Buffing infantry units and nerfing ranged/air: a simple solution

My suggestion is very simple: make it so that infantry units cannot be destroyed by ranged attack. Infantry here means swordsmen, riflemen, infantry, etc. They can be reduced to 1 HP (hell, this could even be raised to 10 or so), but never destroyed. This means that in order to destroy enemy infantry units and push forward an attacker must have its own melee units in stock, and infantry units are now much more useful at holding ground.

Mobile units can be destroyed as usual - this gives infantry a much-needed edge over the former, which is currently superior in most situations. Even so, mobile units are still quite useful since, as melee units, they are able to destroy infantry units.

This also buffs Japan's currently underwhelming UA significantly, which is a plus.


Why? Because there is a problem with ranged combat. Currently you can wipe out an entire enemy's army with just ranged units - archers in the early game, air units in the late game, and artillery and naval all game. In the late game especially, you can pretty much do all your combat by air (and sea - you can wipe out an entire army just using Battleships), and use melee units solely to capture cities. These melee units are usually mobile ones as well (mounted, armoured) - rarely infantry (swordsmen, riflemen ...) This doesn't bode well with a balanced game, nor does it with real life. Air strikes are great for weakening enemy targets, but they can't wipe out divisions on their own. Assaults should open with artillery, naval bombardments and air strikes, certainly, but should always end with infantry. Currently, however, infantry units don't see nearly as much use as they should, especially late-game. Wikipedia describes the role of infantry today as:

• in the Australian Army and New Zealand Army the role of the infantry is “to seek out and close with the enemy, to kill or capture him, to seize or hold ground, to repel attack, by day or night, regardless of season, weather or terrain”.[2]
• in the Canadian Army, the role of the infantry is “to close with, and destroy the enemy”.[3][4]
• in the U.S. Army, the “infantry closes with the enemy, by means of fire and maneuver, in order to destroy or capture him, or to repel his assault by fire, close combat, and counterattack”.[5]
• in the U.S. Marine Corps, the role of the infantry is to “locate, close with, and destroy the enemy with fire and maneuver, and to repel the enemy assault by fire and close combat”.

The role of infantry then is two-fold: to close in with and destroy the enemy, and to occupy and hold ground. Currently, the first is usually done by ranged units, and the second is quite difficult when ranged units can just wipe out infantry willy-nilly. My proposition fixes both of these problems.

Elegantly simple, efficient, effective, and brilliant!

This is the exact opposite of "elegant" to me.
Imagine how awkward situations we'll have so many times because you still only want 1-2 melee units to finish off units simply because ranged units are just as effective as they used to be. Now if those 1-2 units die... maybe on both sites even... we'll have two huge armies side by side that can't harm each other any further

Now here's what would be elegant to me:
A unit takes less damage from ranged attacks the lower his current health is (reflecting the inaccuracy of ranged weapons like artillery, air and naval bombardments, bow fire as well as gunpowder fire volleys. These ranged attacks will all surely hit some enemies when they fire in a huge compact formation of enemies, but when half of a regiment has passed away and got scattered they're chances of hitting the rest are much lower). In the same patch they apply this mechanic they could as well add a "skirmisher" ability (letting a unit start with cover 1 promotion due to being a skirmisher) to some units like Scouts, Lancers (or even all cavalry in general) that gives the same but already at full health: less dmg from ranged attacks.

I considered that as well. It's slightly more complex, which is generally bad, but it does give even more utility to melee units, and different types as well - an assault opens with air/artillery strikes, followed up by tank attacks and then infantry units move in to finish them off and hold the newly conquered territory.

That said, I'd still have that apply only to infantry units, so that they're still useful in the face of mobile ones, which also makes sense - cavalry/tanks/warships are always big and clunky and can't take cover well. And I'd also still prevent infantry from being destroyed from ranged, though that almost follows on naturally - 40, 20, 10, 5, 2, 1, 1, 1 HP from successive ranged attacks, for instance.

why just not to lower strength of ranged units?

killmeplease said:

why just not to lower strength of ranged units?

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Actually, you only have to make two changes, both of them historically accurate:

1. Lower the Melee Strength of ranged units. Most of the Ancient/Classical/Medieval ranged units had virtually no melee strength - bunch of guys with knives and little or no armor.
2. Change the programming of Melee and Mobile units so that when they are fired upon by a ranged unit, their First Option is to charge the ranged unit.

This, after all, was the preferred way to deal with archers/crossbowmen and similar troops - charge in and slaughter them before they can get off too many missiles.

With these two changes, missile troops not in fortifications, rough terrain or behind melee troops are going to get exactly one shot each before being massacred. Armies to be really effective will have to include both melee troops and missile troops, and heavily-armed infantry will be the mainstay of most armies because they have the flexibility to withstand that initial missile barrage and still fight other melee troops or quickly butcher the missile troops in the open.

