Steppe

Whenever I read of Genghis Khan or any of his successors including Timur Lane i'm shocked by just how brutal and "cruel" they were and were described to be towards their enemies and people who lived under their enemies engaging in many slaughters and genocides of entire peoples and also executing people on mass in ways such as burying people alive. This is something I don't think existed or am unfamiliar with the existence of in medieval Europe/Middle East with the most similar thing being a sack/pillage of a city where soldiers plundered and killed everything in sight but never an outright extermination of whole enemy peoples or purposeful cruelty like this.

Is their any specific cultural, religious, or historical reason for steppe warfares severe brutality? Why is their a disparity between European/Middle Eastern medieval warfare and the warfare that the Khans engaged in? Was warfare always this brutal for the people of the steppe even before Genghis

I was running the simulation and noticed I wasn't freezing at all. I was using Igneous Hammer and when Firewalker procs it removes Biting cold.

This is a non existent expansion for AoE2:DE which is set in central Asia and is focused around giving some love to the Steppe Lancer! This took me 7 days plz enjoy.

This expansion contains 4 civilizations, all of which have access to the Steppe Lancer.

They are the Uyghurs, the Tibetans, the Khazars and the Khitans!

If you feel that one of these civs requires improvement tell me in the comments below! Be kind, I tried my best. Also, bold words are changes.

Uyghurs

Cavalry Archer civilization

Bonuses:

• Steppe Lancers 15% cheaper
• Fletching free
• Cavalry archers train 15/20% faster
• Herdables decay 30% slower

Unique unit: Karluk (30 wood 25 gold)

Weak anti-archer cavalry archer unit that only takes up 0.75 population space

Unique technolgies:

• Baghatur: Steppe Lancers attack 40% faster (450 food 350 gold) (1.64 RoF)
• Uch-Oghuz: Cavalry archers cost no gold but have an increased wood cost (1000 wood 750 gold) (75 wood)

Team bonus: Archery ranges cost -30 wood

Missing technologies:

Archery Range: Arbalester

Barracks: Champion, Eagle scouts

Stable: Paladin, Battle Elephants, Camels

Blacksmith: Ring Archer armour, Bracer, Blast furnace

Siege Workshop: Heavy scorpion, bombard cannon

Docks: Elite Cannon Galleon, Heavy Demolition Ship

University:Heated shot, Bombard tower, Masonry, Fortified wall

Castle: Hoardings

Monastery: Illumination, Heresy

Economy:

Karluk stats:

• 30/35 hp
• 4/6 attack

1. +3/5 vs archers

• 4/5 range
• 90% accurate
• 0/1 armour
• 2.0 RoF
• 1.45 speed
• 8/6s creation time
• Elite Karluk costs 900 wood 900 food

Inspiration/help in making this: Civilization Concept: Uyghurs : aoe2 (reddit.com)

AoE2 Civ Concepts LLC - Uyghurs (google.com)

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Tibetans

Infantry and Monk civilization

Bonuses:

• Can create yaks at the Town Center and Mill (15s, 35 wood for a 125 food yak. 30s from Mills)
• Steppe Lancers and Militia line +1 pierce armour
• Monasteries and Universities 40% cheaper
• Infantry armour upgrades free

Unique unit: Dhamarpala (75 food 45 gold)

An unconvertable light cavalry unit which has a bonus vs monks

Unique technologies:

• Tibetan Medicine: Garrisoned units heal 80% faster (300 food

Everybody knows steppe lancers are in such bad state right now. The devs don't really want to buff them much because they think they can be devastating, similar to their release.

I don't think they were that powerful, even when they were released. There was a pathfinding issue that affected all melee units, but because of their range, they didn't loose that much. That's why they seemed the most powerful melee unit (they also costed just 10 more food than a samurai or jaguar warrior, but they're also quite bad on their own). Then they got nerfed to the ground.

I like the idea of medium cavalry, but they are ridiculous. They don't have the punch that paladins have, and in some situations they even underperform against lightcav. They have the same hp while having less armor. They die to archers. They also attack slower. They also die in a 1v1 against magyar hussars. It doesn't make sense investing resources into them.

I'd change their stats to something in the middle of a knight and a lightcav. Adding +20 more hp and 1 pa would help them a lot, and I don't really think this would make them op since knights have way better offensive and defensive stats while costing only +25 resources.

