After playing .30, searching this forum, a quick look through the change log i understand that the pikeman has been removed. Can an enlightened forum user explain why?

PS - this is not a complaint, (.30 is magnificent) - the pikeman was my "grunt" troop of choice and i am just wondering as to the design for its removal?

Many thanks!

I don't remenber exactly, but I think they merged Pikeman and Maceman because Pikes weren't being used enough, or something like that. I think Kael said something in some thread x.x

hmmm.. i guess they play a lot of multiplayer then as in .25 the AI would make huge numbers of chariotes (and catapults) and the pikeman was fantastic. Although, in the last few games the AI has actually started fielding resonable balanced stacks and even (gasp) using magic.

Ah well, with pikemen gone - guess its time to adapt.....;)

I liked the pikemen too. I'm not sure I agree with all these unit types being removed because they're not used enough. Units like the pikeman and shieldwall were just like civics like mercantilism and theocracy (in fire), generally overshadowed by other units/civics but in certain situations they were excelent. I haven't had a chance to play lurchip (my favourite civ) in shadow yet, does anyone know if their gargoyle (pikeman UU) has been removed or not? They were great for defending cities.

Don't think so, it states in the changelog that Unique Units have been kept.

Gargoyle is still there, as is the Clan's pikeman UU (Ogre).

Pikemen were removed because they wanted to have 1 "defense" unit (archers) instead of 2. It is meant to streamline things down to a raw tactical (attack vs Defend) more than the Civilization's preference toward Paper/Rock/Scissors.

Xien is right, the pikeman UUs replace champions for their civs. I remember seeing Kael's post mentioning that: it was in the first post in the Shadow schedule thread (or in one of the links in that post, too lazy to check :lol: ).

I'm glad they took some stuff out of the game. As nice as it is to have features, there's a point where you have too many.

Oh right I see. They were taken out to get people and the AI to use the archer and cavalry unit classes more. Except for, the Hippus and ljosalfar the are apparently underused. I don't think that its worked at all, back then I primarilly defended cities with warriors, then sword/axemen, then macemen, now I just defend with champions annd warriors.

Cavalry aren't so underused as archers, I think to persuade more people to use them they should be able to get weapons promos, archers should too I think. After all, horsemen use swords and spears, arrows would have metal tips etc. I think the weapons promos are whats making the infantry line so dominant. I think that is what should have been done to sort it out instead of getting rid of pikemen, having multiple units to do the same job adds a bit of variety to the game.

Also, how much do people use the recon line because I don't, at all, beyond scouts. I do a bit of exploring in the early game and then later on, get other civs to gift me their maps. What are the advantages/disadsvantages of using recon? What do you actually use them for anyway?

I for one don't see any benefit from removing any of the stuff that was removed. Vareity is the spice of life - and that is even more true for a strategy game where planning ahead and choosing right for each situation is at the core of the game.

Sadly then watering down the strategic options also messes with the required Suspension of Disbelief - I mean it is hard to believe in a fantasy setup where all empires would only ever deploy Archer units for defence no matter what kind of armies they faced.

Bottom line is - while you can get too many options in a strategy game then having too few is even worse.

Recon line is mostly just scouts, unless you are the right Civ. Then it is your lifeblood :) (primarily Svalt)

yep.

I built more pikes than archers (and rangers, only to fill a druid slot),
more phalanx and flurries than any berserker or beastman.

and more of any of those than any siege unit.

for me, removing under-used units
(it is true that pikes are niche-units, it doesn't mean they are underused)

I liked the possibility to mix melee defense with melee attack, ranged attack with ranged defense.
maybe melee defense could have be made less powerfull than same level ranged defense and vice-versa but the diversity was nice.

furthermore, archery units are not scalable and more expensive with almost more expesive tech than melee... melee have scalable units (weapon promo) making them more effective : why spend money + science on an archer when a warrior + iron is almost as strong in defense and can attack.. and when for the same price or less (tech + cost) you can have a swordman that is as powerful in defense and more in attack..

removing melee defender won't improve the interest for archers..

I really think that it is a good idea to keep the game small enough so players are not overwhelmed by options. Specialization in FfH2 comes from promotions, they are by far much more powerful than in BtS.

Right now there are three kinds of close combat units:
- Warrior -> They are grunts, they are barelly trained and they come from the early necesity of defending cities and workers. They are basically a guy with a basic armor and weapon who is told "ok, now you have to defend our cities". Cannon fodder, basically, they are fast to train.
- Axeman -> Soldier, troops, they are trained soldiers. They require more time to be ready. They come to conquer, they are the base troops for war.
- Champion -> They are the elite warriors, require a long time to train but they live for war.

Now, if you want elite pikemen, you train a champion and give them the "+40% vs. mounted units" promotion. This promotion means that they get pikes and they know how to use them. If you have access to Mithril, you can make base troop pikemen by building and axeman and giving him this promotion ensuring that you have a weaponsmith so they get mithril weapons. They will cost much less to build.

What I really don't agree is with the names of the units, but well, I actually don't care that much (I would call axeman -> soldier or something like that, and champion -> elite infantry).

Well, at least this is my opinion :-)

Errm yeeees but... It would still look like, and basically still be a champion. I was against the name champion myself and I'm fairly sure its a placeholder name although it has grown on me. The names, soldier and heavy infantry are kinda boring.

Archers were useless, except for elves. I never ever built one (especially since I'd have to waste more resources in building archery range and possibly the other upgrade for xp bonus). If anything, I would have removed archers :P
Because of this, it may be possible that they just eliminated pikemen to make the mounted line more attracting...

