England the new best Civ?

I think that you will be seeing a lot of range 2 Machine guns, even with other civs. The advantage for England is not that huge in that regard, it's just a huge advantage for longbowman right off the gate. Stripping that promotion on upgrade would actually punish England, as they can't get the +1 range with Longbowman, and need a new promotion at the Gattling or Machine Gun to get that +1 range like other civs.

Regarding Rome, it could work if the Legion had a +2 strength promotion that they can keep, or something like that. It would still have an effect at upgrades, but diminishing as the units become stronger. Such an absolute bonus would be great.

elprofesor said:

And conquistadores keep all their special promotions (extra sight and defensive embarkment).

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Wrong. They lose everything now... But imo they are still very good units.

elprofesor said:

And conquistadores keep all their special promotions

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What Maximo the Xth said and also correct me if im wrong, but I dont belive that there ever was a time when cavalry/helicopter could build cities after they were upgraded from conquistador.

elprofesor said:

Most UUs with special promotions are reasonably well balanced between them

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Now that I have realized that some civs UU’s may actually keep their special abilities trough out the game and some other civs may not, I would strongly disagree with what you are saying.

elprofesor said:

The worst cases are Rome and Greece, yet with the right conditions they can do quite a lot of damage in the early game.

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Well they can surely do some nice damage IF in war in that particular moment. Still its way off balance when compared to civs that can have nice bonuses trough out the game after upgrading their UU to something else. Also in vanilla you can pretty safely add at least England to that “worst cases” list of yours.

Montov said:

The advantage for England is not that huge in that regard, it's just a huge advantage for longbowman right off the gate.

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Well first of all im not just talking about the Englands UU’s, im talking about every civs UU’s. Im basicly against this loophole because for the sake of AI, as a player I do not want to have even the possibility to have this kind of advantage over the AI. Of course its “cool” to be able to build something like 5 longbowmen and then just without war be able to upgrade them to gatlings/MG’s with +1 extra range. That actually is pretty cool, im not disagreeing with that, but for the sake of balance and more over, for the sake of the AI its just simply not a good idea. I do realize that there are many aspects in the game that without them the AI would actually perform better when compared to human player, one thing that crosses my mind right away is the 1upt, infinite stacking would be a lot easier for the AI to handle. But unlike the 1upt this thing with these UU’s is, –as far as I see it- completely unnecessary and brings so little to the actual gameplay, but on the other hand, it can be quite a big loophole against the AI.

Montov said:

Stripping that promotion on upgrade would actually punish England

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Just do the same for everyone else. This way if some civ actually has more strong UU than some other civ, then they would only be able to use it in certain period of time and not like half of the game, like I belive is the whole original point of these UU's. It also helps the AI because it cannot use the potential of these units as well as human players can (its basicly a loophole), so limiting the time of these UU's abilities to just that particular unit actually helps the AI.

I think other civs really need their units to keep these promotions. Otherwise, they're not very good. Maori Warriors is a good example of this. Persian Immortals and Jaguar Warriors also have a very limited shelf-life. Sometimes, the ability to keep the upgrade is the best thing about the unit.

Louis XXIV said:

I think other civs really need their units to keep these promotions. Otherwise, they're not very good.

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Arquably the easiest way in balancing these UU’s most likely is that you first remove the forever abilities that some units are enjoying, and THEN try to balance them. If someone is weak then make it stronger, if someone is overpowered then make it weaker.

If you need to have some long lasting abilities on different civs units, then why not give each civs each unit (or perhaps just to its melee units, or ranged units, or..) somekind of boost or ability right from the start of the game. It would not actually be that much different from the current system, but on the other hand it would be much more "fair" and that way much easier for the AI to understand. For example if some civs units would like lets say heal faster, then just code the AI to fully understand that civs units ability. That kind of system could not possibly be that much harder to build or balance than the current system we are having. Also civs could still have unique units but they could just fulfill the current civs “unit ability” in some smallish way and only for that period that they are in use.

aziantuntija said:

Arquably the easiest way in balancing these UU’s most likely is that you first remove the forever abilities that some units are enjoying, and THEN try to balance them. If someone is weak then make it stronger, if someone is overpowered then make it weaker.

