Feudal Knights Weak?

[Anthreris]

After the update I've noticed that these shock units (at least the feudal variety) don't seem as viable especially in auto combat. I'd understand if shock units in general had to nerfed due to their power and consistency in auto combat over everything else, but every-time I would get into a fight one or two would die.

These were also buffed by Stoneskin and Steelskin fighting against barbarian societies specced in Chaos/Materium and the other Chaos/Nature. For context I also had Scions of Flame, and Demonkin essentially no reason to be weak to fire and physical.

I'm also talking about both Aspirant Knights (Tier 2) and Knights (Tier 4). Tier 2 is obvious as to why they'd be weaker. But my tier 4's dropped like flies as well.


Has anyone else experienced this or are you having better luck?

[Kaneda]

I think its how the autoresolf works. Your Fast units will attack first and get killed, because the backup is not in a good range. Try this: Do auto battle and watch the fight after it. Then you see how the ai play with your units.

[Anthreris]

Originally posted by Kaneda:

I think its how the autoresolf works. Your Fast units will attack first and get killed, because the backup is not in a good range. Try this: Do auto battle and watch the fight after it. Then you see how the ai play with your units.

Are you suggesting that the autoresolve AI for shock units has been altered?

If I was playing my Dark faction then this would be easier to test, as I've got a pretty good idea as to how certain shock units should be performing. I'm unable to tell though with the recent changes to Feudal. Since the base knight is no longer tier 3 but tier 2, which means lower stats.

The new tier 4 Knights however feel much weaker compared to something like Tyrant Knights. I can't test this anytime soon, as my current build won't be getting the Tome of Subjugation.

[Lone Wolf]

Originally posted by Anthreris:

The new tier 4 Knights however feel much weaker compared to something like Tyrant Knights. I can't test this anytime soon, as my current build won't be getting the Tome of Subjugation.

I don't like the Tyrant Knight. For a T4 unit, which costs imperium, it brings very little to the table. The T4 Feudal Knight has Slippery, an build-in heal and inspiring killer.
A T4 tome unit should be better.

The new Feudal knights are really good. I wish there were a way to prevent the evolution so you can keep the T2 knights as you cannot have much T4 units because of the imperium upkeep.

[Zoggy]

Its how the auto combat deals with faster units in auto combat- not shocks i believe.
The combat ai may also not be taking advantage of slippery/isolation slayer/ knights graceful charge ability very well. (which means they were under performing)

i think some of the problem is you were against barbarians and mounted shocks were getting hit by savage strike (as ai tends to have higher moral earlier in the battle helping crit chance) and that's pure blight damage.

[Malaficus Shaikan]

Based on personal experiance:
Mystic> Everything else.

Some factions like reavers are extreemly powerfull if you fight manualy.
Feudal power comes from being dirt cheap.

Knights are worthless for the same reason every single cavalry unit is worthless.
They are just faster swordsmen.

An from personal experiance.
Arcanist> 90% of the units in this game.

It has to do with units having to much survivability.
A big reason why summoning school is so deadly is because the wizard king acended sorceror casting 3 spells in a row ever two turn and 2 ever turn.
Those spells heal and strenghten summons.
You are pretty much fighting an self healing, self boosting army when fighting against mystic summoning.

30 extra hp and a slight moral bonus is nowhere near as strong.

Likewise the strenght in reavers comes from the overseers ability to subjugate(Read: Take enemy out of the battle) and magelock damage.

The strenght of feudal is that the units are cheap.
Remember that order and nature works well with feudal because of the economic benifits.

Knights are weak for the same reason most units are weak.
To many buffing options.
Nowhere nearly enough damaging options.
Even if you combine all melee damage upgrade's(Which means taking many tier 1 tomes)
You still will do as much damage as an arcanist or magelock.
Who dont need to be heavly buffed to accauly hurt.

Simply put:
Units have to much health and armor and too little damage upgrades.

