Champion cavalry improvements

[Dakara]

random troll idea : make unable cav to capture , delete tech +10% hp cav and slighty decrease the resource efficient (at least same as champ infantery)

[Atrik]

4 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

I just don't think its good for the only counter to champcav to be 0.5 to 0.4 times as fast, but absolutely massacre them if they end up fighting

Would solve the main problem that champ cavs currently can slam into infantry formations, meat-shield, and even melt them by their own, which is prob what most people think is broken right now. Slowing heavy cav movement speed will mean they no longer counter ranged light cavs? Or at least ranged light cavs can escape them pretty easy? Could make sens for realism but this might have a lot of consequences balance wise.

Edited April 18 by Atrik

[Seleucids]

15 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

well that kind of sucks, then you just hardly ever see them. Also, what does that mean for champ melee infantry? They would be even less used.

which is good. 

You can still train champions from fortress non-stop and it would actually make the fort an useful production building instead of a pure Sentry Tower ProMax++.  We have separated out the siege workshop and the elephant stables so we will still see more champs than A23, but no champ spam. Champions will be truely noble units that are cherished and valued instead of being used as meatshields. They will also be possible to counter for the given structure tree. 

[Seleucids]

13 hours ago, Atrik said:

Just give them 1 real weakness

This is another idea for those who do want to keep spamming champions. For example we can let melee inf have a 5x counter against melee champ cav.  Or we can introduce a new formation which gives some additional resistance against champ cav attacks. The Roman anti-cav formation is a good place to start. 

[Deicide4u]

24 minutes ago, Seleucids said:

For example we can let melee inf have a 5x counter against melee champ cav.  Or we can introduce a new formation which gives some additional resistance against champ cav attacks.

It's better to avoid the "this specific unit is good only against that other specific unit" hard counter situations. Spearmen and pikemen should be strong against cavalry in general, not just against melee champion cavalry.

It's a historical fact that the best defense against horsemen was a long spear. It's also a fact that cavalry obliterated archers on open fields. Most other (semi)historical RTS games reflect these facts by giving attack bonuses or armor weaknesses.

If cavalry are really a problem, a simple solution would be to improve the already existing counters.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

5 hours ago, Seleucids said:

This is another idea for those who do want to keep spamming champions. For example we can let melee inf have a 5x counter against melee champ cav.  Or we can introduce a new formation which gives some additional resistance against champ cav attacks. The Roman anti-cav formation is a good place to start. 

That would push us even further into playing "keep away" from the spearmen, which is pretty easy, but when you are forced to take a fight against spears, they will just get absolutely melted. A 5x counter might actually win with a numerical disadvantage for spearmen since they would rank up incredibly fast.

edit: spears can win 25 vs 20 champ spearcav w/full techs.

14 hours ago, Atrik said:

Slowing heavy cav movement speed will mean they no longer counter ranged light cavs? Or at least ranged light cavs can escape them pretty easy? Could make sens for realism but this might have a lot of consequences balance wise.

No, I'm thinking bigger picture speed balancing, but it will be near the bottom of my list.

[Seleucids]

3 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

they will just get absolutely melted. A 5x counter might actually win with a numerical disadvantage for spearmen since they would rank up incredibly fast.

This is exactly what we want - a counter unit. Even at 5x bonus, the spearman would still take some heavy damage because of the insane damage values from the champ cav. it would make the champion cav sufficiently weak in a fight against other unit types, so the op problem is solved. If all you can do is have a lot of champions running around but not take fights, then players will be discouraged from champ spam. 

 

but this is still not as good as just moving them to a fort or a special building only. 

[Atrik]

27 minutes ago, Seleucids said:

Even at 5x bonus

x3 was known to work in some a26 com mod version. Champ cavs where countered more like one would expect by spears. If this is too much early on against cs melee cavs, we could instead add a tech with this +50% (+x0.5) dps against cav bonus? Melee cavs are quite strong early game anyways so could be either way.

[chrstgtr]

54 minutes ago, Atrik said:

x3 was known to work in some a26 com mod version. Champ cavs where countered more like one would expect by spears. If this is too much early on against cs melee cavs, we could instead add a tech with this +50% (+x0.5) dps against cav bonus? Melee cavs are quite strong early game anyways so could be either way.

