Sweden Rework Proposal…

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
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Rework of Sweden:

My issue with Sweden’s design:

Historical:
Sweden had a small population, and therefore used mercenaries to supplement its army.

I think the devs tried to make that happen, but for a variety of reasons that vision failed. Sweden now either uses a powerful eco to create mercs, and almost only mercs, or to spam disposable Swedish soldiers almost like the British or Russians would.

What would help this?

Well, visually, 2 pop Swedish units that are hard to kill and can keep fighting through rough battles would help a lot. Swedish units shouldn’t be dying much. A smaller eco would also help with this since that would mean less production.

What would I change?

Explorer:
Explorer loses the +1 melee attack and gains the ability to heal other units at a rate of 4hp per second (same rate as 1 Indian monk). This will help keep tanky units alive. Of course later you’ll probably want priests, but this will help in the early game.

Torp:
120w
1300hp

Becomes a much slower, but sustainable source of eco. Instead of consuming nearby resources it simply gathers from them. The nearby resources can still be used up by settlers (yours, your teammate’s, or the enemy’s). This incentives you leave trees, mines and berries out (even if only at 1 res each) for the Torps to work on. Torps can work from dead hunts/herds, but those still decay. Crate gathering with the Dominions card remains unchanged, but might get a slower gather rate.

I’d suggest something like -60% compared to the current rate as the new base rate. A card called “Torp Economics” could increase their gather rates by +50% on everything. This would replace the mining upgrade.

• Blueberries could be moved to age 3 to combine with Blackberries. “Each Torp spawns a Blue Berry Bush that is collected 50% faster than the normal rate.” Blue berry bushes would have 250f, but of course aren’t exhausted by Torps. This card would still be infinite, but sends less food for villagers if you were to eat them normally.
Since Torps would still spawn with a regular small berry bush this would allow for some stacking which would be strong for food collection.

• Great Northern Forests would remain similar, but Torps gather slower and infinitely (note that at 0.02w +50% it ends at 0.03w up from 0.05w per tree).

Add Musketeers
4 cards would help them and add the below overall:
• +15% hp
• +20% hp.
• +2 range +10c cost.
• 10% rof improvement at range.

Add Economic Theory.
Add 5 Settlers in II.

Caroleans:
A durable skirmisher from Sweden that prefers to fight in melee. Good against Heavy Infantry and Light Cavalry.

Cost: 150f 50w 2pop
HP: 300 30%rr
Speed 4.75
Ranged attack 20 (standard skirm multipliers) 13 range. 3rof
Siege attack 20, 6 range, 3rof.
Melee Attack 20 (standard skirm multipliers) 1.5rof

As is, Caroleans behavior in melee is already strong vs heavy infantry in melee. Making them a skirm doesn’t seem out of bounds. They’ll lose to heavy cavalry (giving them a solid counter in age 2) and will basically be good vs infantry.
This take on the Carolean would pair nicely with pikemen (and I believe the Swedes kept using pikes longer than most European civs), and would help fill a gap in their unit roster. Later they would pair well with Hakkas and Hussars, making them a core unit in almost any comp.
With Caroleans having 15 max range, Jaegers remain useful by having more range and being slanted towards range combat.

Snaplock Age 3:

• Caroleans and Musketeers gain +2 range. Caroleans now cost 50c instead of wood. Musketeers cost +10c.
• Hakkas still gain +1 Range.

Platoon Fire Age 3:

• Caroleans and Musketeers fire 10% faster at range. Caroleans gain 0.1x against Heavy Infantry and Light Cavalry at range.
Note, this is unlikely to be an issue on either unit. The new Caroleans deal fairly poor damage at Range and Swedish Musketeers don’t get any attack upgrades outside of the standard unit and AA ups.

Seva Life Guard:
• Caroleans, Musketeers and Grenadiers gain 20% hp.

Guard Pikes
• No longer reduces their cost. Wood cost is replaced with 40c.
Nerf

Church tech:
• Jaeger tech now changes Jaegers cost to 100c 70w.
Nerf I believe

Other units, Buildings, and techs remain the same. Caroleans shipments would need to be nerfed according to the new unit cost.