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I bet they will go this route. Building a bunch of a certain unit just so you can keep the special ability down the line feels like an exploit, and introduces needless difficulty in teaching an ai how to play a particular civ effectively. Much betterto keep them as one-offs, and adjust the strength of the abilities accordingly.

aziantuntija said:

Arquably the easiest way in balancing these UU’s most likely is that you first remove the forever abilities that some units are enjoying, and THEN try to balance them. If someone is weak then make it stronger, if someone is overpowered then make it weaker.

If you need to have some long lasting abilities on different civs units, then why not give each civs each unit (or perhaps just to its melee units, or ranged units, or..) somekind of boost or ability right from the start of the game. It would not actually be that much different from the current system, but on the other hand it would be much more "fair" and that way much easier for the AI to understand. For example if some civs units would like lets say heal faster, then just code the AI to fully understand that civs units ability. That kind of system could not possibly be that much harder to build or balance than the current system we are having. Also civs could still have unique units but they could just fulfill the current civs “unit ability” in some smallish way and only for that period that they are in use.

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That will take the fun out of the UUs & would actually make early UUs such as Jaguar totally worthless. A better choice would be to teach AI to have special emphasis on killing highly promoted units & make proper use of cavalry to hunt down the retreating forces. I don't like the approach of taking options away from the player instead of fixing AI.

Maximo the Xth said:

Wrong. They lose everything now... But imo they are still very good units.

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Huh? When did that happen? I guess it's been too long since I last played with them... Defensive embarkment is a "lost on upgrade" promotion?

aziantuntija said:

What Maximo the Xth said and also correct me if im wrong, but I dont belive that there ever was a time when cavalry/helicopter could build cities after they were upgraded from conquistador.

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Indeed. Neither can upgraded legions build roads nor forts. I was talking about the promotions.

Now that I have realized that some civs UU’s may actually keep their special abilities trough out the game and some other civs may not, I would strongly disagree with what you are saying.

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Duh. And if suddenly the special promotions were lost on upgrade, I'd believe the opposite.
Your argument is as valid as what I just wrote.

Well they can surely do some nice damage IF in war in that particular moment. Still its way off balance when compared to civs that can have nice bonuses trough out the game after upgrading their UU to something else. Also in vanilla you can pretty safely add at least England to that “worst cases” list of yours.

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Yes, England is among the worst civs in vanilla, there's no arguing about that. And for special promotions that carry over, don't forget that you have to pay the maintenance of those units during the whole game if you want to have some, say, super-riflemen. It's a long term investment. Paying the maintenance of 6 jaguar warriors for 100 turns is expensive, you know...

Well first of all im not just talking about the Englands UU’s, im talking about every civs UU’s. Im basicly against this loophole because for the sake of AI, as a player I do not want to have even the possibility to have this kind of advantage over the AI. Of course its “cool” to be able to build something like 5 longbowmen and then just without war be able to upgrade them to gatlings/MG’s with +1 extra range. That actually is pretty cool, im not disagreeing with that, but for the sake of balance and more over, for the sake of the AI its just simply not a good idea. I do realize that there are many aspects in the game that without them the AI would actually perform better when compared to human player, one thing that crosses my mind right away is the 1upt, infinite stacking would be a lot easier for the AI to handle. But unlike the 1upt this thing with these UU’s is, –as far as I see it- completely unnecessary and brings so little to the actual gameplay, but on the other hand, it can be quite a big loophole against the AI.

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It brings a lot to the gameplay, since you have to nurture those special UUs until they finally become useful, and they represent a big part of the uniqueness of a lot of civs. Not to mention that given the speed at which units become obsolete in Civ5, those promotions wouldn't mean much.
The fact that AI doesn't handle it as well as human players is a valid concern, though, but I don't believe that it's enough to justify taking this away.

Just do the same for everyone else. This way if some civ actually has more strong UU than some other civ, then they would only be able to use it in certain period of time and not like half of the game, like I belive is the whole original point of these UU's. It also helps the AI because it cannot use the potential of these units as well as human players can (its basicly a loophole), so limiting the time of these UU's abilities to just that particular unit actually helps the AI.

