Balance Sweden

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
1

I would like to make a few suggestions here on how to balance Sweden. I’m playing Sweden as my main nation, I’m 1300 elo and playing supremacy. I hope you can read the text as English is not my mother tongue.

First of all I would like to address the problems of Sweden

Before people found out Hakkapeliten was that good, how many times Sweden was played? The answer to that is not many times. Because Sweden doesn’t actually have good match ups against any civ. This is due to all the weaknesses I list below. Sweden was way too strong when the Definitiv Edition was released and rightly so was weakened. Only the nation was weakened significantly too much in the beginning, the Caroline was an all-round unit, which is difficult to balance, I’ll admit. But the Caroline has fulfilled the roles he had to fulfill as Sweden has a limited unit selection. Over time, the Carolinians lost everything and Sweden lost an anchor in their style of play.

  1. Hakkapelites distort the image that Sweden is a good civ. Hakkapelites are certainly too strong at the moment and should be weakened
  2. Sweden is one of the worst nations, if you don’t look at the Hakkapelites
  3. The problems lie in the too many cards you need and in the weak Carolines

Too many cards:

  1. Blueberries is far too bad, it brings the collection rate of 4 settlers and only for about 15 minutes at 20 torps. Optimally, you send blueberries when all 20 torps are there, so that you get the greatest benefit, meaning that you will only send this card in Age 2. Many nations have 5 settlers which collect forever so Blueberries is a significantly worse card as you don’t have the 4 settlers until you have 20 torps, which definitely doesn’t happen in most cases.
  2. Peleton fire gives only 10% attack, normal cards give 15% attack
  3. If you want to boom you need 4 cards, Dominions, 700 wood, Engelsberg, blueberries. Japanese, British and Dutch only need 2 cards for this. Japanese need Celestial Kami and 600 Wood. British only need 700 and 600 wood. Dutchmen need 700 wood and the bank wagon. I compare this to the nations as all can boom over buildings.

Weak Carolines:

  1. Carolines are too bad and that too in all ages. I’ve tested this several times and I’ll give you a few examples here. Janissaries, sepoys, ashigarus kill Carolines in every age. Carolineans lose to pretty much all Musketeers in Age 2. Carolineans are in the middle of the pack in Age 3, but are still overshadowed by most of the played Civs and their Musketeers. In the 4 Age it’s 50% when fighting Redcoats, in favour of the Redcoats. Meant also in the 4 Age are the Caroline mediocrity. Only in the 5th they come into the top 5 Musketeers but are still destroyed by the Ashigarus, Janissaries and Sepoys. The weakness of the Carolinians is having disastrous effects on Sweden’s style of play. The Weak Carolines in Age 2 require you to invest significantly more to fend of a rush, meaning if your opponent just pushes a little, your opponet will get out significantly more than the sweden player investe. In order for the Swede to fend off the pressure he is forced to sacrifice unit shiploads meaning the boom will come later, up to not at all since you need 4 cards to fully boom. So the Swede player is in a spiral that he can’t get out of. He cannot boom and play to his strengths because he always has to invest more than his opponent. This runs through the whole game because Carolines can’t keep up with other musketeers for a long time.

Units options:

Sweden has no skirmishers, Sweden can play these combinations. Musketeers with Heavy Cavalry and Musketeers with Cannons. Sweden is unique in this combination is also great to play like this for people who like this kind of play style. Sweden has the possibility to build skirmishers, I’m aware of that, but you can’t finance it to the same extent as if you have normal skirmishers. However, Sweden lacks a direct way of defeating light cavalry as neither unit has a bonus against this type.

Leather Cannons:
It’s great to have cannons in Age 2, these cannons also fulfill the skirmisher role for Sweden. However, you have to see that these cannons are very expensive and unfortunately die very quickly, even against infantry. All in all it’s like normal guns, they require a lot of micro but can also be very rewarding.

Hakkalites:
Hakkapelites are unique in their role. They are dragoons and uhlans rolled into one. This combination allows Swedes to fight against skirmishers and dragoons with musketeers and melee cavalry. Since the Hakkapelites are not destroyed by the Dragoons. And the Hakkapelites have a good melee attack to defeat the skirmishers in melee.

Suggested changes:

Settlers number:
The maximum number of settlers is reduced to 80 settlers.

