I do not understand too much this. Rattans, longbowman, plumes, these UUs are always better than arbalests if you have a decent amount of castles.
I explained it better, why this is a problem, in a later post.
The main problem with giving it range is that with one more range it’ll have the same range as generic FU archers, plus an extra pierce armor from Pavise, making opposing Arbalests a cut-and-dry losing matchup. Right now it’s a mixed bag. Further, the GC handles cavalry, which means if they can also handle archers and infantry (which they could) it becomes a mono-unit composition to be supported by Hussars, and that’s way too good.
The fact that it makes Arbalest irrelevant is a problem because it’s a unit that counters one of the normal counters to arbalest and instead of mixing archers/skirms in to support the GC, you just wouldn’t, because you wouldn’t need to. Rattans, Longbows, Plumes, none of these units make having halbs a waste, and allow you to support with siege/cav to handle everything . They’re a more expensive option to do the same job with upside and the GC does not do the same job.
As such, if you buff them to equal range with the Arbalest, you’re going to overshadow the Arbalest, and even the skirm in every way, and that will lead to the Italian mono-composition of E-genoese, which handles everything except siege , which you will splash in bombards and/or Hussar to counter. This is an unkillable, impossibly efficient force.
To OP: Absolutely not.
Also, future OP’s, I’m getting really, really bored with these topics. Feels like every topic is just a re-hash I’ve already put to rest. Spruce it up a bit, will ya?