From my experience, I feel that 90% of the time, they are just lesser Jaegers (if they are available). Sure they kill skirms, but you have to constantly micro to make sure that they are aiming for Skirms, instead of HI or Cavs (they don’t do remarkably against LC). While micro is important for making the game interesting, Skirms are 1-pop each, and usually come in groups. This makes Pandours usage a case of babysitting the battle. Comparatively, Jaegers kills HI and LC fairly fast. Since both HI and LC tend to have shorter range and fight in front of the battle, Jaegers need considerably less micro to work.
I don’t think Pandours actually benefits in having HI bonus from CIR. However, they should beat HI by stats alone. Regardless, I still have a gripe against the CIR tech. (I view CIR and Caracole as two techs that significantly disrupts the game balance, as they make most musketeers useless.)
Agreed. Under current implementation, Counter-skirms are neither historically supported, nor particularly useful in the game. This is why I suggested that Pandour should just lose most of its bonuses and be a very long-range infantry. It should not do a lot of damage, but it should force the enemy to either withdraw or engage.
As an aside, skirmishers are occasionally recorded in picking-off artillery crews (as they were high-value targets). Thus, while counter-skirms are historically unfounded, counter-artillery can actually be a thing!
For counter-skirms, CIR gives an extra +1 multiplier vs light infantry instead of +1 vs heavy infantry.
Despite having a multiplier vs skirms, Hajduks aren’t counter-skirms so they get +1 vs heavy infantry from CIR. I think a design like that would work much better for Pandours.
I find the pandours very powerful in their function, but it is true that they need an excessive micro to be fully profitable.
I have not used them again with Germany after they added the correct cost of 1k, when they cost 500c they were absurdly broken and I used it practically as the first or second shipment in age III.
Jaegers are the favorite option, bosniaks are really strong, and black riders with the next update are going to be the star shipping merc of germany for their versatility (with the cac increase to 18 they .will beat (melee) small groups of skirms easily)
This is absolutely correct. They are not equivalent to other 400 coin mercenaries or 4 pop units. They need to reduce both of them, for them to be in line with their role as a worse Elmetti. 300c 3pop seems fair.
both the Indian mercs got very poor stats for their cost and population. Arsonists were a bit niche but useable on TAD if you were russian (ransack buffed and fast training) or Chinese (most of their infantry had low siege and they were easy to hide in the infantry deathball).
Jat lancers were never available in the saloon/tavern/etc. until DE. I used the age 4 card a couple times on tad only to realize my entire military population was now sitting in a handful of mediocre, expensive cavalry. They definitely should be 3 pop at most and cheaper too… or just better stats. A card to ship them age 3 would be cool too.
that tiny bonus is no where near to make it compare with just any merc with 4pop/400g Elmenti, Royal Horsemen, or just any merc, they are pretty much trash. Even the card fills the heavily contented age2 slot and enables it in age3
ALL Asian Merc except Manchu and Ronins are very unusable.
The scenario where I thought Jat Lancer gonna be useful is when a very late game where wood has runs out, and the gold only cost should make it a replacement to Mahout, but then since it can only be trained from temple it just not easily replaceable.
Japan Yojimbo got melee area damage and making them a bit like Age3 Cuirassier for #### that weak against Skirmisher, but the 4pop cost limit this merc utility too
Actually, Barbary Revolution gives you access to Corsair Marksman and Barbary Warrior, not Barbary Corsair Mercs (the naming is sort of confusing here). So buffing Barbary Corsair Mercs wouldn’t make the Revolution overpowered.
Funny that they don’t have a card for the Barbary Corsair mercs though…
I knew I forgot something. Complaint:
Compared to Elmetto, Jat Lancers are quite underwhelming. I think the original designer of the Jat Lancer probably took a look at Stradiot and thought “let’s make it a lancer”. The issue is that Jat Lancers falls in an unhappy middle spot between Elmetto (4pop, slow, but tough and murders infantry) and Stradiot (3pop, weaker, but faster and has good melee damage). Recommendation:
Make them the fastest horseman in the game. The idea is to make them a tougher Indian Sowar, which is one of the fastest cavalry in the game. Effectively, you are paying for a somewhat resilient unit that can outrun everything (including dragoons) in the game.
Increase their base speed to 7.75.
Decrease their pop count to 3 (and their cost accordingly).
Reduce their infantry bonus to x1.5.
Agreed. Grenadier units in general needs to be reviewed. I have previously posted the idea that having Grenadier not being one-shotted by Falconets and being able to threaten badly placed artillery goes a long way to making them viable. While the Humbraci is a bit overdone in the context of the Ottoman roster (anything that buffs Abus Gun also buffs Humbraci, and Janissary are very good meatshield), I feel the devs are on the right track here.
Iron troops are also fine, albeit redundant in the context of the Chinese roster. (CKN and Arqs are both good at their jobs. Anti-cav is where the Chinese falls flat.)
I think Yojimbo is sort-of overpriced and over-popped. The unit is sort of a ranged-melee cav hybrid, but at 4-pop, it just feels inefficient for some reason. The fact that they look more like outlaws than mercenaries does not help either. I am not sure what to do for these units. (Actually, does Japan really have any famous cavalry mercenaries?)
Iron troops and Yojimbo are some of the best mercs in the game, so in reality most of the asian mercs are good, what they lack are upgrade cards/politicians.
I would say 3/6 Asian mercs are reasonably usable.
Manchu: Very useful, especially for the Chinese and Russian in Age 3 against civs with good cav (France, Ottoman, etc.)
Iron Troop: Very good against most infantry. However, the unit feels redundant sometimes, since CKN and Arqs are good enough in most cases.
Yojimbo: Powerful hybrid unit. However, its pop count feel a bit unjustified at times.
Ronin: All-or-nothing unit. If it can catch the enemy, the enemy is dead. If enemy skirm group or artillery spots them, the Ronins are dead (there are only 5 of them). The unit feels more like a gamble than is actually usable. Furthermore, since the Ottoman and Portuguese (they can hire Ronin) army are quite range-focused, the enemy will notice when some suspicious unit attempts to close-in the melee distance.
Jat Lancer: It can be used in a pinch, but it is notably worse than Elmetto, and it is not as efficient as Stradiot.
Arsonist: This unit needs to be buffed or redesigned.
But I agree that the Asians need a mercenary upgrade system. Off the top of my head, maybe the Asian civs can have an “Amnesty” tech, which buffs outlaw and mercenaries?
I like that Irontroops are the only unit in the game with 60% range resist however they are too… soft and too inaccesible. Why we will never see a imperial stat irontroop is beyond me as in older AOE they were pretty amazing
This is true in principle, but as you implied they don’t benefit from +x1 multiplier like the rest of the archers-skirms for China and they can even get outranged by Portuguese Goons later in the game. Plus yeah, no imperial upgrades. This unit is supposed to be based on Yumi, but they don’t have the longer range card so they quickly fall off.
compare with just any merc with 4pop/400g Elmenti, Royal Horsemen, or just any merc, they are pretty much trash. Even the card fills the heavily contented age2 slot and enables it in age3 