Also, they could be added to huns, persians or even magyars, similarly to what they did with mongols.

Thoughts?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/51200651542/in/dateposted-public/

I recently found out about the existence of this project, and find it fascinating.

About 10,000 years ago, large areas of the subarctic consisted of a rich ecosystem known as the mammoth steppe. Great herds of mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, bison, oxen, horse, and reindeer wandered the grasslands in a scene similar to the African savanna. Today the subarctic is mostly covered in mossy tundra and boreal forest (taiga), and the large herbivores are extinct or greatly reduced in number.

A Russian scientist named Sergey Zimov believes that over-hunting by humans is responsible for the demise of the northern megafauna. He's not the only one who believes that, but Zimov goes further. He says humans, not the onset of the interglacial, caused the mammoth steppe to disappear, because the grass existed in symbiosis with the large herbivores. He believes that the present-day tundra and taiga are man-made environments.

This is a fascinating idea, but what really blows my mind is that Zimov and his family and collaborators are testing this hypothesis in an experimental reserve in northern Siberia, known as Pleistocene Park. And the experiment has been ongoing for decades!

They are re-stocking this land with large herbivores like bison, oxen, and cold-adapted horses, in an attempt to re-create the mammoth steppe ecosystem. The trampling and grazing and other activity of these animals supports grassland. Since the mammoth are extinct, the experimenters use all-terrain vehicles to knock down trees like the mammoth used to do. (The mammoth may not stay extinct, however; well-preserved mammoth DNA is available from frozen carcasses. There's a group at Harvard working on woolly mammoth revival.)

Climate change mitigation comes into the picture due to the permafrost. If the frozen soil of the arctic were to melt (which it seems to be doing at a rapid clip), it would release huge quantities of carbon dioxide and methane, possibly causing a greenhouse gas feedback loop and greatly accelerating global warming. Measurements at Pleistocene Park indicate the "mammoth steppe" environment keeps the permafrost colder, due to the higher albedo reflecting away more heat in summer, and trampled snow providing less insulation from winter lows.

Pleistocene Park is currently about 16 sq km. The project received a grant of land

The continent of Sudreme does not have horses. What kind of peoples live the steppe? I've heard the the Eurasian steppe was near uninhabited before the Yamnaya domesticated horses.

Looking for fantasy books that prominently feature steppe tribes and nomads as their main setting. The main character should ideally be from that culture, the setting should be a major feature of the story.

Bonus points: Not based on the Mongols or Huns. If you can find me Scythians, Massagetae, Kushans, Khazars, Yuezhi/Sakas, Kidarites, Alans, Cumans, Gokturks, Sarmatians, Xiongnu, Cimmerians, and others, even better.

Specifically not looking for: Long epic fantasy books that have steppe tribes as part of their overall story. That means no Wheel of Time, Game of Thrones, Belegariad, Malazan.

I ran a bunch of tests with next patches: -5 gold buff.

Unfortunately, the answer is that they are still largely useless, outside of some highly situational use cases. The tests involved large numbers and modest choke points to maximise the Steppe Lancer's range advantage.

Against heavy cavalry, they lost convincingly from both a population and resource perspective, whether castle or post imp.

Against the light cav line, the best castle Steppe Lancer (mongol), was 37% more population efficient than the Light cav, and 0.2% less resource efficient. While the population efficiency sounds good, its much worse than the knight as a gold unit, so if you have gold and want population efficiency, its very hard to justify the steppe lancer.

In post imp, its a similar story, the Tatar Steppe Lancer is 13.4% more resource efficient that generic hussar, but that is due to the Tatar unique tech, which also applies to their Hussar which ends up being similarly resource efficient too.

I checked to see if this tech at least allows Elite Steppe Lancer to function more cost effectively than their Cavalier (which doesn't get the tech bonus), but it still loses handily to the cavalier.

So again, if you have gold, go heavy cavalry, if you don't go hussar. Even in the most favorable engagement for them, they still aren't worth it.

As a final last ditch effort, I tried to see if you can save resources in castle, with a knight front row, and a Steppe Lancer 2nd row, a stacking the game naturally does due to the higher Steppe Lancer speed. Unfortunately this isn't res effective either, just go two lines of knights.

Sadly, despite the upcoming buff, the Steppe Lancer is just a gold intensive light cav, that doesn't really make any sense to build in pretty much any circumstance.

