It became abundantly clear in week 1 and 2 of BEAST 7 that Sturgia is hardly fit for purpose at the moment. It is outclassed in both infantry and archery by almost every other faction. Forsee's stats make it plainly obvious that something is seriously wrong with the balance of the faction in Skirmish at the moment - particularly as Sturgia is supposed to be a strong infantry faction. The relevant weeks of BEAST counted in this data have Sturgia played on 3 different maps, 2 of them being closed maps. If Sturgian infantry were strong and properly balanced, as they are supposed to be, then we'd have seen much higher winrates for them.
Sturgian infantry are weak compared to other factions primarily because of how useless their heavy infantry are. This is due to a number of factors:
1) Maces are extremely effective against them. I don't know the exact figure for how much armour blunt damage ignores but it is clearly too strong. Anecdotally, I would regularly be hit for 30-55 damage by maces as a Varyag, meaning I am guaranteed to die in 2-3 hits. This is inappropriate for a heavy infantry, particularly one that costs 160 gold - meaning that you can only afford one life as this class on round one. In contrast, Aserai infantry can afford 3 lives with maces on round one; there is no question that they decimate Sturgia with little difficulty. It's still 2-3 hits for the Varyags to kill the Tribal Warriors, while the latter enjoy the same level of damage but with greater movement speed.
2) Varyag axes are too long. One of the biggest strengths of the Khuzait Heavy Mace (78 length, widely considered one of the best 1h weapons in the game) is that it is quite short, meaning that it's easy to hit with the actual head of the weapon to achieve maximum damage. The Aserai Mace (77 length) is also short and easy to score maximum damage with. These are much shorter than the Raider Heavy Axe (91 length) and the upgraded Noble Axe (96 length). While length can be useful to infantry, you do not always have the luxury of backing off or angling your weapon perfectly to achieve the full damage potential of your weapon. Instead, you can find yourself whacking light infantry, like the Aserai Tribal Warriors, for 10-20 damage with the wooden part of your weapon - while they can much more easily return several times that damage despite the fact you are playing heavy inf. It may seem counter-intuitive, but I think reducing the length of the Sturgian axes and/or slightly increasing the size of the axe heads would be the major buff they need to make their damage much more consistent.
3) Sturgian infantry cannot access maces on any of their classes, meaning they have little to counter opposing heavy infantry. Compare the Sturgian Varyag to the Vlandian Sergeant:
The Sergeant cannot access improved armour if they choose to take a mace, but taking the mace perk actually gives them an extra +4 armour. This means that a Sergeant with a mace has the same armour as a Varyag with improved armour - the major difference being that the former has now equipped themselves with an anti-heavy inf weapon, while the latter has an axe which, while having very high base damage, is much less effective against armour. The Varyag is clearly outclassed by the Sergeant in combat. The Sergeant also has an axe perk, meaning they can diversify their options to be better against light infantry (this axe is only a tiny bit worse than the main Varyag axe) while still having greater base armour than the Varyag.
The Vlandian Sergeant is clearly better than the Sturgian Varyag despite the troops being the same cost. This is a major problem because Vlandia also sports strong ranged and cavalry options, while Sturgia has almost nothing in the way of ranged options. I cannot speak for the precise comparative strength of the cav classes, as I do not know enough about that, but as far as I am aware they are roughly even in strength. So, Sturgia completely lacks the ranged strength of other factions while having weaker heavy infantry.
4) Sturgian Warrior is weaker than alternative 100 gold infantry classes. Again, there is no mace option (as a note, I don't think maces should be on every faction as there should be differences between them. However, with how effective maces are against armour currently, access to maces is largely what determines how strong a faction's infantry options are). Their base axe is trash but the sword they can access is good, better than the Kaskara of the Aserai Tribal Warriors, though their base armour is lower and their passive perk options are weak across the board. This is not necessarily a bad thing - Aserai Tribal Warriors should be stronger than alternative options as they are the main inf class for the faction - but it means that Sturgia cannot rely on the Varyag or Warrior classes to handle Aserai infantry. They also have a small shield which is easy for archers to shoot around.
