This proposal is purely an idea for a mod, I don’t see the devs ever introducing this but I think it would be fun.
So my idea is to grant brits with an extra age up option that is granted by a member of British nobility rather than a politician. For each age up a new noble will be unlocked from each of the four nations of the British isles.
To advance into the Commerce Age an Irish noble, the Earl of Dublin, can be chosen. The benefits of choosing this option would be that it will unlock Irish Brigadiers (with their battle promotion mechanic) in Barracks and will allow them to collect food from hunted animals and livestock pens. When the new age arrives 5 Irish Brigadiers and a homestead wagon will arrive at the town centre.
To advance into the Fortress Age a Welsh noble, the Prince of Wales, can be chosen. The benefits of choosing this option would be that it will unlock a new unit the Welsh Fusilier, in the barracks, which will act like musketeers but will have a greater distance ranged attack and rate of fire, especially when defending allied buildings. Welsh Fusiliers will also be great engineers and will be able to construct walls, outposts, forts, tradeposts and docks. They will also be able to collect coin from mines. When the new age arrives, 10 Welsh Fusiliers and 2 outpost wagons (plus adds 2 to outpost build limit) will arrive at the town centre.
To advance into the Industrial Age a Scottish noble, the Duke of Edinburgh, can be chosen. The benefits of choosing this option would be that it will unlock two new units, the Royal Highlander in the barracks and the Scots Grey in the stable. The only difference with Royal Highlanders and regular Highlanders available in the tavern is that they will be affected by all the British musketeer’s home city upgrade cards making them the strongest highlanders in the game. Royal Highlanders will also be able to collect wood from trees. The Scots Grey unit will act as a cross between Hakkapelit and a Harquebusier, it will have a short ranged attack that will have multipliers against all other cavalry and a melee attack with a massive multiplier against artillery and skirmisher type units (one hit skirmishers / two hit artillery). Scots Greys will have extremely high movement speed but low base hit points. They will have extremely high resistance to ranged damage and siege damage but will be extremely venerable to anti-cav melee units, (such as pikemen, halberdier, samurai, doppelsoldner or musketeers in melee mode). When the new age arrives, 10 Royal Highlanders, 5 Scots Greys and a fort wagon will arrive at the town centre.
To advance into the Imperial Age an English noble, Queen Victoria, can be chosen. The benefits of choosing this option is that it will unlock three new units, the Coldstream Guards at the barracks, the Blues & Royals at the stables, and the Maxim Gun at the artillery foundry. The Coldstream Guards will replace regular grenadiers and will be trained in the barracks instead of the artillery foundry. Coldstream Guards will share the same maxed out stats as regular grenadier but will not have any negative multipliers against any units (cavalry or artillery). They will also produce a 0.1 experience trickle a minute per unit and be able to build any military building. The Blues & Royals will be a cavalry unit based around the French Cuirassiers and Royal Horseman. They will have the same attack stats as a maxed out imperial life guard hussar but with an additional area of effect of 2. They will have high hitpoints of over 1000. They will only be venerable to dragoon type units. Lastly the Maxim Gun will be based around the United States’ Gatling Gun, it will be extremely deadly to all infantry and cavalry with its only negative multiplier being against other artillery and buildings. When the new age arrives, 10 Coldstream Guards, 5 Blues & Royals, 2 Maxim Guns and a factory wagon (adds 1 to factory build limit) will arrive at the town centre.
Disclaimer: when a new noble is selected, all the special units provide by the previous noble are reverted back to the unit’s regular form. For example if going from the Commerce Age with the Earl of Dublin, to the Fortress Age with Prince of Wales, all Irish Brigadiers will revert back to standard musketeers. Or from the Industrial Age with the Duke of Edinburgh to the Imperial Age with Queen Victoria, all Scots Greys will revert back into standard hussars. Extra…
Players, if they choose, will be able to take any of the four nation’s nobles to the finial age if they do not select any new noble to age up with and only chose regular politicians instead.
The costs of each new age up will be as follows;
Commerce Age = 1000 food
Fortress Age = 1500 food + 1200 coin
Industrial Age = 2500 food + 1500 coin
Imperial Age = 5000 food + 5000 coin
These additional cost reflect the extra age up bonuses you get with each of the new age up options. This should also hold the brits back in age ups to hopefully nerf them slightly (although I’m aware this is a very OP mod).
All new units I have mentioned will be upgraded through the same mechanic as their base unit. For example when upgrading musketeers it will also upgrade Welsh Fusiliers and Royal Highlanders automatically. Same with hussars with Scots Greys and Blues & Royals. Same with grenadiers with Coldstream Guards and Royal Marines.
Some additional Home City cards that I think would be a nice addition for brits, with reference to the upgrades granted by nobles are as follows.
Lord Nelson (IV):
Doubles all ships’ rate of fire.
Allows ships to fire from both sides simultaneously.
Allows docks and all ships to train Royal Marines. (Royal Marines will be a new unit that with have similar stats as a Giant Grenadier but will have high siege resistance instead of melee resistance.)
Duke of Wellington (III):
Adds battle promotion to musketeers and rangers (hitpoints and attack)
Adds 5% speed increase to all units (as a result of Wellington Boots)
Will allow drummers to be trained from forts.
British East India Company (IV):
Sends 5 Jat Lancers and 10 Gurkhas
Sends one create of food, one create of coin and one create of wood (worth 300 resources total).
(Can send infinite number of times)
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading through my proposed mod. Honestly I’d be thrilled if any of my ideas were incorporates as part of anyone’s own mods, let alone for the entire mod to be made. This is also a very Brit centralised mod but I have ideas to do a similar mod for Germany (Hanover, Bohemia, Austria and Prussia) and Sweden (Denmark, Norway, Finland and Stockholm). Let me know your thoughts below…