EDIT: If you want knights to be usefull give them infernal of flying mounts.
That way the can inflict moral damage or fly over walls.
Makes them more usefull.

[Lone Wolf]

Originally posted by Malaficus Shaikan:

Based on personal experiance:
Mystic> Everything else.

Some factions like reavers are extreemly powerfull if you fight manualy.
Feudal power comes from being dirt cheap.

Knights are worthless for the same reason every single cavalry unit is worthless.
They are just faster swordsmen.

An from personal experiance.
Arcanist> 90% of the units in this game.

It has to do with units having to much survivability.
A big reason why summoning school is so deadly is because the wizard king acended sorceror casting 3 spells in a row ever two turn and 2 ever turn.
Those spells heal and strenghten summons.
You are pretty much fighting an self healing, self boosting army when fighting against mystic summoning.

30 extra hp and a slight moral bonus is nowhere near as strong.

Likewise the strenght in reavers comes from the overseers ability to subjugate(Read: Take enemy out of the battle) and magelock damage.

The strenght of feudal is that the units are cheap.
Remember that order and nature works well with feudal because of the economic benifits.

Knights are weak for the same reason most units are weak.
To many buffing options.
Nowhere nearly enough damaging options.
Even if you combine all melee damage upgrade's(Which means taking many tier 1 tomes)
You still will do as much damage as an arcanist or magelock.
Who dont need to be heavly buffed to accauly hurt.

Simply put:
Units have to much health and armor and too little damage upgrades.

EDIT: If you want knights to be usefull give them infernal of flying mounts.
That way the can inflict moral damage or fly over walls.
Makes them more usefull.

Sry, but what? Knights useless? Arcanist best? Feudal units cheaper than other? What are you talking about? Do we play the same game? Not mean to be rude, but what?

Sure, a late game mystic factions beats almost everything if build right, but you have to get there.
I have no problem killing early and mid game mystic factions with my T2 and later T4 knights.

[Malaficus Shaikan]

Originally posted by Lone Wolf:

I have no problem killing early and mid game mystic factions with my T2 and later T4 knights.

Nobody has trouble killing ai.

Now if we assume default setting then mid game starts turn 25 to 30(depending on how slow you are)
At this point i am running around with a stack of storm elementals slaughtering everything.

They are "useless" because they are just normal swordmen on horses.
The charge bonus isnt exclusive to mounts(See dark warrior) and their weakness to spears make them extreemly easy to kill.
Unlike games like battle for middle earth 2 or warhammer 3 you dont get to cycle charge them.
So they biggest advantage cavalary has (the ability to run in and out of combat) doesnt work in age of wonders 4.
Making them little more then just more expensive warriors that can run 2 hexigone futher then the rest of your army.

Simply put.
You could replace them with any other melee unit in terms of how effective they are.
Arcanist have early game strenght because resistiance is less common then armor meaning they do more damage.
Add to this spearmen have a chance to sunder resistiance, the healing of two targets by the healers.
By the time you hit midgame you already replaced them with summons.

You could argue that culture units get out of date really fast.

[Lone Wolf]

Originally posted by Malaficus Shaikan:

Nobody has trouble killing ai.

Now if we assume default setting then mid game starts turn 25 to 30(depending on how slow you are)
At this point i am running around with a stack of storm elementals slaughtering everything.

They are "useless" because they are just normal swordmen on horses.
The charge bonus isnt exclusive to mounts(See dark warrior) and their weakness to spears make them extreemly easy to kill.
Unlike games like battle for middle earth 2 or warhammer 3 you dont get to cycle charge them.
So they biggest advantage cavalary has (the ability to run in and out of combat) doesnt work in age of wonders 4.
Making them little more then just more expensive warriors that can run 2 hexigone futher then the rest of your army.

Simply put.
You could replace them with any other melee unit in terms of how effective they are.
Arcanist have early game strenght because resistiance is less common then armor meaning they do more damage.
Add to this spearmen have a chance to sunder resistiance, the healing of two targets by the healers.
By the time you hit midgame you already replaced them with summons.

