Devs why are you so obsessed with musketeers?

That’s the same problem I have since long ago.
Musketeer-type unit is a very unique one in the entire AOE series or even among most classical RTS. They are tanky. They have a decent ranged attack. More importantly, they do not have the weakness most ranged units have, which is being countered by high speed units (because they in turn counter most of them). Basically they are the regular heavy melee unit in generic RTS + a range + a bonus against cavalry.
And they also generally have good siege, already making them among the most versatile unit and the backbone of whoever has them. Giving them any more flexibility is going to be straight up broken.

Now let’s count every musketeer unit added since TAD (TWC only has one new musketeer, the tomahawk, which is actually not very good).
Ashigaru: broken (nerfed once, still among the best)
Sepoy: broken (super strong unit in age 2, okay in later game)
Carolean: broken (nerfed multiple times, not so good now)
Regular: maybe the only new musketeer that is okay, considering the cost.
Gascenya: broken (nerfed to probably an acceptable state now)
Maigadi: maybe not overall broken, but that’s 2x musketeer in 1 pop, though quite expensive.
Desert Warrior: broken (now nerfed; though it is an outlaw, it’s still “regular” to African civs, and every civ on African maps used to spam them)

Now:
Soldado: can get 2x hp + 2x damage in 2 pop, which effectively makes it >2x musketeer (corrected). And it also has an amazing siege.
Cruzob infantry (maya revolt): 18 range, 5 speed, 1 pop, ranged bonus against cavalry, can be buffed even further. I don’t know what to say.

Now I wonder. Why new civs can get normal hand infantry, normal skirmishers, normal hand cavalry, normal ranged cavalry, but always broken musketeers, which is already the most versatile unit.

I know they can probably be balanced in most games because you don’t always have the time and resource to stack all the upgrades and max out their stats, or you can give the civ a terrible economy. But why should that kind of stats exist in any case?

BTW most of the new musketeers since DE have or can get longer range. I don’t know how that has become the new range standard. Skirmishers or dragoons with variable range are fine, but musketeer is basically a melee unit. If that is the case most civs should get something similar.

Please. If you really have that much creativity about musketeers, give them to natives and mercenaries.

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I’m a bit confused on this, how is it 4x a musketeer? 2 muskets would have the same HP and Damage. Yes, there are efficiencies in a smaller footprint, more effective production at barracks (essentially batch of 10 instead of 5), and not losing damage if focused fired. But these do not seem compelling enough to be worth 4 musketeers.

Open up a scenario editor and have 4 musketeers shoot 1 soldado. The musketeers will win.

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EDIT: miscalculation removed

Basic soldado does not have 2x musketeer damage, only hp. But with all the upgrades they have even more than 2x damage and hp of a fully upgraded musketeer.

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But that’s not accurate? Yes, there are breakpoints at 150 HP increments where the musketeers will do less damage, but not 1/4 the damage.

2 musketeers stand 2x time dealing 2x damage. That isn’t 4x effective damage, its 2x. Because it’s 2 musketeers.

Yeah you’re right. I miscalculated. It’s not more than 4x. It’s more than 2x.

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Soldado is a 2 pop musk that’s weaker than 2 individual musks, it’s also incredibly expensive with no upgrades until age 4 with the grenade launcher thing, while many normal musk have multiple cards/ ways to upgrade. Brit musk have 3 cards for example, caroleans have many, gascenya have 2 I think, Ashigaru have 2 plus the pavilion buff and daimyo buff.

Don’t see any issue with the soldado.

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They start being weaker than 2 musketeers (much lower damage) but I’ve seen an imperial one stacked to ~100 ranged damage and >700 hp. That’s more than 2 regular musketeers.

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I don’t pretend to know the absolute maxed stats of each unit and I only play supremacy but I’d imagine a 2 pop musk to be fairly bad in treaty.

For supremacy at least I think they’re perfectly fine as you’d never see any unit fully maxed and carded in imperial.

That’s why I’m confused. This is similar to ashigaru and carolean.
If one civ has 5 potential buffs on one unit type (normally a civ has 3 for example), and in one 1v1 supremacy you can only send 3 of them, what is the point of having that other 2 then?

Units do full damage until killed. Because a stronger unit continues doing it’s full damage at half health, it does more than two separate units where one dies half way through the fight.

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That’s right. But I first wrote 4x and he was correcting me on that.

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Stop spreading misinformation. Soldados max at 97 damage per hit with them being under the flag, which is a 20% boost.

