The Unfortunate State of Infantry In AoE2

00:00 Intro
00:40 Dark Age
02:30 Feudal Age
06:16 Castle Age
09:12 Imperial Age

#Ageofempires2, #AoE2, #Hera

[himanimbob]

I think the worst thing about men at arms is their attack animation is so slow that running vils gain so much ground every time they are hit

[Felix_EN]

The whole point of infantry is that it is cheap and easy to mass IRL, but not in AoE2

[gebhard]

we had so many changes in DE but the key problems stayed, they are to slow and and are not even cost efficient against knights, its the weakest gold unit and even great infantry civs more often use theyre okayish cavalry instead

[IAmBael]

Militia being the only military available in Dark Age, they really should just become Men-at-Arms in Feudal automatically. Give Bulgarians a new bonus.
The same logic is already used with Serjeants. Since they'd be too strong in Feudal, their stats get automatically buffed in Castle Age.

To further reduce the tech switch problem, you could just give Champion civs the upgrade Longsword->Champion directly, while other civs go Longsword->Two-Handed, same as how the Legionnaire upgrade works, just up the price a bit for the Champion upgrade.

[DeusExDraconian]

Infantry should get a formation bonus, or something. Reduced damage from piercing when massed, like a shield wall effect. Then it would be harder to micro against them with massed archers.

[steinanderson]

-increase damage to buildings for militia and men at arms (two militia should equal or slightly out damage one villager repairing)
-increase damage to villagers
-slight increase to speed say 0.92
-slight decrease in cost of some techs

I feel like this will give them a clear identity in the early game as economy destroyers and if you choose to use them you can force more fights as the opponent will have to defend instead of letting them whale on the buildings and completely ignore them.

[MeanderingMikesManCave]

My Militia-Line buff suggestions: -5 gold cost, speed to .93, +1 more bonus damage to buildings. I'd also like to see Arson increased to +3 instead of +2, or maybe reduce its research cost.

[viktorianas]

All civs should get FREE upgrades up to Longsword, just on par with Knights which you get for free in Castle age.

[grubbsgaben]

Advice: you can visually display the resources (with their icon - gold/wood/food/stone and) with numbers when you are talking about them, helps a lot for not-perfect-english-speakers like myself. Anyway great video, cheers!

[Prince-Escalus]

I wish the devs would just experiment with buffing infantry for a month and see what happens - they can always roll things back if they get too oppressive. Maybe give MAA another +2 against buildings and see if they end up punishing full wall plays in an interesting way, or make Supplies free for everyone. There are a bunch of civs with sick infantry bonuses (Bulgarian free upgrades, Japanese attack speed, Armenian earlier upgrades, Roman double upgrades) yet those civs still don't make infantry regularly, so IMO a minor buff won't be enough to make a big difference.

[fangedcow]

I love how IRL infantry decided 80%+ of real life battles and in AOE2 you forget they exist. They honestly should make the cost half or something.

[iantolan]

I really like the idea of giving them extra bonus damage against buildings, but not against walls. (Increase MAA from +2 to +6?)
This has a few neat effects:
- they have a reason to force fights. They're too slow to effectively kill vils, so they need another way to do economic damage.
- base building becomes more strategic. Do you risk putting your buildings as part of the wall thinking the opponent won't go MAA, or do you hide important buildings behind walls? Right now you get lots of "free" walls with buildings you have to build anyways. Make players have to decide to spend resources on actual walls if they want safety.
- small walls become more difficult. Without being able to use the lumber camp effectively as part of the wall, players have to plan more for attacks and naked FC becomes riskier.
-they have an identity. Buffing speed or attack just makes them a worse version of a knight, this makes them unique in the way you use them, and affects how the opponent has to prepare and counter them.
- makes their use more common. Bringing a few MAA info a fight to clear up buildings means it's more likely to make the upgrade in feudal, if the upgrade is already in, the transition in later ages is also "cheaper" and more appealing.
-buildings actually need support. Right now it's not economic to destroy buildings in feudal (even forwards tend to just wall in the building rather than attacking it). Force players to be more deliberate about where they place buildings, and how they defend them.

Would be interested in your thoughts! The goal is to have more pros and cons they have to weigh for each action, to being even more strategy and interesting facets to the game.

[lscibor]

Dunno maybe make them even better against buildings, maybe siege too?

Like, it's easier to demolish stuff when you're not sitting on a horse.

Dunno if such specialization will really work well in AoE2, but other solutions seem to make them faster.... So pretty would end up just being bit worse, bit slower, bit cheaper cavalry in the end

[elacrai]

I've said it once, I'll say it again: make Infantry dirt cheap, like militia line should be 50/20 without supplies, 35/20 with supplies. Xbow can still micro against them, which I find good, but they'll smash knights in similar resources. (still not pop efficient!) More movement speed etc. just makes them stay the same: a worse knight, in almost all ways. Oh, now MaA is actually amazing vs scouts? Good. They have no mobility. If you just make them faster or whatever, that makes the difference between units smaller, which is kinda boring. Give me a really cheap, powerful, but slower melee fighter. Maybe we get more exciting early feudal play, with lots of militia in late dark on the age up, and suddenly rushing feudal can be punished once in a blue moon.

And yeah maybe they smash at lower elos, but then lower elos can use infantry against each other. Just cause they can't use Xbow or HC or mobility, doesn't mean the game should have poor balancing at higher elos (like really, even really mid elo players at like 1k can micro xbow quite well). If we're balancing for low elos, nerf stone walls or something 11

[LukeJAllen]

I personally don't love the idea of buffing infantry by increasing their speed since that seems like making them just a worse version of cavalry

[David-pzbs]

For this reason, because Infantry is the worst, between Cavalry and Archers, I no longer want to play AOE2. The same thing must happen to many of us who like to play with infantry and they stop playing. Giving Squires in Feudal and +1 Range to the line of Spearmen would improve the infantry and would at least serve to beat the cavalry. At this point, the Infantry is useless, Archers and Knights beat them. The infantry is filling. Another thing that would make it more useful to the Infantry is that it is cheaper, the reality is that in the Middle Ages the majority of the army was infantry and this was very inexpensive, something that AOE 2 does not reflect well.

[pillbox]

I suggest that infantry should have either faster or stronger attack. Cheaper as well. All armies have majority infantry after all. Maybe reduce the gold cost.

[Cheario.]

Absolutely agree. Infantry needs a buff. Would love to see men at arms movement speed go at least to .96 or even .97 but not 1. Think that would help the militia line be more relevant.

[Mini]

The militia-line need a better identity. They usually serve as trash-killer, but in feudal age they are too slow to kill anything. Even skirms counter them. Imo, militia line should be faster base movement speed than skirms before squires. It can be done by either making militia-line faster or making skirms slower.

[ingramli]

Probably unpopular opinion, I believe that the Militia-Line is supposed to be weak vs ranged units, they shouldnt get a lot tankier or move a lot faster against/evading ranged units, on the other hand, they should be cheaper to produce (reduce upgrade cost and unit cost, and reduce time to train), make them easier to mass, and demolish everything if they get close enough, having higher base attack and bigger attack bonus against buildings, and more melee armor would be nice, when they come in larger pack, hit like a truck, they would be feared of, they should be a slow, but cheap melee unit good at close range, and excel at demolishing buildings and fortifications.