Radical idea: make all Royal Guards unique units

[ArrivedLeader22]

In fact it may not be as radical as it sounds because we’re only one step before it.

Facts:

1. We already have unique RG models and effects.
2. We also have full sets of British musketeer models, and a unique model for unupgraded Russian cav archer. Not counting the Dutch skirmisher because it is not an RG.
3. The line between RG upgrades and standard upgrades have blurred. There are multiple standard upgrades that grant different bonuses.
4. There are RG upgrades that go backwards, such as the Maltese and Italian artillery that switch from an 18th artilleryman to a Renaissance one. It would be more consistent if they are Renaissance from the very beginning.

I sense that many of these works are preludes of turning RGs into real unique units.

Notice: this change can be purely aesthetic.
My thoughts for the RG-turned-unique units are to follow the same design as the Russian “unique” units:

1. They also have unique unupgraded and veteran models (some units only need one more model as they start with veteran).
2. They can still have exact same stats as the standard version, and the same upgrades as their current ones and the same unique RG effects. If rekurt as a standard musketeer+a tech can be considered unique then so can these units.
3. They use their RG names from the unupgraded version (some may need to be tweaked). The guard upgrade does not necessarily have to change the name if it’s hard to find a good one. I’ll talk about that later.
4. Again like the Russian “unique” units and revolutionary variants, they have a similar portrait as their standard counterpart to improve identifiability.

[ArrivedLeader22]

As for names, the biggest problem I see with the current system is that many unique units are already very unique, and it’s hard to find another unique name if the unit is also an RG, so some name changes are quite awkward and unneccesary. If all RG are unique units now, we don’t have to force a name change for these units.

Older stuff

Also, some unit names that might be tweaked if we were to make the change:
British hussar: “guard life guard” sounds odd. It could start with a generic “trooper” then life guard as the guard upgrade.
German skirmisher: needle gunner is too advanced for age 3. It could be schutzen then upgrade into needle gunner.
French skirmisher: same. Maybe chasseur then voltigeur.
Portuguese musketeer and dragoon: the Portuguese legion is also too late for the early game. I cannot find good names for them though. Also I dislike the fact that both upgrades refer to the same historical unit. Need help. Maybe the dragoon can revive the previous “jinete” reference.
Russian grenadier: “Pavlov” is also just one regiment (and a very late one) so I always think there could be a better name. Unfortunately I cannot find one either. Need help.

The rest can directly use their current RG names as the base names and do not necessarily have to change with the guard upgrade (cool if there are good names though)

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EDIT: now that I’m bored let me try to come up with a full list.
Guard upgrade name change in brackets. No change if empty (it would be simply called “Royal Guard XXX” then “Imperial Guard XXX”.

British: Redcoat; Trooper (Life Guard)
In fact most English cavalry in 16~18th century were simply called “Troop” or “Regiment of Horse”, so finding a good name is very difficult. And because it is English, we cannot directly transliterate a generic name from another language like “soldado” XD…but as we have “soldado” and “regular” then why not “trooper”. Another option would be Household Cavalry (Life Guard).

French: Chasseur (Voltigeur); Cuirassier
The guard model is still a cuirassier. Gendarme as heavy cavalry is a renaissance thing and later gendarme are light cavalry and play lesser roles than cuirassiers. Hence I think the name makes little sense.

Dutch: Stadwacht; Ruyter (Karabinier)

Germans: Schutzen (Needle Gunner); Uhlan
We can keep the “Prussian Uhlan” upgrade but it is unnecessary.

Italians: Spingarde; Galilean Mortar (?)
Spingarde is a much earilier artillery type than culverin so that’s why I think it should be a separate unit other than an upgrade to the culverin.
Galileo did not directly involve in military practices. The name fits better as an upgrade but not as a unit. If we are going for late Renaissance artillery, maybe simply use Bombard Mortar.

