I kind of agree with you. While unique units and outstanding units are necessary from time to time for a breath of fresh air to the franchise, having so many “over-the-board units” altogether just break the balance.
At the release Ethiopia had a Musketeer with:
4.5 speed (normal is 4.0)
14 range (normal is 12)
Faster rate of fire when close (no Musk had that)
Did 48 damage vs cav (EuroMusk dmg= 39 dmg, Sepoy= 45)
Cheaper upgrade along with another infantry (no unit had that)
And they still had Javelin Rider: A very broken ranged cav with huge melee bonus too: a unit that did 50 dmg in melee and 60 at range to cavalry (they have double rate of fire), in Commerce Age!!!
Imagine rushing with Germans against this civ…F
This is months after the Carolean: a unit that had already broken the Musketeer design.
I wish the devs used the Euro civs as benchmarks instead of going further and further away from the limits set in the game with every new civ being added: AOE3 is already a very complex game and constantly adding easy resources, “over the board” units, and super counters to specific civs is simply not healthy.
The only things that always NEED to have remarkable techs and/or remarkable units are Minor Natives and Mercenaries. Because if they don’t there’s no reason to use them.
They are fine, if only a little too weak. Easily countered by heavy infantry or any sort of cavalry. Just don’t go full skirmish against them and expect to win.
Ethiopia has very difficult access to artilery in the mid to late game, so they cannot easily spam culverins. Remember, this game isn’t really balanced around treaty. Without a unit like this, Ethiopia would be obliterated by any FF civ. or straight out lose in age2 against sweeden. Also, they cannot be massed and are easy to counter by other unit types.
They are also fine.
Unit is fine, many units have no downside, other than limit. Thats why they have limits.
IIRC those 2 units lose HP over time without taking damage. They are totally fine the way they are. In fact, they probably need buffs, I never find myself using them in attacks.
Also, neither Hausa nor EthiOPia have something that could pretent to be a proper minuteman. These Yoruba dudes are basically that, minuteman replacements that are actually useful.
The only outstanding broken unit right now is the Abun heal in combat. That needs to be taken away, or only allowed on the Ras. Otherwise the expansion is fine, they had enough nerfs already.
Also remember game isn’t balanced around treaty 40 where EthiOPia and Hausa get to have unlimited influence and easy access to cannon. In supremacy both are A tier at best. They act the same way as natives and Asians, lack of artillery leads to different unit types.
Ironically, throughout DE, with the exception of Sweden, the meta has been dominated by vanilla civs, meaning the new additions aren;t quite as strong as people think.
while you’re mostly right It’s not as complicated as you think there are subgroups within those groups:
You mentioned spanish lancers as an exception but they’re more like a subgroup with french curasiers, elmeti and Mahouts filling the same group. Shotel warriors are just a shock infantry version of a lancer (not a particularly strong one). It could be argued that Lifidi jnights are also “lancers”
Urumi are melee skirmishers, hell in the original Asian dynasties you couldn’t ship Gurka’s only urumi.
So a more accurate reresentation would be like thi:
’light’ Infantry:
foot archer
skirmishers
Urumi
Heavy Infantry:
pikeman (which are weak against everything BUT cavalry)
musketeer (which are ranged but still have melee armor)
Halberdeer (include doppelsolders, samurai etc, these basically destroy anything that get too close
Cavalry is pretty much the same melee cav are just your hussars for the most part, but some are lancerrs.
Shotelss are lancers but not particularly strong lancers
Oromo warriors are hussars even though they are ranged you use them in the same manner you would use hussars
There is one unit that that icounters a specific subgroup while still being basically weak against heavy infantry: Hackapellit, they’re strong against musketeers and musketeer type units but not pikemen or halberdeers.
Im afraid this isn’t even close to true. Lancers have a full 3x (later 4x) vs all infantry, both ranged and heavy. they walk through just about anything short of dopps or skull knights.
