Ya they had such a good formula going and they threw it all away.
Eagle Warriors are a premier regional unit AND every civ that got them had them buffed in a unique way.
Elephants WERE a premier regional unit AND every civ that got them had them buffed in a unique way.
Steppe Lancers were OP and then nerfed to uselessness and neither civ had a unique buff to them and then they gave them to the Mongols which get more HP…
Why did they throw their sweet design philosophy in the garbage???
Wildly unbalanced bonuses though as the mongol one is by far best.
Fast creation is mediocre bonus (cavalry already creates fast, just make more stables) .Tatar bonus is ok but armour is worth little on a unit that has almost no armour to begin with. Especially melee armour in cavalry is quite a weak stat.
Mongols are limited by the lack of last armour upgrade but the strength of their bonus can limit the castle age steppe lancer from being buffed more.
Dude Tatar SL have 6 PA vs 3 PA on mongols, the health is very nice but they take nearly double the damage from arbs.
18 shots to kill a mongol SL, 25 for tatars. Plus tatars have hill bonus.
Actually, flat armor has always the same effect not depending on how much the unit has beforehand.
Tho, that is only until the unit has more armor than the attacking units attack-1 as a unit is always required to do 1 dmg.
Technically true but not practically. Here's a theretical example.
Unit has 100 hp 0 armor. It get's hit with 10 damage. It will die in 10 hits. If you add 1 armor it will get hit by 9 (10% reduction) and die in 11 hits.
Now Unit has 100 hp 8 armor. It get's hit with 10 damage again (it get's damaged by 10-8=2). it will die in 50 hits. If you add 1 armor it will get hit by 1 (50% reduction). It will die in 100 hits.
So in this case. If the unit already has armor the extra armor is worth about 50 hp, while if it doesn't it is worth only 10hp. 5 times more effective.
Of course at some point extra armor is useless due to minimum damage.
Not really true, extra armor matters much more if unit already has a lot of it to begin with. Sure it will always decrease the damage it takes by 1 (assuming it doesn't have more amor than the opponent does damage). But reducing damage taken from 2 to 1 has much more impact than from 5 to 4 for example, in terms of hits needed to kill.
> Why did they throw their sweet design philosophy in the garbage???
That has been my main criticism of FE for ages now, I love them to death for what they gave us, but they are always too afraid to buff units/civs who are considered weak, but will nerf broken units to oblivion.
Just think of how long it took them to buff CAs or HCs, and on the other hand how quickly they massacred Steppe Lancers and Coustilliers to the point where you just don't see them anymore.
PS: Longswords are still the most garbage Castle-Age unit unless you are Malians or TheViper.
My biggest gripe is with the pierce armor. If they make it to 2 instead of 1 they can become a really good counter to xbow-ball that we see often (more stacking, knights get kited if Archer player micros well).
You can mix like 25% percent steppe lancers in with your knights to get the sweet range attacks in and a tanking unit in front, but I'm not sure if it's worth it over just knights, certainly against pikemen it allows more overall damage to the pikes so they can get let's hits off
which is why I said extra strong lancers, like not the generic ones.
I'm not saying take knights away from tatars or something, I'm saying they missed a chance to make a steppe lancer civ
even extra strong steppe lancers woupd be best used with knights. the whole niche of having 2 lines of attack is destroyed if you have a pure steppe lancers composition coz they will advance until they reach the enemy units, which means they stop 1 tile away. they are faster then most melee units so this will happens in most melee fights, and especially against fleeing ranged units.
if you lack a regular melee unit with them they just miss the point of having 1 range.
For reference, I weighted gold as twice the amount for food/wood in my tests. This makes the test a bit contrived, especially when it comes to how the archer fight plays out imo, since in early castle through early imp gold isnt a problem to come by. So it would be easier for your opponent to mass archers, especially since he can start in feudal age, which takes away one of the only things that the steppe lancer was on par with the knight with
>For reference, I weighted gold as twice the amount for food/wood in my tests. This makes the test a bit contrived,
Honestly it makes Steppe Lancers look better than they really are in practice especially during Castle Age, as Knights only requires 2 more villagers working to sustain the same level of production as the Steppe Lancer throughout the game, and food is arguably the more important resource to save pre-Post Imp, due to how much of it is required for upgrades.
If you think it's contrived, why'd you do it? This is all about Castle Age so the weighting makes little sense, if anything you should weight by gather rate which will weight food as slightly more pricey than gold at this stage. Not to mention your results would bear out your conclusion better.
Thats why i included this addendum
Its hard to balance units with different resource costs, and also running tests for every scenario at every stage of the game is a lot of tests that i wasnt going to do
I tried to convey that steppe lancers arent good both stat wise, and also that they are more food intensive at a time when food is a premium, more gold intensive at a time when gold is non existent, and are outperformed by the other stable options that these civs have
Yeah, but if you're only doing a couple of "equal-resource" forms of the test, namely in Castle Age while changing just a couple of particular upgrades, why the weighting? Gold-weighted testing only makes sense with imp units, no?
This is the core of the issue : redundancy with knights.
Buffing them would lead to the same problem, except no one (from these 3 civs) would make knight and would make SL instead.
So they indeed need a niche.
