Acken's Minimalistic Balance for singleplayer (and AI improvements)

[noto2]

So I just played a game as Byzantium and had 6 cataphracts very early on. I thought I would steamroll someone but got stopped by a wall of spearmen. In many games I have steamrolled a neighbour with fewer than 6 swords.

I really don't understand why Firaxis decided horses had to be hard countered by cheap, spammable units. Iron units require iron and more tech and are more expensive, so they are stronger. Horse units are expensive, require out of the way tech, and get easily countered by cheap units, I don't get it. There is no cheap counter to swords/longswords, why is there one for horses?

In my opinion, either horses need a buff or spears/pikes need a nerf. +50% is an enormous advantage, even +25% would keep spears a threat to horsemen. This is probably the way to go, as buffing mounted units would make them better than iron units.

 

[chumchu]

Regarding horsemen. Extra movement on melée units makes a huge difference. Their speed and retreat after attacking permits a high concentration of force, like ranged combat. They should lose out one on one as they have an advantage in larger battles. If we have swordmen at 15 and horsemen at 14, horsemen would be as good or an even better unit were it not for spears. Any buff might well get out of hand.

These units do have different role, horsemen being significantly less tanky, and it is often best to combine them. Tactically, if you want to attack with only horsemen against decent opposition you should get at least 8 units and try to rotate them as well as maximising flanking bonus. They have higher base strength as well so you should be winning when you start stacking bonii on them. It takes a bit more resources than a sword rush but it also means less casualties and you can move between battles in no time.

I would not go further than this: If we revert swords to 15, we might revert spearmen to 11 but then horsemen must go down to 13. Then we should probably revert the cost changes to early range as well.

 

[civawesome]

Many of these updates look good. Are they coming soon or should I keep playing this version?

I'm not really sure what to think about the spear nerf but if he did it he would need to put pikes back down to a lower tech.

 

[noto2]

So horses don't need a buff relative to iron units, but I still don't see why spears and pikes get such a COLOSSAL bonus against them. You've got ranged units, resourceless melee units, and iron units being stronger. Why are the horses hard countered? In Civ 4, swords got hard countered by axes but there is no such unit in Civ5. Honestly, the only time I even build a horse based army is if I have no iron (or playing Byzantium), but even in the case of Byzantium I'd be better off just going swordsmen and ignoring the UU if I have iron. There's no reason to use horses if iron is available, horse units are very under-performing.

Spears and pikes would still outmatch their mounted peers with a 25% bonus. I guess I'll just mod it myself.

 

[Chum]

So horses don't need a buff relative to iron units, but I still don't see why spears and pikes get such a COLOSSAL bonus against them. You've got ranged units, resourceless melee units, and iron units being stronger. Why are the horses hard countered? In Civ 4, swords got hard countered by axes but there is no such unit in Civ5. Honestly, the only time I even build a horse based army is if I have no iron (or playing Byzantium), but even in the case of Byzantium I'd be better off just going swordsmen and ignoring the UU if I have iron. There's no reason to use horses if iron is available, horse units are very under-performing.

Spears and pikes would still outmatch their mounted peers with a 25% bonus. I guess I'll just mod it myself.

Because spears and pikes ARE the counter to Horses? I mean, literally, that's what they historically were. You can't do anything if you're on horseback against a fortified wall of guys with a 20 foot long pike dug into the ground in front of them.

Horses aren't frontline units. They're harassing and flanking units. It's rock/paper/scissors. The melee stands in front of the archers, who do the damage, and the horses are used to sweep around the melee line to attack the archers. If you're using horses as tanks, you're going to lose. If you're using them to harass supply lines, pillage tiles, and keep pressure on the ranged units, you're going to be more effective than a simple melee/ranged force.

There's no problem with them the way they are.

 

[beetle]

It's rock/paper/scissors.

Except this dynamic is not really there in V like it was in III and IV. I would like to see the swords line get a % buff against spears and pikes.

 

[Chum]

Except this dynamic is not really there in V like it was in III and IV. I would like to see the swords line get a % buff against spears and pikes.

Different games, brah. Stop living in the past!

 

[noto2]

@Chum: It's not rock/paper/scissors because there is no counter to spears/pikes. I'll repeat myself

There are cheap/resource-independent units (like spears/pikes)

and then there are expensive/resource dependent units (like horses and swords)

the expensive units are "better", but they are more expensive. One of them is very strong, one of them is very fast.

