Move Caroleans To The Fortress Age

Caroleans are actually quite weak on age 2 already, removing them is not the right way to nerf the Swedes IMO.

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if they are quite weak in age 2 then moving them to age 3 and buffing leather cannons would be a net buff to the civ. as said several times, its not about nerfing or buffing, but about making them more micro intensive, as the xbow/pike split with leather/hussar support is more mechanically demanding to pull off.

if locking caroleans to age 3 makes them too weak or too strong, they can be buffed/nerfed in other areas, such as torps/starting crates/leather cannons. there are many, many ways to achieve a 50% winrate, and doing so by encouraging aggression and micro would be a net positive for the civ.

I know Caroleans can be OP but moving them to age 3 is a bad idea. Now Sweden is stuck with only pike and crossbows
 Unless you’re Russia, muskets in age 2 is the expensive option.

And if you really want all musketeers to be moved to age 3, then you’ll have to explain how the ottomans will be reworked since they literally won’t have any age 2 infantry. In essence, you will have to rework the majority of the civs just to “nerf Sweden”, which is extremely counter productive.

This proposal is a giant nope for me.

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The whole argument that well Sweden can just use crossbows and pike like other people in age 2 is kinda stupid because literally no one builds crossbows or pike in age 2 unless they are really poor or a bad player, either one you are going to lose

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it is right there in the opening post, there is a link explaining how. read the opening post before asking me to explain. getting Ottomans, Japan, India and Sweden off of muskets in age 2 will make them much more micro intensive.

by that logic the British, Germans, and the Chinese are just a myth, and Dutch just lose every time to a hussar rush age 2 since they apparently have no counter. Spanish players never make pikes, and French/Port players never make crossbows.

people do build archers and pikemen in age 2, and they do succeed with them. reducing foundry and leather cannon costs would allow them to see more play, and if Sweden somehow still struggles with a 4 unit comp, then there are plenty of ways to buff them.

besides, with the amount of people telling me that caroleans are terrible in age 2, this should be a net buff.

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Building mass wood armies in age2 is essentially an all-in.

Out of the civs you mentioned, only British has a prelonged age 2 play,all others prefer FF.

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English player always make musketeer or long bowman, German player always ff, and just have uhlans in age 2, French and Portuguese alway build musks in age 2, Spanish I honestly don’t see being played too much, but they generally seem to wait and just build lancers, early game they can just build musks like the rest. Dutch you do have to build pike if you get rushed by hussars, but since people mostly build musketeers early game you can usually build skirms and your good

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Building hussars yourself, coupled with minuteman or an output is essentially capable of holding any hussar rush, without pikemen.

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True, I personally never build pikemen or cross bows, but apparently some people do like to use them. I very rarely see them being used myself

Only Germany is kind of forced because of their weak age 2. But even there, you can dish out uhlans and some xbows. As I said, mass wood army in age 2 is an all-in, because wood is gathered slow, and you need quite a lot of villagers to both get houses and wood army. Your economy will be super slow, and you will get to fortress way too slowly.

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Sweden similar to brits and Inca can boom in age 2, and can afford to make wood cost units. if locking Caroleans makes some swede players choose to ff instead of boom in age 2 that’s already a win, though several players here insist that muskets are never made past age 2. and unlike them, they have access to artillery in age 2 through leather cannons, which is a massive advantage.

as I’ve said before, balance can be easily achieved through numbers tuning. if they are too weak or too strong there are multiple levers to get them to a 50% winrate, such as through torps, leather cannons, starting villagers and crates, and cards.

So essentially your saying we would go back to constant nerfing and buffing that happened to Sweden at the beginning of de until they finally became balanced, and in the meantime Sweden becomes tourney banned and messed up on the ladder, this would especially not work now because we have been getting less balance patches lately as the game already is decently balanced, I’n order for this to work we would have to get patches at the rate we did at the start of de, and those patches were mostly cleaning up the mess, it was a horrible time and it makes zero sense to go back there after all the progress that was made that took us out of that time.

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I’m saying that we should introduce a trade off between staying in age 2 and booming and advancing to age 3 like other civs, and increasing the micro potential required in age 2 while buffing leather cannons to see more play. I think I’ve repeated it ten times already, but people seem more interested in arguing statements and points I never made.

and I’m all for more patches for Sweden and in general. that you don’t believe the balance team is up to the task is a different issue. I also don’t think the game is in a good place. water sucks, otto/natives need changes, attack move/pathing/cannon control still terrible, some mercenaries/ cards/politicians/native outposts and units are still trash and never see play, and much more. we still don’t have a reconnect feature and the online system in general is still worse, and mod support/ai can better too. why would i want less patches when the game does not live up to expectations?

Yeah you never said that we would change it then need to change it again afterwards

Assuming this isn’t you of course

So removing the best Swedish anti Cav unit in exchange for buffing a unit that’s weak to cav, what could go wrong?