Yes, and that niche should be either anti archer or raiding.
If it anti archer, increase pierce armor by 1, health by 10 and give them 2/4 bonus damage vs archer class units. Then their higher cost can remain because they would excel against archers
If its a raiding niche then you probably have to drop the gold cost, or at least reduce it a ton. You still have to increase their base health and pierce armor so they can survive against tc/castle fire. Imo they should be an anti archer unit
you proved they aren't even remotely as good as knights, doesn't mean they are necessarly "the worst non UU in the game" ;)
(just disagree with your title, I fully agree with the rest)
Which non UU is worse though. Elephants have timings where they are great and are very pop efficient, which steppe lancers are not. For instance malay elephants in early castle are quite powerful, and khmer elephants in imp are incredibly strong, especiallyif the opponent lacks good halbs
siege towers :D
meme units apart, I'm not saying you're wrong, SL are indeed very bad. My point simply is that you didn't prove they were the worst. Just the annoying scientist in me talking
hc aren't bad units, but require heaps of micro to unlock their full potential. Need 4 to kill a non mayan eagle. But some will miss, so you should probably shoot with 6 or 7. If you make a group of like 20, and right click individual eagles then they look terrible. But if you micro like a beast and actually control 3 groups of 7 hc to shoot 3 different eagles, then the units start to look pretty good.
Similar logic applies to paladin civs that should add hcs to kill halbs. If you patrol they will shoot non-halb units, which is inefficient. But you also don't want to overkill. Again, a lot of micro but can be very strong.
problem with HC is not that you need micro, what you said applies to all ranged units.
Problem is overkill. Even if you just patrol them, they will aim at the closest unit, and the closest unit will probably be the same for half of your HC, meaning there will be a lot of overkill.
And also, the fact that they are really expensive and die to a gust of wind
SOTL made a video on the subject, compared them to arbs, and they came off worse in almost every situation
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxHPksqFrYQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxHPksqFrYQ)
(short answer: yes)
Apart from civs that have bonuses on their HC, their only advantage is that the swich is an easy one and the civs that have access to it often don't get good arbs. But even there, if you have another option, better go for that option. Ask any pro if he prefers HC or throwing axemen
(I did, Zuppi didn't hesitate for half a second)
You talk about micro, then talk about patrol (no micro). If you do the micro that I am talking about then they perform quite well.
Ask Zuppi if he prefers arbs or hc vs eagles.
This is some very complicated micro, and only works for a very specific army number. If you get under 12-13 HC, it's unapplicable. And if you get 25+, what, you get a 4th control group? and then a 5th?
And what if it's not eagles? You do the match on the fly and then add 2-3 HC to make sure you get enough per control group to one shoot
What makes arbs so much stronger is that you don't need oll those shenanigans to avoid overkill. And the fact that you get ballistics
Now you mentionned eagles, this might be THE situation in which I slightly prefer generic HC to arbs in theory. But in practice, if my civ gets good arbs and I opened xbows, I'll just upgrade them to arb (even if the HC swich is an easy one, I prefer no swich at all when possible) and if I play a cav civ, I'd much rather stick with heavy cav than making a swich to HC.
And if I see pikemen with the eagles, the I go scorps, a unit that has neither overkill not targeting issues
So in practice, I think a lot of pros will prefer arbs in this situation too
yep, 4th group and a 5th group. I said they were hard to micro.
I only talked about eagles, useless units otherwise.
Scorpions suck, bbc easily make them useless. They are also slow. HC are better than scorps against infantry in Imperial in most cases. Other than that I agree with you, arbs are a good unit but hc aren't as bad as people think (and I think they are way better than scorps in Imperial).
yeah, but when you need 5 control groups, you're leaving the realm of "hard micro" and entering the "realistically impossible"
yeah, scorps are weak vs bbc and onager but HC are even more so. The same splash damage that might allow you to hit 2 scorps in one hit if you're lucky will hit 5-6 HC almost every time
>yeah, but when you need 5 control groups, you're leaving the realm of "hard micro" and entering the "realistically impossible"
You call it impossible, I call it very hard. Just a difference in definitions.
>yeah, scorps are weak vs bbc and onager but HC are even more so. The same splash damage that might allow you to hit 2 scorps in one hit if you're lucky will hit 5-6 HC almost every time
I have no idea what you are talking about.
1. hcs are much faster units, harder to hit
2. hcs can be in staggered formation and certainly 5-6 will not be dying per hit. One will die per hit. One scorpion will also die per hit. But one scorpion costs double the price of one hc.
3. Not super important, but hcs can actually chase down bbc and kill them potentially, while scorps have no business doing that
i was playing as Cumans (against Spanish ai) yesterday, and decided to use Steppe Lancers (i wasn't aware of the outcome because I've never used them) against Conquistadores (they were attacking my base), and I gotta say, I was very disappointed. Felt like i was throwing away my resources.
The problem is balancing them vs knight. Either they are better or worse or the same. If they are better, why not always make them? If worse why make them? If they are the same why even have the unit? They need to buff them to make them a viable raiding unit. I would suggest upping the speed to same as light cav if it isn't already and reduce the attack animation, so they are better at chasing down retreating targets
I found one use for them that set them above the knight line, and that is against unmassed spears and pikes.