No they took out pikemen to try and force people to use archers :p ,I still dont. I do actually use the mounted line anyway, horsemen are great for getting rid of to close neighbours in the early game, especially if the civ you're playing has a unique one eg Kuriotates, or if you are the hippus. Although after horsemen it goes a bit downhill, I think knights should be made a lot more powerful to give the line more appeal, does anyone know if the war elephant was removed? Now that... is an underused unit, but the dovellio unit art for it is just too cool to scrap i guess.

Removing pikemen to force people to use archers makes very little sense anyways. Since melee and recon units appear in the game MUCH earlier than archers do, and don't require any building to be built, they will always be used more than archers since they will be more experienced, the only exception is when you have no metal available.

I think the recon line can come quite handy, because there are no specific promotions to counter them, whereas recon units can take the specific promotions to counter a type of unit.
I think the removal of pikeman allows for more balanced games, as cavalry units don't have the weapon amelioration. Hippus were at a big disadvantage before.

That's exactly what I thought: this changed favored the mounted line, doubtfully the archery one.

I never thought the Hippus were at a disadvantage, their strength is in the early game, before anyone gets pikemen anyway. They're supposed to become less competitive in the later game when civs like the calabim become more powerful.

We got rid of pikeman because they were undervalued. They weren't frequently used and we wanted to expand the "macemen" level unit to a more civ specific function instead of a generic unit. We really combined macemen and pikemen into one unit.

Functionaly we didn't like that our attacking line (melee) turned into the strongest defenders in t4 (shield wall and phalanx). And the defender line (archers) turned into strong attackers (flurry). So both lines were reworked to remain consistent.

The third nail in the coffin was that pikemen are a foil for mounted units. Which don't need a counter. It isn't specifically for the hippus, I think the Hippus have a decent reason to make mounted units. Its really for everyone else who never made mounted units because they weren't effective.

Another advantage of cutting it (besides simply tightening up the game) is that it removes 21 art requirements from the game (well, technically 20) bringing us closer to our goal of full art replacement. We wouldn't cut a unit just because we don't have art, but I dont want to waste the art teams time on units of middleing value.

I would call axeman -> soldier or something like that, and champion -> elite infantry

Soldier would be a nice replacement for Axemen. It used to be partially that atleast for Dwarves (when their axemen were/are called Dwarven Soldiers)

The main problem with the defender line (Archers), like I said, is that it's the most underpowered of the game. I see 6 lines here:
- melee
- recon
- mounted
- divine
- arcane
- archery

The first two have units buildable right from start. This means you will have a decent amount of units level 3+ (10+ xp) before Archery is even discovered. In my case, it is very common to have several combat 5 warriors and at least a coupla combat 5 scouts or later even more combat 5 hunters, before I discover Archery. These units can later be upgraded and retain both their xp points and current promotions. Divine and Arcane units gain experience with time, so you will always have a decent amount of experienced units of this kind. Mounted units are very offensive, so even if they come later (still NOT as late as archery units), it won't be hard to have a decent number of experienced units. Mounted units are easier to loose, but those who resist the lower levels will be quite strong. Now... the archery line has a big problem. It is very weak offensively (an adept has sometimes better chances at winning vs a Goblin than an Archer) and due to the tech tree they come very late. Melee and Recon like I said from the start, Horsemen are on the way to Trade, Adepts one tech from Writing (quite appreciated ^^), and Divine units really don't need to come early due to their potential. But anyways I generally discover Priesthood before Archery. Archery is too late in the tree (also because in an uninteresting position) and by the time you can build Archers (don't forget you also need to build archery range to have them...) they will gain xp very slowly because of their low offensive potential. This means that in most cases an experienced Melee unit will do a better job at defending a city than an archery unit, at least against strong opponent units. You can upgrade a warrior to an archer but you will most likely end up with unappropriate promotions. This is why I really LOVED Flurries, because they could use those early combat 5 promotions from a warrior (but I do agree with you that melee units becoming defensive -Shield Wall, not Phalanx who looked offensive to me - was a bit fuzzy). One big and unbalancing component in all this matter, as I said in the Drill thread, is that Combat promotions and experience are overpowered in FFH, which makes archery units less important. If combat promotions weren't so strong and if it wasn't so easy to promote a unit to combat 5, the archery line would have more sense, but as it stands it is little more than elven flavor.
So while I understand your design reasons in the changes you made, Kael, I can't really appreciate them from a strategic point of view.

Kael, those are good thoughts. I'm assuming then, that it came down to forcing the player to specialize his units via promotions, rather than unit type?

I actually like the idea of having a defensive and offensive version of melee, and archer unit types. Your mounted units would be more effective if they had less defense and more offense and more mobility. For example, give the horseman 3 moves, 6/1 for offense/defense, with a -20% city attack.

Defensive melee: Guardsman +25% city defense, 3/5 base, Maceman +25% vs. melee 4/8 base, Phalanx +25% city defense, 8/14 base.
Offensive melee: Axeman/Swordsman +10% city attack, 6/2 base, Foot Knight Immune to First Strike, 14/8 base
Balanced melee: Warrior 3/3 base, Footman 5/5, Infantry 8/8, Elite Infantry 12/12

Defensive Ranged: Archer 2/4 base, +50% city defense, +50% hills defense, 1 first strike. Longbow 4/8 base, +50% city defense, +50% hills defense, 2 first strikes, Elite Longbowman 8/12 base, +50% city defense, +50% hills defense, 2 first strikes.
Offensive Ranged: Peltast 4/2 base, Guerilla I promo, +25% hills attack and defense, 1 first strike. Ambusher 8/4 base, Guerilla I promo, +25% hills attack and defense, 2 first strikes. Flurry 12/8 base, Guerilla I promo, +25% hills attack and defense, 3 first strikes.

My 2 cp. The Elites can only come from units of lvl 4 or higher, the others can be built, but you would also restrict the range of promotions available based on unit type.