Maltese: Arbalester; Basilisk

Russians: Dvoryane; Bombardier (Semyonov Grenadier)
Peter the Great had “bombardier” ranks in his toy army, which later gave rise to the Semyonovsky guard regiment, which in turn was on par with to the Pavlovsky regiment that the original RG upgrade is based on, but much more senior (1687 vs 1796). Hence I prefer Semyonov than Pavlov.
I know bombardier does not sound like a grenadier unit but an artilleryman, but the same applies to humbaraci, so let just pretend artillerymen not operating guns are represented as grenadiers in this game…

Ottomans: Deli (Rumeliot Deli); Humbaraci
I actually find the current upgraded names unnecessary as they are already very unique (similar to Uhlans and Cuirassiers), but we can keep the name Rumeliot but add back “Deli” (Rumeliot is a region/ethinicity and Deli is a unit, so there is no replacement between them).

Portuguese: Besteiro; Terco Musketeer (Fuzileiro); Ginete (Alorna Legionario)
Thank @YolkyPage166 for the suggestions. I struggle to find a good name for early game musketeers, but the names I find are quite generic. So I refer to the Terço as the Portuguese also used the system, and then the Spanish pikeman should be called Tercio Pikeman to avoid confusion. Also Fuzileiro might sound duplicate, but we already have drabant, trabant and dorobant so…
They could also be simply called Armada Marine to make things simple.

Spanish: Tercio Pikeman; Rodelero (Espadachin); Lancer
Garrochistas are Napoleonic light cavalry that do not fit the model. It we were to keep the name it should have a new model. I fear it would not look as “cool” as the current lancer though…

Swedes: Dalkarl Pikeman; Hakkapelitt (Drabant)
I actually don’t know why the Swedish pikeman refers to the Dalkarl (Dalarna). It was the same in the NE mod, but why?

Also feel free to propose yours.

EDIT2: BTW, the fact that “guard” is used as a upgrade prefix really restricts the room of unit names…

[ArrivedLeader22]

BTW the forum censoring the combination of “any number greater than 2” (have not tested the upper bound) and “some” is hilarious.

[ArrivedLeader22]

More on the age 2 Russian cav archer:

The model clearly looks more like an “un-upgraded dvor (the royal guard model)”:

Than the steppe-looking generic veteran cav archer:

This combined with the British unique musketeer models with Thin Red Line makes me believe that they are remnants of the attempt of giving unique models for all levels of RG units. Hope the devs make better use of them.

[JordiGarLee]

Cool ideas, I have a few thoughts…

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@ArrivedLeader22

I sense that many of these works are preludes of turning RGs into real unique units.

A middle ground between the radical and the existent way royal units work would be my choice.
You mentioned turning royal units into different units altogether, the middle ground between that would be DOUBLING the existent variation that some royal guard upgrades have, here is an example I’d go for:

The redcoat had the “special” addition in the royal guard upgrade that gives it higher attack than health comparing to other guard musketeers. Originally, it was a simple 10% hp and attack increase, now, the difference is 5% HP and 15% attack, makes it more unique, yes, but we can go further.

What if, we made it so redcoats get -5% HP but 25% more damage? Now we have a VERY different musketeer than the default one, turning into more of a high value glass cannon, having to choose the battles more carefully, but with higher reward if used properly (Sort of like fusiliers).

This also simplifies the balancing if devs want to go for it, as I didn’t change the total % upgrade, just re-distributed it differently.

The same example would go for other RG units as well:

• Needle gunner fire fast → Make them fire faster (1,5 speed?).
• Pavlov grenadiers are cheaper → Make them even more spammable (Reflecting Russia’s main type of units).
• Garrochistas move faster → Make them the fastest (On par with the fastest light cav maybe).
• Gendarmes → Make them Gendarmier idk.
  Units that only get the standard 10% HP & DPS would be more fun if they also had special abilities or stats, so here the RADICAL ideas can come in. Gendarmes are tanky, so maybe they could have a regenerating block ability against projectiles, like the Shrivamsha Rider in AoE2 (Testing would be necessary for balancing though, maybe instead of the extra 10% of both stats they could only have this instead).

