The damage is low, true, but consider; grens have less siege damage than most heavy inf per pop anyway with the selling point being longer siege range - and rocketeers can siege from a range of 22.
They have really high range resist so it cancels out the damage bonus of light infantry, and brits, dutch, ottoman, swedes, russians and maltese have foundries in age II.
Being 2 pop kinda negates any advantage the rr gives. 2 halbs take the same number of hits from a skirm that 1 gren takes, disregarding CIR and cover mode.
You also need alot of them for the splash to offsett the low damage - res are manageable but that takes alot more popspace that is usually feasible early on.
Theyre just slow enough to get going that a 3 huss shipment will prolly ruin your day if you open with these and they still have the disadvantage of not being actual falconets.
But I meant that nobody builds a foundry in age II (except ottos and swedish, sometimes brittish, maltese/otto has other gren type), and that a shipment with a free foundry (+ units/res) might encourage its use.
I think their nerf against cavalry should just be removed. Their chief threat should be true artillery and skirmishers. Basically all grenadiers should be the Giant Grenadier instead. Except the Ottoman Humbaraci, who historically tossed their grenades by hand.
If we have two units with similar function in a game, people always tend to use the one easier to micro/control…
The utility of a unit is not only the data, more easier a unit to use/contril, more popular a unit will be. Just a design philosophy.
Unless the dev team can create a condition forcing players have to use grenadier, or people will only use artillery/skirmishr forever. Just because artillery/skirmisher are always easier to use/control…
It’s true people will usually chose the easier option. Also half the civs don’t have grenadiers by defai;t.
Skirmishers aren’t as good at clearing heavy infantry but they’re ‘good enough’ and they come out of the barracks that’s
But in some ways grenadiers are cheaper and easier than artillery and the people who like grenadiers love grenadiers since they’re surprisingly effective.