Gatling guns and above - lackluster?

Browd said:

It is usually better to stick with a promotion line that unlocks, e.g., ranged promotions or logistics/blitz (2 attacks/turn) or march (heal every turn). So for non-ranged units stick with the drill or shock lines (don't mix the two and don't divert to take, e.g., siege, cover or medic, unless you don't care about delaying march/blitz) and for ranged units stick with the accuracy or barrage lines until you can take logistics or range (you can take march afterwards).

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I stronger disagree on melee units promotions. I never try to get march or such, the most important promotion on them is cover. Cover let them to survive after they attack, meaning they can pillage next turn and attack again. They never had health to do 2 attack/turn. Same try about armored units, but they do not have cover, so for them i try to get march. One attack and run why pillaging is strategy for armored units.

Gatling guns just aren't as OP as crossbows were is all. I think gatling guns in the industrial are what pikemen were in the medieval, a cheap defensive unit on a non-warmonger tech path. It's a role change from the highly offensive crossbows (I don't think that's how crossbows were intended but it seems to be how they worked out). If you're a peaceful player and haven't gone for rifling and beyond it is your best unit in the era, same as pikes in the medieval if you haven't gotten machinery or steel yet.

Asking why some one would hard build a gatling gun instead of artillery is literally the same thing as asking why some one would hard build a pikeman when they could build a longsword instead. If given the choice I would always go for artillery. The 2 points in str is nothing by this point in the game, assuming both are supported by a few melee units (which are nec. for taking cities) the artillery would always be the better choice due to the range, indirect fire and massive bonus vs cities.

Does that mean gatling guns need a buff? Hell no! They are on a non-warmongering part of the tech tree. There needs to be some impetus for researching the bottom of the tree. You get better units from the bottom. Like other players have said they can hold their own on the defensive against other industrial and even some great war units. Even later in the game I'd say machine guns and bazookas are more defense oriented as an offensive player is going to start focusing on bombers and tanks.

In my mind, is, I think, is the difference between archer(scoot & shoot) line; and 'crew-served' artillery(move & set-up, next turn, shoot) line . Thus, x-bows never go obsolete; as they fill a gap between melee and artillery when killing cities. If a city and defenders can hit anything beyond the melee line, my x-bows will just have to suffer, but they get to shoot back next turn. With both x-bows AND arty targeting a melee, archer, or city tile before the melee boys attack, damage done to targeted tile can be impressive .
Same goes for horse and H.archers, which now have scouting, as well as flank protection, and raising hell past the front lines being worthwhile duties . This gives you 'Combined Arms' well before buying the TECH (evil laughter here) .
Bring along a few workers for logistics (4-8), roads for reinforcements, tile repairs, etc., and you're good to go ! If/when I want Gats, they are built, because of TECH obsoleting; ya can't build any more x-bows, dammit!!! (well, you can still BUY them until the tech is in effect) .
While I came to the CIV-series in -V, I've heard of the 'Carpet-of-Doom', but this should fulfill the 'World-of-Hurt' criteria just fine .

I have noticed that a good melee unit is one that has good range cover or is facing limited projectile fire. For example, the infantry melee. Once you have plently of infantries facinv artilleries, then you wouldnt have that much issues since artilleries inflict 9 to 10 damage to infantries per shot. Just get them in there.

Browd said:

It is easiest to get gatling range to 2 by earning the Range promotion before they become gatlings -- when 3-range cross-bows are upgraded they become 2-range gatlings.

Whether range 1 or range 2, gatlings work best as a complement to your artillery. Artillery fronted by gatlings are far more durable than naked artillery.

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In an ongoing Immortal game I have several highly upgraded X-bows. Range, double attack etc. When should I upgrade these to 2 range double attack gatlings?

For my next two promos I presume I want cover 1 and 2 rather than March, since gatlings at range 2 will be subject to city fire.

The X-bows were easily taking down 40 defense citys, but no my enemy has Brandenburg Gate and castles and some cities are at least 80 defense. Will they have enough fire power to one shot kill my gatlings?

I would not count on bringing an 80-strength city down with gatlings. Get artillery (and/or bombers), and use gatlings and GW infantry (and/or landships) to front the artillery. The gatlings can contribute to city bombardment, but as a complement to the artillery. I don't see the gatlings getting one-shotted by an 80-strength city, but I would plan on cycling them out to heal (march obviously helps, as do adjacent units with medic and medic II).