You could argue that culture units get out of date really fast.

You said knights are worthless, but they are not. I'm not saying knights are superior to everything (like you said with Arcanists). You also said Feudal units are cheaper, but they are not. I simply stated your false statements.

If you don't like knights that's fine, but stating that they are worthless ist false. I don't like storm elementals, but I don't call them worthless.

[Sifer2]

Originally posted by Kaneda:

I think its how the autoresolf works. Your Fast units will attack first and get killed, because the backup is not in a good range. Try this: Do auto battle and watch the fight after it. Then you see how the ai play with your units.

Yep. The games combat AI isn't terrible overall. But it is overly aggressive. If it's in range to attack it will even if it means throwing a unit to its death. Probably has to be that way to prevent autoresolves turning into a staring contest.

[Aurumworks]

IIRC with the last update they added more details and variety to the combat maps. Which resulted in more obstacles. Which in turn result in single knights charging forward, blocking a path and all the other units wheeling around to navigate towards the enemy around the clogging. Leaving the poor knight all alone to fight. Which results knights getting focused down before support arrives. Not always, but often enough. When something like this happens in autoresolve, manual battle is needed to win the fight with minimal losses.

Young dragons are even worse, as they happily fly over obstacles to get themselves isolated and surrounded.

[Malaficus Shaikan]

Originally posted by Lone Wolf:

You said knights are worthless, but they are not. I'm not saying knights are superior to everything (like you said with Arcanists). You also said Feudal units are cheaper, but they are not. I simply stated your false statements.

If you don't like knights that's fine, but stating that they are worthless ist false. I don't like storm elementals, but I don't call them worthless.

Meaby worthless was the wrong word.
What i ment to say is that most of the units and spells in the game is flat out inferrior to the very small set of good spells and units.

As for cheaper.
I would have to double check but dont they have reduced upkeep?
I think they mentioned it in their discription.

What i do know from personal experiance is that unlike mystic or reaver i become filthy rich far sooner as feudal arostracy.
Tho that could be because of chosen unifer's adapt settle's.
One of the better culture trait.
Fun fact: Placing down 3 extra setting make you more then expanding a city every will.
I understand why we have a city sofcap.
If people could just spamm cities everywhere we end in with thousends of gold and mana at turn 15.
Instead of turn 30.

The point remains tho.
The reason knights feel so worthless is mostly because of how useless cavalary is.
Maps are too small, you cannot do hit and run tatic's, and most of the time combat is decided by who is better buffed.
For example: Tome of summoning have a map wide heal all summon spells.
In combination with wizard king you can restore your entire army to full health.
Their is nothing that feudal, primal or reaver have that get even close to that level of power.

If you go order nature combo you get access to two units who can mind control/seduce enemy troops, untop of healing or whatever other buff you gave to support characters.
In you go chaos your army will mostly just be whatever you get from killing.
As it has many free unit options.
Demons are also quiet strong.

To make it as simple as possible.
The reason why knights feel worthless is because they are cost ineffiecent.
What i get is a cavalry unit with a charge attack.
Why would i use that when for the same cost i can have an astral serpent that can stun, refuge(Invunerablity) teleport and benifits from healing of the mystic school.
Or tome of the tentical with overseers.
Tome of the tentical give a summon with a high change of constriction and allow your spellcasters to constrict targets.
And overseers are spellcasters.
I can use summon tentical and overseer subjugate to take out half your army in 1 turn.
Knights are a beatstick in a game where beatsticks are worthless.
The point of melee is to keep other melee of the casters.
And knights are just an other cavalery unit.
One that is easly countered.

[KekiWekiPeki]

Originally posted by Malaficus Shaikan:

Originally posted by Lone Wolf:

You said knights are worthless, but they are not. I'm not saying knights are superior to everything (like you said with Arcanists). You also said Feudal units are cheaper, but they are not. I simply stated your false statements.

