Nerf caroleans? A little too absurd? V2

Well Boyars should be one of your first cards when you are timing pushing so at that stage of the game you really should have at least that. I dont think its irrealistic to ask for the player to have carded strelets.

Now i agree that strelets are VERY pop heavy and they are not the best, but thats the russian design a civ with mediocre units that need to be massed to “zerg rush the opponent”. The problem is that the civ has not survived the meta.

Yeah masses of Hakkas are excelent vs russia. It can hand kill the strelets, and gun down cossack and its still nice vs cav archers (albeit not recomended)

Yes, if we look solely at the ranged attack of a Carolean, is actually weaker then of a Musketeer, but have the multipliers against cavalry.

The thing is they melee attack is so strong that they can shred anything that is not heavy cavalry with their swords, including units like crossbow/skirmishers, that where in the game to counter they.

I sincerely think that the problem with the Carolean is not their speed, neither the Svea Lifeguard cards. It’s the melee attack that makes they so strong.

Yeah, true. On the original game Russia age 2 was the second best of the game (Behind just the Ottomans, but Russia economy eventually outscales the Ottomans one), but new civilizations with strong age 2 where added into the game (Hauds/Iro, Aztecs, India, Sioux, India, Spain Logistician, Inca, etc), plus buffs on defensive civilizations like Dutch (That Russia used to beat), all of that contribute to the fact that the Age 2 play for the Russians ain’t that good anymore.

As a matter of fact the new meta as Russia is a semi-ff, thanks to the multiple TC meta, now the batch training of the Russians are a significant advantage. But this further intensifies the pop problem that Russia have with Strelets. And generally you send boyars already on age 3 nowaydays.
Also, none of the Russian cards corrects the core problem of the Strelets, of having such a low range and getting picked off by other units.

And I don’t actually mind Russia being a semi-ff civilization, I just wish that they have the proper tool (A skirmisher with decent range) to fight on age 3 if they gonna be a semi-ff civilization.

  • Ranged multiplier against cav
  • Better melee but no melee multiplier against cavalry
  • (Maybe) The charge ability.
  • (Maybe) Faster firing rate but lower base damage (<- this actually makes little difference unless with constant micros)

----- Stop here. This is already unique enough for a regular unit. -------
There is no need to stack more uniqueness like:

  • Melee multiplier against infantry.
  • Longer range.
  • Ranged resistance.
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I am curious there were always some guys argued they are happy with carolean that has so much unique skills, and ask me to go back to play AOE2 if I want to remove any skill from carolean in the similar topics before.

But now seems most people are agreeing to remove range resistance from svea lifeguard.

However, I would still consider the main problem for Sweden is torps prior to carolean.
That’s why he got more caroleans than strelets and Sweden was in age4 but Russia was only in age3.
Eco leads the game.

I took that from Reddit:

Have in mind that Sweden is/ was suppose to complement their army with mercenaries HOWEVER Caroleans counter so many things as a “Musketeer”, that it literally makes no sense having any other units. How many VODs with Hakkapelits, Halberdiers, Pikemans and Hussars have you ever seen? Serious design flaw here.

  • They have a dumb bonus against other musks at range so they beat them at range;
  • Highest melee resistance among all musketeers and highest melee damage too. It makes them great at hand to hand fights;
  • Oh, yeah: They also shoot faster (2.5) than all basic musketeer ( 3) from all other civs;
  • Shock infantry can’t beat them because they have x1.5 bonus vs them and they are formidable in melee;
  • The same thing applies vs light infantry, specially because of their charge attack and high speed. It means archers and skirmishes will barely kill them (specially because hand attacks are double the rate of fire of ranged attacks) so Caroleans will eat them in hand-to-hand charges;
  • On top of that they have ridiculous cards that increase their range, multipliers and armor (making them better vs all in-game infantry). And I’m not even counting the general infantry cards and techs;
  • No musk or infantry has so many cards…british muskeeter has 3 combat cards + industrial upgrade that yelds just 10% buff. Sweden has 3 combat cards+ 2 broken cards + 40% cheaper industrial upgrade that yelds 30% buff. Tell me these guys aren’t stacked af.

If they just put Caroleans in line with the Musketeer category…you know: bonus vs cavalry/shock in hand mode only. That would open the path to make players use mercs as intended.
They are already special for having high melee damage, charge attack and 50% more armor than other musks. No need to stack them with so many bonuses.

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It’s both my brother! Issue nº1 = torps, issue nº2= Caroleans.

People naively believe torps are worth half a villager. So they relate 1 torp = 50% of a villager, 2 torps= 100% villager, 4 torps= 2 villagers and so on. They think torps are worth 10 villagers at best because you can only build 20 of them. Sorely mistaken:

  • 1 torp is 50% of a villager for each resource= 50% wood, 50%coin, 50% food

  • But 2 torps are actually equal to 3 villagers, 1 for every resource (100% wood, 100% coin, 100% food ). Therefore 20 torps are actually 30 vills and not 10.