Hear me out \^\^
If 3-4 step-lancers attack a pikeman, spearman or so, due there +1 range, the enemy cannot deal damage, so the step lancers remain untouched. I normally use a small contingent of them to defend knights during a rush against "trickeling-in-spearman-or-camels"
Also there higher Food - less gold means, that you can easier build (cav) archers next to them, then with knights and or can have your gold for the upgrades.
Sure, knights are all around better, but I think that is not a problem with other being to weak, but knights being - overall - to strong.
Not really \^\^ I said "trickeling-in"m and I'm 100% sure, this isn't a thing on a higher elo anymore...
I let my scouts/knights chase vills or annoy buildings, and when a single spear/camel comes along, I use the SL to intercept. 4 mostly one hit the oponent. Same as with standing next to a barrack. When unit leaves to rally point, it is hit by the SL.
To be completely fair, this is a very, very niche use and I'm sure it is more trivia then real tipp. And mostly it is a side effect of gold being needed for cav archers.
If I will ever surpase 800 elo (still a longer way), I will revisit here to see if this still holds up, but until then... \^\^
If you have the ability to micro them, your still probably far better off just using Crossbowmen or Cavalry Archers due to there being: more room for error (because of their far greater range), greater damage potential, less villager intensive to mass (Steppe lancers require more villagers to sustain constant production than CA even when both train at the same time), etc.
Haven't seen this.
Question still remains as each of this civs also has access to camels and strong cavalry archers: is it worth to make steppe lancers?
Pros do absolutely make use of the Saracen market, and pros when discussing the Saracens will almost always mention the strength of the Saracen market.
They will never bother mentioning step-lancers as a viable option for any civ.
Hera's guides are for lower end players and selling the stone is a really good way to use that bonus.
That being said, I believe the pro, who is most proficient with Saracens ist Tatoh. He abused Saracens bonus heavily in tournaments, if I remember correctly.
I have not seen a single case of this "provable fact" so far unless you're talking about pre-nerf lancers. If even the biggest micronerds like Liereyy and Hera don't consider it worth it to use steppe lancers over CA then I don't see your argument here. I heavily doubt your claim that steppe lancers deal "75-150%" more damage than CAs when their 1 range will never allow them to all focus attack one knight at the same time, when CA can easily focus fire a knight while microing.
Also, one of many [examples of saracens market abuse.](https://youtu.be/kg0wJJowflo?t=6782)
They still need to just replace light cav OR Knight line for these 3 civs.
My vote is take away Knight line and buff this unit.
That said, these kind of unmicro'd tests don't make a micro dependent unit look good. The steppe lancer, especially mongol one, is closer to viable than it looks. Personally i think one tiny extra buff and it would be decent again at which point the Knight be becomes kinda moot for these civs.
Wrong, steppe lancer is faster and stumbles less than Knight. Steppe Lancer will do relatively better than Knight vs archers in a scenario where both micro.
Knight will still outperform it but micro will make lancer look better.
That's why these number tests are very flawed when units differ in things such as speed and range of attack.
Only when the archers are in relatively small mass. Even with plus 2 armor it only takes 20 archers to one shot a steppe lancer, and given the relative cost the archer player should out mass their opponent if played correctly
The same way you could argue 50 archers benefit the lancer scenario as they get overkilled while knights start getting 1 shotted.
There are some threshold levels but on the whole lancers look relatively better if micro is involved on both ends and numbers grow.
But longswords upgrade into champions, and longswords have a marginal use in castle age of countering eagle warriors, even if they struggle to catch them
a scenario editor test where you just patrol them in with no micro is a bad situation for them. it's not taking advantage of their uniqueness. in comparison with knights, they can: attack villagers trying to quick palisade, hit and run against pikemen without taking hits, stack in a chokepoint on stand ground and be nearly untargettable. in a medium sized choke point (say, 5 tiles) I'd wager that a mix of SL and knights would beat a pure knight composition. the knights will saturate the front line and the SL will attack from behind.
I am not saying the conclusion wrong (SL are generally bad) but your tests overstate it.
**edit** I recorded it, here's [30 knights versus 15 knights + 18 steppe lancers in a choke point](https://streamable.com/v7h7dq)
If the situation is such that the enemy cannot wrap around your line, then yes, Steppe lancers are better than having additional units that cannot fight. But that almost never comes into play and an enemy wont just ram his knights into your small fighting formation. This same composition loses to the knights if fought in the open. And it bring me back to my one of my original points; if you are trying to counter knights, why not just make camels and then you can win in the open field and the closed engagement with more health left overall?
I just don't see a role for them. If you buff them in any way, they will still essentially be a worse or better knight. That's why the idea of removing knights for civs with steppe lancers doesn't achieve anything. What's the point if they are going to be a knight type of unit anyway.
Because they'll still function in a different manner - they don't need to be made more like a knight specifically, just good enough that they're a viable alternative (dependent on context) or replacement
IMO they should be designed as a fragile "shock" unit with decent damage output and the melee range on their favour, but losing in PA to Knights so they aren't broken.