Hakkapelites:
In order for Hakkapelite to retain its uniqueness, little should be changed about this unit, in addition the Hakkaelite complements Sweden’s unit choices very well. Area damage in ranged attack is removed. The bonus against all cavalry in close combat only applies against heavy cavalry. In addition, the Hakkapelites get a 0.5 bonus against melee infantry in ranged attack, so that pikemen, halberds can work better against Hakkapelites. In return, the Hakkapelites (Veteran Hakkaelites) get an additional 4 ranged attack and 1 more range. With the 1 more range, the Hakkapelites end up having 14 range like Dragoons. With these changes, Hakkapelites are usable but not so strong that they can’t be fought.

Caroline:
Carolines get 3 attack at Age 2 (22 total), this allows Carolines to effectively fight better in any age as upgrades now scale better.

Blueberries:
Each newly built torp gets the bonus from the extra food. This allows you to play the map earlier without losing the buff if you haven’t built all the torps yet.

Engelsberg:
This card will be removed. Torp get the default collection rate with Engelsberg, which is 0.54. This allows Sweden to boom with 2 card and is within reasonable bounds. You have to remember that torps are always placed on mines, which means that every opponent knows where to go, and the building site also plays a role. Mansions and shrines are significantly more flexible.
When Sweden has sent all the upgrades for the torps through (3 Cards), the torps are worth about 20 settlers as long as you have mines. So quite balanced like the British. You need map control to implement this bonus as well as the British and Japanese.

Blackberries:
This map should spawn a blueberry bush for every torp on the map with 400 food. This change means that the card blueberries collects more blueberries from this berry bush as well. Thus, the bonus is not lost in the late game and the Sweden player is forced to send this card every 15 minutes if he does not want to lose this bonus. These 5 permanent settlers are reduced in the maximum number of settlers.

Light mounts:
The upgrade to Age 4 is great, but the card doesn’t offer enough benefits to make it preferable to cards like 2 Falconettes, let alone reach the 1000 resources an Age 3 shipment should be worth. I would suggest it gives you the upgrade plus 2 leather cannons but for the price of 300 food. This creates a synergy with the sniper Age Up and it is also worth sending this card now. The shorter training time is removed.

Peleton fire:
In any case, this card should bring a 15% attack increase, as well as any other Age 3 card. Also, this card should also provide a 0.25 bonus against light cavalry for Carolinians. 1.25 overall against light cavalry. Every nation has a unit that counters light cavalry, so Sweden should get that too.

Osemund method:
This card should always send 4 mines because Sweden has a reduced number of settlers and the torps compensate for this, but if you only get 2 mines twice you can only use 8 torps, which does not compensate the reduced number of settlers.

New card:
6 Carolines in 2 Ages
Every musketeer nation (Indian, British, Japanese, Haude, Italian, Ottoman, Portuguese) has 6 musketeers in 2 ages, it’s only fair if Sweden gets that too.

All in all, I’m aiming for the changes so that the Swedes are about on the same level as the British. However, I still see the British at an advantage as they are significantly more flexible with manor houses and unit options. So the Sweden comes to lie under the British.

Let me know what you think of the changes.

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Bonjour, sache que tu peux parler dans ta langue natale si elle est prise en compte dans le mode traduction qui fait apparaitre pour les non-anglophones un globe en bas à droite du post qui traduira aussi en anglais pour ceux qui sont à l’aise pour cette langue, voila fin de mon Hors sujet :wink:

3

The Swedes as a faction are too easy to counter to justifiy all those requirements to make the units and torps viable, it’s a difficult task to balance the civ to not just snowball but in it’s current state Sweden is almost forced to abuse the hakkapelit because the other options are too slow or too weak. The Carolean should be the heart of the swedish army. I personally don’t think the hakkapelit is that insane as many state, because as I already said sweden is easily counterable and people who let sweden build torps undisturbed for 8 mins are at fault for their defeat. But if it means that the Carolean gets buffed and the eco simplified (less than 4! cards) I’m all in for that.

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Me with 1500 - 1600 in 1v1 AND 2000 in Team

I think that Sweden is a pretty decent civilization, Sweden’s problem in the beginning was its Eco-Military instance
Well, in the past, he had a brutal economy and the Carolinian by himself scales too well in the middle and late game considering that he also has a good specialization in artillery, which combined an explosive game

Before Sweden should not have a guerrilla since it practically has the Carolinian who worked as an elite troop, something similar with India, India has a very good musketeer but a bad skirmisher, so in a certain way it balances itself, in the case of Sweden the musketeer It was too strong, therefore, having a guerrilla made it difficult to tame now that the Carolina is weaker and scales much less than before, I think that Sweden should have the normal European guerrilla, which cannot be improved with cards.