  • And that’s not counting Ironworks that increases coin by 100% (so they are worth 40 villagers) or blueberry that doubles that gather rate too (so they are worth 50 vills) at max housing. Imagine civilizations having a card that keeps doubling the amount of settlers sent to a single resource and tell me it’s balanced.

  • No market tech or card buff villagers as much as that. Hunting dogs and steel traps =+10%& +20%; Royal mint card =25%, Refrigeration=20%

  • It’s an easy mechanic that does not resemble age of empires: It makes micromanagement far too easy (3 vils= 450hp, 2 torps= 3200hp) because it makes harder to punish their eco (torps spread around map) as they keep producing villagers too.

  • It’s literally a resource transference from the map to your HUD.

I can prove you that Britain*, Japan** and Incan don’t come close to that (well, Japan does come closer). This mechanic IS NOT healthy to the game but the devs keep pushing it. GOD FORBIDS US OF HAVING THIS NON SENSE IN THE AFRICAN EXPANSION.

*British (2 manors= 2 villagers VS 2 torps= 3 villagers, )
**Japan (1/3 of the resources + 1 resource at a time+ need of hunts alive + need of toshogu shrine soon+ heavenly kami VS Torps better at everything)

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Agree, i just want to add that the carolean is a badly designed unit from the very start (it is obvious since week one). Especially the range resistance makes them eat every supposed to be counter (except canons). So there is no reason to ever do anything different than caroleans + some canons/culvs and the occasional OP mameluke shipment (which they for some reason have).
Also having like 6 cards stack on one unit on top of having full arsenal is just unheard of and part of the reason they are so broken beyond repair. Most civs only have like 3 cards affecting their best units (if any).
My suggestions:

  • Remove Svea lifeguard
  • Remove infinite 6 mameluke (maybe replace with stratoit or some other mercenary cav) - That would also make historically more sense
  • remove 33% of torp HP so it is easier to punish
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@Khorix9572
Carolinean is too strong, it’s a meme.
Strelet needs at least 18 range at age 3 to play his skirmish role. This can be done through a politician, or church technology or card.

My humble opinion.

I feel like russia could have the following
Strelet scale into 20 range by the 2 following ideas

1st through cards
Boyars give +2 range
Strelet combat give +2 range
That is for a total of 18 by fortress and they’ll get 20 with the +2 of imperial

2nd Through aging up.
Veteran Upgrade +2 range
Guard Upgrade +2 range
That is for a total of 18 by fortress and they’ll get 20 with the +2 of imperial

Or a simple solution give russia skirms by fortress they cost f/g and already have 20 range

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Strelets have pretty good speed to compensate for their lack of range.

The only matchup that might be unfair in favour of caroleans I would say is grenadiers because of charging melee mode.

Just want to point out that USA has a unit with 17 range very cheap like strelets and they run at 5.22 speed Strelet only 4.95

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Militia have only 13 range without a card and costs a whole 35 wood each, meanwhile the russian strelet only costs 10 wood each.

4.5 base speed is still pretty good, Ordinary skirmishers only have 4.0 speed.

“cheap like strelet”, strelet is 37f 10w and state militia is 50f 35w or something like that not sure, and state milita has 4.75 of speed and strelet 4.5 of speed, and the problem does not come from the speed but from the HP that the state militia gains btw

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but I do not see where the problem is with the strelet tbh, this unit is great ( strelet boyard and age 3 card is so so great for the cost ), it does not need to be compared to another unit it make no sense tbh, the unit is so so cheap and it allows to make rapid aggression, and above all you can make a ton of it, it is precisely the russia’s design right, to make a ton of unit and overwhelm your opponent, the problem with russia is not strelet, it is the musk which is too expensive for me, it should be at 271f

But ofc russia has some very very bad mu and swede is one of them so

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Strelet are one of the most cost efficient units in the game, I think the main issue with russia is the lack of strong anti cav.

Damn. First Khorix, than SirCallen and now Kevin is here.

I’m starting to feel a bit inadequate. :sweat_smile:

But on the topic: I do understand the fact that the Strelet is quite cheap. But they have such a low range that they are always getting picked of by normal skirmishers, and they don’t catch Dragoons as well. (Because their range is so low, they cannot snipe Dragoons from afar like other skirmishers, this means that Dragoons almost always run away safe from the Russian army)

And this is quite problematic for Russia since their meta now is leaning towards the Fortress Age much more than were previously, but they still don’t have any unit composition that can kill Skirmishers/Dragoons effectively.