The main problem with the defender line If combat promotions weren't so strong and if it wasn't so easy to promote a unit to combat 5, the archery line would have more sense, but as it stands it is little more than elven flavor.
So while I understand your design reasons in the changes you made, Kael, I can't really appreciate them from a strategic point of view.

I'm with you here. Getting a cumulative combat strength promo line is rediculous! I promote everything to CS 5 before I start specializing. +100% STR is too hard to pass up. Sphener with CS5 is a GOD. It's not uncommon for me to get Sphener with some CR and heroic strength increases too, lol. Start walking Sphener over everything. More to the point, though, Onedreaner is absolutely correct concerning Archers coming in too late and therfore being underpowered.

Maybe a way to make archers more powerful defenders would be to stop them from needing the archery range to be built. Then for every turn the archer spends in a city with and archery range they gain exp up to a certain level, then to increase their exp beyond that level you need a bowyer which will give them exp up to another certain level. If this needs balancing to stop them from becoming to strong attackers they could not get exp from fighting, only from practicing in town, to give you a reason to keep them at home or they could have 0 attack or something.

The only exception i think would be the ljosalfar, i think attacking archers fit well with their theme.

One big and unbalancing component in all this matter, as I said in the Drill thread, is that Combat promotions and experience are overpowered in FFH, which makes archery units less important. If combat promotions weren't so strong and if it wasn't so easy to promote a unit to combat 5, the archery line would have more sense, but as it stands it is little more than elven flavor.
So while I understand your design reasons in the changes you made, Kael, I can't really appreciate them from a strategic point of view.

I completely agree with you onedreamer.What really makes Archery line underpowered is that promotions are more powerful than in civ4 vanilla and you also get experience a lot faster, so units initial strength and abilities don't matter as much as experience and promotions.......it isn't a problem related only to Archers but in general to defensive units.
Honestly i think that a real solution would be an option to slowdown a bit combat experience gain, otherwise archer needs some further buffs but i don't think it would completely solve the problem

The main problem with the defender line (Archers), like I said, is that it's the most underpowered of the game. I see 6 lines here:
- melee
- recon
- mounted
- divine
- arcane
- archery

The first two have units buildable right from start. This means you will have a decent amount of units level 3+ (10+ xp) before Archery is even discovered. In my case, it is very common to have several combat 5 warriors and at least a coupla combat 5 scouts or later even more combat 5 hunters, before I discover Archery. These units can later be upgraded and retain both their xp points and current promotions. Divine and Arcane units gain experience with time, so you will always have a decent amount of experienced units of this kind. Mounted units are very offensive, so even if they come later (still NOT as late as archery units), it won't be hard to have a decent number of experienced units. Mounted units are easier to loose, but those who resist the lower levels will be quite strong. Now... the archery line has a big problem. It is very weak offensively (an adept has sometimes better chances at winning vs a Goblin than an Archer) and due to the tech tree they come very late. Melee and Recon like I said from the start, Horsemen are on the way to Trade, Adepts one tech from Writing (quite appreciated ^^), and Divine units really don't need to come early due to their potential. But anyways I generally discover Priesthood before Archery. Archery is too late in the tree (also because in an uninteresting position) and by the time you can build Archers (don't forget you also need to build archery range to have them...) they will gain xp very slowly because of their low offensive potential. This means that in most cases an experienced Melee unit will do a better job at defending a city than an archery unit, at least against strong opponent units. You can upgrade a warrior to an archer but you will most likely end up with unappropriate promotions. This is why I really LOVED Flurries, because they could use those early combat 5 promotions from a warrior (but I do agree with you that melee units becoming defensive -Shield Wall, not Phalanx who looked offensive to me - was a bit fuzzy). One big and unbalancing component in all this matter, as I said in the Drill thread, is that Combat promotions and experience are overpowered in FFH, which makes archery units less important. If combat promotions weren't so strong and if it wasn't so easy to promote a unit to combat 5, the archery line would have more sense, but as it stands it is little more than elven flavor.
So while I understand your design reasons in the changes you made, Kael, I can't really appreciate them from a strategic point of view.

I dont understand how the early start doesn't apply to archers as well. Warriors upgrade to archers so if you have a 3rd level warrior you can make him an archer as easily as an axeman. There isn't any inherent loss just because his unitcombat changes in the upgrade.

I do agree with you that the increased emphasis on combat (from xp and promotion improvements) makes it more difficult to play a defensive game and weakens the archer line. I think archers are good in some strategies, I focus on them in some games, usually when Im playing sheaim/armageddon or other builder focus strats. But as you say they arent that useful in your typical rush/attack game (which is a popular and effective strat).

Ditto horses from scouts. But, to be fair, in the case of archers, if I have a highly promoted unit, I'm not likely to relegate him to guard duty unless I'm losing already.

Maybe a way to make archers more powerful defenders would be to stop them from needing the archery range to be built. Then for every turn the archer spends in a city with and archery range they gain exp up to a certain level, then to increase their exp beyond that level you need a bowyer which will give them exp up to another certain level. If this needs balancing to stop them from becoming to strong attackers they could not get exp from fighting, only from practicing in town, to give you a reason to keep them at home or they could have 0 attack or something.

The only exception i think would be the ljosalfar, i think attacking archers fit well with their theme.



I like the ideia of giving free xp to archers... the ideia of taking off the requiriment of the archer range to build it is good too (so it would be the unit of choice on new conquered cities) and to give free xp to archers that stay on a city (training :) ), until it gets to lvl 5 for example, this would acheive 2 goals

- Make the archer a unit that you will actually build someday...
- Boost AI, as now it is very easy to get some lvl 4-5 units go to a enemy citie and get >90% chance of beating their unpromoted archers, to get a city defended with garrison 3, more some drill would make it harder, i would even begin consider using siege weapons in my games...