If sweden had a guerrilla he could not be countered so strongly, therefore the carolino should also be adjusted, so I would think that the card that increases the multiplier against heavy cab should be nerfed and in exchange increase its resistance more

Hakkapelita was a pretty decent unit, only it wasn’t very easy to use in the micro in distance mode, also considering that it seemed cheap for the statistics, the problem was that it was overshadowed by the Carolino, not because it is a bad unit, I suggest that he Hakkapelita is returned as it was before.

I think you are right in the case of berries or blueberries I think it could last a little longer, it stays very low

Finally, the letter that increases the life of the cabins, gives you four and allows you to collect resource boxes should be reviewed. This letter gives a lot of boost to Sweden, because later the 700 wood is sent, which is collected alone and Spam of cabins that are not easy to destroy, a boom of houses that take the resources of the map should not be simple, they should learn from Japan, which had a disgusting boom of low-priced houses, easy and it cost a lot to destroy it for something they nerfed, even in the last patch they nerfed the sanctuaries a bit, I mean it has taken years to balance Japan because its characteristics make it very OP and Sweden is not an exception, I think that card should go to age 3 and in exchange for a look of gold, in order to balance it, do not abuse that card so much, previously that card was at age 3 and the players did not abuse that

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Hakkapelits are really strong ATM and I am always having hard times when I create a deck for Sweden :slight_smile:

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It is not that Sweden is weak at first to control it, it is not like Japan, Sweden can defend itself very well from a rush with a shipment and militia, Besides that now it is no longer slow to age as before, The Hakkapelita is ridiculous as a unit like that just as they say, can you imagine an uhlan that can exchange attacks against light cavalry?? well that something like that is the Hakkapelita

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Tbh iirc swedes has a pretty good showing in the recent tourney and they feel like brits in the way that the stronger the player the better they are since their boom power was just that strong and also having a lot of micro and snowballing potential.

Their eco drop off a bit in the mid to late game but their military power also increases due to more upgrades as well to compensate

1 Like
8

I still very much like Sweden and their play style, but damn I wish Leather Cannons were reworked slightly to be more durable and worth investing into and sticking to for a longer period of time. I know that demanding options that can make them tanky-ish/agile are arguably ridiculous, but there ought to be something more in the player toolset that could be used to enhance them.

I feel wanting to use them more, but it’s just not happening, idk. The unit concept is very fun.

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Hakkapelits should never have been reworked into dragoons, they were fine as they were before, infact since they did high ranged damage with an aoe they were pretty effective against musketeers, but not pikemen which they did half damage to. But they were uhlans in melee stance so good at killing skirms too.

Caroleans were the dragoons for sweden but they’ve been nerfed considerably most recently platoon fire so their multiplier has gone down.

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I think this is a wrong objective because British is the “consistently best civ” in the game, so excluding the OPs of the moment (is currently Ports and maybe china, was swedes on release, etc…).
So this is like saying in aoe2 “I want my civ at the level of chinese and britons”, or in aoe1 “I want my civ at the level if shangs”…

Back to the topic.

This is an unfair comparison to me because I don’t think Caroleans are supposed to win musketeers fights. Musketeers highlight is when fighting cavalry, where they are supposed to shine thanks to the multiplicator at range. If they are not better against HC, they need a buff.
Against infantry it doesnt matter because Caroleans+canons is Swedes Bread&Butter.

I also like the feature LCanons insteas of Skirms as a unique feature.
If I had to change Caroleans, I would enhence this part by removing Falconets from the Artillery (keeping the cards) and adding a second age 3 card to boost LCanons, do they are stronger + card upgraded + trained faster. In Age 4, you’d mainly choose between LCanons and HorseArtillery.

It is not a big deal to me, as Swedes have a decent player base and I dont think they were the least player civ.

What I like however is to see people playing Swedes do something else in 1v1 than Caroleans+Canons. So I’d like to not nerf the Hakkapelits to keep it as a good option.

If this is not the case yet, I support this idea.

This sound really strong. I donnot like it. A torp usually gets food from hunt, berries and mine. And now you get a bonus for free.

Agreed, I would like LCannons to be more used.

I dont like this. Inam fine if Swedes are weak to LC, I do not want Caroleans to be a mass &win unit that does everything canons do not bring.
Swedes should either make Jaegers, or find a way around dragoons. Maybe Hakkapelits (rerework) can help

Disagreed. Swedes reduced vil count is more something for treaty. Swedes should use diverse cards and not brainlessly spam one card. Swedes streght also lies in the mercenaries and the -1 pop on artillery, they should have worse late game eco to compensate. It should belong to the civ design.

