Redo primitive units [idea]

Redo primitive units:

Scout: 2 -50% Melee/Archer/Mounted +50% Animals, 1 FS
Warrior: 2 +50% City
Archer: 3 +25% City +25% Hill 1 FS
Axeman: 4 +75% Melee
Spearman: 4 +100% Mounted
Chariot: 4 +75% Attack Axemen +15% retreat no DEF
Horse Archer: 5 +40% Melee +20% Mounted -10% City +25% Retreat no DEF
Swordsman: 6 +10% City
Longbow: 7 +25% City +25% Hill 1 FS
Crossbow: 6 +75% vs Melee 1 FS
Maceman: 7 +50% vs Melee +10% vs Cities
Pikeman: 8 +50% vs Mounted
Musketman: 9
Knight: 10 -10% City +20% Retreat Immue FS no DEF

Thoughts?

I made some of the "I win" spam-units weaker (axeman, maceman).

I boosted the Pikeman. They sucked.

The Horse Archer is weakened (from 6 to 5) but given a tasty bonus against melee and mounted units. This makes the Horse Archer the "axeman" of the ancient era, and makes the expensive HBR worth researching. Unike the old "axeman", this unit has a counter: spearmen.

Axe/Spear/Chariot in field, with Archer defending cities evolves to
Horse Archer/Spear/Axe in field, with Archer/Spear defending cities in the ancient era.

Swordsmen beat Spears (nearly as good as Axes) and crush Archers, but lose against Axes and Horse Archers. So the next era becomes:
Horse Archer/Spear/Sword in the field, with Archer/Spear/Axe defending cities.

---

The Mediaeval era now contains multiple paradymn-breaking units.

The Longbowman makes defense win without attackers using seige. Traditionally, it is an early unit to aim for, and effective in the hands of the AI, and less popular for players -- on second thought, I boosted it from a 6 to a 7. This makes it strong enough to hold up against Swordsmen.

The next wave of units each trump the entire ancient army:
XBow is 6/5 vs Horse Archer, 10.5/6 vs Sword and 10.5/4 vs Spear.
Maceman is 7/7 vs Horse Archer, 10.5/4 vs Spear and 10.5/6 vs Sword.
Pikeman is 12/7 vs Horse Archer, 8/4 vs Spear and 8/6 vs Sword.

Between them, we have:
10.5/8 Mace > Pike
7/10.5 Mace < XBow
7/7 Mace = LBow

8/10.5 Pike < XBow
8/7 Pike > LBow

6/7 XBow < LBow

The XBow looks great -- except Knights destroy them.

Thoughts?

UUs have to be tweaked, naturally.

Siege units need to be revamped: they are just too good. But that's a different topic.

I'm thinking:
7, no other bonuses, for the Praetorian (can match or exceed every ancient/classical unit on a head-on fight, esp. when promoted)
5 +75% vs mounted for Phalanx (instead of +100% vs mounted).
5 +40% vs melee for War Chariot (instead of +75% vs Axe).
6 strength & mobility for Kenshik, otherwise copy of Horse Archer

Edit: tweaks, UU ideas

So here is a second pass at the above attempt.

I've analyzed the primitve units (and the more advanced units while I was at it) for possible cost and efficiency.

Power is calculated by (strength)^1.5.
Cost is hammers.
Efficiency is Power/Cost.

Efficiency is a slight underestimate of the advantage of higher strength in a one-on-one battle, to account for the advantages of "swarming" with larger numbers. Special abilities are not factored into Power.

The goal with the Efficiency analysis was to avoid a "power inversion", when a unit isn't worth building for a war. You could see this in standard Civ4 with Horse Archers.

I boosted the power of the low-end units up to and including the Knight.

Units above the Warrior to the Swordsman have an efficiency about 32&#37;. This means you can hold your own in the ancient era with a bit of a technological gap -- the advances grant the opponent the ability to concentrate power, and the higher-end units have better specials than the lower-end units.

UUs where re-jiggered around a general boost in power, with their "speciality" being not much better than the base unit. So a Phalanx will be a touch better than Spearmen against mounted units, but much better against Archers and Melee units.

The Longbowman has a low efficiency -- 29.4% -- in exchange for 2-3 FS.

From there, efficiency creaps up to 40% at the Knight.

I left the Grenadier/Rifleman/Cavalry set alone, so you can

Scout: 2 +50% animals -50% mounted/archer/melee, 1 FS
(Scouts are now better than Warriors or Archers against animals.)

Warrior: 2 +50% city
C 15 P 2.8 E 18.9%
++ Quenchua: 3 +75% vs Archers E 34.6%
(Warrior defense is strong enough in a city to economically hold off Archer rushes.)

Archer: 3 +50% city +25% hill 1 FS
C 20 P 5.2 E 26%
++ Skirmisher: 4 +30% city +20% hill 2 FS C 25 E 32%
(Left at 3 strength, price reduced.)

(Ancient/Classical era target "field unit" efficiency: ~32%):

Axeman: 5 +40% melee
C 35 P 11.2 E 32%
(Melee bonus lowered to +40%. This is to make them worse against Swordsmen.)

Spear: 5 +100% mounted
C 35 P 11.2 E 32%
++ Phalanx: 6 +75% mounted +10% melee +25% hills defense C 40 E 36.7%
++ Impi: 5 2 move +100% mounted Mobility 1 FS
(Strength boosted to 5, Spearmen are now more, even if they are weak against Axes.)

Chariot: 5 -20% city +75% Attack Axemen +15% retreat NO DEF
C 35 P 11.2 E 32%
++ Immortal: 5 -20% city +75% Attack Axemen +50% Archers +35% retreat NO DEF
++ War Chariot: 6 -20% city +75% Attack Axemen +20% retreat NO DEF C 40 E 36.7%
(The Chariot was tweaked upwards in both power and cost. It still dies to spearmen.)

