Musketmen = Fail. (IMO)

toll_booth · Oct 23, 2009

Is it just me, or is the musketman completely worthless? Its tech comes shortly before Rifling, which means it becomes outdated quickly. And consider a couple units right before and after it, particularly when used to defend cities:

L-bows: 50 :hammers:

for 6

, plus +25% :strength:

for city defense = 7.5 :strength:

. That's 6.66.. :hammers:

per

.
Musks: 80 :hammers:

for 9

. No special bonuses. That's 8.88.. :hammers:

per

Rifles: 110 :hammers:

for 14

, plus +25% :strength:

if against cavalry. Without the bonus, that's 7.86 :hammers:

per

.

So there. I almost never build them unless I get DoW'ed and need a small but quick burst of defenders. Otherwise, I just rely on Maces+Knights+Elbows to take me to Rifles+Grenadiers.

TheLazyHase · Oct 23, 2009

toll_booth said:
Is it just me, or is the musketman completely worthless? Its tech comes shortly before Rifling, which means it becomes outdated quickly. And consider a couple units right before and after it, particularly when used to defend cities:

L-bows: 50 for 6 , plus +25% for city defense = 7.5 . That's 6.66.. per .
Musks: 80 for 9 . No special bonuses. That's 8.88.. per
Rifles: 110 for 14 , plus +25% if against cavalry. Without the bonus, that's 7.86 per .

So there. I almost never build them unless I get DoW'ed and need a small but quick burst of defenders. Otherwise, I just rely on Maces+Knights+Elbows to take me to Rifles+Grenadiers.

It's you.

You alway forget to beeline musket, so you're under the belief that rifle came just after. First error.

You forget that they ignore wall and castle. Second error. Not the more important property of musket, it's still damn useful from time to time.

You forget that strength per hammer is a worthless way to compare unit due to how the combat work, third error. The main thing to see is that they are about the same strength as knight and are cheaper. And knight are not exactly too shaby.

Musket are worthy, especially when you have an UU musket, because they are without counter, without anti promo for quite some time (since you need gunpowder to get pinch), and they can come up rather quickly (just after education or guild). They are not the more proeminent unit in civ4, but you'd better not forget about them.

KeloGBites · Oct 23, 2009

Drafted Muskets with Cannons is a viable strategy for pre-rifle war. Actually gunpowder beeline can get you Muskets far earlier then you will viably get Rifles. Not to mention the Jannissary and Oromo UUs which are simply, amazing.
EDIT* Beat to the punch :lol:

gskyes · Oct 23, 2009

I think the phrase "shortly before Rifling" is why you feel they are useless. If you focus on the bottom of the tech tree to get muskets (and later cannons) early, instead of banking and printing press, ect. then they should see more use.

But in part I agree. I usually only build a few to accompany my stack of macemen & trebuchets, as they make good all-purpose defenders, but that's about it. Situationally they are more useful if you lack iron or horses. I never use them for city defense either.

Woodreaux · Oct 23, 2009

If you're playing Normal speed, you might finish researching Rifles before you even finish building your first Musketman. On Marathon they have a viable window of use.

obsolete · Oct 23, 2009

Is it just me, or is the musketman completely worthless?

If you look deep enough, this problem of musket silliness was pointed out years ago, so it is definitely not just you. Though, technically they were even more nerfed in vanilla than they are now! Much more, which is very hard to believe for the bts generation.

However, in BTS it may be ok to draft a few of them from a GT city (that has absolutely nothing else to do), particularly if you are a protective leader or have a UU musket. You are no longer paying direct hammers in that case to get ripped-off, and those units (with promotions) could still be upgraded.

If you have gay-events turned on, you'll often get stuff like all muskets get free Pinch promotion. So.... think of Toku with free Pinch promo... who gets free combat... free CG I, and a free Drill I.

And we haven't even added the promos of your choosing from barracks, GGs, Civics, etc!

Shafi · Oct 23, 2009

It's your playstyle - Actually i'm very similiair to you and rarely use muskets cos i dont tech gunpowder until i am set to go for rifling so very short time span in my games between muskets and rifles and hence just like you i dont use them.
But that DOES NOT MAKE THEM USELESS - many players on this forum will vouch for their value, and i think the two of us need to see if we can begin to find more use for them.

Windsor · Oct 23, 2009

Woodreaux said:
If you're playing Normal speed, you might finish researching Rifles before you even finish building your first Musketman. On Marathon they have a viable window of use.

I play on normal, but I sure don't research so fast that I get machinery, feudalism, guilds, banking, printing press, replaceable parts and rifling before I manage to build a musket

Musketmen used to suck in vanilla where you had grenadiers @ chemistry, now muskets can be good. Rifling is a different tech path with a few very expensive techs.

I usually head for steel rather than rifling if I want 1-move war.