Fine.

Disagreed, I dont want them to scale better. I dont want to see them in musketeer battles.

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Hakkapellets might be a bit too strong right now, apart from that i think Sweden are in a good shape balance wise. No need to buff/nerf other aspects of the Civ. Their Age 2 Carolean Lether Cannon composition is nothing to sleep on with good artillery protection.

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i do think the change form unique to dragoon for hakka was kind of sad. sweden as released was extremly unique, and that is great. but over time the faction was overnerfed a bit.

IMO id rather have a unit no one uses than another dragoon, it was interesting having a faction without a dragoon.

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Imo they should rework Hakka and bring it more in line with dragoons but with higher cost, but also higher stats cause of the cost increase. Reduce hand dmg to 15 from 30 (dragoon 11 dmg vs 30 dmg) is nuts. This will help skirms in melee, also remove its hand cav tag and adjust its multipliers from 1.5 vs all cav to 3 vs hand cav and 2.5 vs hand shock and 3 vs artillery. Since it should behave more like a goon I say the Hakka should start with 12 range so it’s not easily kited by other goons. It’s siege is crazy as well 20 vs 9 siege from regular goon so reduce it to 15. Where the Hakka will have its advantage will be that it has more hp, aoe, and slightly better stats in melee and siege but with 2 less dmg compared to goons.

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No, they should Un-rework them, make them back how they were before.

Sweden already had dragoons, they were Caroleans.
Sweden also has Black Riders available by default at the Tavern there was no reason at all to turn Hakkapelit into a light ranged cavalry.

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Only problem with Coraleans is that you need a lot of cards to make them compensate for not having skirms. Now with the rework of Hakkas they can try other unit comps. Obviously hakka is op, but only because of its melee dmg and multipliers agaisnt all cav. They counter what is supposed to counter them, skirms. And that’s a big no no. Hakkas are fine as light cav just bring them more in line with reg goons.

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That’s exactly what shouldn’t happen they should be unique not having dragoons or skirmishes was Sweden’s whole thing.

Instead of skirmishers you have cheap artillery, for anti-goon duty you still had crossbows. And you always had access to jaegers without sending a shipment or mercenary contractor.

Instead of dragoons you could use caroleans which are basically dragoons on foot as they’re weak as a musketeer. And if you really needed dragoons you always had black riders at the tavern no shipment or politician needed.

So reworking hakkapelit to be like a dragoon is not only a bad idea and totally unnecessary.

1 Like
17

Countering dragoons was an issue before though, xbow just aren’t a good unit vs upgraded dragoons and you have no cards for them. They suffered much like otto used to without a reliable counter. At least the hakkapelit can fight dragoons now and trade at least evenly. It’s also nice to have mobile anti-cav not just caroleans.

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But I found crossbowmen were enough against dragoons (even upgraded goons), so long as you kept them exclusively for anti-dragoon duty. I do admit I did think maybe they should have given swedish crossbowmen the same treatment as british pikemen (Before the recent nerf), allowing guard/imperial upgrades for them by default. so they didn’t suffer as much in the late game. But they also had Jaegers which base stats are roughly equal to imperial skirms but they also had upgrades for mercenaries.

You also had speedy multi-carded RG pikemen (Since they shared cards with hussars/Hakka), I often found them more useful than Caroleans in certain situations. And you still had black riders.

Weakening the platoon fire multiplier bonus and turning Hakkapelits into souped up Dragoons that countered other dragoons in melee was giving them two things they didn’t need and took away their uniqueness. It also removed what made playing sweden special and made them completely rely on a single unit for everything.

Having a short ranged uhlan that countered musketeers at range was fun and unique, I didn’t mind not having dragoons since sweden had other options, and it’s not like hakka sucked against other cav before they hard countered them.

As for countering goons, at least they had crossbows (better than what ottos had) and their was always jaegers as an option.

19

Hakkapelit is not the only issue. It’s Sweden’s fast start and insane eco that makes it overpowered. Sweden can age up at 4:05 with better eco than most other civs, and can still hold most early pressures. Such a boomy civ shouldn’t age up that fast.

British age up fast too, but at least you can pressure his base and idle his vills. Killing Sweden houses takes a lot of time, and can be easily prevented by 5 caroleans.

20

they don’t fight dragoon evenly, they destroy dragoon xD

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