Crossbows are good units for the beginning but in later game they are not useful at all this is why, i thought about 2 cards 
Heavy Crossbow Man : , Speed -33% Attack + 25%.
Crossbow slow units they touch, because of the bolt who make them slower, the effect disappear after a short time or when you kill the unit.
Portable crossbow bolts: Crossbow attack speed increased by 20%
Riflemans : Similar to the cards rangers where you replace crossbow mans with riflemans, like the americans civilisations they become more strongs when their are in groups, they will be much more weaker than belliciste.
3 Likes
British needed the change because they lacked a skirmisher and were stuck late game with a unit costing food and wood that was bad vs heavy infantry.
Most civs that have a crossbow also have skirmishers available from age 3.
3 Likes
Yes i know, but crossbows need a buff, they are weak, it would be cool to make this unit more viable in later game, british good this mechanic so why not crossbows man.
1 Like
Crossbows are supposed to become obsolete and be replaced by Skirmishers. If anything, Longbowmen should be more like Crossbowmen now that the British have Rangers. The only tech or card that would really make sense to buff them would be for a Pavise, but that should be something for an Italian civ to represent Genoese Crossbowmen.
4 Likes
Crossbows are fine at the moment. Theyâre bad overall but counter the ubiquitous age 2 musketeer. Maybe niche uses in later ages could be cool but I think the papal guard age up does the job though. Especially with Spanish.
4 Likes
Not now⊠FI pikes/bows not are competitive with the last nerf
1 Like
yea, you know why? because they were nerfed, because everyone realized that itâs very dumb design to have xbows be stronger / as strong as skirmishers in age 4
7 Likes
Crossbowmen and Pikemen usually play the important roles in the early game.
A lot of games are over in the commerce age and sometimes the fortress age, when they are just in time.
If it needs to change, maybe make them more useful in the early game, rather than strengthening them in the late game when they basically shouldnât have such an advantage. But I think theyâre in good enough shape right now that thereâs nothing that has to be strengthened.
I know they are supposed to be obsolete for this unit, but it will be interesting to make it more viable for more strategy. More possibility will be more interesting than one issue, isnât it ?
Itâs true but crossbows could have a card who make them better like heavy crossbow mans but low speed like the Germans heavy infantery.
Just one new card called âArbalestâ that greatly improves crossbowmenâs attack but slows down movement and fire, and also raises the cost.
Maybe this card is enough.
That makes them even more useless though considering speed is so important and skirmishers out range them anyway, theyâll get kited all day long.
no, you donât understand. This is the same mentality that makes some of the new DE civs poorly designed as well. Strategic choices in this game operate along extremely thin margins. If a unit is 1% marginally better than another unit, then that unit will get played 100% of the time, and the other unit will never, ever get played. The result is not strategic diversity, the result is just changing how a civ works in an incoherent way, which will have knock-on effects that will mess up balance in other ways.
Have you not noticed how France has both hussars and cuirs, but no one has ever made a french hussar past the colonial age, when cuirs become available? Thatâs because cuirs are marginally better, even tho hussars would also be viable. One unit is designed to become obsolete, and thats fine.
In fact, its the very fact of hussars becoming obsolete in age 3 that makes the game MORE strategically interesting. Lets say you have 20 hussars and you hit age 3. Do you now invest resources to upgrade them? What if you have 10 huss, or 5 huss? This is a strategic choice that is interesting. If hussars were made equivalent to cuirassiers, then this choice would be a lot less relevant. You could just keep making hussars, so upgrading them would be a decision you wouldnât even have to think about. The same situation would apply if you make xbows equal to skirms. It would make the game less strategically involved. You have xbows from age 2? Great, just keep spamming them and upgrade them, its a no brainer. Having to switch you macro and decide whether to upgrade your leftover xbows to veteran is a better way for this game to be instead, because it requires more strategic thinking.
tldr if you just make every unit equally viable then the strategic complexity of this game decreases and thats a bad thing
5 Likes
Right, crossbowmen are fine like that. It makes no sense that they are better than skirmishers.
An idea that just occurred to me is that they convert with an age three card to Spanish arquebusiers.
Iâm sorry Iâm very heavy on the subject, but itâs my dream to see Spanish arquebuses in the game since 2005. 
1 Like
dont xbows already have cards with some civs to change them into skirmishers? I think thatâs more than enough for a supposedly âstrategy diversityâ angle of the things. Not everything should be viable in all ages, in all game modes.
1 Like
i would first add info on IU that crossbowman bolts slows units
No esta mala tu idea. Varias civ deberĂan actualizar. Los Españoles principalmente, usa infanterĂa antigua cuando deberĂa usar armas de fuego. Ojala le hagan alguna actualizaciĂłn con alguna carta como los britĂĄnicos.
1 Like
Thatâs actually a good idea