Svea lifeguard (Caroleans get RR and 25% more hp) is a bad card. It means that your way above musketeers, which are already better against cavalary and against musk, now also dominate those fights even more AND also makes them sustain skirmisher fire way longer than they should.
This card is bad for all game modes - Treaty, supremacy & DM. It literally means you can just spam 1 unit - Caros + any kind of artillery support.
In the same instance the infinite mameluke shipment is too strong and doesnt make any sense for sweden (why would they have acess to mamelukes?). Could just be replaced with stratoits or something idk.
This would be an okay card if Carolean is a melee-specialized unit, or even a short ranged one, so that it has a better chance of catching up with the enemy.
But it is actually range focused and even has a longer range than everyone else.
This unit is two extremes (high melee/speed boost + long range/high range damage) compressed into one. All other units are either mediocre on both (musketeers) or on one of the extremes (melee units like rodelero, ranged units like skirmisher & dragoon). Makes no sense.
Hand cavalry actually does a pretty good job at tanking caroleans.
Once Svea Lifeguard is sent, caroleans will take full damage from hand cav, since they no longer have melee resistance.
Probably not a good plan to send melee cav against them since they have a ranged bonus against melee cav (If Platoon card is sent, the damage bonus to heavy cav is x 2.2 not x1.5)
Guard Caroleans would been dishing out ~30 damage each shot (66 damage to cav) at a rate of 2.5 seconds. They also have ~265 hp with that card so pretty tanky.
Your best bet is mass skirmisher type units (with Counter Infantry Rifling) culverins and some dragoons to defend from potential cav.
Honestly, your odds are not great when it gets to that stage of the game.
They do a fuckton of damage BUT! Because of the built in horrible damage distribution they are gonna kill 2 or max 3 huss in a volley which is acceptable before getting into melee combat.
I agree they look VERY frightening. But you dont have any other chance against them especially they are being supported by 1-2-3 heavy cannons. One on one, maxed out skirms also do better, but they need good micro to scare them away.
Hence france is super scary against sweden. One of the best skirms and Curassier literally shread through svea like bread on butter. Sweden doesnt have goons, so they are screwed big time.
So all in all, Skirm, Melee cav and artillery is the sollution.
Make no mistake, I also agree that svea is a game changer card. But given the civs characteristics I dont think its op. Just my two cents
Yes I couldn’t agree more, as an Aztec player I can assure you that the Aztecs have no effective counter, Aztec skirmishers are too weak and don’t have advance rifling type of card to help, the Jaguars are too slow to catch up and coyotes aren’t effective. Plus Aztecs don’t have artillery so they’re are completely lost at this point of the game. Lol nerf them please.
Aztecs need to finish the job before age 4, period. No changes to caroleans or svea will fix that. Aztecs need an eco buff since their best rush in the game has been nerfed.
Take it into consideration the fact, that swedes have A (1, one) strong unit and they literally dont have anything else! Good melee cav and THATS IT! Practically no skirms, no goons.
As the matter of fact I think we have waaaaay bigger problems with super eco civs like dutch or brits, but thats another topic.
they do have jaegers, mamelukes, decent canons, strong hussar and mortars who can shoot at units.
Just remove the transition to RR, it s just stupid. I think you can just remove the svea lifeguard and the caros would still be good (still have 3 cards affecting them, which is enough for all other civs)
IMO spammable units are always bad. Musketeer types are already spammable (in the early game) and caroleans are even more spammable (and throughout the game).
Whether it be op/up civ, good/bad economy, early/late game, spamming units discourages variety in unit composition. That’s not the purpose of the game design with so many different unit types. I believe most people play this game to have fun, and to explore more varieties, not just to climb up the ladders. Even from a competitive perspective, spamming units does not look fun (think of the ashigaru wars when TAD first came out).
You can nerf civs like Swedes/Japanese to average or even up just by giving them very bad timing/economy and keeping that one super unit that can be spammed, but that still is bad civ design because of that one unit.
One extreme example: a civ has only one unit. It is very weak in the early game, then with an age 4 card it suddenly destroys everything.
Balanced? Yes, maybe even underwhelming.
Good design? Definitely not.
No, they do not. You can probably get one or two even fights with them, but then the weak aztec eco catches up with you. Eagles don’t even trade that well against skirm unless you have the numbers advantage. They do good in general because of their range, but they need support units too.
Unlike caroleans, which have amazing eco and out trade you even with lesser numbers. And just when you think you have taken a good fight against svea caro, bam! infinite 6mamelukes arrive to eat your skirms.
Legit question: Shouldn’t the Aztec player be countering Caroleans with Jaguar Prowl Knights?
I’m not a avid Aztec player, but I guess this would be the ideal counter.
I guess other civilizations can counter with skirmishers, since in my opinion the thing that really makes musketeers loses for the skirmisher is the fact that they get out-ranged badly. And Caroleans still are out ranged and can be kitted by skirmishers.
JPK can kill them if they are close to them. The big issue is their speed, carol are faster than other musk. The best counter i have found are ERKs + slingers thanks to carol havent a bonus agaisnt them.
