You still have the survival problem. On top of that, they still feel weak to use anyway as they die to Archers fast and low HP. To address that problem buff Gambeson or get extra HP for Swordsman like units only. Tech time investment problem needs to be solved too. Currently Sicilians are the only civ where you feel comfortable in using Serjeant. Even other UUs like Berserkers, Woads feels less comfortable to use. Avoided Hindustani Ghulams intentionally because they are a pseudo-Eagle Warrior unit with few ups and downs.
It is not realistic to make swordsman to be strong against both xbow and knight. If they become soft counter of knight, they will die hard under xbow.
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I want Swordsman to survive longer and still Archer maintaining as the counter. Dying to Knights still but Knights suffer a bad trade off the way Vikings works. Its been how AOM already works. Historically Pikes and Skirmisher were a counter against Swordsman. Swordsman acted as a defensive mechanism against arrow volleys to close gaps. Again it’s a game not like literal clone how history worked.
Anyway, making it close enough to Vikings with a bit of buff can actually bring more Swordsman meta. Currently in game Infantry civs are just bad or they are forced to have Archer/Knight alternative to some extent. Knight/Archer civs are top for a reason. Vikings became one of the weakest civ when devs experimented them as being primarily focused on Infantry. Then Bogsvieger came and solve it but nowhere close to old glory anymore. Archer/Knights can avoid fight while Swordsman are forced to take a losing fight. This has to be solved to some extent.
They are the 2nd most expensive foot soldier in Castle Age (UU excluded). And before Eagle’s food cost raise, they were the most expensive, even after Supplies.
I think regeneration can be considered since infantry really doesn’t have any micro potential.
Infantry would already soft counter knights if they could be sustained through feudal age.
The problem is you produce 1 infantry in 21 seconds, or one knight in 30, but you need 2 infantry to 1 knight to win. So if you try to start production in the castle age, you’ll need to do a hard all-in on barracks and open yourself up to a hard archer counter.
Move Squires to Feudal, and maybe add a healing bonus to Supplies, and you can keep your infantry alive through feudal and hit castle age with enough to outpace knight production for at least a significant amount of time.
That’s what I tried to do.
I literally said this in the picture. The green box.
And counter Eagle who in Imperial age has higher speed difference than Halb vs Paladin.
Scale mail armor gives +1/+2 armor instead of +1/+1 armor and then plate mail armor will give +1/+1 armor. Description of Romans bonus change to each infantry armor upgrade gives +2/+2. M@a then can last longer and compliment with the instant LS research.
Its a good solution actually. Altho spearman gets stronger/weaker. Stronger as in surviving archer further. Weaker as in counter-balance doing 1 more damage to spear from now on.
I didn’t think of spearman but more intented to buff infantry UU in castle age as well.
its high time Infantry doesnt get larped around into one group only. It needs Cavalry and Cavalry Archer armor class treatment. In this way M@A-line and Swordsman UU actually gets the buff intended.
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Or we can make new units in Castle age like laddermen (infantry) or escalade (siege) to lean ladder against any wall or building. The ladder only allow sword-/axe-wielding infantry and another ladderman to climb. The ladder can be destroyed by deleting the wall/building.
Spears have their own armor class (causing them to take extra bonus damage). They’re still one of the more viable infantry unit-lines. Eagles also have their own armor class (which allows/helps other infantry to counter them).
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The stupidest thing is that infantry civilisations do not go LS because they have better choices.
If you are Viking, you want to play crossbow into berserker.
If you’re Teuton, probably some kts to defend yourself into halberdiers, onagers and BBCs
If you are Japanese, you play CA, much better
Slavs, who have free Supplies? Much better Knights, Monks and Cheap Siege.
Celts? A few wood raiders and then siege, siege and more siege protected by halbs.
Goths? You probably want to get a castle to do Huskarl without suffering any economic damage.
All civilisations that have a bonus in the militia line prefer to play something else. It’s not something you solve by simply giving an extra +1 of armour. On the contrary, that would make the Malians and Malays even more obnoxious to deal with.
EDIT. Fixed wrong edit.
