AOE-II DE Infantry Balance Changes

[plinkus]

Any ideas for increasing standard infantry use in more games? I'm focusing on the Militia line at this point as it seems the the Spearman line is in a decent place already. UUs would probably be impacted by any changes to Militia as well but that's another topic.

Do they need a cost decrease? Armor/HP/Attack/Speed increase? What can be done without making them OP when going drush/MAA?

 

[KolyaKrasotkin]

The militia line has mid game simply no purpose, other than being a very specific hard counter e.g. to eagles.
They aren't cost effective food wise against knights and get hard countered by xbows.
For a ram push pikes are more important than long swords.
And eco-wise they are ultra heavy on food without having any raiding potential, so you will always be behind heavily in eco, if you try to mass standard infantry.

Maybe a solution could be to separate light and heavy standard infantry (similar to the scout and knight lines), with the heavy version being available from castle age. That way, one can avoid overpowering drush or m@a strats, and at the same time one would save the upgrade costs in castle age to access the heavy version.

Edit: I would imagine the heavy version being more expensive on the gold side (like 50f 50g), but a lot better (at least in castle age) than the current militia line.

 

[Instinctz]

Any ideas for increasing standard infantry use in more games? I'm focusing on the Militia line at this point as it seems the the Spearman line is in a decent place already. UUs would probably be impacted by any changes to Militia as well but that's another topic.

Do they need a cost decrease? Armor/HP/Attack/Speed increase? What can be done without making them OP when going drush/MAA?

the problem with buffing Infantry is a combination of several factors.

The early availability, lack of a trash weakness, and relatively low gold cost all affect balancing them.

so buffing them would depend on what your goal is.
do you want them to compete with knights and archers? you're talking a straight up overhaul of balance.
do you just want them to be slightly better? well odds are you're not going to be able to do much for castle age, but by making THS and Champ upgrades cheaper and adding a little bonus damage against scout cavalry, they become a very reasonable late game option.

 

[Memeluke]

Longswords are not used because archers counter them. If Longswords were good against archers, all you'd ever make would be militia, pikemen lines, monks and siege, a slow and boring composition. At least archers/mangonels micro battles are fun. Please don't buff the militia line to the point it becomes a good unit, it's inherently less fun to use than cavalry and archers no matter how op you make it

 

[SouFire]

Just look at obuch and see all the things that should never been done to the game, militia line doesn't fit with the 2 most used army units which are xbows and knights and their UU versions, a resistant unit, cheap and strong vs most units will break the balance like the obuch does, you can't simply go around and buff them without thinking further or else you would do the same clown things as the brilliants devs did with the obuch.

You can't buff militia line without making goths completely broken or other infantry civ, just get it over, militia line was never the key on medieval wars, they were always meatshield and a military unit cheap to use given its conditions, the way ensemble studios balanced the unit was almost perfect given its nature, if you need something stronger just go for the cavalry options or UU's, infantry is merely support.

 

[kalpit00]

Maybe a solution could be to separate light and heavy standard infantry (similar to the scout and knight lines), with the heavy version being available from castle age.

The last time there was a discussion about infantry in aoe2, I had brought this up. Its similar to aoe 4, the concept of light and heavy units. I really wish this could be implemented in aoe2 somehow. Would require tons of balance changes tho, a complete overhaul which I am not sure about

 

[kalpit00]

Like it has been mentioned a million times before, infantry in aoe2 simply not viable in the mid game - all the reasons already listed.

If we really want them to be viable, they need to become more tankier vs ranged units, and a little slower to balance vs xbows. We already know that vs knights, longswords are not preferable because of lack of mobility. And just the overall utility of the two units. longswords are not great raiding units, so unlike knights which threaten a ball of xbows sitting in defense or out on the map by being able to jump on them, longswords do not have that threat. And yes in low numbers, they even die to mangonels with micro and monks to some extent, which is fine imo as the cost of conversion is relatively cheap and siege/monk is not part of the rock-paper-scissor RTS balance.

