Caroliner is arguably the most rubbish musketeer in the game.Firstly this infantry costs more than a normal musketeer.And since Sweden doesn’t have skirmisher, he’s easy to kill.And the funniest thing is that he can’t fight cavalry, in the second era I just played a sparring match where all my Caroliners were killed because a bunch of Deli Cavalry came out on the other side. So I ask the production team what was the point of designing this troop type?
Only by 5 resources, though more gold intensive (Worth it).
You have access to the crossbow and leather cannon in age 2, and a few ways to unlock Jaegers in age 3.
Calculating the DPS against cavalry, Caroleans deal more damage in melee than range, even without the melee multipliers, BUT, it’s always safest to attack in range, without committing units to suffer hand on hand combat.
And comparing the anti-cavalry position with default musketeers, they have much higher dps in range, yet not on melee, so again, watch out for that. Also, since they are faster than musks, they can melee connect more often to snare fleeing enemies AND escape undesired fights with Carolean charge.
Caroleans take getting used to, but they are beefy in age 2, and with special upgrades in later ages; Try to think of them as cavalry archers with musketeer tags and you’ll be fine.
3 Likes
Swe and inca units were designed by just trying to create something different from the initial AOE3 concept.
The problem caused by this design still exists until now.
May be just give Swe musk + caro.
After 3 years I still think it is the worst designed unit.
Just giving it a minor ranges counter to cavalry, a high melee and a charge ability is already unique enough. The long range and ranged defense is totally unnecessary and deviates from its purpose.
Ironically with the cards it suddenly jumps from a mediocre musket to the No 1 in musket-musket wars, while becoming worse at its intended role.
It seems to be a product of “as we are not sure about future plans let’s just stuff every uniqueness we think about into this one new unit”. But then we had and will have quite a few future plans so it is time to revisit it.
The historical caroleans did feature higher focus on melee and fast shock tactics than their European counterparts. So the melee bonus, charge ability and speed makes sense, while the super range makes no sense.
It should be a slightly faster, shorter range musket with higher melee (maybe same as range) but a 1.5x bonus (number can change) to cavalry both at range and melee, and a charge ability. No range upgrade or defense type switches. The battalion fire card should increase the bonus to 1.75x or sth. The Svea lifeguard card only boosts hp or increase defense.That is already very unique.
In this way it will follow the same design as “musketeers with swords instead of polearms” (janissary and sepoy): high melee but lower counter cavalry bonus. And it is not a problem, especially considering sepoy has always been similar to janissary and (ironically) even more so in DE as its cavalry counter is reduced to the same level because it does not have bayonets.
EDIT: oh I forget the rof. How does it fit into the unit’s overall design as a “high melee musketeer”?
One thing to keep in mind is that most AOE3 unique units take the role of regular units (unlike AOE2), and they do not necessarily have to be stronger or drastically different.
And most new regular units in the DLCs are much more standard than Swedes and Inca.
I’d call it a failed experiment just like “heavy ranged cavalry” (and Swedes once had it too).
Those gimmicks should be restricted to limited availability like natives and mercenaries. Or they should at least not block the standard option.
3 Likes
Even so but the operation is more cumbersome and they can easily be cut down by the cavalry in close quarters
And the leather cannon is too slow to keep up with Caroliner’s speed.
Japanese musketeers and royal musketeers were more expensive than regular muskets but they could do attacking cavalry work very well, and the Japanese musketeers could even shoot against skirmisher
yeah, after the modifications the Swedish troop system is really missing a lot of must-haves
Ashi are not to be used as a standard for musks. Ashi are moreso proof that between them and soldados there is an ominous crossroads that a styling man has been seen giving out contracts on exists, and that robert Johnson and other delta blues singers were correct
(Tldr ashi are cracked as hell just use normal musk to compare)
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Why aren’t the long-range troops that can counter cavalry the musketeers?
huh?
caros are pretty much a scaling musk. normally musk fall off late game. caros start off weak but quickly became beasts capable of going toe to toe with most units. they are much more efficent en masse late game than musk. almost op if not a bit late game, but underwhelming early. It is on the player to find ways to get to that win condition if massing caros.
the question imho isnt that caros are bad, for they simply are different and i know aoe3 players hate braincells but really it forces a different paradigm than normal musk- weak vs cav early, fast ,scales, effective late game to compensate as sweden eco falls off. Its a different tool. The question is does sweden have the right toolset to consistenly use them. fwiw i see in teams and treaty yes, in 1v1 though sweden is struggling. But if you want ez uber musk, backed by op skirm, there is always otto.