Boris Gudenuf, why lower melee strength but not ranged? maybe its better to lower rnged strength? otherwise you'd only want a couple of melees to cover ranged, and those be spears/pikes to deal better with cavalry as it poses a higher danger to rangeds. historically mass ranged combats were specifical to the chariot warfare period, and even then melee units still played a significant role. in the game we have ranged units dominating battlefields for eras. why devs did so? whats the reason?

what i propose, ~33% reduction in ranged str:


this way archery units wont be that op but still useful
although siege units should be nerfed too as otherways that'd make ranged units useless. and because of siege units being nerfed, city's ranged strike radius should be redused to 1 i think.

new unit is needed between crossbow and gatling gun, what about dragoon
str 20, ranged 18, 4 moves, reqs 1 horses, metallurgy tech

chariots should upgrade to comp archers i think not to knights

Xenocidius said:

My suggestion is very simple: make it so that infantry units cannot be destroyed by ranged attack.

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makes perfect sense, and actually makes good use of the 1UPT system...

FeiLing said:

A unit takes less damage from ranged attacks the lower his current health is

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though, due to the "inability to kill" argument, this is actually better, only slightly though and adds complexity, as stated...

killmeplease said:

why just not to lower strength of ranged units?

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Now that, is probably good enough as-is, but combined with above, it'll probably be closer to perfect.

But, of course, the AI sucks now, imagine if it had these extra rules to deal with...

killmeplease said:

Boris Gudenuf, why lower melee strength but not ranged? maybe its better to lower rnged strength? ... historically mass ranged combats were specifical to the chariot warfare period ...

chariots should upgrade to comp archers i think not to knights

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Because, in fact, ranged units were quite deadly, IF you let them shoot at you without disturbance. Ranged units were the basis of armies that had mobile ranged units - chariots, and also horse archers, keshiks, and such - they could evade enemy melee units and keep right on shooting. Foot archers that could not evade and were not protected by good melee units, got stomped or chased off - which is why they never were that important in Greek or Roman armies, which were composed largely of infantry that were willing and able to charge in and finish the enemy off at close quarters.

I agree, though, that some nerfing of ranged factors would be appropriate, because in fact ancient archery could not destroy a melee unit in one sell fwoop - even longbows and Chu-ko-nu took time to seriously shoot up enemy infantry or cavalry, and both could be ridden down by enemy cavalry before they could seriously damage the horsemen.
Untested Compromise (needs to be play tested):
Reduce non-gunpowder ranged units Ranged Strength by 20%
Reduce all ranged units' Melee strength by 50%
Program melee/mobile units' reaction to ranged attack as Move to Melee Attack.

The entire Promotion Track needs to be reworked as part of a general reworking of melee/mobile/ranged units. The current Civ V mess is a Streaming Load of ranged promotions being lost on upgrade, infantry upgrading to mounted units to towed guns and medieval crossbows upgrading straight to industrial gatling guns.

'Way too complicated to go into detail here, but there should be separate Upgrade Lines, something like this:

Elite Melee: Swordsmen, Longswordsmen, Musketmen, Rifles, Magazine Rifles, Infantry, Mech Infantry
Melee: Spearmen, Pikemen, Rifles, Magazine Rifles, Infantry, Mech Infantry
Ranged: Archers, Composite Archers, Crossbows, Galloper Guns, Gatling Guns, Machineguns, Bazookas
Mobile Melee: Horsemen, Knights, Lancers, Cavalry, Landships, Tanks, Modern Armor
Mobile Ranged: Chariot Archers, Light Cavalry, Dragoons, Horse Artillery, Rocket Artillery
Siege: Catapults, Bombards, Cannon, Artillery, Rocket Artillery
Scout: Scout, Peltast, Huntsman, Ranger, Commando, Force Recon

Underlined indicates new units in the game to adequately complete the Upgrade Lines, and specialized units like Antitank, Antiaircraft, Marines, and Paratroops would either be 'lateral promotions' from Elite Melee or Mobile Ranged or brand new, shorter lines.

I like galloper guns, its nice idea. But isn't it pretty the same as horse artillery?
and also theres too wide span between horse artillery and rocket artillery.
maybe mobile units should be costlier versions of foot ranged units, requiring horses
e.g. you given a choice, upgrade an archer to a chariot or to a composite archer
I don't know if its possible in civ5 to have different upgrade paths I should try this
(i'm making a small warfare mod)
currently I have archer>chariot>cb>xb>dragoon>gatling>... path
for 'elite' melee: warrior>swordsman>longsword>musketman>line infantry>rifles>...
and for mass-melee: spearman>pikes>line infantry>rifles...
elite melee line can be continued with something different after longswords, maybe grenadiers and jagers and then snipers and eventually paratroopers/marines
or paratroopers and marines can be a 'side-upgrade' if its possible too
magazine rifles is just a different name for WWI infantry I assume?