The archery range could give garrison 1 + drill 1 promotions, as if you were a protective leader in normal civ... so it would be a very good build to do.

As for the drill being weak, i disagree, it alread scales with the other promotions... if it is easy to get cs5 unit that give 100% strenght, try getting drill after it and you will change your opinion of underpowered promotion...

yeah drill promos are good for dealing with swarms of weaker units.

I dont understand how the early start doesn't apply to archers as well. Warriors upgrade to archers so if you have a 3rd level warrior you can make him an archer as easily as an axeman. There isn't any inherent loss just because his unitcombat changes in the upgrade.

Of course there is (hence my post) :)
Early units can only be promoted with combat, which is not the best promotion for an archery unit defending the city. Sure it can help, but I'll always prefer to upgrade to another melee unit, since thanks to those promotions he is likely to earn more xp killing units that try to pillage my plots rather than just sitting in the city and defending (less xp), and on the long run he will be much more effective, especially with metal promotions.

As for the drill being weak, i disagree, it alread scales with the other promotions... if it is easy to get cs5 unit that give 100% strenght, try getting drill after it and you will change your opinion of underpowered promotion...

Your own statement contradicts you, the fact that you suggest taking drill AFTER combat 5 means that Combat 1-2-3-4-5 are more important. And I do agree. Not in Civ4 though, believe me.

Can you make so Archers units, when defending, gain more exp ? So it wouldn't be so tough to lvl them up, and defending with them wouldn't be a bad strategy even if you have a unit who can kill the attacker.

Of course there is (hence my post) :)
Early units can only be promoted with combat, which is not the best promotion for an archery unit defending the city. Sure it can help, but I'll always prefer to upgrade to another melee unit, since thanks to those promotions he is likely to earn more xp killing units that try to pillage my plots rather than just sitting in the city and defending (less xp), and on the long run he will be much more effective, especially with metal promotions.

I have to agree but...Archers still make great, cheap to build defensive units (particularly in cities built on hills, which is something I try to do if possible). My strat is usually to as you say, promote my experienced early units along the melee line. But, nowadays (after being rushed by the AI too much) I often supplement them later with an archer or two in each city. Archers can get city defense, melee cannot. The other thing of course is archers aren't resource dependant like melee is. Elves have bonuses to archers that make them more valuable, plus the Hero... Last of all, if you always focus on melee in MP then foes can specialize their promotions against you.

If there is an imbalance of the lines, I'd go back to the fact that researching the melee line also improves the economy/production of your kingdom by allowing mines/forges/shipyards etc, whereas archery does not. Same can be said of many of the other lines (horsemen allows the key Trade tech, Arcane allows node development, etc)

A poll would have been really nice on this before the change was made Kael. I'm not sure how many people were part of your play circle but I know you realized from the get go that there are people who used Pikemen and I don't really know many people who use Archers before Flurries.

Not to mention Longbowmen, those are even worse. I think I used them twice, once as the Ljo and once as Falamar just because I had the money, it wasn't like they ever fought a battle.

Pikemen on the other hand tended to make up the bulk of my troops when I was going down the melee/merc line. Mercs would go in and clean stuff up, Pikemen protect against the Warchariots and then stand guard at the cities.

Your own statement contradicts you, the fact that you suggest taking drill AFTER combat 5 means that Combat 1-2-3-4-5 are more important. And I do agree. Not in Civ4 though, believe me.

No contradiction, just diferent caracteriscts (or Atributes i don't know what is the right in english)... some promotions are good for low level caracters, others not... is like getting canibilize for a lvl 1 undead, what is good to heal when you kill a unit, if you are weak and will probably die tring to do it?

the same for Drill, you get combat rounds for free... what is good to have some free rounds if you cannot win it? it just makes sense for you to get your unit strong first and then chose if you continue to improve it strenght, or if you give combat rounds for free to not get hurt killing mid-low level units...

And compare to vanilla civ do not make sense either, the other promotions are much diferent for comparision, it is almost an entire diferent game...

Other problem with changing drill is that it alread scales with the unit power, if you give more strenght to it, you would get it overpowered when given for exemple to a CS5 unit for example, that is not dificult to get anyway...

A Crossbowman in a hill city, with Garrison 1 and a few turn to fortify is a 30str defender - did i do my sums right, because if so that seems pretty good to me for a non-national unit!

Personally i dont like the idea of archer units being all powerfull. A garrison unit that sits in a nice walled city, chasing petty market theives should not be as tough as a battle hardened champion that has been out fighting barbarians, wild animals and capturing enemy cities. I play archer units as cheap, garrison units - it would be great if they received a form of Gaurdsman promotion or were less expensive to build or maintain but i personally dont understand what the problem with them is....if it aint broke....

sidebar: combat 4 warriors upgraded to crossbowmen are also a tough foe...

A Crossbowman in a hill city, with Garrison 1 and a few turn to fortify is a 30str defender - did i do my sums right, because if so that seems pretty good to me for a non-national unit!

Personally i dont like the idea of archer units being all powerfull. A garrison unit that sits in a nice walled city, chasing petty market theives should not be as tough as a battle hardened champion that has been out fighting barbarians, wild animals and capturing enemy cities. I play archer units as cheap, garrison units - it would be great if they received a form of Gaurdsman promotion or were less expensive to build or maintain but i personally dont understand what the problem with them is....if it aint broke....

sidebar: combat 4 warriors upgraded to crossbowmen are also a tough foe...


Crossbowmen were converted to national units... Also as I said archers can get city defense and melee cannot. I don't see any problem with melee being 'better' than the archer line, but if so there needs to be some reason to use archers: cheaper to build/research seems the best solution.

