Its a reoccuring question i’m thinking about, when i’m playing germany in casual teamgames
what niche does the mountain trooper(that u get from prince elector by allying the house of Wittelsbach) occupy?
Mountaintrooper:
con:
higher cost (wood) [u could use -25% discount card]
buildlimit
pro:
available age 2
promotions (range + attackspeed)
cheap upgrade cost
regular Skirm:
pro:
faster attackspeed by default after guard upgrade
My reasoning this far was smth like this:
U could use mountain troopers in age 2 pushes, surprising enemies with early skirms. In this small scale scenario u could micro them well and hopefully keep them alive… But germany can and wants to ff anyway (also casual teamgames tend to favor ff and fi aswell).
Late game i dont really see a reason to use them. Needlegunners already come with faster attackspeed, so additional range becomes the whole selling point of mountain troopers… dont get me wrong, more range is amazing, but i find it strange to micro a group of skirms that all have different ranges (depending on their individual lvl)
And lets not talk about the opportunity cost of not having hanover as ally…
So what are your thoughts? Am i missing some hidden stat? Is there some use for them in lategame? Some scenario where they can shine and outcompete Needlegunners?
What is the BL with the allies card? Is it 15?
Edit: You’re missing an important tech from Wittlesbatch (the higher range tech), so I suspect it’s mostly “they’re vaguely Central European, so you get them. Don’t think about it too much, we didn’t.”
Yeah, Wittelsbach was a very important noble family in the hre, i get why they were included and i know, that they didnt design them arround the german unit roster…
Its more of a “i want to use them” situation, but i dont find any real excuse to do so
Hanover is ofc the best option for prince electors, but oldenburg, habsburg and even wettin have their situational uses.. Wittelsbach doesnt really
If you’re looking for an excuse, I’d say they’re probably better if only a tiny portion of your army is going to be Skirmishers. Keep them shooting at max range and hopefully obtain 15 gold rank ones. If they’re all gold, they are probably better than Needle Gunners. The other obviously point you already made was age 2 use.
15 is the base limit, prince electors build limits are x1.5. So it should be 23 if I’m not mistaken.
EDIT: I checked, its 20 for some reason. And then 15 Chevaulegers.
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You don’t go Wittelsbach for the skirm, you’re getting the goon unless you want to replace war wagons entirely, they cou ship the card that replaces ww. If you wanted a native skirm (or better yet a ranged lancer that can transform into a skirm), go Habsburg and get mounted infantry, you get those from age 2 and they cost gold. Wittelsbach is the worst alliance you can get from prince electors.
I experimented with them yesterday… I take it all back, they are amazing^^
On gold lvl the fire rate drops to 2.40 … It feels amazing to kite with them
Needs some further testing, but so far im pretty happy to pair mountain troopers with landwehr mid to late game. Landwehr bolsters the numbers and tanks most of the damage. Higher firerate and range help mountaintroopers, instead of landwehr, to make the kill and lvl up.
But i think the real use for mountain troopers is in war wagon heavy strategies. Hidden under the war wagon’s hitbox they are pretty safe from artillery or countersniping. Warwagons do a lot of overkill, the high firerate of these skirms somewhat negates that
Edit: also i forgot that mountain troopers have the LoS ability of salteadores ^^’ … pretty neat in age 2 fights/raids tbh
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Gotta love the WW cheese. I still remember playing a 1v1 vs someone who I suspect thought they were better than me. I think I was behind, but I had a few Dopps, I hid them under my WWs and made it look like I misclicked and sent my WWs walking into some of his dragoons or WWs or something. All of a sudden the battle went my way if I recall correctly.
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