If we keep balance and stats aside, from pure game theory aspect, the rock-paper-scissor theme I mentioned before is somewhat broken. There's no 1 to 1 correspondence, like yeah cavalry counter ranged, ranged counter infantry, and you would expect infantry to counter cavalry - but it doesn't really. (Pikes counter knights *coughs *coughs). To be more precise, ranged units hard counter infantry, cavalry counter both ranged and infantry to some extent, and infantry are stuck in the middle not being able to do anything well enough. Forget balancing - this is the bigger problem and a solution to this could be to either tune infantry stats by buffing them to an extent that they are viable and not OP (little by little 11), or a change them from a design point of view

 

[Zeev]

You can't buff militia line without making goths completely broken or other infantry civ, just get it over, militia line was never the key on medieval wars, they were always meatshield and a military unit cheap to use given its conditions, the way ensemble studios balanced the unit was almost perfect given its nature, if you need something stronger just go for the cavalry options or UU's, infantry is merely support.

Infantry was a key part of medieval armies. You couldn't do sieges without massive number of infantry and in forests archers and cavalry were useless.

If we want to use historical accuracy as a balance point then infantry should be dirt cheap and there's this tech in AOE1 that makes barrack units to cost only half population.

 

[Utariel]

AOE1 Infantry balance was quite good. There were different infantry lines:

1st age clubman was the trash infantry with only food cost with only an upgrade in axe man in age 2 (50 food)

what is the 3rd age upgrade was in another infantry line and they costed some gold as well (35 food 15 gold)

And there is a different infantry line starting in 3rd age as well, much more expensive, slower and stronger (60 food 40 gold)

Now probably aoe1 system is not perfect as well but i feel like, in particular because of the 1st and 2nd age unit being a trash unit, i like it more.

Basically every infantry line had a specific niche where they could be useful.

The trash units were just slightly stronger than villagers, but being dirt cheap and easy to train you could use them to raid / annoy / buy time

The 2nd line basically has the same niche as the aoe2 one

The 3rd line was something like a slow heavy armored tank with lots of hp and damage (but heavily countered by ranged units)


What i would like for aoe2 is either something similar like this or simply just remove longsword, move 2hand to castle age, change his stats to be just slightly stronger than what longsword is currently.

I think just skipping one upgrade would be good enough to see them played much more.
The double upgrade for both infantry and cavalry in imperial age it's something carried on from aoe1 that i personally don't like at all.

 

[Faultier321]

Why does everyone want to buff the militia line?
Talking about this has come up a lot since DE. To me it feels like all the new players that came with DE died in their first ladder games making longswords vs xbows or kts and now they cry for a buff.

- First of all, like said before: A slow Unit with no range is way less fun to play then Cavarly or ranged Units, it should not become the standard.

-Secondly, its really only the Longswordsmen in castle age that has this niche role where it is only viable against eagle-type Units. But not even just that. I had games with certain civ matchups that became full longsword wars in Castle Age. f.e. Burmese vs Goth, leading up to it was feudal archer play, Goth Huskarl switch in castle age, Longsword switch by Burmese, Longsword switch by Goth and the it was just spamming LS for the next 10 minutes.
In Pro games we do see Dark Age Militia, we do see feudal age M@a, and 2handed Swordsmen/Champions do have their place to counter trash aswell.

The Militia line is somewhere between a gold unit and a trash Unit, loosing to gold Units but cannot be countered by any trash Units. Maybe give it some Bonus against Light Cav line, because it performs worse against Hussar then against Halb or skirm, but its NOT AN EQUIVALENT TO A GOLD UNIT. That is just were the Units place is in the Design of the game, and I think its a very good Design.

 

[plinkus]

Why does everyone want to buff the militia line?
Talking about this has come up a lot since DE. To me it feels like all the new players that came with DE died in their first ladder games making longswords vs xbows or kts and now they cry for a buff.

- First of all, like said before: A slow Unit with no range is way less fun to play then Cavarly or ranged Units, it should not become the standard.

-Secondly, its really only the Longswordsmen in castle age that has this niche role where it is only viable against eagle-type Units. But not even just that. I had games with certain civ matchups that became full longsword wars in Castle Age. f.e. Burmese vs Goth, leading up to it was feudal archer play, Goth Huskarl switch in castle age, Longsword switch by Burmese, Longsword switch by Goth and the it was just spamming LS for the next 10 minutes.
In Pro games we do see Dark Age Militia, we do see feudal age M@a, and 2handed Swordsmen/Champions do have their place to counter trash aswell.