5) The Brigand is a strong option because of its javelins and low cost (110 gold). It is the go-to for players on Sturgia after they run out of gold for Varyags and many people choose to use it wherever possible to get 3 lives. The base axe is weak, as are their alternative perk weapons, but they have decent harassing capability and can match up against other factions well in melee if given the opportunity to loot better weapons from the ground. I don't think there's much wrong with this class and it's a solid choice, it's just difficult to play against heavy infantry with an axe that does less damage than some other faction's maces do.
Suggestions:
1) Reduce blunt damage effectiveness across the board (buff to all heavy infantry but to Sturgia in particular as they do not have blunt weapons).
2) Increase base Sturgian Varyag armour by 1-2 and their improved armour by 1-2 to put it more decisively above the Empire Legionary while still being below the Sergeant.
3) Make it easier for Varyag axes to use their maximum damage, ie. reduce the length of the axes and/or increase the size of the heads. This will buff them considerably against both light and heavy armoured targets, though the buff against low armour may be significant enough that the axe's base damage needs to be decreased slightly.
4) If none of the preceding changes are to be implemented, lower the Varyag cost from 160 to 150 so that double lives can be used on round one. This would at least make them more cost efficient and less affected by gold imbalance if the Sturgia side is losing.
5) Make the Warrior's passive perks slightly better and potentially give them a better starting axe. They have a 57 damage starting axe, the same as the Brigand (which logically should have a worse starting melee weapon than the Warrior), while having weak perks and a tiny shield which is easy for archers to shoot under or around. These 3 weaknesses together make the class difficult to find a use for. In my opinion at least two of these three aspects should be buffed, while one should be ignored so as to not make the Warrior better than the Aserai Tribal Warrior.
Some of these things may sound like they'd excessively buff Sturgia, but keep in mind Sturgian infantry are supposed to be the strongest in the game. They have almost nothing in the way of ranged options because their infantry are supposed to be strong enough to account for that. At the moment that just isn't the case.
I wonder if sturgia can win at least 20% matches against aserai with decent players
I guess no since it has about 35% total wr in mm and probably even less in beast
Theres a fun statistics, sturgia wr has negative correlation coefficient with player skill level according to current beast stats, so it looks like that
Div A: 27%
Div B: 33%
Div C: 38%
Div D: 41%
Sturgian infantry are weak compared to other factions primarily because of how useless their heavy infantry are. This is due to a number of factors:
1) Maces are extremely effective against them. I don't know the exact figure for how much armour blunt damage ignores but it is clearly too strong. Anecdotally, I would regularly be hit for 30-55 damage by maces as a Varyag, meaning I am guaranteed to die in 2-3 hits. This is inappropriate for a heavy infantry, particularly one that costs 160 gold - meaning that you can only afford one life as this class on round one. In contrast, Aserai infantry can afford 3 lives with maces on round one; there is no question that they decimate Sturgia with little difficulty. It's still 2-3 hits for the Varyags to kill the Tribal Warriors, while the latter enjoy the same level of damage but with greater movement speed.
2) Varyag axes are too long. One of the biggest strengths of the Khuzait Heavy Mace (78 length, widely considered one of the best 1h weapons in the game) is that it is quite short, meaning that it's easy to hit with the actual head of the weapon to achieve maximum damage. The Aserai Mace (77 length) is also short and easy to score maximum damage with. These are much shorter than the Raider Heavy Axe (91 length) and the upgraded Noble Axe (96 length). While length can be useful to infantry, you do not always have the luxury of backing off or angling your weapon perfectly to achieve the full damage potential of your weapon. Instead, you can find yourself whacking light infantry, like the Aserai Tribal Warriors, for 10-20 damage with the wooden part of your weapon - while they can much more easily return several times that damage despite the fact you are playing heavy inf. It may seem counter-intuitive, but I think reducing the length of the Sturgian axes and/or slightly increasing the size of the axe heads would be the major buff they need to make their damage much more consistent.