Again, not buffing or nerfing units, just redistributing the stats to make them stand out more from others (Like Pavlov grenadiers, I don’t mean to just make them cheaper and spammable, also make them weaker to balance the new cost).

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@ArrivedLeader22

this change can be purely aesthetic

As for the aesthetics, I’d start with the Icons of Royal Guards.
I WAS going to make a thread about this, but might as well drop it here.

It’d be cool if we could get upgraded icons for the royal units, not much, just an edit reflecting the unit model, here is an example:
I took 4 minutes in paint to try making a grenadier look more like the Pavlov upgrade.
Imagine a proffesional doing the same.

If you know the game, you’ll know there are already 2 units doing this, with the Napoleon revolt, I’m talking about the royal musk.
It’d be like that, but for every RG unit.

Now, I’m totally willing to make a more professional edit for RG units if any modder feels like adding them to the game, maybe a know modder, a cool one, someone with “Wall” in their name, know anyone? :3

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@ArrivedLeader22

BTW the forum censoring the combination of “any number greater than 2” (have not tested the upper bound) and “some” is hilarious.

*Taunt 19

[YolkyPage166]

@ArrivedLeader22

Portuguese musketeer and dragoon: the Portuguese legion is also too late for the early game. I cannot find good names for them though. Also I dislike the fact that both upgrades refer to the same historical unit. Need help. Maybe the dragoon can revive the previous “jinete” reference.

The legion also served the French instead of the Portuguese crown so, even if this idea of making all RG into Unique Units doesn’t go through with the devs, they still should change the Portuguese RGs. The Musk RG can be renamed to Fuzo and the Dragoon to Alorna’s Legionário.
I actually wrote about idea’s for Port changes in the post below.

Suggestions to make Ports more interesting

There has been some discussions on this forum about how the Europeans are receiving special treatment in detriment to other civs. While overall I do agree there is a case to be made there, I also believe that some European civs (Brits, Spanish and, especially, Ports) were left behind in these more recent Updates (I’d go as far as saying that the update that Ports received in October was probably the 3rd weakest of the bunch). There’s also a surpring lack of threads being made that talk about thi…

[CanineCrown7153]

@JordiGarLee

Wall

A guy who throws hoops may also be motivated to do so

[JordiGarLee]

@JordiGarLee

Now, I’m totally willing to make a more professional edit for RG units if any modder feels like adding them to the game, maybe a know modder, a cool one, someone with “Wall” in their name, know anyone? :3

@AssertiveWall20
Wake up yo! Think it can happen?

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@CanineCrown7153

@JordiGarLee

Wall

A guy who throws hoops may also be motivated to do so

I didn’t get the reference… who is it?

[AssertiveWall20]

I don’t know if it’s possible to do this in a way that keeps it multiplayer compatible. I’d be happy to provide some icon overlays for whoever wants to try it, though.

[JordiGarLee]

Oh… well, we tried.
I did read somewhere else that you found a delicate line in the code between what’s compatible with multiplayer and not

Give me 2 years to learn coding and I’ll do it myself

[AssertiveWall20]

@JordiGarLee

I did read somewhere else that you found a delicate line in the code between what’s compatible with multiplayer and not

lol there are ways to keep things purely visual, so swapping icons and strings is ok but editing a tech to unlock a separate portrait probably isn’t.

[GalacticSet8679]

Trooper is also kind of a weird name and the British didn’t use Hussars until the Napoloenic era, so could the British Hussar be called a Dragoon Guard? That is what they called their “heavy cavalry”. I know it might be confusing, but its just an idea.

[ArrivedLeader22]

Like I said because “guard” is used as an upgrade prefix, it really limits the space for unit names…
AOE4 had quite a few “guard” units. In AOE3’s era there can be more units called “guard” but then it collides with the guard upgrade.

Now the real radical idea: change the “guard” upgrade to a different name like “royal”.

[SirBarnzy1]

@GalacticSet8679

Trooper is also kind of a weird name and the British didn’t use Hussars until the Napoloenic era, so could the British Hussar be called a Dragoon Guard? That is what they called their “heavy cavalry”. I know it might be confusing, but its just an idea.