The Militia line is somewhere between a gold unit and a trash Unit, loosing to gold Units but cannot be countered by any trash Units. Maybe give it some Bonus against Light Cav line, because it performs worse against Hussar then against Halb or skirm, but its NOT AN EQUIVALENT TO A GOLD UNIT. That is just were the Units place is in the Design of the game, and I think its a very good Design.

I played as a kid on the zone and then on Gamespy, Voobly, HD and now DE so it's not that I'm a new player. I don't think infantry needs to become the standard unit. I do feel that it should fill a role and it doesn't at this point.

Outside of the Drush/MAA I have never seen a Pro level game where both players are making standard infantry until potentially late Imp with specific civs. It is almost a guaranteed loss to do this in most situations.

I have been playing some AOE:DE recently and that's where the thought came from. The "standard" infantry in AOE 1 is much cheaper than in AOE 2 as was mentioned above by @Utariel but is also split into different types. It seems that the unit design is very niche and most people are fine with never using anything besides cavalry/x-bow. I think it would be nice to have a viable 3rd option that isn't a UU like Huskarl.

 

[LeoMontero]

Didnt read all posts because im working and dont have time, so sorry fot that.
my opinions are about militia line.
I think that infantry should at least be as quick as archers.
other thing is that infantry in 1-1 is not the best thing, but in TG, you can create 20-25-30 in castel age, and use it for destroy the buildings. there are oportunities, but people in DE, in my perspective, doesnt count that the militia line is very powerfull against buildings. so if you play against an archer civ, destroy the archery ranges, and the oponent will be in troubles. the 25 swordsman, destroy a TC really fast. prove it, and you will see.
but yeah, im a mele guy, and i want infantry to be good once for all

 

[IncredulousFox]

Longswords in castle age would be difficult to balance out as pretty much everyone has said (and thats a good thing in my opinion).

The militia line does have niche in imperial countering trash, but they aren't even really good at it and should be buffed. I like the idea of giving long swords onwards a bonus against scout line similar to eagle bonus to make them better against hussar which currently they trade evenly which is pretty dumb and then maybe plus 1 pierce armor for the champion upgrade, but that may be way OP.

This wouldn't break goths as i think it doesn't buff them where they are currently weak which is their early game and then malian champskarls are not exactly good anyways, still missing blast furnace.

 

[Lokalo]

Why does everyone want to buff the militia line?
Talking about this has come up a lot since DE. To me it feels like all the new players that came with DE died in their first ladder games making longswords vs xbows or kts and now they cry for a buff.

Or maybe anyone who played 10 games and is already bored to see only xbow/kts and would like to see another option. That won't be a thing probably ever, but talking like it's other's problem and not yours that you can play same 2 units again and again is weird to me, not that people want more options to choose from.

- First of all, like said before: A slow Unit with no range is way less fun to play then Cavarly or ranged Units, it should not become the standard.

What? There is multiple things what can give you fun, siege tower with infantry can be amazingly fun. For some clowns monk micro is also very fun, so i'm not sure what you trying to say here, as many people see fun in very different things in this game.

-Secondly, its really only the Longswordsmen in castle age that has this niche role where it is only viable

Well personally I don't really see 2hs/champs being viable in my games, whenever few times I tried to switch into champs as a killing blow I lost those games. They trade poorly even against hussars as you mentioned yourself. And they are slow. Also their upgrades are super expensive early on, compared to how easily countered unit is, except maybe Malians, those can work really well. My idea would be to keep militia/m@a as it is, as they have their own role.

However I would give like 10% movement speed boost to longswords/2hs/champs, so they could at least chase some skirms and archers. They would still melt by xbow line, but at least could chase small groups and wouldn't be so pathetic against siege and little better at raiding/ and retreating.

 

[Faultier321]

Or maybe anyone who played 10 games and is already bored to see only xbow/kts and would like to see another option. That won't be a thing probably ever, but talking like it's other's problem and not yours that you can play same 2 units again and again is weird to me, not that people want more options to choose from.

