Another post about how much grenadiers suck, wanting them to suck a little less.
All things considered, I feel that the worst thing about them is the heavy infantry tag - just because of that, there’s no unit that can complement them. Presently they need to be protected by both light infantry and heavy cavalry - meaning you need musk AND hussar to enable them. At that point tho, why bother with grens at all? You need a good amount to compensate for the low damage, and that just eats up limited popspace.
If they could fight cav, then they could be a more expensive musk alternative that beats an equal pop/res of musk. Then it would be fine to combine them with cav as some kind of all-in age 2 doom push. The problem with this is it could be very unfair for civs without a ranged infantry/artillery/powerhouse option.
If they are changed to light infantry, they dont take any more bonus damage from skirms - infact, with that ranged resist they can viably act as tanks against musk/skrims/crossbows for heavy infantry, while the latter can deal with cav. This feels a bit more manageable as the range is still low enough for ranged infantry to work around, but the grens still give solid value in the musk/pike war.
The end goal is to make them feel like something that can compete with falconets in age3 - as is I can just FF and ignore these things since falc outperform them so hard. To that end, my proposal is to keep their cost/stats the same, but remove the vulnerability to light infantry - leaving them a useful, but counter able anti ranged tank.
1 Like
The heavy infantry tag should really be removed, but in no way should they counter cavalry, otherwise just spam grenadiers and you beat anything that appears in the 2nd age.
As they are a kind of “cheap cannon” I think that to compensate for the fact that they are no longer fought by skirmishers, dragoon-type units should have a bonus against them.
Finally, as we have the precedent now of the Mexican “Soldier” and the Peruvian Legion, I think it would be very interesting to adjust the grenadier to have a musket attack by default (without multipliers) and throwing grenades at the enemy is a special ability (here there could be a bonus of 1.5 x all infantry).
The melee attack would be with a bayonet instead of a sword, with high damage but also no multipliers.
Im partial to skirm sponge option myself. It’d be a total waste of that ranged resist to give them a melee multiplier vs cav.
Rather than Soldados, I was trying to bring them closer in line with Chakrams (Udasi native unit). With respect to the arsenal, I think the ‘gunpower infantry’ tag should be added for paper cartridge and flintlock boosts.
All that should make them viable for a lot of strats.
Pair them with pikemen in age 2 and watch things burn.
They have such high range resist that their heavy infantry tag means nothing until the enemy gets counter-infantry rifling.
In later ages their advantage is that unlike falconet a loss of a single grenadier is less of an issue.
I just saw what you wrote and checked…Okay you might have a point for removing the heavy infantry tag because Fire Throwers are also light infantry and mantlets, which are basically grenadiers without the splash don’t have the heavy infantry tag.
I think the reason they have always been classed as heavy infantry is historical. Grenadiers were the elite troops that were physically large, so thematically and historically, they’re heavy infantry.
For gameplay it would function better to make them light infantry, but if they want to preserve the history they might not do that. They could maybe be made viable by giving them a multiplier versus light infantry now that that’s a thing. They’d still get killed by them but at least they’d be able to do damage in return.
Another approach could be to make Counter Infantry Rifling a little less oppressive. Calling it Precision Rifling and splitting it up to +0.75 vs heavy infantry and +0.25 vs light cavalry would make all heavy infantry a little more viable.
1 Like
In game, grenadiers should’t be “musketeers but better”.
By function, grenadiers are meant to add splash damage to your composition, just like the new papal guards are meant to soak damage from other units rather than to deal it themselves. The idea is to add 5 or 7 of them to your infantry formations to give them an edge in sustained infantry clashes
The heavy infantry tag should be removed, and the reason is simple. Splash damage is effective against clusters of low HP units, in AoE3 those are archers or skirmishers, both units counter heavy infantry
Grenadiers effectively has only one role. That’s their biggest problem. Most viable units have at least two roles (hard or soft. E.g dragoon only hard counters hand cavalry but it is also a good HR unit and can also trade well with musketeers).
Siege for grenadiers is half a role because pikemen are much more cost effective in that.
I think just make them an all-round infantry counter so that they become the true “infantry artillery”. Removing the heavy tag would be a viable solution.
But that probably still does not solve the core problem: no one except Ottomans (who have Abus) would build an artillery foundry in age 2 in the first place.
1 Like
The problem is that their siege attack is even lower now than it was at the time of TAD.They should have at least double the siege damage of two pikemen as they are a bit more expensive.
On the issue of artillery foundry, if the grenadiers became more effective and there was perhaps a politician who would deliver an artillery foundry wagon they would be used more.
On the issue of artillery foundry, if the big guns became more effective and there was perhaps a politician who would deliver an artillery foundry wagon they would be used more.
It would be niche choice and not a real solution. The meta is either exiled prince for FF or resource crates. A commerce age economy can’t sustain grenadiers and a fortress age player would prefer to use the foundry to produce artillery
I believe that a foundry artillery wagon for a 2nd age politician is more useful than an arsenal wagon, finally we could go another way to make the unit weaker and cheaper, not only in resources but also occupying less population.
1 Like
i was checking malta > hungary revolution today… seems like the grenadiers (without lauchner) have a better attackanimation now! big improvement 
2 Likes