Don't you think longbows come too early?

pi-r8 · Feb 16, 2009

This is something that really frustrates me, and it really hit me when I was playing as the mongols. When I read about classical history, I read about vast conquests, like Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan. But, when I try to do this in Civ 4 (on standard speed) I find that I can only conquer my nearest neighbor before everyone else has researched feudalism and upgraded all their archers to Longbows. Of course, it doesn't help that the AI seems to trade this tech around like crack in a ghetto.

So, I'm thinking of modding my game to make Longbows appear later. Any suggestions? Engineering, maybe? After all, longbows and castle's go well together, in my eyes. Or perhaps, guilds, so that they appear together with knights?

Joshua368 · Feb 16, 2009

You'll screw over the AI really badly as archers are their primary defender. Just learn how to attack sooner and faster, and if you want to severely handicap the AI turn off tech trading.

Terryn · Feb 16, 2009

or play longer game speeds, you'd be suprised what a difference marathon and standard are on the same size map

Ian Kognitow · Feb 16, 2009

pi-r8 said:
This is something that really frustrates me, and it really hit me when I was playing as the mongols. When I read about classical history, I read about vast conquests, like Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan. But, when I try to do this in Civ 4 (on standard speed) I find that I can only conquer my nearest neighbor before everyone else has researched feudalism and upgraded all their archers to Longbows. Of course, it doesn't help that the AI seems to trade this tech around like crack in a ghetto.

Genghis Khan was around in the 13th century, right when feudalism was prominent in Europe, so I'm not sure what you were expecting with that example. If anything, Keshik just becomes available too early - though I'm not sure offhand about what would unlock it than HBR . In any case, the tech placement seems fine to me in the defense that it allows - giving enough time to let cats/swords have a shot at things but there for reasonable defense once trebs/maces show up.

HornetCiv · Feb 16, 2009

I think they overcompensated for Civ III, where there was little point to them at all. If you already have gold trading you could always try selling your targets techs so that they can't afford to upgrade their armies. Probably the only time in a game that I'd sell a tech for cash.

Pyramids + lots of gold vs AI with same techs and no gold = candy from a baby at that stage of the game.

I think :mischief:

Peachrocks · Feb 16, 2009

Yes they do come too early. They aren't unbeatable obviously but they are a bunch of no fun to come against, no other unit has this same 'no fun' feeling.

Guilds or Engineering is a bit too late, I would think Civil Service + Feudalism at the most.

PieceOfMind · Feb 16, 2009

HornetCiv said:
I think they overcompensated for Civ III, where there was little point to them at all. If you already have gold trading you could always try selling your targets techs so that they can't afford to upgrade their armies. Probably the only time in a game that I'd sell a tech for cash.

I'm not sure this is very effective. Bear in mind the gold the AI is prepared to give away through trade is not the total reserves they have. AIs will keep a minimum amount of gold around, probably almost exactly for this reason - so they can upgrade a bunch of stuff when the time comes.

HornetCiv · Feb 16, 2009

Point taken. I haven't played this game at higher levels to say for sure, but I reckon giving a soon-to-die civ a deal that's enough in their favour will usually draw the whole treasury. It's a gamble, but if you offer the same deal to everyone then often the short term loss (tech lead given to AI) will result in a bigger gain (rapid military expansion and being able to catch up on the research side if these cities turn a profit).

pi-r8 · Feb 16, 2009

Ian Kognitow said:
Genghis Khan was around in the 13th century, right when feudalism was prominent in Europe, so I'm not sure what you were expecting with that example. If anything, Keshik just becomes available too early - though I'm not sure offhand about what would unlock it than HBR . In any case, the tech placement seems fine to me in the defense that it allows - giving enough time to let cats/swords have a shot at things but there for reasonable defense once trebs/maces show up.