If you don't like knights that's fine, but stating that they are worthless ist false. I don't like storm elementals, but I don't call them worthless.

Meaby worthless was the wrong word.
What i ment to say is that most of the units and spells in the game is flat out inferrior to the very small set of good spells and units.

As for cheaper.
I would have to double check but dont they have reduced upkeep?
I think they mentioned it in their discription.

What i do know from personal experiance is that unlike mystic or reaver i become filthy rich far sooner as feudal arostracy.
Tho that could be because of chosen unifer's adapt settle's.
One of the better culture trait.
Fun fact: Placing down 3 extra setting make you more then expanding a city every will.
I understand why we have a city sofcap.
If people could just spamm cities everywhere we end in with thousends of gold and mana at turn 15.
Instead of turn 30.

The point remains tho.
The reason knights feel so worthless is mostly because of how useless cavalary is.
Maps are too small, you cannot do hit and run tatic's, and most of the time combat is decided by who is better buffed.
For example: Tome of summoning have a map wide heal all summon spells.
In combination with wizard king you can restore your entire army to full health.
Their is nothing that feudal, primal or reaver have that get even close to that level of power.

If you go order nature combo you get access to two units who can mind control/seduce enemy troops, untop of healing or whatever other buff you gave to support characters.
In you go chaos your army will mostly just be whatever you get from killing.
As it has many free unit options.
Demons are also quiet strong.

To make it as simple as possible.
The reason why knights feel worthless is because they are cost ineffiecent.
What i get is a cavalry unit with a charge attack.
Why would i use that when for the same cost i can have an astral serpent that can stun, refuge(Invunerablity) teleport and benifits from healing of the mystic school.
Or tome of the tentical with overseers.
Tome of the tentical give a summon with a high change of constriction and allow your spellcasters to constrict targets.
And overseers are spellcasters.
I can use summon tentical and overseer subjugate to take out half your army in 1 turn.
Knights are a beatstick in a game where beatsticks are worthless.
The point of melee is to keep other melee of the casters.
And knights are just an other cavalery unit.
One that is easly countered.

Am i right that what u sayin is that cultural units sucks comparing to summoned?

[Kotori Asobi]

Feudal knights have 2 issues: They always start at rank 0 (after promoting) and the requirement you need to get them is not worth it. Also they are "expensive" because of influence they need.

[Lampros]

Originally posted by Kotori Asobi:

Feudal knights have 2 issues: They always start at rank 0 (after promoting) and the requirement you need to get them is not worth it.

What?! They start at rank 0? That indeed sucks immeasurably.

[Lone Wolf]

Originally posted by Malaficus Shaikan:

To make it as simple as possible.
The reason why knights feel worthless is because they are cost ineffiecent.
What i get is a cavalry unit with a charge attack.
Why would i use that when for the same cost i can have an astral serpent that can stun, refuge(Invunerablity) teleport and benifits from healing of the mystic school.
Or tome of the tentical with overseers.
Tome of the tentical give a summon with a high change of constriction and allow your spellcasters to constrict targets.
And overseers are spellcasters.
I can use summon tentical and overseer subjugate to take out half your army in 1 turn.
Knights are a beatstick in a game where beatsticks are worthless.
The point of melee is to keep other melee of the casters.
And knights are just an other cavalery unit.
One that is easly countered.

Ok, to counter some of your points:
- Astral Serpents have low attack and after they teleport (for which they have to remain stationary) they are pretty useless. And they don't stun units. If they get attacked in melee they have a chance to stun.
- The combo with the overseer and constrict is good, but you have to strike first for this to work. And it only has a % chance. And knights can move 6 tiles (7 if Champion) so chances are the knights will strike first. And when they do T1 + T2 units will die after 2 charges. And if not are bound in combat.
- Healing is good, but your units have to survive for healing to work. And it costs 30 combat casting points which is much for midgame, even for Wizard King.