Age of Strategy Forums

Wiking-Berserk is way too powerful. In my game, he had 20 offense, 10/6 defense. Its movement range should be less than that of a spearman (heavy weapons). For an upgraded horse knight it is virtually unbeatable to have one punch, which is absurd given history, as historically they began to be rebuked by heavy cavalry. The long archer takes 1 from him when he doesn't even have a shield. The second suggestion concerns horse crossbowmen. They were soldiers with fairly good protective equipment despite the lack of a shield (commonly used in the late Middle Ages). The range should also be greater than that of the archer.

Heavy foot Knight give him 1 damage, what is sick.

Only best counter so far is poison and elephants, u can use herbalist for cheap poison on melee units

herbalist + boyar is even better, because from a range you can just leave them stuck in place until they die (or get "healed")

though tengri shaman + mongolian horseman can deal way more poison damage than that (and reduce the damage they cause instead of slowing their speed)

flailmen (specially after upgraded) are also good counters, and I believe they'll get categorized as slavs once Endru returns, not sure if I'm misremembering here, but if that's the case they'll be back at being the main counter vs zerks.

winged hussars are also very good against them, since they have tons of hp but aren't categorized as [Heavy Cavalry], so don't get bonus damage back, and can attack from range 2, thus receiving no counter damage.

Thanks for the advice, but I would suggest you balance it nonetheless. This unit is like a carry over from Age from Fantasy. Nevertheless, AoS should move towards historical realism.

Jerzy1241 wrote: ↑Wed Apr 27, 2022 12:52 am Wiking-Berserk is way too powerful. In my game, he had 20 offense, 10/6 defense. Its movement range should be less than that of a spearman (heavy weapons). For an upgraded horse knight it is virtually unbeatable to have one punch, which is absurd given history, as historically they began to be rebuked by heavy cavalry. The long archer takes 1 from him when he doesn't even have a shield. The second suggestion concerns horse crossbowmen. They were soldiers with fairly good protective equipment despite the lack of a shield (commonly used in the late Middle Ages). The range should also be greater than that of the archer.

Sorry for the late answer.

Nordic Berserker unit is representation of early elite Scandinavian warriors.
Significant fighting experience, irregular battle tactics and "the show" of berserk state for the enemy to loose morale and appear more powerful would make them very hard to fight against on foot with regular battle tactics (e.g. those utilised by knights fighting on foot).
They are very powerful in their berserk state, but they do have a weakness from cavalry, like knights (11 damage from cavalier without blacksmith techs and 14 with both) and regular organised infantry like swordsmen (men-at-arms deal 7 damage without any blacksmith bonuses, 10 with +2).
But it's true, that bonus against irregular infantry could receive additional bonus like +2 (so +25% +2 damage), because basic swordsman lack damage against berserked state.
And finally - without berserk activated - they are very weak for their cost.
Maybe some bonuses could be changed (e.g. against heavy cavalry removed) or maybe their basic 2/1 armor could be set to 0/0 and added as specialised tech, but topic about balancing berserker exists already.


As for Horse Crossbowmen range mention - it's even explained in the unit description in-game.
Even though normally crossbow would have bigger range than bow - not in the case of mounted usage.
Range in-game is (especially in case of fast ranged units) is not purely representation of attack range, but more of tactical range of attack.
Like how far can e.g. skirmisher unit move, attack and retreat.
Crossbow was very hard to reload from horseback, so in most cases it would be much smaller and weaker to allow proper reloading from horseback or simply the whole unit would use it in dragoon way - drive horses for transport and start shooting in position from ground.
But defensive stats could indeed be boosted a little (0/+1 armor for both units and maybe some more hp).

Endru1241 wrote: ↑Thu May 26, 2022 8:23 am Maybe some bonuses could be changed (e.g. against heavy cavalry removed) or maybe their basic 2/1 armor could be set to 0/0 and added as specialised tech, but topic about balancing berserker exists already.

I agree with reducing bonuses against heavy cavalry, so that they become a more clear and straightforward counter to them.

Endru1241 wrote: ↑Thu May 26, 2022 8:23 am But defensive stats could indeed be boosted a little (0/+1 armor for both units and maybe some more hp).

Also agree on this, especially because of the comparison with elite hospitallers, that have just 5 less hp, but have way more armor, higher potential damage (due to divine right aura), more range and don't take nearly as much damage from skirmishers.