Steppe Lancers are always the oddball for cavalry, but I have to wonder if it's actually cost-effective to mix them with your other melee cavalry. Would you be better off using the gold on more Knights? Would it be worth mixing with Light Cavalry? Or are Steppe Lancers only really good for Villager sniping?

Say you had two armies, one that was pure Knights, and the other that was a mix of Knights and Steppe Lancers. With equal resources, which would do better?

Hi all!

There are 3 civs that have access to Steppe Lancers (Cumans, Mongols and Tatars). The three of them are mainly Cavalry Archer relying civs who need a meat shield to protect their strategy. After the first big nerf for Steppe Lancers many years ago, they have become a decoration unit. I have only seen them once used by pro players (TaToH vs the Viper, Clown Cup 3 Finals, Match 2, it is in YouTube), and it was just for a moment.

Steppe Lancers fare against units far worse than knights in nearly every aspect. They move faster, though, but the circumstances where you need the extra speed are covered by Light Cavalry (raiding, small groups of archers and siege) and Camels (against enemy Cavalry and Cavalry Archers).

While many people think a rework should be done about them, since they are food and gold intensive but there are 3 units that cover most of the uses of Cavalry, I think that, with a small change, they could get a niche for these 3 civs.

My proposal is to give them +5 Cavalry Armor and +8 Cavalry Armor for the Elite version, so that they partially negate the anti-Cavalry bonus of enemy units. With these change, Steppe Lancers will fare exactly the same against all units that don’t have any bonus attack against Cavalry (Swordsmen, Archers/Skirmishers, Knights, Siege), but will fight a little better against anti-Cavalry units. Their gold cost would be justified! Let’s put it in numbers.

In this table you can see how many hits can take a fully upgraded CASTLE AGE Steppe Lancer (Without considering Tatar Silk Armor) from anti-cavalry units, as compared with the fully upgraded knight, and then how many hits they would take with the proposed change. I have considered that melee units are unupgraded (since usually Forging/Iron Casting are usually researched later), but the Genoese Crossbowman has both Fletching and Bodkin Arrow:

https://preview.redd.it/1xnwjvode9071.png?width=631&format=png&auto=webp&s=8a97ca33758888dc6d431e38e642c5b2706e5169

Now the same goes for IMPERIAL AGE anti-cavalry units. Steppe Lancers are fully upgraded and melee units still lack the attack upgrades, but the Genoese are fully upgraded.

https://preview.redd.it/35f9ulwme9071.png?width=631&format=png&auto=webp&s=b68f9f6489a8ea2a954e7d0d1aa5a20cb4024410

https://preview.redd.it/6xjoakfoe9071.png?width=631&format=png&auto=webp&s=ffb35c17f9602f31d18a140a024d797a29308e01

The niche for Steppe Lancers would only be for battling a

In my book series, there is a land to the east consisting mostly of flat steppe, high mountains, cold taiga, and vast deserts (although there are some more fertile areas along the coast). I’ve already thought of a sort of steppe/desert society loosely based on a combination of real-world Mongolians, Bedouins, Huns, Scythians, Persians, and Afghans that lives here, with a culture revolving around horse and camel riding, living a nomadic, pastoral lifestyle. However, I’m having a hard time deciding what I should name the Cannus Oriens (what the leader of this eastern land is referred to by outsiders). Here are my ideas, let me know which one is best!

View Poll

This thing literally does everything.

Stasis Resistance

Ok, so the Stasis Resistance is way more busted than you might initially think. Basically, it allows you to fucking ignore Duskfield Grenades, decreases the hunter melee slow time, straight up removes the slow time from hunter dodge, resists freezing from slow stacks (meaning you can tank the tornado if you are in a healing rift), and makes you fucking explode and take no break-out damage when frozen.

The explosion itself is pretty great. Chunks people for half their health in about a 9 meter radius. And yes, it even works with those shorter freezes that you can’t break out of. So that warlock that used Penumbral Blast on you like a fool gets his shit pushed in like he deserves.

The Firewalker perk

Now you’re probably thinking, “oh, if it counter Stasis so hard, i’ll just swap off stasis!

#HA, FOOLS

You think that this thing would counter stasis and thats it? WRONG. It also gives you stacks of a damage buff on Solar kills! Meaning you can two tap people with Igneous Hammer.