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If the original point of these UUs would be to not keep the promotions on upgrade, it would have already been patched. It's one of the most characteristic features of some Civs, so it's not something that goes unnoticed.

Again, the only problem with the system is the fact that the AI doesn't understand this, but it doesn't understand the concept of promotions either (it will always take insta-heal during combat).

EDIT: I may sound somewhat condescending in this post, but it really isn't my intention to start a war about this...

Babri said:

That will take the fun out of the UUs & would actually make early UUs such as Jaguar totally worthless. A better choice would be to teach AI to have special emphasis on killing highly promoted units & make proper use of cavalry to hunt down the retreating forces. I don't like the approach of taking options away from the player instead of fixing AI.

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This.

aziantuntija said:

First of all, its unfair that some civs may keep their unique ability and others dont.

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Point of order: no civ "loses their unique ability"...well, other than France.

aziantuntija said:

It also requires a ton of balancing between early UU's and more late UU's, to tell you the truth I really dont see this massive balancing taking place in Firaxis's design.

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Meh. The only true balance would be no unique units, building, or abilities which would get boring FAST.

In my opinion, the only truly overpowered Unique Unit is the Keshik, because it's basically Medieval era mobile siege weaponry...when everyone else has to wait until Fighters/Bombers/Rocket Artillery for the same effect. However, it's balanced by the fact that it's a dead end, meaning that all of its ranged promotions are wasted once it is upgraded to Cavalry and beyond.

aziantuntija said:

If there are UU's that are better than other UU's and they get to keep that more powerful ability for more than half of the game (or worse some civs loose their unique ability all together) then it only makes the game more imbalance. Somebody might argue that it is actually great to have this kind of loopholes to achive superunits but it really, really does not change the fact that it just makes the game more imbalance.

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Some empires have unique units/abilities that aren't as effective in specific circumstances/maps. That's not Firaxis intentionally trying to screw a particular empire or intentionally trying to enhance a particular empire. Firaxis is just trying to introduce game concepts that reflect particular historical advantages empires have had. Is it Firaxis' fault that the English had/has a stellar naval tradition? Or that the Mongol cavalry was unparalleled for its time? Or that the Japanese Zero (and its pilots) were clearly superior to rivals at the beginning of the Second World War?

Personally, I like that fact that the unique promotions of Unique Units are preserved when upgrading because it provides incentive to avoid throwing units en masse at the enemy without regard for the friendly casualties...and one could argue that the reluctance to commit powerful irreplaceable units to risky actions makes those irreplaceable units less useful than slightly less powerful units you are willing to risk.

Besides, it takes a LONG time to create superunits...remember, it's not just unique units that make them powerful, it's the unique units combined with high level promotions that make them so powerful.

Babri said:

That will take the fun out of the UUs & would actually make early UUs such as Jaguar totally worthless.

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Im sorry but I fail to see how having a civ specific unit ability (or perhaps more like abilities) would necessarily take away the fun from UU’s.

elprofesor said:

And for special promotions that carry over, don't forget that you have to pay the maintenance of those units during the whole game if you want to have some, say, super-riflemen.

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I really don’t understand what you are trying to say here. Of course you have to pay for your units, but its not like you will survive without them. You will have to have units trough out the game and as far as I understand, the upkeep of “basic” units and UU’s are the same. So..

elprofesor said:

It brings a lot to the gameplay, since you have to nurture those special UUs until they finally become useful, and they represent a big part of the uniqueness of a lot of civs.

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I don’t see at least Firaxis (and me including) agreeing with you on that one. If having UU’s ability move down the upgrade line brings a lot to the game play, then why in the hell Firaxis didn’t give this “feature” to all of the civs like Rome and England? I mean this might be a huge thing for you, but purely gameplay wise its not that big of a deal, its more like just a stupid exploit.

elprofesor said:

Not to mention that given the speed at which units become obsolete in Civ5, those promotions wouldn't mean much.

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This calls for a civ specific unit ability/strength with added flavor of UU’s.

mintcandy said:

Meh. The only true balance would be no unique units, building, or abilities which would get boring FAST.

