Not really. There are so many inconsistent/overlapping applications and bugs that come along with this that it’s really hard to keep track of.
For example, Prince Electors fucks up the natives on the map by making them cost population. Even the more consistently implemented examples with the little icon aren’t the easiest to distinguish at a glance and overall the conflicting systems are a mess.
Standardization would help immensely with this. I’d suggest they limit trainable natives to 2 different approaches:
A) Zero pop with a build limit using the map native version. The build limit wouldn’t necessarily have to be the same as from an alliance. This should be the default approach to enabling a trainable native unit and used wherever possible. *
or
B) Add a pop cost and new icon and remove the build limit. This should only affect the NatMerc version of the units. This would be for cases like Prinz Chevys and Gaananci.
Under no circumstances should natives on the map ever be altered by adding a pop cost or removing a build limit. And they should avoid the case of having both a pop cost and a build limit. If a unit is too OP to be trained normally then it can be restricted to a very small amount of the regular native unit and/or it probably also needs a nerf.
* Giving a bunch of civs extra zero pop units would require standardizing the total ceiling of trainable zero pop units available across all civs. Have a baseline of ~30 available for a standard civ and adjust that up or down as needed for balance. For example, civs that already have a high amount of population that can be dedicated to military like Dutch or French probably don’t need a ton of free pop. Or civs with a massive eco like Germany wouldn’t need as much either. And civs like Inca where that’s their schtick could have a bigger limit. Other factors like populations space restrictions at different stages of the game and if the natives can be upgraded outside the maps they appear on should factor into these limits too.
This would probably have some kind of major balance concerns I’m not anticipating, but I kinda wish Conquistadores got reworked into knockoff Rifle Riders instead of a strictly better Dragoon.
That would make the Jesuit alliance jive a lot better for Ethiopia who lacks an early light infantry unit. And it would give a different role for the ones Spain now gets so they wouldn’t just use them instead of Dragoons.
thinking back the this is probably the reason why prince electors and germany is so weird cause that would fuck up how circle army and their infinite cards works cause those are sending infinite nats that are all NatMerc.
they have made it such that for germany you must be able to have prince electors, circle army and the infinite 17 line infantry work without overlaping build limits.
they might be better off making a backend 3 version or make it an explicit thing with prince electors (say the royal house makes thate1 specific nat cost more pop but with greater build limit cause is also an effect)
Why dig the hole even deeper? Just make Prince-Electors work like a normal map alliance and not have pop cost. If that’s too much free pop then make the amounts less than allying on the map. The way it screws with what’s on the map is beyond stupid.
the nats currently gives like 8 per unit which is already pretty small, any less then that its not even fun to play tbh.
it would also make it extremely map dependent if the map doesnt have the same nat it might as well be worth nothing.
you arguably get more from just building a normal nat tp of any nat then that.
it currently gives higher build limit at the cost of the pop which and this only applies for germany combined with like circle army or the 17 line infantry is just enough mass to be standalone viable.
its a decent gameplay loop and i think that should stay and i would rather a third german only hidden unit then try to force this one clear outlier into the mess that we have
It wouldn’t really be hidden because doing it this way would mean two instances of the unit would show up in the Embassy if you allied with the same ones on the map.
Plus it would still have the inconsistency of having a build limit and costing population.
Also I’d suspect the strategy you’re talking about relies a bit on the jank of Line Infantry and their resistance bypassing attacks which is kind of cheese to begin with.
thats already the case with all the other cards of this type.
if you send ancien regime with an allied bourbon on map you will get 2 different royal muskets in the native embassy, one costing pop and the other one doesnt, thats fine and if we want to differentiate them more they can have a more unique name
the same is true for poland and royal union and belam hitam for dutch
i mean yeah but thats not new either if anything its more consistent if we have clear differetiators for those that cost pop and those that dont, all they have right now is that icon in portrait more can be done to make it clear.
tbh after using it you only want to do that if you are fighting cav or atillery otherwise they are just good musk that fires faster, its not that different from a Nizam FI or Blue guard FI, its more important that you are just gettin, a strong mass of guard units that can guard cannons. Also you can go blood brothers and just spam circle army or the 11 guard wettin allies
also i just checked the card description for Prince electors and did they change this or has this always been the case?
To buff Prince Electors, I’d change it to where certain technologies from the Royal House you select can be researched. I say “certain technologies” because getting a 3rd factory from the House of Hanover sounds a bit broken.