Crossbowmen were converted to national units... Also as I said archers can get city defense and melee cannot. I don't see any problem with melee being 'better' than the archer line, but if so there needs to be some reason to use archers: cheaper to build/research seems the best solution.

Was talking about standard crossbow men? (BY national unit , do you mean limited to just 3?) the current crossbowmen are pretty dam tough on attack and defence... they chew up attacks from multiple Champions...

I think players would use archers more if the ai did what the players do--get warriors promoted with shock 2 and steamroll all the melee units guarding cities...

Yes, that too.

Does the ai not specialise units?

Maybe archers could have their own set of promotions to make them more useful, ie. much more powerful defenders when they get enough exp.

well,

I don't like archers.

you can't do nix with them. just stay fat and happy in a city.
as offense is almost the best defense, and attack gains more xp than defense, I'd rather attack those pillaging barbs with my 2+2 warrior with iron weapons and combat 3+ than wait for them with my 0xp archer that cost twice as much as the warrior.

at the time I could have this 0xp archer I could have hunters lvl4-5 or swords lvl 4-5 that are as powerful in attack as the archer is in defense, are not dependant on the enemy being bold and earn more xp when they win the fight.

only interesting archer units were marksmen, flurry and great-X-bow
but they come late game.

pikes were useful

snif... long life to the pikes !!!!

I think players would use archers more if the ai did what the players do--get warriors promoted with shock 2 and steamroll all the melee units guarding cities...

Wrong. The AI wouldn't steamroll anything if it did what the players do. In fact, if it promoted its warriors with shock 2 like the player does, these promotions would null each other, but due to the superior ability of the player to protect the most experienced units, the AI would still loose any day of the week. Not to mention that City Raze is a better promotion for attacking cities since it is effective against any unit, so if the AI would do as the player does, archers would remain near useless. Archers are "somewhat" useful when you lack the metals, period.

No contradiction, just diferent caracteriscts (or Atributes i don't know what is the right in english)... some promotions are good for low level caracters, others not... is like getting canibilize for a lvl 1 undead, what is good to heal when you kill a unit, if you are weak and will probably die tring to do it?

You can't get Cannibalize at level 1.... you need Combat 2.

the same for Drill, you get combat rounds for free... what is good to have some free rounds if you cannot win it? it just makes sense for you to get your unit strong first and then chose if you continue to improve it strenght, or if you give combat rounds for free to not get hurt killing mid-low level units...

Makes no sense. To make the unit stronger you need to win fights, so Drill should help in this the Archery units (at least) as much as Combat promo does.

And compare to vanilla civ do not make sense either, the other promotions are much diferent for comparision, it is almost an entire diferent game...

What other promotions are you talking about ? It's the same game.

Other problem with changing drill is that it alread scales with the unit power, if you give more strenght to it, you would get it overpowered when given for exemple to a CS5 unit for example, that is not dificult to get anyway...

I'm proposing to change Combat, not Drill.

If there is an imbalance of the lines, I'd go back to the fact that researching the melee line also improves the economy/production of your kingdom by allowing mines/forges/shipyards etc, whereas archery does not. Same can be said of many of the other lines (horsemen allows the key Trade tech, Arcane allows node development, etc)

Yep, I did point out this. And it is a very important component in making the Archery line the least important of all.

well,

I don't like archers.

you can't do nix with them. just stay fat and happy in a city.
as offense is almost the best defense, and attack gains more xp than defense, I'd rather attack those pillaging barbs with my 2+2 warrior with iron weapons and combat 3+ than wait for them with my 0xp archer that cost twice as much as the warrior.

at the time I could have this 0xp archer I could have hunters lvl4-5 or swords lvl 4-5 that are as powerful in attack as the archer is in defense, are not dependant on the enemy being bold and earn more xp when they win the fight.

only interesting archer units were marksmen, flurry and great-X-bow
but they come late game.

pikes were useful

snif... long life to the pikes !!!!

Yes. This is exactly the problem, people woud just rather use melee because its multipurpose andyou get economic and production bonuses along the melee tech line. I would suggest that archers are increased in defense, decreased in cost, and have some sort of useful building along its tech line. Just as an example, Archer Competition (crappy name I know) - +2:) (can spend money each turn to give archer units in that city exp? - could work the same as hiring mercs does so should be easy enough to code)

Wrong. The AI wouldn't steamroll anything if it did what the players do. In fact, if it promoted its warriors with shock 2 like the player does, these promotions would null each other, but due to the superior ability of the player to protect the most experienced units, the AI would still loose any day of the week. Not to mention that City Raze is a better promotion for attacking cities since it is effective against any unit, so if the AI would do as the player does, archers would remain near useless. Archers are "somewhat" useful when you lack the metals, period.

Why is city raider better when it is only melee units defending? Shock also protects you from counter attacks by the melee units.
City raider is only better if the human is already using mixed units--which you say you don't much, except hunters, who are weaker unless experienced, so aren't the main problem.

Of course the ai can't steamroll an experienced player, but that is what players do when there is only melee running around because shock gives such an advantage in that situation, over the ubiquitous combat for the ais.

I think players would use archers more if the ai did what the players do--get warriors promoted with shock 2 and steamroll all the melee units guarding cities...

After reading this comment, i tried an early "steamroller" for the first time (a first for FfF and vanila Civ). As Hippus rushing for stables, my 4 combat 5 / Shock 1 horseman killed 3 out of the the 5 AI opponents by turn 124. Heading to the last ai now - the game will be over by turn 150...

Never realised how effective this tactic is (or how weak the AI is) it just feels cheap, going to try it on Deity level now...

Why is city raider better when it is only melee units defending? Shock also protects you from counter attacks by the melee units.
City raider is only better if the human is already using mixed units--which you say you don't much, except hunters, who are weaker unless experienced, so aren't the main problem.

