Yes Rodeleros have also been useless for me in the game. I play as the Spanish but I mostly just use musketeers and pikemen for infantry. The Rodeleros are fast though but so are Hussars.

I agree with you 100%, and same thing goes for pikemen and crossbows. All useless units if you have muskets.

One thing that rods ARE good at though, is tying up cav due to their high speed (6 vs cav 6.75). I don't see how an iron clad warrior with a shield and a sword has fewer hitpoints and melee attack than a musketeer in a jacket using a bayonet.

Crossbows aren't useless. I think they are even or maybe very slightly worse than musketeers. They do have higher range, and Mokon managed to beat me with them, but it was more because my economy sucked so bad

Well guys everything has its use.... Rolderlos are great raiders, and great at forcing things to melle since they have the great speed. Every unit has a purpose

and swiffle the thing is crossbowmen have agood economic cost factor, which makes em easy to mass and such

pikemen are 20 food/60 wood which means to mass them you can still be cranking out tons of villies. I use crossbowmen a ton and they serve me well against the musket massers.

Ya, xbows stick in the craw of anyone who uses muskets early. Though since most people are idiots they'll let you kite them around until you can conjure up some advantage and kill them.

crossbows aren't easier to make than muskets. They do in fact cost more. Wood gathers much much slower than food.

Rodaleros are completelyuseless fullstop. I don't see their point, until they get a big HP boost in a patch, just ignore them. You are better of just using musketeers and pikemen in age 2. And in later ages, just mass lancers. No need to build a single Rodalero, I'm a diehard spanish user (still have demo) but i played almost 300 demo games against expert AI, and not once have a found the rodaleros useful against the AI so I highly doubt they would be any good online,

Looking at the stats there is no way ES can not buff this.

I find rodaleros pretty good; stat wise they aren't great but their speed means they can rush enemy ranged units like musketeers into melee and enable skirmishers or other ranged guys to do their jobs properly.

They're more of a supplementary unit since they help other units quite a lot more than other units help them.

im not a big fan of the rodeleros either, but i always have 10 or somthing in my army.

Especially while im attacking and longbowmen are shooting at my main army, i will just send 10 rodeleros, that will keep the longbowmen busy while im attacking the base with main army.

I also use rodeleros for quick raiding. But not so often.

But actually i cant say anything becoz im just a demo user...

Even if they rush musketeers in melee they still lose. They need a huge boost to their melee attack an then reduce their damage multipler against cav from 3 to 2 to compensate.

I mean just look at the stats compared to musketeers: lower hand attack, lower hp, higher gold cost. the hand resistance dmg just balances out the lower hp so thats nothing special.

speed means very little if the unit still sucks, which it does.

Then you realise musketeers have a ranged attack as well! A Rodalero is just like a muskeeter without the musket... yet costs more. As soon as spanish players realise this, spains win % will increase.

use them against skirms and crossbows

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I sure hope was sarcasm, because those are the absolute worst units to use Rodeleros against... if its not sarcasm...then

Bad point, Schildpad.

I agree that Rodelero stats aren't anything to boast about, b ut they seem to make pretty decent meat shields. I crank out a handful just to blunt any cav rush against my ranged units or cannons. Since Rodelero have high speed, I can redirect them quickly to intercept any cav flanking maneuvers. Also, they have a 3x melee against cav. This allows xbows, muskets, skirms, cannons, etc to continue focus fire ranged attacks while the rodeleros soak cav damage and add a little bite-back of their own.

Well, speaking practically (after a couple of MP games on ESO), I get a sick feeling in the bottom of my stomach whenever I see a horde of Rodeleros running towards my expensive cavalry. They are quite effective in that regard.

That being said, I played with the Dutch and completely owned them with Halberdiers.

Rodeleros have their uses.

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The point is there are other units that are cheaper and have the same uses and more.