The fast one gets countered HARDCORE EPIC CURBSTOMPING COUNTERED by the cheap, disposable units.

The other one has no counter at all.

This is the imbalance I pointed out. Why do horses need to be hard countered by cheap units, and swords do not? (it's the same problem with tanks having multiple counters despite not being all that useful, but that's another matter)

Firaxis seems to think that horses are these epic, godlike UBER units that need to be countered hard, when in reality they are just crap. If you have iron you're 100% always better building sword units. Even if you lack iron, you should probably build more spears/archers than horses.

There is no need for +50% that is waaaaaaaaaaay overkill.

Imagine if spears got +50% vs swords. Would you ever build a swordsman? Why would you? I never would. Never. Which is basically my policy for horses - USELESS.

 

[Chum]

So ranged units don't kill spears now?

Huh, news to me. I guess I've been doing this all wrong. I'll stop telling my Cbows and Xbows to attack spears and pikes.

 

[chumchu]

I would take cataphracts over swords any day: extra strength, movement and retreats. I have used companion cavalry to efficiently take down swords and spears from a honor player at deity in this mod, it is definiately doable. Unless you attack in horrible terrain you should win if you have superior numbers.

Horses do not get curbstomped by spears. Try again using outflanking, recycling, support from ranged units.

 

[civawesome]

I'm not saying it didn't happen but I rarely see an AI with -all- spears, sometimes many but not all.

Btw Acken I don't know if you know this already but after attacking 2 City States your influence with friendly and neutral ones drop 2x as fast (idk if hostile does it too in the main game or not). This is a hidden feature as described here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=494476 The Pilgrim explains it correctly. What I don't know is whether this applies to the AI. If it does it's kinda ruining their City State game.

 

[Acken]

That's a good question

 

[Akbarthegreat]

Berserkers seem stupidly powerful. Amphibious, +1 movement and allowing them to bypass an expensive tech is just sick.

EDIT: I read some threads saying Berserkers are underwhelming, and I don't get it. Unless you beeline machinery/steel, there no way you can counter these. And reaching machineey/steel before the AI gets metal casting is hard. Add to that the more aggressive AI in this mod, and the fact that my empire is mostly flat land (and they can pillage very effectively), how do I possibly counter them? CB's hardly do any damage to them, and they one shot kill CB's and almost even spearmen.

 

[chumchu]

Pray?

Diplomacy - try to get him in a common war with someone else? Citadel in strategic location?

 

[Akbarthegreat]

Lol.. but its a little too late for that, I didn't know they were available at MC so hadn't taken him too seriously. And citadel wont help.. NQMap pangaea + mostly flat open land.

 

[noto2]

Berserkers are pretty good but they're all Denmark really has, so they should be. I think they're fine as is. Honestly, if Denmark is your neighbour you need to be prepared for them, just as you should be prepared for Impii if you spawn near Shaka.

 

[noto2]

Acken I see you've set NumCitiesTechCostMod=0. Have you added increasing science costs per city somewhere else?

 

[Akbarthegreat]

Impis require chivalry right? Which is guilds and CS (both as expensive as metal casting), and then chivalry (more expensive). While berserkers are more powerful and come much earlier; just one tech compared to the previous three. My complaint is not about them being powerful, but coming early. Like give them something special for pillaging or something; but a 23 strength unit (with other buffs as well) should not be available at metal casting.

 

[noto2]

But in addition to Impis, Shaka has special promotions for his units, reduced XP costs for promotions, and reduced unit maintenance. If the game goes to the medieval era, Shaka is going to dominate Denmark. Impis will dominate Berserkers despite having a lower base strength, simply due to their extra promotions, and once the game goes to gunpowder units Denmark would be hopelessly outmatched by the Zulu... utterly hopeless. The Berserker is literally all Denmark has that is worthwhile. It's a 1 trick pony.

Even England has two UU's that are very good. What you're arguing is like asking for the Ship of the Line to be nerfed because it's powerful. Why play England, then? No point at all.
The Berserker is the ONLY reason I would want to play Denmark, everything else they have is totally lackluster.

 

[Akbarthegreat]

Impis may be more powerful, but it takes more time to get churn them out (see the above tech comparison). I'm not even saying nerf the Berserkers, all I'm saying is a strength 23 unit (that dominates all classical units) coming with metal casting seems early.

Moving it back to steel and boosting Denmark in some other way seems better to me (like the weak civ mod, get rid of the ski infantry and give them a UB).