Scout report

For a game that has the literal US civ and the independence campaign whose main character literally presents at the center of its cover? Or are they going to post an AOE2 screenshot with eagle warriors?

The Irish Brigadier has a direct match to the Halberdier's stats in terms of speed and melee multipliers. Thus I compared their melee-specific stats based on cost effeciency (with the Halb's stats reduced by 20% as baseline to more accurately compare age 2 to age 3 base stats, and food/coin normalized in net value by base gather rate): Irish Brigadier is 5% cheaper than Halb, has 4% less hp, and 6% less melee attack Halb has Guard Mode (I know this is a big one) Brig has Combat Promotions Halb has 25% more siege Brig has 20% more melee resist Halb is not countered by Spies But for the most part, if you had a blob of Irish Brigs and stuck them on melee the whole game, they'd make pretty decent Halberdiers! This is especially notable because the two civs that can train them via cards, Sweden and Spain, don't have access to trainable Halberdiers otherwise. It just sucks that the closest thing the Irish Brigs have to a veteran/guard/imperial upgrade is the imperial Merc politician who only boosts their age-2-base-stats by +50%, so they basically fall off after age 2 (unless buoyed into age 3 by the Spanish RoF/speed boost church card buff for them, and I guess Sweden, having passive Adv. Arsenal as a civ perk, can kind of "build your own Veteran Irish Brig" with those upgrade techs). But this is still all while avoiding their ranged attack! It's fun to imagine some good times with falc + melee-locked Irish Brig combos, swords drawn, yelling faugh a ballagh!