So whats the point of building Rodeleros unless you just like to see men in shiny armor?

i was serious ceres, if you let them run to skirms, many will die, but then your skirms go into melee, and combi of crossbows and rodeleros can own them.

and their point is they are fast without the need to build stable

Fast+Cheap+Melee=GOOD. Especially for raiding. Plus towers don't do bonus damage to them. I wouldn't complain if they did more damage, of course, but I still like using them.

BTW, their speed goes up to 7.5 sometimes. WTF?! That beats any cavalry. And these guys got a ton of armor too....some things in this game just don't make sense.

and they can own cannons easier, than other infantry

[This message has been edited by Luckyass (edited 10-21-2005 @ 02:22 PM).]

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The speed change only occurs when units are getting into formation, those that lag behind speed up to catch up with the rest, it happens with all units, cavalry too. They are still slower than cav so it doesn't change the fact that cav can still escape them...

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A combi of crossbows and rodeleros may do well against skirms but if your enemy is in age 3 with skirms, then you should be in age 3 as well with at least a fort. In which case lancers or hussars are a far better choice.

I can't understand how people can defend the rodalero, it costs more than a musketeer, does less damage than a musketeer (to both cav and non cav units), it has lower HP than a musketeer.And! IT HAS NO RANGED ATTACK!..

What does it have in its favour?
20% more hand resistance an it moves 50% faster.

Muskeeters not only match rodaleros in most cases, they are far more versatile than them.

The fact that so many people still think the Rodalero is a good unit explains why Spainish has the lowest win percentage online.

[This message has been edited by Ceres629 (edited 10-21-2005 @ 02:50 PM).]

its cheaper than any horse unit
it faster than any infantry unit
wich makes it worth for some raiding

but no, its not really a good unit for your main army

I don't know what you guys are smoking take the rodeleros and charge them at musketeers 4tw... at most the muskets will get 1-2 shots off maybe killing 2-3 rodes, then it's all about the micro and the rodes pwning muskets... where spain loses is in low levels where you can get a ton of shipments but have nothing good enough to use the shipments on... besides that spain is pretty decent. at level 12-25 and higher they are one of the best civs to have. until then though you will struggle to boom and fight well.

TGE

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How exactly do units that do less damage and have about the same HP (taking into effect the rodaleros higher melee resistance but lower HP) pwn muskets? Its at best an even battle...

Am I really missing something here? Sure speed is important in melee and they are faster than muskies, but from personal experience Musketeers in melee mode don't do much worse than rodaleros in melee mode (if at all).

Muskies have a higher melee attack and more HP. You guys with the full version can test this, but I'm sure if you took 30 muskies vs 30 rodaleros and put them all in melee mode from the beginning and make them attack, the rodaleros may win, but not by a huge margin, it would most likely be a close battle. This is not good enough for a unit that is supossed to be pure melee, to be fighting equally in hand to hand combat with a unit that is supposed to be mainly ranged. Put the muskies in ranged mode and i'm sure muskies win.

Rodaleros are garbage and ES will definately have to buff them otherwise they will soon go completely unused. At least Spain have kick ass lancers, if they didn't they would be no readon to choose them at all.

[This message has been edited by Ceres629 (edited 10-21-2005 @ 06:08 PM).]

They really need better melee attack and more hp. Afterall in reallife they were masters of 1on1 combat so it's kind of silly that a musketeer that uses bayonet has better melee damage. I really would like to see some ES dev with a musket wins a duel to the death against highly trained fencer that uses sword & buckler.

According to this:

Musketeer HP / (Rodelero attack x (100% - Musketeer hand resist) ) = # of swings for a Rodelero to kill a Musketeer

150 / (11 x .8) = 17.045 (Rounded up to 18 full swings to kill a Musketeer)

Rodelero HP / (Musketeer melee attack x (100% - Rodelero hand resist) ) = # of swings for a Musketeer to kill a Rodelero

130 / (13 x .6) = 16.666 (Rounded up to 17 full swings to kill a Rodelero)

Even in a full out melee rumble (supposedly the Rodelero's specialty) where the Musketeers don't get a volley off, the Musketeers will still (just barely) be able to defeat the Rodeleros.