Ideas to turn HALBEDIERS and GRENADIERS into useful units

[ronsu]

Hi guys,

I was waiting for the DE of Aoe3 with two main expectations:
1. a functional quick match
2. a rebalance of the forgotten units to be playable.

The first point is a work in progress, but it's there.

The second point is not. HALBEDIERS and GRENADIERS are still units with no purpose or are not real alternatives to other units.
I don't want to give up. I want to share ideas to make them useful and to have a richer unit tree for this game. It could be done with very little work. Can some of the insiders like @Garja take a look? Maybe it's worth to talk to the developers about it.

These are my suggestions:

HALBEDIERS: change their speed to 6.

Halbedier unit as it is now have no point to exist. You'll prefer pikemen (5 speed) to chase cav, muskets to protect from cav.
I really think it needs to be reworked.

Change their speed! Just that! Then you'll have a different unit, that could offer a real defense against cav (could chase them to force a retirement) and a real offense charging at shooter infantry, like Urumis (4,5 speed) as India or the Protoss Zealots in Starcraft 2.

It's a good and simple way to fulfill their purpose: counter cav, fight in melee before any rifle soldier kill them while they walk in their direction.

GRENADIERS: add a multiplier x3 vs all infantry.

Right now, Grenadiers are a very expensive unit, use 2 pop space, and requires building an Artillery to be trained.
No one invest that much in Colonial Commerce Age for what you receive: a slow and fragile unit that destroy buildings but don't do much in a battle.

We have a shiny new card for them in Fortress... but who do invest in grenadiers when you can have falconets?

If we want grenadiers to be used we need a unit that can fight. And they have grenades, remember? They should be fragile and expensive, but they should kill big when a grenade falls on a mass of soldiers.

The multiplier is a simple solution to resurrect this unit.
More range would be needed, too. Maybe like Abu Guns (18).


I'll be pleased to have some changes in this two units.
I'll be pleased if some of you would discuss these ideas to find better ones.
I'll be pleased if some insiders explain to us if they have talked about this units and if there are reasons to have them as they are.

If we can agree in a simple but good solution to this pieces, and bring them to the developers, I think we can have a better game overall.

[chronique]

halb with 6 speed ^^

[kevinitalien]

grenadier with x3 vs all infantry ^^

[[Armag] diarouga]

Haha halbs with 6 speeds. Caroleans 3.0

And greens ROFL

[KINGofOsmane]

Would make aoe3 great again!

[japanesegeneral]

halb with 7.2 speed with aa^^

[chronique]

I think halb with 4.5 speed is good but not sure if that make them more usefull, where 5 speed is to much.

[flutelrut]

Do any of the ironic players use these units in the game?

[kevinitalien]

Do any of the ironic players use these units in the game?

that's not the question, it's rather "the unit would be broken or not?"

[ShinkuroYukinari]

Personally I think it's better for Grenadiers to remain niche units unless you want Grens deciding army compositions 100% of the time.
As for Halberdiers, they have their uses in "Defend the cannons" strategies, literally blocking the enemy cavalry from hitting them.

[ronsu]

Personally I think it's better for Grenadiers to remain niche units unless you want Grens deciding army compositions 100% of the time.
As for Halberdiers, they have their uses in "Defend the cannons" strategies, literally blocking the enemy cavalry from hitting them.

Thanks for your take.

1. The multiplier proposal is just an idea to show the point. It can be a lower multiplier, or multiple of them like Urumis have:
x1.75 vs. Heavy infantry
x0.75 vs. Cavalry and Coyote Runner
x2.0 vs. Light cavalry
x1.5 vs. Eagle Runner Knight

2. Dragoons or muskets can do that using them for more than defend cannons. Even pikemen, as a low cost cav protection.

The problem is halbediers can not really fight in real game situation. And that limit them too much.

[ronsu]

Do any of the ironic players use these units in the game?

that's not the question, it's rather "the unit would be broken or not?"

That's the idea of the post. To talk about that. To gather opinions of players to know if most of us believe these units need a rework or not. And then propose reworks with precise numbers.