3 Likes
Let’s make this perfectly clear - Caroleans were a mistake and broke every rule the game had on ranged heavy infantry. Zero excuses to break the speed, melee damage, range damage, rof, typical hp, ranged multis but no melee multis, armour… the unit is just a hodgepodge of dumb ideas all cobbled together. 20 melee is enough to beat basically any age 2 infantry in melee by equal pop, but not even close to enough to beat most cavalry. LITERALLY this is why multipliers existed on every musketeer unit since 2005, its not rocket science. Anyways because I feel like a ######## today, here’s the complete changelog of the unit since release date, just to prove that they had no idea what they were doing:
Changelog
Definitive Edition
- Originally, Caroleans had 20 hand damage. With update 5208, they have 19 hand damage.
- Originally, Caroleans gained additional speed when switching to their melee mode. Update 5208 introduced the Carolean Charge ability, which grants all Caroleans +1 speed and locks them into melee mode for 8 seconds. The ability has a 90 second global cooldown.
- Originally, Caroleans had 14 ranged damage and a 2.0 ranged Rate of Fire. With update 3552, Caroleans have 19 ranged damage and a 2.5 ranged Rate of Fire.
- Originally, Caroleans had a ×1.5 ranged attack multiplier against cavalry. With update 3552, they have a ×1.5 ranged attack multiplier against heavy cavalry and light ranged cavalry. With update 13088, they no longer have a multiplier against light cavalry.
- Originally, Caroleans had a ×1.3 ranged attack multiplier against shock infantry. With update 3552, they have a ×1.3 ranged attack multiplier against hand shock infantry.
- Originally, Caroleans had no multipliers against ranged shock infantry. With update 3552, they have a ×1.3 ranged attack multiplier against ranged shock infantry. With update 5208, they have a ×1.5 ranged attack multiplier against ranged shock infantry. With update 13088, they no longer have a multiplier against ranged shock infantry.
- Originally, Caroleans had 10 range, gained +1 range from Veteran, Guard, and Imperial upgrades, gained +4 range from the Snaplock card, and gained a +1.0x multiplier against heavy cavalry from the Platoon Fire card. With update 13088, they have 12 range, gain no range from Veteran, Guard, and Imperial upgrades, gain +3 range from the Snaplock card, gain a +0.7x multiplier against heavy cavalry from the Platoon Fire card.
- Originally, Caroleans had 15 Line of Sight. With update 20322, they have 16 Line of Sight.
- With update 23511, Caroleans are tagged as musket infantry.
- Originally, Carolean’s in-game description was “Swedish Musketeer that fires quickly and counters Cavalry from range instead of at melee distance. Can charge quickly with his sword equipped. Good in melee combat.” With a later update, Carolean’s in-game description is “Swedish Musketeer that fires quickly and counters cavalry from range. Can charge quickly with his sword equipped. Good in melee combat.”
- Caroleans cost 60 food, 40 coin, have 30% hand resistance and no multipliers against rifle infantry.
The African Royals
- With update 38254, Caroleans have 20 hand damage and 20% hand resistance.
Knights of the Mediterranean
- Although it is not listed in the patch notes, with update 13.10442, Caroleans have a ×0.8 hand attack multiplier against rifle infantry.
- With update 14.43676, Caroleans cost 65 food, 40 coin and negative hand damage multiplier against rifle infantry changed to light infantry. The unit’s image from the Compendium section was updated. The Carolean’s musket no longer shows a knife bayonet.
6 Likes
To be fair, I’m guessing most of those design decisions came from them wanting to make the Caro a ERK without the shock infantry tag, because iirc swedes didn’t have a traditional Dragoon as the hakka was sort of a ranged hussar(?), and so you end up with a musk that’s roleplaying an Eagle runner with slightly more speed, ROF, and a ranged bonus vs cav. And the ability to get a ranged resist.
5 Likes
True.
Now that the weird role of hakka (a ranged hussar that no one uses) has been corrected to a more standard one (a dragoon), I think it’s time to fix Caroleans too.
8 Likes
If they didn’t do all the melee nonsense, I’d be inclined to believe this. Its too many things all cobbled together with no clear goal.
When have we ever seen the design of something be all over the place? I challenge you think of 1 example, ill wager 1 bullion of Spanish gold
But yeah sweden probably needs some help. Same with inca and kotm civs. To be fair euros had 10+ years before they got touched up so hoping the newer civs get another pass someday thats not a decade out
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we don’t speak about the inca patch notes 
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I think design team may finally find out the unit standard…may be.
DLC seems everything start to back on the track then bersagliere and fixed gun comes out…
Every unique stuff they created were disaster to the balance at the beginning.
Bersagliere is okay-ish, or easier to tweak. It only needs a stat change (if needed) without overhauling its role and counter.
Fixed gun is more of a meme unit. I see no practical use of it.
1 Like