following my last thread about skirmisher being the sole standard unit lacking an imperial updgrade, i began wondering if there were other units that could use a tweak.
Are there units, both generic or unique, that are currently bad for their role or cost and that could use some help? and how would you change those units to make them more effective?
first i can think of is steppe lancers, even if i’m not sure how to properly make them better. maybe a combination or +1 melee armor, reduced upgrade cost, and a unique bonus to differentiate them from both light cav and heavy cav?
what are your thoughts on units that could be “saved” in the upcoming (hopefully) updates? which unit/s you would love to see buffed/tweaked?
Unit that needs a rework currently is the Arambai, with an absurd 100% missing shot damage that’s either OP or useless, and at the same time the unit needs a buff because is right now the most poorly designed one, pointless in some cases and occasionaly oppresive vs melee civs.
All of this is only my opinion, feel free to disagree.
Heavy Cavalry archer should have at least 70% accuracy, that way could be used even by civs that don’t have access to Thumb Ring.
It’s imho a wasted slot in the tech tree otherwise.
Serjeant need some more utility, it’s too expensive for the gimmick that it does, building Donjons is imho not very useful, should be able to build other military structures or repair siege at least.
Steppe Lancers, yes, they need a purpose, some extra bonus against some armor classes maybe, other than plain stats buffs which have limits due to the cost of the unit.
Organ Guns should be reworked, it is advertised as something that can tear apart mobs of units but in reality it’s quite the opposite.
Condottiero needs bonus damage (even tiny like +2) against Eagles.
Arambai needs at least to be affected by Parthian Tactics (which Burmese have), it’s too expensive and mostly useless at the moment.
Siege Tower, I mean, that thing is virtually useless, it’s just too expensive.
It needs to be more than that. Like I have suggested in the past, Serjeants should be able to construct and repair siege units, this would start in Castle Age, but I’m not sure if they would need any building pre-requisites. I think it could be interesting to explore if they could also build Feudal Age rams though, it might buff Donjon and Feudal Serjeant play.
Just replace the 7 free serjeants form first crusade to allowing Serjeants to build castles also (not affected by the civ bonus though) so they are more practical than ever
On top of that Serjeants needs better attack because is currently pathetic
But forget any chance to see Serjeants ever used as long as OP cavaliers are still a thing.
I still think the steppe lancer should be overhauled in the way they have less HP but higher attack / same rof as heavy cav. This way the unit couldn’t be fielded standalone unit but would be a nice addition to knight formations for some extra punch. Also with cav archers it could be useful as siege sniper.
Potentially it could also los HP and 1 attack but get 2 range, this would make it easier to use for lower level players and in formations with other melee units.
a hidden bonus vs siege, like magyar huszar, could help in making them different from regular cav, but would not save the unit imho because cav in general is already quite great against any siege unit and bonus damage only helps something they already good at.
imho steppe lancers should have a cool niche, and they kinda have it already with the +1 range, but they pay for that in every possible bad way. they should either (or both) be much cheaper, or stronger in terms of stat, or much faster. or maybe a bonus against other cavalry? making them the “steppe” variant of camels? i dunno…but they seriously aren’t worth atm
Both siege towers and rams resist arrows, but rams outclass siege towers completely. Siege towers should have its cost halved and more garrison space. Herbal Medicine affect units garrisoned inside siege towers.
Petard can be produced outside castle and have the fastest training time among siege units.
Not sure what buff for Steppe Lancers. Maybe +16 cavalry armor class against spears, making them having different role from other cavalry line.
Condos have bonus attack against eagles. Elite Genoese xbow have lower upgrade cost or better base stat.
Flemish militia can be produced in TC without UT.
Heavy Scorpions +1 range to counter arbalest even without siege engineer.
Just one point, non elite organ gans in Castle age aren’t even that bad, since they need no techs and a organ gun rush is strong.
But elite organ guns in late imperial age are just useless. Expensive, and slow, easily massacred by onsger, paladin, or hussar spamm which makes organ gun play very Punishing late game be use the ujit costs so much. No redeeming quality like aoe as it should have.
For stepo lancer it would say, give them bonus damage against cav archers.
Siege towers could be tweaked to block arrors. It was discovered in the teuton brawl map that buildings can’t shot over rams at villagers directly behind , they actually have a height stat. This is not used for archer arrows thoguth.
Back then it was proposed to adjust is so siege tower can actually block arrows. The game supports it already, just need to tweak the height stat in the editor.
They should replace the convertion resistance effect on first crusade with an effect that allows serjeant a to repair and built castles.
Looking how many of these same problems have been discussed for years at this point on the forum. And the last patch didn’t even have any balance changes. I don’t feel very hopeful anymore.
for siege tower, i personally would like to make their cost interely wood, both because it make sense (they are wood tower after all, without particularly fancy tech like unlike mangonels or balista, nor heavy iron head like rams) making them the first and only “trash” siege unit. this would make them an interesting option by itself being cheap, but also very useful for late game trash fights in a siege
also i think several unique units are currently not enough compared to generic variant in the same faction or other faction counterparts. an example in genoese crossbows or rattan archers, which are good unit imho but not enough to justify using them over arbalesters most of the time. Genoese crossbows could use a bit of armor, while rattan could have its range already at 5 in castle age, and a slight fire-rate increase in the elitè upgrade. Comparing these with plumed archers or chu-ko-nu is laughable i guess…
just from the top of my head. i’m sure there are even more blatant examples, then you have super strong unique units like Leitis and wonder why some faction got it so much better than others
I think the Arambai deserve a buff, they are less than a shadow of what they were back then. It was a pretty fun unit, even if a bit predictable but still easy to counter. Nowadays they just suck and are a waste of resources
I think the siege tower should fire arrows when it has archers garrisoned.
Arambai should affect from thumb ring, chemistry,parthian t and manipur cav.
The main problem about steppe lancers is their effective timeline too short. They are effective at castle age and early imp. I think steppe lancers should be avilable from feudal age like eagles. Steppe lancer-elite sl- imperial sl
i see this proposal of feudal steppe lancers a lot but in practice it sound impossible to me, since the only cav unit in feudal is scout which is not a real cavalry unit, is just an harasser/raider, which is what the steppe lancers would already be, and it’s not like you can make a better scout in feudal, that would be OP for any tactic involving scout rush, or anyway difficult to balance.
i think they should have a different armor tipe, or some sort of armor resistance (like the cataphrat), or a bonus vs something, to make it useful but not a straight up copy of the knight
since steppe lancer historically, since the ancient times, were always fairly armored and used to hit and run and arrow, maybe they could have a high pierce armor (3/4?) and lower melee to differentiate from the knight, making it better at raiding
