The European civs have been generally criticized for shared unit rosters, even though some civs have royal guard upgrades for certain units.
I think it would be nice if these upgrades can also enable unique unit skins rather than using the same shared guard/imperial appearances (since it already has a different name).
This would be especially interesting for, say, Ottomans, whose Hussars and Grenadiers look very European. Giving them a unique skin with royal guard upgrades would make them more “Ottoman”.
Also Voltigeurs for the French are actually a Napoleonic-era unit with flamboyant dressing but the guard/imperial skirmisher skin looks like some colonial irregulars.
I do remember this has been implemented in some mods. I don’t think this will add a lot complexity to the game as the DE has already introduced a whole zoo of revolution units and even regional skins for revolutionaries (previous colonial militia).
They did such a good job with the expansion civs, the Europeans need something special to differentiate themselves from each other. BTW, are the royal gaurd units stronger? I’ve never really noticed too much of a difference…
Just checked a French Guard Musketeer with a British Redcoat Musketeer and they look the same. But I could have sworn that Royal Guard units have unique skins…
I totally agree. Just a reskin, not new models. Just make the uniforms more in pair with the general aesthetic of the real thing, a trick like we see in good ol’ Imperial Glory and older games like that, where the units shared some common 3d models and were differentiated by the textures applied.
But I also think it will make lots of people who can distinguish the hell of every single thing on AoE2 rant and yell things like “it makes hard to understand what kind of unit it is”.
