Praetorian Poll

Gameplay balance and historical accuracy is a fine line to tread. I discovered this with the "original" RtW mod as even as the "Italians", I could control the world and defeat everyone. This for me was a problem so I set about re-creating my more "Historical" version.

So if in fact it is too strong for the early game, then it may need to be "nerfed" for balance, however, I am happy for it to be strong as military strength is only one part of the the attributes a civilisation can have.

stevoh said:

I know, thats why i said from scotland.

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Generally, when you talk about "from" and "to," they are inclusive of the elements that you mention.

Example: Pick a number from 1 to 10. This statement is generally interpreted as including the numbers 1 and 10.

If you want to be explicit in your meaning, then you can consider adding the wording "inclusive" or "exclusive" after your statement, to make it clearer whether or not you mean to include or exclude those values.

Example: Pick a number from 1 to 10, inclusive. Then it is without a doubt that "1" and "10" are valid values.

Anyway, the point that you were getting at is that yes, Rome controlled a large area of land at certain points in history. However, they didn't really "start" in 4000 BC. So, great, for a scenario about the relevant time period, yes, Rome should have a ton of extra land and even strong units to help them defend or conquer it, depending upon the timeline of the scenario.

For a regular game of Civ, though, where everyone starts in 4000 BC, an effort to effect some game balance is probably better than having a few "major" Civs and mostly "minor" Civs for the rest of the Civs.


As for adding promotions like Combat I or City Raider I, I think that doing so would actually make the Romans stronger. Those promotions would carry-over to Macemen, which are already a powerful unit. Effectively, you'd be extending the power of the Roman empire to a unit beyond their Unique Unit--so if the reason for wanting to change the Praetorian is because it is deemed to be too powerful, then I submit that assigning free promotions to the Praetorian unit, regardless of whatever base Strength value you assign to it, will make the problem worse.

A better balance might have been achieved by going with Strength 7 but keeping the Swordsman's inherrent +10% City Raider bonus, as this bonus would not carry-over to Praetorians that get upgraded into Macemen.


All of that said, I am quite happy with the Praetorians as they are now. It can be fun to play as the Romans and sometimes you just want a unit that can be a bit more successful than average in a particular era of the game (say, to get revenge on Monte or Napoleon from your latest Loss).

If you are playing against the Romans, you can either try to get to them before they hook up their Iron or else become their Friend until after you've researched Civil Service and have traded for Machinery. At that point, a Roman-controlled AI is actually relatively weaker than other Civs in battles, as the AI tends to continue to prioritize building Praetorians, even if it has access to build Macemen--probably due to the cost differential and their equal base Strengths confusing the AI. However, Macemen eat Praetorians for breakfast, so you will come out the winner.

Praets are countered pretty well with axes, especially aggressive axes (assuming restricted leaders, the Praets themselves won't be aggressive). They have an edge over non-shock axes on flat land, but struggle if the axe has defensive terrain or is fortified in a city, especially since axes are 10 hammers cheaper. Of course the AI doesn't know this and usually just builds archers instead. But you can run into trouble with aggressive leaders like Monte and Alex, because if they get access to copper, they will spam axes.

Weak, needs a buff !!!

I can weaken Praetorians with Hwachas, and finish them off with Shock axes.
Dog Soldiers and Numidian Calvary with Combat 1 and Shock due well too.

I like zenspiderz animation and added features of first strike, building forts (but, not roads), and, with an 8 strength.
The Romans Conquered. Let them be feared!

top tier UU nothing more. Thats what I voted. Just like all the other civs, preats got their uniqueness...

It's a very weak UU, Redcoats, Cossacks, and Oromo warriors can all easily defeat them. They would need a str of around 18 to be overpowered and around 60 to be game breaking. Modern armor can still mop the floor with them, and its easy to get modern armor vs praets unless you are one of those super players that plays above cheiften.


Most UU's get a free promotion or a gimmick that amounts to around a 10% all around bonus or supereffectiveness against one unit or unit type. Capharacts get a 20% bonus to all around str and are very strong, they are definitely in the top teir of UU and almost overpowered, Prates get a 33% all around str bonus, they are unprecedentedly strong, Str 7 or Str 6 with a 50% city attack bonus would be more along the standard UU advantage, as it sits they get a double UU advantage.

Praetorians get +33% base strength, lose a situational 10% modifier and cost 12.5% more.

Skirmishers get +33% base strength and a free first strike chance, no drawbacks.

War Chariots get +25% base strength and first strike immunity, no drawbacks.


