God Like Horses?

[Zaimejs]

I just started playing Civ VI again after a long hiatus... and suddenly, horsemen can destroy everything. I thought it was some fluke... but they are taking over cities and just wiping out everything. When did horsemen become OP???? Back in the day, my horses died if you kind of looked at them the wrong way. Now they can cut through spearmen, swordsmen and crossbowmen like they are nothing... and they can attack cities. A single bowman and horse took one of my cities in one turn. Full health to zero. What the hell????

Moderator Action: Changed the thread title. leif

 

[kaspergm]

Gotta build them walls ...

 

[criZp]

Yeah, newly settled cities don't start out as super-fortresses in civ 6. You must build walls before they have some decent defense.

But you are right that horsemen are very strong, and don't really have any weakness.

 

[DWilson]

More evidence that anti-cav should probably be buffed.

 

[Socrates99]

I thought they were pretty much always the best classical unit. Swords got a little better with the +1 move promo but horsemen still tend to be the most useful.

Even better now with coursers filling the promo gap.

 

[j51]

Coursers are insane. They should be nerfed to like 42 strength. There's not enough difference between them and knights now.

 

[criZp]

Coursers are insane. They should be nerfed to like 42 strength. There's not enough difference between them and knights now.

Why, coursers just have a 1 move advantage over the knights.

 

[Socrates99]

Coursers are 47 and knights are 48 right? Honestly I don't see a problem. It balances iron and horse strategics. Usually you start with one or the other and you just focus your builds on exploiting the resource you have.

 

[criZp]

coursers are 44 and knights are indeed 48

 

[Socrates99]

Yeah, I don't see a problem with that. Works pretty good.

 

[Tabarnak]

With a great general, swordmen are superior to horsemen. If no gg, horsemen are superior.

 

[Sostratus]

Coursers are 47

Hungary's courser UU, the Black Army has 47 strength. Which is nice, because in the first look it had 50!

Anyways, OP, unlike civ5, horseman (mounted units in general) don't have two key penalties that differentiated them from infantry units: there's no penalty against cities, and they still fully benefit from terrain defense bonus /fortify. Funnily enough, the city penalty wasn't in release civ5; it was added because it turned out a horse rush was virtually unstoppable because horses are strong and fast. They appear to have forgotten this.
However, they still have the higher base strength and movement they traditionally get. So now that the mounted unit lines have lost the worst gaps (coursers and cuirassiers) they are basically just better versions of melee units.

On the basis of the whole class, these two units have made mounted super viable. But on an individual unit level, they actually were even better in vanilla when the cavalry production card was +100%, and there was no pike and shot, and pikeman cost more than knights. IIRC mech infantry also had only 80 strength on release and it was patched to 85, could be remembering.
Heavy cav in particular is extremely abusive without those penalties chaining them down from civ5.

 

[criZp]

With a great general, swordmen are superior to horsemen. If no gg, horsemen are superior.

generals buff horsemen too, you know

 

[Tabarnak]

generals buff horsemen too, you know

Swordmen gain more in % speed than horsemen. Also, it's easier to defend against horsemen if u are well prepared.(i only play mp).

I like getting 2 left promos for my swordmen and watch them fly around on hills.

 

[kaspergm]

Anyways, OP, unlike civ5, horseman (mounted units in general) don't have two key penalties that differentiated them from infantry units: there's no penalty against cities, and they still fully benefit from terrain defense bonus /fortify. Funnily enough, the city penalty wasn't in release civ5; it was added because it turned out a horse rush was virtually unstoppable because horses are strong and fast. They appear to have forgotten this.
However, they still have the higher base strength and movement they traditionally get. So now that the mounted unit lines have lost the worst gaps (coursers and cuirassiers) they are basically just better versions of melee units.

I agree, with Cavalry being BOTH faster AND stronger than melee units, and with no significant penalties applied to their use, things end up looking grimly for melee units. Buffing anti-cav as suggested above is obviously a first step, but not much likely to solve the problem because cavalry can just move around them, plus frontlining your army with anti-cav will basically just make you stall if on offense, because anti-cavs are basically rubbish at doing anything than, well, countering cavs (which they are also rubbish at as things are). I'm generally a proponent of 1UPT, but this is definitely a shortcoming of that system.

I would like to see the cavalry penalty vs. cities from Civ5 return, this was a good way to level the field, and it also makes sense logically (if you're doing siege on a walled city, sitting on a horse is not going to help you, quite in the contrary). And if not that, then the logical solution is to make cavalry weaker than contemporary melee, so cavalry has the advantage of speed, while melee has the advantage of strength. But historically, that is less accurate, as cavalry has dominated melee units in one to one battle.

 

[Medopu]

Buffing anti-cav as suggested above is obviously a first step, but not much likely to solve the problem because cavalry can just move around them

it would be nice to have horse archers that have more movement than cav and a small bonus range attacking against cav units.

The rest i agree with. If they don't make cavalry penalty vs. cities there should at least be a big cap on number of horsemen or a much larger production cost and resource cost or maintenance cost. There should also be some sort of a penalty for fighting in hill/jungle terrain, you know... based on common sense.

 

[DWilson]

*snip*

(FYI, I think you were quoting @Sostratus rather than me)

 

[criZp]

Swordmen gain more in % speed than horsemen.

That is because they have lower base movement, so that doesn't make them better

 

[Socrates99]

Hungary's courser UU, the Black Army has 47 strength. Which is nice, because in the first look it had 50!

Anyways, OP, unlike civ5, horseman (mounted units in general) don't have two key penalties that differentiated them from infantry units: there's no penalty against cities, and they still fully benefit from terrain defense bonus /fortify. Funnily enough, the city penalty wasn't in release civ5; it was added because it turned out a horse rush was virtually unstoppable because horses are strong and fast. They appear to have forgotten this.
However, they still have the higher base strength and movement they traditionally get. So now that the mounted unit lines have lost the worst gaps (coursers and cuirassiers) they are basically just better versions of melee units.

On the basis of the whole class, these two units have made mounted super viable. But on an individual unit level, they actually were even better in vanilla when the cavalry production card was +100%, and there was no pike and shot, and pikeman cost more than knights. IIRC mech infantry also had only 80 strength on release and it was patched to 85, could be remembering.
Heavy cav in particular is extremely abusive without those penalties chaining them down from civ5.

Just got done playing them. I knew I got that number from somewhere.

For me it's less about balancing melee v mounted and more about balancing horse and iron strategics. I've watched way too many LPs where people either rerolled or at least considered rerolling "no iron" starts. In my experience you often have at least one of the two early resources. The Coursers just give horse resource heavy civs a better chance to compete against iron civs.

 

[Zaimejs]

God like horses... it true.

Thanks for the information here. Civ people are the best at maths.