PvE applications

Its possible to make an SMG build with this thing that makes Recluse look fair and balanced. You could either A. Take advantage of flame walker and run the new Borrowed Time with Frenzy + Feeding Frenzy so you reload so fast it breaks the sound barrier, or you could be a chad and run Terrahbah with the exotic.

Why you ask? They. Fucking. STACK.

Thats right, you get increased solar damage from kills, AND you still can use the Terrahbah perk, meaning the gun’s neutral game isn’t nearly as bad.

Running POTBS with Behemoth (aka, reject humanity, become God)

You know how the only thing that counters stasis is stasis? Well, what if I told you that for some UNGODLY reason, they made it so this exotic can be used with any subclass outside of solar. including stasis. This means you literally become unstoppable. Nothing can slow you, no freezing, no stopping. Only ape. Absolutely nothing anybody can do to stop your never ending rampage.

But yeah, those are the applications i’ve thought of so far.

help plox

As many of us may know, Steppe Lancer is basically ignored unit. Imho, it's clear the unit needs to be changed. I guess some would just remove it from the game and some would ignore it. Maybe some people actually use it frequently (I never used it in ranked game).

My idea is to introduce new Stable tech that would either make Steppe Lancer a trash unit or significantly reduce their gold cost. In the former case, I think it should mean a change from 70 Food and 45 Gold to 115 Food and for the latter, it could be something like from 45 Gold to 10 Gold.

With that being said, I think a little bit of nerfing would help to address possible OPness. Maybe -2 attack for both normal and elite versions.

The tech itself could be moderately expensive. Idk, something like 500 Food, 500 Gold in a case of making Steppe Lancer a trash unit. Or it could be available only in Imp.

What would you do with Steppe Lancers?

So you know how Steppe Lancers used to be good and now... aren't? Well, if you had the power of the devs how would you buff them?

I would personally do:

• -5 gold cost
• -0.2 attack speed
• +1 melee armour
• +5 hp on Elite
• +1 attack for Elite
• Reduce Elite cost to 850 food 500 gold

So now they go from (brackets mean Fully Upgraded)

• 60/80 hp (80/100)
• 9/11 attack (11/15)
• 0/1 armour (2/3,3/5)
• 2.3 RoF
• DPS: 6.5
• 1.45 speed (1.595)
• Costs 70 food 45 gold
• Elite: 900 food 550 gold

To:

• 60/85 hp (80/105)
• 9/12 attack (11/16)
• 1/1 (3/3,4/5)
• 2.1 RoF
• DPS: 7.6
• 1.45 speed (1.595)
• Costs 70 food 40 gold
• Elite: 800 food 500 food

It has (now):

• 56% of the hp
• 83% of the attack
• 66%/71% of the armour
• Takes 19% longer to reload
• 70% of the DPS
• Is 3.5% faster
• Costs 117% food and 60% gold of a Paladin.

My new version has:

• 58% of the hp
• 89% of the attack
• 80%/71% of the armour
• Takes 9% longer to reload
• 82% of the DPS
• Is 3.5% faster
• Costs 117% food 53% gold of a Paladin

Basically, Elite Steppe Lancers used to be 89% of a Paldin's cost but were only worth 71% of a Paladin. My buff has made them 85% of a Paladin's cost with 78% of a Paladin's strength

Notable things:

• Mongol Elite Steppe Lancers now have 130.5 hp and has 3/3 armour (was 124 hp, 2/3 armour)
• Tatar Elite Steppe lancers now have 5/6 armour (was 4/6)
• Tatar ESL do a maximum of 24 attack when on top of a hill (was 22.5)
• Cuman SL are unchanged (move at 1.6675 instead of 1.595)

Now that you have seen my buffed Steppe Lancers, what are yours like?

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Also, as a reminder, these were the stats on release day:

• 10/12 attack (12/16)
• 0/1 armour (2/3,3/5)
• 1.9 RoF
• DPS: 8.4
• 1.5 speed (1.65)
• Cost: 70 food 30 gold
• Elite: 900 food 550 gold

Release day ESL had:

• 56% of the hp
• 89% of the attack
• 66%/71% of the armour
• Reloaded 0.15% faster
• 90% of the DPS
• Were 7% faster
• Cost 117% of the food and 43% of the gold
• These Elite Steppe Lancers cost 80% of a Paldin and were worth 94.43% of a Paladin. WOW.