(Beta) - Rework Napoleonics

Age of Empires III: DE Mod Discussion
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Discuss (Beta) - Rework Napoleonics

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TLDR: Just put your thoughts ideas and opinions down below. Just read if you want the thought process.

Hello all, thanks for checking out this mod. Please let me know your thoughts about the concepts, the balances and bugs inside the mod. There are some ideas that I haven’t implemented in the mod, either because I want thoughts on it or I haven’t figured out how to make it work. As I’m the only one working on this I have really only been able to apply this mod to European civs. I would want to make changes to all civs but that will take some time. I wanted to make more historical accurate changes and hopefully these reflect them. Below are the changes I made and please let me know:

  1. Added Prussian Civ and made Germans more HRE/Austrian.
  2. Kept early grenadiers the same to keep some strategies viable, but after Age 3 they are left behind by a more up-to-date Soldado like grenadier.
  3. Took Swedish card Case Shot and added it to Advance Arsenal. The Swedish card is now Solid Shot with artillery having 1 more range and more damage.

New Changes
Cavalry system Rework - Cavalry is now broken up into 4 different types. Lancer, Light, Dragoons, and Heavy Cavalry. Light Cavalry and Lancers don’t have light or heavy cavalry tag.

  1. Lancer Cavalry: Cavalry unit that does all its damage up front (Similar to Coustillier from AOE2). It has a powerful charge attack, and a weak standard attack. They have a positive multiplier verse all infantry except Pikeman in which they have a negative multiplier. They are the fastest cavalry unit around allowing them to get in and get out. They also have low health and range armor so don’t keep them fighting or you will have to replace them. I wanted to get the recharge to only happen outside of combat but I couldn’t figure it out. Currently they are available in age 2 but they may need to be moved to age 3.
  • Uhlans: This is your standard Lancer Cavalry. 2 pop. Available for Germans and Prussians.
    Cossacks: This is a cheaper version of the Uhlan. 1 pop. Available for Russians.
  • Chevauleger Lancer: This Lancer is faster and is more rounded than the others. 2pop Available for
    French. (Bavarian Chevauleger and Prinz Chevauleger are still ranged cavalry, don’t have lancer at the end and spelling changed to Chevauxleger.)
  • Lancers( Garrochistas): This is your heavier lancer. The damage is still the same but it is more armored and more health. They do area damage with their basic attack and don’t have negative multiplier verse Pikeman.
  • Winged Hussars: These are you Heavy Cavalry Lancers, as described below, they have your Heavy cavalry stats but lancer characteristics.
  1. Light Cavalry: Standard cavalry unit. The concept around this unit hasn’t really changed all that much. It is more of a harasser and a flanker than a damage sponge that it currently is. The health has been reduced but the speed has been increased. They do have a multiplier vs skirmishers and artillery. Still an age 2 unit and 2 pop.
  • Hussar: Standard Light cavalry. Almost all European civs have this unit. (Russia doesn’t currently but testing to see if it needs it). Stats have been basically swapped with that of the Dragoon. The -Deli for the Ottomans was adjusted proportionally.
  • Hakkapelit: This is a Swedish Light Cavalry unit that has the dragoon role. They should be used as a melee flanker with a ranged attack to soften the enemy before contact. (I was thinking of a charged range attack similar to the Oromo Warriors instead of having a range attack but it felt a little awkward at the time.) Swedish Unit
  • Totenkopf Hussar: A Prussian unique unit has changed from being similar to the Spahi to being similar to an Uhlan.
  • Chasseur a Cheval: This is a French anti skirmisher ranged light cavalry. More info below.
  • Cavalry Archer: I would categories these as light range cavalry still. They do keep their anti Heavy Cavalry role.
  1. Dragoons: Dragoons now are you Standard Heavy Cavalry unit. They have more health, have melee resist and do more damage, both their range and hand attacks, though their hand attack is higher. They are still two pop and are available in Age 3. Although it might now work as intended the idea is to have them as a melee first unit and a range second. Similar to the Hakkapelit, did try to do a range charge attack instead of a normal range attack but it felt clunky.
  • Dragoons: Standard Dragoon. This unit’s stats were swapped with the Hussar. It does have a little more health to make it feel like a more heavier unit. I did give Italians the ability to have RG Dragoons with their church card.
  • Ruyters: Range focus Dragoon. This unit swiped the stats from the Cossack as they are both 1 pop. I tried to match the cost and scale it right. Where Dragoons have more damage on their melee, Ruyters have more damage on their ranged attacks. The Black Rider is the mercenary version of this.
  1. Heavy Cavalry: These are you elite cavalry and should not be able to afford very many of them. A lot of these have increased train times or less amounts their train time is reduced. They are super slow, but have large health pools and do a lot of damage. They have melee resist so it is possible to kite them. They can be your protection against other cavalry charges as they do have a multiplier verse other cavalry. Or they can be used as the hammer to the anvil and charge unsuspecting soldiers. Most are 3 pop and are available in Age 3
  • Cuirassiers: These are your standard Heavy Cavalry. They are available to Germany, Prussia and France. I’m still trying to decide if Russia should get them. They have regained their vanilla glory with increased health and damage, though their area affect has been dropped by one. I wanted them to feel like elite cavalry and not the spammy units we have now.
  • War Wagons: The idea behind these changes were to make them more of a defensive wall for soldiers to hide behind to protect against gun fire. They keep their anti cavalry capabilities and have more health and gain the papal guard shield ability. I wanted it to feel like an artillery piece so its move speed has also been reduced but its range attack has increased.
  • Spahi: I haven’t changed anything with them, but I was thinking about making them trainable so the Ottomans could have their version of Heavy Cavalry.
  • Oprichnik: This is your Heavy Cavalry Light version. 2 pop It acts like a heavy cavalry with its slower speed higher health and stronger attack but it is treated as light cavalry. It has a little higher train time, has lower melee resist but moves faster and keeps its raiding capabilities.
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TLDR: The first post is the most changes but here are some more.

