Cool ideas, I have a few thoughts…
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).
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
*Taunt 19 