Militia Units
The role of militia units (Militiamen, Minutemen, Sentries, Irregulars, etc) should be primarily to aid in defending your base. A burst of strong but diminishing units from your town is the best way to achieve this. Unfortunately, the African and Native militia units fail to perform this function.
African Levied Units
Levied units are very uninspired and not very useful.
Issues:
- They cost influence which is usually in short supply.
- They train one at a time which prevents them from being massed in large enough quantity to respond to an attack.
- They get attacked one at a time and easily defeated
- Earlier trained units are already depleted by the time the next one trains
- Training from multiple huts leaves them too spread out for a concentrated defense
- The Mass Levies card is completely useless
Fixes:
- Make their training a one time muster from the Town Center and each Hut. Buff their stats to compensate for no longer being a recurring unit.
- Make their cost a mix of coin/food/influence. For example, Levied Spearmen could cost 50% food and 50% influence, and Levied Bowmen could cost 50% coin and 50% influence.
- Eliminate Levied Gunners. They are trained from the Palace so they aren’t very defensive and they’re just a Musketeer that loses health so they don’t have any unique function. The Africans have such a huge unit roster, that cutting it down would be beneficial.
- Make the Mass Levies card double the number of units spawned from each Hut, and allow them to be called from the Huts as well.
- Possibly give the levied units a better name. There were local African irregular/militia units such as the Ruga-Ruga who could fill the role. Even having Sentries/Irregulars like the Asians would make sense.
Native Warriors
Issues:
- They are used on the offensive just as much as the defensive. One patch made them deplete health faster near enemy Town Centers, but this isn’t ideal since it’s a somewhat hidden nerf.
- They aren’t great for defensive use. You need to have Villagers and Healers working the Plaza to spawn them, which leaves them vulnerable to attack. They also train one at a time so they’re easier to overwhelm.
- The name is very bland. The term “native warrior” is also already used to describe units from minor allies (and sometimes more broadly to all native military units) so changing the name of the native “Warrior” unit would better clarify those references (changing “Healer” back to Medicine Man would also be a welcome clarification).
Fixes:
- Rename the unit to Brave. This is a generic term for a native warrior, and would be a fitting name for a unit that is supposed to be the last line of defence.
- Each Town Center spawns one Brave instead of them spawning from Plaza. This would prevent the strategy of making a forward Plaza and using them for the attack. It would also let you position the Plaza in a place that is safe from attack even when your Town Center is under siege.
- Villagers/Healers killed while performing the ceremony become Braves. This would let you continue to defend even if your Plaza was under attack.