I’ve been thinking some maps could be split into more maps, especially in Asia and Central/South America. Maybe Anatolia could receive that treatment as well?
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That’s definitely their uniform but I’m wondering if it’s just a coincidence. Opolchenie would have been an infinitely better name than Northern Musketeer so it’s odd they wouldn’t go with that if they were aware.
I did come across Opolchenie while researching alternatives, but I wanted to go for something with a stronger connection to royalty. With Lieb Guard, you could also have a new Toy Army card that ships them and buffs all of Russia’s weak infantry.
I also wanted to shift the strong musketeer unit to Oldenburg, and give Habsburgs a weaker musketeer (Grenzer) instead. That way there wouldn’t be so much overlap with both Bourbons and Habsburgs having strong musketeers and appearing on the same maps.
I said in the last post that they may feel a need to obscure it. Perhaps due to the current war.
Your concern for gameplay variety I can get behind, and I enjoy reading your suggestions as always. But:
On a fundamental level, one has to first ask “why Royalty Houses”. The Royal Houses conceit is a clever, useful conceptual tool to implement native settlements in Europe.
Compared to periphery, isolated groups like Basques or Sorbs, RHs have distinct advantages by enabling: 1) each settlement type to appear on maps across Europe; 2) inclusion of iconic European units and historical events, particularly those with high social prestiges. These are the designers’ end goals, and RHs are nothing but a means to achieve them. Arguably RHs do this conceptual heavy-lifting better than TAD’s Minor Religions (though IMO the TAD concept is decently flexible and not yet used to its full potential).
Suppose we were AoE3’s official designers and tasked with updating the RHs, our question would be “which iconic European units we can add to AoE3 as native units”. Your inquiry, “which units fit the royalty theme better”, would only be a secondary concern that arise when we want thematic clarity on why the heck, by what criteria that units are slotted into the categories of normal vs. mercenaries vs. natives vs. outlaws.
(And on that front, I think AoE3 is already a big mess, there’s not much we can do.)
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They were probably trying to make it so generic that it fits for the Danish side of the house too. They went way to far by giving it a completely meaningless name, yet they still have them a very specific uniform.
I get that, and royal houses are a brilliant way to get “natives” that are widespread enough to work for all the maps.
If royal houses were done properly, then yes I agree, but they’re problematic in other ways. The religious sites were more about fitting a local military unit to a religion. This isn’t great, but at least you’re getting cool units that are actually real. The royal houses were to fit a settlement to a map. Assigning units to them was secondary and in many cases they were random or made up.
If they were actually iconic units and had some connection to specific royal houses I’d have no problems. For example, Vasa having Winged Hussars is great. They ruled Poland so that’s a good enough connection.
The problem is the ones that aren’t iconic units and don’t have any connections to their royal houses. “Line Infantry” is not a unit, it’s a term so broad it’s equivalent to naming a unit “Light Ranged Cavalryman”. It’s also way too broad to apply to Habsburgs even if the unit has an Austrian uniform.
If Line Infantry were Landwehr and Northern Musketeers were Opolchenie (and the mechanics of the units weren’t so bad) then these units wouldn’t really need changing.
Overall I wanted units that were 1) actually real and specific, 2) had some connection to the royal houses (not necessarily to royalty), 3) fit with the maps they appeared on (avoiding 2 heavy musketeer types on one map, Marines for water maps, etc), and 4) had some interesting mechanics (native artillery, Grenzers having a multiplier vs heavy infantry, etc).
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I wish all the royal house skills would give something while you wait. These abilities are good, but don’t offer anything if you wait longer.
House of Bourbon
Royal House ability:
- Royal March : For the next 15 seconds, the player’s units gain 5% additional speed, except for infantry and villagers, which gain 10%, and Shock Infantry, which gain 7.5%. 300 seconds cooldown.
House of Jagiellon
Royal House ability:
- Balance of Powers: Equalizes your resource stockpile
House of Oldenburg
Royal House ability:
- Scientific Expeditions: Spawns a Hot Air Balloon with a huge line of sight that lasts for a short period of time
House of Wettin
Royal House ability:
- Goldener Reiter: Significantly boosts the armor of Cavalry and Shock Infantry units in the targeted area for a short duration
Casa de Hannover
Royal House ability:
- Royal Fireworks : Briefly stuns all enemy units.
Maybe I could generate experience like an average native TP once the ability loads? Or could it be something more creative?
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Drummer should be a unit available in each of the Royal Houses, not only in Hannover Royal House !!!
Flag-Bearer also could be added to each of the Royal Houses as an additional unit.
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Hannover Royal House it should become more “Westphalian” and “Hannoverian” than to be British. This Royal House should represent a huge area of Northwest Germany, not Great Britain. I think the Stuart and Tudor Royal Houses should be added to represent the British Isles, that would appear on maps such as England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales (potentially also on other maps from this region).
