British update changes/wishlist

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
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So, to TLDR it - the British Manors, Rangers, Royal House and a change to British Revs are my main points, the rest are just wishlisty (just for a bit of fun).

British Manors
Currently the only Unique building to not be …unique looking. There’s plenty of threads with plenty of examples of what it could look like - but essentially a modest Manor House (visually can evolve from timber frames to brickwork). The bottom line, is that it would be nice for a visual signifier if we are sticking to the format of unique unit/building = unique model (Denmark being the latest to showcase this format with their houses).

British Rangers
For the record, I love the Rangers (being a Sharpe fan and all), however their unlocking along with the longbow/ranger swappable cards is convoluted and doesn’t particularly add anything other having to jump through some hoops.

Currently via the Church tech Queen’s Rangers, you replace Longbowmen in the Barracks with Rangers, but there’s also a Home City shipment Rangers that does the same (plus grants Guard Rangers) - this seems wasteful. Could we at the very least, just have one of shipments (Rangers or Glorious Revolution card) unlock the Rangers? If it went as just the Ranger card, we could always see something else interesting in lieue of the Kings/Queens Ranger church tech. The crazy option would be that the Ranger is just available as a standard unit in the Barracks (under the pretense that the British have always used skirmishing units - it’s an unfounded sterotype they didn’t).

Royal House links
Much like the Germans and French, it would be nice to have some kind of tie in shipment form to the Royal Houses by way of Embassy Wagon:

British Royal Houses - [Shipment suggestion] Sends a Royal Embassy Wagon which allows the British to pick either House of Stuart or House of Hannover to install and allow their native units (you know, being establishments in Britain…). I’d love their techs, but that would probably be a bit OP.

Just a quick round up on Royal House wagons. Current access:
• French - Ancien Régime - gives access to House of Bourbon (units and some techs)
• Germans - Prince-Electors - units only, but a wide choice of houses.
• Dutch - no access
• Ports - no access
• Spanish - no access
• Swedes - no access
• Russians - Treaty of Mozhaysk limited access to House of Oldenburg - just Oldenburg Hunters
• Ottoman - no access
• British - no access
• Danes - Oldenburg Kings - units, upgrades and some techs
• Poles - Royal Union - access to House of Jagielion - units, upgrades and some techs

note - whilst Swedes and Dutch have not access to Royal Embassy units, they kinda make up the lack by having lots of trainable Merc unlocks (and natives in the Dutch case) via direct (not including church techs) unlock shipments.

Revolutions
Haiti - Doesn’t make sense for British to have Haiti as a revolution option. Haiti as a rev itself needs a bit of tweaking (remove the pirate element and focus on the revolutionary Haiti - no 1600s Tortuga), but regardless, is still ill-fitting.

Irish - Using the Confederate Irish (War of Three Kingdoms 17th Century) as the basis for this revolution would work fine here (could even uprade to the short-lived 18th century Irish Republic). Could be an earlier (Age III) revolution.

Scottish - Another popular suggestion is to have the Scottish as a rev option, based on the Jacobite rebellion. Again, could be an Age III revolution. Along with the obvious House of Stuart units, Manor Houses could convert to Crofts, which spawn a Sheep instead of Settlers upon construction.

Republic of Pirates - as a direct replacement to Haiti, Republic of Pirates (or Flying Gang or New Providence) would thematically fit in well, especially as the majorty of the republic were British ex-sailors, soldiers and those who still supported the Stuarts.

Pirate Republic rev civ suggestion:

Details

Home City: Nassau

Changes:

  • Barracks change to Tent Camp Towns - far weaker HP, but can train all land units, is super cheap and has 20 Pop space. Quicker to build.
  • Houses are destroyed and change to Pirates.
  • Factories change to Trader House (non-socket Trading Post that can be built normally). Can research different black market networks to increase resource trickles. Also allows the Capitol techs Spies and Knighthood (renamed Flying Gang) & Peerage (renamed Old Standers). Adds Advanced Arsenal techs. Can be built (limited quantity). Cannot spawn Heavy Arty and generate less resources.
  • Outposts change to Lookout Posts (Fort Tower model) - can spawn treasure shipwrecks near by. Can train Spies.
  • Churches change to Taverns (Taverns can train Surgeons)
  • Coin bounty on enemy unit death. Wood bounty from buildings (with additional Food or Coin from their respective resource buildings).