It can not be 6 speed but 5 (like Pikemen) or 4,5 (like Urumis).
It can not be x3 multiplier to all infantry but x1.75 vs. Heavy infantry & x 1.5 vs. Ranged infantry.
We can discuss the idea and the numbers, of course.

[ronsu]

I think halb with 4.5 speed is good but not sure if that make them more usefull, where 5 speed is to much.

Why do you think 5 is too much? Pikeman have 5 speed and that allow them to chase cav with defensive purposes.

[Hazza54321]

This has gotta be a joke right

[chronique]

I think halb with 4.5 speed is good but not sure if that make them more usefull, where 5 speed is to much.

Why do you think 5 is too much? Pikeman have 5 speed and that allow them to chase cav with defensive purposes.

Because halb have 28 atta where pik 8 ^^

[duckzilla]

Halbs win against everything else in melee. The only reason why they are not overpowered is that they don't have the speed to get into melee combat with most units. If you change their only "weakness", the unit will simply become overpowered.

The result can be seen with the Rodelero. It used to be an overpowered unit when it had ~16-17 base attack + speed of 6, because Rods were able to get into melee combat to quickly to make skirmishers/muskets counter them.

That is also why devs chose to give the Dutch card for +20% halb speed a malus of 0.75 against infantry.

[blasdg]

We had "fast Halbs" in the early times of Aoe3 (early 2007) and boy, they were so damn OP. Now way we actually want that back, so If i HAD to chose I would take useless halbs over OP halbs any time of the day.

[macacoalbino]

Personally I think it's better for Grenadiers to remain niche units unless you want Grens deciding army compositions 100% of the time.
As for Halberdiers, they have their uses in "Defend the cannons" strategies, literally blocking the enemy cavalry from hitting them.

They are also useful as siege units for dutch in some specific cases.
Oh and they are good to make in situations where the opponent is going full melee composition with no dopp units

[helln00]

I am still pro 4.5 speed halbs, or even the new 4.25 speeds that seems to be on the new DE units. It just needs to be able to close distances a little bit more effectively

[harcha]

Personally I am pro 4.5 or even 4.75. If it turns out too good, then maybe it's better to have faster speed and lower attack than vice versa.
As for grenadiers I don't think they're bad on DE, just kind of expensive. Artillery foundries already got a discount on EP, maybe a small buff in grenadier pricing is due. What if they cost like 100f 50c?

[Le Hussard sur le toit]

Make them better than musks at protecting cannons/fighting heavy cav. For example give them +1 range, bigger range resist (but slower speed) in cover mode and generally make them better at standing still protecting cannons.

[ShinkuroYukinari]

As for grenadiers I don't think they're bad on DE, just kind of expensive. Artillery foundries already got a discount on EP, maybe a small buff in grenadier pricing is due. What if they cost like 100f 50c?

I remember this sexy beast that made a forum post about Grenadiers recently :)
viewtopic.php?f=982&t=21755

[macacoalbino]

I am still pro 4.5 speed halbs, or even the new 4.25 speeds that seems to be on the new DE units. It just needs to be able to close distances a little bit more effectively

Honestly I don't see how it would make halbs viable. They would be buffed, ok. But the main issue is that melee HI gets sniped by ranged units before the other army stands and fights. Also Halbs take production time away from skirms in the raxes. I think the unit is nice in the niche where they are useful right now.

[macacoalbino]

Personally I am pro 4.5 or even 4.75. If it turns out too good, then maybe it's better to have faster speed and lower attack than vice versa.

The issue I find with this is that they would get worse in the compositions that they are good right now. To me the only reason we don't see them often is that the meta is not very melee heavy, otherwise halbs would do really well. I may be biased in the sense that I main Dutch a lot, which is one of the civs that use them the most (despite being rare occasions still)

[Squamiger]

Stop with this stuff— halbs and grens are fine. Not every unit needs to be ideal for filling out the bulk of your army, some units can be situational support units and that’s totally fine. I think it’s good that muskets play such an important role in aoe3– that’s historically accurate to the period. Halberdiers were also used into the 19th century, but in very specific roles, and aoe3 mostly reflects that.

I do think grens and halbs are quite useful, and actually they are even more effective BECAUSE they are niche. They are a surprise for your opponent, and that makes the game more dynamic and fun.