No that's exactly my point. Genghis khan invaded at the time of feudalism, and yet he had no trouble crushing defences with his horseman. And yet, when I play try to fight against longbows, I have to slowly, painstakingly take down their defences with trebuchets. Attacking a fortified city is suicide. (spies can work too of course, but that's unreliable)

I'm just saying that I feel like the balance between offence and defence is skewed far too much towards defence at this point in civ 4, because longbows are such a powerful defender, and there's nothing that really crushes them until cannons or rifling.

pi-r8 · Feb 16, 2009

Terryn said:
or play longer game speeds, you'd be suprised what a difference marathon and standard are on the same size map

yeah longer game speeds are like cheating, they make the game sooooo much easier.

Turquoiside · Feb 16, 2009

Same reaction to rifleman in Civ 3. You just have to deal. Only longbowmen aren't early. If attackers came before defenders, the game would be off balance.

Levgre · Feb 16, 2009

Use the Keshiks to raze all their improvements.

Also, if you have an army with a ton of Keshiks army, you can go farther into the country and threaten multiple cities at once. It would be silly if all the cities were always at your mercy.

Ian Kognitow · Feb 16, 2009

pi-r8 said:
No that's exactly my point. Genghis khan invaded at the time of feudalism, and yet he had no trouble crushing defences with his horseman.

That's not really the case. The Mongols did have siege weapons by the time they were invading the middle east and Europe.

pi-r8 said:
And yet, when I play try to fight against longbows, I have to slowly, painstakingly take down their defences with trebuchets. Attacking a fortified city is suicide. (spies can work too of course, but that's unreliable)

I'm just saying that I feel like the balance between offence and defence is skewed far too much towards defence at this point in civ 4, because longbows are such a powerful defender, and there's nothing that really crushes them until cannons or rifling.

It's fairly accurate. It used to take massive armies to take down fortified cities - some, like Constantinople, were usually deemed impregnable. Longbows are not that tough if you have taken the time and effort to take down their defenses. And if they weren't there at that time, cities could be taken pretty easily with trebs/crossbows/maces with little to no siege at all.

It sounds like you either need more trebs than you have (I usually try to have at least 4 for an unwalled city; at least twice that for a walled city) or start pillaging instead.

Ajidica · Feb 16, 2009

Knights should come before Longbows. (I dont know why they even have Longbows, they were a primarily English/Northern Europe thing. Most other nations that fielded large companies of ranged units used either Crossbows or Composite Bows). Mounted cavalry were 'the' defining unit of the middle ages. Semi-Feudal heavy cavalry has existed since the later Ostrogothic retainers or the knights of Charlemagne. Longbows were used extensivly until the Anglo-Scottish Wars.

Earthling · Feb 16, 2009

As far as realism goes - I don't think lbows come too early, Feudalism is definitely a mid-game tech. They probably do represent a little more than just the English type of lbow - something like "more advanced bows than primitive hunter-gatherers." In the tech tree itself lbows don't even necessarily come before crossbows.

As far as game balance, it's necessary for the AI to beeline them for defense just as a lot of things are necessary bonuses/preferences for the AI. I've said before the general source of problems about civ4 military (other than specific tactics on say, siege or aircraft) is the construction of military forces in the first place - that's where you should have a bone to pick if you want anything like realism. The difference between civ and real world is the incredible ease with which any empire maintains a massive standing army (even pacifism costs relative pennies) rather than levying/drafting/mobilizing troops in wartime. Thus it pays for both AI and humans to always be building military units, both offense and defense, and since everyone knows the AI is below human skill on the attack it works for it to spam defenders.

Ian Kognitow · Feb 16, 2009

Earthling said:
Thus it pays for both AI and humans to always be building military units, both offense and defense, and since everyone knows the AI is below human skill on the attack it works for it to spam defenders.