More Changes:

  1. Consistency Changes: These might not 100% balance but it just feels dumb that you have a with multiple unique units and a civ with only one.
  • British never really had a passive. Manors are unique buildings like a torp or a bank not a passive (especially since those civs have passives as well). Now British gets +1 increase build limit to warships for every type after the age they were introduced until Industrial. This should give caravels +4, Galleon +2, Frigate +1, Monitor +1, and the ability to build Battleships on non European maps. Their warships also have +5% damage. Their passive was being granted a free early factory but wasn’t sure how I wanted to do it and if they should get 3 or be limited two 2. I did move the cog wheel factory to Age3 and had it function similarly to the American early card.
  • French was another that didn’t really have a passive. Their passive was to get a one time use native scout. So to lean more into the native side of things the French get an increase in native build limits. I have thought about making them the native versions of Germany where they get more native units from shipments and such.
  • Unique Unit: France also has the least amount of unique units. And so with the new abilities of mounting/dismounting I created the unit Chasseurs. Chasseur a pied - when on foot and Chasseur a chevel when on horse. This is a skirmisher unit that functions as a skirmisher but has musketeer stats. It has multipliers verse all infantry but lower range than skirmishers. The mounted version is Ranged light cavalry unit with anti artillery and skirmisher multipliers. It is available in Age 3 and is 1 pop and is trained in the barracks.
  • Card Buffs: There is a lot of inconsistencies with the Health, Damage and Combat cards. The more unique units you tend to have the more specific those cards tend to be. This allows some civs to have stronger natives or mercenaries than civs that are suppose to have the strongest of those units. All of these cards are now buffing the general unit instead of the specific units. Some other cards have other changes to match similar cards of their type.
  1. Formations: In the Napoleonic Wars it was super important to keep formation and so I wanted to increase the importance of what stances the unit is in. There is a lot of units in the game and so I wanted to try it out before going all in on it. At this time Musketeers are the only unit that have the stance changes. I did take a lot of them from the Line Infantry with some changes.
  • Volley: While in the Volley stance Musketeers get increase rate of fire. This represents the idea of having them in line formation constantly firing.
  • Stagger: While in Staggered stance Musketeers get a small increase of range. This represents the idea of picking your shots. This would mostly be used for skirmishers.
  • Melee: While in Melee stance Musketeers get a increase of movement speed and an increase of melee damage. This is to represent bayonet charges.
  • Defense: While in Defense stance Musketeers get a larger increase in melee damage. This is to represent square formation.

  1. RG Upgrades: Wanting to make the RG upgrades more impactful I increased the boost from 10% - 15%. It might not be much but it now matches what a card would boost a unit.

  2. Various Buffs: There are a bunch of other changes that I made that I felt were needed either due to historical or game play.

  • Spanish church card increases church build limit by 1.
  • Dutch can now train Musketeers through their church tech.
  • Pikeman attack increased to help keep cavalry form dominating.
  • Bayonet also increase the melee multiplier against cavalry by 1.5.

Some ideas that still have some potential:

  • Villagers units cost no pop.
  • Explorer card give Explorers the aura to increasing troops HP and the Bersagliere trumpet ability. This changes them to be used like a commander on the field.
  • A charged pistol shot for Pikemen to help them stay relevant. The other idea was to make Halberdiers more useful against infantry and Pikemen more useful against cavalry.

This was quite a lot so I figured I would hold on before adding any new ideas into this. I am not very good at unit modeling so some of them are just temporary or don’t change until I can refine them. I do plan on trying to make these changes to the other civs but it just takes a while to do.

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