Steppe Lancers partially suffer because they’re not great, but they also partially suffer because they’re just as hard to get into as knights, but knights are quite a bit better than them.
Which got me thinking; what if you could build an earlier version of the steppe lancer, available in the feudal age? That way you could execute a similar strategy to crossbows, only with cavalry, giving you a leg up in terms of speed.
You could call it a Steppe Scout, and it would have slightly better stats than the standard scout, but also a higher cost, plus, of course, the micro advantage.
Then make the upgrade relatively cheap; maybe slightly reduce the cost of the lancer to compensate, as well.
That gives Steppe Lances a solid niche as an alternative feudal rush to scouts. With some investment already in them, players might be more likely to continue to use them.
That’s an idea that I’ve seen pop out a few times already, and it has its merits. Problem is, now that they gave steppe lancers to Mongols it would be hard to implement that without having to change Mongols a lot I still want them to remove Mongol SL
What about removing the knight line from the steppe civs and buff the steppe lancers to fill the rule? I mean give them +1 attack and make them have 2Pa and keep the +1 range, but their hp will be less than the knight like maybe 80hp or 75hp but with good speed, this will make them really helpful and reduce the Elite upgrade.
I would like to see more feudal units, like we got the same theme going with sicilians. In order to balance it could mean having mounted men at arms (which upgrade to knights), same with cav archers. But its not a bad idea
No, just to compare how stupid is the idea to remove Knight line from steppe civs just because of steppe lancers lol, Cumans need Knights, Tatars need Knights, Mongols need Knights
I like Mongols Steppe Lancers and don’t think buffing steppe lancer =making Mongols stronger
But this is what already I mentioned by saying “fill the rule” which means it will be exactly like the knight line but with some special things, it will fit the steppe civs much better.
No, it will just mess up those civs, Steppe Lancer will need to power creep the Knight line then to be viable in TGs, which means to make them either higher PA and attack, essentially rolling them to the pre nerf era, now nice, the most broken unit is back.
At the current cost level, it wouldn’t change the game. It would be difficult to afford such an expensive unit in Feudal age and they’ll still be weak. For their current stats the unit is good to make only if their cost is something like 60 food and 30 gold.
I agree that Cumans need knight-line but Mongols, Tatars don’t. If Lancers get +1 p.armor and a slightly better ROF, they can be a good alternative to knights.
True for Indians. But they don’t have arbalests nor any bonuses for CA. Camels also have lower attack and don’t get extra p.armor anymore in Imperial age.
The proposed change for Lancers with 2 p.armor would match that of knights. The range and higher speed vs lower hp and attack seems like an interesting trade off.
My first reaction to this is that it would be hard to balance, because they’re competing with scouts, a unit around which the meta is balanced (like the semi-recent quickwall nerfs, intended among other things to make scout rushes viable again). Sicilians do not have that problem, because sustained men at arms production is not a very common strategy, there is some room to make a better or more interesting infantry unit and not break the meta.
However, I think the eagle shows how this could be done: by making the gap between the feudal and castle age versions bigger. Basically, the steppe scout has no real advantage over the regular scout. Different cost and stats, but balanced overall. Maybe even drop the +1 range in feudal. What you get by going steppe scouts is the ability to upgrade for a power spike in early castle. Kind of like if light cav were a viable alternative to knights.
A problem is though that scout cavalry are typically an early feudal thing. You often have very few left when you go up. In order to make this work as a strategy the lancers must be useful in late feudal. Yet they cannot be OP or even really stronger than the regular scout in early feudal. This is made even harder by the fact that scouts cost food, probably the most valuable resource in the feudal age (due to lack of farm upgrades and the high food cost of going castle). So it’s still kind of tricky.
the problem is knights are great in early castle age due to being bulky and able to clean up feudal armies and early crossbows, which helps out civs like Mongols and Tatars because they don’t really have anything in early castle age to do that for them. your change would eliminate that option. besides, Steppe Lancers clearly aren’t supposed to be knight replacements. several factors tell you this.
the tech tree calls them “Light Cavalry”.
the fact that they are literally the epitome of a unit that is supposed to be quantity over quality.
the fact that they benefit from bonuses that affect the scout line but doesn’t impact the knight line.
furthermore they are intended to be weak to archers, to offset their melee advantage (range).
furthermore you’d have to entirely rebalance Cumans as they now no longer have the Paladin.
I’d say the safest option if you want to go this route is to just mirror the Eagle line but use the SL as a nomadic equivalent with that +1 range being the tradeoff for being a cav unit and therefore be weak to those counters. So base on SLs stats around pArmour so then you can still have knights and SL on the field by civs for different purposes. Like I say having the eagles as a baseline and something to understand what you want makes balancing abut easier for this unit which current seems lost
I think SL can be buff in a way that is to partially substitute swordsman by giving them bonus attack vs eagles or some cavalry class armor. SL civs have bad swordsman line. Feudal SL should have a weaker stat. 9 melee attack is very high for feudal unit.