Falconets and Horse Artillery

[duckzilla]

Yesterday, I had a game playing British and went my usual age IV combination of musk/horse art/hussar. Then I suddenly asked myself, why I never build falconets after fortress age. I didn't remember it, so I had a look at the famous and always-up-to-date wiki. There it says that horse artillery and falconets are pretty much identical except for the following characteristics:

Falconet 100w/400c/5pop 200hp/100dmg/speed 4.0
Horse art 100w/500c/6pop 200hp/125dmg/speed 6.0

In other words, you spend 20% more resources (pop and coin) for a unit that is not only 25% stronger, but also extremely mobile. To me it means that horse artillery vastly outclasses falconets, since it can easily keep pace with units other than infantry (e.g. goons), can reach the battlefield significantly faster when building reinforcements and can also flee from cavalry, especially with arsenal ups.

I think this design is suboptimal. To me, there is no real trade-off when choosing between the two. Ideally, the additional mobility of horse artillery should cost you something, e.g. by keeping all other stats identical to falconets one would pay for the additional mobility with the extra res/pop. What do you think?

[Joe]

Yesterday, I had a game playing British and went my usual age IV combination of musk/horse art/hussar. Then I suddenly asked myself, why I never build falconets after fortress age. I didn't remember it, so I had a look at the famous and always-up-to-date wiki. There it says that horse artillery and falconets are pretty much identical except for the following characteristics:

Falconet 100w/400c/5pop 200hp/100dmg/speed 4.0
Horse art 100w/500c/6pop 200hp/125dmg/speed 6.0

In other words, you spend 20% more resources (pop and coin) for a unit that is not only 25% stronger, but also extremely mobile. To me it means that horse artillery vastly outclasses falconets, since it can easily keep pace with units other than infantry (e.g. goons), can reach the battlefield significantly faster when building reinforcements and can also flee from cavalry, especially with arsenal ups.

I think this design is suboptimal. To me, there is no real trade-off when choosing between the two. Ideally, the additional mobility of horse artillery should cost you something, e.g. by keeping all other stats identical to falconets one would pay for the additional mobility with the extra res/pop. What do you think?

its fine like it is

[InsectPoison]

Yesterday, I had a game playing British and went my usual age IV combination of musk/horse art/hussar. Then I suddenly asked myself, why I never build falconets after fortress age. I didn't remember it, so I had a look at the famous and always-up-to-date wiki. There it says that horse artillery and falconets are pretty much identical except for the following characteristics:

Falconet 100w/400c/5pop 200hp/100dmg/speed 4.0
Horse art 100w/500c/6pop 200hp/125dmg/speed 6.0

In other words, you spend 20% more resources (pop and coin) for a unit that is not only 25% stronger, but also extremely mobile. To me it means that horse artillery vastly outclasses falconets, since it can easily keep pace with units other than infantry (e.g. goons), can reach the battlefield significantly faster when building reinforcements and can also flee from cavalry, especially with arsenal ups.

I think this design is suboptimal. To me, there is no real trade-off when choosing between the two. Ideally, the additional mobility of horse artillery should cost you something, e.g. by keeping all other stats identical to falconets one would pay for the additional mobility with the extra res/pop. What do you think?

Horse artillery is fine the way it is, we don't need to things that don't need changing

[Kyo_]

Horse artillery should be made a little more expensive, or falconets a little cheaper. Unlike falconets, horse artillery have an extra dimension of tactical strength which is taking the fight to the enemy when you perceive you have an advantage and you want to press it. Falconets are about as slow as the slowest infantry. Once enemy sees that and can't challenge it, they can simply retreat and prepare for a counter. But if you have horse artillery instead, then you can simply march them right into the face of 50 skirm/musk mass and let off a couple volleys that can do significant damage. The shock factor of horse art. is pretty underrated imo

[UpMySleeves]

You make Falconets in Fortress and Horse Artillery in Industrial and Imperial age. What's the problem, or am I not getting something?

[draztik]

That's why the spanish card that allow to produce horse artillery at age III can be interesting maybe

[Joe]

You make Falconets in Fortress and Horse Artillery in Industrial and Imperial age. What's the problem, or am I not getting something?

there is no problem

[KnArLoC]

Yesterday, I had a game playing British and went my usual age IV combination of musk/horse art/hussar. Then I suddenly asked myself, why I never build falconets after fortress age. I didn't remember it, so I had a look at the famous and always-up-to-date wiki. There it says that horse artillery and falconets are pretty much identical except for the following characteristics:

Falconet 100w/400c/5pop 200hp/100dmg/speed 4.0
Horse art 100w/500c/6pop 200hp/125dmg/speed 6.0

In other words, you spend 20% more resources (pop and coin) for a unit that is not only 25% stronger, but also extremely mobile. To me it means that horse artillery vastly outclasses falconets, since it can easily keep pace with units other than infantry (e.g. goons), can reach the battlefield significantly faster when building reinforcements and can also flee from cavalry, especially with arsenal ups.

