Maybe we can just use Siege as prefix for all of them? Siege Scorpion, Siege Bombard Cannon and Siege Demolition Ship. Sounds weird. LoL
How about some other name? Mounted Archer, Horse Archer etc.
- If Scorpion have a second Imperial upgrade, we can have Siege Springald?
- I think Hellburner sounds cool as a replacement for Heavy Demolition Ship.
Maybe Outrider or Reaver as a description of their roles? But then the “Heavy” aspect is not really reflected.
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Good principle that is simple to understand. My only problem with it is that “heavy” might not be appropriate for a unit known for its speed, such as the Eagle and Steppe Lancer. Logically, the heavier your gear, the slower you run.
You mean prefix, not suffix.
If we can make Elite a UU-exclusive prefix, then we can reserve Heavy for generic/regional unit upgrades, and Imperial for generic/regional unit upgrades after Heavy, if those units aren’t renamed entirely. The current Camel Rider line is a good example.
Given that they play as same roles as Scout Cavalry line to some extent, I’d like to rename the whole Eagle line to Scout Infantry → Light Infantry → Shock Infantry, and give them new skins so that they could server non-American civs like Africans.
Meanwhile, the names and visuals of the current Eagle Warrior and Elite Eagle Warrior could be reintroduce as unique upgrades for Aztecs’ Scout Infantry and get a bit stronger stats than the Light Infantry and Shock Infantry who has as same stats as the current Eagle Warrior and Elite Eagle Warrior.
Heavy Javelines can do more damage to shield walls than regular Javelin. It is possible to simply rename the Skirmisher line to Skirmisher → Heavy Skirmisher → Imperial Skirmisher, or Javelineer → Heavy Javelineer → Imperial Javelineer.
By the way, the skirmishers throw javelins to destroy the heavy infantry’s shield wall, so in theory they should counter the swordsman line rather than the archers that usually have less armor.
Good pick, though I’m not sure whether nomad or steppe is the better prefix for after the upgrade.
If someone wanted to give the Turks, Magyars, Bulgarians, etc. the Lancers, then it could be nice to have their names be Steppe Lancer → Nomad Lancer. Those civs can receive the former to reflect their steppe origins, but they cannot receive the latter because they are no longer nomadic.
“Lancer” could imply to the player that the unit has range.
“Bowman” doesn’t give the feeling of being one level lower than “Archer”.
I would say both of the elite units can simply be renamed heavy: Heavy Battle Elephant and Heavy Elephant Archer. They also do look visually more armored than before the upgrade.
By the way, since Archer and Bowman are interchangeable terms of the same level to me, actually the unit Archer could be renamed to Bowman so that it could sounds more like the previous unit before the Crossbowman.
Oh, not Cataphract.
If "heavy” doesn’t really make sense as an upgrade for Cavalry Archer that kites, the name before the upgrade can be called Bow Rider and leave Cavalry Archer for the name after the upgrade. Bow Rider feels a bit lower tier than Cavalry Archer, though I think it’s acceptable to maintain Cavalry Archer and Heavy Cavalry Archer.
Springgald and Bombard Galleon are fine. Maybe the latter could be Bomb Vessel.
Hellburner sounds too cool and much like a name of UU to me. Maybe simply Explosive Ship?
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Interesting. Now I’m curious to see suggestions for the Militia line.
The militia and the knight are in fact the few lines with well-thought (not accurate) names. I’d say they even overdid it.
Yes. Intuitively “elite musketeer” and “guard musketeer” all sound like the “musketeer” unit in the same age gains veterancy, instead of undergoing technological or tactical advancements. It does not show the evolution from matchlocks to flintlocks, or from pike and shot to line formations.
You can even have “guard” or “champion” fodder units.
AOE3 tried to address this by changing some names entirely (like “field gun”) but the majority of unit progression still lacks the flavor.
Militia Scout
Militia
Elite Militia
Heavy Militia
Imperial Militia
According to the Wikipedia, Man-at-arms is a type of heavy cavalry from the Renaissance. I think it’s actually a decent name for the Knight upgrade. In contrast, “cavalier” seems to have been used to refer to the English Royalists of the 17th century, I don’t know.
In the early Middle Ages, the types of swords commonly used by warriors in Europe evolved roughly from the spatha of the late Roman era and the seax of the Germanic peoples during the Migration Period, to the viking sword, to the knightly sword, and then to the longsword. However, these terms seem somewhat unsuitable as the name of the unit before the Longswordsman. Maybe just simple “Swordsman” would be decent enough as an upgrade for the Militia and a previous unit for the Longswordsman.
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- Militia
- Short Swordsman
- Long Swordsman
- Two Handed Swordsman
- Armoured Swordsman
Makes them also less European sounding.
We can also look at Chronicles for inspiration.
For the Knight Line:
- Heavy Cavalry
- Shock Cavalry
- Imperial Cavalry
Heavy is the opposite of Light Cavalry in Castle Age so it makes sense, right?
“Lancer” doesn’t fit the model.
For the Archer Line
- Bowman
- Laminated Bowman
- Recurved Bowman
For the civs where Crossbow make no sense.