What? There is multiple things what can give you fun, siege tower with infantry can be amazingly fun. For some clowns monk micro is also very fun, so i'm not sure what you trying to say here, as many people see fun in very different things in this game.

Well personally I don't really see 2hs/champs being viable in my games, whenever few times I tried to switch into champs as a killing blow I lost those games. They trade poorly even against hussars as you mentioned yourself. And they are slow. Also their upgrades are super expensive early on, compared to how easily countered unit is, except maybe Malians, those can work really well. My idea would be to keep militia/m@a as it is, as they have their own role.

However I would give like 10% movement speed boost to longswords/2hs/champs, so they could at least chase some skirms and archers. They would still melt by xbow line, but at least could chase small groups and wouldn't be so pathetic against siege and little better at raiding/ and retreating.

One thing about the Game that I like is that there can be a ton of widely different scenarios, combined with a ton of situational Units. Its a skill to analyze a situation and go for the right Unit. If every Unit is viable all the time, there is no skill involved into those decisions anymore. I have 2k 1v1 games, 1.5 k teamgames on DE and I played on Voobly before DE came out, and there were many many situations where the standard Infantry line was in fact the best choice. There wont be any "longsword hype" when longswords are the meta.
The Meta in 1v1 Arabia in castle age is still gold Units. Those are knights and Xbows, they are the strongest because they have the highest gold cost. The Militia Line does not have a trash Counter Unit - it is a counter to counter units, that is its purpose in this system. Buffing them to much would break the whole system, you would need to increase their cost in gold while also introducing a new trash Unit to the game which counters infantry Units. To implement this, you would need to rebalance every single civ in the game.

With the introduction of Burmese, Malians, Bulgarians, Malay, with the recent buffs to the infantry line aswell as infantry Unique Units, with the introduction of supplies, many things have already been done to buff infantry units. I like that. The Woad Raider is my favourite Unit in the game. This is also why I see your suggestion a bit critical, you would need to re-design Celts. Also it would be better to buff supplies tech to 20% if you want to do something like that, otherwise it will be a man at arms rush in arabia all the time.

And if you want to do Siege Towers in arena, why not ask for cheaper siege towers instead?

 

[Faultier321]

Or maybe anyone who played 10 games and is already bored to see only xbow/kts and would like to see another option. That won't be a thing probably ever, but talking like it's other's problem and not yours that you can play same 2 units again and again is weird to me, not that people want more options to choose from.

What? There is multiple things what can give you fun, siege tower with infantry can be amazingly fun. For some clowns monk micro is also very fun, so i'm not sure what you trying to say here, as many people see fun in very different things in this game.

Well personally I don't really see 2hs/champs being viable in my games, whenever few times I tried to switch into champs as a killing blow I lost those games. They trade poorly even against hussars as you mentioned yourself. And they are slow. Also their upgrades are super expensive early on, compared to how easily countered unit is, except maybe Malians, those can work really well. My idea would be to keep militia/m@a as it is, as they have their own role.

However I would give like 10% movement speed boost to longswords/2hs/champs, so they could at least chase some skirms and archers. They would still melt by xbow line, but at least could chase small groups and wouldn't be so pathetic against siege and little better at raiding/ and retreating.

Well personally I don't really see 2hs/champs being viable in my games, whenever few times I tried to switch into champs as a killing blow I lost those games. They trade poorly even against hussars as you mentioned yourself. And they are slow. Also their upgrades are super expensive early on, compared to how easily countered unit is, except maybe Malians, those can work really well. My idea would be to keep militia/m@a as it is, as they have their own role.

However I would give like 10% movement speed boost to longswords/2hs/champs, so they could at least chase some skirms and archers. They would still melt by xbow line, but at least could chase small groups and wouldn't be so pathetic against siege and little better at raiding/ and retreating.

Purely by micro&fighting situations, there are just less things you can do with a slow, no ranged Unit. Only thing you can do is run towards the enemy army or run away. With Cav you can try to go for a sourround, snipe siege Units etc.
With ranged Units.... do I need to explain? just watch some Liereyy games.