3) Sturgian infantry cannot access maces on any of their classes, meaning they have little to counter opposing heavy infantry. Compare the Sturgian Varyag to the Vlandian Sergeant:
Varyag | Sergeant | |
Cost | 160 | 160 |
Movement Speed | 80 | 80 |
Armour | 40 | 45 |
Improved Armour | 49 | 54 |
Armour (Sergeant Mace Perk) | N/A | 49 |
The Sergeant cannot access improved armour if they choose to take a mace, but taking the mace perk actually gives them an extra +4 armour. This means that a Sergeant with a mace has the same armour as a Varyag with improved armour - the major difference being that the former has now equipped themselves with an anti-heavy inf weapon, while the latter has an axe which, while having very high base damage, is much less effective against armour. The Varyag is clearly outclassed by the Sergeant in combat. The Sergeant also has an axe perk, meaning they can diversify their options to be better against light infantry (this axe is only a tiny bit worse than the main Varyag axe) while still having greater base armour than the Varyag.
The Vlandian Sergeant is clearly better than the Sturgian Varyag despite the troops being the same cost. This is a major problem because Vlandia also sports strong ranged and cavalry options, while Sturgia has almost nothing in the way of ranged options. I cannot speak for the precise comparative strength of the cav classes, as I do not know enough about that, but as far as I am aware they are roughly even in strength. So, Sturgia completely lacks the ranged strength of other factions while having weaker heavy infantry.
4) Sturgian Warrior is weaker than alternative 100 gold infantry classes. Again, there is no mace option (as a note, I don't think maces should be on every faction as there should be differences between them. However, with how effective maces are against armour currently, access to maces is largely what determines how strong a faction's infantry options are). Their base axe is trash but the sword they can access is good, better than the Kaskara of the Aserai Tribal Warriors, though their base armour is lower and their passive perk options are weak across the board. This is not necessarily a bad thing - Aserai Tribal Warriors should be stronger than alternative options as they are the main inf class for the faction - but it means that Sturgia cannot rely on the Varyag or Warrior classes to handle Aserai infantry. They also have a small shield which is easy for archers to shoot around.
5) The Brigand is a strong option because of its javelins and low cost (110 gold). It is the go-to for players on Sturgia after they run out of gold for Varyags and many people choose to use it wherever possible to get 3 lives. The base axe is weak, as are their alternative perk weapons, but they have decent harassing capability and can match up against other factions well in melee if given the opportunity to loot better weapons from the ground. I don't think there's much wrong with this class and it's a solid choice, it's just difficult to play against heavy infantry with an axe that does less damage than some other faction's maces do.
Suggestions:
1) Reduce blunt damage effectiveness across the board (buff to all heavy infantry but to Sturgia in particular as they do not have blunt weapons).
2) Increase base Sturgian Varyag armour by 1-2 and their improved armour by 1-2 to put it more decisively above the Empire Legionary while still being below the Sergeant.
3) Make it easier for Varyag axes to use their maximum damage, ie. reduce the length of the axes and/or increase the size of the heads. This will buff them considerably against both light and heavy armoured targets, though the buff against low armour may be significant enough that the axe's base damage needs to be decreased slightly.
4) If none of the preceding changes are to be implemented, lower the Varyag cost from 160 to 150 so that double lives can be used on round one. This would at least make them more cost efficient and less affected by gold imbalance if the Sturgia side is losing.
5) Make the Warrior's passive perks slightly better and potentially give them a better starting axe. They have a 57 damage starting axe, the same as the Brigand (which logically should have a worse starting melee weapon than the Warrior), while having weak perks and a tiny shield which is easy for archers to shoot under or around. These 3 weaknesses together make the class difficult to find a use for. In my opinion at least two of these three aspects should be buffed, while one should be ignored so as to not make the Warrior better than the Aserai Tribal Warrior.
Some of these things may sound like they'd excessively buff Sturgia, but keep in mind Sturgian infantry are supposed to be the strongest in the game. They have almost nothing in the way of ranged options because their infantry are supposed to be strong enough to account for that. At the moment that just isn't the case.
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