I have been thinking, the explorers of the original civilizations, other than ports and spain, are somewhat boring and lack special abilities, or if they do have special abilities, they are locked behind a card, and are generally pretty luckluster in actual combat that doesn’t involve treasure guardians.
Meanwhile, TAD and WC heroes are pretty good on their own in combat, and at least for TAD, they have pretty useful upgrades available at the Monastery.
For example:
Chinese monks have critical strikes, can convert enemy units, can train disciples, stun treasure guardians, all by default.
Japan have devine strikes (essentially one shots low health units) , can stun treasure guardians, can teleport. They also learn how to heal, and how to detonate buildings, all without any cards.
Inidian monks can heal and can stun enemies in combat, plus stun treasure guardians. I’d say they are by far the best heroes in the game, again, all without cards.
All TAD heroes can be thought to heal nearby units automatically, one way or the other.
Meanwhile, EU explorers get a dog (yes, I admit he’s good, probably better than his master), a triggered lame heal (for french) or a whirlwind melee attack for british, and these are behind cards, that I don’t think are ever used. Spain and ports can be considered special already with their spy glass and war dogs.
The snipe comes in age4, by that time, sniping a single unit is of little consequence.
My suggestions: grant each EU explorer a special ability. This ability can be unlocked from a church upgrade (similar to how TAD heroes get upgraded at the monastery).
British: make him a sort of skirmisher with extra damage to inf.
French: Mount him up with extra HP?
Dutch: Get a bit of gold when nearby enemies die (5 gold per enemy killed).
Ottomans: get extra XP when nearby enemies die.
Russians: nearby enemies are slown down by 5%
Ports: Increase the area of spy glass
Spain: extra resources from treasures
Germany: not sure really.
The explorer dog should be a one time purchase for 200 food starting in age 1. This should have aprox 0 impact on supremacy outside of a few treasure rich maps.
Thoughts?