New cards were added for the Dutch yet devs have been completely ignoring them.
Dutch States Army: makes standard dutch units more expensive by 10% of each resource. Dutch late game eco can’t really handle this, this card should reduce Merc cost as well by 10 - 20% or reduce the cost increase of regular units to 5%. Move to Age 4 to reflect these changes.
Infantry Combat should be changed as well to buff all infantry instead of only dutch infantry to better synergize with mercenaries. This would generally open up a lot more for the dutch with natives and outlaws.
Buckriders: this card is a mess. 500c is too much. Highwaymen cost too much pop with this card yet this combined with Theatres was nerfed, making the pop reduction from this card completely useless. The cost reduction is kinda silly as the unit is already fairly cheap. (115 coin before reduction, same res as ruyters), it is slightly stronger than a ruyter in every stat but not enough to be twice the pop.
Remove the 500c cost. Reduce the pop by 2 instead of 1 (it doesn’t stack with theatres anyway), increase the coin cost of highwaymen to 150 coin and buff their damage by 20%. Move the card to age 3 to prevent age 2 laming.
The Dutch States Army penalty is hardest on food if you’re spamming infantry. You will feel the pressure, especially if you revolt (since they’re spammy), even if you get to 60 vills with the 2 “Bank of” cards that give +5 pop cap. It’s a card that isn’t terrible but is very map dependent. You do get access to royal horsemen and highlanders which are good units, which helps. I’d lessen the malus on this card from +10% costs on everything else to maybe 5% or add in a merc cost reduction. In general, I’ve found this one to be helpful but not gamebreaking whether I send it or not.
I don’t agree on the Infantry Combat card. Age 3 combat cards are quite powerful. Outlaws units, mercs, and native units all come with their own cards if you want to opt into them heavily. I would not expand this. Swedes should be the premier merc civ followed closely by Germans with their high pop, high impact unit profile. Making mercs cheaper or easier to get is a way to buff Italy and Dutch, but I don’t want to see 4 carbon copies of Sweden. I would not give Dutch a Merc Combat card either. Their economy on its own is just too good.
Buckriders: very much agreed. I suspect the goal with the card was to give Dutch a unique Age 2 light cav card, so they took inspiration from some interesting history and converted the highwayman. Great! They knew it would be strong but the Dutch have strong light cav because their infantry anti-cav options are limited to melee units. The unit itself is only marginally stronger than the ruyter (ok) and it gets a charged attack, and it can dismount to an infantry skirm type outlaw. For that, it’s 3x the population cost with the Buckrider card. That’s an overcorrection that’s fine in Age 2 when you’re nowhere near the pop cap, but crippling afterwards, limiting the use of the unit in the late game.
Naturally, the use of the card seems to be to send it as early as possible in Age 2 for economy harassment of villagers. Solve that problem with the upfront coin cost. Yes, Dutch can easily pay it if they save for it, but at the opportunity cost of their early economy for that early rush. Fair enough. And making more requires the housing for a 3 pop unit. Put up towers, move your vills, and build skirms to counter, while focusing on your economy to weather the early all-in. Get to Age 3 ASAP, then make the Dutch player who had to give up his quick bank building pay for the rush.
Theaters reducing the pop count to 1 doesn’t make or break this rush. It’s a convenience that becomes relevant only in late Age 3, early Age 4 once you get near the pop cap. There’s no reason to send the card earlier. It’s a card that makes this marginal improvement on the ruyter usable in the late game. There’s no reason I can see that it should have a minimum pop cost of 2. It’s not nearly good enough to justify that either mounted or dismounted.
Highwaymen are musket infantry when dismounted, not rifle infantry. I think there’s the potential to give the Dutch a half-decent musketeer unit with this card. They’ve just got to either leave in the population reduction synergy with Theatres and axe the cost reduction perk or get rid of the population reduction entirely and increase the cost reduction or increase the card’s initial value.
I don’t agree on the Infantry Combat card. Age 3 combat cards are quite powerful. Outlaws units, mercs, and native units all come with their own cards if you want to opt into them heavily. I would not expand this. Swedes should be the premier merc civ followed closely by Germans with their high pop, high impact unit profile. Making mercs cheaper or easier to get is a way to buff Italy and Dutch, but I don’t want to see 4 carbon copies of Sweden. I would not give Dutch a Merc Combat card either. Their economy on its own is just too good.
My argument for infantry combat is simple:
Dutch lack Merc, native, and outlaw combat improvement cards. Cavalry Combat is already a generic card that buffs all cavalry, it’s like that for most civs. In fact Haudenosaunee before the rework had infantry combat, attack, and HP cards that affected all infantry (and native cards on top of that making their natives the strongest). Furthermore at least half the euros combat/atk/HP cards affect abstracts rather than specific units. (Spanish archaic inf cards affect hand infantry and foot archers, swedes affect all hand units). Given the dutch lack other unit type buffs I believe this should be made into the Dutch’s play style but giving them infantry and cavalry Combat that is universal. This niche should definitely belong to the dutch.
I think Buckriders have to stay in age2 , i mean its not like any dutch player stays ins age2 . I would love to a competetive dutch BO for age2 that can execute some pressure on your opponent . I love the compromise this card gives, building houses for pop or bank boom? But as it is now, 500c upfront is a total no go sadly.
It doesn’t have longevity value in age2 as it stands and dutch FF is already very competitive. Trying to create age2 play for the dutch is counter to FEs interest in making the game more age 3+ oriented (or so it seems with how the meta has evolved to be that way). Dutch inherently get early skirms. Early goons would be a bit much ontop of that which is why buckriders is so awful as is I suspect.
Besides all that I feel Buckriders is designed to synergize with Dutch States Army as the ruyter alternative.
While we are on it, too bad this card’s buff to shipment arrival is only 15 seconds (for reference Sweden gets like almost a minute of reduction for civ bonus) and it excludes infinite mercenary shipments (while Sweden includes them).
I get their reticience to give too much, just because Dutch have the singularly best chance to take easily trainable mercs and run with it, but still… feels like they could get a bit more and it’d be fine.
I think buckriders makes most sense as a chain of cards around going this pure coin strat. So I don’t think they need much unit buffing, but I DO think the cost is just excessive for what you get. It’d be nice for someone needing to bank up and age3 to have a strong anti-raid card. So long as you can get buckriders training early, having to actually produce them to fight age2 pressure is still a delay in DSA, so I think it plays out fine.
The fun is always having the advantage in number of cannons with the extra 50 ish extra popspace saved by banks. Not may civs can enjoy the advantage of making both falcs/culvs/mortars together and still have room for a halb/ruyter/skirm ball to defend all that.
The main denomination in Scotland is Presbyterian which is a Calvinist form of Protestantism. Dutch Reformed is the main denomination in the Netherlands which is also Calvinist.