City Raider 3 is much stronger. 90% vs any unit and 20% vs melee. That's 110% vs Melee defending a city at 10xp. Shock 2 is 80% vs Melee and +10% strength. The downside of City Raider are that it needs far more advanced tech, that it's useless outside cities and that reaching 10xp is harder. If you overcome these downsides though, it's decisively better.

Of course the ai can't steamroll an experienced player, but that is what players do when there is only melee running around because shock gives such an advantage in that situation, over the ubiquitous combat for the ais.

but like I said if all players would do it (in a multiplayer game) there would be no advantage for anyone and the defender would most likely win due to defensive boni.

City Raider 3 is much stronger. 90% vs any unit and 20% vs melee. That's 110% vs Melee defending a city at 10xp. Shock 2 is 80% vs Melee and +10% strength. The downside of City Raider are that it needs far more advanced tech, that it's useless outside cities and that reaching 10xp is harder. If you overcome these downsides though, it's decisively better.
Does anyone else find there to be a logical disconnect here? "These three promotions are better then these two!" Yes, three promotions are better then two, and both are specialized (though Anti-Melee seems a bit more universal then anti-city). Is there some sort of balance problem with level 4 being more useful then level 3?



but like I said if all players would do it (in a multiplayer game) there would be no advantage for anyone and the defender would most likely win due to defensive boni.
I'm genuinely confused; If you know your opponent is piping in Shock units, why would you persist in building Melee with Shock if you can just as easily produce, say, Cavalry with Shock?

Do Cover II, Shock II and Formation II require some tech? If not, they could have Military Strategy as prerequisite.

And ability to buy XP for Archers would be nice, if balanced properly.

About archers: I think something about being able to use Weapons, too, would be a nice boost for the Archer-line. Or if that makes no sense (they are shooting anyways, not whacking ppl with bronze/iron weapons) why not add an affinity to e.g. Fire mana (=Fire arrows) to be able to improve the base-strength just abit ?
Right now just the Ljosalfar archers are of any use outside of town (and heck powerful in forests, esp with treetop def.) , but even them seem to be weakened by reducing terrain-defense in 0.30.

That should lessen the "problems" ppl pointed out so far:
Attacking with cheaper units (which also can use Bronze/iron weapons later on) is just superiorly more effective than defending (and normally never getting exp for promotions AND never being able to upgrade/beef up with weapons)




Another way to approach this might be to add a "+25% vs melee" trait to archers.
Kinda like the old stone/paper/scissors - Warriors(melee) beats Horseman (more str, weaponprom.) , Horseman beats Archers (already got +40% vs archers) and Archers beats warriors (due to +25 or +40%, dunno what exactly is needed)
That would make defending archers alot more useful vs Attacking melee units, but you could counter it by using horses or war machines w/o needing to increase the power of archers in general.


*
Sorry for the big offtopic (not about pikemen -.-#) post

Why doesn't it make sense that archers should get weapon promotions? mithril tipped arrows are bounded to be more dangerous then plain stone ones.

I really like the idea of archers not reqiuring buildings but the buildings giving xp.
also i think that the warfare and military strategy line could be combined with archery because in the hundreds years war the english archers won through using unique strategies.

After reading this comment, i tried an early "steamroller" for the first time (a first for FfF and vanila Civ). As Hippus rushing for stables, my 4 combat 5 / Shock 1 horseman killed 3 out of the the 5 AI opponents by turn 124. Heading to the last ai now - the game will be over by turn 150...

Never realised how effective this tactic is (or how weak the AI is) it just feels cheap, going to try it on Deity level now...Well, that's part of the reason Shock II was reduced in power.

And archers do get weapon promotions, they just get them one tier later than melee, i think. (Maybe this changed w/o my noticing)

They always get them, but they can not use mithril

archer get weapon promo ??

maybe 2 tier after melee ..

archer are 1 tier after warriors and they don't get weapon promo..

LB I don't remember, but my firebows hadn't weapon promo, flurries neither.
only the X-Bow had some weapon promo but they were tier 3 and 4 units compared to the tier 1 melee unit : warrior.

maybe make archer get weapon promos but not metal promos :
weapon promo connected to other ressources (pig / silk ... maybe add a new ressource appearing mid game ..)

Warriors can get weapons promotions, why shouldn't archers.

"Steamrolling" the AI works exceptionally well - all the way up to deity, the main problem is that there is no technology check to stop units scaling up with promotions. Would it make sense to restrict promotions by unit level and/or technology.

So no military unit cant get combat 3, Shock, Drill etc unitil particular techs are researched.

Or maybe tier 1 units can only gain XP up to 20 / tier 2 up to 40 / tier 3 up to 60 etc etc.

This is purely a selfish suggestion as since dabbling with the rush tactic (admittedly only as hippus) - i have kinda spoiled my gaming experiance as i can "Win" in under 200 turns on my prefered map combination even at deity - something which i though was beyond me using my old balanced builder/short conflict approach.

Yeah but that is the strength of the hippus. AFAIK, if you try a nice calm builder aproach with them it doesn't really work out. They are an early game leader, you get horseback riding, build a couple of horsemen, win conquest. Its not cheating, its ''strategy'' :P

Yeah but that is the strength of the hippus. AFAIK, if you try a nice calm builder aproach with them it doesn't really work out. They are an early game leader, you get horseback riding, build a couple of horsemen, win conquest. Its not cheating, its ''strategy'' :P

Yep - trying Dwarfs now with same tactic and it is proving harder ... yeah :goodjob:

Oh Realy. Are you playing the Lurchip of the Khazad?

Oh Realy. Are you playing the Lurchip of the Khazad?

Played as Lurchip on Deity - much harder - managed to kill the nearest AI real quick but extended wars are hurting my happiness so my steamroller is rolling to a standstill....

