I can understand age 2 skirms having less than 20 range, except Dutch, who probably traded all good age 2 units for a 20 range skirm. But when it comes to age 3, the ranger needs (1) the veteran upgrade (2) the yeoman card (for 20 range) to become on par with other skirmishers. It’s quite a big investment. I’d suggest either:
(1) make the veteran upgrade automatic when reaching age 3
(2) the veteran upgrade gives +2 range and/or the +0.25 bonus (making them a “normal” skirmisher) while the yeoman card does not
(3) reduce the cost a little bit
The current design is okay if the unit is purely designed for late games (you’ll send the yeoman card anyway), but if one wants to make the age 2 church card viable, it needs some improvements. What do people think?
Also, (this is not about gameplay but representation) shouldn’t the ranger unit follow the stat model of sharpshooter (normal damage, longer range) rather than salteador or wakina (shorter range, higher damage)? The guard model even has a scope like that of the sharpshooter. Pretty weird it has by default shorter range than regular skirms.
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I think it should have been more like a sharpshooter, they feel quite underwhelming and lose to basically every other skirm in the game due to them having no upgrade cards and quite poor stats to begin with for a gold heavy unit. It’d also be better than yeomen isn’t needed as you said and just give the range with the vet tech.
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Well, they are not supposed to be a drop in replacement for the longbow, but still, maybe some extra HP would be nice.
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A follow-up on this:
We can compare the ranger with other other counterparts with similar traits:
Cassadors are another “high damage low hp” unit, but they still have more hp and are cheaper. They also have a decent damage (18 vs 19) and the “normal” range and multiplier. While rangers need one card to be competitive with other skirmishers, cassadors with one card get +15% damage/hp and becomes even stronger. Not to mention cassadors are also cheaper.
Sharpshooters are also 95 hp, but they have 22 range and 2.5x bonus against infantry so they do their job even better. The costs are almost the same.
Also, Sharpshooter has 0.4 defense and cassador 0.45.
I’m not sure why the design of this unit is so conservative. Maybe the most conservative new unit since DE. And you need to obtain it through cards. The only advantage it has is the 19 damage (pretty high for a skirmisher) and slightly faster speed. This may make them better in skirm wars like longbows but nothing more. But the -2 range is very significant so these strengths do not make the investments of 1 card + 1 upgrade worth it. Sending 1 card just to save the late-game wood cost is not a very good idea and most other civs do not even need this in the first place.
Rangers should be superior to Longbowmen considering they need an Age 4 card for reliable production or the church tech for a limited number.
Thematically I dont think the Ranger should have its wings clipped to keep the longbow relevant in the late game. Crossbows/Longbows into Rifles feels like a natural transition for the European factions in keeping with the overall theme.
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Mmm si tienes la carta de yeomen obtienen los 20 de rango como un escaramuzador normal y además les da un 0.25 de daño extra contra infantería pesada o era 0.50? no me acuerdo bien aunque ese ultimo bonus esta buggeado y no se aplica.
They are 100% a treaty / supremacy game between very even opponents kind of unit. They are not meant to be used in the average game, but be there once brits have run out of wood.
The range card for longbowmen is almost always used in treaty, so for the main use case of rangers, it has been sent long before someone does the switch to rangers.
This does make them rather useless in supremacy. But I don’t think they were meant to be used in supremacy.
I think the devs took the forum QQ about brits a bit too seriously, which is why they stayed very conservative with this unit.
i think its best that they are done conservatively, considering british muskets, grens, goons and hussars are all triple carded, muskets and hussars are royal guard. They need a skirm to some extent in the very lategame and rangers are nice for dealing with especially tanky heavy infantry, but goodness gracious they dont need to be S++ tier like literally all the other british inf/cav units
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It would be nice if they were at least on par with a regular skirm though, especially considering you need to send yeomen so they can get the same range and an age 4 card just to enable them and they’re not cheap either, no other cards effect them at all and often by age 4 people will have sent upgrades to skirmishers, as it stands you need to use 2 cards just to get a skirm that will lose to every other skirm or equivalent in the game.
it is important to keep in mind they do get 40rr as they get upgraded. they are slightly stronger than wakina in every stat, so i wouldn’t say they’re even close to the worst. advanced arsenal is also a nice touch for competing with non-euro skirms (gurkha, yumi, etc.)
I guess so, they feel bad though and I mean wakina are pretty terrible too though obviously they become good with teepee’s.
