Civ 7 - Unique Units top 7 choices

[Evie]

It's, again, not important to game design.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The answer to 'diversity of military units' is One Tile Battles. If the combat force is represented by stacking the units together and resolving battles in a single tile, then you immediately lose the problem of oversized 'specialist' units because they will (if the combat system is properly designed) perform their real role as specialized support for the 'Line' or regular combat forces.

And so, machinegun, antitank, antiaircraft, reconnaissance, combat engineer, heavy mortar and other specialized units could all be multipliers of regular infantry, tank, cavalry units in a battle, instead of requiring all units to have notional support or front line units with them.

I fully agree, the visual and diversity arguments are compelling in a game. But in this case, the 1UPT requiring a machinegun or antitank unit of any size to be alone in a tile X kilometers across not only requires an extreme suspension of disbelief and a time/ground scale disconnect, it also makes it very difficult if not impossible to model in the game the real effect of these units: they multiply the antitank capability of the 'ordinary' infantry or increase dramatically its attack and defense factors against other infantry or cavalry units.

And for just a smidgeon of 'realism', an antitank, antiaircraft or machinegun unit could add their multipliers to ALL the 'line' (infantry, tank, cavalry) units in a tile, because they are notionally providing support to the entire army/corps/division instead of just a single 'regiment' or smaller unit.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

You can compromise it that an anti-tank regiment really is an infantry regiment with a higher-than-average concentration of anti-tank armament and training if it makes you happier, but in gameplay terms, identifying it as "Anti-Tank" makes more sense and makes for easiser recognition than identifying it as "Infantry with anti tank specialists".

And in this instance, as in many others, having a separate Antitank Unit, whether it notionally represents a battalion, a regiment or a brigade, is more accurate than having all antitank capabilities buried in line (infantry, cavalry) units.

For example:
The Red Army formed over 60 separate Antitank Artillery Brigades in WWII, each comprising 60 - 72 antitank guns. They were added to rifle, mechanized, tank or cavalry forces as required wherever enemy tanks were likely to appear, but they were never an integral part of infantry, cavalry or mechanized forces below the Army HQ level. Oh, and at Kursk in 1943 they averaged 3 artillery or antitank regiments for every 2 rifle regiments, so, at least on the Soviet case, you just about can't have Too Many supporting 'specialized' units.

American Army 'line' units like infantry and armored divisions had NO antitank units assigned to them. The 'tank destroyer' or antitank units were almost all in separate battalions that were attached as needed. Now, in practice the same antitank units were attached to the same divisions semi-permanently, because it made it easier for the units to work together through experience with each other, but in game terms, they were all separate units.

So antitank, antiaircraft, artillery, heavy mortar, combat and construction engineers, reconnaissance units can all be modeled in-game with complete historical accuracy as well as in-game diversity AS LONG AS the game's combat system allows the Support Function of those specialized units to be applied to the line units they are attached to.

Which brings us back to the One Tile Battles mentioned in the post above. Keeping the separate specialized units in separate tiles makes them a parody of their intended function, while allowing them to be stacked with the units they are supporting allows the game to model 'combined arms' tactics and operations even at trhe Grand Strategic Scale of the Civ game.

 

[Evie]

Yes, I think needing to combine some limited number of units is a much better solution than crushing unit diversity.

 

[BuchiTaton]

Personally I find the many support units and combat classes to be a hassle that instead of add immersion or strategy end being annoying, and this come from somebody that is a lifelong fan of Age of Empires and Total War series. I mean those games are from different sub-genres but the focus is the combat in real time, there every unit movement and action feels dynamic, significative and exciting. Meanwhile in CIV "battles" are ping-pong conga lines or eternal stacks of JRPG slapping, I realized of own annoying this is when find myself preferring EU4 combat over CIV's one, and you know how minimalist Paradox combat is!

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Personally I find the many support units and combat classes to be a hassle that instead of add immersion or strategy end being annoying, and this come from somebody that is a lifelong fan of Age of Empires and Total War series. I mean those games are from different sub-genres but the focus is the combat in real time, there every unit movement and action feels dynamic, significative and exciting. Meanwhile in CIV "battles" are ping-pong conga lines or eternal stacks of JRPG slapping, I realized of own annoying this is when find myself preferring EU4 combat over CIV's one, and you know how minimalist Paradox combat is!

This is why I maintain that a combat system in a Grand Strategy Scale game like Civ has to be simplified to be 'improved'. I have come to the conclusion that having the gamer/Grand Boggus of the Civilization move each unit on a battlefield is entirely out of place in the scale of the game.

In a word, we gotta Focus: trying to do everything means, inevitably, you and the game do very little well. If you want to play a tactical battle game, by all means go find one: there are more than enough out there in board, miniatures, and computer game genres. Civ should be focused on the Strategy, including military and economic, religious and cultural, devious and straightforward. Using the gamer's time moving every Scout and Spearman around the map or battlefield bogs the game down into a swamp of units, capabilities, tactics and terrain that may fascinate some, but is a chore to others and a distraction from the scale and focus of the game, which is building and running an Empire.

