Gatling guns and above - lackluster?

I once had a scout get up to Scouting 3, before it found a goody hut that made it into an archer. From there it just went insane, eventually getting all the promotions, 3 move, double shooting, extra range Gatling, that ignored terrain costs. It was hilarious on the defence in forests and hills, shoot twice then step out of melee range, rinse and repeat.
 
I usually make sure I have a Gatling/MG/Bazooka in all my cities in case barbarians wander into my territory or a civ I'm at war with decides to launch a flanking attack.

But are you building Gats (etc.) for that, or do they get garrison duty because you have the spare units?
 
I don't think I would ever queue Gats up, but I would rush buy if I needed to. I usually just make do with leftover units from the beginning of the game since the early armies tend to be shooter heavy.
 
I just played with a lot of Gatlings last game (courtesy of Heathen conversion), and must say I swear by them. Their saving grace: they have a 30 strength. Riflemen only have a 34. These guys are not weak ranged units. They have the same defence and ranged strength, and they hold their own.
 
I find Gatling Guns quite useful, because there is really no ranged unit of its strength for a while, in my tech path. I tend to go Industrial, STheory then rush Radio for Modern Era. I then clean up some techs like Chemistry and Fertilizer. Only then like 25 turns later I will have artillery.
 
Yeah, it's that rush for industrialization. That gives you earlier Gatlings.
 
I tend to go Industrial, STheory then rush Radio for Modern Era. I then clean up some techs like Chemistry and Fertilizer. Only then like 25 turns later I will have artillery.

I am new to BNW from lots of GnK. I am very much appreciating the rush to Radio to unlock Ideologies. It is very different from how I played GnK, where I so valued the production boost from railroads that Radio came much later.

Why Industrial before STheory? Why Industrial before Radio? It seems to me that I have to get three polices in Order — for the half-price factories — before Industrial becomes critical. Of course, one needs coal for factories, so Industrial just before that third SP from Order, but still Industrial seems like it can wait a good bit. Or do you like Industrial just for the gats? What am I missing?
 
Going for Industrialization for Factories is a crap shoot obviously, but if it pays off you can get your ideology a bit faster than teching up to Radio. You can use Oxford and GS bulbs to help you along. Its only 1 tech up from Economics which is nice. It puts you in a stronger position in regards to hammers and can win you World's Fair if you are into that.
 
Going from Education and Printing Press (since they are both major techs), Gatling guns are potentially only 3 techs away. Artillery is 7 (two of them as expensive as Industrialization, one more). Artillery has the same strength as a Longswordsman when being attacked, while a Gatling Gun is more in line with muskets and rifles. You could almost say Artillery is better for getting Railroad, but both Dynamite and Industrialism are required for it.

Gatlings are on the way to most of the rest of the tech tree, being right in the middle of everything. Artillery is out of the way for culture or diplo wins. Artillery can also be significantly less useful for overseas invasions than wars on a landmass you already have cities on. For ANY coastal war, Frigates have the same ranged strength, better melee strength, are less likely to face resistance coming from the ocean, and come a whole era earlier in the tech tree. They do lose that 3 range, but...they lose a lot of hammers off their build cost too. Depending on the map, even for domination Dynamite might not be a good tech.

Upgrades favor the Gatlings too. Both they and Artillery finish upgrading at the end of the atomic era, but Gatlings have MG's in the middle, while Artillery has nothing, and Rocket Artillery requires aluminium.

In the end, it's comparing apples to oranges. Gatlings aren't for taking cities, they're for establishing ZoC. Artillery isn't for taking hits, it's for sitting in the back and hitting from a distance. I can understand that even comparing apples and oranges, everyone will have a favorite fruit. Normally, mostly due to placement in the tech tree, Gatlings are my fruit of choice. Make no mistake, if I find myself needing to bust though half a continent, Artillery is high on my wish list, but if I don't need to cut a swath of land to a runaway capital, I appreciate a unit that can take a few hits more than one that can tear down cities to invest my hammers in.
 
