Papist wrote:DracoWolfgand wrote:Yes, the French do get Musketeers! ... So do about half of the civilizations on this damn game! The question is: How do their Musketeers fare, compared to other civilizations Musketeers?
Comparing heavy infantry with light cavalry is in and by itself a bad comparisson to make. The only similarity between the Dragoon and the Musketeer is that they both happen to counter meele cavalry. Other then that, their roles are completely different. Dragoons are raiders, harassers, and general annoyers: You use then for their ability to attack a opponent, run away, and shoot down the very few units that are even close from being fast enough to chase then anyway. However, Dragoons are absolutely awfull in any situation where they cant afford to use their mobility-Say, if they are suppose to be defending a location for a example. Musketeers, on another hand, are, well, their primary use is being meatshields: A line of then standing in front of your light infantry or of your artillery is helpfull to protect then from those pesky Hussars. You wouldnt have a line of Dragoons standing in the front of your Heavy Cannons, where they can proceed to get shot down quickly and, if they run away, they will be leaving these precious Cannons behind, would you?
I see no problem with comparing dragoons to musketeers considering they have the same function, which is countering hand cav. And they do a much better job of it, which is why you will almost never see a high-level player making musks in age 3 if goons are available. Dragoons are actually better at protecting cannons than musks because their multiplier is done at range, not in hand combat. They also have ranged resist instead of melee resist, making them less vulnerable to skirms.
I am not fully sure of why does it matters here if the multiplier is at range or at meele? I mean, most artillery units have such high ranged resistance anyway that, even though light cavalry is-SUPPOSE-To be a counter to it, almost everyone will use meele cavalry over ranged cavalry against then 99% of the time anyway. That is one of the reasons why Yabusame suck( The other reason being... You know, its laughably low attack.
Dragoons have only about 33% more hitpoints then Musketeeers... While costing twice as much. I would say that the hitpoints-to-cost ratio here more then makes up for the Musketeers lack of ranged resistance. Besides, the Musketeer has a higher base ranged attack, and against meele cavalry( You know, the unit against which the multipliers actually matter ), once they get to meele range, musketeers deal almost as much damage with their meele attack as Dragoons do with their ranged attack... And again: While costing half as much. As far as meele combat goes, Musketeers are just better: As far as ranged combat goes, against anything that isnt cavalry, Musketeers are still better. Dragoons are only better then Musketeers when they are using their hit-and-run antics: The rest of the time, Musketeers are most cost effective.
EDIT: I forgot to mention, with that said, this talk just reminded me about one context on which Yojimbo Cavalry Archers are indeed better then Ashigaru Musketeers: Supporting Naginata Riders. Naginata Riders are somewhat poor against other cavalry, and, well... Yojimbos are just more mobile, and plus, have their multipliers apply at range.