Do you use Swordsman now?

Peacemongerer said:

Well they've got significantly better armor from what I can tell than the basic warriors.

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Ok I made an invalid point RE real life pikemen.

Limiting the point to in-game pikemen: Armor made of what?

If your civ doesn't know what iron is, how can their pikemen be armored? For that matter, what's on the end of their sticks? Very very sharp library books?

It's an improvement that more stops on the middle of the tree are required for Civil Service now, but we all seem to miss the strength of the bottom half compared to the too.

Actually, Pikemen is just one of four spots where really high-powered units appear on the top of the tree and are packaged with pivotal game-progress bonuses: pikemen come with extra food, gatling guns with factories (just like in real life! who can forget the seamstresses of 18th century London mills and their brutal conquest of Big Ben with cheap hand-cranked belt-loading guns*, or something), modern infantry come with research labs, and SAMs come with Apollo.

Fine for the last two in terms of matching history, but it just makes you wonder why any player would bother with the bottom of the tree at those points. (And I'd note I never have rifleman wars anymore, either).

Maybe those units should just stay on the bottom. Or maybe more eco bonuses should stay on the bottom (like give the riverside farm boost to aquaducts and the less immediately valuable carryover bonus to Civil Service).

*Which the seamstresses are loading without knowing what gunpowder is.

I wouldn't mind seeing Swordsmen get a bonus vs. other Melee Units like in Civ IV. 25% or something like that, enough to make them better 1v1 vs. Pikes

Buccaneer said:

So you propose to make Swords even easier to get and/or more powerful? What's the challenge in that? As it is, as Arioch said, it is out of the way and you have to focus more on it; thus, a key decision-making criteria. Changes to the game should be to make the game more challenging at higher difficulties for human players. (I have a hard time winning consistently at Immortal but I would love to play at Prince and try to work my way up, ala Civ4.) Back on Swords. The AI opponents will jump ahead and get Pikes early, which can be a hassle but it's a good thing. No reason to dumb-down the game in giving us more of an advantage.

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If u look at the pre-G&K swords were more than 50% stronger than spears. Now they are less than 30% stronger compared to them which is absurd considering that cities are much more stronger & IW is very expensive. I see ur point of making game more challenging, but whats the fun when u do that in a lame way.
Anyway Spears + archers + cities is a formidable defence against swords, maybe u can add handicaps for yourself but there is a general consensus that swords are too weak compared to the investment u put in them right now.

Babri said:

If u look at the pre-G&K swords were more than 50% stronger than spears. Now they are less than 30% stronger compared to them which is absurd considering that cities are much more stronger & IW is very expensive. I see ur point of making game more challenging, but whats the fun when u do that in a lame way.
Anyway Spears + archers + cities is a formidable defence against swords, maybe u can add handicaps for yourself but there is a general consensus that swords are too weak compared to the investment u put in them right now.

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Taking in isolation, that would seem absurd but you have to look at the whole and see that Swords are at their proper level considering their timing and decision to focus on them. One of the key changes some asked for were stronger cities/defenses (they were easy to capture in vanilla) and we have that. While I agree that it may not be a good return on investement, the early game needs to be less dominant (for non-early UU civs) against the AI opponents. In other words, human players can use swords (and cats) early and more often vs. the AI - it would be more unbalanced if we were to have such units made stronger.

Buccaneer said:

Taking in isolation, that would seem absurd but you have to look at the whole and see that Swords are at their proper level considering their timing and decision to focus on them. One of the key changes some asked for were stronger cities/defenses (they were easy to capture in vanilla) and we have that. While I agree that it may not be a good return on investement, the early game needs to be less dominant (for non-early UU civs) against the AI opponents. In other words, human players can use swords (and cats) early and more often vs. the AI - it would be more unbalanced if we were to have such units made stronger.

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and well.. Siege "+50% vs cities" is another easy way to boost swordsmen. It's a nice little promotion.

Yeah, I had look at my log to see what I actually did with my Swords (I knew it was something good). I researched Iron Working at turn 83 (after getting Calendar, Masonry, Writing et al) and built 4 Swords. Along with two Dromons, I used them to attack/capture Madrid in three turns (around turn 100) and thusly promoted, I captured both Homolulu and Tonga in two turns each. Before turning them against the Ottmans, I had gotten a bunch more Swords from Holy Warrior and upgraded them all to Longswords. In other words, they were the best unit I could build to capture cities and they (along with bombardments) did it effectively.

