Yet still not useful. What is the core problem?
BTW I don’t understand the latest addition of melee AOE. Is anyone going to send them into melee against infantry? More likely they will be forced into melee by cavalry which they are pretty poor against.
Almost no one is interested in training them when you have an artillery foundry. Instead, you go for falconets, culverins, or other options. It is choosing something over grenadiers. simple as that. If it is an entirely unique unit like abus gunners, leather guns, or organ guns, it can be more attractive in certain situations but this is never the case for grenadiers.
the simple problem?
they are heavy infantry, like that is it
Contrast that wit the maltese fire thrower, which as the same role but is viable
why?
they arent heavy infantry
The funny thing about the melee aoe is that it was forgotten to give them a negative multiplier against shock infantry so they aren’t as bad as they should be against shock infantry.
I make them. They are very effective vs Japan and Inca archer spammers. They can probably wreck Streltsy as well. Skirms can just hit and run but even so the grens will not get wrecked cuz they have 50% RR.
The new ottoman grenadier is quite good, deletes artillery as well but as someone said the issue is the heavy infantry tag, remove it and they immediately become usable like the fire thrower though not as good as the fire thrower as it’s more of a skirmisher type unit.
There are 2 options to upgrade the Grenadier, make it Light Infantry, or increase its base health to 300.
Giant grenadiers are actually pretty good.
Normal grenadiers, as much as I like them, in my opinion, don’t really “fit” in most strats.
Grenadiers counter infantry. But so do skirmishers, from further away. And skirms move quicker generally so they’re more micro-able.
Grenadiers will end the game by dropping buildings, but skirmishers are a more practical tool to get to the point where the game is ready to end, at which point, transitioning is probably not needed and a couple of falconets are often the safe bet regardless.
It suffers from being a unit which straddles artillery and skirmishers but fills neither role wholly. Plus in many cases, it requires a lot of teching into where other units are much more viable out of the box.
I’d say make them 1 population (leave the Giant Grenadier at 2). Or just keep buffing them in other ways until people start using them.
After trying really hard vs AI I learned a few key things about the new grens.
They feel overall like a weaker-but-cheaper version of the musketeer - pep pop they have less damage/hp/siege but also cost alot less than two musks while being able to soundly beat all other heavy infantry. A couple key points are that they beat musks head on and they trade the vulnerability to cav for better performance vs light inf. They dont do well per say vs skirms but they do give more durability against them and can actually threaten them if numbers get big enough…and the skirms dont kite.
All in all the current gren can kinda be a alt and the cost can let it pair well with huss or pikes for an all in.
The big problems are that they’re still hard to mass and can complete with actual cannons after age 3. You get no shipments for them in age 2 so you have to train em all - in that time an opponent could make enough pure huss/light inf to just win with brute force. Then by age 3, it becomes painfully clear that falcs see them as any other infantry - 2 hits and gone. Given how popular ff/semi-ff is there can be a veeery short window to get enough grens/huss out to end some one in age 2 and if you dont musk falc own you.
Some more minor issues also include need an artillery foundry, and the proportionally higher gold cost compared to musks and the fact that most civs that might have them in age 2 have better options (bit musk, ductch/russian halbs, swede anything else etc)
The humbaraci solves most of these problems - Cebeci lets them be tanky ranged damage as well as normal grens inspite of the lower rr and the extra range/speed/damage matters alot whenever you really need to fight light inf. They cant beat halbs on account of no melee splash, but they can just kite those with the extra speed and range - pike and rodels actually lose in melee. They also work really well as counters to the popular 2 falc shipment if the opponent ages up. Humba/Deli is my fav comp involving grens and it really isnt as strong as jani/abbus, but its fun and works vs civs that dont like to be fight in age 2.
Also I wanna add one thing which maybe should be its own thread:
Grenadiers suffer alongside certain other units by the curse of sunk cost in other units.
If I’ve already got veteran skirmishers, do I want to spend 400 resources to research veteran grenadier?
If I’ve sent the Landwehr card, do I want to spend a card on grenade launchers to unlock the grenadier?
I think this holds true for all civs but Ottoman and Russia (via Petrine reforms).
So while Britain for example has amazing grenadiers, the cost of veteran/guard/imperial is resources which could be far better spent creating more units which I’ve already had to spend the upgrade costs on and overlap in purpose.
I’d love to see the upgrade path cost of certain units reduced all the way up to imperial. Or veteran upgrades for everything auto-researched for industrial and guard upgrades for everything auto-researched for imperial. Maybe. Perhaps that’s too far… Discounted maybe? Perhaps this could be a card most civs get?
Maybe regular grenadiers can also serve as “infantry culverins” but with lower bonus than the humbaraci.
Right now they still quickly get outclassed by skirmishers or falconets with clearer roles in age 3, so it is not a good idea to mass them in age 2 as they are quite expensive.
Giant grenadiers are effectively musketeers or more accurately “mercenary soldado” so it is not relevant here.
But I pretty much agree with your points.
Yeah perhaps, I’d improve their range to that of the humbaraci as standard though and perhaps give them a tiny bit more speed so they have some hope of catching skirms or at least not being so easy to kite.
They could replace the Grenade Launchers card with something that discounts their upgrades. The ability should be an arsenal upgrade anyways.
They are still better than Chinese flamethrowers, at least grens get some love and are now usable
Yeah flamethrowers suck so much, can’t beleive they still haven’t been buffed, even the inca got a small macemen buff.
I find them more useful than falconets.
They have greater survive ability great aoe and dps.
They mix with your army and don’t slow it down, and even though they are heavy infantry skirmishers don’t damage them as much since they have such high range resistance.
If they were trained out of the barracks, you’d see them a lot more.
The maltese ‘gren’ is what amounts to a skirm with splash damage that melts buildings. Giving something like that to, say, the British, would be a bit dangerous no?
I don’t think they’re very good vs buildings at least not like a normal gren.
the biggest problem is that they are heavy inf and the lack of an artillery foundry in age II.
I don’t think it’s fun to have a grenadier meta anyway.
A good option would be add a card in age I send 1 artillery foundry +
x units/res. (Like the new Swedish card)
by the way, most of grens shipments are garbage