Do you use Swordsman now?

I'm finding myself not really caring if I have any iron, at least until I get to Frigates. I tend not to beeline too deep into the tech tree early on, so I typically have trapping, wheel, masonry and bronze working researched around the same time. That gives me basically two options for "early" war:

(1) I can pass up spearman, build warriors and research iron. If I have iron, I can start making/upgrading swordsman after getting mines up. If I do not have iron, I have to find it, plant a city and mine it, or trade for it... Iron working also leads to metal casting and medieval era, if I get construction and engineering, so I get a composite bowman/swordsman army that way...

(2) Or instead, I can build spearman, which are more powerful than warriors. I can pass iron working and go for horseback riding, mathematics and currency. Those unlock civil service, which brings me into the medieval era. Then I can upgrade my spearman to pikeman. This may take a few turns longer, but is usually safer, and I end up with catapults/pikeman...

I am going for option (2) more often than not. (Sometimes I grab construction before civil service). What path are you doing?

Same as u. Swords are currently pretty useless as they are expensive, need an out of the way expensive tech & are quickly obsoleted by resourceless pikes. No need to build them unless u r playing as Romans or the Iroquois.

Ditto here. Iron working may be only a few hops, but the amount of research for the jump from bronze working to iron working is absurd considering that benefiting from them is a huge crap shoot. All that time spent is a big gamble with bad odds. Pikemen are stronger than swordsmen and require no resources. To boot, you get some much-needed extra food unlock open border agreements. Kind of a no-brainer really.

Problem is, we had hordes of whiners posting about how swords were too strong and iron too rare. Imagine, in a 4X game a resource might actually be important. Heaven forbid. So now, rank-and-file resource-fee units are the way to go.

I'm in agreement. Iron Working comes very late and Civil Service is just a few techs later... and while Iron Working can almost be ignored, Civil Service is critical for Open Borders agreements. Even if I have iron, by the time I've got it improved and have the first Swordsmen produced, they're already obsolete.

I agree.

I think a simple fix would be to make iron visible (no production bonus, though) at mining (or possibly bronze working). That would allow a player to gauge whether it is worth it to go for the tech and possibly territory.

As it is, it's too much risk for not enough reward.


Or would it be unreasonable to simply give swordsmen a 1 str buff?

Malachi256 said:

Or would it be unreasonable to simply give swordsmen a 1 str buff?

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I think they would have to make it like it was before, where Swordsmen had a +1 Strength over Pikemen, so the Pikemen were cheaper and resourceless, but didn't truly obsolete Swordsmen. But I doubt they'll do that.

Ideally, there should be much more distance between Iron Working and Civil Service. Iron Working should be an early Classical tech rather than a late Classical tech, and the pikemen represented in the game were really a late Medieval and even early Renaissance unit specialized for anti-horse. The two unit types historically were almost two thousand years apart.

Yea, the problem really is they are outclassed by pikemen and the AI gets those pretty rapidly.

I do, because I want strong Longswordsmen...which are still very good (better than Knights, at least). Especially if your Longswordsmen are Samurai.

Malachi256 said:

I agree.

I think a simple fix would be to make iron visible (no production bonus, though) at mining (or possibly bronze working). That would allow a player to gauge whether it is worth it to go for the tech and possibly territory.

As it is, it's too much risk for not enough reward.


Or would it be unreasonable to simply give swordsmen a 1 str buff?

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I'd prefer iron simply be visible earlier, much like horses are with animal husbandry.

Or give them a unique promotion of some kind, taking out of the raw strength race. Not sure what would be appropriate though.

nefloyd said:

Yea, the problem really is they are outclassed by pikemen and the AI gets those pretty rapidly.

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^ This. It is particularly disheartening if you have plans on a horse-based offense. The AI really prioritizes Civil Service, and why not -- it's one of the super-techs like Pottery, Writing, and Education.

Thats strange. I don't skip them. I think Swordmen are an investment in the future. Spearmen and Pikemen do upgrade into Lancier and Anti Tank-Guns who are absolutely worthless in my eyes. So with early Swordsmen, i try to get asap to March promotion. What isn't that hard.

Am i the only one who thinks that way?

