I ran some math between Rods and pikes. Rods cost 135.75 villager seconds and pikes cost 127.62 villager seconds. In exchange for the slightly higher price you get 37.8% more base attack against units, 4x the melee armor, 20% higher speed, 12.5% higher hp. You get a little less than one third the siege attack, and slightly lower damage to Cav (about 3.75% less).
Edit: btw, I was wrong earlier in this thread, you get a fair bit more than some extra speed. No wonder pros like them.
Have you ever chased goons with pikes? Or kites pikes with goons?
Now same but with/vs rods?
Have you ever rammed sipahi/cuir into pikes? Or rods?
If so youll understand why rods are more popular. Goon skirm, super heavy cav shipments are bread and butter of 1v1. Rods do much better here.
Their cost is brutal especially late game but mid game and early, they do a much better job since they are faster, survive in melee vs cav better, and with a bit better melee and armor can mop up low numbers of skirm or musk
If they change the Rodelero, they would have to rework the entire civilization. And why would they do that?
Es simple Le quitas los mosqueteros y Piqueros a los Españoles y se los reemplazas con una unidad unica nueva que convine a ambos! se llamara “Tercio” su mejora de guardia seria “Tercio Viejo”
Estadisticas:
Costo en recursos: 80 de comida 30 de oro
HP: 140
Velocidad: 4,5
Resistencia: 25% (Ataques a mele)
Daño a distancia: 20 (con 12 de alcance)
Daño de asedio: 28
Daño a mele: 18 (x3,5 contra caballeria x2,25 contra infanteria de choque)
Su mejora de Guardia: 40% + de hp y daño y mejora el daño contra la caballeria en x0,5
La carta de Tactica de Tercios (edad II): Mejora el Hp y el daño de los tercios en un 10% mejora su alcance cuerpo a cuerpo en +1
Escuadrilla Española (Edad IV): en lugar de enviar 20 piqueros enviara 14 Tercios, mejorara su armadura a mele un 10% y su resistencia a ditancia un 10%.
Podria tener una unidad de guerrilla unica? si, podria ser la guerrilla terrestre corsa y el rodelero en vez de ser una unidad anti cav podria ser una unidad antinfanteria pesada… más concretamente la infanteria cuerpo a cuerpo, ya que ahora sabesmos que la etiqueta existe.
I don’t like combining the two units into a single unit like an Ashigaru. The whole idea behind tercios is that they are a group of pikemen protecting the musketeers. If you combine them into a single unit, you lose that concept.
The problem is that in the game, they decided that musketeers don’t need pikemen at any point, but that could be solved by having a special type of musketeer that actually needs pikemen to protect them.
It could be a musketeer with higher ranged damage but weaker melee performance against cavalry, for example, 28 ranged damage and 18 melee damage with no bonus. Or it could be a musketeer that isn’t heavy infantry and would function more like a Zouave.
The easiest way would give them the possibility to train a banner army formed by pikes and “musketeers”
The main problem with simply combining them is that, if the musketeer remains exactly the same, there is no real reason to have pikemen protecting them. The Tercio should actually function as a formation where pikemen protect a more vulnerable line of musketeers.
My idea would be to keep the normal musketeer and pikeman unchanged in the Barracks. Spain would instead get a new unique building, the Tercio Camp, similar to the Maltese building that replaces the Barracks. It would cost 100 wood and would only produce Tercio Banner armies.
Each Banner would consist of:
3 special musketeers
2 pikemen
Cost: 150 food, 150 wood, 150 gold
Only upgradeable to Veteran
The special musketeers would be different from normal musketeers:
20 ranged attack
10 melee attack
No bonus or penalty against any unit type
They would not be Heavy Infantry
Sipahis, yes, dragoons, no (they have more speed). Rodeleros aren’t popular. Musketeers are.
Because they shoot, defeat rodeleros in melee combat, kill buildings and are cheaper. And they only need 2 cards instead of 4.
Interesting idea. But wouldn’t it be better to just increase their damage so they can kill at least something other than the hussar?