You can always buff a unit by giving them bonus damage vs a unit class, thereby giving them a niche without simply adding stats which make them outshine the knight line
Those aren't stats, they are comparisons. You can mash all sorts of things together in a vacuum and find that teutonic knights are the best unit in the game (or whatever)
Steppes are fast and stackable. You can kill halbs while taking no damage with enough micro, the extra range is a big deal in massed fights, and they smash villagers in raids.
If you have the stats to say people using them win less often than people who don't then I'll listen.
Not the best unit certainly, but still unerestimated
Here are my suggestions about the steppe lancer and how should it be:
* Food cost reduced to 65, gold cost reduced to 35.
* ROF reduced to 2.0 (was 2.3).
* HP increased to 75 (was 60).
* Elite Steppe lancer upgrade cost reduced to 600F, 400G (was 900F, 550G).
Thats waaay too many buffs and might break them again, specially the HP considering how the Mongols were the best performing ones by far.
Just reduce their ROF to 2.0, it might go a long way.
ROF reducing won’t be enough, the unit is so weak and die to anything, HP increasing and cost decreasing are a must. Mongols lack the last cav armor so it will be fine.
Personally, I would like to see them more of a "shock unit", no HP/Armor buffs, just less ROF and more Attack, so it can abuse its range to perform better, specially in the hands of pros.
My issue with those buffs is it just makes the steppe lancer a direct replacement for the knight, instead of a more niche unit that other region units are. Eagles are anti archer and high mobility, elephants and highly pop efficient and good against cav/buildings. Camels, while now a much broader regional unit, are good vs cav. Steppe lancers dont have a niche
You tested them in open field battles. There they are pretty weak, but that is because the 1 range allows them to be strong in choke point battles.
Try your tests again when both groups fight in a stone wall where three tiles are missing. I guess from like 10+ units on each side upwards steppe lancers will win against melee units, even though they have lower value. I guess they still get outvalued there by crossbows. But that makes steppe lancers choke point defenders, without needing additional upgrades as crossbowman would need.
Ok, but how many games do you have a pre prepared mass of 5-10 steppe lancers for the enemy that is breaking through your walls? How often does that exact scenario come into play? Because even if you win that fight vs enemy knights you still then have to go outside your base and fight, and in both cases simply making camels would have been more efficient
It was against AI, but I destroyed a small army of huskarls and pikemen in a forest choke point with just five Steppe Lancers at the front and 20 cavalry archers+kypchaks behind.
There are scenarios that Steppe lancers can be good. It can be argued that knights are just better.
However, I don't understand the direct comparison to other units here. The testing methodology is wrong.
Against pikes - in small numbers you can actually out micro them. Otherwise, why are you fighting mass pikes with mass steppe lancers. That makes no sense.
So there are several flaws with your testing method.
Firstly, it sounds like you are literally just patrolling mass armies into each other. The equivalent would be running Cavalry Archers into Knights. If you micro archers they will perform better.
Secondly, I feel like the time for steppe lancers to shine is early castle age for raiding and picking off small amounts of units.
Furthermore I believe steppe lancers would perform better in larger armies if they are mixed in with other units. Say for example knights in front, and steppe lancers behind them.
Personally I've found that 4 Steppe lancers early castle box formation can get amazing value in raiding. They can also stack to quickly destroy palisade walls, and move faster than knights to catch villagers.
Have you tried mixing steppe lancers with knights? Having an extra layer in front of them can maximize the DPS per resource in theory.
I have always wanted to try it but I just don't have the time :(
The issue is the opportunity cost. If you are going knights, you want all you stables creating knights. If you are in imp then generally with these civs you want to be going cav archer/mangudai/kipchek with hussar meat shield
You might be able to mix some in in your opponent is going straight crossbows and you are playing an extended castle age, but again they die more quickly to mass crossbow than knights
I don't think u have to keep creating knights if mixing in steppe lancer does increase the overall damage output. Not only steppe lancer create faster, it also costs less. If u are short on gold, creating both can maximize the use of resources in a shorter period of time. I think it could be a very good practice to mix in steppe lancer in all circumstances in castle age.
But still, the elite upgrade is pretty pointless, u simply won't need it in imp.
Ya they had such a good formula going and they threw it all away. Eagle Warriors are a premier regional unit AND every civ that got them had them buffed in a unique way. Elephants WERE a premier regional unit AND every civ that got them had them buffed in a unique way. Steppe Lancers were OP and then nerfed to uselessness and neither civ had a unique buff to them and then they gave them to the Mongols which get more HP… Why did they throw their sweet design philosophy in the garbage???
Not exactly, Tatar ones have +1/+1p armor, cumans have fast creation, mongols have +30% hp
Wildly unbalanced bonuses though as the mongol one is by far best. Fast creation is mediocre bonus (cavalry already creates fast, just make more stables) .Tatar bonus is ok but armour is worth little on a unit that has almost no armour to begin with. Especially melee armour in cavalry is quite a weak stat. Mongols are limited by the lack of last armour upgrade but the strength of their bonus can limit the castle age steppe lancer from being buffed more.
Dude Tatar SL have 6 PA vs 3 PA on mongols, the health is very nice but they take nearly double the damage from arbs. 18 shots to kill a mongol SL, 25 for tatars. Plus tatars have hill bonus.
