Grenadiers

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
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  1. British grenadiers are not royal guards, but they are stronger than other civilization grenadiers because they have upgrade cards.

  2. Ottoman grenadiers are royal guards, but they are not used at all. The reason Ottoman builds Artillery Foundry is to train Abus. I think it’s better to give Abus a royal guard upgrade and get rid of the grenadier.

  3. Russian grenadiers are royal guards, but do not have any upgrade cards.

  4. Germany cannot train grenadiers. In the HRE, famous grenadier regiments such as the Hungarian grenadiers and the Potsdam giants exist, but are not reflected at all.

  5. France cannot train grenadiers, but a small number of grenadiers can be transported through church upgrades.

  6. Strangely, the Netherlands can train grenadiers. They are also infantry, so they are affected by team Inf HP cards.

  7. Sweden can train grenadiers. Perhaps referring to the Svea guard. They can get an additional 20% more HP through Svea Guard However, the reason Sweden is building the Artillery Foundry is not to recruit grenadiers like Ottomans. Even Sweden does not build this Artillery Foundry.

  8. The grenadier’s siege attack power is 54. But the rate of fire is 4. The price is also twice that of Pikeman. Therefore, the siege speed is slower than that of Pikeman. If you want early siege, it’s better to train a pikeman.

  9. The type of grenadier is heavy infantry, but it is vulnerable to Melee cavalry. They need 2 pops and cost 120f, 80c. It has a range of 12 and a wide range of 3, but its damage is only 16, making it almost meaningless. What’s more, they have too long to prepare for an attack so they need to be uninterrupted like LB so they can attack smoothly.

  10. Grenade launcher card only provides grenade attack animation improvements and +2 range. If a civilization is unable to nurture grenadiers, additional veteran upgrades are required for them. In the first place, grenadiers are bad units, so there is no reason to spend card for them. And civilizations that cannot train grenadiers are not considered as there are no upgrade cards for them.

I want them to be given more value.

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There is a card that allows them to train grenadiers and gives them a grenade launcher

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If I’m not mistaken, the French Grenadier from card also upgrade it to the royal guards status. Russian Grenadier used to be effected by the Ransack card. Ottoman grenadier can reach royal guard, have 3 cards, and will be the best grenadier when revolting to Hungarian with grenade launcher and Hungarian grenadier card.

The main problem why grenadier is not that viable I think due to it cost 2 pop spaces.

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Basically, it is not available.

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Their are a bit underwhelming.
They are supposed to be good against large groups of enemies because of their AoE while also giving your army more HP.
If anything the AoE should be increased to make them better at what they are supposed to be good at.

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They are my secret British age2 rush ingredient. Literally nobody expects 10+ grenadiers and musks at their doorstep.

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Dragoons and Grenadier rebalance could be done at the same time.
Dragoons loose range resistance and gain siege resistance and a small attack bonus against Grenadiers. Other Light cavalry get that attack bonus too.
Grenadiers get more AoE with each upgrade (Veteran and Guard).
They are not stronger in Commerce Age because they don’t have the higher AoE yet but they also don’t have the deal with the new counter before Fortress Age.

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The reason Dragoons are powerful is that they have fewer weaknesses. They were intended to be weak only against infantry like Skirmishers. Their job is to protect the skirmishers from Cannon and Melee cavalry, so it would be better to give Melee resistance rather than siege resistance to highlight their weaknesses and become more powerful against Melee cavalry.

I don’t think giving the grenadier AOE is a good option. What they really need is to know what role they will play in battle, and to redesign it so that they can fully fulfill that role. Grenadiers are heavy infantry, so even if they have an AOE wider than a Falconet, they won’t be able to beat the skirmishers as they reach later ages.

Once grenadiers want to take on the role of heavy infantry, they need to have means to defeat the cavalry. If grenadier wants to act as an artillery, they must be stronger against skirmishers than they is now.

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Removing their Heavy Infantry tag might make them a bit too strong.
Maybe some units would need a anti Grenadier modifier.
That would give them their own identity.
They would be weak to Asian cavalry but able to face Skirmishers.