Tell that to port Spain and Inca

Agreed, not sure if you mean native civs or native trade posts but I think both need changes, otto could also use a small eco boost.

Mainly artillery blank firing and melee unit pathing could use some fixing

I think every politician is fine other than the engineer, mercenaries are actually very strong with the exception of arsonists, most native outposts need a buff, I think native trade post should cost 150 wood so they see more usefulness.

Reconnect needs to be added indeed, mod support could use more work

You see, this is the problem with the corolean thing, doing an extreme change like that causes catastrophic effects, just look at what happened when they made a buff to Spainish logistician, now we have one of the most OP civs in the game for a couple months already, or look how changing Dutch gather rate of gold by 5% made them a high A tier civ when they used to be a C tier civ, it simply doesn’t make sense to make so many catastrophic changes to something that could be solved with some small ones.

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I honestly don’t know what your are trying to say here. did you take my reply as a counterpoint to your post about needing more patches? because I definitely believe we would still need them. or is it something else?

pikes are adequate anti cav in age 2, just look at other civs that use them such as dutch, britain, china, inca, aztecs, germany, lakota in mirrors, and spain. and if they are too weak or too strong, they can be buffed or nerfed.

water sucks in that its not fun or easy to use, not that it cant be strong or weak. i do not enjoy water in this game, and I believe most players don’t either.

I’m fine with the game changing if it results in a better game, even if the changes are massive and can have unintended consequences. we already have new things that change the game balance such as new revolutions and civs, euro vills that can make town centers, and the removal of alt-d + boxes.

I want to see the Spanish logistician be more dog focused, that in itself is a huge change and may cause balance issues with the current numbers, and that’s ok. making minor natives useful and only costing pure food may also cause balance issues, and that’s ok too. because once the numbers are retuned, we will have a better game for it.

Sweden cannot afford to go through age 2 without caroleans. Many civs that do half naked FFs have unit cards in age 2 that cover up their weaknesses. Sweden has none. If you take away caroleans, a simple musket push will end them in age 2, regardless of how good they are with micro xbows, simply because musketeers are overall easier to mass due to no wood cost.

It is already doubtful that Germany has a good design anyway, their only saving grace is the free uhlans, otherwise they’d be completely helpless in age 2 (they die to an age 2 push too anyway against a determined opponent).

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Sweden has 2 leather cannon shipment which is among the strongest age 2 anti musket shipment in the game, and I don’t mind giving them back their Xbow shipment as well. this also feeds back into buffing leather cannons and reducing their costs, to further their ability to defend against infantry pushes age 2.

so now Sweden has a choice, use micro intensive xbow/pikes/hussars and leather cannon while torp booming, just like brits, aztecs and inca, or rush to age 3 for easier to micro caroleans and falconets.

I also agree that German design could be better, buts that’s a topic for a different post.

The only reason that looks so now is because there’s caroleans to cover them. Without caroleans, they will be cornered and killed off. Pikemen cannot defend them properly against other HI.

I get that you feel like caroleans are too good, but there’s other ways to make things balanced, like introducing skirmishers and taking away some of the carolean bonuses, not making yet another civ go FF every game.

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Dutch, Chinese and aztec are considered bad anti cav civs in age 2, Lakota clubs are a beefy version or the pike that gets used slightly more because of their siege, Germany really can’t use pikes that effectively, generally as a German you counter cav by using your own cav since you’ll always out number your opponent because of you training uhlans, and getting a few extra with shipments, brit don’t use pike ever unless against japan for their siege.

I’m saying that there is no way to tell the effect, it’s going to hurt balance more than fix it

It’s easy to use but it isn’t very fun.

The thing is, it isn’t going to help making a better game if it has unintended consequences that hurt balance, and with a change this extreme there simply is no way to see how this plays out

It really isn’t ok to cause balance issues with the current numbers since that kills the competitive player base, but I guess there can’t possibly be something worse to balance than how the current logistician already is.

Pure food will almost definitely cause balance problems when there are more creative ways like buffing the native techs that are also less dangerous

Different =/= better, it’s much easier and much more efficient to make small changes and get the same result, witch is an almost 50% win rate, look at this from a devs point of view that there are other civs that need changes, the devs would have to spend so much work on balancing one civ in a way that makes them different and balanced at the same time, when they could have just made them balanced by doing a small change, then all that wasted time means that other problems like Spain and japan get neglected because everything was focused on sweden, when they could have done all 3 in the same time by making small changes rather than moving the civs main unit to an entirely different age and going from there to dedicate a few more patches to balancing one civ.

Yeah maybe dont make a change to a not even year old civ that has never been done as far as i am aware (turning a musk based civ in age 2 into an archaic unit civ)
Cant we just make small steps to balance swe and see how it goes? (Nerf torps, nerf svea, maybe take away exiled prince)

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