I understand that some people might find out that increasing the range of the Strelets might make they quite overpowered. And this might be true. That’s why I think that the best solution is probably a optional skirmishers unit to the Russian, this can be archived by some sort of age up politician, a church upgrade or maybe even some card, instead of a buff to the Strelets.
But that’s my opinion.

I mean, Cav. Archer are actually quite good against heavy cavalry, if you don’t consider the fact that they don’t catch raids.

But this can be sort of circumvented by in-base blockhouses, because since blockhouses fire have a multiplier against cavalry, kind of discourages cavalry raids (Especially Uhlas ones) since a lot of the times you lose one or two units by making a trip into a Russian base that have blockhouses on it.
Although, this do make Russia give the concession of not having as much map control, and things starts becoming problematic again on Fortress Age onward when your settlers need to be all over the place.

I will admit it thought: Cav. Archer is not as bad as I thought that they were previously.
Although, they don’t kill Dragoons because of their lower speed and low attack. (Dragoons can just shoot at them and run because of the extra speed, so the second arrow don’t connect, making the 1.5 fire rate kind of useless), they are actually quite good at their main job that is killing heavy cav.

If you revolt to Romania as Russia, you will see the civ suddenly becomes very well rounded. Romania grants 1 pop, 18 range skirmisher that’s easily massable due to Russia infantry train cards, and the wallachian horse archer is fast and fires hilariously fast, and is a good match for dragoons.

They also have the straidot (or whatever the name of the merc hussar is), which can be an addition of tanky cavalry if you need it.

Optionally, the hungarian revolution grants the same skirmisher unit IIRC, and the special hussars. This will work against civs with weaker goons.

IMO, Russia is kind of forced to revolt in the late game as it stands.

That is just bad and revolt even after buffs is still bad :stuck_out_tongue:

Alright here I bring a different perspective to dealing with caroleans and bear in mind that after playing with an open mind against any swede. I’ve won some games prior to them reaching industrial as Russia but mainly I was able to take that fight before they got industrial

Here in **GAME 1 ** you can see results as to why I understand having better range for strelets can be a better option rather than nerfing swedes to the ground. In Game 1 I was in a close position where close to the 1st short video in this post where I have to use a skirm unit to kill carolean and in this one it got even worse as the guy had mamelukes. Please understand that russia has no unit beside canons with more than 14 range leaving them weak. And canons play leaves you with slow army comp plus having to wall if you want to effectively use them

Game 1

Game 2

In the 1st short video about this post I had posted I’m showing why strelet need range and/or why caroleans need nerf. You may see a difference in just being age behind and trying to do the same stuff kill caroleans with skirms

This is the 1st short video

Having seen these videos you can notice a couple of things.

1 - Russia strelets can’t really fight being 1 age below against caroelans which are musk but they really got near to no chance
2 - With any civ that has a skirm type unit with more range [ As shown in the video of GAME 1] than carolean then they are demeed to do well it is just that you need to be able to kite them which as russia you can’t as Strelet 14 range and Caroleans 15 range @.@ And they really become monsters by Industrial

After watching and analyzing I feel like nerfing Svea lifeguard and mamelukes will leave Swedes in a hole and I for one just want balance above all. You could say that they have Jaegers but that’s not a reliable card nor unit for its cost. It is a good unit don’t get me wrong but any other skirm with same range or a good fight with a couple of canons and Jaegers go poof. Have to keep in mind that it is a bigger investment to invest in Jaegers than it is to invest in normal skirms while they pay off might not be as big

So it will leave swede with a close problem like Russia where they will lack range to fight some comps And have to rely on canons a slower army comp. Sometimes you might be able to use Jaegers but as explained might not be as good to use.

The main Idea of the 2 videos where I show the same strat but with different results one being properly done and the other one where I miss can show that Swede does have big flaws and nerfing on what is useful could lead to bigger flaws that would require different approach. I would definitely like to see infinite mamelukes go away or lifeguard bur rather than that as the post is mainly asking for a nerf to carolean vs Strelets I believe Strelet just need more range and I feel like 16 or even 18 range by fortress does not break the Strelet unit as any skirm would still effectively kite if they wished as pull trick is something that exists in this game. But it would allow strelets to deal better against what they are supposed to counter which is Musks/Lightcav

If the nerfs for swede go trough I feel like they will need to enable skirms for them

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SweVSHaud.age3Yrec (4,7 MB)

I am going to make my little contribution to this issue with a REC. The only thing I can say, apart from the fact that one gets tired of spending the whole game knocking down houses and pushing the Swede, is that the Carolingians were too strong most of the game, they were able to kill my skirms and cannons and it was not by mistake mine that this happened, they tank a lot the truth already with svea, and I did not face them with strelets, I faced them with marauders of the forest, only when I was able to give them the improvements of the advanced arsenal they were effective against them.
PS: Things like that happen to me in 100% of the games, Sweden is not fair, it must be balanced please!

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