I’ve been thinking of this because of consulate units and soldado.
Lore-wise they represent units that are “less accessible to the civ”, so they cost more and are stronger than their counterparts. What I mean is the design principle of soldado is Mexicans have more irregular military than standing army, so it is fewer in numbers, reflected by high price and high pop. Because of this they have to get superior stats. But are real life Mexican standing army 1.5x stronger than their European counterparts because they are less numerous? Likely not.
Then I realize bonus on units in AOE3 are always either “stronger and more expensive” or “weaker and cheaper”. These leads to different cost effectiveness for sure, but there aren’t really any units by default that are cheaper but stronger or more expensive but weaker (though possible with further upgrades, also at a cost). For example in Total War Shogun 2, clans that specialize in a unit type have both cheaper and stronger units of that type. The latter may allow the representation of some reality better, as some nations did have less access to certain resources or weaponry, and most likely can only do with inferior ones.
Of course gameplay is the foremost concern in those designs, but what would it be like if such a unit design really exists?
Cheap and strong is usually the main reason a unit gets nerfed.
Weak and expensive is a unit that is never used. There’s a bunch of them already around.
What if it is the only unit of that type the civ has access to, so that you have to use it, as part of the bonus or disadvantage?
For example if a civ has a really bad musketeer maybe it will prefer using pike or halberd. But if it does not have the latter units then they still have to make do with the bad musketeer.
That never happened either. If a civ can only access one unit of the type it is still “cheaper and weaker” (strelet) or “more expensive and stronger” (janissary).
I’d say perhaps the sentinel falls under this category, they are basically combat carded standard musk due to the aura and get 2% more hp per shipment and the aura scales based on current stats not base stats. They are incredibly cost effective units for their stats as their true cost is their population.
The closest comparison I can think of is the relations between Mexican Salteadores and Bandido in this niche Mexican strategy, basically make a deck that buff outlaw including the crit damage card, going revolt to Baja California get the Soldier of Fortune, Robber barons, and Capitalism card, and immediately rejoin Mexico, get Cantinas, Man of Destiny, and Land of Walker card.
Suddenly you turn your 4 pop weak age2 skirmisher outlaw into a murder machine made from the combination of Jaeger and Soldado that cost only 110 coin and 2 pop, and you see the Bandido keep throwing low cooldown dynamite everywhere. Their Cuatreros is also become the same level as Black Rider, only cheaper and stronger.
Similarly to @Aisharp, outlaw units came to mind for me. Balance in AoE3 has a third category, population size. Outlaws have massive pop so they are cheap and strong but very difficult to get a large army of.
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Weren’t most outlaws though just bad without specific cards for specific factions?
I always thought they were bad because of high pop, not their cost/strength ratio.
No, the stats were also bad, until refreshment and bandit upgrades aswell as the imperial update.
And even then you don’t see most outlaws unless the civ has a ton of boosts or reliable access to them.
According to the wiki page, the pistolero looks stronger than the musketeer stat-wise. Same HP, but 10% more armor, and 15 damage vs 23, but fires twice as fast, so it does 10dps vs 7.7 from the musketeer.
initially and the musk frontloads it aswell as beeing far more pop efficent. Frontloading is far superior in most cases since it reduces incoming damage faster.
Yeah outlaws before DE were very unreliable statswise, even ignoring pop. Like Pistoleros were slightly better Musks, Thuggee were almost viable as a desperation tool in Deccan cuz they kill most infantry Age II in two shots, but then you had the Comanchero who had absolutely abysmal stats all around.
On any other faction, I think and use outlaw as an extended minuteman, but the only outlaw worth training is only the rifle variant and that is only in age 2. 20x2 vs Heavy Infantry renegado on age 2 can save you big time vs pike/musk rush. The indian map Thuggee even as strong as Imperial Ranger(the current strongest skirmisher) in damage and hp, but they require 6 pop, so you will never want to mass them
Personally i think the best possible outlaw are the dutch buckriders.
Musk goon combination that can be lowered to 2 pop and be mass produced aswell as having some card support. But we are talking about theathre, buckriders, team card and improved arsenal.
But without severe support, like mexico or the US get’s most outlaws just suck. Even Hausa outlaws despite getting discounts and boosts and beeing guaranteed.
And asian mercs and outlaws are even worse.
Looks like you guys never used/looked at outlaws. They are across the board anywhere from slightly to way better than their counterparts in terms of cost effectiveness. The only real problem with them is getting the pop needed in age2 which is difficult for most civs but those who can get the pop and coin easily have really strong outlaw builds. Pistoleros for example are not only stronger than Musketeers but also insane at raiding - 15dmg, 1.5 RoF and 4.5 speed - they are faster than vills and take 10 hits to kill them at double the attack speed of Musketeers so a ###### can raid really effective.
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Remind me, is there currently an outlaw strat going around? Because i don’t really see them at all sadly.
There are many outlaw strats ## ## ####### but mostly for tournament games. In normal play it’s likely to see outlaws with US and Mexico since both have really good outlaws guaranteed and easy ways to get coin and/or pop for them. Aside from that few people know the potential of outlaws and rarely use them but I’ve seen Lakota use them as sort of a Wannabe Baja California. Oh and of Dutch/ German full coin builds are a thing mostly in team games and utilise outlaws occasionally
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Censorship for what? I said that I have them in my insert the building that provides upgrade techs for military units and that gets censored lol
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Censorship is ridicoulus here.
yeah but again for most civs that don’t have cards that guarantee access and lower pop early or have easy pop access you don’t see them at all. Italy? Nay. (though italy had once a nice armored pistoleer card but then again those also suck due to pop vs low price nvm the access that got stunted.)
Spain? No far more likely to see wildgeese which are just superior.
French? nope.
Otto? nope. Etc. It’s only civs that can guarantee good outlaws that profit from it. And the dutch have an even better card than the buckriders in age 2 aswell with the swiss pike.
The word “Arsenal” has claim another victims 
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