Unit roster:

Land units
Pirate Commander (Explorer replacement) - Gets a suitable name, such as Hornigold or Jennings. Can build Tent Camp Towns and Lookout Posts. Gains Charged Shot ability.
Pirate Captain - A weaker Pirate Commander - sent via ‘Crew’ shipsments, for example ‘Blackbeard’s Crew’ - ships Pirate Captain plus a group of Freebooters & Pirates. Has AoE passive that boosts nearby unit HP (
Baymen - Settlers are replaced with Baymen. Tough piratical lumberjack/hunters/eco unit, arrmed with musket.
Freebooter (Musketeer replacement) - Buccaneer Gun-armed pirate. Longer ranged than standard musketeer, weaker melee (cutless). Cav multiplier at range, rather than melee.
Pressed Men (Pikemen replacement). Quicker, cheaper, slightly less durable than Pikemen. Armed with Boarding Pike and useful for mobbing the enemy whilst your Freebooters take shots.
Pirate (Hussar replacement) - Hand cav replacement.
Topmen (Ranger/Longbowmen replacement) - Marksman unit. Can hunt.
Boarder - Shorter-ranged than the Sailor (uses same model, though reskinned), armed with blunderbuss. Uses Boarding Axes in melee (almost like a Halberdier-esque role).

Artillery
Paterero - Swivel Gun on light gun carriage. Cheap, mainly anti-infantry piece, using grapeshot. Can be Leather Gun model with Pirate crew
Light Piece - Reskinned Light Cannon (pirate crew). General use/culverin
Grenadier Crewman (replaces Grenadier) - Cheaper, 1 pop grenadiers with shorter range. Can switch between Grenadoes (standard) or Firepots (damage over time, shorter range - better against buildings/ships).
Captured Mortar (via shipment) - same with just a pirate crew
Naval
Caravels replaced with Rowboat Raiders - Rowboat containing a crew of Freebooters - uses muskets and grenadoes.
Galleons replaced with Jamiacan Sloop (name+stat changed Sloop) - can convert to Fireships for an amount of Coin.
Frigate - no change, except can train infantry and artillery (acts as the Galleon replacement - Pirates didn’t use Galleons!)
Pirate Canoa [via shipment Piraguas] - allows the use of Pirate Canoa (Native Canoes with pirate crew). Can use Stealth and can fish. Replaces Fishing Boats when sent.

Shipments
Signed Articles - Converts all on-screen Pressed Men to Pirates. Also gives the Pirate Commander the ability to ‘Press Men’ (Disciple AD ability) during combat - converts enemy to Pressed Men on succesful convertion hit.
Take to Launches - Destroyed Sloops & Frigates spawn a Rowboat Raider
Enemies of All Mankind - Units gain the Infamous prefix - equivelent to Imperial status, along with state increases.
Commerce Raiders - Enemy shipments sent generate chests of coins +1 Pirate at the Town Center.
Wreckers - Town Center spawns a Treasure Ship wreck. All infantry can now mine Coin from all sources (including wrecks).
Vaporing - Ships a few Drummers. Gives the Pirate Commander the Mayhem (African Royals) ability,

More actual British ‘flavour’
Sure the Brits were a bit of a backwater at the very start of the AOE3 timeframe, but considering that during the 18th and 19th century they were an economic and naval powerhouse, there’s actually not a great deal thematically linked to them.

Leaning into the British Industrial Revolution, one of biggest things to happen for human development - it would be nice to see some kind of reference (unique ‘Arkwright’ factory? unique factory upgrades? rebuildable factory? early factory? additional factory? - though aware that that’s a big balance bomb). Another possibility could be changing Estates to Textile Factories (where silk and cotton were spun in industrial scale) in the Industrial Age.

On the naval side…

Battleships
British get access to one Battleship card with its bonus being that it’s initially free. That’s obviously very handy but all other Euros get their ‘quirky’ one and a normal shipment. Maybe the British could get something more interesting for Rule, Britannia - like a Battleship with a faster RoF (fairly well-linked to the reality of Royal Navy gunners).

Naval roster
British, as well as all euros could do with an Industrial Age shipment (or even an Imperial Dock upgrade) to modernise their ship rosters to steamers, sloops and Ironclads. Seems really odd for the guys who created the first Ironclad (French) and the other guys who created the steam engines (British) to be knocking around in Caravels.

Other naval-linked items

Jack Tar - [unit suggestion] A non-outlaw ‘standard’ version of the Sailor. The nickname of a Royal Navy sailor and again, another way to nod at the fact that the British navy was in fact, a major point of the British during this time frame. Heck, the new Sailor unit uses a British Nock Gun! Could be unlocked via a Royal Navy-themed shipment card and be made available at the Dock and Tavern.

Buccaneer - [unit suggestion] The British, Dutch & French all were seriously into Buccaneering in the 17th century, so much as to being a part of Spain’s decline - it would be nice to present this with a variation of the Pirate outlaw unit (with charged musket/pistol shot) as a Tavern unit via shipment unlock (could even be a Merc version of the outlaw pirate - considering a Buccaneer was a privateer, and could replace the Ronin for Theaters). Available to Brits, Dutch and French.