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I would argue they don’t go LS because they can’t. To go LS you need a good number of MAA in feudal to upgrade and get an immediate power spike. But MAA are useless the instant any significant number of archers or even skirmishers come out, so you’re stuck with useless units for most of feudal age, which means you lose the game long before you can get the LS upgrade.
If you do something else until Castle, you have to start from nothing, but Knights only build 33% slower, so you need 50% more barracks than stables to be able to win, which means you have to spend way more wood, which you don’t have. So you really can’t go for them in castle age, either.
And then if you wait until Imp, you’ve got a dozen upgrades to grab all at once, and you’re probably already invested in something else, so by the time you need them, you no longer have the resources for them.
Moving Squires to Feudal allows your MAA to effectively counter skirms and escape archers, which means you can afford to go for them in feudal, which means you hit castle age with a significant number to upgrade, which means you get the upgrade and can justify making more, which means you use them for the whole game!
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I like the change, but I don’t think it will have all that many positive effects. Because 100 of food spent in the feudal age means arriving at castle age at least 1 minute later. You can do it on the way to the Castle age but is it that big a difference? You could probably even reduce the cost by half. Then it would be a more interesting change.
If you don’t want to see the whole game, I put the decisive moment.
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LS is not a raiding unit; they are gathered near your base easier than near enemy base (because of their speed and training time). Heart should make mass LS near his base.
True, the 100 food is significant, but…well, first: IMO the real problem happens a minute or two later, at like 17:30, where he’s unable to deal with even a tiny handful of microed skirms. With squires, those skirms could not have dealt damage without taking damage, and the game could easily have gone very differently. In practice, squires makes even MAA counter Skirms, even with perfect micro.
The thing about Squires is that it does cost, but it also allows you to multiply the effectiveness of your infantry. Right now, if you have any infantry and your enemy has ranged units, your slowness means you cannot possibly escape. Your only hope is to run all the way back to your base - and stay there.
With Squires, you can escape the LOS of archers, meaning rather than being able to attack once, you can attack perpetually. Split your MAA, attack from multiple sides, force your enemy to constantly react. So yeah, you’re behind 100F, but with skill, they could be behind even further.
Ofc not just one buff can solve the problem. +1 PA have to combine with other buffs. Besides, 4PA malians m@a still less powerful than 4PA turk scout.
More m@a survival in feudal is crucial to more LS play in Castle age. This can combines with instant LS upgrade to be at least a fast opener.
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The Celts already had stronger squires free of charge in the feudal age. And it doesn’t seem to me that this is absolutely OP here.
Infantry units move 15% faster starting from the Feudal Age.
So even if other civilisations had to pay 75 Food, to be more conservative, in the Feudal Age to get +10% would still be fine.
A second change I would like to see is for Supplies to be removed and the price of militia to become a default 55F 20G. Which is currently what Inca pay (which breaks the constancy of the game, but whatever, that’s another matter) and doesn’t seem that strong to me. Sure it helps all civilisations to open drush or MAA, but it really takes the hassle out of investing 50 Food, in feudal especially, which is hard to justify. By the way, the Goth discount could also be reduced by 5% (and reduce the cost of Huskarl to compensate).
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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 would suggest giving it to every Infantry unit that moves at less then 1 Tile per second base speed (Teutonic Knight, Warrior Priest, Dismounted Konnik, Serjeant, Flemish Milita, Obuch).
This way buffs for the Milita Line can be balanced a lot more easily by giving the civilisations that struggle with them a bonus against them on their UU or something.
But don’t we want civilisations to use their UUs instead of the Milita Line?
But I agree that it should be competitive to use Infantry with Infantry civs.
Those civs can easily be adjusted by changing their bonuses or adjusting their Techtree.
Like remove Squires from Malay but speed up Karambit Warriors in return.
If the Milita Line is buffed enough to be a valid option for civilisations with no bonuses for them then the currently existing bonuses all need to be reworked.
The fact that you can just use Knights to tank all the damage from Long Swordsman because they are just barely cost efficient makes them so unusable in Castle Age.
In Imperial Age it is technically worse because Champions are just cost efficient vs. Cavaliers but Gold is getting more valuable so that kinda makes up for that.
Costing more to upgrade plus being weaker then Knights is a bad combination and most civ bonuses only address one of those issues and not both.
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