After Iron Working, I then proceeded to Thelogy/Civil Service, Chivalry immediately followed by Education and then Astronomy. So I don't think they were out of the way and given my limited experience in playing G&K, Swords seems to be the best non-early UU I could build to quickly capture cities.

Buccaneer said:

Taking in isolation, that would seem absurd but you have to look at the whole and see that Swords are at their proper level considering their timing and decision to focus on them. One of the key changes some asked for were stronger cities/defenses (they were easy to capture in vanilla) and we have that. While I agree that it may not be a good return on investement, the early game needs to be less dominant (for non-early UU civs) against the AI opponents. In other words, human players can use swords (and cats) early and more often vs. the AI - it would be more unbalanced if we were to have such units made stronger.

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Well the cities have indeed become stronger & swords can be quite handy but my point still stands. If we can see horses before horseback riding then why not iron. U were really lucky in ur last game but many of us are not & we discover that there is no iron after researching IW.

Secondly swords are necessary for domination only because their promos carry over when upgraded not because they are as useful on their own as they should be considering the investments you put in. (super expensive tech + chances that u won't find iron + u r missing economic techs).

Spears + catapults can do a fine job & when u do that u actually acquire nice techs (mathematics which is pretty important). I don't see how slightly buffing swords directly or indirectly would make them OP. It would certainly it more fun for majority of the civers.
If u can still make good use of swords & IW thats great but they are still quite underwhelming for most of us.

I remember some people found 'release date UA of Ottomans' very useful but that doesn't stopped Firaxis to fix it & make it on par with other UAs.

Babri said:

It would certainly it more fun for majority of the civers.

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I think this is the crux of the argument, not only with Swords but with many other elements as well. I guess there is a minority that wants the game to be more fun by making it more challenging, not easier or dumbed-down. By this, I mean to reduce advantages we inherently have over the AI; force us into more critical decision-making choices; and of course, to have any AI opponents seem to be "overpowered" by doing better (at beating us, fighting tactically, using gold better, etc.). Just trying to go against the prevaling currents of those that are suggesting that more fun means giving us stronger units, giving us easier maps/resources, eliminating happiness and giving us only weak or no opponents.

Fun for me would be making the AI more intelligent (playing more like a human). I don't want the AI to be "overpowered". I want it to out think me.

I like to change some of the game mechanics work so you could not know what the AI really thought about you because of how much gold they will give you for your luxury/open boarders. So things would be more price of things would be more dynamic. My boarder expanded and cut 1 of there units of they will give me a lot more gold than normal If they can't get to me no matter how friendly I am with them they will not pay for open boarders. If they want to city spam, conquer another city and they are only just happy they pay more for the Luxury. If the are negative they pay a lot more. Perhaps Darius pays more because he gets more benefits from golden ages.

Also I would like a random seed to adjust the price of things. To make it even harder to guess what they really thought of you.

MadDjinn said:

and well.. Siege "+50% vs cities" is another easy way to boost swordsmen. It's a nice little promotion.

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Well as swordsmen are only 3 technologies in that might be a bit over powered. How about giving Pikemen the "Penalty attacking cities" promotion?

The equivocation of the swordman-value complaint with a request for ease of play is over my head.

We who argue that the ironworking branch doesn't reward risk aren't asking for guaranteed results. We are asking for choice. We're not clamoring for an overpowered early unit, we're complaining that there already is one, and it's the pikeman. You can always get Civil Service fast if you really want it. It gives you a stronger unit than iron-working blus a great eco bonus. The backend costs of pikemen (having promotions sink into a less permanently useful set of units) don't matter for those of us who, like you, have turned up the difficulty and are working under pressured start conditions. Pikemen are the more valid choice. So there IS no choice.

Cost-benefit that always comes up in favor of the same tech path means that, just like the title says, we stop bothering with a whole unit class.

Oxslow said:

Well as swordsmen are only 3 technologies in that might be a bit over powered. How about giving Pikemen the "Penalty attacking cities" promotion?

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my point was that the promotion already exists. So for those pointing out that cities are harder to take, I'm pointing out that a promotion already exists for the unit to overcome that.

My answer would be to either

1) bump swordsmen ahead a tech (bronze-working maybe... after all, swords were made from different materials long before iron came about) and drop the iron requirement and instead make them require copper.

2) boost swordsmen strength to a point above pikemen again

ahawk said:

My answer would be to either

1) bump swordsmen ahead a tech (bronze-working maybe... after all, swords were made from different materials long before iron came about) and drop the iron requirement and instead make them require copper.

