list of units neding buff

What about a chain of promotion giving

First: +1 range
Second: +1 range
Third: Can attack after landing

That's actually quite a nice idea, but I'd rather have three "+1 range" promotions before the "attack after landing", since with the right buildings & co., the unit would be able to start right with that promotion, which may be overpowered. Either that, or let him attack with a CS penalty.
 
That's actually quite a nice idea, but I'd rather have three "+1 range" promotions before the "attack after landing", since with the right buildings & co., the unit would be able to start right with that promotion, which may be overpowered. Either that, or let him attack with a CS penalty.

Well it might be easier to Just have a Range of 8 to start with. (and no ability to Attack after dropping)
 
Destroyers. I find it a little ridiculous that a late industrial/early modern era steel warship with huge guns only cuts into a city (without any defensive buildings) for 2 hp while the city's stone-based ranged attack and crossbowmen somehow deal 6 hp damage in one turn. Pretty amazing how those arrows can penetrate the steel hull.
 
Very much agreed on the earlier thoughts about giving cavalry and lancers a bit of a boost, since their penalties just make them too situational.


Maybe it is realistic. I don't think ironclads were very useful for long, if ever. They were slow, marginally sea worthy vessels whose main glories were in pulverizing wooden hulled vessels in ports and rivers. Maybe what is needed is navigable rivers.

Dreadnoughts would be doubling up battleships.

Ironclads were massively varied, and not all just the Monitor/Virginia sort of thing that would sink if a wave so much as looked at it. Pre-dreadnought ironclads were outclassed by dreadnoughts and other later battleships, but many of them were formidable battleships in their own right. They weren't so "useful" simply because there just happened to be very little naval war between major Western powers at the time - but on the other hand Tsushima was probably the most decisive major naval battle since Trafalgar, far more so than Jutland or any other battleship action. And they often carried some serious firepower, perfectly useful for shore bombardment if they could ever hit anything (gunnery was not a prized skill at the time, to put it mildly).
I like the flavour of the coast-only thing, but I would make them more useful by upping them to 3 range. That would make the coastal-only limitation feel less limiting, give them a greater ability to concentrate firepower, and make them very useful as coastal batteries to support land warfare.


Destroyers. I find it a little ridiculous that a late industrial/early modern era steel warship with huge guns only cuts into a city (without any defensive buildings) for 2 hp while the city's stone-based ranged attack and crossbowmen somehow deal 6 hp damage in one turn. Pretty amazing how those arrows can penetrate the steel hull.

Destroyers actually had relatively small guns - even by WWII, the majority of the largest destroyers had only 4.7" or 5" main guns, and most had smaller - not exactly anti-city or anti-fortification weapons. They also tended not to have any armour beyond the thin steel of the hull itself. Because that's not the point of destroyers - the point is sub-hunting, escorting and scouting etc. So while you can certainly debate the civ series' treatment of modern vs medieval units in general (and I'm so not going there), the destroyer isn't a particularly egregious case, and it really should be pretty much useless as a city attacker in comparison to its contemporary units.
 
Destroyers actually had relatively small guns - even by WWII, the majority of the largest destroyers had only 4.7" or 5" main guns, and most had smaller - not exactly anti-city or anti-fortification weapons. They also tended not to have any armour beyond the thin steel of the hull itself. Because that's not the point of destroyers - the point is sub-hunting, escorting and scouting etc. So while you can certainly debate the civ series' treatment of modern vs medieval units in general (and I'm so not going there), the destroyer isn't a particularly egregious case, and it really should be pretty much useless as a city attacker in comparison to its contemporary units.

Understood that early iterations of the destroyer may not be good for attacking cities. However, I also have served in the Navy and can promise you that arrows would do no damage whatsoever to the hull of a destroyer. Catapult/trebuchet rocks would also be relatively ineffective. Perhaps I was a I little overzealous in my attempt to argue that destroyers need a buff, universally speaking. They should receive innate bonuses against archery-based ranged units and pre-Renaissance era siege. No matter what size guns they had, I shouldn't have a destroyer at 3HP after being attacked by 1 crossbow, 1 trebuchet, and 1 city defense.

Of course, I probably should be playing at a higher level so that I'm not facing crossbows/trebuchets with destroyers... but that's for another thread :lol:
 
Understood that early iterations of the destroyer may not be good for attacking cities. However, I also have served in the Navy and can promise you that arrows would do no damage whatsoever to the hull of a destroyer. Catapult/trebuchet rocks would also be relatively ineffective. Perhaps I was a I little overzealous in my attempt to argue that destroyers need a buff, universally speaking. They should receive innate bonuses against archery-based ranged units and pre-Renaissance era siege. No matter what size guns they had, I shouldn't have a destroyer at 3HP after being attacked by 1 crossbow, 1 trebuchet, and 1 city defense.