I find it a bit of a stretch to say that the AI spams defenders. If anything, they tend to spam mounted and siege units into their big SoD (often suiciding it against much more advanced forces). While their garrisons can be quite large in the late game, in Medieval era they typically are quite modest. Of course, if you are invading and have laid siege to a city, they will bring reinforcements and whip extra defenders there - as they should. Naturally, the answer then is to either: (1) have already brought enough siege weaponry to take down defenses before such reinforcements can be brought in; (2) pillage; (3) go somewhere else.

occam · Feb 16, 2009

PieceOfMind said:
I'm not sure this is very effective. Bear in mind the gold the AI is prepared to give away through trade is not the total reserves they have. AIs will keep a minimum amount of gold around, probably almost exactly for this reason - so they can upgrade a bunch of stuff when the time comes.

Additionally, the AI receives deep discounts when upgrading units, scaling upwards quickly with difficulty level. I don't think your strategy is viable even on Noble. Even starting from zero gold, the AI can have the city you are attacking upgraded in a couple of turns, and within a handful of turns, the AI will have full upgrades.

=======

If you ever want to make the game really easy, make one simple change: unit upgrades cost the AI 100%.

This bonus and several like it are poorly documented. Suspiciously poorly, imho.

r_rolo1 · Feb 16, 2009

Earthling said:
As far as realism goes - I don't think lbows come too early, Feudalism is definitely a mid-game tech. They probably do represent a little more than just the English type of lbow - something like "more advanced bows than primitive hunter-gatherers." In the tech tree itself lbows don't even necessarily come before crossbows.

If that is the real justification, it is utter nonsense. Bows have evolved remarkably little since the dawn of days as far as we know in terms of design ( besides the composite bows ). Most of the diference is about the materials .... the diference between a longbow and a "bows of primitive hunter-gatherers" is far more of size and good wood that anything about technical advances ( x-bows are a entirely diferent issue ).

The problem posed by the OP in here is that, in most regards, the medieval age military hardware was far less advanced than the Graeco-Roman ones. But it is impossible to impose that in a game where progress is continual.......

Earthling said:
As far as game balance, it's necessary for the AI to beeline them for defense just as a lot of things are necessary bonuses/preferences for the AI. I've said before the general source of problems about civ4 military (other than specific tactics on say, siege or aircraft) is the construction of military forces in the first place - that's where you should have a bone to pick if you want anything like realism. The difference between civ and real world is the incredible ease with which any empire maintains a massive standing army (even pacifism costs relative pennies) rather than levying/drafting/mobilizing troops in wartime. Thus it pays for both AI and humans to always be building military units, both offense and defense, and since everyone knows the AI is below human skill on the attack it works for it to spam defenders.

To say the truth, they made that in Col... and the results aren't good so far ( the current AI is horrid using that.... )

TheMeInTeam · Feb 16, 2009

PieceOfMind said:
I'm not sure this is very effective. Bear in mind the gold the AI is prepared to give away through trade is not the total reserves they have. AIs will keep a minimum amount of gold around, probably almost exactly for this reason - so they can upgrade a bunch of stuff when the time comes.

At a retardedly massive discount, too.

I hate magic rifles a lot worse than longbows.

I can't count the number of times where I declared on a target, that didn't have printing press and just got banking, took 3-4 cities, and then the target had rifles. Nobody traded it techs, nobody could have. And then, after speed-teching rifling, the AI magically can upgrade EVERY SINGLE LONGBOW IT HAS to rifles. Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

No, see, if they paid anything near what we did, that would be around 3k at least, likely much more than that. Where is that gold coming from? They just power teched rifling through 3-4 techs while whipping and losing cities!

This is less of a problem on marathon, but I usually avoid marathon due to the long amount of time to play it and the balance issues associated with free military academies in all cities founded from pop 1.

Ian Kognitow · Feb 16, 2009

TheMeInTeam said:
At a retardedly massive discount, too.

I hate magic rifles a lot worse than longbows.

This is probably the main reason I've never really been bothered to play very high difficulty levels. I found the upgrade discount bad enough on Prince (though I still usually play Monarch). I already tend to get bored having to negotiate units to counter the size of AI SoDs on Monarch. Having them scale ever upward with the unpredictability of nearly free upgrades just never really interested me very much.

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