Buffing less used units.

[Seamonk]

Grens definitely need a buff to become even usable in their niche. I'm defining their niche as anti-infantry and anti-building.

Anti-infantry: they do not perform well against light infantry. Remove the Heavy Infantry tag and they should do alright

Anti-building: they do slightly more siege damage per population than a musketeer. Revert their siege attack rate of fire to 3 seconds and it fits comfortably above musks and below pikemen. Consider removing the siege trooper tag since they do less siege damage than a pike per population

I don't think these changes would make the Gren a broken or even standard unit. But it would make them usable.

siege attack comparison

Grens do 54 siege every 4 seconds at 2 pop: 6.75 per second
Musks do 20 damage every 3 seconds at 1 pop: 6.66 per second
Pikes do 32 damage every 3 seconds at 1 pop: 10.66 per second
Halbs do 36 damage every 3 seconds at 1 pop: 12 per second (Halbs are based on veteran stats)

Proposed Grens do 54 siege every 3 seconds at 2 pop: 9 damage per second

[speedflyer]

please keep in mind that every change they made impact all games mod , which is just sad... so the less they make the best it is :)

[Derrien]

I think buffing underused units is very low on the huge list of priorities for DE

I guess? But does that invalidate anything of what is beings said? Does that make it a non-issue? And I actually doubt that this is a low priority; else we would not have this absolute mass of balance changes over the past past monthes. The changes to the dutch that effect the halb are a clear sign, that there is work being done by the devs. Shifting this topic to the back at a time where the developers are actually making changes just push them back another five years.

It doesn't invalidate everything that was said (though some of it is not valid to begin with, e.g dops don't need a buff). Discussing it is fine of course. We just really shouldn't be trying to get devs to care more about underused units, because there's a hundred issues more urgent than that atm. It's not a non-issue but it's by no means a big issue either.

And yeah, I'm not saying it's super low priority from the devs point of view, since they changed some stuff about these units. I'm saying it should be low priority, because having a playable game overall just matters so much more than being able to win games with grenadiers. But as we all know, they don't really have their priorities straight anyway.

Also, most underused units were buffed already so they can possibly see some use in niche cases. Now, you need to realize that adding a really viable unit to a civ is dangerous. We don't really want to add more broken features in an already broken game.
For example, if grenadiers become good enough, it could buff brits a lot, as one of their main weaknesses is they currently don't have a proper anti-HI unit. Suddenly they'd be able to counter HI effectively, with an upgradable unit too, and do much better vs e.g india or sweden.
Same for these melee infantry units. It's clear there's a fine line between melee units being too good or too bad. From a unit that just gets kited down easily, they can turn into a cancer unit your opponent just z-moves on your face (which is what happens to some extent with changdaos and rods, or inca melee units, etc).

Definitly valid concerns, but at what point (disregarding that overall work on the game impacts balance related work) would it be possible to put work into the things that are clutter? EP had been a thing for now well over five years now and came with obvious restrictions to the depth of impact with the changes as it had to unite the playerbase or to fade into obscurity (looking at the number of total players and putting it into relation with other games it was obscure). Even in the later stages this community did not want to touch the clutter, even after the introduction of someone official to this game nobody wants any work done on it.

If Grenadiers are such a contentious topic (with reason - see your brit arguement) what is stopping work on Halbs for the Russian and Portuguese, Samurai or Dopps, Priests? A positive change to Priests might be a thing that could be easily done to make a unit useable without throwing anything out of whack as all euro civs have access to it with most other civs having an aquivalent. What is stopping us here from changing them and being able to play them?

[EliteRifleman]

Move the Ram and the Iroquois Mantlet to Colonial, in the Arsenal.
I mean, just look at them, they are not cutting edge technology to be in fortress. Maybe that will make more people use them.

[dutchdude117]

I would only buff those underused units if it is needed to balance a specific MU/game situation. For example dopps could have their colonial stats buffed slightly in exchange for a nerf on their vet upgrade as part of a general policy to make German colonial play more viable. But buffing dopps in the abstract makes no sense.

To be honest the biggest reason I want to see grens buffed is to have a unit composition that can deal with mass Yumi, maybe im wrong about this but at the moment I dont think dutch has a unit composition that can deal with mass yumi

[Squamiger]

I see dopps and halbs in 1v1 games all the time, they are not underused. they just arent the main part of the army, like musks or skirms, and they shouldnt be, bc this isnt aoe2.

I can see tinkering with grens a little bit, they were too OP at the start of DE with the card, and now they seem to never get used

[arivus]

I like the idea of normalizing the RoF of Grenadier siege damage. Recently grenadier unit see more play but not the regular one, only the revolution type that is viable: the Peruvian legion, Mounted Grenadier, and Hungarian grenadier.

[RefluxSemantic]

Whats the point in buffing the less used units? It'll just replace the current best units.

[Kaiserklein]

Definitly valid concerns, but at what point (disregarding that overall work on the game impacts balance related work) would it be possible to put work into the things that are clutter? EP had been a thing for now well over five years now and came with obvious restrictions to the depth of impact with the changes as it had to unite the playerbase or to fade into obscurity (looking at the number of total players and putting it into relation with other games it was obscure). Even in the later stages this community did not want to touch the clutter, even after the introduction of someone official to this game nobody wants any work done on it.

