I tried the civ a couple of time in some short games to test their unique meccanics and units, but due to my new job, I wasn’t able to try them any further (or even play any other games at all), so I would like to hear others opinions and feedback on them (apart from the caroleans that seems OP).
The civs really intrigues me, both for their historical units (the civs revolutioned the warfare at the time) and for their unique torps meccanic.
So what of them? Are they OP (besides of the caroleans)? What strategies or build orders did you people come up with?
they are 100% OP. theyre sorta slow to get going because your 2nd and 3rd shipment are used for boosting your torp gatherrate instead of setting up infrastructure such as the market, houses etc.
but once they get going you are an absolute economic powerhouse, far outscaling other powerfull nations like the Dutch, Japanese and British mid game. build some caroleans, the first batch you might just miss the 5th one but after that its a constant stream of caroleans, add a second barracks? no problem. they make counter units like crossbowmen or skirmishers? just ship leather cannons or punch them with your melee attack.
when youre finally aging to fortress age you can go straight to industrial and ship factories, i was producing caroleans from 2 barracks while aging and while having my next 1200 gold stacked up at the 15 minute mark.
other than that i do enjoy their mechnanics, a movement speed buff in melee adds a skill ceiling for high micro games, but there should be a downside to it. like a much lower ~14ish damage melee attack with multipliers vs cav. or a more expensive musketeer (kinda like india, ottomans and japan)
torps are cool and run out of steam after 20 minutes.
I think just changing the cost of caroleans is a bad idea as the civ would still be about massing this single unit.
Imo a better aproach would be to give a reasonable stats nerf to the unit, so it isnt so good vs everything, and alow swe to produce xbow. This way they can make (and need to make!) some decisions, instead of just spamming pure carolin vs the world, because its their only option.
Thats pretty much correct, also any sheep, cows etc you find you can just kill next to your torps and they will gather from them nicely, only one can be gathered at the same time, same with huntable animals. they can recieve shipments and gather from crates, idk how viable this is but you could ship your 700 wood to a torp and then let it gather it over time instead of wasting a villager’s time.
Age 1 is played like everyone else. You gather your crates, build a house(torp), ship 3 villagers and then put all your vills on food for aging. then as soon as you clicked the age up button you move everyone to wood. your 2nd shipment will be blue berries, once that arrived you start pumping out torps. a blue berry bush gathers at double the rate and has double the food in it compared to a normal bush. the 3rd card will be Iron works, once that is in you dont even need any villagers on gold.
you build some militairy like usual but most of your vills are either on wood or food. you probally want a market aswel to get both hunting upgrades.
Just an equal mass of Musketiere or maybe 10% larger since they cost less and own cannons should do the job. Attack move is utterly broken for meele units as well.
So I was able to try them again yesterday, I played them as @ChillTripod3316 suggested, after the age up, spamming torps with blueberries and iron works, I struggled more than I thought…
I did win, but there were things that I’m not convinced about it:
First of all, I concentrated on food and aging up, no problem here (besides not having a shipment of vills, apparently there is a bug with the deck management). I age up a bit later, with the logistician, to have an arsenal and a barracks, ready, then I started spamming torps on gold mines (4 for each that found) and among hunt/berries, I was able to add a second barracks and spamming caroleans, but on torps alone I wasn’t able to accumulated enough gold to click for the third age.
I still won, because caroleans are beasts, and because I think that my adversary wasn’t really good (not that I am…) and failed to take advantage of my numerous set back, still… my aim is to improve my Swedish strategy and build order, so I will probably thy again as soon as I can, any suggestions?
Also, I researched a ton of upgrades for caroleans in the arsenal, since I was able to build it early and for free with all the advanced upgrades, but are they really worth?
I have some pieces of advice that I can give you. First of all is to build more Torps per mine, if you can. I believe it is possible to get at least five of them placed around a mine in such a way that they can all still gather from it. You can do a lot with Sweden in Age II, so you don’t have to rush to III unless that is specifically part of your strategy. Have a few Leather Cannons in your army to support your Caroleans and if you want better raiding cavalry, send in the March of the Hakkapelits card to enable Hakkapelits in Age II. This should be plenty enough for intermediate level PvP games. I’m not much better than that, so I can’t give you advice for games against more advanced opponents. It will work against the Extreme AI too, although that probably isn’t much to brag about. Also, instead of researching all the Arsenal upgrades for the Caroleans, rather focus on training more of them. However, they do benefit a lot from Socket Bayonet and Marching Drums (or whatever its called), because that buffs them at what they are already good at, namely charging enemy troops with their swords.
Yeah I started with 4 because I wanted to get up to 8 around a mine, but there is a minimum space between them, but I was able to carefully place 6 around the last mine.
