Maybe Spanish Arquebusiers could be implemented via a a Royal House? This seems to be the way to give Euro civ more personality via Royal House shipments/techs.
For the Spanish, maybe the House of Trastámara?
This Royal House covers the earliest parts of AOE3 timeframe before the Spanish Hapsburgs (up until mid 16th Century), which incidently is where Arquebusiers would be most commonly used (with Tercios being established before Hapsburgs).
With this Royal House we could also introduce a Tercio Capitán (captain) or Abanderado (flag-bearer) unit which could somehow benefit archaic-only units. The houses could also have a tech Tercio Chaplains that could benefit a civ’s healers.
La Bamba was originally a protest song against the Spanish government in Veracruz due to their farcical response to piracy. Basically a Dutch pirate and his forces rampaged throughout Veracruz and the coastline and it was only after that event did the government start to conscript the population to help defend despite the lack of professional sailors et all.
“Yo no soy marinero, yo no soy marinero, por ti seré, por tí seré, por tí seré…” (I am not a sailor, I am not a sailor, for you I’ll be, for you I’ll be, for you I’ll be…)
The arquebusier could replace the crossbowman or the musketeer because Spain has many two anti-cav units and thus would force to combine arquebusier with rods or pikes as a real tercio.
I mean replacing the crossbowmen in the second or third age with a card, but I also prefer them to replace the musketeer, although I see it as almost impossible.
Spanish revolutions don’t benefit any crossbow build, neither does going age4 where you can get skirms with LOS ability instead. If anything Spain could use a Steel Bolts card like malta.
I see the arquebusier as a tech maybe, advanced church tech? There’s too much investment in archaic infantry so it would be a downside if you have another gunpowder unit without cards.
Didn’t Spain pioneer pike and shotte tactics with their tercio formations? It would make sense for them to have a unit armed with shot. I think that early musketeers could be made to look like 16th-17th century arqubusiers.
As an aside, the Tercio Royal Guard should really be renamed to the Coselete, the Spanish name for pikemen who were armoured in the tercio formation.
Maybe tercio tactics could be reworked into something like this. Maybe they could find a way to make it gunpowder infantry and pikemen rather than crossbows, pikemen and Halberdiers.
Just give Spain (and maybe Ports as well?) a retextured Canoneer, call it a Arcabucero Pesado (Heavy Arquebusier), reduce the stats slightly but give them either a passive benefit when near their own Pikemen as an incentive to keep these Tercio stalwarts together.
You could them make them available as either part of an Age-Up option or as a Home City Shipment ‘Tercios Viejos’ (or ‘Terço of the Adventurers’ for Ports). Once shipped, they become available at the Tavern.
I have some ideas for the renewal of the Spanish army, below I will put some images of what the Spanish units could look like, the crossbowmen could be replaced by the volunteers of León or Miquelet with a new card in the metropolis
