if Germany can survive age 2 with Xbow Pike Uhlan, Sweden can definitely do so as well with Hussars and the addition of leather cannons. the current devs seem to have wanted the civ to be more melee focused with a greater usage of their royal guard pikes, therefore making pikes the only age 2 counter to heavy cavalry would help achieve that goal as well as create a more varied age 2 composition.
or perhaps locking Ashigaru musket fire to veteran status, either forcing a more micro heavy usage of ashi pikes or kiting with Yabusame to deal with cavalry. it would be a first for the game, unlocking new combat modes through its mainline upgrade, and bring the skill floor of the civ up at the same time.
while we are at it, explore making sepoys age 3 as well. I heard Rajputs are fantastic units and the only reason they aren’t seeing play is that the sepoy is better. surely this change wont just result in Indian players exclusively using zamburaks instead. giving Germany muskets in age 3 could be interesting too.
You are joke. Just build skirmisher and pikeman. You will be auto win.
The s!h!i!t!ty pathing finding will make swedes cav uselss and your skirmisher out range the caroleans
especially for age2 rush.
I have been playing Swedes on the past weeks. And one thing that I found out is that Caroleans are they only good infantry unit. I not saying that Swedes is weak because of this, but the fact that Swedes does not have any other good option for infantry really makes Caroleans way too dominant.
Swedes consumes way more wood than a civilization like Germany.
I really tried to make some Age 2 agenda work as the Swedes, using pike/crossbow and hiring some outlaws with the coin incoming from the torps to supplement the army.
Essentially my idea was to put all vills on wood, torp up the place and use the food from the torps + the wood that the settlers gather to make pike/crossbow, and use the coin floating from the torps to make outlaws.
But to be honest, this build is just nowhere near as good as the standard one.
Oh please. They’re not that good. Infact they’re in some ways worse than regular musks since they do only 20 in hand combat to cavalry, I usually start with them and transition into pikes later on as opposed to the opposite with musks with most civs.
Some even think the nerf should be reversed (If you want un-nerfed caroleans put fusiliers in your deck.
that in itself is a huge change if it convinces some swede players to opt out of a safe age 2 boom just to ff and get the easier to use Creoleans out. the amount of strategies and playstyles that players would consider would be much greater than it is now.
use micro heavy pikes, xbow and hussars to boom similar to brits, or go for an aggressive age 3 timing with a much weaker eco behind it but easier to micro carolean/falconet timing. that’s more options than there is currently.
going pure hussars in age 2 will not work in a match between skilled opponents, infantry is required soon after a stable opening whether its an ff or an extended age 2 play.
if you win with just hussars in some of your games I wouldn’t read too much into it, yesterday I won an otto mirror with just a single foundry making pure grenadiers after seeing a water deck. this doesn’t mean that grenadiers are a viable unit or otto water is terrible, just that 1400 elo players have serious gameplay problems they need to fix.
most civs do not have skirmishers age 2, and if Caroleaons are truly as bad as you say then we are doing players a favor by restricting them to age 3 in favor of xbow and pikes. if swedes somehow are struggling to survive without this “trap” unit and your being dishonest about its strength, then there are levers to buff their age 2 play, such as the 8 xbow card.
seeing as how Germany, Spain, Dutch and Britain can do just fine with using pikes instead of muskets as their age 2 anti-cav, it seems unlikely that swedes with their additional pike cards and access to the leather cannon will fare any worse.
in the end its about increasing the micro required for this civ to take advantage of their age 2 boom, and making age 3 a requirement for the carolean achieves that, and according to many of you would actually result in a win rate increase due to how terrible the unit is.
It seems you don’t understand the role of musketeers in the 2nd age…You can get them in the 2nd age but usually it’s expensive to do so (either in food or gold), unless your civ doesn’t have pikemen (Russia, USA), muskets are reserved for tiebreaking those early engagements. Because making many musket units that early can seriously slow your fortress age.
Caroleans are no different except they are more micro intensive.
Caroleans aren’t as good vs cavalry compared to musks in the 2nd age (at least requires more micro). But they are good at meleeing musks and pikes, but not as good as rodeleros or rajputs which also can melee cavalry.
in 1vs1 you cant go pure huss of course, but you can open with huss in certain matches and then roll to caros.