This is why I think any change should be only done to the inf spear modifier. Against cav

I think this is just a such obvious solution.  Almost everyone agrees that champ cav are too strong against cs spear inf. Any other change would mess with other balance. It’s targeted and gets what everyone thinks should change. 

Edited April 18 by chrstgtr

[Fabius]

23 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

@Seleucids with that said on fortresses, I would like to come up with some more truly unique champion units, not just your "standard" champs, and some of these could make forts their home.

I like this idea, unique civ things are good for differentiation and interest

[Atrik]

4 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

That would push us even further into playing "keep away" from the spearmen, which is pretty easy, but when you are forced to take a fight against spears, they will just get absolutely melted.

I would like to take an example of very nice improvements that emerged in a27: defenses buildings. Now they better balanced in each phase, and in p3, are generally much stronger. Especially forts. However they've been added some weaknesses like easier to capture, and min range for forts, so overall they feel like successfully balanced and fun to me.

[Deicide4u]

1 hour ago, Atrik said:

However they've been added some weaknesses like easier to capture, and min range for forts,

Which makes Murder holes actually useful. Yet, I wonder how many people research it? 

[Gurken Khan]

@Deicide4u I always get them, but don't know if SP counts.

[Atrik]

1 hour ago, Gurken Khan said:

@Deicide4u I always get them, but don't know if SP counts.

What tech do you do last would maybe be more interesting to know. Since as I imagine, SP players mostly play just to build the most developed city possible with no constraint on trying to optimize anything.

[Emacz]

14 hours ago, Seleucids said:

This is another idea for those who do want to keep spamming champions. For example we can let melee inf have a 5x counter against melee champ cav.  Or we can introduce a new formation which gives some additional resistance against champ cav attacks. The Roman anti-cav formation is a good place to start. 

My understanding is formations currently dont work, unless that was fixxed in a27? 
They dont add any bonuses, nor can you attack from formation.  They just help you "run" faster into postion you want to be in when you fight.

Please let me know if I am wrong here!  Cause for now what we have done in historical is added "auras" to different units that have formations to kind of mimic those formations when they are in close enough proximity.

[Gurken Khan]

2 hours ago, Atrik said:

What tech do you do last would maybe be more interesting to know.

I usually build twin towers and man them, then get the extra arrow pretty early. Murder holes is next, then the extra reach when I can spare the metal. All depending who I am and what my situation is; sometimes, when there's no traffic at my borders (or I'm iber), I never build or upgrade stone towers myself and just do it later when I captured something. I hardly ever get the other two tecs, if I do it's extra arrow per garrison before (if ever) the extra health.

[LienRag]

On 17/04/2025 at 7:48 PM, TheCJ said:

now this, this is beautiful. Make stone walls cheaper, faster to build, a little smaller and with less hp and the "cav problem" is gone.

Because the cav cant realistically engage the actual enemy army (which consists of up to 100 spearman) without heavy losses and with more useful walls, they cant really disrupt your economy (if you prepare sufficiently).

Nah.

Walls should take some time to build.

Palissades are historically exactly what is used to slow down enemy attacks, especially cavalry.

Maybe get a tech "staked palissades" (or caltrops, maybe) that forbid cavalry to attack palissades (ideally, force them to dismount to attack palissades, but we don't have a dismounting mechanism - so maybe give the staked palissage a small aura that slow down cavalry).

What we want is spear infantry on choke points created by palissades to be able to destroy champion cavalry, while cavalry still being dominant on the open field against unarmored foes, and champion cavalry able to take on armored foes on open field in a somewhat equal foot.

Edited April 19 by LienRag
typo

[LienRag]

On 17/04/2025 at 10:15 PM, Dakara said:

random troll idea : make unable cav to capture

Could be nice indeed.

A bit too strong change of balance though, not sure if a middleground can be found.

Unable to take garrisonned buildings, maybe (so still able to mount a devastating raid if the enemy makes a mistake).

[LienRag]

On 18/04/2025 at 11:03 AM, Seleucids said:

Or we can introduce a new formation which gives some additional resistance against champ cav attacks. The Roman anti-cav formation is a good place to start. 

Formations are a nice idea.

[LienRag]

On 17/04/2025 at 8:26 PM, chrstgtr said:

the cav vs spear example you give isn’t representative of real fights. In real fights, you have a bunch of range killing that spear too.

We're back to another main problem : ranged units should only be able to kill unarmored units, and only harass armored units. As they did historically.