Thoughts:

*These changes would shift the civ from heavily economic towards using more shipments on settlers and military. Caroleans have high health, and you’d need to be careful not to lose them. Your military would be much less expendable, which makes sense for a civ with a low population. Your explorer’s new ability to heal would help in a more aggressive way of playing. *

I suspect such a change to the civ would lend itself well to FFs or rushes with a little extra eco being added in as you need more houses. Booming with Torps would also be an option, but booming would be a weaker option that wouldn’t just be the go to any more.

I think there’s extremely little chance of Sweden getting a rework, but I did keep new additions extremely limited. Most of this could be made entirely from existing assets.

What do you think? I’m expecting a lot of “this is horrible” because I’m suggesting massive changes, but it might start an interesting conversation…

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Why would caroleans, famous for performing well in close quaters and for their formational disciplin, be skirmishers?

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they were anti infantry unit irl and the closest approximation in this game is a skirmisher. like a short ranged urumi. I think it makes more sense than whatever the current unit is trying to be (everything).

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As @dansil92 said, they were anti infantry irl. Having said that though, this was somewhat more gameplay based. Currently they basically beat all infantry in melee anyway while being an anti cavalry unit that only does that well at range. That’s super awkward and the spamminess doesn’t really make sense for such a low population civ. It also does a nice job of filling a hole. Sweden has plenty of anti cavalry options, and Caro/pike or caro/hakka should be a thing imo.

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That is and was because they were not the whole swedish army and never have been and yet have to do every role and by extention therefore beeing a constant balance and fun issue because the devs seemingly thought that they could save dev time by doing so.

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Overall I’m pretty neutral about most of this, but a couple of these ideas I’m strongly against.

Hell NO for this one.

Caroleans are pretty much the exact opposite of a skirmisher. They have a solid ranged attack with a shorter reach (at least initially), strong melee, and fought in disciplined formation which is exactly what the musketeer role represents. Their current role is a bit too incoherent and contradictory, but turning them into a skirm and adding musks is not a good fix for that.

Instead, I’d change them to focus on their short range and melee capabilities and get rid of the bonus vs cav at range and million upgraded to their ranged attack. Now that Hakkas are more of a standard goon, there is no need for Caroleans to try to fill the goon role and have weird multipliers and a bunch of extra range. More or less something like this:

image

To keep a niche open for Pikemen, Carolean siege could be even worse than above. It would also be historically accurate since most of Sweden’s major defeats were from trying to charge on units in entrenched positions. More details in the discussion below:

With Caroleans changed to a more standard musk role, I think Sweden should also have a more capable light infantry unit in the early game. Adding Arquebusiers to the standard European roster (also for Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese) could fill this role to give them a decent early game skirm that lacks some late game upgrades so that Sweden still must supplement with Jaegers in the late game. I didn’t mention it in the original post about it, but a good way to make them unique and incentivize their roll as part of pike and shot formations would be to give them a stat boost for every nearby Pikeman (like State Militia or Poruchiks with the Polk card). Making them a 2 pop unit would also fit with Sweden having a small population and would go along with some of your suggestions.

The last unit I’d change is the Hakkapelit. They went through a ton of iterations before settling on being a normal goon with slightly more melee attack. I think there is room to go back to some of the ideas of previous iterations to give them a more unique role. Firstly, they should get rid of the x0.75 vs infantry and villagers. It is unnecessary when they could just lower the base attack and reduce the other multipliers. Next, they should restore the melee multiplier to be for all cavalry but add the heavy cav tag to compensate (so they would be both heavy and light cav). That would make them get countered by goons from range, but defeat them in melee. It would also let them get the heavy cav arsenal upgrades once again. So overall, something like this:

image
image1241×427 139 KB

Reducing the Torp gather rate in exchange for higher yields is something I could get behind. I’d like to see something similar for other gathering buildings like Mountain Monasteries so that they increase yields instead of gather rates. I wouldn’t want them to not use resources at all though, and increasing the yield would be a better approach. A change like this would have to be done carefully since going too far would make the opportunity cost of Torps too great.

Another way to dampen Sweden’s economy could be to emphasize their low population by making their Settlers take longer to train instead of capping the amount at 90. Their economy peaks earlier on because of their Torp boom so having a lower villager cap really does nothing to balance their economy when it is most over tuned.

