I think this update coming out of nowhere with something as unexpected as this. I am not sure how to react… LIke i have to accept this as some kind of reality. It kind of feels off. Does Dutch need 3-4 Musket options? I dont play Dutch but a dude who plays this civ religiously would think they dont need it.
But since the card is here. Its stuck to Dutch now. the Akan Card value for age 4 is 900 food 480 coin and 600 wood at the Cost of just 500 coin and 1 shipment point! I suspect the cost will be nerfed and that’s it.
To me it sort of doesnt matter, its fine as long as it doesnt break the game. Does Spain need soldados and musks? and both pike and rods? Does USA need both militia and sharpshooter?
The highlander/ highwayman option is fine cause its crap in 90% of situations and is mostly a fun / noob trap option
Blue guards is also meh, its an ok one off, the devs even designed to not be out of control by not giving it imp upgrade and only buildable from fort.
This one is broken
edit: all that needs to happen is that this one has a build limit, like ancie regime for France, and a cost increase
The Belanda Hitam was a historical thing and I’m happy they’re in the game–but I do think there is a better way to round some things out…
Disable the Fusiler/Elmetto age up.
Change the Belanda Hitam to be a unique 1 pop version of the Askari.
While the Belanda Hitam were mostly Akan making them Ankobies doesn’t fit but I think this idea would and would also be fun game-wise.
Dutch would then have access to 3 Musketeer units: one standard, one tanky, and one a bit of a mix/unique. This wouldn’t really impact strategy–all of them would still be musks and still be easily countered by normal things–but it would make for some spice. Which was what the Dutch were after.
Imo, I think we should stop adding new random cards until a baseline balance can be established.
Yes, it adds variety to the game but these new cards serve to disrupt the balance and just add something else that people will cheese. Especially with wall nerfs, buffing individual nations at random isn’t going to help the overall universal balance.
I honestly don’t see the problem here. So, you can card into a musketeer option for the Dutch? Ok?
You can already do that. You can get Blue Guards (earlier) and train them out of forts. They shadowtech. You can get highlanders or fusiliers through cards or age-ups.These sync up nicely with the passive gold economy out of the banks. Pick your 2-pop option: heavy-hitter or faster with more range. So, now they have 1 more option for a musk.
Do they actually need it? Nope. But it’s there, like several other options, for historical reasons. Waardgelders? Buckriders? etc? Not terribly necessary cards. In fact, Buckriders is a noob trap and should never be used in its current state. But, for historical reasons, they want more African representation, so we’re getting “Swarte Piet” for Christmas.
But is it broken? No. It’s an Age 4 card, so it’s a treaty game card. Your average Supremacy game is long over by the time this hits. If you’re playing Supremacy and want musks, you go Blue Guards or take the merc conversion. The native cards’ biggest advantage is that they’re off the pop counter. They get their own pop limits. That only factors in when/if you max out your 200 population. Dutch do this slower than anything else because they work with only 50-60 villagers. So that benefit isn’t really realized outside of those maxed out situations. Will it happen in a 1hr treaty game? Yup. But infantry also die really fast in those games too, especially once the AoE attacks from artillery hit. And then, you have to replace them… with that same 50-60 villagers because banks don’t grow food.
It’s a card that’s worth sending - after the 2 factories and after Tulip Speculation, but it’s hardly “broken.”
If this was just a normal musk then argubly another thing for Dutch to do, fine, blue guards were not busted and neither is the merc play.
This is different, this is the akan musket with splash damage. Them being spamable is a whole different level, even arguably more dangerous then massed lategame soldados.
Second, Dutch has access to the Native warriors card, meaning they are 25% cheaper, they cost less then normal muskets with only 50 f and 30 c, they are very manageable under Dutch eco, you can just put all ur vils on food.
and 3rd
they dont, if they did this would not be a problem, you can make a full 140 pop army of this.
Dutch can just turtle FI right into this card and heavy cannons
Akan musk does splash damage but also has lower attack, it is balanced. It doesn’t perform better than normal musketeer. It is already in Hausa’s army roster from age 2 and shadowtechs, still it is not broken. Dutch akan is gonna be less broken. But I don’t like dutch is being transformed into a musk civ
They are arguably not broken for Hausa because Hausa doesnt have the eco to back up their production an Hausa full eco is 104 vils so their numbers dont get that high
Dutch #### ## # ##### different story, they are cheaper (even cheaper then the Hausa ones cause the native warriors card is a 25% reduction instead of Hausa 15%) and they are backed up by Bank eco and the extra pop space
the only thing holding them back is that embassies are limited and they cant be instant train
Hausa early eco is good but it doesnt scale fast enough to make it fully scary, the unit is scariest when you get a crititcal mass by pumping double barracks of them and Hausa just cannot sustain that easily.
Dutch by age 4 can easily have enough banks setup and the card provides you with embassies to build from so you can immediately triple pump them to get to critical mass.
yeah they need both pop cost and build limit, the build limit can be even higher then the normal one to compensate , that would also combo well with the dutch team build limit card