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I don’t think you need an anti grenade modifier. They are already vulnerable to cavalry. They have a reverse modifier on the cavalry. If the grenadier is a problem, the Culverine can be changed to solve the problem.

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Just saying that if they don’t count as heavy infantry Asian cavalry will do more damage against them.
But over all the removal of the Heavy Infantry tag would make them stronger in most situations.

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Even if they are not Asian cavalry, grenadiers are weak against cavalry. Their shortcomings already exist, so removing the heavy infantry tag wouldn’t cause such a major balance breakdown.

One of two things, whether you give them artillery tags and remove heavy infantry tags, or give them a cavalry modifier to fulfill their role as heavy infantry, will make them more usable units.

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They already have the siege unit tag (despite being worse than pikeman), maybe Culverin and similar units should get a bonus damage against siege units.

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Ottomans used a lot of sappers that used to mine the walls of the enemy, thus Ottos should have the best Grenadier in the game. Btw, they used grenades made of glass, not iron.
Thanks

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I’m still waiting for an upgrade on grenadiers. DE tried several ways to make them viable but they still do not work out very well.

By design, grenadiers should be a early siege unit + a counter to heavy infantry. But they are not useful on most occasions due to several problems.

  • Too expensive and cost 2 pops.
  • Do not perform well even on their specialized roles (in terms of cost-effectiveness), and have cheaper substitutes. If I want early siege infantry I’d go with 2 pikemen, which are more versatile could also counter cavalry. If I want to fight musketeers I’d rather go with 2 crossbows (or even make 2 more musketeers) in age2, and 2 skirmishers later.
  • Long aiming animation.
  • Wrecked by hand cavalry as a heavy infantry, but also countered by skirmishers as a heavy infantry.
  • Need a specialized card to become (a little more) viable, but the card only have that one role. Not worth the investment most of the time.

What can be done?

  • Reduce the cost a little bit.
  • Grenade launcher can be made an arsenal tech combined with incendiary grenades, not a card (because card slots especially age 2 ones are very important “resources”).
  • Give them longer base range so that they function better as heavy infantry counters, and are also better protected by your own musketeers.
  • I just noticed that the socket bayonet effect on grenadiers is removed. I don’t see that as a problem so I think that can be added back.
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Honestly what needs to happen is make them 1 pop, and available at the barracks, the reason I never use them at least is because you need to waste 250w on a foundry and another 200w for houses just for 10 grens, maybe a slight rate of fire buff, I’d avoid increasing range because look how good the peruvian grenadiers were for portugal revolt.

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In real life Grenadiers where normal Musketeers that also had genades, they evolved into elite Musketeers over time.

So a radical redesign using some new mechanics that where added in the Definitive edition:

Idea 1:
Two ranged attacks, one long range musket shot and one short range grenade attack. They automatically switch to grenade when the enemy is close (the Musket shot as a minimal range)

Idea 2:
They normally attack with muskets but have a charged attack that throws a grenade that is a lot stronger. The cooldown doesn’t have to be long maybe only 20 seconds.

Making them strong 2 pop musketeers that also happen to throw grenades sometimes.

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could be a fun unique unit for a faction.

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Grenadiers do not counter musketeers.

The low AoE damage its used to counter blobs of low hp units

But yeah, the 250 wood on the foundry its a big price to pay in the 2nd age and in numbers they still comparative worse to falconets (less range and damage)

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The grenade launcher made them plenty viable tbh, the difficulty with them is the fact that they are hard to mass, cost 2 pop and requires the artillery foundry. You only really need like 10 of them in addition to your regular army for them to be viable, since they deal splash damage that can mass kill low hp units.

To make them viable in age 2 - maybe a shipment of 5-6 grens with a cost. That way you can more easily get a the shipment + a batch to make it a viable push.

Age 3 - Grenade launcher should come with some grens (maybe for a cost) again to make massing easier.

age 4 - maybe something to do with pop reduction, since that will be their primary limiting factor as the game progress.