Mounted Infantry, Cossack Daredevil, Highwayman, you name it. You know them and sure you have some opinion about them.
For us history nerds the Dragoon unit have always being somewhat controversial as it suffers the most of the vanilla AoE3 syndrome: trying to encapsulate too much in a too small concept. While it’s true that in the pike and shoote era there where a fair number of riders which relied on the pistol or the eponymous dragoon blunderbuss as main weapons (mostly to hit and run with impunity those big and slow melee infantry units), the mere nature of ############ firearms made almost imposible to continue this way, so by the XVIII century dragoons relied more in their swords than their muskets and by the napoleonic era dragoon was little more than the title of “medium” cavalry between hussars and cuirassiers. Only the birth of the self contained cartridge brought back the idea of shooting while riding.
Many voices actually talked about making the dragoon some kind of mounted infantry, at was their role during the times of Prinz Eugen, but before DE was straight up imposible.
But, back to the game, now there is a group of units that actually fullfill this niche, the aformentioned mounted infantry and thier outlaw and merc version.
However, one could argue that this unit is little more than a worst, gimmicky, dragoon. Yes, it’s true that it can be trained an age earlier and it has both the added benefit of promotions and can exploit the bonus system as it lacks the light cavalry tag. However, to make the most out of a Mounted infantry you must micro them constanty and extensively or risking having wasted your resources in a unit that does worst the work of two diferent unitts (the eternal dilema of the multitool). Also, changing from mounted to dismounted in the middle of a fight can be extremely dangerous and give your enemy 4 seconds of free hits without retaliations from your units. In contrast, the discussed dragoon, while historiographically a mess, have the symplicity of just moving near your enemy and start blasting or run away from the skrims.
Don’t get me wrong: I want for the Mounted Infantry to be a good unit, but as I’m not much of an online player I can’t tell if it is actually worth it.
The mounted infantry isnt a dragoon, see it more as a lancer with much longer range. Dismounting makes it a skirmisher but I dont think I ever used it.
Data:
Comparison between similar cavalry.
Comparison between similar infantry.
Abilities to keep in mind.
The promotions increase range distance and movement speed.
Age 2
Frankly, it does feel quite underwhelming in mounted stance for an age 2 unit.
I’ve tried using them just for fun (Because as bad as they may be, they are fun to use), and I’ve found it best to just use against light infantry in melee and against heavy infantry in the dismounted stance.
The good things they have in favor are that the promotions give them longer range and faster speed, so as a dismounted infantry, it can kite anything from age 2, but then again, the mounted stance means it only has 1 of the 3 roles it claims it has.
I have the same issue with the Qizilbash, their multipliers are better, so it’s more counter-focused, but the price is still undesirable. You are better off making units from your barracks or stable instead.
Later ages
In imperial age, every native is S tier lol.
Once you reach the pop limit, adding even bad units to the numbers is a good investment, so use them as support from range if you will, as they are more a damaging than a tanky unit.
Rebalance?
With micro (Lots of it), the mounted/dismounted infantry is alright, maybe even great, except when the mounted infantry faces the musketeer.
They can take down a musketeer, but not as effectively for the costs, if you add “60% more musketeers”, then the mounted infantry is outclassed by the costs (they cost 60% more resources than a musketeer).
I would make a bit of a drastic change, the mounted infantry currently has 3 roles:
- Dragoon (meh)
- Lancer (fine-ish)
- Skirmisher (Nice)
I would eliminate 1 of the roles to improve the other 2, so it’s only a Lancer and skirmisher, meaning, it can no longer fire while mounted.
Now, instead of promoting the mounted rifle’s range, It would promote the lance’s range.
As for the rest of the stats:
The way I’d go around it if I had the choice to tweak it would be:
- Mounted stance now has 10 melee damage every 1,5 seconds with a 3x ONLY against light infantry.
- I wouldn’t change the dismounted stats, haven’t used them as much, but for an age 2 skirmisher, it will do ok.
Now, it’s a fragile but valuable unit that can snipe heavy infantry while dismounted and light infantry while mounted.
Meant to be used with care and planning ahead.
I’d have more fun with such kind of unit.
Cossack Daredevils are awesome! They’re a great hussar and a great musketeer unit, and even if you only used them as a musketeer it’s insane being able to get your musk mass across the map at 7 speed to dismount later on (even keeping up with Horse Artillery in the later stages of the game). If you some as huss and some as musk you’ve got a perfectly balanced 1-unit composition. Imo the “cost” of having to ship a card to reduce their population to be 1 is worth the tradeoff of receiving Guard and Imperial techs instantly and for free. I still prefer using them as civs with Cavalry School for the later game option of making them train instantly from your one Tavern, as well as with a good Outlaw civ that can effectively ignore some of the typical drawbacks of high coin cost or high base pop cost (such as Dutch or Brits). For some reason people usually use them as Germans instead though, who only have a solid housing card and a slightly-better Outlaw pop reduction card than civs like Dutch or Brits (who instead have innate coin gather rate boosts or housing that pays for itself).
That’s exactly my point. All the supposed value is dependent on an option that’s selfdom, if ever, used. Again, I really want for this unit to work, but seems to me that it just a gimmicky version of better units.
Yeah, Cossack Daredevils get a much better eco than Native Mounted Infantry thanks due all the “improve mercenaries” card that you can ship. Mercenaries have always being a contentious topic, as Germans and now Swedes always have had merc use in their “normal” toolbox but they usually lack the eco to support them, something that comes naturally for british and dutch but those civs are focussed on barrack units. so…
The best answer overall. Many thanks for your insight.
I don’t think that a lance that get a bigger range is that of a good idea, tho. Moreover, historically speaking most of dragoon-esque troops end up fighting with swords as they technically would wield firearms and thus a lance would be a burden; lancers tend to be specialized units.
My idea would be to give them bonus vs infantry in hand combat but with a sword, so they don’t trade favorably against musketeers; however, they would have a charged attack similar to berber riders so they can shoot and deal some damage before comiting to a hand to hand fight.
Whether or not it’s viable, it’s extremely problematic to have a ranged cavalry unit that counters light infantry. It defies the game’s rule of thumb that light infantry counters ranged cavalry. Yes, they are actually heavy cavalry, but looking and attacking exactly like light cavalry is just confusing for no reason. That would be like having a unit that looks like a cannon but counters cavalry.
If they’re going to make dismounting be a mechanic, there are only specific roles that can be combined so that the units are balanced.
The theming is also terrible on almost all the dismounting units. Mounted Infantry are extremely generic and have absolutely nothing to do with the Habsburgs. Units that should obviously dismount like Chasseurs (Mounted Riflemen) are poorly named and can’t dismount. Same for the Royal Dragoon that would be another obvious choice to dismount.
Only that they are not Mercenaries and don’t benefit from those cards you’re talking about…
Used mounted infantry with French Native build, only way I could think using them worthwhile.