Horse Archer: 6 -20% city +40% melee +30% mounted +25% retreat NO DEF
C 45 P 14.7 E 32.7%
++ Kenshik: 7 -20% city +30% melee +30% mounted +35% retreat NO DEF Mobility C 50 E 37%
++ Numidian Cavalry: 7 -20% city +40% melee +30% mounted and siege +30% retreat Flanking I NO DEF NO FS C 50 E 37%
(Horse Archers now slaughter most melee units, and will chew through Chariots as well. This is now a unit to either counter, or get yourself.)

Swordsman: 6 +25% melee +10% city
C 45 P 14.7 E 32.7%
++ Praetorean: 8 +15% melee C 55 E 41.1%
++ Gaellic: 7 +20% melee Guerilla I, build with Copper or Iron C 50 E 37%
++ Jaguar: 6 +25% melee Woodsman I (no Metal needed) C 40 E 36.7%
(The Swordsman is now a real upgrade to the Axeman. Economically, Axemen can still win. The counter for the Swordsman is the Horse Archer.)

Longbow: 6 +25% city +25% hill +25% attack crossbow 2-3 FS
C 50 P 14.7 E 29.4%
(Longbows are granted 2 to 3 FS -- a quite nice perk. Their Efficiency sucks otherwise... They are also an anti-xbow unit.)

(Here we start seeing a ramp up of unit efficiency

Crossbow: 7 +35% Melee 1 FS
C 55 P 18.5 E 33.7%
++ Cho: 8 +35% melee 2 FS 20% collateral C 60 E 37.7%
(The crossbow used to suck. Now it is a viable unit. )

Maceman: 8 +50% Melee +10% city
C 65 P 18.5 E 34.8%
++ Berzerker: 9 +35% Melee +10% city Amphibious C 65 E 41.5%
++ Samurai: 9 +50% Melee 2 First Strikes C 70 E 38.6%
(The maceman has been mostly left alone.)

Pikeman: 8 +50% Mounted
C 60 P 22.6 E 37.7%
(Pikemen no longer suck -- they where higher up the tree than Macemen, yet worse in almost every situation.)

Musketman: 9
C 80 P 27 E 33.8%
++ Musketeer: 9 2 move +2 FS C 80 E 33.8%
++ Janissary: 10 +20% vs archery, melee and mounted C 85 E 37.2%
(The musketman is less efficient than earlier units, but it exists outside of the trump game the other units participate in.)

Knight: 11 -20% city +20% retreat Immune FS NO DEF
C 90 P 31.6 E 40.5%
++ Conquistador: 12 +20% retreat +10% melee -20% city Immune FS 2 FS NO DEF C 95 E 43.8%
++ Camel Archer: 11 +35% retreat -20% city +20% mounted 2 FS Immune FS NO DEF C 90 E 40.5%
(The Knight gained an extra 1 power -- which makes it a scary unit. It's efficiency is a small step above the other units of the era. Spearmen can beat it economically, and Pikemen can beat it period)

Grenadier: 12 +50% attack vs Rifleman
C 100 P 41.6 E 41.5%
(Left alone.)

Rifleman: 14 +25% vs Mounted
C 110 P 52.4 E 47.6%
++ Redcoat
(Left alone.)

Cavalry: 15 +30% withdraw +50% vs Cannon
C 120 P 58.1 E 48.4%
++ Cossack
(Left alone with retreat chance boosted.)

Machine Gun: 18 no-attack +50% vs Mounted +50% vs Gunpowder
C 125 P 76.4 E 61.1%
(Boost to killing mounted added.)

Infantry: 20 +25% vs Gunpowder
C 140 P 89.4 E 63.9%
(Oh god, that's huge efficiency!)

Tank: 28 Blitz 2 move
C 180 P 148.2 E 82.3%
++ Panzer
(But nothing compared to armor.)

Marine: 24 +50% attack machine gun/artillery, Amphibious
C 160 P 117.6 E 73.5%
++ SEAL
(Same tech-level as Tanks, yet less efficient by a good 10%...)

SAM Infantry: 18 40% intercept +50% vs Helicopters
C 150 P 76.4 E 50.9%
(This is really horrid efficiency...)

Gunship: 24 NO DEF +100% vs armor 35% withdraw
C 160 P 117.6 E 73.4%
(On the level with Marines in efficiency.)
(Boosted Withdraw so it is better than Cavalry.)

Mechanized Infantry: 32 2 move 20% intercept march
C 200 P 181.0 E 90.5%
(You can see in the Efficiency why people build these for conquest!)

Modern Armor: 40 3 move Blitz
C 240 P 253.0 E 105.4%
(And modern armor breaks the game!)

Edit: Looked at the UU upgrades, determined that some deserve a small unit cost increase to pay for their amazing extra power. This also justified some scaling up of UU power. Now UUs are about as efficient as the next teir of units up.

A first test, and it seems to work reasonably.

Barbarians still use (Warrior) (Archer) (Axeman) (Swordsman).

But with these changes, Barbarians going from Axe to Sword don't make them weaker.

Swordsmen are slighly more expensive, not weak against chariots.

Horse Archers are a very nice upgrade to even the super-chariots (str 5), simply because they are strong against any melee unit, and they tear chariots apart.

Axe vs Melee: 7 vs X.
Sword vs Melee: 7.5 vs X

Axe vs Sword: 5.75 vs 6
Shock Axe vs Sword: 7.5 vs 6

I need to test the next era.