NOOB strategy question : 3v3 using saloon mercs a good idea or bad?

[Chief_fys]

played a deccan mu with some liuts, team mate went ronin into a ger making thugee , got into heated debate after gg lol question to pros, is it generally a good idea to saloon in a 3v3 where eco is generally going to win ?.

[Snuden]

Depends.

[P i k i l i c]

It's a gamble, usually bad because you need population, control mines, train from only 1 building units that you can't improve... but by surprise it can work sometimes. Do it only if you're experienced with the saloon and if you play for fun and surprise but don't expect to win

[Kawapasaka]

I also played some Deccan games with a German making thugees, he claimed they were really good. Worked well enough alongside musk/huss I guess. I think he said they were basically better Abus just with an awkward firing animation, does that sound about right?

[Chief_fys]

I also played some Deccan games with a German making thugees, he claimed they were really good. Worked well enough alongside musk/huss I guess. I think he said they were basically better Abus just with an awkward firing animation, does that sound about right?

yes it seems i have experienced a player doing the same, I personally think there are too many variables for it to be viable in 3v3.

[stanleywinston]

Generally, going mercs is not a good idea because of a few reasons: you deplete your mines (and your teammates') very fast because of the high gold cost resulting in running out of safe mines relatively quickly, you commit to one sort of unit (this means your adaptability is non-existant), your mapcontrol is limited, etc, etc... Situationally, mercs are good as an addition to your army or when you're totally out of hunts and all that's left are mines, but mostly these units are not cost-effective. Most of the time you're better off just getting map control and playing it from there.

[Kaiserklein]

Yeah depleting the gold (the early plantation switch will be painful) and the randomness of the saloon makes it quite bad in team. Also even if you get a good merc, it's likely to not be the kind of unit you want to make; for example if you have blackriders but your mate is ports, you're better off letting him make goons and not go for blackriders yourself.

But imo biggest issue is mercs not being very upgradable. If you're lucky enough to get a good merc, you're gonna be able to ship one upgrade (the advanced mercs one) or at best two (with cav attack, if it's a cav merc). On the other hand, everyone else is most likely to stack upgrades on their units, and most importantly get a guard upgrade, which mercs don't have (and industrial happens very often in 3v3 deccan). So basically your mercs are gonna be strong for some minutes, but very quickly they'll get outscaled by regular units. And then you'll have to switch to some other unit (usually uhlans or wws) for that reason, and the advanced mercs card you shipped becomes useless, and you miss a lategame card in your deck because of that.
And if you don't have a good merc, you're selecting a deck with advanced mercs inside for nothing, which just sucks because there's a ton of good age 3 cards you'd like to have instead.

[Chief_fys]

Yeah depleting the gold (the early plantation switch will be painful) and the randomness of the saloon makes it quite bad in team. Also even if you get a good merc, it's likely to not be the kind of unit you want to make; for example if you have blackriders but your mate is ports, you're better off letting him make goons and not go for blackriders yourself.

But imo biggest issue is mercs not being very upgradable. If you're lucky enough to get a good merc, you're gonna be able to ship one upgrade (the advanced mercs one) or at best two (with cav attack, if it's a cav merc). On the other hand, everyone else is most likely to stack upgrades on their units, and most importantly get a guard upgrade, which mercs don't have (and industrial happens very often in 3v3 deccan). So basically your mercs are gonna be strong for some minutes, but very quickly they'll get outscaled by regular units. And then you'll have to switch to some other unit (usually uhlans or wws) for that reason, and the advanced mercs card you shipped becomes useless, and you miss a lategame card in your deck because of that.
And if you don't have a good merc, you're selecting a deck with advanced mercs inside for nothing, which just sucks because there's a ton of good age 3 cards you'd like to have instead.

exactly the kind of breakdown we expect from kaiser. thanks, much appreciated.

[noissance]

Age 3 lil'bombards can be pretty OP...

[P i k i l i c]

No way Li'l Bombard are OP, they look cool, but the most expensive unit in the game, the most pop-heavy, the longest train time and slow

[noissance]

No way Li'l Bombard are OP, they look cool, but the most expensive unit in the game, the most pop-heavy, the longest train time and slow

The OPness comes with psychological warfare, the enemy will either:
1) Freak out and focus fire it, ignoring other units you have at disposal
2) Laugh at its poor stats compared to industrial cannons and overcommit
3) Lose the mind game by underestimating you by assuming you wouldn't waste resources like that (surprise factor)

[duckzilla]

But imo biggest issue is mercs not being very upgradable.

I don't think this is true. Mercs usually have age IV stats. Using adv. mercs/arsenal upgrades/cav attack usually yields a stat increase of +30-35% for hp/dmg. This is actually quite strong.
Usually, the imperial upgrade improves guard level units only by: (1 + 0.2 + 0.3 + 0.5) / (1 + 0.2 + 0.3) = 1.33 -> 33%
Hence, adv. mercs gives you de facto (very costly) imperial age units in age III. If you are lucky and get manchus, you can keep spamming them in late-game due to their awesome stats and relatively ok costs. But even in the worst case, fully upped 70 area dmg Ronin should not be underestimated.

Anyway, I would rather put this under "fun strats", since that is exactly what it is. A gamble on good units, which can be a lot of fun and works up to 2.lt level.



Also: Lil' Bombards are really crappy. If even the guy (me) who defends mercs and melee inf accepts that, then it might actually be true.

[Kaiserklein]

But imo biggest issue is mercs not being very upgradable.

I don't think this is true. Mercs usually have age IV stats. Using adv. mercs/arsenal upgrades/cav attack usually yields a stat increase of +30-35% for hp/dmg. This is actually quite strong.

That it just so wrong. They have fortress stats, not industrial ones. Take a black rider for example (one of the good mercs): their stats and cost are very similar to war wagons (which aren't even a good unit), though they do have more mobility obviously. If by "age 4 stats" you mean that they have lots of hp and attack, that doesn't make sense because you also have to take into account their cost obviously... However it's true that they scale off fortress stats, which does make the upgrades a bit more efficient. But regardless they're lacking an industrial upgrade lol. For instance jaegers are OP in early-mid fortress, but go fight with them against carded guard skirms and you'll see they get raped. And the same goes with any merc.

Usually, the imperial upgrade improves guard level units only by: (1 + 0.2 + 0.3 + 0.5) / (1 + 0.2 + 0.3) = 1.33 -> 33%
Hence, adv. mercs gives you de facto (very costly) imperial age units in age III.

You what?? Just no

If you are lucky and get manchus, you can keep spamming them in late-game due to their awesome stats and relatively ok costs. But even in the worst case, fully upped 70 area dmg Ronin should not be underestimated.

Manchus are one of the very best mercs yeah. But they'll still get totally dicked on by regular goons in late game lol. And ronins are bad, they're super expensive and take 4 pop and just get sniped.

[Kaiserklein]

Ah and one thing I forgot to mention about why going mercs in team is bad. You can build only one saloon, and the train time of mercs is pretty slow. That's not a problem in 1v1 because you don't stretch to lategame, but in team it's awful. Basically you can't afford losing your mercs because you'll end up struggling to remass while opponents will have 3 stables or whatever. And if you take the fast training cards in your deck, you need to have both the cav and inf ones, because you don't know what kind of merc you'll get. Again a card in your deck that could be some useful upgrade instead.