Friday Update: Week 27/2013, Ranged Cavalry Special

Yes, it's the second ever K&B Friday Update Special! This time, like last time, and by complete coincidence, it contains one non-Spanish Quintessence unit, one Spanish Quintessence unit, and one unit that will be in the next patch.


The non-Spanish unit in this update, coming from Pepp, is the Reiter, a unique gunpowder unit of the Flemish. Its gun and general Renaissance look probably make it quite easy to guess this is an Age V unit, and that is indeed the case, being unlocked by the Black Powder tech. The Reiter is not a particularly special unit, but it offers some more mobility than a Hand Gunner, making it quite useful for the otherwise very infantry-heavy Flemish.

In other news, you may notice the player colour on the Reiter (and indeed the other two units showcased today) to be unlike anything AoE3 has to offer (though this maroon player colour in particular may ring some bells among those familiar with AoM). There's a spoiler at the bottom of this Friday Update explaining it all...


The Spanish unit in this update is the second advanced gunpowder unit we get to unveil. The Conquistador, like the Cannon and the not-yet-revealed third unit in this set, is unlocked by first researching Black Powder, and then the unique follow-up tech Gun Technology. Like the Cannon, the Conquistador is not just a randomly more powerful gunpowder unit, but has a very specific purpose, that of the Conquistador being to counter enemy cavalry. This may seem both odd and obvious, but it's worth noting at this point that while the Spanish have a powerful set of cavalry units, they lack a proper anticav cavalry unit in their regular unit roster, relying on infantry instead. The Conquistador changes that, and gives the Spanish a very powerful unit (as you would expect in Age V) that can make mincemeat out of enemy cavalry.

Note: The hand gun (on the Reiter) and arquebus (Conquistador) models, as well as the Conquistador's helmet model, were excellently imported by misterscp.


Now for the non-Quintessence unit, which isn't new in any way, but a redo of the Cavalry Archer. I was never very pleased with the old Cavalry Archer texture, so I redid it completely, and while there aren't a lot of changes, it's a major improvement over the old texture, and looks much closer to what I wanted to achieve when doing the old texture, for it to look simply like a mounted version of the Archer.

Now, for the player colours:

Player colours:

While the team forum was rather quiet the last week, it did see AOE_Fan admit the source of his modding skills:

AOE_Fan wrote:I consulted Edward Snowden

K&B salutes... You, the K&B fans. One-and-a-half page of comments on a single Friday Update is a huge motivation for us...
K&B refutes... Duplicate accounts. They're just extremely annoying.


peugeot407