Rocket Ship - [Shipment?] - This could be anything from a Gunboat Model with Congreve launcher (also a nod to the fact that Danes get Rockets!), which was fairly common, or a Rocket Sloop, or even just a Rocket Barrage ability to Frigates (rocket ‘pods’/racks were also used on standard ships).

Other

Essex Gang - [Shipment Suggestion] Britain (especially England) had a real problem with Highwaymen during the 17th - 19th century, with many gangs roaming the countryside. One of the most successful was the Essex Gang (with the infamous Highwayman, Turpin). Would be nice if we had a similar Highwayman shipment to the Dutch Buckriders for the Brits.

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Reminds me of a post where someone said he’d like to have Longbowmen and Rangers available side by side, not just one substituting the other. I do wonder, would it make more sense if the British get Rangers by default at Age IV instead of the current system?

Also gotta be careful with the Royal Houses as certain techs are really nasty

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Oh I completely agree about the Royal Houses. The reality is that the most sensible way would be like the Germans method - purely the units. Having a set of native techs available, easily would be rather broken. I love the idea for example of the Victorian Age (and that’s totally from a British civ - that doesn’t actually mention Victorian-anything point of view), but that and the others would be rather unfair.

I’d also personally love to be able to train Rangers alongside Longbowmen for the fun of it, and I actually agree with the Industrial Age unlocking of it (though with the ability to get Fortress Age Rangers unlocked via Shipments/church).

…Though this of course, skews the Longbow/Ranger swappable cards (which follow the Landwehr/crossbow format). Though the disclaimer is that I was never a fan of this type of card

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the cards or church tech could be changed that they become transformations instead. Making all your Lb into Rangers or as you said enabling them earlier

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When it comes to the factories, how about an industrial revolution card that ships 2 factories instead of having 2 seperate cards? Could also be just 1 factory but sendable twice if getting both at once is deemed too strong. Its main advantage would mostly be freeing up a valuable age 4 card slot.

Royal house card seems like a no-brainer imo

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I had a couple more ideas I had for cards that would give them a bit more flavour.

Puritans - (age 1 replaces 3 vils) Ships 2 Pilgrims. Newly constructed Manors spawn Pilgrims instead of Settlers.

Gunpowder Plot - All your Manors transform into Petards. Your Capitol gains the detonate ability.

They could also use a unique Globe Theater card instead of the regular one but I’m not sure exactly what it should do. Maybe enable some mercenaries from the different locations where Shakespeare plays are set instead of Ronin.

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I strongly approve…

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Nice, I think the idea of using the rarely used Pilgrims is a great idea. There were plenty of independent Puritan ventures that privately settled on islands (Providence Island, Columbia, Bermuda, and Bahamas (many actually become Puritan Wreckers and Privateers) so it lends itself well to history as well as using a shipment to allow slightly better Settlers (I assume as solely a Manor perk - not trainable from the TC?). If you wanted a more flavorful name for the shipment, there’s always the Puritan groups who settled those islands, such as the ‘Eleutheran Adventurers’, though Puritans is probably easier to instantly know what the shipment is about.

Gunpowder Plot - that’s neat. A nice reference to Guy Fawks and the gunpowder plot. Kinda like a shipment mini-rev.

I also like the Globe Theatre one, as Shakespeare was/is super important in the development of English language and theatre - the Merc suggestion could work, and you could have have some fun with it - for example you could get a button choice with Shakespeare titles, for example Romeo & Juliet (Italian Mercs like Elmetti) or Macbeth (Scottish/Gaelic units like Gallowglass/Highlanders). Not sure if that’s the best way of going about it, though it would be nice to have some logical Shakespeare reference!

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My thought was to not affect the Settlers at the TC. Could maybe swap the Settler cards to Pilgrims though.

2 Pilgrims is only equivalent to 2.2 Settlers so it would be a nerf to the 3 vils card initially. But your eco would have a higher ceiling later on. Especially with another card that gets rid of existing Manors and lets you build more overall.

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Based on my admittedly limited knowledge of British royalty, shouldn’t they get Wettin as well? Or is that outside of the time frame?

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It’s outside unfortunately. Prince Albert was married to Queen Victoria and was Wettin, however Hannover was the ruling house, so it stayed that way until 1917 when it becomes Wettin, or rather Windsor, which sounded decidedly non-German at a time where a German ruling house name would not have gone down well!

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If you do this, don’t make the same mistake as with the german prince elector and add the pop cost ontop of the limits of units. Atleast remove the unit limits.