The Gatling line keeps your ranged promotions useful instead of having them invalidated by your Crossbowmen upgrading into melee units.

Unlike their melee equivalents, Gatling Guns take no damage when attacking.

Not only that, but the units in the Gatling line have more powerful combat strength than artillery units in the same time period. Gatlings have 30 strength and Machine Guns have 60. Artillery only has 28. Bazookas have 85 strength, Rocket Artillery only has 60. And this combat strength applies on defense as well, giving them significantly more survivability than the fragile artillery units. They also do not have limited visibility or need to set up before attacking.

Artillery units of course have a massive bonus against cities, but against units, the Gatlings and their upgrades are really the stronger choice.

For all those reasons I listed above, Gatling Guns and above are not lackluster at all.
 
I tend to use them as city defenders, and beeline biology and flight if I want to continue war mongering.
 
But...hard building artillery, in my humble experience, isn't very effective either. If they get artillery in the time it takes you to build it and get it to their door, it's worse than going at it with cannons. Due to their indirect attack and need for vision which is easy to get in your own boarders, Artillery make for painful units to try to advance against.

Hard building Artillery wastes the one big advantage you get from grabbing Dynamite when you can, having the superior army from that moment for a little longer.

If you aren't after that advantage, it's probably almost universally better to work the middle and top of the tech tree, which often means Gatlings as your best land unit for nearly a full era, nearly as strong as Cavalry (from a better tech), without the drawbacks of being a mounted unit and without taking damage when attacking.

If everyone has Artillery, funnily enough, Artillery is trash.

For their era, Gatlings are a pain to take down, only a few things have higher strength, they take no damage when attacking. Artillery is torn apart by anything that can get to it, including other Artillery, so hard building it isn't a real option except for defense.

Of course, this only goes for games that are competitive. If you're a full era ahead of the AI, you can beeline GDR's, hard build them, and win...but when a game is close in tech, the edge of Artillery is too important to build in cities. Dynamite is one of those techs that, once you hit it, the clock's ticking.

Gatlings getting that nice upgrade and their defensive abilities roughly on par with Artillery make them a better use of hammers, in my mind, due to the fact tey don't go out of style so quickly.
 
I am not good at keeping canons alive, so I hard build arty (and maybe even RA later) once cities have military academies.

I happily hard build AA and SAM. Many folks like to hard build tanks. XCOM are great late game, but I doubt people build paratroopers. What other land units do people hard build routinely?

Sorry, but I think it is hypocritical to argue that Gats+ are good units -- when a player cannot be bothered to build them, but they will build other units.

It's a pretty fundamental litmus test about the units being lackluster. OP is right on the mark.
 
I just compare gats to rifles. You have to have a front-line unit. Both can hold the line, but rifles tend to be cannon fodder while gats are tearing things up. The latter earns more xp. If I sacrifice a unit, usually it's some 0xp infantry. If I must choose between losing an inexperienced gat or an inexperienced artillery, the gat's got to go--because that's what it's there for. That's how my actions play out.
 
Yeah, but your prolly not hard building rifles either, just leftovers from the warrior/sword line. Maybe a bunch if there was a UU. So no point comparing one unit you don't build to another you don't build!
 
I like to hard build lancers. Who doesn't love lancers? Bring me the lancers.

Seriously, gats are better than the line from vanilla, but let's face it - civ has NEVER known what to do with the archer line.
 
Machine guns and bazookas are way better than gatling guns. Upgraded high ranked units are fun...
 
I definitely feel that you lose something significant when your range drops from 2 to 1. They make the unit basically feel like melee units. Logistically, it's a lot nicer when you have the flexibility of longer range. But that's one of the interesting things about the game. Even when you upgrade, everything isn't black and white. You gain a lot of strength, but give up an advantage.
 
Somewhat ironically, I wish they would reduce archer/cb/xb to 1 hex range (like barb ax man / gat / mg / bas). That's what makes the archer line OP.
 
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