Yep, that’s always an annoying point. I always wish there more cav types. Hey-ho, it’s been there since the beginning.
Also another point (though not really for here) is that Cuirassiers were pretty universal for Euros in the 16th - 17th century and we’re essentially the in-game Pistoleers but mounted. After that they lose their armour and vanish from many armies. It was only really in the Napoleonic era and the French in particular (they brought back the cuirass) that make them fashionable again.
So, in a roundabout way, some details, such as age-specific merc changes will probably never happen as these things are kinda baked in.
Lancers were similarly universal. The current heavy/light cav tags should have actually been melee/ranged. The melee category could be further separated into heavy/light and the ranged could even be classed as ‘medium cavalry’ since that’s essentially what Dragoons were.
The standard roster could have been Hussars as light cav and either Cuirassiers or Lancers as heavy cav depending on the civ. France and Spain could just have Gendarmes and Garrochistas as unique replacements.
I think time progression could be kept consistent within civs and civ groups. For example, there is no way skirmisher is unlocked in age2 while crossbowman in age3.
Aztecs and Incas remain in 1500s because that is their core design. But even with that, Inca’s ability to acquire gunpowder and artillery comes much later in the game.
Age 2-3 transition could be given some tolerance for exceptions because age 2 is the typical “early game” with incomplete military, while age 3 enables almost the entire military roster. By the game’s design, some units like artillery, fast ranged cavalry, etc. cannot be unlocked too early. So some “earlier” units unlocked in age 3 is more of a gameplay concern.
But age 3-4 is almost completely a natural “advancement in technology”. That applies to most existing civs and units.
So age 4 mercs should at least try not to be less advanced than age 3 ones. In fact that applies to most age 4 mercs: zouaves, Napoleon guns, gatling camels are all rather advanced, and mamluks are not “less advanced” (they were still active in Napoleon’s time).
Now the problem with elmetto and lil bombard is they are much earlier than most other units in the game but being age 4 units.
Similar to light ranged, heavy melee and heavy ranges infantry, there could be light melee, light ranged and heavy melee cavalry.
Heavy ranged cavalry rarely worked in the game so maybe keep it a niche limited to natives and mercs. Or maybe some heavy cavalry could have a charged ranged attack as a unique ability.
The only problem is the counter system has so far heavily relied on the heavy/light definition, while melee/ranged is mostly for buffs, so it would need an overhaul to keep the current gameplay.
Mercs in general are shifted an age later to make room for outlaws to have an age 2 niche. Only the Cannoneer and Irish Brigadier are age 2 (which is kinda weird for the Brigadier since they’re not based on anything particularly early - maybe swapping with Fusiliers would make more sense?).
So what you end up getting is age 2 outlaws with late 1800s Winchester rifles and age 4 renaissance mercs. If you want to “fix” that you either have to throw balance out the window, or nix a bunch of cool historical units because they’re slightly out of order. Selectively removing one instance while hand waving away the rest seems wrong to me.
Ah, the London Lobsters. (now there’s a niche British-only cav shipment wishlist item )
Not sure what your point is. The Lobsters were one of the incredibly few Cuirasser units left in Great Britain in the 1640s. The armour on show ends at the knee and the horses are not barded - i.e the armour has got smaller. Also a few years later they got re-equipped as the same as the other contemporay ‘troopers’ - the Harquebusiers, which had just the cuirass, helmet and buff coat.
Harquebusiers themeselves lose their armour by the end of the 1600s and eventually become Horse Guards and Dragoons - all (save for a helmet) unarmoured.
TBH, AoE3 made a mess out of their units when they decided to throw out the window the whole “renasaince-modern age” thing in favor to pander to the Bush era " 'murica fu… yeah" consoomer. AFAIK there would be Light Cavalry, Heavy cavalry and Ranged Cavalry since the start of the game, as they would depict late knights and propper ranged riders; every civ would have get all three kinds of cavalry, with France and Spain having each one a unique version of the heavy cav, as the lancer and the cuirassier respectively. Black Riders would be the unique German ranged cav and posibly being twins or even the same unit with the dutch Rytter.
But since the only cavalry classses important for USA highschoolers -if they read books that is- would have been the Dragoons and Hussars, well, there’s that.
If Im honest with you, I think there should be an AoE that cover the Long XIX century all of their own, and left AoE3 end by the 1760s or so.
things start to get complex when you try to justify in a game why your cavalry progression goes from epic knights in late 16th century shining full plate towards just dudes in fancy clothes on horses. You’d need to do something like have an armour system where gunpowder weapons pierce armour combined with your early knight cavalry being very expensive compared to later hussars. This doesn’t really track with AoE’s style of a single line of units with a single cost that simply gets better stats as they are upgraded.
All the other AoE game settings conveniently occur during periods where arms and armour did basically just get more and more complex and cool looking as the period went on so you can have your stone-age clubman gradually progress to armour legionaries, or your dark ages militia to your plate-armoured champions.
AoE 3 takes place in a transitional period where armies were losing armour instead of gaining it. Again, with a simple AoE style linear upgrade system you are basically forced to visually pick a line of upgrade that becomes more “powerful” looking (more armour or fancier hats) as it progresses.
Big Huge’s Rise of Nations has a sharp change in the way unit upgrade lines work around the period of AoE 3. Your anticav pikemen line turns into fusiliers. Melee infantry and archers become totally obsolete when musketeers enter the field. Something like that would have been really cool in AoE3, and even would have fit it better as a game, being a bit more slower paced than Rise of Nations. But it’s a bit late to make massive changes to the game (we need an AoE3 2…)
I know that “loosing armor” is’t precisely impresive looking, but at least, now with more polygons in the model you can make them look more “modern”. You may as well pick the most trashy looking armour of the XVI century vs the most fancy napoleonic uniforms to make them look more impresive.
Just sharing a super-heavy-armor (compared to other contemporary) cavalry unit of the era to indicate that units like Elmetto don’t need to be confined strictly to the 16th century. Thanks much for the historical breakdown though, never knew that history!
Honestly, I wouldn’t mind if the [Lancer] and the [Cuirassier] were to lose their unique unit status in the future for the sake of becoming more broadly accessible units.
And if Howitzers are ever properly introduced to the game in the future they could be implemented in the same manner, where some civilisations could have access to either the [Mortar] or the Howitzer as their long range siege unit. The Russians could have the Licorne as their unique replacement of the Howitzer.
@SirBarnzy1 I remember that you have previously suggested that this type of artillery could be added to the game.
The [Napoleon Gun] which was added to the game with update 23511 was in reality a gun-howitzer and it is a shame that it doesn’t completely behave like one.
In a ideal world, AoE5 would be AoE3-2. USA and Mexico would be the first AoE5 civs, disabling them from AoE3 but giving a free copy of the game to whoever had bought them civs.
Son dragones de cuera, pero digo que se vean así porque mantiene el escudo de corazón. Se ve como que es una progresión, del lancero conquistador del siglo 16, a un lancero del siglo 18 y después en imperial podría volver a cambiar
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