I think this design is suboptimal. To me, there is no real trade-off when choosing between the two. Ideally, the additional mobility of horse artillery should cost you something, e.g. by keeping all other stats identical to falconets one would pay for the additional mobility with the extra res/pop. What do you think?

AFAIK there is one more significant difference: Horse artillery take much longer to deploy from mobile mode to attack mode compared to falconets. It's very noticeable.

Anyway, I'm completely fine with using falcs in fort/indus and horse art in indus/imp. I don't really see an issue here. Maybe nerf their speed to 5.5, if anything.

[SoldieR]

Isn't there a difference in multipliers vs inf and buildings?

[harcha]

Isn't there a difference in multipliers vs inf and buildings?

i also thought this. the mandela effect is real

[UpMySleeves]

Isn't there a difference in multipliers vs inf and buildings?

i also thought this. the mandela effect is real

It's because of the unit description I think, Falconets are "better vs inf but worse vs buildings" iirc.

[iamgaming]

AFAIK there is one more significant difference: Horse artillery take much longer to deploy from mobile mode to attack mode compared to falconets. It's very noticeable.

Anyway, I'm completely fine with using falcs in fort/indus and horse art in indus/imp. I don't really see an issue here. Maybe nerf their speed to 5.5, if anything.

Time needed to change mode is very important but Horse Art can move 2.4 at bombard mode, which is way faster than 1.6 of Falc. Artilleries shouldn’t move at bombard mode with 1/4 speed of limber mode. Horse Art and Falc should have similar speed at bombard mode.

[Dolan]

The idea behind horse artillery is that they're falcs that can be moved and microd faster (the unpacking animation is shorter).
And you pay a slightly higher price for that and can only get them in a later age.
Makes you wonder how AOE3 would have looked like if falcs didn't exist and you'd get horse art directly in age 3.
Imagine how many packing-unpacking screw-ups would have been avoided and how fewer games ruined if falcs actually moved fast and unpacked immediately.

[duckzilla]

The idea behind horse artillery is that they're falcs that can be moved and microd faster (the unpacking animation is shorter).
And you pay a slightly higher price for that and can only get them in a later age.

That was my impression. The fact that horse artillery has a 25% higher dmg output does not fit well into this.

[Dolan]

Well, if a unit is only available in age 4, it would be underwhelming if it didn't do more damage.
You need a good reason to age up and that's to get a bigger bang from the units you can only get in the next age.

[harcha]

Time needed to change mode is very important but Horse Art can move 2.4 at bombard mode, which is way faster than 1.6 of Falc. Artilleries shouldn’t move at bombard mode with 1/4 speed of limber mode. Horse Art and Falc should have similar speed at bombard mode.

1.6 is not 1/4 of 4.

The idea behind horse artillery is that they're falcs that can be moved and microd faster (the unpacking animation is shorter).
...
Imagine how many packing-unpacking screw-ups would have been avoided and how fewer games ruined if falcs actually moved fast and unpacked immediately.

They unpack much slower than falcs. That's probably the only redeeming quality of falcs.

[iamgaming]

Time needed to change mode is very important but Horse Art can move 2.4 at bombard mode, which is way faster than 1.6 of Falc. Artilleries shouldn’t move at bombard mode with 1/4 speed of limber mode. Horse Art and Falc should have similar speed at bombard mode.

1.6 is not 1/4 of 4.

Oh yes 40%, not 1/4. Instead, my brain was 1/4 of normal size when I wrote that O_o

[duckzilla]

Well, if a unit is only available in age 4, it would be underwhelming if it didn't do more damage.
You need a good reason to age up and that's to get a bigger bang from the units you can only get in the next age.

That's precisely what I thought the increased mobility already is. The availability of mobile horse artillery is already beneficial, because you can now choose between two units with different specializations. It is just that the falconets do not have a specialization, making them far less useful.

If it was just for bigger bang, one could also competely left out horse artillery and just give falconets an upgrade which improves both dmg and speed. Why should one keep a seemingly redundant unit in the game at all?

[Dolan]

If it was just for bigger bang, one could also competely left out horse artillery and just give falconets an upgrade which improves both dmg and speed. Why should one keep a seemingly redundant unit in the game at all?

It's not like pikes disappear from the game once you hit age 4. Falcs are still a decent unit for the price and you could mass more since -1 pop.