Does anyone else find there to be a logical disconnect here? "These three promotions are better then these two!" Yes, three promotions are better then two, and both are specialized (though Anti-Melee seems a bit more universal then anti-city). Is there some sort of balance problem with level 4 being more useful then level 3?

I shouldn't even answer, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you didn't understand well... first of all I clearly compared two 10xp units, so they are the same level. In fact you can't get shock 2 at level 3, you need prerequisites. And it's even worse than what I pictured: checking on civilopedia it seems that you only need combat I for shock I and nothing for shock II, but I think you actually need combat III for Shock II. So a city raider promoted melee unit will be more effective earlier at steamrolling melee units defending a city than a shock promoted melee unit. Also none even remotely mentioned that this could be a balance problem.


I'm genuinely confused

Actually reading what others are talking about helps a lot, most of the times.

If you know your opponent is piping in Shock units, why would you persist in building Melee with Shock if you can just as easily produce, say, Cavalry with Shock?

Because it is not sure you can (ie: you need horses most of the times). And on the other hand, this is exactly one of the points we were discussing about: the usefulness of pikemen (vs said Cavalry tactic).

Warriors can get weapons promotions, why shouldn't archers.

because they already have +1 defensive strength compared to their weapon unpromoted counterpart. For example an Axeman has strength 4 (will be 5 with bronze weapons) and an Archer strength 3/5.

well i agree that there is a problem with the tech line to get archer, as you are obligated to develop the meele line, to get mines, chop tress, get weapon promotions and so on, what makes the acher a little underused, but i dont think you have to buff the archer to make it usefull, i think the solution would be to take of the meele units out of the tree branch of the weapon promotions...
you would have to get a new tree for the meele units as you have for archers, having some techs of the branch of the mines as prerequisite... as you have bronze working for the 2 tier arches for exemple...

This would make the player choose wherever it whants defensive units to protect its empire (if he will be more of a builder) or if he wants atack units to expand it... and not as today that he alread have the meele when he developes the obrigatory breanch of the metal techs, and choose if he wants another type of unit to defend his empire or get more usefull religios/ arcane and so on techs.

Makes no sense. To make the unit stronger you need to win fights, so Drill should help in this the Archery units (at least) as much as Combat promo does.
Well i simply don't agree with the fact of the drill being underpowered it just have changed its caracteristis becouse of the others changes made for promotions, maybe put drill needing lvl 3 or more unit, so people don't take it for weak units would solve the probem



What other promotions are you talking about ? It's the same game.

what i mean was that changing the powers of the promotions (CS for example) and the easy of get XP actually changes the all the dinamic of the game, the better order of getting theses promotions, and the adiction of so many promotions/spells, etc makes actually a very diferent game from civ4 vanilla that you canot use it to compare... so in vanilla Drill is a good choice to compete with combat, here not... it is actually a good choice for well promoted unit, what don't make it uselless, as you get MANY well promoted units in this game, being it heros, or even by taking of the limit of 10 XP from barbarians what make it very easy to get hight promoted units

Sorry if it is dificult for me to express correctly, but english is not my native language.

I shouldn't even answer, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you didn't understand well... first of all I clearly compared two 10xp units, so they are the same level. In fact you can't get shock 2 at level 3, you need prerequisites. And it's even worse than what I pictured: checking on civilopedia it seems that you only need combat I for shock I and nothing for shock II, but I think you actually need combat III for Shock II. So a city raider promoted melee unit will be more effective earlier at steamrolling melee units defending a city than a shock promoted melee unit. Also none even remotely mentioned that this could be a balance problem.

....You really are missing the point.
"The Three City Raider promotions are better at taking down melee units in cities then the two melee promotions!"
There are /three promotions/ here, compared to /two/. In general, I think we can both agree that a unit with three promotions is better prepared for a given task then one with 2, no? Leaving aside, for a brief moment, that "Melee unit within a city" is a smaller set then "Melee unit" or "Unit in a city", there isn't much of a balance problem with "+110% vs. Melee Unit within a city" from three promotions, especially when most situational promotions are worth 40% each. Sucks to be a melee unit defending that city, sure, but the fact remains that the total promotion is less then three other situational promotions. More food for thought: You seem to prefer the 80% on Shock II, for a total of 120% in 2 promotions; Given that most other situational bonuses are 40%, why should Shock/Cover/Formation II be 80%? Isn't there a 'balance issue' there? Or better, Shock II, in its old form, was better for attacking a City defended by a Melee unit then a unit with City Raider III.

Now if you mean "The shock line could use a third promotion", I'm more inclined to agree, but on the other hand, Shock is useful with any set of goals, within the general context of war. As a rule, City Raider is only useful when you're mounting an offensive war, and even then, not always.

Actually reading what others are talking about helps a lot, most of the times.
Cute; I read what you said, and understood it completely. Your logic is flawed.

Because it is not sure you can (ie: you need horses most of the times). And on the other hand, this is exactly one of the points we were discussing about: the usefulness of pikemen (vs said Cavalry tactic).
I have no doubts on the merits of pikemen against cavalry, but were they necessary? Consider: Of the lategame units, only one has a bonus against a unit class, inherently; Champions have bonuses against.. Melee. Which includes other Champions, so the bonuses cancel each other out; I would posit that Champions receive that bonus entirely so that UU Champions aren't quite end-all. Should there really be a unit that exists solely to cancel out another unit class like that? Especially with the Hippus and their reliance on mounted units; Mass producing pikemen would be a no brainer against them. Their only recourse is to play like every other civ, essentially. Without pikemen basically saying "lolzno" to cavalry, cavalry can actually do things without vastly outnumberring any potential pikeman force on the other side. It's not like their high move doesn't have a balance to it anyway (The loss of defensive bonuses).

