Grenadier Buff?

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Canada dansil92
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Grenadier Buff?

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Post by dansil92 »

I'm new to the forums but have been lurking for a long time- just was watching the tournament finals and had a few thoughts I wanted to put out there...

Disclaimer: I am a PR17 at the moment. It varies widely as I like to experiment with oddball strategies and civs I am less familiar with but usually can go toe to toe against PR21-24 when playing seriously 1v1 as dutch, aztec or british. I am in no way a top level player, nor do I have enough time to dedicate to become one, I just wanted to throw out a few ideas.

What I can't understand is why the Grenadier unit carries the heavy infantry tag? Since the definition of heavy infantry in AOE3 is "infantry which counters cavalry" it makes no sense to have it listed as heavy infantry. The tag never has had anything to do with range, seige, speed or damage, but just as a counter to heavy cavalry. Arrow knights certainly are a similar unit in some respects and don't carry the "heavy infantry" tag. In fact this creates a lot of imbalance, especially against asian civs. My thinking was that if they were merely classified as ranged infantry they would be much more viable in a few scenarios, and more balanced.

For example, has anyone ever grenade rushed china? (I'm actually surprised i have never seen it in a tournament where china is played on a livestock map). China basically can't counter it effectively because Steppe riders (like sowars, mahouts, and nagi) don't have a multiplier against them because they only have multipliers against non-heavy infantry, and chu ko nus have too few hitpoints to stand up to them. While kiting with them technically works, you have to train them with pikes or steppes so China will always lose. In fact with only a card or 2, british grenadiers can actually take out a steppe rider IN MELEE. If grens didn't carry the heavy infantry tag then it would be a very different story and they couldn't just walk all over colonial china. (for the record, disciples, cossacks from the consulate and a well popped mandarin duck squad shipment can absolutely wreck a grenade rush but for standard china it is almost impossible to hold).

It appears that grenadiers were originally supposed to be equivalent to a really aggressive skirmisher. Short ranged, slower, and awkward animation but strong against anything they are dealing damage to, with high seige damage, but no ability to hit and run to compensate. So if you are pushing they are great, but terrible in quick, noncommittal skirmishes.

In a situation where walls are spammed and culverins are camped behind it, they could provide another option at least. They also do very well against war ships (if you put them in melee mode they deal their seige attack damage which can go as high as 100 in colonial for british, or if you don't they just do ranged damage which is rather insignificant against any ship except fishing ships and canoes). In simple terms they would be like a short ranged skirmisher-falconet. Of course skirmishers could abuse their range advantage to soft counter them, but it wouldn't be so punishing and they would actually act as damage sponges even when not dealing damage, and would be countered the same way as a skirmisher- by heavy cav and falconet type artillery. They could also be used to counter urumi masses as well (currently it takes roughly 15 equally upgraded grenadiers to take on 9 urumi- even with the heavy infantry tag, they are actually decent against urumi due to the 50% range resist but the 1.8 multiplier does hurt them a lot).

To compensate it might be necessary to maybe reduce ranged resist to like, 40% or maybe they need a price reduction (100 :food: 50 :coin: ?) to make them even worth the trouble. I am not sure but they simply are a useless unit currently because basically anything that moves apart from russian musketeers, poorly microed xbows, culverins and mortars all act as a direct counter to them. In this boomy meta that almost inevitably goes fortress, the goon skirm composition just doesn't have the seige power to effectively deal with a well executed turtle strategy. It also would make for some interesting unit compostions (gren goon?) that could spice up fortress play, and give some viability to colonial play as they are a colonial unit and british/ottoman could definitely take advantage of them to actually punish trade post booms, water booms, or semi ffs (dutch and russia don't have the anticav age 2 to realistically pull this off but dutch could in age 3 if they really wanted to). It also would give a unique option to china and india who can access them through the french consulate (and those ones shadow tech) in colonial as well.

If this turtly, boomy, wall up and go IV unpunished strat is gonna really enter the meta maybe it is something worth considering? Giving an unused unit a chance at viability outside of lower level play? And add in some balance for asian cavalry to counter them?
p.s. sorry about the wall of text :lol:
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Re: Grenadier Buff?

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Post by zoom »

Thank you for your wall of text. I largely agree with you.
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Re: Grenadier Buff?

Post by gamevideo113 »

I think it's curious that euro civs who have xbows don't have grenadiers and vice versa. Maybe the devs did this on purpose? :hmm:

Anyway reading your wall of text was enjoyable! Good job
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Re: Grenadier Buff?

Post by dansil92 »

That was actually what I thought when I first tried out grenadiers, that they were meant as a counter to xbow pike? Honestly the only thing that makes them poor at this is that ridiculous heavy infantry tag, as their stats are pretty decent and they are insanely tanky for an age II unit. Well and a 300 wood artillery foundry but Otto do that all the time...
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Re: Grenadier Buff?

Post by n0el »

Art Foundry is too expensive!
mad cuz bad
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Re: Grenadier Buff?

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Post by VooDoo_BoSs »

Providing them more siege damage and less hitpoints could be a way to make them better at their job without becoming OP, and also reduce the power of Water / FI turtles.
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Re: Grenadier Buff?

Post by HUMMAN »

Balance is gimmicky, easiest way to balance rock paper scissor = cav anticav(musk goon pike etc) antianticav(skirms bows etc) and game uses it.
I dont see at which side of spektrum grenidars are. Yeah there is also "siege units" but honestly you make pike or musk to siege something, and they are good at sieging. So in game, i dont see as a design what grenidars accomblish at all. They are fun to play, have good stats but i dont see their role. So they could be either good against all units or bad against all units which is latter. I wonder what @Garja thinks in terms of game design.
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Re: Grenadier Buff?

