it could safely be halved to 30 seconds and they would keep their identity of a low DPS but high burst unit and be far more roundedįire throwers are one of maltas best late game options, but seem to have a weird bug that prevents them from benefiting from maltas HP bonus. the only issue they have really is the charged attack has FAR too long a cooldown. I'm fine with their low damage, they still dispose of cavelry effectively and are incredibly tanky on the front lines, especially once they get their ranged resistance. but the charged ability that is supposed to make up for this has FAR too long of a cooldown, its an entire minute and makes it more of an occasional novelty than a card that finally allows them to deal damage. their job is just to tank while more damaging units behind them to the real damage. they don't have the high individual damage of a samurai, nor the high splash of a dop. Hospitalers are amazing units that are underappreciated, being very tanky and having high base movement speed, but are lacking in damage and severely hurt by the fact that their charged ability in age 4 has a cooldown of an entire minute. however, having those kinds of bases might make them overpowered in the early game taking their cost and aura in mind, so it might be best to instead revert their flintlock rocket card in age 4, the one that increases their stats and cost, back to how it was before with 50% instead of 25% if they had the bases of like a sepoy or ashigaru with 20-30 extra base HP and 2-3 extra attack, they would be perfectly scaled for the end game i think, they wouldn't be pop efficient, but they would be powerhouses of units that are very cheap for their stats and replacable. their stregnth lies in how cheap they are and how easy they are to mass, and i really appreciate this and think its a cool concept for a unit. as they are, sentinels outperform british musketeers in a 1 to 1 basis, but just arent worth 2 pop they take up. Under no circumstances do i think they should be lowered to 1 pop, and I also do not think they need to have soldado bases. Sentinels are powerful but terribly pop inefficient and need just a slight boost to their bases (and cost) and their right there. its the other units that really need the attention. this is excluding pikes and xbows, which are great where they're at and don't need any attention at all, changing them in any way would either push them over the edge into being broken or completely useless. Where i think malta needs a buff is not their eco (except german immigrants) but their military. as stated earlier their water boom is great, and their trade post boom is PARTICULARLY amazing, and the more i play it the more i love it that said, if you are doing any other strategy besides that, Maltas eco performs.
in the event of its cost being lowered, it'll make a great option for what most people thought Malta would be: a turtle defender.
at the moment its too expensive to even truely fullfill that role, and its often much better to ignore it and grab other things. German immigrants is not designed to be a standard card universal across most of their strategies as much as its designed to be a greedy turtle option. the only thing they are lacking is a solid turtle boom option for when water and trade posts arent available, which is what the german tongue is supposed to be, but im sure that'll get fixed even without my 2 cents as its one of the most universally agreed upon aspects of Malta. Wignacourt construction is AMAZING and their water boom is top notch, as is their trade post boom. yeah the RIDICULAS cost of german tongue needs to be reduced, but I find that I have the eco i need to do my build orders. I actually find that Malta's eco is one of the few things that doesn't really need to be buffed all that much. I know there's a lot of opinions flying around with Malta and how they should be buffed and nerfed, and I thought I would put in my 2 cents after playing them for 72 levels, I may also turn this into a YouTube video at some point and post the link separately