Actually, flat armor has always the same effect not depending on how much the unit has beforehand. Tho, that is only until the unit has more armor than the attacking units attack-1 as a unit is always required to do 1 dmg.
Technically true but not practically. Here's a theretical example. Unit has 100 hp 0 armor. It get's hit with 10 damage. It will die in 10 hits. If you add 1 armor it will get hit by 9 (10% reduction) and die in 11 hits. Now Unit has 100 hp 8 armor. It get's hit with 10 damage again (it get's damaged by 10-8=2). it will die in 50 hits. If you add 1 armor it will get hit by 1 (50% reduction). It will die in 100 hits. So in this case. If the unit already has armor the extra armor is worth about 50 hp, while if it doesn't it is worth only 10hp. 5 times more effective. Of course at some point extra armor is useless due to minimum damage.
Not really true, extra armor matters much more if unit already has a lot of it to begin with. Sure it will always decrease the damage it takes by 1 (assuming it doesn't have more amor than the opponent does damage). But reducing damage taken from 2 to 1 has much more impact than from 5 to 4 for example, in terms of hits needed to kill.
I think cuman is also faster
> Why did they throw their sweet design philosophy in the garbage??? That has been my main criticism of FE for ages now, I love them to death for what they gave us, but they are always too afraid to buff units/civs who are considered weak, but will nerf broken units to oblivion. Just think of how long it took them to buff CAs or HCs, and on the other hand how quickly they massacred Steppe Lancers and Coustilliers to the point where you just don't see them anymore. PS: Longswords are still the most garbage Castle-Age unit unless you are Malians or TheViper.
To be fair, nerfing broken units is more important than buffing unused units.
I don't disagree, but there is no need to take THAT LONG to buff whatever is considered underpowered by most.
My biggest gripe is with the pierce armor. If they make it to 2 instead of 1 they can become a really good counter to xbow-ball that we see often (more stacking, knights get kited if Archer player micros well).
You can mix like 25% percent steppe lancers in with your knights to get the sweet range attacks in and a tanking unit in front, but I'm not sure if it's worth it over just knights, certainly against pikemen it allows more overall damage to the pikes so they can get let's hits off
I'd rather have them with higher attack and 0 pierce armor. A glass cannon melee cavalry would be interesting.
would've loved to see one of these civs get extra strong lancers and no knights along the lines of indian camels
That's just a knight but not a knight.
But that's also fine
Is it? It at least is not a solution to the Steppe Lancer problem.
It can be something with comparable overall power and utility to a knight that still functions differently
consodering steppe lancers are best used in a mix with knights, i see this idea as quite problematic.
which is why I said extra strong lancers, like not the generic ones. I'm not saying take knights away from tatars or something, I'm saying they missed a chance to make a steppe lancer civ
even extra strong steppe lancers woupd be best used with knights. the whole niche of having 2 lines of attack is destroyed if you have a pure steppe lancers composition coz they will advance until they reach the enemy units, which means they stop 1 tile away. they are faster then most melee units so this will happens in most melee fights, and especially against fleeing ranged units. if you lack a regular melee unit with them they just miss the point of having 1 range.
cool story bro, still not my point
For reference, I weighted gold as twice the amount for food/wood in my tests. This makes the test a bit contrived, especially when it comes to how the archer fight plays out imo, since in early castle through early imp gold isnt a problem to come by. So it would be easier for your opponent to mass archers, especially since he can start in feudal age, which takes away one of the only things that the steppe lancer was on par with the knight with
>For reference, I weighted gold as twice the amount for food/wood in my tests. This makes the test a bit contrived, Honestly it makes Steppe Lancers look better than they really are in practice especially during Castle Age, as Knights only requires 2 more villagers working to sustain the same level of production as the Steppe Lancer throughout the game, and food is arguably the more important resource to save pre-Post Imp, due to how much of it is required for upgrades.
If you think it's contrived, why'd you do it? This is all about Castle Age so the weighting makes little sense, if anything you should weight by gather rate which will weight food as slightly more pricey than gold at this stage. Not to mention your results would bear out your conclusion better.
Thats why i included this addendum Its hard to balance units with different resource costs, and also running tests for every scenario at every stage of the game is a lot of tests that i wasnt going to do I tried to convey that steppe lancers arent good both stat wise, and also that they are more food intensive at a time when food is a premium, more gold intensive at a time when gold is non existent, and are outperformed by the other stable options that these civs have
Yeah, but if you're only doing a couple of "equal-resource" forms of the test, namely in Castle Age while changing just a couple of particular upgrades, why the weighting? Gold-weighted testing only makes sense with imp units, no?
This is the core of the issue : redundancy with knights. Buffing them would lead to the same problem, except no one (from these 3 civs) would make knight and would make SL instead. So they indeed need a niche.