All of these are very good UUs, but Praetorians are hardly in a class of their own... in fact if you're counting beans the value over base seems the least of these.

Thats true, I forgot skirmishers, they are pretty nasty too and I'd say they are also overpowered on prince or below, its easy to take out 2 AI's with no resources and minimal production if you want to. They also kind of kill in multiplayer if someone doesn't get archers right away.

War chariots having a hard counter does make them more reasonable, at least you can go 1:1 against them.

I agree that skirmishers are on the whole more overpowered than Praetorians, but most people don't notice since the AI gets free archers. I doubt Preats would seem so overpowered if the AI got free longbows as soon as you could build them.

I agree that they are only the 2nd most overpowered unit in the game, but they are still pretty up there.

Tlalynet said:

Thats true, I forgot skirmishers, they are pretty nasty too and I'd say they are also overpowered on prince or below, its easy to take out 2 AI's with no resources and minimal production if you want to. They also kind of kill in multiplayer if someone doesn't get archers right away.

War chariots having a hard counter does make them more reasonable, at least you can go 1:1 against them.

I agree that skirmishers are on the whole more overpowered than Praetorians, but most people don't notice since the AI gets free archers. I doubt Preats would seem so overpowered if the AI got free longbows as soon as you could build them.

I agree that they are only the 2nd most overpowered unit in the game, but they are still pretty up there.

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At first I thought prats overpowered but over time I got some sense.

1. In MP, having archers does...what exactly to skirmishers? A regular archer attacking a skirmisher has AWFUL odds on flatlands, so even a half effort in skirmishers can pillage someone silly if they don't have strategic resources (preferably metal, since chariots actually struggle vs skirms for cost too).

2. Prats have a "hard" counter. Axes come sooner than them and are cost-effective vs them. Attacking a city competently garrisoned by axes pre-siege is going to be very costly; if the opponent has even near-ish the hammers in axes that you have in prats you're going to struggle even with 20% defenses (god help you if the city is on a hill or has a wall). Speaking of on a hill, wall-hill archers screw up prats too; fortify + cg I + hills + city = +195% defenses on the archer with a first strike. A combat I (favorable to CR I in this case) prat would still have under 50% odds vs that, and all the opponent has to do is...build an archer with a city in a barracks.

Throwing in a couple archers in a hill border city isn't hard. Unless you're without metals, prats should struggle badly on the offensive vs axes. They might try to pillage, but now you're talking about pillaging with a supposedly top-flight unit and if caught on flatlands might get the pillaging stacks owned by axes with shorter reinforcement lines. No good.

Of course, AGG axes can win outright, too. If your answer to this is "just bombard away the defenses", that will work but only if your opponent also doesn't have catapults (and use them to inflict collateral on your stack and then OWN your prats hardcore style). Prats are certainly good but anybody with sense can wall them using contemporary tech levels more cheaply than the romans can produce them, and it's not like similar defenses wouldn't be required vs a typical aggressive neighbor using any civ.

If you're talking about merely using them to screw up the AI, well, the AI also struggles very badly against the likes of War Chariots, Immortals, and Keshiks because it can't handle the mobility. In fact, the AI is pretty bad in general at warfare any non-UU approaches work very well also. Best HoF times are far from Rome holding the top spot consistently; there is a reason for that.

I agree with everything TMIT said, and would like to add something else to it: Praetorians require iron. Access to iron means you have a well-rounded military available that should be good enough to get by. While regular horse units can also lead to promising starts, I feel that's much less of a given and War Chariots can become a true life saver. Skirmishers are, of course, in an entirely different league when it comes to reliability.

1. Stops them from dying outright by losing their cities, and makes a skirmisher rush almost unprofitable. Unless its 1v1 or Team vs Team, in either case just pillaging would pretty well end the game if kept up long enough.

2. How will they keep their metals hooked up and thus be able too continue to defend with axeman? Unless their metal is next to a city and on a flatland it would be hard to defend and force the axe-defender to keep a small stack there and thus less in their cities. Plus they have to somewhat spread out their defenses as a defender while the attacker can go in and bypass overly defended cities looking for vulnerable ones. Throwing a couple axes in the praetorian stack minimizes the cost-effectiveness woes and with cover there isn't any way to cost effectively stop this stack from finding and breaking the opponents metal mine. After you've reduced them to archers a war of attrition will give the Romans any non-hill city with minimal losses, plus it will level their prates up and that +195% on 3 will not be looking so bad. 10.4 vs 8.7 with combat 3, even combat 2 would give favorable odds. With a medic and further promotions praetorians could beat several such archers each (being set back by the occasional loss and consequential CDII archer, and at that point the Romans should be outproducing their opponent.