This is why I don't like Axemen in Vanilla. Virtually pointless to build swordsmen since in MP vanilla your opponents will have stacks of axes.

So a city raider promoted melee unit will be more effective earlier at steamrolling melee units defending a city than a shock promoted melee unit. Also none even remotely mentioned that this could be a balance problem.I rarely rush to warfare, but I'd be interested to hear if it is an effective tactic for you.

(But I didn't so much say shock is a blanace problem (now), just that ai could promote their units better, and if they did archers would come a bit more in style.)

No, I don't rush Warfare because I don't like rush tactics in FFH2. When I get it though I build city raider melee units, and my current combat5 or shock2 units will be escorting them. But I do think it would be an effective tactic to rush it, since it also allows Form of the Titan. Like I said city raider is not better than shock2 in any aspect:
The downsides of City Raider are that it needs far more advanced tech, that it's useless outside cities and that reaching 10xp is harder. If you overcome these downsides though, it's decisively better. (for attacking cities).


....You really are missing the point.
"The Three City Raider promotions are better at taking down melee units in cities then the two melee promotions!"
There are /three promotions/ here, compared to /two/. In general, I think we can both agree that a unit with three promotions is better prepared for a given task then one with 2, no? Leaving aside, for a brief moment, that "Melee unit within a city" is a smaller set then "Melee unit" or "Unit in a city", there isn't much of a balance problem with "+110% vs. Melee Unit within a city" from three promotions, especially when most situational promotions are worth 40% each. Sucks to be a melee unit defending that city, sure, but the fact remains that the total promotion is less then three other situational promotions.

You aren't really reading anything, are you ?
1) again: none even remotely mentioned this is a balance problem (except you)
2) again: you cannot get shock 2 in two promotions, so I don't know why you insist considering shock2 two promotions. We aren't confronting promotions, we are confronting which unit is most effective with which promotion, hence since shock 2 requires more experience for a smaller bonus compared to city raider 3, it is less effective, despite your contorsions in trying to demostrate otherwise.

It's good that Melee units can now take the drill line, but I think that the Drill line needs more stuff leading off of it. I see that Blitz require Drill IV now, excellent move! Moving it to an earlier tech is also a good move, since Blitz was practically only available to Orthus Axe, and Flurries before. (and very late game, with your high exp units).

It's also good that the Cover II, Formation II, and Shock II were reduced to 40%. +80% from two promotions is still great.

One of the biggest strengths of Combat I-V is that most promotions require some of the Combat promotions, Shock II require Combat III, Formation I require Combat II, etc.
Heroic Strength/Defense I require Combat V and Heroic. What if they could require Combat V OR Drill IV? Or perhaps make a Drill V.

And it would be nice with some new promotions that require the Drill line which are only available to Archery units. Just some quick examples on ideas:

Arrow Barrage I - Requires Drill II and Archery (would require archery units to have iCollateralDamageMaxUnits set to some number)
+25% Collateral
Arrow Barrage II - Requires Drill IV and Archery
+25% Collateral
+20% vs Melee
Precision - Requires Drill III and Archery
+20% vs Heroes
+20% vs Mounted
Ambush - Requires Woodsman I, Drill I and Archery
+20% Attack and Defense in Forests
+1 First Strike Chance
+20% Withdrawal
Drill V - Requires Drill IV and Archery
+25% chance for First Strike Chances (making it 75% I think? The first strike might still lose the round if I understand correctly)Or something like that.

the drill line available to melee units is certainly good for the promotion itself, but it only makes archers even less desirable... maybe archers should be able to get a new promotion that makes them immune to first strikes ?

It's good that Melee units can now take the drill line, but I think that the Drill line needs more stuff leading off of it. I see that Blitz require Drill IV now, excellent move! Moving it to an earlier tech is also a good move, since Blitz was practically only available to Orthus Axe, and Flurries before. (and very late game, with your high exp units).

It's also good that the Cover II, Formation II, and Shock II were reduced to 40%. +80% from two promotions is still great.

One of the biggest strengths of Combat I-V is that most promotions require some of the Combat promotions, Shock II require Combat III, Formation I require Combat II, etc.
Heroic Strength/Defense I require Combat V and Heroic. What if they could require Combat V OR Drill IV? Or perhaps make a Drill V.

And it would be nice with some new promotions that require the Drill line which are only available to Archery units. Just some quick examples on ideas:

Arrow Barrage I - Requires Drill II and Archery (would require archery units to have iCollateralDamageMaxUnits set to some number)
+25% Collateral
Arrow Barrage II - Requires Drill IV and Archery
+25% Collateral
+20% vs Melee
Precision - Requires Drill III and Archery
+20% vs Heroes
+20% vs Mounted
Ambush - Requires Woodsman I, Drill I and Archery
+20% Attack and Defense in Forests
+1 First Strike Chance
+20% Withdrawal
Drill V - Requires Drill IV and Archery
+25% chance for First Strike Chances (making it 75% I think? The first strike might still lose the round if I understand correctly)Or something like that.

I really like these ideas! Great. :king:

archery units currently can't get woodsman.. which they really should since Ljo's main religion (Leaves) special promotion (woodsman2) can't even be applied to their ideal units (archers).

anyone notice that woodsman2 cant be applied to melee anymore? seems like only recon can get it now.

Archers don't seem so useless to me, I often build some to have the nice garrison promotions. The fact is I rarely have more than one per city, early game, because I don't promote my experienced warriors into archers.
What is a shame is that the archer line is useless in a battle group, exception being the crossbowman.
So I do fully support Grey Fox ideas.

I'm sad to hear that the pikeman is gone in .30. As I'm still using .25 as I only have vanilla, I guess I'll be able to put off abandoning a unit I really use a lot, actually. *sigh*