Idk, you could do it train them quickly, but at their cost and poor efectiveness, i don’t believe it was a good buff
I believe if we just buff their base stats then they become dangerously strong maybe broken in fast imp cases (maybe if buff is significant enough). That is why they need more upgraded to affect them. Ballistic or some kind of thing ring for hand cannons. This way we can buff them in a way the naturally become stronger at the appropriate game time, just like for example cav archers become monster only FU and don’t start out like that.
In my opinion, all HC should be affected by ballistic or a new similar tech for gundpowder units
Arquebus should be a unique upgrade for portuguese HCs, with a little more HP, +10/15% accuracy and +1 bullet speed
The UT should be replaced for something that improves feitoria or something that improves the organ guns
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Is it really worth it to redo a big part of a civilisation just because a unit is referred to as weak?
They could bring back the origins AoK upgrade that was needed to unlock hand cannons (cannon galleons still work like this) and repurpose it to give stat boosts instead.
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Oh well the patch said there was an accuracy bug that affected gunpowder units the most, I thought it was only for conqs. Let’s see what happens ig.
I totally agree that Hand Cannoneers need a buff. For instance: Civs like Franks and Teutons deserve to have their Hand Cannoneers useable (otherwise, why grant those civs access to them, besides nodding to historical accuracy?) Franks and Teutons both lack Bracer AND Arbalester upgrades to make decent archer units to counter enemy infantry. While AoE2 players and devs could argue that Franks already get their (Elite) Throwing Axemen as a counter to enemy infantry units, and the Teutons get (Elite) Teutonic Knights, plus extra melee armor on their Champions and Halberdiers to make them effective against enemy infantry…it would be nice if Franks and Teutons can at least make a useful unit from their Archery Range, Post Imp, besides Elite Skirmishers. After all: what if Franks and Teutons do not have any more Stone to build a castle and create their unique units to counter enemy infantry? Teutons, are a gunpowder civ in all but name: having access to Hand Cannoneer (with all Archer armor upgrades for them), Bombard Cannon, Cannon Galleon, and the Bombard Tower. Franks are less gunpowder savy…but historically speaking, the Medieval French Kingdom in the late Middle Ages were one of the first European nations to pioneer the use of gunpowder in warfare. Just play Mission 6: A Perfect Martyr in the Joan of Arc Campaign to know what I mean.
Furthermore, buffing Hand Cannoneers would be nice to see so that a civ like the Japanese could use them more. While the Civ itself is not in dire need to use Hand Cannoners as much as Franks and Teutons, the Medieval Japanese made good use of arquebusiers after Oda Nobunaga took a liking to the new technology the visiting Portuguese were wielding.
And speaking of the Portuguese…they too need to benefit from better Hand Cannoneers. Then, at least it gives a Portuguese player the option to go all Arbalesters in a “traditional” archer civ strategy or commit to the Portuguese civ’s uniqueness of the Arquebus tech, and make massive Hand Cannoneer battalions.
Indians too, should have their unique tech of +1 range to their Hand Cannoneers become more desirable as well as useful to use.
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all gunpowder just got buffed in the patch that just launched, lets see what an effect it has.
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HC are decent. If you buff them too much, you will almost never see infantry in the game.
HC are not a unit to go as main, but they are a unit to easily mix in with your main army
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Point is more that HS are decent counters to infantry spam, while HCs are not. If equivalent resources spent on HS would stop an infantry force, while equivalent resources in HC wouldn’t, it’s a sign that HCs are too weak.
If you want to counter infantry with teutons, you have Teutonic knights. If you want to counter infantry with franks, you have Throwing Axeman.
If you buff HC, this units will literally never be used, becouse why would you want to train throwing axemen? Just add HC and brake the game variety.
Champions, berserkers, and many other units that add variety to the game will see themselves nerfed with a HC buff.
Any HC buff is a direct nerf to Goths aswell.
HC are not supposed to be very good, only to be an accessible unit to mix in if you need.
Please think of how bad this could be to the good game we have now.
Firstly, Teutonic Knights, while yes, being a strong counter to ANY opponents’ infantry are not a ranged unit, like the Hand Cannoneer is.
Secondly, both the Teutonic Knight and the Throwing Axeman are Castle-trained units. Not Barracks/Archery Range/Stable units. That means that if you were Franks or Teutons going, say Knights lets say, but then had to suddenly transition into an anti-infantry unit because you are now fighting a Aztec or Goths player, say, and are going after you with infantry, you would find it not easy to then transition into Teutonic Knights or Throwing Axemen, unless you have built up a lot of Castles to train them from.
Whereas, Hand Cannoneers are created from the Archery Range, a military building that can be massed up in huge numbers, due to the cost in Wood rather than Stone.
If you play Vikings, and you run out of stone to build more Castles and/or your castles were all destroyed, the fact that as a Vikings player you can resort to Champions form the much-cheaper Barracks instead of Berserkers from the expensive Castle is important.
And I am not in any way trying to advocate for Hand Cannoneers to be over-powering over infantry units. Not at all…
…what I am saying is that they would be bumped a bit so that they can fulfull the role that was intended for them: as a ranged counter to enemy infantry. Specifically, I want them to have higher attack, and more accuracy. I am NOT saying they should have higher armor, because Hand Cannoneers need to be weak to some units. They are certainly already weak to heavy cavalry (Paladins wreak them and cheap Hussars do extremely well too), and literally ALL ranged units: Arbalesters, Elite/Imperial Skirmishers, and Onagers utterly destroy Hand Cannoneers. So I do not think there is much to worry about Hand Cannoneers “nerfing infantry” when there are lots of other counters to them.
Vikings and Aztecs for instance can respond to any Hand Cannoneer threat with their own Arbalesters and Elite Skirms…Goths have Hussar, Cavalier, and Elite Skirms (or they can just simply overwhelm any Hand Cannoneer army with the Goths spam of infantry)
HC is not a very good unit, but it gets compensated by being very reachable and available in archery ranges.
HC don’t need a buff.
If you buff HC, many not op units will be nerfed, and others will become useless, teutonic knights for example.
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Hand cannoneers have amazing accuracy now after bugfix, they hit like 3 shots of 4 at maximum range (74 hits in 100 according to what I tried in editor)
They do not have ballistics though so they will miss moving targets.
No further buffs needed, they’re amazing now.
Which is like most fights lol
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pretty much what i was thinking.
I think HC are fine as they are in term of stats. To me it is a support unit you train to thin out the opponent’s Halb, and as such they are filling that role. If anything making them slightly more easy to mass would be appreciated, like a little reduction of training time or cost.
the thing is HC are ok with small armz sizes, since thez can one shot stuff easily. the bigger the armies the worse they become since thez either overkill massively or shot way too slow. Thats the reason whz organ guns with semminglz superior stats lose against rattans on a 60 60 battle. the oragns overkill, and shot too slow. so on massed fights its better to have lower damage and more attackspeed.
massing HC is alwazs worse than arabalest, even against infatry. getting a few HC to supplement can ge OK. I dont think making it easier to mass them does help the problem but sure, if thez are cheaper it wont become worse either.
i think to make them batter in massed battles the arambai treatment could help gunpoweder units.
But Hand Cannoneers ought to be made usable. Otherwise, there is no point in having them in the game.
ESkirms do that without gold, have ballistics accuracy, more range allowing them to support cavalry far better
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