2) boost swordsmen strength to a point above pikemen again

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Why in the world would you make a Classical unit stronger than a Medieval unit? Swords are already the strongest non-UU Classical unit and they are powerful and fine just as they are. Sheesh.

I think when we discover bronze working we should be able to see iron, just not work it. Then we can choose to go to iron working or not knowing that we have iron to use.

Buccaneer said:

Why in the world would you make a Classical unit stronger than a Medieval unit? Swords are already the strongest non-UU Classical unit and they are powerful and fine just as they are. Sheesh.

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Because units that require a resource are supposed to be better than contemporary units that don't. Pikemen are supposed to be light infantry specialized for use against cavalry. They are not supposed to be a replacement for mainline heavy infantry, which is what Swordsmen (and Longswordsmen) represent. But in G&K Pikemen are a replacement for Swordsmen; you can totally ignore Iron Working if you want, and there's almost no penalty for doing so.

I don't agree that Swordsmen should be stronger than Pikemen, but right now Iron Working comes too late and Civil Service comes too soon to make Swordsmen worthwhile. Even when I do go for Iron Working, I'm only able to produce a few Swordsmen before Civil Service makes them obsolete, and that kind of sucks for what is supposed to be an important unit that dominated the Classical era. One way to deal with this is to move Iron Working a tier earlier (as it was pre-G&K); another is to increase the strength of the Swords relative to Pikes (as it was pre-G&K). Another is to make Iron Working a prerequisite for Civil Service, which makes some sense... as GhostSalsa mentioned, the weapons and armor of a pikeman requires iron as much as a swordsman's does.

To say that things are fine as they are "because it's harder" I think is missing the point.

Personally i think its fine the way it is, i've taken cities in classical era with spearman, warriors, composite bowmen, and scouts. not a single catapult was used in fall of monty's capital. Skillful maneuver of scouts ensured that xD

Swordmen represents all the iron swords that showed up around the roman empire etc time.

Pikemen is more of representative of medieval units that showed up.

And the two times i've used swordmen, they packed quite a punch. Cities just too strong to recklessly attack and suicide with swordmen anymore therefore you must go combined arms approach. this is definitely intentional.

Iron working unlocks, all swordmen units, forge i believe, and heroic epic.

Oh and in case people no know, the iron working debate is very very old one, been around as long as i've started playing civ 3 back in the day <_<

But i suspect an expanded tech tree would help solve this dilemma.

Cheap solution is to make iron revealable at bronze working but unworkable until iron working though it feels like a cop out.

But it's been this way for 3 civ games to my knowledge, and they ain't changing that, so, is there any possible other options at how to make it more nicer?

I would guess that's to expand the tech tree but, i'm not sure.

MadDjinn said:

my point was that the promotion already exists. So for those pointing out that cities are harder to take, I'm pointing out that a promotion already exists for the unit to overcome that.

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Sorry my mistake

well all what swords are good at for is being a kinda cheap meat buffer for your ranged units - but they do this job and are still not very expansive as u ll allways have 2 or 3 warris to upgrade which are even lvled by barbs usually

tommynt said:

well all what swords are good at for is being a kinda cheap meat buffer for your ranged units - but they do this job and are still not very expansive as u ll allways have 2 or 3 warris to upgrade which are even lvled by barbs usually

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Actually that's kinda the problem I have. Even with the 100 HP damage system and stronger cities, a bunch of Composites can still chipshot a city to death quite easily. For instance, I was able to take Darius' capital + another city on Deity, even though he had Pikes(some previously Immortals) and a Golden Age going by like turn 65, a few turns after my initial attack. Granted, I did go Honor(that finisher is so underwhelming even vs the AI's spam, I don't know why I finished the tree), but I think my point still stands.

The insane city-defenses of G&K don't help melee units out in that respect; 60-65 defense cities on turn 160 or so is kind of ridiculous, especially when you consider Gatling Guns have more strength than Rifles, don't take damage during their attack and that the AI will not hesitate to rush-buy Walls + Castle + Arsenal in any city you move your units to. This really just encourages chipshotting + sending in a mounted unit to snipe the city. Also, the fact that(at least in my experience) the AI will always target siege units first with their city+ranged unit side, meaning they only get to meatshield against melee units.

They aren't even particularly great at the meatshield job, either, considering the tech is out of the way, how quickly the AI can get stronger units, and might even be a complete waste if you have no Iron.