something weird

From a gameplay standpoint, it seems that pikes are meant to be the "well you didn't get any iron, so here is something to hold you over until Renaissance". On a side-note, this is also one of the reasons the AI is programmed to bee-line Civil Service, since it is much more difficult to program an AI to effectively get iron than it is to just make them spam pikes.

The problem, as Unresolved points out, is that you are not at the supposed advantage with iron and swords or long swords. Yes, long swords have a higher base strength to go up against any unit, including both knights and pikes. And yes, all that experience carries over into muskets and beyond (where as pike upgrade line kind of dies off). But universities with specialists makes such a significant difference, the sacrifice isn't worth it. That is 6 base science and 33% modifier along with the GP points--to compensate for that, you need to conquer a ton of cities and that just isn't going to happen with swords unless it is lower difficulties, in which case you don't need the science anyway.

I can see where the devs were going with the idea: Top of the tech tree is assuming you have the taller cities for specialists to cover for having less cities; bottom of the tech tree is assuming the military tech will allow you to build up a huge science base by going wider. Unfortunately even on lower difficulties where you can take multiple cities with ease, it is extremely difficult to keep pace with the huge jumps in science from bee-lining those science techs and buildings.

Straying a bit off-topic, but between the iron-less meat shields and the much better tech path, long swords are nothing more than a short stopping point until muskets.

Although should be noted that due to the AI's free techs and ability to rack up science without the tech (growth, unlimited happiness, and ICS)--France AI can pull off some nasty musketeer rushes, since he is one of the few AI that doesn't push Civil Service. If only the human player could go straight to muskets while dropping new cities every few turns and hitting crazy population even without tile improvements.
 
Not really. Most people don't even research Steel until late in the game. Going for longswordsmen when they are actually relevant is gimping your research whereas pikemen come dozens of turns earlier and are on the way to Education.

I think it's worth the trade off because you can seriously warmonger if you get Steel early. Even more true if you play as Japan or Vikings.
 
Except that's not how flanking works. Flanking, in CiV, is based on number of friendly units adjacent to the enemy unit (or vice versa), not unit angle.

I wasn't implying anything about how it works. I understand how flanking is implemented in Civ 5.
 
Not really. Most people don't even research Steel until late in the game. Going for longswordsmen when they are actually relevant is gimping your research whereas pikemen come dozens of turns earlier and are on the way to Education.


The problem isn't steal but machinery why should you go for a mellee unit that requires a resource while you have a strong range unit which can win wars for you the crosbowman.

Going straight to machinery beats pikeman and can win you wars. IF you are doing a warmonger game you built the National college finish liberty fast and use a great engineer to plant a accedemy. and go straight to machinery and the wars begin

So i agree longswordsman are uselless
 
The problem isn't steal but machinery why should you go for a mellee unit that requires a resource while you have a strong range unit which can win wars for you the crosbowman.

Going straight to machinery beats pikeman and can win you wars. IF you are doing a warmonger game you built the National college finish liberty fast and use a great engineer to plant a accedemy. and go straight to machinery and the wars begin

So i agree longswordsman are uselless

The crossbowman is not in competition with the longswordsman, the pikeman is and that is why we're discussing Civil Service vs. Steel. Both are meant to be meat shields in G&K while crossbows are the main attackers. But the pikemen are much better at being a meat shield because of the location on the tech tree and the lack of resource requirements. The bonus against horses isn't too shabby either considering horses are the bane of the archer line.
 
What if they changed it so that pikes were made weaker, say a strength of 12 or 14, however had a promotion (which they would lose upon upgrade to lancers) that gave them 50% additional comabt strength only on defense, as well as of course still keeping their bonus verus mounted. There, that way pikes would now be too weak to take on other melee directly, be better representative of there real-life role as anti-calvary and for defense, and make swordsman much more useful and better at their job of being offensive troops.

Payers with iron now can feel like they are truely being rewarded by being allowed to go on the offensive with their swordsmen rather than merely having an additional, cheaper option over pikemen, and players without iron can be reasonably punished and forced to go after iron by being put on the defensive (but, without being defenseless).

The main issues with this change I see however, are that wars, even with iron, would become more attrition based and slower, and ranged would become even more important to break defensive lines of pikes. Fortunately through, a possible bright side to these wars of attrition would be a stealth buff to the AI and simultaneous nerf to warmongering, at least in the mid-game of the medieval and renaissance eras, by making fighting slower and more costly and infrastructure more possible and important (which is the intended purpose of Civil Service). Thoughts?
 
Make pikes strength 19, and switch places with the trebuchet in the tech tree. Two problems solved:
- trebuchets and siege engines will get some use before cannons
- pikes become an interesting option to longswords, instead of an overpowered swordsman replacer.
And it stays with historical truth - you had the elite on horse, the archers, and the poorly trained and poorly equiped infantry.
 
Make pikes strength 19, and switch places with the trebuchet in the tech tree. Two problems solved:
- trebuchets and siege engines will get some use before cannons
- pikes become an interesting option to longswords, instead of an overpowered swordsman replacer.
And it stays with historical truth - you had the elite on horse, the archers, and the poorly trained and poorly equiped infantry.

This is good this would be really nice to play
 
Make pikes strength 19, and switch places with the trebuchet in the tech tree. Two problems solved:
- trebuchets and siege engines will get some use before cannons
- pikes become an interesting option to longswords, instead of an overpowered swordsman replacer.
And it stays with historical truth - you had the elite on horse, the archers, and the poorly trained and poorly equiped infantry.

I agree. This would be a lot more interesting, but the strength of the trebuchet might need to be lowered if this were the case.
 
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