For spain musk are often used for a …rather predicatable timing. Most mid to low elo playersi know will do this or piro and then give up. Ff/fi into musk cannon to gg pipeline
However rods are key to most other Spanish play. To counter age2 pressure (7 rod 4 huss minutes dog timing), handle huss semi france, spank Germany (WW are wonderful rod bait) help zone off otto paired with lancer (cav archer slow, 2 pop with 2 pop abus eats pop space so otto struggle here) and chase off goons. The extra rod speed is enough to keep goons from diving into your base or off your cannons/heavy cav.
Really any mid to high level play will mix rods vs cav civs. If only a few (shipments+ a few batches works) or vs some civs rod lancer spam works. There are plenty of times you don’t want to go rod but its rarely “rods are bad” but melee infantry in this game need care and a plan.
Again Spanish musk play is usually used for all ins as spains basic musk, mediocre eco, and lack of shipments means your unable to spam musk like other civs. Unless you pull off some sort of boom or are vs a civ weak to musk, its just easier to lean into rod cav and tempo unless doing an all in FF or speeding to an FI
ese concepto no existe en primer lugar, ademas los piqueros quedaron en desuso por un simple invento llamado “bayoneta” tendrian que inentar una unidad nueva en 2da que fueran arcabuceros, que no tuviesen bonus de ningun tipo, ademas lo que propones de un mosquetero sin bonus ni positivos ni negativos y que solo fuera infanteria general estaria rotisimo, ya que los guerrilleros ni siquiera podrian hacerle counter
Thats why I wrote Musketeers between “…” haha
Maybe they can be skirmishers in some way and the banner army 2 pikes + 2 ““archaic Skirm”” + 2 Rods, 1/3 of each one and it would be 6 units like chinese ones.
I’m not sure this would be a good idea, but if I were going to make a unit like this I would leave them with the HI tag, give them 20% ranged armor instead of melee, and normal musketeer-ish attacks with no bonuses.
A lot of math would be needed to determine exact hp and costs (break points are very important). They would over perform against other musketeers and against skirms and xbows if they get into range.
Imo Zouaves are a poorly designed unit and certainly shouldn’t be used as the basis for a normal unit. Zouaves “work” in part due being hard to mass (excluding a US card that needs a cap added imo).
There are several ways it could be done while keeping it as Heavy Infantry, but the important thing is that it should be weaker against cavalry to give the pikemen a purpose. You could remove its melee multiplier in exchange for other advantages, such as more range, higher base damage, or a multiplier against Heavy Infantry.
I don’t think a Zouave-type unit would necessarily be broken either; it depends on its stats. It’s basically a skirmisher with less range and no multiplier against Heavy Infantry, but in exchange, it deals more ranged damage to Heavy Cavalry.
It definitely would depend. Zouaves themselves have high hp and ranged armor, the hp makes them kinda slower to kill with hand cav, and would risk being basically unkillable in age 2 without getting cav onto them (no artillery).
I think a heavy infantry unit is safer. Also worth considering it could be a little cheaper instead of being better. The unit design is kinda weird, and weird is a little risky. You also want whatever changes were to be made to be net-neutral as spain is A tier in 1v1.
How is a bad unit which shadow techs better than a good unit you have to pay for the upgrade of? The answer, is it’s there right now, usable, right as you need it.
How is a good unit you need to pay for the upgrades of, better than a bad unit which shadow techs? The answer is, raw stats, population efficiency, etc.
Both of these things serve a purpose and make all the units in the roster have some circumstantial relevance.
Could also combine my #2 and #3 suggestion for the worst lancer-type shock infantry in the game, since Ekdal1378 just taught me something I didn’t know. Again, circumstantially useful, but not the civ strength.
(EDIT: I looked up the Shotel, the bonuses are vs light infantry, not infantry generally. I wouldn’t call this a lancer equivalent to shock cav…)
No one doubts that the rodelero is the dominant melee cavalry (though I’d argue about the cuirassier, lancer, and elmetto). But dragoons and musketeers are more versatile. Can you use a rodelero? Yes, you can, but it’ll be a handicap. Just use something else if you want to win, not have fun. Where the rodelero is truly a winning option is with shock infantry and war wagons. That’s all.