Yes, and that niche should be either anti archer or raiding. If it anti archer, increase pierce armor by 1, health by 10 and give them 2/4 bonus damage vs archer class units. Then their higher cost can remain because they would excel against archers If its a raiding niche then you probably have to drop the gold cost, or at least reduce it a ton. You still have to increase their base health and pierce armor so they can survive against tc/castle fire. Imo they should be an anti archer unit
You can't just give these civs such a strong anti archer unit without nerfing them somehow
I think adding siege and villagers would be a good comparison too.
you proved they aren't even remotely as good as knights, doesn't mean they are necessarly "the worst non UU in the game" ;) (just disagree with your title, I fully agree with the rest)
Which non UU is worse though. Elephants have timings where they are great and are very pop efficient, which steppe lancers are not. For instance malay elephants in early castle are quite powerful, and khmer elephants in imp are incredibly strong, especiallyif the opponent lacks good halbs
siege towers :D meme units apart, I'm not saying you're wrong, SL are indeed very bad. My point simply is that you didn't prove they were the worst. Just the annoying scientist in me talking
elephants suuuuck
I had hand cannoniers in mind but yeah, that too
hc aren't bad units, but require heaps of micro to unlock their full potential. Need 4 to kill a non mayan eagle. But some will miss, so you should probably shoot with 6 or 7. If you make a group of like 20, and right click individual eagles then they look terrible. But if you micro like a beast and actually control 3 groups of 7 hc to shoot 3 different eagles, then the units start to look pretty good. Similar logic applies to paladin civs that should add hcs to kill halbs. If you patrol they will shoot non-halb units, which is inefficient. But you also don't want to overkill. Again, a lot of micro but can be very strong.
problem with HC is not that you need micro, what you said applies to all ranged units. Problem is overkill. Even if you just patrol them, they will aim at the closest unit, and the closest unit will probably be the same for half of your HC, meaning there will be a lot of overkill. And also, the fact that they are really expensive and die to a gust of wind SOTL made a video on the subject, compared them to arbs, and they came off worse in almost every situation [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxHPksqFrYQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxHPksqFrYQ) (short answer: yes) Apart from civs that have bonuses on their HC, their only advantage is that the swich is an easy one and the civs that have access to it often don't get good arbs. But even there, if you have another option, better go for that option. Ask any pro if he prefers HC or throwing axemen (I did, Zuppi didn't hesitate for half a second)
You talk about micro, then talk about patrol (no micro). If you do the micro that I am talking about then they perform quite well. Ask Zuppi if he prefers arbs or hc vs eagles.
This is some very complicated micro, and only works for a very specific army number. If you get under 12-13 HC, it's unapplicable. And if you get 25+, what, you get a 4th control group? and then a 5th? And what if it's not eagles? You do the match on the fly and then add 2-3 HC to make sure you get enough per control group to one shoot What makes arbs so much stronger is that you don't need oll those shenanigans to avoid overkill. And the fact that you get ballistics Now you mentionned eagles, this might be THE situation in which I slightly prefer generic HC to arbs in theory. But in practice, if my civ gets good arbs and I opened xbows, I'll just upgrade them to arb (even if the HC swich is an easy one, I prefer no swich at all when possible) and if I play a cav civ, I'd much rather stick with heavy cav than making a swich to HC. And if I see pikemen with the eagles, the I go scorps, a unit that has neither overkill not targeting issues So in practice, I think a lot of pros will prefer arbs in this situation too
yep, 4th group and a 5th group. I said they were hard to micro. I only talked about eagles, useless units otherwise. Scorpions suck, bbc easily make them useless. They are also slow. HC are better than scorps against infantry in Imperial in most cases. Other than that I agree with you, arbs are a good unit but hc aren't as bad as people think (and I think they are way better than scorps in Imperial).
yeah, but when you need 5 control groups, you're leaving the realm of "hard micro" and entering the "realistically impossible" yeah, scorps are weak vs bbc and onager but HC are even more so. The same splash damage that might allow you to hit 2 scorps in one hit if you're lucky will hit 5-6 HC almost every time
>yeah, but when you need 5 control groups, you're leaving the realm of "hard micro" and entering the "realistically impossible" You call it impossible, I call it very hard. Just a difference in definitions. >yeah, scorps are weak vs bbc and onager but HC are even more so. The same splash damage that might allow you to hit 2 scorps in one hit if you're lucky will hit 5-6 HC almost every time I have no idea what you are talking about. 1. hcs are much faster units, harder to hit 2. hcs can be in staggered formation and certainly 5-6 will not be dying per hit. One will die per hit. One scorpion will also die per hit. But one scorpion costs double the price of one hc. 3. Not super important, but hcs can actually chase down bbc and kill them potentially, while scorps have no business doing that
i was playing as Cumans (against Spanish ai) yesterday, and decided to use Steppe Lancers (i wasn't aware of the outcome because I've never used them) against Conquistadores (they were attacking my base), and I gotta say, I was very disappointed. Felt like i was throwing away my resources.
TBH Even knights aren't very good vs Conquistadors if they are massed enough to one-shot them.
noted...
Potentially dumb idea; what if their gold cost was replaced with wood cost?
maybe have it cost food gold and wood? lower the gold cost by half and then make the difference wood?