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Words "balancing" and "removing" are not synonyms to each other.

aziantuntija said:

First of all, its unfair that some civs may keep their unique ability and others dont. It also requires a ton of balancing between early UU's and more late UU's, to tell you the truth I really dont see this massive balancing taking place in Firaxis's design.

If there are UU's that are better than other UU's and they get to keep that more powerful ability for more than half of the game (or worse some civs loose their unique ability all together), then it only makes the game more imbalance. Somebody might argue that it is actually great to have this kind of loopholes to achive superunits but it really, really does not change the fact that it just makes the game more imbalance.

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You are wrong... their unique unit does not have a unique ability, it is a promotion available to any other civ!! So what you are saying when the long-bowmen upgrade they will automatically lose the +1 range when other civs may have their ranged units with the same promotion (+1 range earned through promotion) do not lose this promotion when they upgrade. Nonsense really... your argument is null

aziantuntija said:

Im sorry but I fail to see how having a civ specific unit ability (or perhaps more like abilities) would necessarily take away the fun from UU’s.

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Well with specific unit ability for a civ would make UUs not that special. For example if all Aztec infantry gets 50% bonus in jungles then there will not be much point of creating large no. of jaguars as they will get obsolete quickly, u'll be wasting lots of hammers & gold as well as the newly created swords will be almost as good as jaguar -> swords. Making UUs promo carry over means that u have to plan ahead about your army & what promos u are going to choose for them in future. Not all UUs are like that, some UUs like Keshliks are super powerful at their time but their abilities don't carry over creating more interesting possibilities overall. Also removing unique promos after upgrade would probably lead to boring UUs like they were in cIV where bland strength increase was much stronger & took away the careful planning of ur army.

Except in developer games even the Developers have shown they use this so called "exploit" in the past. If they themselves nurture units over time... why would they change it?

And its not like this isn't traditional for the Civ Franchise. I just don't see the problem with this.

AI's incapability doesn't mean Firaxis agrees with you. Again their own developers in the past have shown with demos/scenes they themselves used this intentional design.

aziantuntija said:

Im sorry but I fail to see how having a civ specific
Words "balancing" and "removing" are not synonyms to each other.

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You'll note that I never said "remove" in any form. I merely said that the only true balance is to make sure that everyone has the same things...if the Aztecs have Jaguars, everyone has to have them. If the Persians have Immortals, everyone has to have them. If the Babylonians get a free Great Scientist when discovering Writing, EVERYONE has to get a free Great Scientist when discovering Writing.

That's what I meant. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to play THAT game.

aziantuntija said:

I really don’t understand what you are trying to say here. Of course you have to pay for your units, but its not like you will survive without them. You will have to have units trough out the game and as far as I understand, the upkeep of “basic” units and UU’s are the same. So..

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6 warriors is complete overkill, not to mention impractical for defense, and a huge waste of hammers and gold (unit maintenance isn't linear...) if you don't intend to do something with them. The starting warrior, a scout and a couple archers is much more than enough to defend yourself. And a warrior rush is virtually impossible to pull off. Thus, if jaguars don't keep their special promotions, they are pretty close to being useless.

I don’t see at least Firaxis (and me including) agreeing with you on that one. If having UU’s ability move down the upgrade line brings a lot to the game play, then why in the hell Firaxis didn’t give this “feature” to all of the civs like Rome and England? I mean this might be a huge thing for you, but purely gameplay wise its not that big of a deal, its more like just a stupid exploit.

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1:There are civs which would have no UU whatsoever worth mentioning if special promotions didn't carry over. Aztecs and Ottomans are the most extreme examples.

2:There are UUs which only get a strength bonus and are perfectly fine that way. Bowmen comes to mind. Sure, they become normal crossbowmen after upgrade, but they are so powerful during their age that they make up for it. Extra strength means that you will win fights with more ease (which means you will need a lower investment to invade a neighbour), and also means that most of your troops will survive (so that you are ready for the next war), and will get more promotions (so when you upgrade them, they are on average better than other standard units that have also been upgraded).