Its not a free kill, but its also too much of a no-brainier strategy with a super-unit. How is it good for game balance to give most UU's a small bonus or promotion and others a large bonus or promotion. Compared to other UU's preatorians get an overly powerful bonus, skirmishers do too and arguably war chariots and capharacts. Hence, over powered.

You may as well ask 'how is the Roman player going keeping iron hooked up?'. Praetorians + Axes vs. Axes is an advantage, but not a decisive one... and the Roman player is the one with the target on their forehead.

You seem to accept as given that Rome will be pressing an advantage against a victim who has already given up. Of course Praetorians will win when they win.

Tlalynet said:

1. Stops them from dying outright by losing their cities, and makes a skirmisher rush almost unprofitable. Unless its 1v1 or Team vs Team, in either case just pillaging would pretty well end the game if kept up long enough.

2. How will they keep their metals hooked up and thus be able too continue to defend with axeman? Unless their metal is next to a city and on a flatland it would be hard to defend and force the axe-defender to keep a small stack there and thus less in their cities. Plus they have to somewhat spread out their defenses as a defender while the attacker can go in and bypass overly defended cities looking for vulnerable ones. Throwing a couple axes in the praetorian stack minimizes the cost-effectiveness woes and with cover there isn't any way to cost effectively stop this stack from finding and breaking the opponents metal mine. After you've reduced them to archers a war of attrition will give the Romans any non-hill city with minimal losses, plus it will level their prates up and that +195% on 3 will not be looking so bad. 10.4 vs 8.7 with combat 3, even combat 2 would give favorable odds. With a medic and further promotions praetorians could beat several such archers each (being set back by the occasional loss and consequential CDII archer, and at that point the Romans should be outproducing their opponent.

Its not a free kill, but its also too much of a no-brainier strategy with a super-unit. How is it good for game balance to give most UU's a small bonus or promotion and others a large bonus or promotion. Compared to other UU's preatorians get an overly powerful bonus, skirmishers do too and arguably war chariots and capharacts. Hence, over powered.

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The defender has roads. The defender can out-move any 1 move unit to anywhere in his own land if he knows what he is doing. If the copper is on a flatland, the defender can easily reach it and kill the prats using equal in axemen from a city. If the copper is on a hill, the defender can put some axes on the hill and then pick of the prats as they try to bypass OR simply intercept the pillagers before they make it to the copper, depending on city location.

You make it sound like it's somehow EASY to blow by a large garrison that can move twice as fast as an attacking army. If the rush target has metal, there is absolutely no way a prat army can reliably pillage that metal because there is no way they can reliably survive moving on flatlands vs equal military investment into . Defending axes will help, but are a 50% proposition at best...at the end of the day the hammers you put into prats are a liability in a battle vs straight-up axes.

And as Iranon pointed out, that's assuming YOU get metal.

Speaking of pillaging metals, which unit matchup would you rather have when attempting to do it? Prats defending against axes, or skirmishers defending against archers? Care to take a guess which unit defends better in that situation on ANY terrain type? I bet you know the answer .

Quecha can cause a similar problem if they get there before metals/horse, since they have combat I, but skirmishers are a LOT better vs archers than quecha vs warrior (which is 50% vs agg).

You are also underrating all mounted, which is actually fast enough to take advantage of opponents heavily garrisoning one area and leaving others less garrisoned. Spears are only the hard counter to chariots if they actually manage to attack them; unlike prats, they can reach and hit cities at double speed, which can lead to a lot of city ruins in a hurry vs rookies.

I already said Skirmishers are more imbalanced, no need to emphasis that point.

If its not chopped out it is pretty easy to blow by a garrison as forests cancel out the axeman advantage. I know preats arn't any more overpowered than giving a team elephants at HBR or infantry at Rifling (or curiasars at guilds) but they do represent a free tech teir up, and that is overpowered even with an increased hammer cost. They arn't the only overpowered unit, just an overpowered unit.

If need be you can use longbows to deal with grenadiers and curiasars, and you can do it hammer efficiently. Something doesn't have to be impossible to beat to be overpowered now does it? Or would it have to be actually impossible to beat to earn the overpowered title in your books?

First strike tac-nukes are overpowered!

Voted top-tier UU. I've used Praetorians before and found them effective, but not overpowered. I don't see them as an I-win-the-game-once-the-iron-is-hooked-up thing.

As the AI uses them, they seem to have a limitation.

