Not really because this unit would be the slowest generic infantry and wouldn’t have high attack nor imperial upgrade (like skirms)
They are almost redundant for game mechanics.
In addition to taking the literal meaning of the name, the common unit also has a broader meaning.
For example, swordsman line represents heavy infantry with swords, axes and shields, spearman line represents non-elite troops with polearms, and knight line does not just refer to those European nobles, but heavy armored cavalry.
If you just want more of skin for the regular unit that fits the local culture, that is another matter.
Otherwise, I would recommend setting up some so-called potential common units as UUs for future civs, such as Camel Archer and Throwing Axeman. Or, directly as units in the Scenario Editor so that they can be used in campaigns without affecting the balance of the normal game.
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Disclaimer: I don’t think it’s a good idea to change this old game so drastically but I find it fun to discuss.
So how about splitting Archers and crossbow men.
Archers strengths:
Better range
Better rate of fire
Weaknesses:
Lower attack
Higher frame delay
Slow training time
Crossbowmen:
Higher attack
Low frame delay
Fast training time
Weakness:
Worse range
Slower rate of fire
Thumb ring will only affect archers.
New tech Composite Bow that will give +1 range for Archers
Archers would be better choice against units with low Pierce armor, while crossbowmen would do much better against heavily armored units. In feudal age you would have access to regular Archer that would be able to upgrade to Elite Archer in castle age providing less of a power spike than current Archer → Crossbowmen upgrade. Crossbowmen would now be available in castle age and upgrade to Arbalerster in Imperial age. And of course Meso civs won’t have access to crossbows to make them slightly less anachronistic.
This will also help with creating better civ identities as some civs would focus on archery while some on their crossbows.
Another ideas:
Cranequiniers
Mounted crossbowmen available to Frank’s and Burgundians as a regional unit.
Genitours should be regional units available to Spanish, Portuguese and Berbers.
I have thought this idea a time ago, but never have the «bravery» of post it haha
I think it has huge potential to give game more diversity.
As I thought it, archers line could be even a trash unit, from the start or after a imperial new tech.
Crossbow line should have less RoF and speed than archers, but have the skill of ignores certain points of enemy armor. And less training time than archers.
Archer-line based civs, should have new bonus or UTs to compensate the lack of crossbow-line, or just the archer-line being trash should be enough
What would be the difference between them?
Pretty much everybody in western europe used them.
No real use ingame as we have xbows and bows as uu’s already.
Maybe this could be changed more to be more gimmicky. Unit dont cost population but can only train 10 or 20 and dont get affected by blacksmith upgrades,cost only gold. Basically a mercenary unit.
Japanese need ninja who are fast but have really low attack stats and low armour except they can walk through forests so you can’t wall them out unless you wall your woodlines. Maybe only unlockable at imperial age or they would be too OP. Total meme unit obviously, but would be fun. Being unable to walk through forests is one of many strange mechanics in the game.
II’d prefer indeteactable until attack instead of forest trasspasing
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Making them trainable at Castle and able to cross the wall without the Siege Tower is pretty enough.
Walking through forests is unnecessary and broken actually.
Well this alone would make sense if the game was designed around that. We currently see how “problematic” it is that the skirmisher is the same unit type as the unit it counters, the archer.
Better would it have been if there was one archer type unit that excels against higher pierce armor units and raiding that costs gold and a trash unit that softcounters the first one and counters spearmen aswell but is bad against cav.
Then we could have had a cavalry type archer counter (ironically probably the genitour would have been a good “cav vs archer” unit) that only benefits from cav upgrades.
This way we could have had a real “counter wheel” with the 3 different unit types truly countering each other as intended.
But that’s too much now for changing as the whole game is designed around this minor design flaw. If we wanted to fix it we probably have to change the whole game.
(But it would probably be possible to change the skirm in a way it only benefits from armor upgrades, this way people need to make a decision if they want to play archers or skirms rather than both (or having a way too easy transition).)