3: If you will, special promotions spread the "military golden age" of a civ across a couple of eras, instead of just one unit. Your promoted units will inevitably die, so their uniqueness just takes longer to disappear than other UUs.

4: Recycling one of your arguments: They are Unique Units, they are supposed to be unique, thus different from each other. Some get fancy promotions, some get extra strength, some get a mix of the two, and some are completely changed from the base unit.

5: Firaxis agrees with me. This isn't an exploit. It's such a big part of how you play some civs (that unfortunately you don't use), that it would have been fixed by now otherwise.

I don't think that UUs should lose their unique promo's upon upgrade in general. I agree with others that it is a ton of fun and planning and an integral part of the strength of those UUs and that should not be changed.

The new variable here is the continued archer line and whether or not a unit that is meant to have 1 range *because* it has equal melee strength is intended to be able to have the Range promo and is what ties it back into England specifically.

Seems to me that a MG has a specific niche with their melee strength and that allowing the Range promo to carry over from Composite bows for anyone breaks that.. The longbow is already considered pretty good, if not a dead end so would that be so bad if Range was stripped from all Comp Bows upon upgrade?

Or perhaps the Range promo is available to MG naturally and they are balanced to have 2 range in which case there is no problem.

Or perhaps Longbow are reworked with a diff abil that carries over better to MG without taking away the 1range uniqueness of this new type of unit?

Loosing promotions after upgrade is a No-Go for me! It is such an interesting feature in CiV!

My proposal:

1. Get rid of the +1 range promotion for the archer line at all! It feels odd anyway, if compared to siege units (especially, cannons and later units). So, the +1 range promotion will be unique to siege weapons!

2. As compensation, introduce a new promotion: "precision": +15% or +20% range strength, available for the bowmen line, only. (Or maybe, somebody has a better idea?)

3. Give English longbowmen this promotion from start.

--

This would solve so many problems:
- bowmen feel more realistic, as they can not shoot as far as (range promoted) cannons
- no "danger" of 2 range gattling guns and MGs - something, that bothered me, as soon as I learned, that MG will be an archer upgrade. I think the tactical challenge is so more interesting, with 1 range MGs!
- English longbowmen will still be a good UU, but not imba after upgrade.

What do you think about this?

If we had to scrap completely the "range" promotion, I would give a hardcoded extra range to longbowmen. That way they get to keep their uniqueness, while not keeping the extra range as gatling guns nor being able to reach range 4 as longbowmen.

flairin said:

You are wrong... their unique unit does not have a unique ability, it is a promotion available to any other civ!!

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You are doing a great job in missing the whole point.

Babri said:

Well with specific unit ability for a civ would make UUs not that special.

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..but at the same time it would make the whole time span of the civ (for every civ) more unique.

Babri said:

For example if all Aztec infantry gets 50% bonus in jungles then there will not be much point of creating large no. of jaguars as they will get obsolete quickly, u'll be wasting lots of hammers & gold as well as the newly created swords will be almost as good as jaguar -> swords.

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You obviously arent thinking outside the box here. Even tough you would have civ specific unit ability, it would not mean that you cant have unique units.

Babri said:

Also removing unique promos after upgrade would probably lead to boring UUs like they were in cIV where bland strength increase was much stronger & took away the careful planning of ur army.

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First of all im not talking about giving UU’s just a strength increase, since civ specific unit ability would not mean that the UU's could not have these completely unique abilities. However, if you say that giving UU’s only strength increase takes away the planning of army, then you must be free from planning your army when playing as England and/or Rome.

Gucumatz said:

Except in developer games even the Developers have shown they use this so called "exploit" in the past.

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If that was designed as a feature from the start, then maybe they just completely forgot to add that said feature to England and Rome. Sounds like a highly unlikely screw up to me.

Gucumatz said:

If they themselves nurture units over time... why would they change it?

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Nurturing units in the game and giving unbalanced UU abilities to civs are two different things.

Gucumatz said:

AI's incapability doesn't mean Firaxis agrees with you.

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Oh man you are definetly correct! We have seen that many many times that Firaxis isn’t too bothered about the fact how the AI handles some specific features. So you truly are right about that, but that is actually one of the biggest problems of the series. You must realize that im not actually asking to remove anyhting from the game, im just asking to fix something.

mintcandy said:

You'll note that I never said "remove" in any form.