TheLazyHase · Oct 23, 2009

Windsor said:
I play on normal, but I sure don't research so fast that I get machinery, feudalism, guilds, banking, printing press, replaceable parts and rifling before I manage to build a musket

... and chemistry, steel, astronomy, scimeth, physics, and bio

That's in the most abnormal case what I was seeking before rifling. But yes, it's possible only if no warmonger is on the rifling trail. aircraft are nice and stuff, but forgetting both rifling and military science is bad news if you are attacked by any significant stack of rifles. Also, rep part lead to infantry, and musket cannot compete with infantry even with all the aircraft of the world.

kossin · Oct 23, 2009

They're great stack defenders. Also, if you play the French and plan on a Cuirassier/spy war, tagging along a few Musketeers is great for new city garissons and protecting your stack from phants/pikes.

Windsor · Oct 23, 2009

TheLazyHase said:
... and chemistry, steel, astronomy, scimeth, physics, and bio

The techs I mentioned are perfectly normal to not have once you get gunpowder, however they are required to get rifling. The techs you mention here are not required for rifling.

capnvonbaron · Oct 23, 2009

I might also point out the incredibly awesome quest "Guns Not Butter"

I usually cheer when I get it, especially if I'm going for domination/conquest. Easiest quest ever, and some nice choices for the completion prize.

There's not much else I can say that the others haven't, but I still like to point out that having a strength of 8 can be better given just a few promos. Lets say you have rax and are running theology. If you build a LB and give him CG2, that is 6 x 70% = 10.2. Take a musket and give him the same, and its 8 x 45% = 11.6. The gulf widens as you add culture defence. If you take the unit outside the city to guard a stack, all the more favor for the musket. I'm not saying you need to instantly get rid of all your LBs once you get gunpowder, but I'm arguing that muskets are worth the few extra shields.

Also, since muskets are way cheaper than LBs to upgrade to rifles, a quick draft/upgrade program can really start a mean war machine. It can actually make a difference on even normal difficulty... if you get rifling at the same time as everyone else, you can instantly have a large standing army of riflemen for relatively cheap. With cannons, you can clean house.

vicawoo · Oct 23, 2009

You got the cost wrong. It's 15-25 food, not 80 hammers.

Also, when defending, with 50% walls and 25% fortification bonus, longbows are 12 strength, muskets are 15.75, or around 3:4.

obsolete · Oct 23, 2009

One issue I have with the walls-castle defense, is that to be honest, the AI always will have lots of culture defense anyhow. And Muskets can not ignore this.

Monsterzuma · Oct 23, 2009

Their draftability is their main saving grace. Still, creating them at half the cost of an equivalent whip tends to only barely make up the disparity in effectiveness between them and the lower tech units. It's always questionable wether that small edge is worth the beaker investment and being outside Bureaucracy for.

edit: not sure how I ended up with "half the cost of whipping"... It's 1/2.666 the cost, so that's quite a bit better.

whats a navy · Oct 23, 2009

I just like the tech gunpowder because its great trade bait. The AIs really value the tech but if you want to destroy them all you might want to keep the tech. :lol:

Musket treb war can be very powerful if you can pull it off on marathon.

obsolete · Oct 23, 2009

Well, it does have good use for trades. If you can get them to crank out muskets INSTEAD of Longbows for their cities then you are basically nerfing them, because as we have pointed out, muskets really are terrible units. In fact, this was considered broken in the day, and it still is despite the extra buffing. It's bad enough muskets are so bad, but the AI doesn't understand this. Also, the fact that if you start with someone like an English leader, and can STILL trick your enemies into building muskets (and hopefully lots of them), then you've really got the game wrapped-up. That's probably the easiest way to win deity domination on normal settings.

They are TERRIBLE units. Is a maceman still cheaper? It shouldn't be, but I bet it still is. Lets see, they are close to the same strength, 8 vs 9, but the Mace has inherent 50% meele bonus, AND gets all the way up to CR III bonus, (banned to muskets) which makes maces ultimately stronger. And the fact that mace can keep his CRIII when upgraded to rifle, seals the fate.

That said... if you are using random events, sometimes muskets really are better, due to the lopsided nature of what game-breaker you may get.

pi-r8 · Oct 23, 2009

The fact that they don't have any hard counter during the medieval era does give them some use then, though. Muskets + trebuchets can take any city easily, and of course muskets + cannons is an amazing combo.

JTMacc99 · Oct 23, 2009

pi-r8 said:
The fact that they don't have any hard counter during the medieval era does give them some use then, though. Muskets + trebuchets can take any city easily, and of course muskets + cannons is an amazing combo.

See, if you're playing a game where the goal is to get steel ASAP, like I do on most games where I'm on a large land mass, muskets come WAY before rifles. I pretty much focus research on the liberalism path and the steel path. Frankly, ANYTHING plus cannons is a pretty swell combination if you get your cannons early enough.

Therefore, I tend to use a lot of muskets since they clean up the cannon blasted defenders as well as anyone, and they make fine city garrisons for the period. Plus, you can draft them.

obsolete · Oct 23, 2009

The fact that they don't have any hard counter during the medieval era does give them some use then, though.

A even a basic knight beats muskets.

As for cannons, a big, big, big problem is they simply can not be drafted. Rifles come online in huge numbers immediately.

Musketmen = Fail. (IMO)

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