Of course, I probably should be playing at a higher level so that I'm not facing crossbows/trebuchets with destroyers... but that's for another thread :lol:

Nah I wasn't trying to argue that arrows or even trebuchets would damage a destroyer, but nor would they damage a tank or mech inf (or an infantry division, really). But that's just a symptom of the general trend that civ game mechanics, for the sake of gameplay (for better or for worse), require that older units do damage vs newer ones. It's an abstraction, it doesn't make sense but neither does anything else in the civ games when you get right down to it.

And if you line up every roughly WWII-era unit type, I can't think of a single other unit type that would be less useful in the real world for conquering a city than a destroyer flotilla. Likewise, there's very few other targets of the era that are so vulnerable to fire in comparison to their cost - a couple of lucky shells fired at your destroyer could set your war effort back far more (in manpower and materiel) than lucky shells fired against an infantry division that can absorb the casualties or a battleship that can shrug off the fire with ease. So if they take unrealistic damage, it serves the gameplay purpose of making you a little careful with them near the shore and perhaps compelling the use of more rugged naval units for the purpose. And given that the destroyer is such a useful, versatile unit as it is, that seems to me to be a worthwhile gameplay tradeoff.
 
Well for Paratroopers I would
1. Increase their range to~8 (emphasizing their speciality)
2. allow attack after landing

For Ironclads
Allow movement over the Ocean. (maybe slow movement over the ocean)

For Cavalry/Lancers
Cavalry +1 Str, remove the -50% v. Mount
Lancers +50% v. Mount, reduce the Defensive penalty to ~15-30%

For Subs... make Destroyers require Oil (and give them their Sight bonus Back) so Subs are the resourceless navy

For GDR...Remove the Uranium Requirement (increase their cost to ~600)

Just let Paratroopers atack after they are dropped dont see why firaxis did this its totall useless unit now only usefull for pillaging and some flaking but thats all better use tanks for it...
 
What if after longbow, instead of upgrading to melee, there is a sharpshooter unit. This would keep a ranged unit in the game. Then that could be upgraded to a paratrooper. The reason being, is the paratrooper is not really a melee unit. It is more a stealth unit. Allowing it to have range on the next turn would mean that it could attack, but not directly as a melee unit. It would be behind enemy lines, but not neccesarily in direct contact as it can attack from a hidden range, instead of a direct melee attack.

Keeping promotions from a scout level would make it "stealthier" but not as robust as a melee unit. It could be taken out, but deliver good "punches" from afar. Movement ability would make it a lot more stealthy as it could drop in and move out quickly.
 
The problem with paratroopers (and late game mounted as well) is mostly that their proper use is not something that is really simulated in CiV. Lines are not deep enough, flanking is not meaningful enough and units can't really be caught off guard (no combat penalty for using all your moves, terrain defensive bonuses apply immediately). I'd just as soon see them take paratroopers out and write it off as beyond the game mechanics much like other special force type troops.

I think it's a mistake that ironclads and muskets are given disadvantages compared to earlier units. While it's certainly true that there were short periods in history where they were an untried technology, in both cases that only represents a small portion of the time they are expected to cover in CiV and is not consistent with the time of their introduction.

If muskets are truly meant to be the most rudimentary early firearms, they should be coming online about the same time as advanced steel armor and weaponry. In CiV their development comes about midway between steel and rifling though, which (assuming rifling approximately represents the time of the American Indian Wars) puts their placement in history somewhere closer to napoleonic era infantry. By that point they've long since replaced the foot knight wearing steel armor.

The same reasoning more or less applies to the ironclads. When we talk about ironclads our mind goes to the virginia and the monitor. Tech wise, they're one tech tier behind what appear to be WW1 era infantry and one tier in front of the aforementioned rifling and tied to a fundamental industrial era tech, which puts them way ahead of civil war era technology. Treating them as dreadnought, or at least pre-dreadnought era battleships seems pretty reasonable. Based on both the tech placement and appearance, it seems pretty likely to me that the battleship which replaces the ironclad is something more from the WWII school of battleships like the North Carolina or Iowa class.
 
if you think mounted units are too weak, the easiest fix would be to add 1 movement to knights and cavalry.(this also has the side effect of nerfing keshiks.)
remove the mounted penalty of cavalry, and add a bonus to lancers vs mounted.
remove 100% bonus promotion vs mounted from upgraded pikemen to rifles.