[LienRag]

On 16/04/2025 at 6:22 PM, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

How much faster compared to infantry do cavalry need to be to have a significant mobility advantage? Do they still have a mobility advantage if they are say 1.5x faster instead of 2x? would that result in less cavalry balance problems?

What ?

Cavalry should be quicker than infantry, making them less distinct from infantry isn't the way to go.

 

[TheCJ]

3 hours ago, LienRag said:

Palissades are historically exactly what is used to slow down enemy attacks, especially cavalry.

Palisades are not cheap enough either. They also take too long to build. Closing up your base (or vulnerable parts) just because you think cav might be coming gives you too big of an economic disadvantage. And reacting with palisades after the first raid hitted just means the first raid did even more damage.

Also they are paper to anything melee.

2 hours ago, LienRag said:

ranged units should only be able to kill unarmored units, and only harass armored units. As they did historically

Is that not what they are currently doing? If I need 100 citizen archers to actually one-shot a champion cavalry unit, Id say each one is doing more of a "harassment" than a "killing". Also, almost all units have armor?

2 hours ago, LienRag said:

Cavalry should be quicker than infantry, making them less distinct from infantry isn't the way to go.

If cavalry was 1.5x as quick than infantry, it would still be quicker? 

Just for reference; the fastest base cav unit in AoE2 (the hussar) is 1.5x as fast as their counter (the halberdier). If it works for them, it might just work for us.

Edited April 19 by TheCJ
typo

[Dakara]

Hello, 

Please don't insert more counter and don't up the counter statistic of spear infantery.

Increasing the ability to build walls, etc., is not desirable. It's fine as it is, and it's not a way to balance things. Bunkering shouldn't become a game meta. The pace of the games is important.

Spear infantry costs nothing compared to a cav champ spear. They are expensive and it normal they destroy a simple citizen troop. 

Their speed is normal and realistic. Champion Cavalry should be one of the best units in the game. It's normal, historical, and fun, but we need to give non-spammers of the unit a chance to compete. In full combat without escape they are not unkillable with armies including a few infantry champions.

Here are the proposed changes to reduce the unit's strength.

• Nerf piercing armor -1 armor
• Delete tech 10% HP and tech persians/selucid 20% hp champ
• Reduce movement speed from 18 to 16.2. As heavy units, they shouldn't be faster than light cavalry
• Make units stack less during movement and combat. They should lose time repositioning when attacking to reflect more realistic spacing.
• Rethinking the capture :  Increase the bonus point capture phase 3 for garnison unit. It too much frustrating currently. You loose easy easy building even with full garnison against not a big army. 
• Range of champ cav persians et selucid is op too, 7 meters! Back to 4. They only cost 10 metal more and they have MORE RANGE and ARMOR, Isn't this a source of imbalance?

I think it enough like that.

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Spoiler

gentler solutions as mentioned can be tried. 

If not enough just change the metal cost. But actually the purpose is not to ruin this unit 

Why increase metal cost? it makes you a little more dependent on a citizen-troop economy and it busy a quantity of population. After test up metal mine to 6K. 

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Spoiler

If not enough, delete all theses idea and go for 2 population unit. I don't like a lot but elefant archer maurya have 200 hp for 2 population. Of course it long range so hard to compare.

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Spoiler

What do balance experts think about the cost (in time and resources) of buildings that are solely dedicated to training champion units?

Personally, I like the concept — for example with the Han — but it's clear that it puts them at a disadvantage compared to other civilizations.

Other civs can always fall back on training regular units if they run out of resources. The Han can’t. Once they commit to champions, they're locked in.

 

[TheCJ]

3 hours ago, Dakara said:

Increasing the ability to build walls, etc., is not desirable. It's fine as it is, and it's not a way to balance things. Bunkering shouldn't become a game meta. The pace of the games is important.

Is it fine as it is? Walls are currently so irrelevant, most people wouldn't even notice if we removed them.

Of course, nobody likes it if "Bunkering"/Turtling becomes "meta", but making walls atleast useable in some situations would not have that effect.

 

Otherwise you make good points!

[Seleucids]

1 hour ago, TheCJ said:

Walls are currently so irrelevant, most people wouldn't even notice if we removed them.

Of course, nobody likes it if "Bunkering"/Turtling becomes "meta", but making walls atleast useable in some situations would not have that effect.

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