I'd rather invest in archers, siege, and navy. I really just use one or two swordsmen or pikemen with cover/rough promotions whose job is to get slightly damaged and continually draw fire, sometimes whilst in a citadel, while the other units fire away. Sword just walks into the city when its at 0 health. Pretty much the same thing that happened once bombers came into play, only much earlier.

I just don't go down to iron working fast enough to normally bring them out before AI has pikes, which means then I have to go to steel just to leapfrog it.

I've never cared for the entire spearman line to begin with :/

Anvari said:

Am i the only one who thinks that way?

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It depends on how you're playing. You'll need to go through that branch of tech tree eventually, but unless you're using a military strategy and beeline for Iron Working early, it's easier just to focus on the branches that lead to Civil Service and then head back through the bottom of the tree when you get nearer to the Renaissance and then blast through Iron Working and Steel right to Gunpowder.

But yes, if I'm fighting a lot, I still try to get to Iron Working as early as I can, but the new tree makes it less attractive to beeline than it used to be.

steveg700 said:

Ditto here. Iron working may be only a few hops, but the amount of research for the jump from bronze working to iron working is absurd considering that benefiting from them is a huge crap shoot. All that time spent is a big gamble with bad odds. Pikemen are stronger than swordsmen and require no resources. To boot, you get some much-needed extra food unlock open border agreements. Kind of a no-brainer really.

Problem is, we had hordes of whiners posting about how swords were too strong and iron too rare. Imagine, in a 4X game a resource might actually be important. Heaven forbid. So now, rank-and-file resource-fee units are the way to go.

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In fairness it does make sense for Pikemen to be better than Swordsmen. But there's no need for Iron Working to cost as much as it does now (Optics also gets you into the Classical Era, but costs less than the other techs that get you there. Although it is arguably considerably more important than Iron Working now), and it should probably come with some other bonus rather than just swordsmen and forges (and revealing iron, but that's no fewer useful until Steel and, later still, Navigation), or forges should be improved. And across the board (with the exception of horses, which is the one strategic resource that is valuable through most of the game and which is required by no fewer than 5 non-UUs, and useful in the landscape to build circuses), strategic resources need to be required for more units/buildings, and preferably have a longer shelf life.

Revealing iron in the landscape is certainly still valuable, since it improves tile production and highlights good sites for production cities, but as others have noted Civil Service has benefits that far outweigh that.

Thats strange. I don't skip them. I think Swordmen are an investment in the future. Spearmen and Pikemen do upgrade into Lancier and Anti Tank-Guns who are absolutely worthless in my eyes. So with early Swordsmen, i try to get asap to March promotion. What isn't that hard.

Am i the only one who thinks that way?

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This logic has a fatal flaw: Warriors upgrade to Swordsmen. No one denies you have to get Iron Working eventually, but you don't need it immediately for the above to be viable - you just invest in early Warriors, get earlier promotions, and then upgrade once you do reach Iron Working. Your early Warriors will always be able to get two promotions from hunting barbarians, and even by the time the enemy has pikemen they can't be one-shotted by infantry, so you can use them to flank or to get the final kill on a damaged unit to build up their experience further. Then once you get to Steel you can upgrade them through Swordsmen to Longswords quickly.

slobberinbear said:

^ This. It is particularly disheartening if you have plans on a horse-based offense. The AI really prioritizes Civil Service, and why not -- it's one of the super-techs like Pottery, Writing, and Education.

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Yeah, and if you hie off after ironworking, you can about kiss Chichen Itza goodbye ;-)

Yea swords are kind of useless for the most part now.

They fit in the role of... somewhere between Muskets and Lancers in Vanilla. Not so great to get, but you do want them so you can have a nice pool of Rifle upgrades later on without having to build those from scratch. (ie. Caroleans or Ski Infantries)

Maybe swordsmen should start with cover. Given that they've got nice iron shields and armor. This would give them a nice advantage over ranged units which are so dominant in the game now, and also a nice survivability bonus against cities which would absolutely be useful, without making them into the city-taking spam-unit of choice they were in vanilla.

I choose swordsmen for the tech path they're on. I don't need 10 lancers later on.

Swordsmen come late, while muskets come too soon after longsword-men.

I think they are now meant to be placeholders for your future gunpowder units.

I think I never build them anymore, only upgrade the ones I have from my early warriors. Unless of course if I play Iroquois or Japan.

OTOH, while pikemen seem to be an obvious choice in the medieval, their upgrade path sucks big time.