The British/English used Light Cavalry throughout, however split into Light Dragoons and the ‘trending’ Hussars in the Napoleonic Era as you mentioned. With that in mind, I’d still steer clear of labelling them Dragoons of any form in the game with the current unit naming/type conventions.

The whole Hussar = Heavy Cav is an annoying bugbear, which we’ll never lose, though. I think it should be just been Heavy Cav (called Horse Guards, Guard Cavalry, Bodyguards, or heck just Heavy Cav), with a seperate, much lighter, faster but ultimately weaker Light Cavalry type (again split into Hussars and very originallly named Light Cavalry or Light Horse) and finally the Ranged Cav type (Dragoons, Horse Archers etc ).

Of course lines get blured throughout history anyway (Dragoons going from Mounted Infantry to Light Cav for exmaple).

[ArrivedLeader22]

If I were to design from scratch then hussar is a true light cavalry and dragoon is the “ranged heavy cavalry” as their look is definitely not the 17th century “mounted infantry” but the later mounted cavalry. Then horse archer is the “ranged light cavalry ”.
Western Europe: melee light cavalry and ranged heavy cavalry (plus unique units)
Eastern Europe and Middle East: ranged light cavalry and melee heavy cavalry (plus unique units)

But the stereotype is ranged cavalry should always be a fast hit-run unit.

[GalacticSet8679]

Yeah. The Cuirassier was originally a “ranged cavalry” unit ala the reiter and was heavily armored. The Harqubusier/Carabineer would have been a better choice for ranged cavalry lithe dragoon takes up now.

[M00Z1LLA]

A light/heavy distinction doesn’t seem very meaningful for ranged cavalry. Dragoons weren’t really either and often just got called medium cavalry because they had varied and changing roles. There isn’t really much difference between a caracole with pistols and hit and run tactics with a bow so the simplest solution would be to just call them all medium cavalry.

A light/heavy distinction would make much more sense for melee cavalry. Light cavalry could be fast raiding and scouting units with lower health and more specialized multipliers (Hussars, Uhlans, Steppe Riders, etc). Heavy cavalry could be slower, tankier units with abilities like trampling and charged attacks (Lancers, Cuirassiers, Lifidi Knights, etc). Making units like Cuirassiers and Lancers generic types of heavy cavalry (with Gendarmes and Garrochistas as separate unique versions) would allow Hussars to be in a proper light cavalry role.

[GalacticSet8679]

I completely agree, though the gamification of 16th-19th century warfare is inevitable, as it would be very difficult to mimic all the fluidity of different units and the evolution and changing names of artillery and cavalry. Especially because things need balance and uses.

[M00Z1LLA]

In this case I think that distinction is simple enough to work for the game. Tons of civs already have 2 or more melee cavalry units with distinct roles. The current distinctions are probably too entrenched to be significantly altered now but it totally could have been done initially.

[FourCloud176402]

@ArrivedLeader22

If I were to design from scratch then hussar is a true light cavalry and dragoon is the “ranged heavy cavalry” as their look is definitely not the 17th century “mounted infantry” but the later mounted cavalry. Then horse archer is the “ranged light cavalry ”.

@M00Z1LLA

A light/heavy distinction doesn’t seem very meaningful for ranged cavalry. Dragoons weren’t really either and often just got called medium cavalry because they had varied and changing roles. There isn’t really much difference between a caracole with pistols and hit and run tactics with a bow so the simplest solution would be to just call them all medium cavalry.

How about re-designating heavy (melee) and light (ranged) based on roles? By gross simplification,
Heavy: Cuirassier (slow, high-HP), Lancer (fast, high-Attack)
Light: Hussar (fast, low-HP) Dragoon (low-range, high-HP)

Note that, while technically Cuirassier and Lancers did carry pistols and carbines sometimes, their main use is to shatter enemy line by charge and shock. Hussars and Dragoons, while often used for charges, were mainly expected to scout and harass, and often intended (at least officially) to carry carbines, muskets, or even rifles in support of their role.