Some will disagree with me, but this is one of those times when I think reloading is ok. You don't know at what strengths they can one-shot you. And you're never going to find out until you try. The way to improve your game is to find out, and if they can one-shot you, reload and don't do that. Where it becomes cheating is when you reload just because you got a bad roll of the dice.

Gatlings having poor stats is a reasonable adjustment to the fact that you'll often have highly promoted ranged units that become gatlings; they'll usually have at least barrage/precision III or even range/logistics if you've been warring prior to that point. I think machine guns and up are great for city defense and are also good front line pawns for pushing farther into enemy territory with your land army. They get defensive terrain bonuses and can take a lot of punishment, while being able to do some anti-personnel damage, while regular infantries often take great risk by attempting to fight, and would rather just stay fortified.

I don't think gats have poor stats. My impression is that their stats were buffed to make up for the 1 range.

tetley said:

I don't think gats have poor stats. My impression is that their stats were buffed to make up for the 1 range.

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Gats were slightly toned down from their original strength in an early patch. I didn't feel that this was justified or necessary, but it was felt that buffed to range 2, ie Brit L-bows, they needed a slight nerf.

Gats when first introduced in G&K were overpowered. The Nov. 2012 patch dropped their combat and ranged strength from 36 to 30.

Personally, I always play on Marathon speed, so generally my games tend to last longer and units have far more duration than on the standard... well, Standard speed. I find gatlings to be amazing when you first get them, and though they fall off quickly, the first thirty or so turns having them can be crucial. You can beeline Industrialism (which I do anyway, for the factories) and if you get them early, Gatlings crush every other unit on the planet in that time. They are very good at taking hits and even better at dishing out damage to anyone who attacks them. Their range limitation can be annoying, but the thing is, since they have that 30 combat strength, you can afford to place them close to cities and not fear losing them too fast for them to be useful.

gatling has been nerfed. it used to be the option other than going musket/cannon and they were disproportionately powerful military for a civ going defensive/turtle/tech/culture through the "middle line".

they're still good. they're wicked for sight for arty rush, and you know of course promotions. what's really nasty is eng longbow to gatling, 2 range, or yeh, chn chu ko nu, but you can get those easily too with honor policies.

Question said:

They dont seem to do enough damage for me, even if you bump their range up to 2. I had gatling guns fighting riflemen and it took like 4 shots to take one down? At that point i may as well use range 3 artillery that would be better at taking out cities...

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Well, they do come quite a bit before artillery. Almost always you're gonna enter modern through Radio, then get Industrialization and beeline plastics. Only after that are you gonna be going for Dynamite so there is like a 30t difference.

Once you get gats and artilleries you'll be in the industrial and modern eras already, but are bazookas and machine guns really worth upgrading for?

To my mind, 'tis the timing of a siege; archers vs. crew-served siege weapons, once artillery comes online, 3-range trumps turtle speed .
Archers can slither along as well as infantry, being able to scoot AND shoot, this turn.
Siege types have to spend 1MP in setting up, THEN can shoot .
Crossbows "obsolete" (HA !!) at Gatling Guns, however, they are never useless !!, either as 2nd line behind your grunts, or, to protect your arty !
Rocket arty, OTOH, will outrun grunts, and should have Landships or tanks to run with them .

reddishrecue said:

...are bazookas and machine guns really worth upgrading for?

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I don't build them, but I do keep them upgraded, even though it is expensive. I keep them on my front line, but not next to cities. They get used up, but better them than the artillery or RA.

The only useful thing I see next to bazookas could be the nuke. I like RAs for seiging cities.

Gatling guns are u/p. Look at their attack strength. They have virtually the same strength relative to their infantry peer, the Rifleman as crossbows have to theirs, the Long Swordsman. In that they are keeping up. But there is an enormous difference: Gats have only one range. This greatly reduces their power and utility. It is much harder to bring multiple Gats to bear on one target. There is much less opportunity for move and shoot. Massed crossbows dominate massed Longies but I'd rather have massed Rifles than Gats.

Gatlings and above are fine if you look at them on their own. But the face of battle has also changed in that era and above. There's less city engagements and more field battles because of the introduction of bombers and artillery. On the field, gatlings are just not good enough. Even with two range they can't do much against an infantry + artillery army, not to mention bombers.