For a certain period of time, almost more than two centuries to be exact, the Musketeers were for the European armies a true backbone, regardless of civilization, British, Portuguese, French, Spanish, the Germans themselves who do not have them in the game , for all these civilizations the line infantry represented the bulk of their troops.
But with each new DLC, new musketeer type units were added and curiously they were always stronger than the regular unit, in fact the European musketeer of all units of this type has the worst base stats, my suggestion would be at least make your ranged attack a little stronger, forgive me if I’m wrong, but I believe that the best firearms from the 16th to the 19th centuries were produced in Europe.
So I think it would be fair that your HP and your siege and melee damage were lower than the rest, but at least your ranged attack should be the highest among the non-mercenary musketeer units in the game. To put in numbers, I imagine that your base statistics could look something like this:
HP = 150
Siege Damage = 20
Melee Damage = 12 with all current bonuses unchanged
Ranged Damage = 25
Mmm I’m not sure about this one, you would have to tweak the cost accordingly (which changes early macro for a loot of civs), as well as rework any other equivalent unit so that they don’t stay behind like outlaws or even some mercs.
personal opinion i dont think musketeers need a change, along with Hussars and Falcons they are what the game is balanced around and messing around with that is asking for trouble.
I actually think this is a really good post thread. European weapons and regular musketeer units were certainly more elite than their non-European counterparts at least at ranged attack. However, I also agree that any change to musk stats should entail a major rework of their cost and even then may affect other units inadvertedly.
I already feel the initial strength of musks vs cavalry disincentivizes the use of more hand infantry in the early game, and any buff to them will just further shrink the role of hand infantry in the game, so it is a tough call. This is one to be handled with care, lest the cure turns out worse than the ailment.
I think an easier approach (but not one with its own balance issues) would be to tweak the non-European musks by nerfing their attack and reducing their cost.
The change I propose will make them a less specialized unit, as it will deal -3 melee damage to cavalry (from 13 x3 = 39 to 12 x 3 = 36) in order to deal +2 damage in combat to distance with double of ROF.
Perhaps a way to compensate would be to slightly increase its cost, especially the coin cost which truth be told is the lowest of all gunpowder units in the game, well anyway I don’t even believe a +2 dmg change in ranged attack , and -1 in melee is as significant for balance.
I’m tired of “new civs with stronger musketeers” since TAD. Idk why they can give new civs a weaker skirmisher, a weaker hand cavalry, a weaker ranged cavalry, or a weaker artillery, etc. but have to stick to “stronger musketeer” if they get one.
The problem is that the European civilizations generally have better ecosystem than the others. So buffing their military units will break the balance of the game.
For example: A British player have on average of about 13 million musketeers on the 10 minutes mark. So adding 2 more base damage on the ranged attack will add 26 million base damage per volley. And you also need to that in count things like the double cards and veteran/guard upgrades that makes this number go higher.
Another very good example is the Spanish musketeer. A spanish musketeer unctioned by 4-6 missionaries will have 27-28 ranged attack, and this on top of the billion and a half base siege damage that the musketeer already possesses.
Consider that to increase your ranged attack, I suggest decreasing the melee, and even a readjustment of their costs, I don’t think it’s fair that they are the worst of all units of the type in all stats. So much so that many players abandon them from age iii and start using dragoons as their counter cavalry.
The ESOC crew swore that the Europeans were more or less perfectly balanced with the legacy ESOC patch and the new FE edition was built on the ESOC changes. In other words, if Euro muskets are currently too weak, it is because other civs need to be nerfed. Euros being buffed is not the answer.
But I’m not proposing to improve one aspect without simply nerfing the other. I gave the example of -1 in the melee attack, but if it’s necessary for the unit not to be OP let’s lower your melee even more
long been a proponent of increasing their ranged damage to 25. reduce their melee damage to 10 with a 4x multiplier as well. change cost to 80 food 20 gold and adapt stats of units like regulars.
it would be a de facto nerf to musketeers to get to 25 dmg as weird as it may sound, but right of a sudden musk go from killing each other in 7 hits to 6 hits, which is a pretty big issue when their main selling point is the relatively high hp.
musketeers are as it stands not underpowered, and dont need to be changed.
Euro musk are some of the most upgradeable units in the game compared to other civs
Brit get +30% total in cards + advanced arsenal + royal guard - same with port
Brit get an additional 20% hp if you are willing to deal with the speed lost
Spain gets unction
French is the only one that really sucks but their thing is skrim so they are more of a support unit.
Russia is Russia.
I dont think you need a base stat change, but unique upgrades or boost to individual musk type for the musk civs could be interesting - port got that +1 range with the logistician. something in that ball park
Maybe he could increase his range to 14 (one point at Age III and another at Age IV) to be able to compete with the dragons.
Reducing their attack to mele a bit, increasing their range progressively up to 14 and increasing their price, will keep them useful without needing the dragons to relieve.
The increased range will also be good for non-European musketeers. There are many units without firearms that have more scope and I think that would be fine.
Maybe the new units should just be balanced around the unit prototypes, which already exist and not just be straight up better units in every aspect.
So for example, if you want to have a faster musk → he needs to be more expensive or shorter range or lower melee attack or lower HP. Basically everytime you step away from the norm, you need to add a disadvantage to the unit to make it worse in other situations.
Worst example is for me still the carolean, which is better in ALL situations than generic musketeer with no real downside (especially in lategame).
Good designed units for example are:
Naginata rider → Stronger vs Skirmishers and more tanky in ranged fights, but loose in melee to regular huss and are worse in melee against everything non skirmisher basically.
Rodeleros: Better in melee combat and faster, but suck at sieging (compared to Halbs/Pikes).
etc…
the 2 range between dragoons and musk doesn’t really matter in a realistic scenario, you cant really effectively use 2 range, which is also why musk shouldn’t get 14 range because it would make crossbows worse at dealing with them.
dragoons only really got 2 things going for them: speed and multiplier, while musketeers are cheap, have high dmg and quiet a lot of health. Honestly musketeers are fine, they one of the most brought units even in treaty games.
yeah i agree, if there is an issue with the newer musk its them and not the old musk. we dont need to buff the old musk because they do the job just fine and is one of the central units the game is balanced around.
Hussars are the stable of melee cav, and its offshoots are Lancers, Cossacks, Nagi riders etc. but those units are all different and better or worse depending on the scenario.
to the skirmisher then it has Cassadors as its closest cousin, cassadors have higher dmg and much higher range resist but they have less hp leaving them more vulnerable to cavalry and artillery (to be frank this is a slightly dumb comparison since cassadors are pretty objectively better than skirms but eh).
