations but still won’t work most of the time because of being extremely slow, pathing poorly and having bad rof. I’d rather have Towers buffed and militia line build and repair towers slowly.

[AbuzzJam4677680]

I think it will be relatively easy to nerf cavalry archer. Like giving them negative melee armor/min range or increase training time etc. But it will be hard to buff militia performance thru rams or siege towers.

[FearfulSugar350]

Well, it’s not just Ram and Siege Tower. in AoE4, infantries can also build Springal (aka scorpion) and Onager. So they are actually quite useful for pushing into enemies’ bases, or they can build themselves onager/Scorpion to fight other units. The only 2 siege units that they can’t build are BBC and Treb for obvious reason.

I think the Dev can play around with this and see how it goes. It actually makes infantry play more interesting and unique compared to other generic gold units that we are having right now.

[AbuzzJam4677680]

Or they can also build siege workshops and barracks? Imo, allowing them to build +repair towers (or even shoot from towers) from Castle age onwards after a tech will be even more useful.

[SMUM15236]

@Estevao9543

Does anyone here know if it’s possible to link attributes to unit formations in Genied? For example, in a box formation, infantry units could have more piercing armor, in a line formation they could have more speed, and so on.

Sounds fun but also be aware of all the weird pathing issues. 11

@AbuzzJam4677680

These “synergies” almost never happen practically. Pikes always in front of xbow/siege. Cheaper skirm is added behind knight instead of knight mix with LS. Militia line get the most counters, even more than light cav-line. Adding another counter unit is not really a good idea currently.

That’s what OP actually said. There is synergy but other units have better synergy.

@DapperTrout1297

Militia line adds melee armor to rams when garrisoned. Each militia iniside gives +1 melee armor.

And more speed than other infantries.

@KHANATTILA

I would be for removing it and giving a permanent 5F discount to the whole line.

Hold my “Militi Line Balance Change Proposal for 2025” thread that is coming in next week…hopefully.

@KHANATTILA

Would any civilisation in Feudal have MAA OPs paying 75F? Doesn’t seem so to me.

You’re right. MAA is already 100 food. That’s why I said, the new speed tech cost at most 25 food.

@AbuzzJam4677680

For nearly half of all civs, LS can be a fast castle age opener.
This requires faster techs and more m@a survival.

Speed will help them.

@AbuzzJam4677680

LS upgrade instantly researched.

Well, Xbow is a castle age opener and it is not free to upgrade. It is currently 175 food, 100 gold. But needs siege support to break through walls. So I think MAA+LS+Supplies (Or a new tech) together costing 300 food, 150 gold will be fine.