All of which may be pure Thought Experiment now, since we can assume that the combat system for Civ VII is already designed with whatever scale, focus and unit system they need/want, and time for any redesign to adjust to our meanderings is long past.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

and for Antitank and Machineguns. as well as Musketeers. none of these are operated as single regiment. but parts of other 'regiments'.

And in my idea, you could possibly combine Antitank and Machine gun units into one tile with another Infantry unit.

 

[Lazy sweeper]

They could have the turtle tank, for one!

The Dacian tribes, used a kind of wood tank on wheels, used in battles for protecting the first line, but also to launch it against enemy lines on fire.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The Dacian tribes, used a kind of wood tank on wheels, used in battles for protecting the first line, but also to launch it against enemy lines on fire.

- And the Romans used pigs with their backs smeared with oil and lit on fire, launched against Pyrrhus' elephants - once, and it didn't work very well at panicking the elephants.
- Darius launched scythed chariots against Alexander's army at Gaugamela - the only time scythed chariots are ever mentioned in a battle used by Achaemenid Persians - and they didn't work any better than the flaming pigs.
- Many of the pastoral groups of central Asia used big wheeled carts with their yurts or ger tents mounted permanently on them to move their entire tribe/clan/nation, and formed 'wagenburgs' or Wagon Forts when they camped - circles of chained or roped-together wagons, an archer version of the covered wagon camps of the American Old West. Several Slavic groups seem to have picked up on this and used a form of it as the gulay gorod or 'wagon town' defensive walls.
- And related, the Hussites used wagons with wooden armor added full of hand gunners and small 'swivel' type cannon with which they not only fended off attacks by mounted knights, but on occasion charged them, wagons and all.

There's a lot of room for 'tanks' of one animal-powered sort or another in classical/medieval/renaissance warfare, at least as exotic weaponry.

 

[The_goggles_do_nothing]

There is a turtle promotion why not a flaming pig promotion?

Am I right in thinking the mounted archer is underrepresented in Civ 6, and the power of Horsemen is overstated? Cavelry should come into play in the latter stages of the Roman Empire from my understanding, rather then being a contemporary of the Legion.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

There is a turtle promotion why not a flaming pig promotion?

Am I right in thinking the mounted archer is underrepresented in Civ 6, and the power of Horsemen is overstated? Cavelry should come into play in the latter stages of the Roman Empire from my understanding, rather then being a contemporary of the Legion.

The mounted archer as only being available to a pastoral Civ like Scythia is dead accurate in Civ VI. The only thing they missed is that mounted archers were hired as mercenaries by everybody else, including Athens, Rome, Byzantium, and China.

Other cavalry in the Classical Era came in two types:

1. Aristocrats from cities who could afford a horse and rode because it indicated their superiority over the Lower Classes. This was the cavalry for most of the Greek city states and the Republican Roman army, and they were almost uniformly Bad.

2. Cavalry from groups that rode all their lives as hunters, herders, etc. This included the Persian aristocracy, Gauls, Numidians, and the Macedonian aristocracy, which under Phillip and Alexander formed the Companions of the King - the Hetairoi: armored men on sturdy horses with stout metal-tipped lances that charged in a wedge formation virtually guaranteed to split apart and destroy anything it hit - like Thracian, Persia or Indian armies. The Roman Empire hired all the Gaulic cavalry they could get and went to great lengths to ally with the Numidians to get their light cavalry on their side. Persian (post Achaemenid) cavalry wiped out Crassus' legions and fought the Romans to a standstill in Mesopotamia, and the Roman Legion of the 2nd century CE added lanciarii - spearmen - to the legion to defend it against Sarmatian and Alanic heavy cavalry on armored horses with lances - and then hired every group of Sarmatians they could lay hands on right up until the end of the Empire.

The Roman Legions under the Empire had some very good cavalry of their own. Aside from hiring the best of the Sarmatian, Alan, Hun, Gaulic and German cavalry ranging from armored lancers (Equites Sarmatii Lanciarii, as the Sarmatian lancers are listed) to horse archers (Equites Sagitarii Hunorum - Hun mounted archers), we have surviving examples of Roman training exercises for their own light cavalry, and they were impressive: able to deflect missiles from all sides against themselves or their horses with light 'target' shields and fight with either thrown javelins or swords from horseback.

 

[Phrozen]

America: Pioneer\Emigrants, Mountain Man, or Overmountain Men
Japan: Ashigaru
Britain: Billmen or Dreadnaught
Spain: Jinete or Rodeleros
Germany: Schwarze Reiters or Stormtroopers
Canada: Shock troops
China Huo Che

 

[reddishrecue]

You guys left out the cataphract. Cataphracts were really strong mounted units that were known to be used in combat by many tribes and civilizations in Africa, Asia and even Europe.