One thing about the Game that I like is that there can be a ton of widely different scenarios, combined with a ton of situational Units. Its a skill to analyze a situation and go for the right Unit. If every Unit is viable all the time, there is no skill involved into those decisions anymore. I have 2k 1v1 games, 1.5 k teamgames on DE and I played on Voobly before DE came out, and there were many many situations where the standard Infantry line was in fact the best choice. There wont be any "longsword hype" when longswords are the meta.

The Meta in 1v1 Arabia in castle age is still gold Units. Those are knights and Xbows, they are the strongest because they have the highest gold cost. The Militia Line does not have a trash Counter Unit - it is a counter to counter units, that is its purpose in this system. Buffing them to much would break the whole system, you would need to increase their cost in gold while also introducing a new trash Unit to the game which counters infantry Units. To implement this, you would need to rebalance every single civ in the game.

With the introduction of Burmese, Malians, Bulgarians, Malay, with the recent buffs to the infantry line aswell as infantry Unique Units, with the introduction of supplies, many things have already been done to buff infantry units. I like that. The Woad Raider is my favourite Unit in the game. This is also why I see your suggestion a bit critical, you would need to re-design Celts. Also it would be better to buff supplies tech to 20% if you want to do something like that, otherwise it will be a man at arms rush in arabia all the time.

And if you want to do Siege Towers in Arena, why not ask for cheaper siege towers instead?

 

[vince]

maybe an option for some infantry civs to have an upgrade(s) available for the militia-line of some combination of:

cost 5-7 less gold
faster creation time
count less against population (like 3 swordsman count as 2 pop)
5% speed increase

I'm thinking instead of buffing the unit itself much, just make it more viable as a strength in numbers type of option perhaps?

 

[Crawsack]

I think it'll take a few changes. I'd like to see the following:

Eliminate Long Swordsmen and make 2HS the Castle Age unit. They have the same HP, but more 3 more attack. That makes Castle Age swordsmen play way more viable. You still have a slow unit without much HP, but at least if you close the distance, you're putting out decent damage. LS are slower than knights, have way less HP and armor, AND have less attack? Seems a bit silly.

Give Champs +1 PA and 5 more HP. Everyone thinks this'll make them OP vs archers, it won't. If you have 30-40 arbs and can micro, you can still annihilate Champs, it just makes it so they won't completely melt vs archers. Cavalier have 2 + 4 PA and double the HP with Bloodlines and they still die hard to a big mass of Arbs.

 

[JayGould]

How about for civs that have access to Champions, remove Two-Handed Swordsmen for them. So they upgrade directly from Long Swordsman to Champion. That reduces the cost and time to get Champs on the field at least a tiny bit.

 

[JayGould]

I think it'll take a few changes. I'd like to see the following:

Eliminate Long Swordsmen and make 2HS the Castle Age unit. They have the same HP, but more 3 more attack. That makes Castle Age swordsmen play way more viable. You still have a slow unit without much HP, but at least if you close the distance, you're putting out decent damage. LS are slower than knights, have way less HP and armor, AND have less attack? Seems a bit silly.

Give Champs +1 PA and 5 more HP. Everyone thinks this'll make them OP vs archers, it won't. If you have 30-40 arbs and can micro, you can still annihilate Champs, it just makes it so they won't completely melt vs archers. Cavalier have 2 + 4 PA and double the HP with Bloodlines and they still die hard to a big mass of Arbs.

This is a better idea actually. Maybe move up Arson to an Imp upgrade so they don't eat TCs in Castle Age?

 

[Progeusz]

 

[Semisky]

I came up with an idea of giving longswords and above a charge attack against buildings, so it kinda works like a baby ram

 

[LowEloNobody]

I came up with an idea of giving longswords and above a charge attack against buildings, so it kinda works like a baby ram

They already have a bonus against buildings + most civs have arson.
Destroying buildings isn't where they struggle - it's dying to literally every other unit

 

[xThomas]

swordsmen aren't fun until you get to the spam them in large amounts stage or are playing in early feudal. They die to everything except spearmen and villagers (and pikes do good at keeping swordsmen in one place). Knights are the perfect cavalry. The game evolves when someone goes knights.

 

[princecoconut]

I feel like a shieldwall defensive stance where they take barely any range hits but move suuuper slow could be helpful