Julie is a backstabber. I've suffered multiple surprise attacks in games with him. Nowadays, I know better. I expect that from him, and prepare. Being surprised by a Roman army is one thing; being ready for it is another. Praets are not so tough if, when the Roman force moves up to my city walls, it gets hit by five cats, and the 12-unit garrison (half archers/half axes) is suddenly reinforced by 15 HAs conveniently placed one move away from the city under attack--which then tear into the legions, who are, incidentally marching on clear terrain (because I've chopped all the forests adjacent to the city.) Can you say "Carrhae?"

Augie is among the most honorable AIs I've run into. He's never DoWed me in any game so far. He's been a staunch ally several times. He's never threatened, and I don't see much spy activity when he's located nearby. I'm always gratified to see him appear in a game. This has been my experience--maybe it's unique, maybe not. When Augie's in charge, I have no fear of Praets.

I agree with Peregrine. Top tier UU but not overpowered except on Earth 18.

For the AI I've also found Julius to be very different from Augustus. Julius is just one notch below the six psychos. I haven't found him to be so much a backstabber as just very aggressive. Augustus is nice to be next to.

I don't think the AI uses very many of the UU's well. The only ones I can think of are the Skirmisher and Fast Worker. Honorable mention to the Impi and East Indianman. East Indianman isn't that good but I hate running into it when I'm using Privateers.

I've recently played a game as Rome, and praetorians are good if you mass produce them. Add catapults, and you have a decent stack with which to capture enemy cities.

However, they are not overpowered. Alexander's phalanx units can and did put up a really strong fight. His units already had combat I, and he was adding shock as a promotion. So... a total of +85%, and that dented my praetorian armies horribly. Maybe if I had someone else as a neighbor....

Tlalynet said:

I already said Skirmishers are more imbalanced, no need to emphasis that point.

If its not chopped out it is pretty easy to blow by a garrison as forests cancel out the axeman advantage. I know preats arn't any more overpowered than giving a team elephants at HBR or infantry at Rifling (or curiasars at guilds) but they do represent a free tech teir up, and that is overpowered even with an increased hammer cost. They arn't the only overpowered unit, just an overpowered unit.

If need be you can use longbows to deal with grenadiers and curiasars, and you can do it hammer efficiently. Something doesn't have to be impossible to beat to be overpowered now does it? Or would it have to be actually impossible to beat to earn the overpowered title in your books?

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Your analogy doesn't make sense. Longbows can't cost effectively take down more advanced units; they can't even cost effectively take down knights in the field.

Axes, on the other hand, cost effectively take down prats. How is a prat rush (which has to be chopped itself to come with any speed) hitting someone with un-chopped land and guaranteed getting to the copper and pillaging it unopposed? Your assertion is ridiculous. Prats are nowhere NEAR a "tech-up". They are *countered* by a unit that is available SOONER, to every civ, and aren't even a gimme to have in the first place!

Experienced players do not get offed by prat rushes unless they lack both copper and iron...but that's hardly imbalanced; Rome itself is easily offed without copper or iron...ANY AGG sword or even non-agg sword can wtfown their non-hill archers, and virtually anything can pillage them silly, just like prats could in the reverse scenario.

Your continued insistence that prats get through their counter is getting silly; what's stopping the axe empire from just killing Rome first? What's stopping the 4-5 axes that they have on your #prats from killing you in the flatland? How are you paying for 10 + units outside borders for extended periods while you hunt for their metal?

There's no evidence that prats can consistently kill a random civ, let alone an aggressive one which COMPLETELY and SOUNDLY walls them with shock.

"Prats are imba except when going up against around 1/3 of the civs in the game where they have a chance of dying badly, and except when the opponent hooks up metal and invests into axes to match power". In other words, they aren't.

However, they are not overpowered. Alexander's phalanx units can and did put up a really strong fight. His units already had combat I, and he was adding shock as a promotion. So... a total of +85%, and that dented my praetorian armies horribly. Maybe if I had someone else as a neighbor....

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Competent opponents would hit your stack with a few catapults of their own, at which point NOTHING in your stack would be defending at better than 20-25% odds. With similar %'s, you'd lose about 75% of your units right there...and with roads they absolutely can do this before you can hit them. Collateral initiative, once it exists, is that strong.

but they do represent a free tech teir up, and that is overpowered even with an increased hammer cost.

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Wouldn't pratts need to come with TWO free SHOCK promotions to represent a tech-teir up? And those promotions would have to be inherent to the unit without any exp penalty in any way.

Also, don't Pratts require iron, while the tech-teir-up can use any metal?