The Fascinating Investigation of the Steppe Warrior
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The scene is set: the final of Red Bull Wololo: Legacy is underway.
TaToH and Liereyy are going head to head in an intense battle.
After TaToH goes two games up, Liereyy brings it back to 2-2.
As TaToH wins another game, the pressure mounts as he needs only one more win to take the tournament.
In the final game, TaToH is playing Tatars against Liereyy’s Aztecs on Outcrop.
To everyone’s surprise, TaToH wins the game with a stack of Steppe Lancers, a unit that has been considered by many to be highly situational and ineffective.
This unexpected victory sparks a newfound interest in Lancers and they become popular again, being used in major tournaments and on the ladder.
This serves as a reminder to not be too reliant on the meta and to keep an open mind when it comes to making units.
The superiourity that SLs have over the conventional eagle push counters has been known for quite some time, but as with most things, it takes some time for it to be set in stone and used by certain conservative pros.
It’s simply really easy to micro the unit in castle age, allowing you to trade extremely well vs eagles alone, and you can do quite well against pikes too.
The cheaper cost relative to knights, as well as faster move speed and the +1 range makes them far less vulnerable to monks and the mobility alone makes them superiour to long swords (that lacks supplies).
This snowballs really well too against eagle openings as those typically are very aggressive and 1 tc oriented, so the eco is really easy to hit, especially when normal quickwalls don’t really cut it.
That being said, the potency of the unit drops pretty fast once you don’t really have the time to babysit them constantly and at that point a tech switch is imperative…
Absolutely agree on the general conclusion.
One thing though: Xbow nerf did happen and with people rushing earlier to Castle, this effectively also buffs Monks in defense against Knights (less food eco behind the Knights) and I think that’s why Steppe Lancers can shine: Xbows and Knights are both less dominant and Lancers are better than everything else basically.
Watch as the same thing happens to elephant archers some time this year.
> people saying that they’re about as much use as a Chocolate Fire Ship
I would totally buy aoe2 chocolates, though.
Best gaming snack ever.
This is because tons of players don’t treat their or other peoples’ estimate of a unit as an *estimate*.
They especially don’t take into account that data generation is *endogeous* (i.e.
the estimate determines the data and the data determines the estimate)
For example let’s say someone believe a unit is underpowered.
How often will that unit be used?
Rarely.
But this means they don’t generate data to update their estimate.
Which means that if the believe it to be underpowered the rate at which their update converges to the “true” value is very slow.
Now look at the opposite.
If someone believes something is overpowered they will use it a lot.
Which means they generate a ton of data to update their estimate.
Which means the rate at which their estimate converges to the “true” value is quite fast.
This is a well-known tradeoff in exploration-exploitation systems.
It’s also why the devs cant trust people’s opinions on underpowered units unless they know the individual has been actually trying to use the unit or has a causal model to justify the opinion.
I think this was a one-off case and not indicative of the presence of sleeper power units waiting to be discovered.
The entire GL team decided to use Lancers as a secret strat precisely because nobody would be expecting them.
I remember Viper saying quite early on (right after the nerfs) that SL are still good since they create faster and the range and stacking means they can pick off vils faster than other cav units can.
But this is only in super-early Castle Age; they fall off HARD as the game goes on and enemy has access to pikes, knights, arrow upgrades (for TC and Castle fire), monks.
SL are particularly good vs Eagles since unlike knights, they don’t need to stand around and get surrounded by several Eagles; they can bunch up and pick them off one by one with some kiting.
What we need now is another pro proving that Elite Steppe Lancers are also very much worth it
This post reminds me of all the posts about Cavalry Archers when DauT made a magnificent case for them.
Nice write up!
This is a perfect example of why we should be open to question the status quo of the meta.
Our game is not ‘solved’ yet.
One reason SL is good vs eagles is that monks are bad against them, just like they’re bad against xbow.
SL is a unit that works best in mass and few conversions out of 20 SLs don’t affect the fight as much as 12 KTs.
Chocolate Fire Ship sounds like a potentially great band
Been really enjoying doing Cuman 2TC into Steppe Husbandry Lancers on some maps – It’s been awesome on Lombardia.
Second TC can be placed forward to assist in defending in case of feudal aggression, once you hit Castle you come out of the gates absolutely flying in eco and you’re pretty much guaranteed to get in and cause havoc on the enemy base.
I’ve always seen their potential as better than knights in the early castle age.
Especially with Mongols.
It requires a tech switch quite quickly though, you can’t blindly keep making them.
Looking at you Vinchester.
>And please devs, reduce the cost of the Elite Upgrade.
It’s only fair…
I’m Mr. “Consistently rooting for the SL” on this sub, but yes, the upgrade is excessively expensive.
Reduce the cost of the upgrade, and, likely, add one pierce armor to them.
Then they’re fine.
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