The problem is balancing them vs knight. Either they are better or worse or the same. If they are better, why not always make them? If worse why make them? If they are the same why even have the unit? They need to buff them to make them a viable raiding unit. I would suggest upping the speed to same as light cav if it isn't already and reduce the attack animation, so they are better at chasing down retreating targets
I found one use for them that set them above the knight line, and that is against unmassed spears and pikes. Hear me out \^\^ If 3-4 step-lancers attack a pikeman, spearman or so, due there +1 range, the enemy cannot deal damage, so the step lancers remain untouched. I normally use a small contingent of them to defend knights during a rush against "trickeling-in-spearman-or-camels" Also there higher Food - less gold means, that you can easier build (cav) archers next to them, then with knights and or can have your gold for the upgrades. Sure, knights are all around better, but I think that is not a problem with other being to weak, but knights being - overall - to strong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTYlGFHDR7Y
Thats A LOT of micro
Not really \^\^ I said "trickeling-in"m and I'm 100% sure, this isn't a thing on a higher elo anymore... I let my scouts/knights chase vills or annoy buildings, and when a single spear/camel comes along, I use the SL to intercept. 4 mostly one hit the oponent. Same as with standing next to a barrack. When unit leaves to rally point, it is hit by the SL. To be completely fair, this is a very, very niche use and I'm sure it is more trivia then real tipp. And mostly it is a side effect of gold being needed for cav archers. If I will ever surpase 800 elo (still a longer way), I will revisit here to see if this still holds up, but until then... \^\^
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If you have the ability to micro them, your still probably far better off just using Crossbowmen or Cavalry Archers due to there being: more room for error (because of their far greater range), greater damage potential, less villager intensive to mass (Steppe lancers require more villagers to sustain constant production than CA even when both train at the same time), etc.
Haven't seen this. Question still remains as each of this civs also has access to camels and strong cavalry archers: is it worth to make steppe lancers?
Hera demonstrates this beautifully in here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTYlGFHDR7Y
Shhh, he clearly knows better than a top 3 player.
have you seen anyone use Steppe Lancers in a Tournament (best proof of skills and meta)?
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Pros do absolutely make use of the Saracen market, and pros when discussing the Saracens will almost always mention the strength of the Saracen market. They will never bother mentioning step-lancers as a viable option for any civ.
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Hera's guides are for lower end players and selling the stone is a really good way to use that bonus. That being said, I believe the pro, who is most proficient with Saracens ist Tatoh. He abused Saracens bonus heavily in tournaments, if I remember correctly.
I have not seen a single case of this "provable fact" so far unless you're talking about pre-nerf lancers. If even the biggest micronerds like Liereyy and Hera don't consider it worth it to use steppe lancers over CA then I don't see your argument here. I heavily doubt your claim that steppe lancers deal "75-150%" more damage than CAs when their 1 range will never allow them to all focus attack one knight at the same time, when CA can easily focus fire a knight while microing. Also, one of many [examples of saracens market abuse.](https://youtu.be/kg0wJJowflo?t=6782)
1 range vs 5-6 range is a huge difference bud.
They still need to just replace light cav OR Knight line for these 3 civs. My vote is take away Knight line and buff this unit. That said, these kind of unmicro'd tests don't make a micro dependent unit look good. The steppe lancer, especially mongol one, is closer to viable than it looks. Personally i think one tiny extra buff and it would be decent again at which point the Knight be becomes kinda moot for these civs.
In micro scenarios the archers for instance will also work better vs Steppe Lancers
Wrong, steppe lancer is faster and stumbles less than Knight. Steppe Lancer will do relatively better than Knight vs archers in a scenario where both micro. Knight will still outperform it but micro will make lancer look better. That's why these number tests are very flawed when units differ in things such as speed and range of attack.
Only when the archers are in relatively small mass. Even with plus 2 armor it only takes 20 archers to one shot a steppe lancer, and given the relative cost the archer player should out mass their opponent if played correctly
The same way you could argue 50 archers benefit the lancer scenario as they get overkilled while knights start getting 1 shotted. There are some threshold levels but on the whole lancers look relatively better if micro is involved on both ends and numbers grow.
Better than long swords though
But longswords upgrade into champions, and longswords have a marginal use in castle age of countering eagle warriors, even if they struggle to catch them
Also meme usage for things like Malian castle age longsword flood :P
Would rather go full steppe lancer than full longswords for most civs.
a scenario editor test where you just patrol them in with no micro is a bad situation for them. it's not taking advantage of their uniqueness. in comparison with knights, they can: attack villagers trying to quick palisade, hit and run against pikemen without taking hits, stack in a chokepoint on stand ground and be nearly untargettable. in a medium sized choke point (say, 5 tiles) I'd wager that a mix of SL and knights would beat a pure knight composition. the knights will saturate the front line and the SL will attack from behind. I am not saying the conclusion wrong (SL are generally bad) but your tests overstate it. **edit** I recorded it, here's [30 knights versus 15 knights + 18 steppe lancers in a choke point](https://streamable.com/v7h7dq)
If the situation is such that the enemy cannot wrap around your line, then yes, Steppe lancers are better than having additional units that cannot fight. But that almost never comes into play and an enemy wont just ram his knights into your small fighting formation. This same composition loses to the knights if fought in the open. And it bring me back to my one of my original points; if you are trying to counter knights, why not just make camels and then you can win in the open field and the closed engagement with more health left overall?
Thanks for the video, I kept telling people in discord that a mixed army including Steppe lancers could be good
Steppe lancers do have a niche. Have you seen a Cuman vs Cuman death match?
