As with most merc strats, you never want them to be too spamable, I think the devs want to test this out since we are talking about an unit with 40 range resist and imp stats right out of the gate.
I think their viability is up for debate right now, as people will still need to figure out how many is optimal due to all the overkill.
Late game, I think the comp is going to be something like 1 jeager for every 5 caroleans which allows for enough anti infantry/goon fire while caroleans keep hand cav away.
I think caroleans are fine as they are. maybe too spammable but their stats and roles have clear weaknesses
They can be fine if we adjust the stats after many trials and patches. But still I’d prefer a unit with modified stats from their counterparts (janissary, etc.) or at most one additional special role (jaguar, etc.), not one with too many special traits and functions.
I think we are way past that point since we have already have units with tweaked stat at just about every type.
The elephant in the room here is inca with tech that increases armour (though china already broke that), units that cant be snared, damage over time and units with ranged snare.
Not really. Even AOE2 with 35 civs and fewer mechanics to tweak has not reached that saturation point. We can list out all unit types and stats to see how many possible combinations we can get.
Some that I immediately come up with: musketeer with higher damage but lower hitpoints, dragoons with higher melee damage but lower ranged damage, etc. I’m ignoring natives or mercs because they are not very accessible.
As for Caroleans, there is at least one unit they can directly copy: the fusilier, who really lacks a regular counterpart. They have ranged bonus against cavalry, but not a faster ROF, very long range or ranged resistance — these can be given to at least three new unique units.
I feel the devs had the compulsory to make everything new special, and they stuff all possible new ideas into the two new civs. That’s too much. Save them for later additions if possible.
Inca has not been a heated topic of debate perhaps because they are not really so annoying as Swedes XD.
It is actually one of the most effective units in its class.
It has distance resistance grid, it is effective pop, micro easy, it costs only one type of resource so its gold upgrade is worth double, it has AA by default, it has an upgrade in the church, it has an attack upgrade card and hit points in 25 % that also affects other units, has 20 small gold factories (torps), is guaranteed 100% of games in the salon, and after sending the card you can produce them in the barracks.
Put all these benefits for civilizations that do not have a musketeer, (allowing the creation of musketeers with the same benefits), then you end the civilization’s weakness.
In fact, Sweden having no skirmish and having jaeger in its place can be a strong point.
Two cards with similar effects receive different benefits.
One has only regular troops.
The other era is faster and contains indigenous troops and mercenaries.
I mean aoe2 has more visible stats like armour to mess with and if anything there they are much more open to messing with even hidden stats then aoe 3. Things like bonus damage are non standard there and things like attack rate and and animation are messed with as well. So it all depends on what stats are you willing to mess with here.
Like the only reason that mangudai are op in aoe 2 is their attack animation and siege bonus damage. They have also messed with melee attack range, but I would argue that they got that from aoe 3. half pop unit, extreme melee armour unit, extreme range armour, ignoring defense, bonus hill advantage and now negating bonus damage.
I am much more open to messing with things like armour and attack rate.
True because AOE3 counter system is based on labels not units, but you can still have infantry countering artillery, which might be OP though.
But AOE3 also gets three damage modes for ranged units (four if you consider bombard damage), special abilities, and does not need to avoid recurring bonuses like in AOE2 thanks to the card system, so there is actually plenty of room to play with.
Just look at the Napoleonic Era mod. They have skirms countering skirms, skirms countering artillery, etc. Not all of them are good idea for an official content of course.
Back to the caroleans, I’m okay with the devs tweaking some stats but right now it’s too much. Ranged cavalry counter, higher ROF, ranged resistance, each can be given to a new unique musketeer instead of stuffing them into one.
That one is actually okay because +15% bonus on hit points or damage for 2~3 regular units is quite common in age II, and Swedes only have one regular hand infantry.
Pikeman, Carolean, Hussar, Hakkapelit.
There are 2 regular infantry and 2 regular cavalry.
This card affects Hakkapelit’s shooting damage but does not affect Carolean at all.
I agree completely Sweden needs a nerf, especially in 1v1.
Torps need their LOS reduced significantly because Swedes always get early map control and due to carolean’s insane speed they can be anywhere on the map in a matter of seconds.
The age2 four torp wagon card (Dominions) should be nerfed as in either the HP boost goes or the ability for torps to receive HC shipments, also please make the torp wagon the same speed as outpost wagon.
In 1v1 against opponents who don’t micro well I’ll obliterate armies of caroleans with my falconets, then literally two minutes later the Swede has remassed 50+ caroleans with leathers… I’d like to see their train time increased to incentivize them to build more barracks which takes away from their wood to build more torps.
And since swedes have so many unique upgrades cards and 5 or 6 Age2 unit shipments, decreasing the xp build bounty of torps slightly would help make things more fair.
Also make the Case Shot card available to all Euro civs!!! I want to know what it’s like to blast swaths of infantry with an 18th century falconet made shotgun.
This thread was written after Sweden received a buff in two weeks. Everyone mocked this man and laughed at his skills, but time showed that his opinion was right. Now in the upcoming March patch, I hope developers will rethink who was right and have clear ideas on how to coordinate them.
The main problem is people always laugh at low level players and consider they shouldn’t participate, this is totally wrong, they are weak can be because of their low control speed and other issues, not meaning their concept/logic/figure are wrong.
There is an element of that, but there are other things which I am starting to realize after talking and playing some of these guys.
There are elements of mechanics involved, but a lot of times lower lvl players loose the game due to lack of knowledge of when to attack, when to age, timings, how to play specific match ups, etc. You can see that if you watch the low elo legends games that was casted on esoctv a few weeks ago.
Knowledge of the game is a huge aspect of becoming a better player and top players simply have a better knowledge and better understanding of how the game works than lower lvl players.
I agree top players opinions are more technically than low players.
I just disagree completely ignore low players opinion even they can show some evidence.