For other civs the current names actually make sense. Arbalests were the Late Medieval version of the Crossbow.
For Heavy Cavalry Archers we can also use a similar name like Recurved Bow Cavalry.
For the Scout Line it makes sense to copy Chronicles too
- Scout Cavalry
- Light Cavalry
- Raider
Isn’t raiding what the “Hussar” is mostly used for? Also now that there are 2 unique units with the name “Hussar” we don’t also need it for a generic unit, do we?
For the Spearman Line the Chronicles names are kinda bad. Guardsman doesn’t really make it sound like they are good against cavalry.
I’d do:
- Spearman
- Glaiveman
- Halberdier
The “Pikeman” in AoE2 isn’t actually using a Pike, they are using what looks like a Glaive, Bill or Guisarme.
This would “free” up the name Pikeman for a unit that actually uses a Pike like the Kamayuk with +1 range.
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We have Heavy Swordsman as a scenario editor unit.
I find it weird that the common theme in this thread is that people want blander names for unit lines. For me, the best named unit lines are the archer and spearman lines. Sure, crossbows didn’t actually replace bows, halberds didn’t actually replace pikes, and the pikeman isn’t holding a pike anyway, but that’s not the point – to me, these lines’ names (and visuals) give the best illusion of development over time. The militia and knight lines are similar, but the execution is a bit wonkier.
I don’t see much value in renaming established things (e.g. the changes from arbalest to arbalester and camel to camel rider seem excessive to me) – but for future units I’d prefer “elite” to be reserved for unique units, and for other unit types to have genuinely different names for their upgrades. Unfortunately this doesn’t seem to be the case with fire lancers, and I fully expect to see something like rocket cart → heavy rocket cart → siege rocket cart.
In British English I’d say that’s its most widely recognised meaning, but originally it just referred to a mounted soldier, often used synonymously with knight. So I think it is used appropriately, although unlike knight it’s not a medieval term.
But Militia implies that they are not professionals, which is clearly what the line represents. So I think Militia is right to be only in the first unit.
Yeah but only a little, since a clear evolution from short swords to (very) long swords is afaik only visible in Medieval Europe.
I see why you’re suggesting that change, but the elite logic was a generic pick to represent an improvement, where Heavy tends to say “More Armor” or “More Damage” just by the name.
If you look at the skirmisher for example, the unit sprit from regular to elite is not featuring a bulky armor addition, where the heavy cavalry archer got some new metal parts, but yeah the heavy camel rider only feature a bigger shield and a bigger sword.
I think the name for them is pretty good, they are still generic units with changes in their stats without beeing a straight elite improvement.
Eagle Warrior/Elite Eagle Warrior → Eagle Soldier/Eagle Warrior
Skirmisher/Elite Skirmisher/Imperial Skirmisher → Javelineer/Skirmisher/Imperial Skirmisher
Imperial Skirmisher should stay the same imo to reflect that it’s a unique upgrade.
Can’t think of any suggestions for this, so this could work.
Battle Elephant/Elite Battle Elephant → Lancer Elephant/Battle Elephant or Battle Elephant/Heavy Battle Elephant or Elephant Lancer/Heavy Elephant Lancer
I agree that Elite prefixes should be removed from all non-unique units, but I think the Heavy prefix works in this instance since the upgrade gains armour stats.
Elephant Archer/Elite Elephant Archer → Tower Elephant/Howdah Elephant
Nah, as awesome and flavourful as renaming Cataphract to Tagma would be, the Cataphract name is already too ingrained to the UU to be replaced with something else.
Cavalry Archer/Heavy Cavalry Archer → Horse Archer/Cavalry Archer
But I also like @UpmostRook9474’s suggestion of Bow Rider.
Heavy Camel Rider/Imperial Camel Rider → Camelier/Imperial Camelier
I also like Camel Trooper. But same deal as Imperial Skirmisher, as a unique upgrade the Imperial prefix should stay imo.
On a separate note, I think Armour Elephant needs to be renamed to Ram Elephant. More clarity and Armour Elephant sounds like an upgrade rather than a base unit.
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Veteran cavalry archers seems better, If not elite?
As I wrote in the paragraph before the one you quoted, I don’t like names like “Veteran” or “Elite” because they imply the existence of none Veteran and Elite units.
It’s not really Elite when 100% of your army is made of “Elite” units, right? Maybe Unique Units can be Elite because they are literally the Elite of your army while the other units are not.
How are freshly trained units “Veteran”?
Technologies should be technological advancement not somehow make freshly trained units suddenly more experienced, especially if it’s Trash units like Skirmishers.
That’s why I don’t like how AoM, AoE3 and AoE4 are handling unit names.
I’d rather just not have those additions to the names.
I agree, i hate elite. its pointless. I would even call spearmen all units in spearline. there is no need for separate name unless their abilities change totally and now they counter archers etc. The upgrades can be visual. Then you can make a unique unit a halberdier for someone and a pikeman for swiss etc. The upgrades just need new names like for I upgrade(better spears) and II upgrade(braced tactics).