Well, as you say, the attacking unit will hurt the next turn, which gives the MG more survivability.
You can see that ranged and melee strenght are te same, which would make sense in this context.
The point of a ranged unit is that it's tactically clearly different beast than a melee unit.
I think ya'll are overlooking exactly what the increase from 10 to 100 HP would do without also increasing the strength of all units, so let me enlighten you. With the current strengths two of the same unit fighting each other with no bonuses on flat grasslands would do about 5 damage. With the current 10 HP that's 50%, so a minimum of 2 turns or two of that unit to kill the enemy unit. Increasing the HP to 100 would mean taking 10x the attacks to kill that same unit, so either 20 turns or 20 of your units to kill 1 of theirs.
Now if they also increased the strength of all units to about double their current strength that 20 turns or 20 units drops to only about 10, because the units are now doing about twice the damage per hit. Even if, as I suspect, the strength increase is only 66.7%, thus making the infantry also have a strength of 60, that 5 damage per hit become about 8.33, reducing it from 20 hits to 12 hits for that same kill.
Let's put this into perspective. Your scout upgrades to archer. You use it and your warrior to take out a barb camp. The barb is fortified giving it a 50% bonus, so it generally takes 2 hits from the archer and 1-2 from the warrior to clear that camp, so a minimum of 2 turns. Now they increase the HP of all units from the current 10 to 100. Do you really want to have to spend 20 turns or send a full army to deal with a single barbarian brute in its camp? Especially since it'll most likely spawn 2 more units in the time it takes to clear it with just that archer and warrior, or even the time it takes to build/buy enough units to reduce that to a reasonable number of turns.
Also look at just how fast units become obsolete on standard speed in the current game. Making combat take up to 10 times longer by only increasing the HP to 100 and not also increasing the strength of all units would only exacerbate this problem.
Now let say they did double the strength of all units. That would turn the infantry into a 72 strength unit vs the machine gun's 60 strength. Would it then make any sense what-so-ever to have those ridiculous restrictions on the machine gun ya'll keep harping about?
I think ya'll are overlooking exactly what the increase from 10 to 100 HP would do without also increasing the strength of all units, so let me enlighten you. With the current strengths two of the same unit fighting each other with no bonuses on flat grasslands would do about 5 damage. With the current 10 HP that's 50%, so a minimum of 2 turns or two of that unit to kill the enemy unit. Increasing the HP to 100 would mean taking 10x the attacks to kill that same unit, so either 20 turns or 20 of your units to kill 1 of theirs.
Now if they also increased the strength of all units to about double their current strength that 20 turns or 20 units drops to only about 10, because the units are now doing about twice the damage per hit. Even if, as I suspect, the strength increase is only 66.7%, thus making the infantry also have a strength of 60, that 5 damage per hit become about 8.33, reducing it from 20 hits to 12 hits for that same kill.
Let's put this into perspective. Your scout upgrades to archer. You use it and your warrior to take out a barb camp. The barb is fortified giving it a 50% bonus, so it generally takes 2 hits from the archer and 1-2 from the warrior to clear that camp, so a minimum of 2 turns. Now they increase the HP of all units from the current 10 to 100. Do you really want to have to spend 20 turns or send a full army to deal with a single barbarian brute in its camp? Especially since it'll most likely spawn 2 more units in the time it takes to clear it with just that archer and warrior, or even the time it takes to build/buy enough units to reduce that to a reasonable number of turns.
Also look at just how fast units become obsolete on standard speed in the current game. Making combat take up to 10 times longer by only increasing the HP to 100 and not also increasing the strength of all units would only exacerbate this problem.
Now let say they did double the strength of all units. That would turn the infantry into a 72 strength unit vs the machine gun's 60 strength. Would it then make any sense what-so-ever to have those ridiculous restrictions on the machine gun ya'll keep harping about?
All unit strengths will surely be tweaked so Machineguns won't be OP. Just look at the Celtic UU strenght. It has 11 strength & it is probably not a sword, so that definately indicates that unit strengths would be increased & gaps between different units like rifles & muskets could be adjusted for better balance.
Good point. Melee units are generally stronger in close combat than ranged units so even though machinegun would deal great damage without taking any, the next turn your enemy would use their infantry & tanks to annihilate your '1 range' unit.
The 1 range mechanism could work really well for some UUs which have both good melee strength & ranged attack however a pure ranged unit (in this case machinegun) with 1 range would be useless. They already said that they are increasing unit HP to 100 & several other strength tweaks so u can't say that Panzers will be useless or no one will make infantry etc.