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More new Royal Houses
- House of Ascania - Anhalt, Saxony, Brandenburg, Saxony-Lauenburg, Lüneburg
- House of Nassau - Netherlands, England, Scotland, Luxembourg, Orania, Nassau
- House of Luxembourg - Holy Roman Empire, Austria, Bohemia, Hungary, Croatia, France, Luxembourg
- House of Hochberg - Silesia
- House of Hohenzollern - Brandenburg, Prussia, the German Empire, and Romania
- House of Ottoman - Ottoman Empire (more focused on the European part of the Ottoman Empire)
- House of Sforza - Italy
- House of Medici - Italy
- House of Savoy - Italy, Spain
- House of Tudor - Scotland, England, Ireland, Great Britain
- House of Stuart - Scotland, England, Ireland, Great Britain
- House of Trastámara - Castile, Aragon, Sicily, Spain
- House of Piast - Silesia, Masovia
- House of Rurik - Ruthenia, Russia
- House of Romanov - Russian Empire
- House of Borgia - Aragon, Papal State
With these 16 brand new Royal Houses, Europe would become Minor Nations complete.
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Wouldn’t that have to be House of Osman?
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The whole point of the royal houses is to get “natives” that fit on a wide variety of maps. Restricting one that can be used broadly and replacing it with ones that only appear on a few maps isn’t going to happen. From your list, I can see maybe Nassau being realistic, but the other ones are not at all realistic.
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Isn’t Phanar already the European part of the Ottoman empire?
Anyway, I think they should add more Muslim minor civs instead of using Sufi literally everywhere.
I think there could be one for Ottoman Turks (since Qizilbashs doesn’t seem to be that), one for Bedouins (there’s already a unit in the Morocco Historical Battle, and they could be used in both Asian and African maps), one for Egyptians and one for Arab Muslims.
South America needs a bigger variety in minor civs as well, maybe Africa too.
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Give Habsburg Royal House brand new Unique Villager Unit - Gorals. They will be speak in Slovak language.
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I think that every Minor Civilization (both old and new) should get new things - completely new units, new technologies and even completely different novelties.
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Back to this, I found out Hui (Chinese Muslims, as in actually Chinese and not a subjugated minority) are a thing and so are Indonesian muslims. I guess those could be their own minor civs as well.
I think Christians could also be split into more minor civs.
I think Quechuas (assuming they’re supposed to represented all Andean peoples), Tupis and Caribs could be split as well.
We could have Chankas, Chimus, Arawaks, Tainos, Tupinambas, Guaranis, and probably more I don’t know about.
Hui are only a small localized minority so they probably wouldn’t be a good fit. I don’t know of any unit that would work for them either.
Indonesia has more Muslims than any other country, so they’re definitely a thing. I believe the Sufi are primarily based on them anyways. Even with the new Qizilbash unit they are still fairly accurate since there was a lot of Turkish influence in Indonesia, especially Aceh. In Southeast Asia there was all kinds of crazy stuff going on like Ottomans fighting Aztecs.
I don’t know if there would be any good options for more Muslim holy sites, maybe a Madrasa could work. I think it would be better to go for more ethnic groups like the Bedouins for more minor faction representation in Asia.
For more Christian holy sites, a Hospitaler Commandery would have made the most sense, but they went and made that into a whole civ.
There’s room for a few more minor factions in South America, but this would probably be overkill. They do have to be widespread enough to feature on more than a couple maps.
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It’s hard to make minor civs that would show up in multiple maps when said maps cover huge amount of territories
Both Asian and South American maps have this problem, and I’ve been complaining about it for a while.
I’ve actually been suggesting Bedouins for a while, there’s even a unit already in the game:
They’d also fit in African maps
Another ethnic group I keep suggesting is Ainus.
It seems Hussites were still relevant by this time. Would be a good way to have some Czech rep.
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Bedouins are a no-brainer, I’m kinda surprised they didn’t get added in TAR.
Ainus would also be popular, but probably need at least one more map to justify including. If there was a Sakhalin map that would probably be enough coverage to justify their inclusion.
The Moravian Brethren were active in northern Canada as well as Czechia so they could be stretched to a few maps. However, War Wagons are their obvious unit, and that’s been taken by Germany.
After Jesuits and Hospitilars, I think Huguenots would be the best option for a religious settlement. They were dispersed across France and the surrounding regions and fought several wars. However, with the Royal Houses covering Europe, religious settlements like this are a little too redundant to add.
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They could also split Honshu and Hokkaido into more maps, that way we could even have Shintos.
I feel like Japan is decently well represented already. Especially when you consider, Siam, Philippines, and half of China are still missing maps. Maybe once all of Asia gets covered they could get into expanding on the Japanese region.
Not every religion necessarily needs a religious settlement to represent them. Shinto could be covered by the Japanese civ and Confucian could be covered by the Chinese civ. Ideally, all the Shaolin stuff for China could be moved to the Shaolin holy site, and it could be given a Confucian healer.
Nah, I’d rather decrease the religious focus Asian (and Native American civs) have. Replace the monk heroes with actual military leaders.
I’m only suggesting religious stuff because FE refuses to remove what is already in place.
I think the Sohei Archer and Shaolin Monk could be moved to the relevant holy sites, like how you get Tufohens through Akans and Sultans through Berbers. Idk what to do with Brahmins tho since they aren’t warriors.
There’s also the entirety of India being represented by a single map (or two, depending on how you see Bengal)