I agree, they’re a bit too cheap how they are now. Getting an Arquebusier unit that pairs with pikes would be a good way to also keep them relevant without an excessive cost reduction.

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Caroleans are historically by all means line infantry (aka musketeer). The shock tactics they use does not change the fact.
I would say AOE3’s infantry system is very centered on the 18-19th European warfare. So though some other civ’s units may be arbitrarily assigned to heavy or light infantry when their role does not perfectly fit in that system (eg Chinese arquebusier and Japanese ashigaru, which had similar roles irl), the European units are mostly authentic to their historical roles. Like you’ll never make the cassador a musketeer or the redcoat a skirmisher.

Not to mention caroleans have the most “musketeer” gears in this game: tricornes and long coats.

Also Swedes don’t lack means to counter infantry. They have age 2 artillery and mass jaegers.

Carolean can simply find a more standardized role by tuning down its range and melee counter to infantry. It has too many roles, some of them contradictory. A low range musketeer with ranged counter to cavalry and good melee is a more consistent unit.

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Thank you for the feedback, but I’m inclined to respectfully disagree.

Without a doubt, Caroleans fought like a line infantry while also using charge tactics, but does that actually require them to be heavy infantry? The stats I suggested would lead to them fighting like a line infantry unit, while simply being an infantry counter instead of a cavalry one (kinda like Strelets). Meanwhile you get to fix a hole in your roster while making the unit make sense by very clearly making it one thing.
To answer @ArrivedLeader22 , yes, Sweden has access to Jaegers and Leather Cannons, but neither are available super early. Leather cannons require significant protection and fixing Sweden’s eco will make teching into them early a lot harder (right now Sweden’s eco is a bit insane). An Artillery Foundry is expensive and most civs can’t make production off two military buildings work right away.
An actual age 2 skirm will allow for more resource efficient trading with heavy infantry in age 2, and that in turn should make the less eco focused design I suggest function.

Historically, the Swedish used pike lines. Currently, there isn’t really any unit that they would use pikes to protect. To @M00Z1LLA ‘s point about bringing pikes with Caroleans for siege, I just don’t see that happening much. Even if you nerf their siege it’s just unlikely that people will choose to pair Caroleans with pikemen because they are both countered by the same things and a refocusing of Caroleans towards being more musk-like in melee will only further ensure that.
If you remember, the prerelease version of Caroleans that players got to stream on Twitch and/or YouTube had 10 range. They got buffed because it made fighting at range difficult. Now the ability to change also has a substantial cooldown which will make it worse. The extra 5ph and 10% rr you suggested would help, but the lower range is a massive nerf. At that time the balance on Sweden was pretty horrible, but I don’t think the lower range units will be able to trade effectively enough for a lower eco version of Sweden. I had suggested a 60% nerf to base rates which turns them into a much more aggressive civ (which should work given all the military shipments. Though might require a few extra starting crates).
I wouldn’t mind adding Arquebusiers, but I just don’t know that they’ll do that (budget reasons). The game is getting a DLC which will hopefully come with a few balance patches, but I suspect pretty much all further new content will be in DLCs (assuming we get more than one, which feels like a valid thing to question).

They might be a controversial unit in their own right, but I’d argue Strelets function like a line infantry while being a skirmisher. I think Caroleans could follow in the same lane, only as a high hp, 2 pop skirm.

I don’t believe you can simply nerf the torp rates and have things function unchanged as they are (militarily speaking). I think the massive eco acts as a bandage that hides underlying problems with the design of the civ. There are times where it’s great to have age 2 cannons, but they are times where you just need to hit-and-run and cannons can’t really do that. Adding to that a much slower eco would help with the balance in team games where the current Torp boom is kinda insane.

@M00Z1LLA , I liked the suggestion for Hakkas, though I think making them heavy cavalry won’t work. If they counter Light Cavalry in melee you kinda don’t want them getting ripped apart by Dragoons at range imo. Rifle Riders work because they are glass cannons who fight best at range. I think the addition of that tag might be an unnecessarily cautious move given the stats you suggested. If anything, I’d maybe cut the melee multiplier to 2.5x vs cavalry since they attack a lot faster.