 

[BuchiTaton]

You guys left out the cataphract. Cataphracts were really strong mounted units that were known to be used in combat by many tribes and civilizations in Africa, Asia and even Europe.

Were used by many cultures around the world is why I see Catapharacts as the regular cavalry unit between Chariots and Knights (note that here these names are labels for concepts that do mean neither a real equivalence or replacement, but that are practical ways to abstract unit into CIV's model).

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

You guys left out the cataphract. Cataphracts were really strong mounted units that were known to be used in combat by many tribes and civilizations in Africa, Asia and even Europe.

Considering this thread is about unique units, who would you give the Cataphract too considering they were used by many different civilizations, as you said yourself?
I agree that they should be a general Classical Era cavalry unit available to everyone.

 

[reddishrecue]

Considering this thread is about unique units, who would you give the Cataphract too considering they were used by many different civilizations, as you said yourself?
I agree that they should be a general Classical Era cavalry unit available to everyone.

Why not return them to the Byzantines in the dark and medieval eras like they did in civ4? If teched right, they were really powerful for their time and could overpower elephants as well as pikemen.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Considering this thread is about unique units, who would you give the Cataphract too considering they were used by many different civilizations, as you said yourself?
I agree that they should be a general Classical Era cavalry unit available to everyone.

The best-known Kataphractoi were those of the Sasanid Persians and the Byzantines. But they originated as central Asian tribal units - the first that I know of was the Massagetae contingent at Gaugamela against Alexander in 331 BCE, or several hundred years before either Persian or Byzantine examples, and from fresco illustrations we know that the Sarmatians were "armored men on armored horses' or Cataphractoi configuration in the early centuries CE.

Note, however, that they were not used by everyone. The only Roman Cataphractoi were hired Sarmatians, nor did any of the Germanic successors to Rome field Cataphract cavalry - even the Lombards or Goths who did have heavy cavalry didn't have armored horses, nor were they a feature of most of the Chinese Imperial dynasties unless they got them from their 'Northern Barbarian' neighbors.

So, probably not appropriate as a general Classical unit, either: but possibly a type that requires some particular combination of requirements in addition to a simple Technology + Resource that the game has always used for general units.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Why not return them to the Byzantines in the dark and medieval eras like they did in civ4? If teched right, they were really powerful for their time and could overpower elephants as well as pikemen.

Because I believe the Byzantines should at least get the Dromons first. Second, I would give them the Varangian Guard.
If they were to be a UU give them to the Sarmatians.

Note, however, that they were not used by everyone. The only Roman Cataphractoi were hired Sarmatians, nor did any of the Germanic successors to Rome field Cataphract cavalry - even the Lombards or Goths who did have heavy cavalry didn't have armored horses, nor were they a feature of most of the Chinese Imperial dynasties unless they got them from their 'Northern Barbarian' neighbors.

So, probably not appropriate as a general Classical unit, either: but possibly a type that requires some particular combination of requirements in addition to a simple Technology + Resource that the game has always used for general units.

You are right in that they weren't used by everyone. But if they were used by more than two, maybe three different groups of people, I don't think that should make them a unique unit to one particular civilization.

I mean if we can have Knights as a general unit, and they were less widespread than Cataphracts, I don't see why Cataphracts couldn't just be an upgrade from them? This is assuming that Knights would also use similar resources such as horses/iron, unless we radically change the way units are produced.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

The mounted archer as only being available to a pastoral Civ like Scythia is dead accurate in Civ VI. The only thing they missed is that mounted archers were hired as mercenaries by everybody else, including Athens, Rome, Byzantium, and China.

Other cavalry in the Classical Era came in two types:

1. Aristocrats from cities who could afford a horse and rode because it indicated their superiority over the Lower Classes. This was the cavalry for most of the Greek city states and the Republican Roman army, and they were almost uniformly Bad.

how bad. and why?

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

The best-known Kataphractoi were those of the Sasanid Persians and the Byzantines. But they originated as central Asian tribal units - the first that I know of was the Massagetae contingent at Gaugamela against Alexander in 331 BCE, or several hundred years before either Persian or Byzantine examples, and from fresco illustrations we know that the Sarmatians were "armored men on armored horses' or Cataphractoi configuration in the early centuries CE.

Note, however, that they were not used by everyone. The only Roman Cataphractoi were hired Sarmatians, nor did any of the Germanic successors to Rome field Cataphract cavalry - even the Lombards or Goths who did have heavy cavalry didn't have armored horses, nor were they a feature of most of the Chinese Imperial dynasties unless they got them from their 'Northern Barbarian' neighbors.

So, probably not appropriate as a general Classical unit, either: but possibly a type that requires some particular combination of requirements in addition to a simple Technology + Resource that the game has always used for general units.

do you have better names for it. for 'heavy' variants of classical cavalry between chariots and knights?