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Fair enough, as long as you’ll just note that I never said anything about finding “true balance”.

elprofesor said:

6 warriors is complete overkill, not to mention impractical for defense, and a huge waste of hammers and gold (unit maintenance isn't linear...) if you don't intend to do something with them. The starting warrior, a scout and a couple archers is much more than enough to defend yourself. And a warrior rush is virtually impossible to pull off.

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Your point being?

elprofesor said:

Thus, if jaguars don't keep their special promotions, they are pretty close to being useless.

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When you look at the big picture what im been saying here lately, then you should propably realize that I have not said that civs should not have long lasting boosts to its units.

elprofesor said:

1:There are civs which would have no UU whatsoever worth mentioning if special promotions didn't carry over. Aztecs and Ottomans are the most extreme examples.

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Same thing what I said abowe.

elprofesor said:

2:There are UUs which only get a strength bonus and are perfectly fine that way. Bowmen comes to mind. Sure, they become normal crossbowmen after upgrade, but they are so powerful during their age that they make up for it. Extra strength means that you will win fights with more ease (which means you will need a lower investment to invade a neighbour), and also means that most of your troops will survive (so that you are ready for the next war), and will get more promotions (so when you upgrade them, they are on average better than other standard units that have also been upgraded).

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Sure, IF you are at war at the moment, if not then that’s about it then. For example a ability that was available right from the start of the game and that will also last to the end of the game is much more powerful, when used in the right way of course. Btw I have already told you this.

elprofesor said:

3: If you will, special promotions spread the "military golden age" of a civ across a couple of eras, instead of just one unit. Your promoted units will inevitably die, so their uniqueness just takes longer to disappear than other UUs.

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When you also take the AI into concider, I do not see how this current system would be so much better way of achieving things than the system that I have described, where you would have civ specific unit ability right from the start but also UU’s.

elprofesor said:

4: Recycling one of your arguments: They are Unique Units, they are supposed to be unique, thus different from each other. Some get fancy promotions, some get extra strength, some get a mix of the two, and some are completely changed from the base unit.

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I agree, they should truly and only be unique units! If you want to have long lasting unit effects (wich would actually be great), then why not give civs a specific unit ability + with UU’s?

elprofesor said:

5: Firaxis agrees with me. This isn't an exploit. It's such a big part of how you play some civs (that unfortunately you don't use), that it would have been fixed by now otherwise.

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You have not yet answered to my question. If that is such a big part to the game, then why Firaxis denied this “big part of the game” from at least two civs, England and Rome? That just does not make any sense.

aziantuntija said:

If having UU’s ability move down the upgrade line brings a lot to the game play, then why in the hell Firaxis didn’t give this “feature” to all of the civs like Rome and England?

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Basically what elprofessor says is the crux of the matter:-

elprofesor said:

There are UUs which only get a strength bonus and are perfectly fine that way. Bowmen comes to mind. Sure, they become normal crossbowmen after upgrade, but they are so powerful during their age that they make up for it. Extra strength means that you will win fights with more ease (which means you will need a lower investment to invade a neighbour), and also means that most of your troops will survive (so that you are ready for the next war), and will get more promotions (so when you upgrade them, they are on average better than other standard units that have also been upgraded).

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As it stands, units like the Legion, Companion Cavalry, Bowman and Hoplites have straight up stat bonuses that make them powerful enough in their own era that they don't need to have promotions added to them (that would last the rest of the game) to make them worthwhile. Compare this to units like the Jaguar and Maori warrior, which simply due to the unit they replace, would be seriously underwhelming without persistent promotions.

The longbowman doesn't keep its promotion not because Firaxis screwed up or because they wanted to nerf England, but because it becomes a Rifleman, which can't use the Range promotion anyway.

aziantuntija said:

Now that I have realized that some civs UU’s may actually keep their special abilities trough out the game and some other civs may not, I would strongly disagree with what you are saying.

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Surely the fact that you've only just realised this means that it can't be quite so imbalanced as you seem to think?