Mahouts and whatnot only have bonus vs skirm type, plus other abstract infantry running around like native scouts, mantlets, aztec warchief.
In this way, Lancers act sort of like an artillery - cavalry hybrid, being bad against all cav and good vs all infantry.
Mahouts are more just an extreme cavalry (an extremely bad one) with exaggerated hp and good vs skirms, while being absolutely awful against nearly anything else in equal pop, including artillery unfortunately
you forgot that they also had significantly more siege than standard musketeers and two cards age 2 like brits. Oh and after checking the wiki patch notes, apparently they were also only 95 res each.
No, they have limits because they don’t cost population, as they are a native warrior. And units that deconstruct the fundamental design of the game should have a downside.
If you actually read my post, you’d read that I don’t believe Darood Militia perform in a realistic anti-artillery capacity.
The only way I can see this happening is by adding imperial age cards that would be basically usable just in treaty because most games end before imperial in supremacy.
most economic buff cards aren’t used in supremacy but are vital to treaty and similarly treaty doesn’t give a ■■■■ about single shipments of resources and units. if a faction is underperforming in 1 vs 1 you can simply give them stronger early shipments and if a faction is OP in treaty you can nerf upgrades or even units to balance the game.
you never take fur trade in supremacy, so changing that will only effect treaty as an example.
generally speaking rush is sensitive to timings, if a faction is overpowered in 1 vs 1 rush then you can do a lot to bring them in line with removing 700 wood or gold cards or by making early tech just a little more expensive, those are things that could quickly balance a faction for that mode.
treaty on the other hand is about the maximum potential of a civ in both its roster and its eco, if a faction is OP in treaty it is likely because they have a unit that is so outlandishly OP that it effects the game negatively or because the eco is way too strong. USA is an example of this, because with all upgrades and the right state age up there is very little you can do vs state militia, and on top you can get to a point where you can easily ship over 1200 wood a minute through cards late making it almost impossible to drain the US economy. in this case the obvious choice is to nerf the New jersey age up, it is something that wont impact rush at all to nerf. similarly if a normal European faction was slightly overperforming then you can remove say 15% gather rate on farms, again its something you wont see in rush so it wont impact the game mode.
I agree that this type of units that are outside the norm, are units that are not obtained by standard means. Since they are special, they must also be obtainable in a special way like the urumi of the Indians or the nizam of the Ottomans.
However, I think African civilizations are well designed, it is only a matter of time before they are competitively suited.
Just want to add on this, it is really confusing what unit does what. Like why are there so many different “unique” units in the roster? The units really cant just be described with “fast musketeer”, but more expensive. Or skirmisher with lower range but more dmg. Also it is okay if they have one unit like this, but ALL units are gimmicky…why does it have to be this way…
Worst example for me is the portuguese Canoneer (mercenary). Description says, that it is a musketeer, but it is more like a weird skirmisher
Also there are so many interactions that are hard to grasp from the other side (for scouting for example). i genuinly dont understand much of whats going on and what to focus. Also the complete absence of herding is just bad game design (with the granaries), they basically become unraidable for no reason
Now with Mexico they are going “back” to the wild unit designs like Swedes and Incas…
A musketeer-grenadier hybrid with even stronger base stats than a normal musketeer (boy, why another strong musketeer?). This unit has to be 2 pop.
A skirmisher with stealth ability and receives buffs when close to natural resources.
I mean, US unit designs are nice. They are unique but do not have stacked buffs or traits, nor do they have some very out-of-place abilities (which imo better belong to mercs or natives), and play like their regular counterparts. That’s what I think regular units should be like for newer civs.
At least that’s a straightforward and simple buff and the unit is still like a skirmisher (more accurately crossbowman), not like carolean which has faster ROF, higher melee, higher speed, ranged bonus against cavalry, melee bonus against infantry, and a special ability all in one unit.
And range upgrade to skirmishers is more “normal” than to musketeers.