But in team games (the ones i play 90% of the time and that most players play) going Hussar is way more profitable than going caroleans as they die to LB, Ghurkas and Skirms (and evens musks with similar numbers.
Also Swedes have 2 Age II cards for Huss.
Anyway the point is … no one in their right mind is going to take caroleans or musks from age II.
that goes against the current meta logic, its better to gather gold and make gold units, and cancel a batch when close to age up/shipped 700 gold. this isn’t aoe2, its better to avoid cutting woods when possible and wood cost units tend to be weaker and less efficient. going fortress with hussar/muskets is much easier than with lb/pike.
Caroleans require less micro vs cav with bonus in range instead of melee. muskets have a minigame of switching between ranged and melee, trying to avoid having the hussars kite your melee muskets while being shot or dealing pitiful damage with their ranged attack. also, muskets beat rods without firing a single shot in melee, and mass muskets also beat rajputs while being massively cheaper.
then British/Ottoman/Port/Russian/Japanese/Indian/Swedish/U.S. players have been doing it wrong all this time. Swedish players don’t stop making Caroleans in fortress age, and making them a fortress age unit will not make them disappear any more than skirmishers or dragoons. frankly this argument doesn’t feel like its honest or believable, musket units do see play after age 3 and past, making them age 3 gated will not change that.
The argument is lets make sweden the only civ with access to a musket type unit to not get that unit at age II, because “i am sick of getting lamed… and sweden is so OP… and yada yada yada…”. Make musks (with similar numbers they can beat caros, or make a Skirm type unit).
Its because of balance suggestions like these, or because they have 3 or 4 threads whining about sweden that Devs go elsewhere looking for balance changes.
Wanna balance change sweden? Cut their torp HP in 25% or even 30%.
your imagining sentences from and arguing with the me who exists in your mind.
vs
its not about balance, or being weaker or stronger. its about increasing the micro required in age 2 by needing a more diverse army comp of xbow/pike/leather/hussar in age 2, as said countless times in this thread. I also want a similar change for other civs, such as japanese and otto who also can do with more micro involved in age 2. balance can be achieved after making a more micro oriented design, its not hard to influence a civ to be stronger or weaker once the design is in a good place.
its right there in the beginning of the post. there’s even a link there and an explanation that it was inspired by suggested changes to the ottomans, and should be spread to the Japanese and Indians. I’m not sure how to reply other than “agreed”.
Yeah but since Sweden won’t be given any compensation neither should any of these civs, japan and brit have longbows and yumi, witch are better Xbow, and india has ghurka, so let’s give sweden a better version of crossbows in age 2 and maybe.
Germany can survive with just xbows, and Sweden has access to the leather cannon. the return of the xbow shipment to give them that needed age 2 mass plus thier torp eco should do the rest. if they are still too weak id rather see the leather cannon buffed rather than a stronger xbow, such as 200 wood foundry in general and a gold/pure food cost instead of wood.
who compared leather cannons to dopplesoldners, or suggested that caroleans should be shipped like uhlans? you make arguments against statements that don’t exist.
if Germany can survive age 2 with normal xbows and no muskets, then lets buff the unique aspects of Sweden such as leather cannons to enable them as well if they need such a buff.
When did i say you said that lol, because your saying the addition of leather cannons would make sweden better than German age 2, I’m saying that the dopppel and leather even out
The only reason Germany can survive age 2 at all is because they can raid with free uhlans and keep their opponents needing to keep some troops back home to stop raids, buffing leather cannons wouldn’t really force people to stay in base the same way free uhlans do for Germany, we could give sweden highlanders age 2 as a replacement to corolean, but then we would have to give sweden a unit that is particularly strong against spies.
maybe a leather cannon buff isn’t enough to compensate for age 3 caroleans and they would need other compensation. the truth is there is no way to find out till its balance tested or let out into the public. still I believe it would be enough since Sweden age 2 eco is much stronger due to torps as well as hussar/pike cards. the civ has lots of interesting bonuses that feed into each other and I’m sure players can succeed with it if caroleans are locked to age 3.