What is great about the royal houses

There are a few points I always find difficult to tackle when introducing something new for Europeans:

  1. Elite/Guard units: they are effectively the same type of units as the regular units. It’s odd to simply introduce an improved version of them. Also there is already “guard” level of units. Like king’s musketeer for French would simply be an improved musketeer. It is not typical for an AOE game to have overlapping units in one civ.
  2. Units that are only limited to a short time span: in this era especially in Europe, military technology advances drastically. There are some pretty cool units with a certain vibe (like the Three Musketeers) but too transient to fully replace a regular unit, and also probably not unique enough to make a new unique unit just for it.

It makes much sense if the royal houses bring their own household units to your faction.

Now the only thing I hope (again) is that all old European civs could get shipments for their royal houses…(Germans can get more options considering the nature of the civ design)

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Totally agree

Give me those new natives to use with my old civs!!!

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Para mi las casas mas unicas son la de habsburgo, vasa, borbones, oldemburgo y phanar

I am confused.

So, can other civilizations ally with the Bourbons and then use the Bourbons to defeat the French? Can they ally with the Vasas and then use the Vasas to defeat the Swedes?

I probably don’t know enough about European history, so I’m not sure if that makes sense.
Just don’t want unreasonable things like hiring Manchus to defeat Qing Dynasty of China to be added to the game.

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tss, eso ya se puede hacer, los manchúes son mercenarios que puedes encontrar en la taberna y cualquier civ puede contratarlos

Yeah, the Manchus are the nobles of Qing Dynasty.
So it is unreasonable that other civilizations can hire Manchus to defeat Qing Dynasty of China.

I means, I don’t want something like this get more.

Bourbons are a noble family. They ruled France and Spain and many other states over time. Vasas also ruled Sweden and Poland, etc. Not to mention Habsburgs. And they evolve into different branches. They are not the same thing as countries.
Not all Manchus are the ruling class of the Qing Dynasty. It is totally possible if someone hired some Manchus against Qing China.

If you’re talking about a Manchu’s own choice, that’s not what the game can show.
As far as I know, the Manchu Group had never betrayed the Qing Dynasty. Conversely, the Mongolian Horsemen are more suitable as mercenaries because they had betrayed the Qing Dynasty and were also hired by the Russians in Siberia.

Not disagreeing with that because Manchu as a unit were added before TAD and as the only representation of China.

And the China in game is not solely Qing. It also included Ming, and Ming hired Manchu mercenaries. Taking that period into account others could hire Manchu mercenaries as well. There were also other Jurchen tribes who didn’t join the Qing Dynasty.

Changes are possible. Look at the Fusilier who used to be Swedes.

More than 90% of them belong to the Qing Dynasty, and the few that can symbolize the Ming Dynasty are their campaign, but they are still insignificant.

But the royal houses need to be attached to the countries. The French fight against the Russians, and the house of Bourbon not only does not support the French, but can not even remain neutral and allies with the Russians against the French. This is somewhat counterintuitive to me. :thinking:

Maybe, this may be an extreme assumption unique to the game, that is, the French royal family is not the Bourbons, the Swedish royal family is not the Vasa, and all European civs have nothing to do with those royal houses, so the royal houses can freely decide who to ally with. Even two civs that fighting each other can each ally with the same royal house, etc. Well, fine…

But it definitely includes Ming. And the time period of the game covers Ming. That’s beyond question.

You’re thinking of feudal counties as modern counties or a faction in a video game.
French were once ruled by Bourbons, but not in the entire time period. They got overthrown by the French revolution. At the beginning of the time period of AOE3 France was not even ruled by Bourbons. There are also other Bourbons who ruled other countries.

And the game has been about “alternative history” from the very beginning. The nations you fight against, the maps you fought on, the units you created and the outcomes of battles are all not happening in real history by all means. You can even fight multiple versions of one country using itself. I wonder why you are so strict on this very small detal.

Wrong. Even though I would prefer the game be as accurate as possible while being fun, I’m still open to these not-so-accurate ideas.

I think about these issues because I want to know if this design has any other meaning or purpose. Having the royal houses as the theme of the minor civs is a very special design so of course I would like to know what the developers think and expect about that.

The idea of nobles going against the nation is pretty par for the course.

The nation state wasnt a thing until the 18th-19th century

Houses vie for power to control different thrones and countries all the time

Charles the first fought against the English and the scots to maintain power,

The Hasburg used their house connections to war against other european states and internal rebellions (so like bringing spanish armies to fight in 30 years war on the side of the austrians)

The glorious revolution in england was partly the nobles turning against the king and siding with an invading army

So the way they did it is pretty apt

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Thank you to explain the European history and culture.

If that’s what you’re curious about, royal families are somewhat independent from countries.
Bourbons ruled France for some period of time. They also ruled Spain, and many other places.
Hanoverians became rulers of Great Britain since 18th century.
Habsburgs ruled Austria, several German states, several Italian states, Spain, Portugal, became the emperor of HRE for certain periods of time.
Unless ruled by the same person, they evolve into different branches. And there were series of wars or infightings between the royal members for succession.

As explained above, “national” states were a thing after the revolutions in Europe. Before that it’s more like “nobles and their possessions”.

They have some really nice techs and very powerful units. I don’t think these natives will be ignored like most others. I especially like the 1 that gives you 4 torp wagons.

The Habsburg units kind of suck. The names are horrendous and they aren’t at all Habsburg themed.

“Line Infantry” should be a unit type, not a unit itself. That’s as bad as calling something “Light Infantry”.

“Mounted/Dismounted Infantry” is an equally bad if not worse name. “Mounted Infantry” are just Dragoons, and “Dismounted Infantry” is all infantry. If they wanted a unit with this mechanic they could have gone with bicycle infantry as a shock infantry / light infantry hybrid. Otherwise, they should have just made it a fancy Dragoon.

New mechanics are cool, but they don’t need to be forced where they don’t fit. It feels like some of this is just experimenting with mechanics for future games.

For actual Habsburg units, the obvious choice would be Magyar Hussars instead of only getting a few from a crappy upgrade. Grenzers would be another good option. They’re already a type of revolutionary but that could be easily reworked.

Habsburgs are not exclusive to Austria,so you cannot call them “Austrian musketeers”. “Musketier” would be an even more stupid name.

BTW Magyar hussars are granted by the big button tech

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I never suggested calling anything “Musketeers”. My picks for them would be Magyar Hussars and Grenzers (which would be light infantry). And I already mentioned the tech:

Since Habsburg domains were so far reaching, something else could come in place of Grenzers but whatever that is should be more inspired than “Line Infantry”.