Post by dansil92 »

It seems like it was supposed to be essentially an age 2 falconet (seige & anti infantry) or later on as a slightly more mobile seige unit with range rather than just dying like halbs inevitably do? Just seems like removing that tag could let them counter the two frustrating things in the recent meta, turtley water booming and urumi, even if that is all they are good for?
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Re: Grenadier Buff?

Post by saveyourskill »

When 2 pikes cost less and do more siege damage.
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Re: Grenadier Buff?

Post by Rikikipu »

Yeah I think we currently lack good siege options in age 2. Searching toward this direction is probably a good idea
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Re: Grenadier Buff?

Post by pecelot »

my respond always:
decrease artillery foundry cost to 250w
nerf grens' stats and cost
make them cost one pop
give one of gren's HC cards an artillery foundry wagon
when above is done, make a 5 grenadiers shipment (or smth)

:D
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Re: Grenadier Buff?

Post by Interjection »

I really like this suggestion, it does seem really dumb that skirms get to do their multipliers against them

I've always wondered why not just give grens to all civs and be done with it. Combined with this buff, perhaps it would add some more colonial options to the game
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Re: Grenadier Buff?

Post by deleted_user0 »

imo grens should get a bonus vs heavy infantry, but keep heavy inf tag itself. and either be trainable from barracks, or make foundry cheaper indeed.
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Re: Grenadier Buff?

Post by Kaiserklein »

With heavy inf tag they are totally useless whenever skirms are involved though
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Re: Grenadier Buff?

Post by deleted_user0 »

Kaiserklein wrote:With heavy inf tag they are totally useless whenever skirms are involved though


they still have 50% range. can tweak that upwards, if needed. or maybe add a bit more speed. it would be cool if grens could be used as an alternative to musk huss. like u can go musk gren or gren huss vs musk huss or lb pike.
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Re: Grenadier Buff?

Post by Kaiserklein »

I'd make their animation faster then, it's probably what hurts grens the most anyway
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Re: Grenadier Buff?

Post by dansil92 »

I think the slow animation sort of balances out how powerful they can be when the damage stacks up, but i really think they should be able to counter skirmishers when used aggressively. I think their stats and multipliers are fine (maybe a tiny bit more default siege, but then you would have to nerf the british card) it is literally that heavy infantry tag (that breaks the logic of what heavy infantry is supppsed to be) that holds them back. Reducing the cost of a foundry would be a big step forward (remember when stables and trading posts were 250 wood?) In making grenadiers and artillery in general more usable. Going barracks foundry would be an interesting possibility. I have a build i use currently where i do that (musk gren, good against russia and aztec, not much else tho) but you gotta get a trading post and ship 3 settler then VC then 700 wood or you just end up housed and out of wood and even then you have to have a 300 wood start. Maybe making a foundry 200 wood would be a good buff along with dropping the heavy infantry tag?
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Re: Grenadier Buff?

Post by NekoBerk »

VooDoo_BoSs wrote:Providing them more siege damage and less hitpoints could be a way to make them better at their job without becoming OP, and also reduce the power of Water / FI turtles.


Hit and run and they won't give any damage homie.
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Re: Grenadier Buff?

Post by aligator92 »

I love the idea of them being trainable from the barracks as it would allow you to mix 5 of them in a musk war (any MU between brit, india and russia) or if you wanted to add more siege to your comp.
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Re: Grenadier Buff?

Post by momuuu »

Be careful with what you wish for. Grenadiers have more potential than you might think. Their problem isn't actually the damage or hitpoints or their tags, the problem is that grens have terrible range and probably the worst animation in the game. Trying to fight anything with range is just impossible. But once these things get in a straight up fight and are combined with the upgrade from the Arsenal they are absolute beasts. It's just that anything with range hit and runs them to death.
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Re: Grenadier Buff?

Post by dansil92 »

aligator92 wrote:I love the idea of them being trainable from the barracks as it would allow you to mix 5 of them in a musk war (any MU between brit, india and russia) or if you wanted to add more siege to your comp.


They already train from forts and galleons so it really wouldnt be a stretch to move them to the barracks?
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Re: Grenadier Buff?

Post by VooDoo_BoSs »

NekoBerk wrote:
VooDoo_BoSs wrote:Providing them more siege damage and less hitpoints could be a way to make them better at their job without becoming OP, and also reduce the power of Water / FI turtles.


Hit and run and they won't give any damage homie.


That's fine, but I think they aren't as good vs buildings as they should be - their primary purpose.
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Re: Grenadier Buff?

Post by pecelot »

their slow animation underlines their main weakness ā€” they can never catch skirms, no matter what (though the 50% RR is useful), and they can never hit and run against cavalry; it's sort of like with artillery: you have to position yourself virtually perfectly to get the optimal benefit of grenadiers
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Re: Grenadier Buff?

Post by momuuu »

I think their slow animation doenst underline their main weakness, it IS their main weakness. In straight up fights well microed grenadiers perform great. In occasional trolling that Ive done I have always been amazed by their performance. At some critical mass they become very deadly once theyre actually lobbing those bombs. I actually think grens from the barracks could straight up be viable right now, especially with a little fixing of that animation.
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Re: Grenadier Buff?

Post by zoom »

Barracks seems risky. Might try it eventually.

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