At a point where we don't have to worry about game breaking bugs and terrible balance, I guess. I don't think we'll ever get to that point tbh, as they'll probably release some DLC with more shitty civs and mechanics, so the state of the game will only get worse.
In the later stages of EP, some changes were made. Dops got +10 hp (in earlier patches actually), halbs got extra resist and attack I think, samurais got extra attack and no multiplier vs vils. I think grens got no HI tag as well, possibly in the last EP version. So idk why you're saying people didn't want to touch these. They were buffed to a point where they became decent / good in niche cases, but not always viable, which is pretty much what we want.

If Grenadiers are such a contentious topic (with reason - see your brit arguement) what is stopping work on Halbs for the Russian and Portuguese, Samurai or Dopps, Priests? A positive change to Priests might be a thing that could be easily done to make a unit useable without throwing anything out of whack as all euro civs have access to it with most other civs having an aquivalent. What is stopping us here from changing them and being able to play them?

Like I said buffing these units to a point where they'd be really viable is too dangerous and would also buff these civs.
You don't want germany to be able to just win in colonial because they can replace their lack of musks with buffed dops. Their colonial (or extended semi ff) is viable already.
You also don't want japan to just be able to go samurai + nagi, which several civs might not be able to counter if samurais are strong enough (dutch, aztecs, possibly china or russia?).
Same thing with halb + huss to some extent, or halb + skirms + cannons vs some civs.
Buffing priests would probably be okay

[ssaa22]

If you want to use it, all units can serve as the main unit of the strategy. However, the Skim+goons combination is so powerful that there is no reason to use another unit. Even the Musketeer, designed as the main unit, begins to disappear at the 3age.

[helln00]

I acutally very much like what the DE devs are doing with some of the Imp upgrades, giving them some unique effects (though the sepoy one felt very bland), that might be the best way to buff up underused units without making them completely breaking. Also Imp in aoe 3 felt weird since it gives no real change in tech and its just all stat buffs.

For example, late game musks could maybe be given a speed boost in Imp to make them not complete suck.

[RefluxSemantic]

If you want to use it, all units can serve as the main unit of the strategy. However, the Skim+goons combination is so powerful that there is no reason to use another unit. Even the Musketeer, designed as the main unit, begins to disappear at the 3age.

But what do you expect? People will just use the most powerful anti cav unit. You wont start seeing skirm musk halb goon hussar gren compositions.

The way things are right now is nice. Goons are the payoff for going to age 3 so you'd want age 3 anti cav to be better. Skirm goon is also a high skill unit composition that is a lot of fun to use. Thats what we'd want. If you buff musks to the point where skirm musk is viable you'll just make the game more boring.

[Squamiger]

Whats the point in buffing the less used units? It'll just replace the current best units.

yea this is basically the best point in this thread. if we did what the OP wants, in 3 months we would have posts saying "should we buff skirms and musks so they aren't underused??"

[Derrien]

That is not one bit what I said. I agreed several times with previous posters in this thread in here that are more knowledgable than me that some changes might not be possible, because they could break current balance. I also stated quite literally that I wanted some units adjusted to be on a similar powerlevel to other units; not that they should overtake those units.
While I see now that a good bunch of units like Dopps/Samurai and Halbs were adjusted to be more on par with the mainstay units I just say that while Grens have been worked on, that they still are not close to other units. Else they would see some serious play in their niche (it was stated that they are a HI counter; something that Brits lack (according to others) and Grens, if playable would push them out of balance). So there is that.

But it seems like the only unit this thread might have just singled out as a unit that could definitly do with some adjustment might be Priests and their equivalents. Grens might not break, if their production building got changed or could be changed with a shipment or tech.

[RefluxSemantic]

Well, its super difficult to balance in a way where all types of anti cav are equally viable. But suppose you do, then whats the point of doing so? There are not really extra decisions as both are equally viable so it doesnt really matter which unit you do choose to produce. Ultimately you dont really end up changing the way the game functions. And thats ignoring all the balance concerns and the time it takes to get it right and all the disruption that comes with that proces, only to reach a state thats not necessarily more fun than what we have right now? Doesnt seem worth it to me.

[princeofcarthage]

Well you can always create variations in stats to create interesting mechanics unique to each unit. Ex. Rods are weaker but are faster thus actually catching cav and doing okay vs skirms. Pikes are stronger but slower so on. It actually creates different playstyles and interactions. Making all equally viable doesn't mean you make them same. You can't balance a single unit. You need to balance that civ as a whole. Ex. A unit with weaker anti cav might have stronger skirms. It creates dynamic balance which requires improvisation and presence of mind to adapt.

[ssaa22]

If you want to use it, all units can serve as the main unit of the strategy. However, the Skim+goons combination is so powerful that there is no reason to use another unit. Even the Musketeer, designed as the main unit, begins to disappear at the 3age.

But what do you expect? People will just use the most powerful anti cav unit. You wont start seeing skirm musk halb goon hussar gren compositions.

The way things are right now is nice. Goons are the payoff for going to age 3 so you'd want age 3 anti cav to be better. Skirm goon is also a high skill unit composition that is a lot of fun to use. Thats what we'd want. If you buff musks to the point where skirm musk is viable you'll just make the game more boring.

I'm not saying buff the musk. It's just a pity that they can't be used often. If they had to be buffed, it would be right to nerf the units that counter them.

[blasdg]

Muskets are not used?

Ashis, Caroleans, Sepoys, Jans and standard musks from british see plenty of play?!

[Kaiserklein]

We kinda see more musks atm than we ever saw on EP lol. Not sure how that unit type is weak. Even civs like france which don't have special musks still train them in a lot of MUs.