You should start with the +1 move, and then see if anything more is needed.
 
As stated earlier, I don't like attacking after landing by the paratrooper. But maybe it could work in a balanced way if a Paratrooper takes 2-4 damage by intercepting fighters when they are dropped.

And I would like to see the promotion line of scouts applied to Paratroopers. +1 sight & +1 movement is one path; +1hp healing and 50% defense is another path. Those are excellent for the situation the Paratrooper is used for (scouting or holding their position behind enemy lines)
 
I have some thoughts about balance. I also think that there should be more realistic changes.

First of all: First-strike ability of ranged and gunpowder units. These units should damage the melee enemy before the melee combat and power of "first strike" should be calculated using the ranged CS. Mounted and armor units should have the "Ignore first strike" ability (like it was in civ4). In this case mounted units will be more important for taking down archers/Xbows.

Gunpowder units should have the "First strike" and ranged CS with the range of "0". They will not have ranged attack but use their ranged CS for "first strike" and additional protection against arrow-based attacks. Musketeers should be a little weaker, but have the first strike. Also, from this point of view, legionaries should have 11 melee CS and 0-ranged CS with "first strike" (wiki: Pilum, wiki: Testudo formation).

Mounted units should ignore or nearly ignore (like 1.25 terrain cost on hills instead of 2) terrain cost, but have the attack penalty on rough terrain. In current situation cavalry is almost useless - you almost never have enough place for the manoeuvre.

Musketeers should cost less hammers than logswordsmen. Knights should be stronger but also cost iron additionally to horses. Cannons should require iron.

Renaissanse-era cavalry should be completely reworked. There should be 3 general types of cavalry:

1. Cuirassiers - strong (stronger than riflemen) but slow cavalry with penalty against other cavalry. Main purpose - killing the enemy infantry on the open terrain, acting like a tank.
2. Hussars - fast and weak cavalry. Main purpose - killing cannons, finishing wounded units, pillaging roads and improvements, scouting. Also, this will be the good reason to include Poland as major civ (I find it really shocking that there is no Poland in Civ games)
3. Dragoons - fast cavalry that gets defensive bonuses and generally acts like the rifleman while in defense. Main purpose - catch cuirassiers, protect vulnerable units from hussars, take key positions fast.
 
To add to the discussion of paratroopers:

- the historical window in which paratroopers were genuinely useful was, of course, very narrow (basically WWII to Korea in major currency...used for some soft invasions in south america after that), but during their heyday, they were an extremely potent tactical tool. Both the Germans (especially in Belgium during the initial invasion of France) and the Americans (Normandy) were able to use paratroopers to great tactical advantage. In these scenarios, paratroopers were dropped behind enemy lines, disrupted artillery/mobile counterattack and allowed for a quick breakthrough of conventional spearhead overland (or amphibious) forces. The aforementioned paratroopers also suffered heavy losses in the process. If paratroopers were allowed to attack on the same turn they dropped, they could be used to just this purpose, attacking unguarded enemy artillery behind the lines, cutting off roads and stopping reinforcements and opening up channels for panzer/infantry spearheads to break through in combined arms assault.

Another "historically accurate" mechanic would be to have the paratroopers land within a 1 hex radius of their intended drop zone (so only a 1 in 7 chance of hitting their target exactly), with instant combat (at maybe a -50% penalty) should they land directly on top of an enemy unit - with the paratroopers placed in a random, open adjacent hex after combat should both units survive. This would accurately reflect the randomness of airborne drops and the high casualty rate suffered by Fallschirmjäger in combat.

It would also not be a bad idea to implement "friendly fire" rules with regards to bombers - that is, they should inflict 1-2 points of damage to any friendly units in hexes adjacent to the one engaged by air. This would reflect realities that were played out all over the battlefield of the period. Putting the above (paratroopers drop innacurately, can attack after drop + friendly fire from adjacent bombers) into practice would spice up the industrial/modern battlefield quite a bit and make paratroopers highly valuable as spearhead troops when storming fortified enemy lines...just as they were in real life. This could be especially interesting in MP games. In SP, I'm sure it would just open up another way to skull**** the AI. One could then consider a promotion unit for paratroopers ("Special Forces" or whatnot) for the modern era that enjoys exact landing positions, greater strength and no terrain penalty.
 
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