its okey, It’s a “Hard” unit to unlock, you literally need to be in Imperial and build another Imperial cost landmark to unlock it (2400 food and 1200 gold).
In fact, this is the effect I was hoping to see to test a new American unit, “The Slinger”, which would also do siege damage instead of range, but in exchange for not receiving ranged damage buffs at the smithy, (only than without area damage).
As can be seen, it would make the slingers Ultra-effective if they were mass produced. Of course, since it is a balanced game, they need counters, and in real life (Realism mode activated) if a large number of grenadiers attacked a point, they would have to move back to avoid attacking themselves. So the unit must be balanced:
Some possible solution to balance the new Grenadier
1.- Reduce its minimum range and increase its maximum range (Realism):
While there is no friendly fire in Aoe4, you still can’t throw a grenade at point blank range. Whether their range is (1 - 3.5) or (2 - 3.5), but attacking at close range breaks the idea that they are supposed to be a hybrid ranged-siege units and that they should be weak to attack at close range. On the other hand, I guess it was expected that there are units that protect them while they throw the grenade, adding minimum range to them can be done.
2.- Reduce its attack speed:
It could be 2,125 instead of 1,625, you don’t throw grenades like arrows, you have to know where to throw, and light the fuse at the right time, even throwing it at a good distance requires a lot of arm strength, and more if they are supposed to be capable grenades to destroy houses or castles.
3.- Add unit type: Siege
Thus they receive an extra damage bonus from the springald and light cavalry and have a respective counter, and with that if one can’t go against their mass, it’s because you don’t counter them well enough.
4.- Reduce its HP + Add Siege unit type
I don’t know why it has 150 HP. Are they imperial soldiers walking around with a lot of heavy armor? If they are, they should either have more armor or slower speed, especially if they carry a bag full of heavy military grenades, similar to siege. I guess it’s “Aoe reference” of AoE-III unit, with the “Grenadier” having more HP (200) and resistance (50% vs. Ranged) than the musketeers (HP:150) to act as a counter to them. If they become siege-ranged infantry type.
In fact, their HP can be reduced to 125, and if the type “siege unit” is added, if they receive the “Siege engines” bonus they can increase their HP by 25 and their missile defense by 10, in any case their weakness is supposed to be be the melee so they would be fine.
Finally, some images of the AoE-III grenadier, with some annotations to compare with the Aoe4 version:
