Problematic Russian Changes

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
24

I have no particular opinion on the renaming of Rekrut and Poruchik, but Opolcheniye means “militia”. It is better to let Opolcheniye replace Militia, have 50% HP and attack of Militia but has twice the number.

Also, not sure about the idea of ​​changing Streltsy to musketeer type.

Some questions about Counter Skirmisher and Counter Dragoon:

  • Now that the unique skins have been designed for them, don’t give them up easily.
  • These units also serve as consulate units, so renaming them is more practical than dropping them.
  • It seems that there has not been a precedent for church cards to provide native units. Even if you replace them with native units, mercenaries, or outlaws in churches, those units still need new looks and names.

Some potentially useful or interesting names:

  • St. Petersburg Dragoon
    Since the technology is named St. Petersburg Dragoons, it makes sense for the unit to be called St. Petersburg Dragoon. Just bland.
  • Finnish Dragoon
    Active in the 19th century. The name is reminiscent of Hakkapelit, but it was the official name.
    If possible, Hakkapelit should go back to be ranged heavy cavalry as a base for Harquebusier, then give the Swedes generic Dragoons.
  • Stremyannye (or Stirrup Streltsy)
    The mounted Streltsy, Ivan IV’s elite private guard of 2,000 men, who accompanied him in all wars. They were the best members of the Moscow Streltsy.
  • Leib Guard Jager
    Russian Imperial Guard were officially known as the Leib Guard, so this is just renaming the tech and the unit as well. If purely Romanized Russian spelling is acceptable, “Jager” can be replaced with “Yeger”.
  • Zheldak
    Mercenaries during Tsar Alexis. From recruiting from dispossessed nobles and Boyar scions. Can be used to name infantry who use firearms.
  • Chevalier Guard
    Although we don’t need a name of heavy cavalry, I am interested in term Chevalier, a word that is rarely seen in AoE3.
  • Units of New Order Regiments:
    • Reytary
      Reiter in Russian. Consists mainly of landless gentry and boyar. Considered the most valuable unit in this regimes.
    • Draguny
      Dragoon in Russian. Consists of Cossacks, Streltsy and peasants.
    • Soldaty
      Soldier in Russian. Consists of serfs, served as pikemen or musketeers. Considered of limited use on the battlefield.
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25

considering recent events id strongly suggest against this.

i mean they aren’t going to remove a faction for that, though i will say the rework was kind of unexpected.

26

…And it’s not that historically they weren’t good soldiers. (Just to clarify).

27

It is already implemented as Northern Musketeers and the historic use of the Opolcheniye was far more extensive than what the militias at the Town Center are supposed to represent.

Every visual indicator screams musket infantry. They carry a big melee weapon and use the same pose as musketeers. Frankly, it’s kind of weird and unintuitive that they aren’t musketeers.

The Counter-Dragoons don’t have a unique skin, they look exactly like normal Dragoons. There’s absolutely zero reason to retain these units.

This could be a good way to retain the new Jaeger skin, it’s a synonym for Lifeguard anyways. The Leib Guard included a whole range of units, so this unit could be given the dismounting ability to utilize the currently unused mounted variant. It seems like that was the original intent, but they would have realized that a light cav/counter-skirm is a bad idea because it hard counters its counters just by dismounting. You have to pair unit types with the same counters like light cav/musket infantry or heavy cav/counter-skirm. To preserve their current role, Leib Guards could be heavy cav/counter-skirm since linking counter-skirms to the dismounting ability would solve a ton of problems.

Screenshot (219)

Is there any reason these must have firearms? Maybe it could be an alternate name for Poruchiks.

28

Iirc tilanus was well aware of this and quite happy so it seems to be accurate

29

Why? Pan-Slavism was about solidarity with their Slavic brethren in the Balkans and has nothing to do with current events. What they’re doing now is straight up denying that Ukrainians are something distinct from Russians which is entirely different.

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30

I’d like to leave it alone then.
It is better to make changes only within the civilization, without implicating the minor civ.

So why don’t just change its pose?

Making it musketeer type may change the meta a lot.

There the reason is.

Dropping them is unwise. The developers are more likely to create new skins to fit a new name for them than to replace them again with something else.

I’m not sure if there is an unused mounted version, but that’s not my intention. This complicates things in consideration of the Consulate.

The Imperial Russian Army is also informally known as the Tsarist Army, so maybe we could simply rename Counter Dragoon and Counter Jaeger to Tsarist Dragoon and Tsarist Jaeger as well. A lazy way however.

Strictly speaking no reason.
But my intention is to make it an available option for Counter Jaeger’s new name.
The closest word for Zheldak in English may be mercenary, which means that in the game, although they don’t have to be mercenary units, they should preferably be unique instead of regular units.

Soldaty of the New Order Regiments happens to consist of pikemen and musketeers, maybe with a little tweaking it could be an option for new names for heavy hand infantry and musketeers.

31

Because during development, streletsy were supposed to be a unique musketeer variant (which would be accurate) but were given a skirmisher role instead, for obscure reasons. We could just give the streletsy their heavy infantry tag and find a replacement for the skirmisher unit.

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32

I would say the minor civ is actually in more urgent need of fixes. At the very least they need to rename Northern Musketeers to Opolcheniye. But since Opolcheniye were often indistinguishable from regular troops I’d be greatly in favour of making them a standard unit instead.

No matter the pose, they still carry a huge axe which is not at all indicative of a light infantry unit. The bardische is literally the most iconic thing about them so removing that is a not really an option.

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Not at all, I’m simply suggesting the units swap roles with zero functional change. So your light infantry trained in batches of 10 goes from Streltsy to Opolcheniye, and your heavy infantry trained in batches of 5 goes from Rekruts to Streltsy. The only changes are to names and visuals.

What are you trying to preserve here? “Counter-Dragoons” have a complete shit name and use the standard Dragoon skin. The only difference between them and regular Dragoons is they have a stupid name and a x1.2 multiplier against light cavalry. They should get rid of this terrible idea, not double down on it.

I suggest doing this because they already have cool skins for both a mounted and foot version. The way counter-skirms currently work is so problematic that they’re essentially unworkable in their current form, and linking them with dismounting could be a possible fix.

Soldado is bad enough, I don’t think we need more similarly bad names.

34

Objectively speaking, this is not an urgent issue.

Personally, I neither object nor think it is necessary. letting people know that the reference of the Northern Musketeers may be from Opolcheniye may be pretty enough.

Units of minor civs usually have more generic names, which means they can be kinds of umbrella. For example, Northern Musketeers is a title that covers Opolcheniye, can symbolize various Northeastern European musketeer units and can represent them, not only Opolcheniye.

I don’t see anything wrong with the axe. Over 95% of their attacks are with firearms. Also, the Iron Troops use Guandao, and it was proposed to give the Longbowmen a bill.

Proposing to make them heavy infantry is fine, but just the axes or poses are not a very convincing reason to me. The fact that they were supposed to be designed as heavy infantry is more convincing, but finding suitable cheap skirmishers as a replacement is difficult.

You could even make Opolcheniye this particular term (or other more suitable particular term) for that replacement, while preserving Northern Musketeers this generic term and just giving the Northern Musketeers a new look to represent a different reference if necessary. An option to have as little impact as possible on things outside of the civ.

By “new name” I mean the new name that replaces Counter Dragoon. What I am trying to express is to give a name suitable for Russian dragoons. An appropriate skin for that new name, if necessary. Preserve they as dragoons.

This is far wiser than totally replacing the tech and the unit again. When you replace with mercenaries, outlaws, or native units, you still have to give them new names and new skins, and more has to be done to make up for the lack of consulate units.

35

I remember that one of the biggest disappointments of my gamer life was to see that the Strelet despite having a huge ax was incredibly weak in melee, it is literally the biggest melee weapon in AoE 3 (even the ax appears in his portrait, it is not very intuitive understand that the Strelet is a skirmisher).

One of the ideas I came up with was to give the Strelet the same behavior as the Pavisier (a skirmisher who gains different resistances depending on its assigned unit stance).

The melee/range attack switch would have animation, in melee mode the Strelet would march and in range mode he would have the Sharpshooter animation (I like this animation for skirmishers as it indicates that this unit is looking for cover).

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PS1: It would be great if the ax on the Strelet’s back was shown in ranged mode.

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PS2: Is it possible to wield that ax with one hand? :laughing:

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36

It’s an iconic weapon of the Streltsy. If they’re light infantry then it basically has to be minimized and hidden away, but if they’re heavy infantry it can feature prominently.

I’d say the guandao of Iron Troops is equally problematic. Some have suggested giving it the same role as Azaps and I think that would be a great solution. China has no shortage of light infantry options so they’re kinds redundant as they are now.

What’s wrong with regular Dragoons? The counter part is completely made up and sounds stupid.

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37

It’s also a decent idea.

There has never been a clear rule requiring this, right? Since 2005, they’ve been fine as a trash skirmisher with a big axe. Few people seem to be confused about what kind of infantry they’re supposed to be because of the axes.

The axes are really not a very important point. Focusing on this will not help you advocate for their switching to heavy infantry. I mean, I’m not really against them being heavy infantry, but the point is the axe?

The talk of Iron Troops switching to heavy infantry has more to do with making up for the absence of Chinese lineups than with their polearms.

Units offered by the church cards must be renamed, whether regular or otherwise. They can’t just be named “Dragoon”, which is why I searched and listed the potential names they could use as ranged powder light cavalry.

I don’t understand why you have had to be so aggressive and to keep cursing words like “stupid” and “shit”. Sorry but you appear very rude.

38

Yes, but it’s normal… considering that it’s one of the original European civs from AoE 3 and also because it serves as a link with the Rus from AoE 4… the French are the same, plus it’s a standard civ for the players try it and the strongest in the game…

Of course, more or less… the Goths don’t have a very good cavalry, but a lot of infantry is to spam…

I know…it’s just saying…I know that the Russian civ is more complex than that…

Yes, it’s more than Russia currently has a large population, just as the Chinese have 220 of pop…

Yes I agree…

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39

Since before the game was released they were intended to be a musketeer because it is much better fit for their armament. The only reason they were removed from that role is because they needed to displace another unit to make room for Streltsy, and removing Skirmishers from Russia is much more tenable than removing Musketeers. But now that Russia no longer has Musketeers, the only thing pinning Streltsy to the skirm role is gone.

On a side note, musketeers were always a big deal in Russian armies so it’s kind of sad to see them go. I think they could keep Suvorov Reforms as it used to be as a way to keep them as an option.

image Suvorov Reforms

Transforms all Streltsy into Musketeers (including home city shipments)

You don’t see the axe unless you put them into melee mode which is unfortunate because they should feature much more prominently. By the time you’re experimenting with something as advanced as switching stances, the concept that light infantry gets absolutely shredded in melee combat is firmly drilled into your mind.

The AoE3 community is generally pretty critical of AoE4, but they at least did Streltsy justice.

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You brought them up as a counterpoint to Streltsy. Why not kill two birds with one stone by making the role fit look and the civ?

This game has a huge diversity of units and memorizing each specific unit is a futile endeavor. You need to memorize unit classes, and these are telegraphed through common visual cues like stance and weaponry. Exceptions to this like Streltsy and Iron Troops just make the game more confusing and are a barrier to entry for learning the game.

Fair enough, that’s why I said get rid of the tech completely and replace it with something else. It could be something like this:

image Lifeguard Jaegers → Leib Guards

Sends Leib Guards and swaps out your Oprichnik shipments. If Leib Guards are going to be counter-skirms, then I think they should be dismounting ones that can turn into heavy cavalry (as should all counter-skirms).

This unit could realistically have basically any role since their style of uniform seems to have been used by drummers, chausseurs, musketeers, grenadiers, jaegers, and cavalry.

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Fair point, saying Counter-Dragoons are complete shit is a bit crass. But I’m going to be blunt about it and stand by saying they are objectively stupid. When the patch notes were released, everyone was scratching their heads wondering what these mystery “Counter-Dragoon” and “Counter-Jaeger” units could possibly be. Turns out there was no mystery, they were just questionable units with shockingly dumb names.

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That’s why I said @Josh1Axel’s suggestion is also a good idea to have them have different stats in different stances like Pavisers, so that they can use the power of axe in melee. It is obviously another one besides making them heavy infantry, if highlighting their axes is what you’re craving.

Let the mounted Counter Jaeger’s skin be the Counter Dragoon’s new skin, then rename the units to Leib Dragoon and Leib Jaeger respectively, and change the names of the techs to new names that fit the units.

41

But the Streltsy in AoE 4 is a light unit with bonus against cavalry…in AoE 3 the cavalry wipe out the Strelets, because they are light infantry; the Russians now have the Rekrut to defeat the cavalry…

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The unit classes in AoE4 aren’t equivalent to AoE3.

Which is exactly why Streltsy should be musket infantry. And I’ve already covered what’s wrong with the Rekrut.

Pavisiers are another good example of why that doesn’t work. They still suck in melee despite their spear and imposing look. Considering how they’re depicted in AoE2 I wish they would have had no malus against cavalry. That would also give them a point of uniqueness to contrast them with Bersagliere.

43

Yes, I know…it was just to exemplify…

But in that case you would have to take out the Rekrut and give the Russians a skirmisher unique unit…

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Yeah, that’s what this post is about…