Radical idea on the “what grens should be” front:
Grens as Ranged Heavy Shock Infantry, good against skirms, and buildings. Loses to anti cav. Given a low siege attack that relies on bonuses, it could easily suck vs HI, and barely tickle cannons. It could be pretty even vs heavy cavalry. Now it’s a well defined unit which fits well into the counter system.
calling either mahouts or cossaks soft counter against arty is… certainly a way to phrase it.
Grenadiers should be what the soldado is.
To be fair we tried that
Remember the giant grenadier?
Basisclly nuked nr20 and teams even treaty for a while.
The truth is a unit that beats its counters is OP. Grens are a hybrid unit that is meh at 2 roles but is good when utilizing its seige and anti infantry. In teams british grens or russian grens is viable vs niche tower defense play. And that might just be fine.
I agree, and their new melee buff makes them a pretty nuts meatshield against melee infantry charges so they have a niche there too. I like grens in their current state, although they could probably use a +2 dmg to their base ranged stat and siege.
I am glad to see that most people seem to have come around and accept that grenadiers should be buffed a little.
I love the idea of grenadiers being generally trainable in barraks. That would make it so much more convenient to play with them, then you can easily mix in some muskets (maybe set to melee) to counter any cav harassing them while they ruin a base or two.
I also like the idea from SirBarnzy1 to give them access to promotions.
Thanks to everybody for the great discussion (though it took a weird turn in the beginning when a lot of people claimed grens should not be buffed).
Weren’t most people saying Ottoman grens shouldn’t be buffed? Because that’s 100% true. Otto grens are boarder line an abomination. They get way too cheap and are too strong for a civ with so many op units already.
Regular Grens are a bit of a problem (not balance wise). They’re a bit weak, but super awkward to balance because they actually don’t fit well into the counter system (Otto grens have the same issue, only they are too strong in addition). I’ll also point out that because of the high siege the devs need to tread lightly. If they get a little too good things get really messed up.
Grens need a redesign, which is different than a buff, even if they are made stronger at the same time.
This is basically Sweden xd
Grenadiers in general yes, but mounted grenadiers no.
I don’t see grenadiers needing anything major, but I don’t usually see other players train them that often. I do think that cavalry and artillery should still hard counter them, though.
No they aren’t ‘underpowered’ they are however exreamy vulnerable to cavalry by design that’s fine but 300 wood in the early game for an artilery foundry is expensive especially if you support them with pikemen that cost 40 wood each or musketeers which cost a whole 75 food which is expensive in the commerce age.
And in Age 3/4 armies get bigger and cannon seems to be the way to go. But grenadiers have their use, just a little niche.
So a little awkwardly placed, especially if you actualy decide to use them in later ages you have to start from scratch and upgrade them to Veterans at the artillery foundry,
Neither the soldado nor such a gren should get aoe damage which is what pushes them over against light infantry.
I’d like to see the grenade launcher card tech veteran grens too
OP has correct conclusions but for the wrong reasons. Grenadiers are slightly up but not because of not being able to counter cav.
I think grenadiers should tend more towards the light infantry side (not to say they need the tag) instead of being anti-cav, as they were used as shock units historically, and that there are already a lot of anti-cav infantry (3 out of 5) in a typical full roster.
That’s a nice idea, I wonder if all (euro?) civs should get the “Line Grenadiers” card, that makes them trainable from barracks.
I do not think they should counter heavy cav, I think they should either do as well against heavy cav as against most other units (because it takes so much investment (res and cards) to actually make grens usable) or be hardcountered by cav. I’m a bit of two minds here.
I like a lot of these suggestions, but not that grens should get artillery resistance. I’m not a fan of any infantry unit that can survive a cannonball. One of the most fun things in all of AoE3 is blasting large infantry formations with heavy cannons. It sucks when you do that and the infantry just kind of flinch and then keep going
That is not an infantry tag problem, That is a shock infantry tag problem.