You’ve just summarized 90% of the game’s problems. If only they had added the line musketeers as the progressive evolution of early firearms (wich needed the protection of pikes), we could have had all the “pike and shot” era warfare menu
What is spains civ bonus?
What is spains shipments lacking?
What’s better 5 musk or 12 rods to zone raids?
How about 20 rods vs 10 skirm?
And what pairs better with lancer- can’t be goon as you’re totally weak to anti cav and very expensive and hard to mass. At least rods can mop up and snare small groups of stuff. Musk are slow. Skirm are slow. Fast rods keep tempo.
If you think Spanish musk are better than rods because of stats and ignore how spain functions in 1v1 sure. And yeah, skirm goon often ends up the best comp for any civ should the game drag. But spain doesnt want games to drag. It wants to spam shipments and overwhelm the opponent.
If youre speaking of late game, treaty or teams then yes rods here are a bit weak. Devs tried to boost rods but made them OP in 1v1 a few patches ago, so its a delicate balance. Are rods always optimal? No, neither are lancers but they still are a dominate combo in many matchups. But to say blanket “rods are bad” ignores how rods function in 1v1.
I haven’t seen a single game where Spain overwhelmed anyone with shipments, except France and Germany. That is, except cavalry civilizations. I mean, Spain only have Anticavalry shipments at age 2. The Spanish player has no choice. Just duplicate the Rodelero’s shipments with the same Musketeer shipments and see what happens.
And it seems to me that the classic British Hussar + Musket combination always works, not just against mass cavalry, as the Spanish Rodelero + Lancer combination does. For example, you can’t play Spain like the Dutch with their Halberdier + Cannons. Because your “halberdiers” are shit. So you won’t take any Rodelero cards at all, and especially won’t take the Corselet debuff. Is this what you call “OK” unit design?
Okay. Killed. You have 12 Rodeleros left, go break some buildings with them. They kill a villager with 6 snouts in about 15 seconds. What to do next with this useless crowd?
I think you’re getting frustrated playing rods like halbs or pikes. Which they are to some degree. But also throwing them or sitting still is a waste. That’s user error. They aren’t meatshields, they are micro heavy anti cav that moves fast and overwhelm stuff.
>brit matchup
A hard one for spain. Part of the spain>france>british>spain balance, spain struggles in brit as their eco plus musk huss works great. You will still die like a chump trying to out musk brit as spain. Rods aren’t the issue its britian by design absorbs tempo through mass. Ironically, france which is lower tempo also hates rod lancer as you can get them out en mass with falcs before french skimr goon cuir pops off. Rods chase cdb, chase huss, shoo goons, and can pounce on stuff. Fragile sure, but good players make Rods shine here. But if all you want is bubble wrap for artillery then yeah, just piro. It will get you to 1300 but past that youll need to use rods to counter other civs and players who won’t give up vs musk 2falc 4 huss.
>never seen spain overwhelm with shipments
Its 25%? (or maybe a pinch more they keep messing tho) cheaper shipments. You get them quicker and are essentially a step ahead from the 5th on. You don’t have china sized ones, but your going to be smothering opponent in tempo. Faster crates to age with a 4 huss same times as a normal FF, faster falcs, faster rods (who move fast). Speed is key. 5 siaphi is overwhelming like being hit with 2 falc 5 lancer 4 lancer 9 rod
Or 7 rod >1k food> revolt or FI. Heavy cannons screened by rods is a nightmare for most civs. Vs musk ill just dive goon, as long as no melee no biggie
But end of day preference is key. If you can’t or dont want to get rods as thr micro intensive units they are, they won’t work. Stick to musk.
Also corset is a huge mistake in non treaty. Speed wins games.
Lastly
>oh 12 rods what should I do seige?
Besides the obvious of “pull back if everyone’s garrisoned” raid. Rod raids are annoying af as hand cav can’t be used and goons are expensive and risky if you look away. Musk/skirm pulled are slow. Or just add the 12 to a push and focus on other units like skirm or cav. Containment is a really important part of this game and not every fight needs to be “the one,” especially when your civ is fast to pivot due to civ bonus
That’s about all I can say here, if you choose to ignore the pros and focus on rods are pikes well..youll get subpar results.