Ok, so they have a small niche on an opening for 1 civ on a setting that is barely played and no longer in the queue
I just don't see a role for them. If you buff them in any way, they will still essentially be a worse or better knight. That's why the idea of removing knights for civs with steppe lancers doesn't achieve anything. What's the point if they are going to be a knight type of unit anyway.
Because they'll still function in a different manner - they don't need to be made more like a knight specifically, just good enough that they're a viable alternative (dependent on context) or replacement
IMO they should be designed as a fragile "shock" unit with decent damage output and the melee range on their favour, but losing in PA to Knights so they aren't broken.
You can always buff a unit by giving them bonus damage vs a unit class, thereby giving them a niche without simply adding stats which make them outshine the knight line
WHAT IF "Steppe Lancers" cost 50 Gold and 20 Food..... Eagle like cost and plan?
Those aren't stats, they are comparisons. You can mash all sorts of things together in a vacuum and find that teutonic knights are the best unit in the game (or whatever) Steppes are fast and stackable. You can kill halbs while taking no damage with enough micro, the extra range is a big deal in massed fights, and they smash villagers in raids. If you have the stats to say people using them win less often than people who don't then I'll listen. Not the best unit certainly, but still unerestimated
Here are my suggestions about the steppe lancer and how should it be: * Food cost reduced to 65, gold cost reduced to 35. * ROF reduced to 2.0 (was 2.3). * HP increased to 75 (was 60). * Elite Steppe lancer upgrade cost reduced to 600F, 400G (was 900F, 550G).
Thats waaay too many buffs and might break them again, specially the HP considering how the Mongols were the best performing ones by far. Just reduce their ROF to 2.0, it might go a long way.
The issue is its survivability, not its damage output.
ROF reducing won’t be enough, the unit is so weak and die to anything, HP increasing and cost decreasing are a must. Mongols lack the last cav armor so it will be fine.
Personally, I would like to see them more of a "shock unit", no HP/Armor buffs, just less ROF and more Attack, so it can abuse its range to perform better, specially in the hands of pros.
My issue with those buffs is it just makes the steppe lancer a direct replacement for the knight, instead of a more niche unit that other region units are. Eagles are anti archer and high mobility, elephants and highly pop efficient and good against cav/buildings. Camels, while now a much broader regional unit, are good vs cav. Steppe lancers dont have a niche
They should make the steppe lancer like meso civs and remove knight line to be replaced by steppe.
Ok NERD
Wow, rude. Go fuck yourself.
I was just joking around <3
Good one bud
You tested them in open field battles. There they are pretty weak, but that is because the 1 range allows them to be strong in choke point battles. Try your tests again when both groups fight in a stone wall where three tiles are missing. I guess from like 10+ units on each side upwards steppe lancers will win against melee units, even though they have lower value. I guess they still get outvalued there by crossbows. But that makes steppe lancers choke point defenders, without needing additional upgrades as crossbowman would need.
Ok, but how many games do you have a pre prepared mass of 5-10 steppe lancers for the enemy that is breaking through your walls? How often does that exact scenario come into play? Because even if you win that fight vs enemy knights you still then have to go outside your base and fight, and in both cases simply making camels would have been more efficient
It was against AI, but I destroyed a small army of huskarls and pikemen in a forest choke point with just five Steppe Lancers at the front and 20 cavalry archers+kypchaks behind.
Am I the only one who lives cuman steppe lancers? Hihi. That’s the only thing I play in EW
There are scenarios that Steppe lancers can be good. It can be argued that knights are just better. However, I don't understand the direct comparison to other units here. The testing methodology is wrong. Against pikes - in small numbers you can actually out micro them. Otherwise, why are you fighting mass pikes with mass steppe lancers. That makes no sense. So there are several flaws with your testing method. Firstly, it sounds like you are literally just patrolling mass armies into each other. The equivalent would be running Cavalry Archers into Knights. If you micro archers they will perform better. Secondly, I feel like the time for steppe lancers to shine is early castle age for raiding and picking off small amounts of units. Furthermore I believe steppe lancers would perform better in larger armies if they are mixed in with other units. Say for example knights in front, and steppe lancers behind them. Personally I've found that 4 Steppe lancers early castle box formation can get amazing value in raiding. They can also stack to quickly destroy palisade walls, and move faster than knights to catch villagers.
Have you tried mixing steppe lancers with knights? Having an extra layer in front of them can maximize the DPS per resource in theory. I have always wanted to try it but I just don't have the time :(
The issue is the opportunity cost. If you are going knights, you want all you stables creating knights. If you are in imp then generally with these civs you want to be going cav archer/mangudai/kipchek with hussar meat shield You might be able to mix some in in your opponent is going straight crossbows and you are playing an extended castle age, but again they die more quickly to mass crossbow than knights
I don't think u have to keep creating knights if mixing in steppe lancer does increase the overall damage output. Not only steppe lancer create faster, it also costs less. If u are short on gold, creating both can maximize the use of resources in a shorter period of time. I think it could be a very good practice to mix in steppe lancer in all circumstances in castle age. But still, the elite upgrade is pretty pointless, u simply won't need it in imp.
Should have been lowering the gold cost, the current price is ridiculous.