I can agree with the removal of the techs but frankly, the same should apply equally then, looking at you bourbon house for france.

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I agree. German Electors gets messy. I’d rather they stick to one way or another - native limit/pop or naturalised pop (no limit).

I actually updated my OP with the current Royal Embassy access. Poles and Danes get a similar access as the French - units, upgrades and some techs, which is certainly not very equal!

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Good ideas here. I’d like to bring up British grenadiers.

British grenadiers among the strongest grenadiers in the game once fully upgraded despite not even being an RG unit. We already have the British Grenadiers HCC that upgrades grenadiers and plays a unique jingle once it arrives, which is a good touch.

The card can also give British grenadiers a unique visual look. It could look something like this:

Examples from the British Regiments of Foot - Good visual looks for the early ages:

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For the Industrial and Imperial Ages, we can lean more towards a look that fits the Napoleonic Wars era and early Victorian era:

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I think rangers should be renamed to Green Jackets…

Currently Royal Guard Musketeers are called Red Coats so do it.

Having a choice between Hanover and Stuart as a Home city card is great and all but…I’m usually not fond of those cards it’s good for French but for germans it’s kind of meh…The reason is French have quite a few general and native warrior combat cards…And that helps make the disadvantage of making them cost pop worth it. Prince electors doesn’t give the technologies and german combat cards are unit specific (other than TEAM cavalry attack) and they don’t have native warrior combat.

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I think longbowmen should lose their Industrial and Imperial upgrades and have the ranger as their default in the Industrial Age. It feels like a much more natural evolution. In other words, the longbowman isn’t replaced; they can still be trained in the Barracks, but they become less relevant once the ranger enters the game (as they should be).

The Church card could enable them starting in Age 3, and the card that enables them in Age 4 could be removed or modified.

In addition, the cards that would affect the longbowman should be adjusted as a result of these changes.

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Yeah I’d really like the Manor House to have a unique look to it, and maybe a slightly larger footprint too?

Also, I feel like the Roger’s rangers unlock / allowing guard upgrades should just be a permanent upgrade available at the church rather than a church card and a shipment card (as touched on before).

I think a good shipment card would be one that unlocks 3 special units which represent Ireland, Scotland and wales and would make those units permanently trainable at barracks. For Scot’s it can be the highlander (good unit), for wales a fusilier style unit. For Ireland I’m not sure. But the current representation of Ireland with a musketeer that has shamrocks on it and “promotions” seems almost a caricature-ish unit. It’s difficult to think though of an Irish unit that isn’t made redundant by either the classic British musk, the Roger’s ranger, or the highlander.

EDIT: perhaps the Irish unit could simply be 10 buildable Irish settlers which operate similar to the German settler wagons? Ireland often used donkeys with small carts in some of their agricultural work, so it would work well I think. Rather than shoehorning a military unit which would be made obsolete by another unit later on.

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[Shipment suggestion]
Clubmen Uprising
Insert a Food and Coin cost

British Manors each spawn Clubmen Militia (settlers armed as Scythemen - with scythes, cudgels, pitchforks, with white ribbons). Priests gain a passive ability Rabble-rousing, where nearby Clubmen get an HP increase, which is also boosted by the quantity of Clubmen nearby. Churches can now train Clubmen, which function as cheap Halberdier types that works best a a mob, led by the local Priest.

Screenshot 2026-08-26 at 17.38.42
Screenshot 2026-08-26 at 17.38.421162×1224 1.06 MB

Clubmen were essentially the ‘third party’ between the Royalist and Parliamentarians during the English Civil Wars / War of the Three Kingdoms, as well as the later Monmouth Rebellion (1685). Led by local lords or rabble-rousing priests and vicars, the Clubmen (named becauase of the Club they organised) sought to protect their local parishes from both armies - having had enough of the pilllaging, threats, intimidation and horrific acts set upon wives and daughters, they armed themselves with cudgels, pitchforks and scythes and took to defending against them. They engaged in skirmishes, defence against raiding parties, as well as partake in some battles (including against Cromwell).

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I kinda really like this. 2 Pilgrims and Manor Pilgrims is fun (it’s also probably only like 2 extra vills equivalent). I don’t think you want a card to get rid of current houses though. Later on the boom would be too good. Brits are really good atm so you want to be really careful.

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Getting rid of Manors does make it mostly a disguised eco boost which could be very powerful. But losing your pop space is a bit discombobulating and having an additional cost to the card could prevent it from being too OP.

An alternative could be each Manor spawning a Petard and each TC and Capitol spawning a Depot Wagon and also enabling your Capitol to detonate. If you place things carefully that would still allow you to blow up a few Manors using the Depot Wagons and Capitol self destruction.