The 17th century appearance of the dutch army has been strengthened with the new royal guard skin for the stadtwacht. I believe that the dutch strongly needed it, considering it only have one unique land military unit, the ruyter (no i’m not considering the emissary 
). They also got a new skin for the blue guard, but I’m not really sure we will see them a lot in supremacy games (especially if we can’t upgrade to imperial).
Now, the dutch was, at the release of the game, one of the most distinct civilization, with settlers costing gold (limited to 50) and the ability to build banks. I want to mention the new merchant skin, which was created with the principle that a settler costing gold was odd and unique, and that it needed to be visible in the game with a unique appearance.
In the July PUP, we have also seen the apparition of two unique units for the russian, which replaced the musketeer and the halberdier. Once again, the reasoning was that the musketeer and halberdier were already unique (weaker than the normal version and training by batch) and that distinct appearances were needed. I understand that a lot of people don’t like that (as we see a lot of post arguing that the game is becoming more difficult).
From a military point of vue, the dutch were also unique from the beginning, with the ability to train skirmisher one age earlier. The french (and their allies) could also do that, but by sending the card ''avanced skirmisher". With the release of new content (like TAD), new civilizations able to train commercial age skirmisher-like units were introduced (e.g. gurka). Now, I believe that the age 2 dutch skirmisher are a central military unit of the dutch, that is different from the classic skirmisher, because it can be trained earlier without the need of any card. Moreover, the appearance of the skirmisher is quite odd for a age 2 unit, and it does not really fit with the dutch army (even in age III or IV). Maurice of Nassau was an important strategist and military reformist, and he reformed the dutch army to greatly improve its firepower.
Considering these points, I would like to suggest the introduction of a new unique unit for the dutch, that would replace the skirmisher. This unit would have a new look that would fit with the 17th century theme of the dutch army in AoE3.
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New look on the PUP, it reverts to the normal look once you age up to age III
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Ow, is it for real ? I haven’t tested it.
Oh nice, they’ve really gone all out this patch.
If they wanted to go further and make them an actual unique unit they could go with Schutterij.
Or they could introduce Arquebusiers as a generic unit for at least the civs that pioneered pike and shot warfare.
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Is this unique to Dutch, or a shared age 2 skin for the skirmisher?
What if you send age 2 early skirmisher as French?
French age II skirms at least look like they normally do.
They might be planning to turn the Dutch skirmisher into a semi-unique unit like the Russian musketeer, but haven’t finished all the artwork.
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Not counting civs that have a consulate or something similar, only 4 Euro civs have Skirmishers: The Dutch, French, Germans and Spanish. There are also the Karelian Jaeger with their unique skin.
So I have a question for everyone (Not a criticism or anything, just a question) Which civ should have Skirmishers with the Guard default skin? Should the Dutch and Spanish Skirmishers have a unique skin for them too?
Consider that the Spanish Skirmishers could also have a special skin, as they are quite unique, have the “Unction” and “Peninsular Guerrillas” cards, move a bit faster with the “Liberation March” card, and that his Guard appearance could reflect the Spanish Guerrillas in the Napoleonic wars, etc. (and I also don’t know which country the default skin of the Skirmishers corresponds to, but I don’t think it reflects any unit of the Spanish army)
I don’t know if all this change is necessary, I’m just suggesting this change, for fun.
This may also seem out of context, but I think it is related to some possible change to the Dutch Skirmisher, I think we should consider both cases, because if a change is made to the Dutch Skirmisher the Spanish Skirmisher will be the only one that would keep the default skin, and I don’t think it corresponds to a historical Spanish unit… maybe all Skirmishers should have Royal Guard Upgrades, I don’t know…
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The Skirmisher uniform actually resembles that of the battalion of black soldiers recruited in Havana.
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I love that the devs are so in tune they managed to fix this issue before it was even raised. One step ahead!!
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