In my opinion they are adding machineguns (and perhaps another unit between xbows & machineguns) to fill the gap of ranged infantry so that u can still have a more mobile & cheaper ranged unit than cannons & artillery and also making ranged promos for xbows useful.
I think ya'll are overlooking exactly what the increase from 10 to 100 HP would do without also increasing the strength of all units, so let me enlighten you.
It's slightly different in theory. In practice it would be totally uninteresting. The point of a ranged unit is that it's tactically clearly different beast than a melee unit. 1 ranged unit isn't different enough. They now actually have a qualified lead designer and I doubt he would create such an anomaly as a "ranged unit with a range of 1".
The only fact we have is that ranged strength and combat strength are equal.
This is a good clue it is a unit which can defend them self in melee combat, unlike other ranged unit where the ranged strength is 50% higher for 2 archery units and 100% higher for the other ranged units. So it is likely this unit doesn't need to be defended by a melee unit like the other ranged units. To me that makes it clear it will have 1 range. Realistically, you wouldn't put your soldiers in between your machine guns and the enemy, and giving them range 1 is the solution.
In the screenshot there are 3 promotions: the embarkation, a generic positive promotion and a generic negative modifier. Most likely this is a penalty against armor, and the positive one should be some kind of advantages against ranged attack. I would assume they've should be using the Cover promotion, so one alternative it is a positive modifier against gunpowder units.
If that unit survives the ranged attack, and even then it will be a lot weaker and do less damage then it would have done normally. With the new system where units will survive longer, making a melee attack would have the same effect, you attack and do damage without killing the unit and next turn they counter attack. The difference is that with a range 1 attack, you only take damage on your opponents turn rather then on both yours and his.Doing damage without taking damage doesn't matter much as a survived enemy unit can attack and hurt immediately on the next turn. If there is a melee unit with equal attacking strength, I don't think there are real reasons to ever use 1 ranged unit.
That's exactly it though, it has both good melee strength and a good ranged attack.Good point. Melee units are generally stronger in close combat than ranged units so even though machinegun would deal great damage without taking any, the next turn your enemy would use their infantry & tanks to annihilate your '1 range' unit.
The 1 range mechanism could work really well for some UUs which have both good melee strength & ranged attack however a pure ranged unit (in this case machinegun) with 1 range would be useless. They already said that they are increasing unit HP to 100 & several other strength tweaks so u can't say that Panzers will be useless or no one will make infantry etc.
As someone mentioned, that's not how it works. Damage is applied based on the ratio of your units strength compared to your opponents strength, and you can easily see this in the game already. A warrior VS warrior battle will result in the same amount of damage done to both sides that a mech infantry VS mech infantry battle does, despite the mech infantrys MUCH higher strength.I think ya'll are overlooking exactly what the increase from 10 to 100 HP would do without also increasing the strength of all units, so let me enlighten you. With the current strengths two of the same unit fighting each other with no bonuses on flat grasslands would do about 5 damage. With the current 10 HP that's 50%, so a minimum of 2 turns or two of that unit to kill the enemy unit. Increasing the HP to 100 would mean taking 10x the attacks to kill that same unit, so either 20 turns or 20 of your units to kill 1 of theirs.
Now if they also increased the strength of all units to about double their current strength that 20 turns or 20 units drops to only about 10, because the units are now doing about twice the damage per hit.
Good point. Melee units are generally stronger in close combat than ranged units so even though machinegun would deal great damage without taking any, the next turn your enemy would use their infantry & tanks to annihilate your '1 range' unit.
Except, in this case, it has a base 60 combat strength too, so it defends at twice the strength of infantry even without using its bombard.
If that unit survives the ranged attack, and even then it will be a lot weaker and do less damage then it would have done normally. With the new system where units will survive longer, making a melee attack would have the same effect, you attack and do damage without killing the unit and next turn they counter attack. The difference is that with a range 1 attack, you only take damage on your opponents turn rather then on both yours and his.
I already answered that.If it doesn't have typical ranged unit defensive weakness, then it's stronger than a melee unit. But tactically it doesn't bring anything new to melee unit. You would use it almost precisely the same way you would use a melee unit (probably the only real difference is that a 1-ranged unit can't capture a city). So what's the point?
Also, imagine a unit is in range. If you attack and take damage, you're vulnerable to a counterattack. If you attack and take no damage, you are safe from attack.
Well, I do think it changes the tactics. Melee units are offensive units. You move them into position and attack. These units are defensive units. If it requires set-up, you can't move and attack on the same turn (barring a Persian golden age).