Soldados out of the flag only deal 88 damage. 1 musk deals ~51 without any card upgrades or royal guard (redcoats/legionarios). Simple math means soldados do 44 damage per pop. They deal less damage than Janissaries. With the flag they deal about as much as Janissaries. Soldados are effectively 2 pop Janissaries in terms of hp and damage. This also is ignoring how slow they train.

For context, ashigaru musketeers under their daiymo have 68 damage per hit when fully upgraded and pavilion set to ranged attack. They are also 1 pop. Soldados don’t even come close in damage to other musks.

Their hp is really their only selling point but it’s gimped by their worse resistances.

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Nearly all unique Musketeers are better then default Musketeers.
The Soldado costs 70% more (ignoring that Coin is worth more than food) and has 2x the pop.
They have 2x the HP but not 2x the damage, not even close.
Effectively they are worse for the same amount of population.

The unit might still be too powerful in the context of the whole Mexican civilisation though. Some of the cards might be too strong and some of the other aspects of Mexico like the economy.

i think the reason the devs are adding so many musketeer types is because:

  1. they are generally easy to counter, multiple units counter musketeers so their chance of breaking the game isn’t that high

  2. the game for a long time has been quiet cavalry dominated, esp in the lategame

  3. originally they just didn’t have so many musketeer type units, the original game (2005) only launched with 2 musketeers, musketeer and janissary, comparatively depending how you count the game had 5 skirmishers, 4 dragoons and 5 heavy cavalry. there is simply much more room to experiment with musketeer type units.

now that said i wish maybe some of the new musk wouldn’t simply be “better, faster, stronger” but perhaps instead “cheap, weak and cost effective”.

it doesn’t make sense for natives to have musketeers as they generally speaking weren’t able to amass big enough armies to conduct line warfare. natives have always been reliant on ambushes and skirmishes.

actually its worse if skirms and goons get longer range, 14 range wont break a musketeer, maybe once we get to the 17 range caroleans used to have it starts breaking a little but 2 range generally wont matter that much beyond maybe super early game. like you cant kite enemy musketeers with that range.

Cruzob might break this a little, idk haven’t tried them yet. Mexico as a whole seems potentially broken.

as for future factions with musketeers then assuming we get the following factions:
Koreans
Persians
Poles
Danes
Italians

then i can see potentially 2-3 musketeer types, like persia and denmark both will almost certainly have some sort of musketeer, but i dont see the other 3 really having unique musketeers. and i think its fine to still see factions like these get musketeers, but i do agree that maybe the units need to stop trying to break the mold all the time esp to that extend we have seen, but again time will tell what we get.

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I think that we won’t see a unique Musketeer for each Poles, Danes and Italians. We’ll probably see some of them have generic or none Musketeers.

Morocco (which you didn’t list) might not have a Musketeer unit because they didn’t in the Historical Mission.

Persians will very likely have a Musketeer but I’d assume one that is a bit stronger then the default one.

Koreans might be a good candidate for a weaker Musketeer but also maybe just none.

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i definitely dont think Italy will have a unique musketeer.

i think Poland is likely to have guard version of normal musketeer (Polish Legion)

i think Denmark is likely to have one or 2 unique musketeer/musk-hybrid (Landsoldat and Fodgarden)

i think Korea would be more interesting if they only got weak skirmisher, archers and pikemen for their infantry. faction will likely be an artillery faction so let them use pikes and cavalry for anti cav duty.

Persia almost certainly will have a unique musketeer in the style of Sepoy/jannisary so high hp, good melee but low dmg vs cav.

after messing around with ot, I am still not impressed with the new musk, Its basically weaker highlander. the grenade thing is fun but not really relevant.

The devs managed to make the Maigadi, a 1 pop musk with the stat of 2 musk with range resist underwhelming so I am putting this just slightly above the Maigadi

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When used en masse they are more than relevant.
Have you used:


?

Plus there are a few cards to buff Soldado’s firepower, range etc.

You don’t have to go for that “musketeer with bayonets”. I am simply talking about units that function like musketeers.
Most javelin units are basically musketeers.
The akan unit is also a musketeer though it uses a blunderbuss.

That’s what I mean.
Cheaper and cost effective unique units are present for almost all unit types (they also have stronger versions though).
But not musketeers.

European musketeers are supposed to be the most advanced units of the time period, and also a distinct selling point (while you can justify better melee units or skirmishers for non-European civs) but now they are almost used as the baseline.

EDIT: and I do not know why the devs like +2 (or more) range so much. If every new musketeer has longer range, I think most others should have some way to get that as well.

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