I’ll stick with longbow anyway, now that longbow get their heavy infantry multi with yeoman it won’t be so bad. By the time it’s age 4 heavy infantry isn’t such a problem anyway I think.
I did try some comparisons with a friend and yumi I remember just shredded the rangers (both had max upgrades/techs/cards). Not sure about gurkha, might be fairly even if they don’t have a mansabdar.
S++? Ports muskteers are also triple carded and if you go with logistician they also get 13 range. They are objectively better. Also objectively better are the affrican and US musketeers due to sheer range.
Spain with their unicton shenanigans are also better in attack.
Hussars are nice, but average at best, many civs can get various bonuses that bring them inline with brit RG.
Grenadiers: you’re joking, right?
Yeah, their only nice unit is dragoon ironically, which also gets overshadowed by the port one, so maybe they have 2nd best dragoon? But they get suck due to lack of skirmisher.
The thing that makes birts good is their boom, for sure not they military. Their units are performing well, but none are overperforming. What makes them look strong is that brits can get to the point they can spam units faster than some other civs (they aren’t top among boomers either, ports and japan having better and safer booms).
Brits probably traded everything else for that very effective age 2 boom. Average units. Average late game economy. Lack mid-late game unit composition. Need triple cards to make a unit good.
Everything else except the boom is so conservative. Especially so when compared to some other expansion/DLC civs that have decent late games along with good early game options.
And seeing Spain as another one trick pony getting boom option, good late game units, improved late game economy, I think it would not hurt if they really Brits some buff in the late game.
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Well then the age 2 ranger church tech…
Brits are strong in 1v1 I won’t deny.
But the reason is Brits can press very hard in age 2. So buffing their age 2 or early age 3 is dangerous. They may be faster at gathering enough resources for age-ups but (1) it offers nothing impressive (2) no exiled prince (gmt is meant to be that FF option but does not work out well). If the game lasts longer into late age 3 or even age 4 they have few good options. Most other early game civs are not like that. Ethiopians and Hausa for example have good age 2 pressure but even stronger options in the late game.
So giving them some viable options in late age 3 and age 4 (and rangers are exactly designed to serve that purpose) would not hurt. They are not reaching age 4 faster than other civs anyway.
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Brits are basically as vanila a civ can get. Easy to learn, easy to master, but with average results. They are supposed to be among the first civs people learn to play. So there’s nothing really crazy about them.
Yes the vanilla civs still follow the aoe2 kind of design: early game civ, late game civ or average civ. Early game civ has good buffs in the early games but lacks late game units or upgrades.
But I feel since TAD (even more so since DE), with deeper exploits of the card mechanics, the civ design has shifted from uni-dimensional civs to “every civ having some viable early game options and viable late game options but you’ll need to somewhat sacrifice one playstyle for another in one game” instead of completely lacking early/late game options, and are balanced by the cost and effectiveness of these options.
For example USA is more considered as a very late game civ, but it has options like age 2 sharpshooters or outlaw spam (may not be very good depending on balancing tweaks, but the options are still there and could occasionally work).
Brits on the contrary have literally no buffs or upgrades in age 4. Ranger right now functions more like a compromise not a playstyle you deliberately choose.
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Lacking a unit type is part of the original civ design. I think the devs did a decent job making the british feel more like a modern army in the late game without overturning the original design.
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Another unit we can compare is the gascenya. They are different unit types of course but the difference compared to their standard counterpart is the same:
Higher base damage
Lower hp
Slightly faster
Slightly higher cost
Now what does gascenya have in addition? A ROF boost, and the speed is also higher. (Not to mention it used to have even longer range than standard musketeers). Ranger on the other hand gets lower range than a skirmisher.
Don’t get me wrong. I can accept units with certain strengths and weaknesses by design but performing differently in practice. But a unit that is underwhelming by design is not a good idea. Even a weaker unit in all respects is compensated by lower cost. Not to mention this is a unit unlocked by a card and most other such units are much better than average.
I really like the concept and the model of this unit and the card so I think it should be useful.
Another way to make the card itself more intriguing is probably giving infantry a slight speed boost to compensate the speed penalty for thin red line. Just like how Spanish got liberation march to compensate for the speed penalty of corselet.
Thin red line is still among the worst church techs because the penalty is too big. The buff is also quite big though, so the speed compensation should be smaller than the liberation march.
I think the church card should absorb the card that enables the rangers. Church-exclusive upgrades deliver a shipment of rengers upon upgrading, and enable you to craft them from age IV.
This way the church card will be more useful.