Yeah don’t worry me neither I just wanted to share some opinions on the civs both for curiosity and to improve my strategy.
Yeah but I had some resources spared, only after I researched them I saw that I lack the gold for the third age.
I found that war drums helped a lot, even just to faster rush the enemy base and having more mobility across the map, though you can also research paper cartridges and flintlock, to improve their ranged attack…
So what do I prioritize? Bayonets and war drums to further improve their mobility and charge, or paper cartridges and flintlock to compensate a bit their lower ranged attack?
Yeah I always ship them
Is it worth though? I’m still trying to figure out the best shipments, and besides the torps’ ones, I usually prioritize improvements for caroleans and resources.
I think 6 Torps is about the maximum you can fit around a mine, so that’s good if you can manage it. Sometimes I only manage to fit five.
As for which Arsenal upgrades to prioritise, I’d say definitely Socket Bayonet and War Drums (thanks), because I would rather double down on what the Caroleans are already good at than trying to upgrade them into a role that they still won’t be good at in the early game, namely that of a normal Musketeer. With their melee charge, I have found that they can wreck Commerce Age Musketeers one-on-one in melee and will do the same to pretty much any melee infantry in that age except for Doppelsoldners or Landsknechts. You can charge Skirmishers or Crossbows with them too if you want, though I prefer using my Leather Cannons or cavalry to take those out. I have seen some videos of high level players just charging Skirms/Xbows with the Caroleans and winning.
Regarding the Hakkapelits, I would say they are indeed worth it. They are devastating against Skirmishers or Crossbows because of their high melee attack and if you happen to run into Musketeers with them, you can kite the Musketeers using their ranged attack, although that takes some skill to avoid getting snared, in which case you will lose them quickly. For this reason they are also difficult to use against Pikemen, since those are quite fast. When you aren’t using the Hakkapelits to slaughter Skirms/Xbows or to kite Muskets, you can hunt Settlers with them. The cost difference between them and Hussars is very small and only necessitates a slight shift in the balance of your economy.
Personally, I find Jaegers very useful once you get access to them, but Black Riders and Landsknechts less so. The Black Riders feel too expensive for how vulnerable they are to Skirmishers and even artillery and the Landsknechts just never quite seem a better proposition than more Caroleans. In any case, I do suggest using the mercs, even if it is just the Jaegers. This is especially true because the Swedish economy is geared for gold production much more than food in the late game (if you make it there).
Mmm ok, I hoped that they had some melee cavalry mercenarys, but they don’t.
Then I added the fusilier, as they could work as standard musketeers and can be called in the second age, and I was thinking of adding landsknechts, but I’ll try jagger too…
Yeah but it takes a lot of attention…
Mmm ok thanks
As for politicians if I may ask, what do you presefer usually? I used the logistician because onestly the other doesn’t seem to offer that much… [quote=“MoreSquirrel126, post:13, topic:106095”]
Regarding the Hakkapelits, I would say they are indeed worth it. They are devastating against Skirmishers or Crossbows because of their high melee attack and if you happen to run into Musketeers with them, you can kite the Musketeers using their ranged attack, although that takes some skill to avoid getting snared, in which case you will lose them quickly.
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Mmm I usually use more tankier cavalry, and using a shipment for training them earlier seem a bit of a waste (I prefer to send the shipment to train infantry faster) but I’ll try them more the next time…
I don’t think the Fusilliers are necessary in Commerce. I think it would be better to use that gold for more Caroleans or for cavalry. I prefer the Logistician too for Commerce. It’s nice to have that Barracks up quickly and to have the Arsenal ready for when you do have the resources to get the upgrades.
Ok so I read the balance changes, and swedes received a lot of reworks, more of them towards a general nerf.
The two main changes in my opinion are:
The nerf on iron works for torps:
This was necessary, as sweden, I think I never had to put any vill on gold, and a nerf of only 25% on the gather rate I don’t think it will be a big deal.
It basically means that you just have to squeeze one torp more on the gold mine (from 4/5 to 5/6).
The nerf on caroleans:
The nerf on their melee atk was needed, and it’s pretty straightforward, so nothing to talk about that now, but I’m not convinced about the new charge meccanics.
I mean, I get it that an automatic speed boost in melee its too much, but having an 8 seconds speed boost and then a minute and an half for the reload seems unbalanced.
Did some of you tried yet? Are they balanced, still OP, or weak now?
Torps are problem. Good player just spam them in whole map and its hard to counter this nonsense.
Now started to use walls to counter torps. From early start im building walls around mines. That slows down swedes and their stupid house spam around mines.
I think they are ok right now, a little bit above average but far from being the dominant powerhouse it was before. There are more urgent targets for balance right now
I just wanted to share some opinions on the civs both for curiosity and to improve my strategy.