Impi upgrades -- Does the party go on?

[oldboy69]

How dare they make something historically inaccurate in a game that specifically tells you it is not historically accurate when you start it up?

The worst offender is obviously George Washington. Do the devs really expect us to believe he was alive and healthy during the ancient era?! They must take us for morons!

so no america what so ever then and half of the actual civ too they dont take us for moron just try to make most people happy and im sure lot of people are happy to play with america (USA) or other civ wich wasnt in ancient era this is a game not an history book go read an document yourself is you want to that game is made for fun mostly no education purpose
I enjoy nuke civ with mayan but they never discovored it so what....
If you beleive george washinton was healthy during ancient era yes you a moron but actually to just think the developper try to make you think is being stupid
By the way almost all leader are not from ancient era
Could you put 43 leader from ancient era i dont think so
Is nice to complaint about nothing at least try to propose a better solution then...

 

[MKDELTA3]

I wouldn't be surprised if Impis were a Rifleman replacement, weren't they a creation of Shaka's military reforms, who ruled in 19th century?

Shaka was actually familiar with firearms as he had contact with europeans at the time. But he rejected them because he was sure that his soldiers would be able to outflank and overwhelm riflemen before they could do any significant damage. After all his melee-oriented warriors had triumphed over other nearby tribes/kingdoms who relied on troops using throwing spears.

I think Impis are fine as a Pikeman replacements and their unique upgrades fit the style of warfare Shaka waged with them.

 

[Vitruvius]

Impis are fine but civil service is too early in the game and Shaka rushes it. Impis completely dominate other units in that era, even the strongest melee infantry that comes around that time, the legion, is no match. Composite bows cant hurt them, and their high mobility means they can rotate injured units effectively. Only when crossbows and longswords can then impis be countered, but they are alot further down the tech tree. I think this is a huge balance issue.

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[Socratatus]

Shaka was actually familiar with firearms as he had contact with europeans at the time. But he rejected them because he was sure that his soldiers would be able to outflank and overwhelm riflemen before they could do any significant damage.

Don`t ya just love these guys who completely failed to see just what a massive advantage a certain weapon is.

`Nah. Forget guns, our men with spears can beat them easily!`

Maybe Africa would be a world leader powerhouse by now if Shaka had adapted them instead of sucking up to europe and America. Just gets me how Africa blew its entire huge potential power to colonials. Oh well.

 

[joshua43214]

Don`t ya just love these guys who completely failed to see just what a massive advantage a certain weapon is.

`Nah. Forget guns, our men with spears can beat them easily!`

Maybe Africa would be a world leader powerhouse by now if Shaka had adapted them instead of sucking up to europe and America. Just gets me how Africa blew its entire huge potential power to colonials. Oh well.

And what, pray tell, was America doing in the Zulu nation in 1825? Please explain how defending your nation from England is sucking up to Europe? The Zulu was the only African nation that gave the European colonialists a run for their money. He was dead right about spearmen decimating musketmen, artillery is what killed his armies. Muskets at that time fired a big, very inaccurate, slow moving ball that would be easily stopped by a rib, and easy to dodge if you are willing to hit the dirt when you see the smoke or hear the report (the ball was slower than the speed of sound). Guns did not become more deadly than archers until the advent of smokeless powder in the 1890's, musketmen where easier to train which is why they where used. Shaka made plenty of mistakes, but sucking up to the "evil" west was not one of them.

OT, I love Impi, and they keep all the awesome cover and flanking bonus when they upgrade - they make first class riflemen

 

[Babri]

so no america what so ever then and half of the actual civ too they dont take us for moron just try to make most people happy and im sure lot of people are happy to play with america (USA) or other civ wich wasnt in ancient era this is a game not an history book go read an document yourself is you want to that game is made for fun mostly no education purpose
I enjoy nuke civ with mayan but they never discovored it so what....
If you beleive george washinton was healthy during ancient era yes you a moron but actually to just think the developper try to make you think is being stupid
By the way almost all leader are not from ancient era
Could you put 43 leader from ancient era i dont think so
Is nice to complaint about nothing at least try to propose a better solution then...

Did you realised that the post you were quoting was posted as sarcasm.

 

[MantaRevan]

It's kinda funny to think that firaxis is well aware of how rubbish the pikeman upgrade path is, so impis upgrading to rifles is a big bonus.

 

[Vitruvius]

I kind of like the lancer upgrades. Its nice to have some mobility around considering i dont usually make knights. I think the problem is horses and tanks are not particularly more powerful over their contemporary infantry that these anti horse/tank units are rather redundant.

 

[dopingman]

So I decided to give big bad Shaka a try and behold, Impis are awesome, especially if they are Inf/Mech Inf with 4 promotions.

Playing peaceful *snigger* game as Shaka on Pangea/Standart/Epic/Emperor up until the point I meet Alex (I hate him, oh I hate him so much), so I can throw out diplo and science victory as long as he is in game. Thank god I had a salt start with ~6 pieces in the first 2 cities and the Great Barrier Reef I snatched before the Austrians could get it. So I was rich. Filthy, filthy rich up until middle ages and capitalizing on it I built a nice 4 city empire watching Bismark and Alex slug it out for a while whilst Bismark is gaining a solid tech lead and Alex bought up EVERY SINGLE CS AGAIN! Pumping out the techs and parts for science victory is oh so annyoing when Alex has every CS with 100+ influence in its pocket and only 20 turns untill world leaders are elected (I just remembered I could vote against him to stop his election... d'oh. didn't play for quite a time). So they were both pretty decent players in the industrial era where I usually start to hit the sweet spot and pull away.

Anyways, this being my 2nd or 3rd BNW match I wanted to test the Impis and Ikanda UB, so classic approach for science victory with researching the upper part of the tree with a small detour to grab Steel. Yes, Steel. Why? So I can build armories and get double promoted Impis with the Ikanda promotions and dam son, those are great. I also manage to snatch Alhambra, lucky me. O how I underestimated the value of it... Shortly before being forced to research gunpowder I crank out 8 Impis and then go on to get plastics for bulb fest. Yadda yadda, flight, GWB, yadda yadda, upgrade Impis to Infantry (I was rich, remember?) and start to pick up a fight.

First stop, Austria, Vienna and Maria Theresia being a little bit behind in tech I let my Inf stand in the rain. Literally, they eat ranged and melee attacks like there's no tomorrow but Rifles and the occasional GWI are not even a close match for Infantry so no big deal. Then they start to earn promotions and seeing the "Cover" promotion I start to get suspicious (I had Drill I from Alhambra, so Cover after promoting to Drill II available). Question is: What happens if I stack them?? So the stack fest begins. In the end I had Mech Inf with 96% additional resistance to ranged attacks (Buffalo I/II/III and Cover I/II), stacked with +20% dug in def bonus, +15% GG bonus and another +55% (Drill I/II and hill def bonus) when parked in rough terrain. That's a whopping 186% more strength or 257.4 strength on Mech Inf. I also found out a city always deals 10 damage on its ranged attack no matter how high your def is and those Mech Inf could tank 150+ strength cities all day long (with Siege, adds another +50% against cities). Took like 11 damage per turn and healing it in the next thanks to Medic I. Nedless to say I won a dom vic in the end after having practically immortal Mech Inf which could force their way into 100 strength cities with melee attacks. Bomber support was just the icing on the cake in the end. Fun game, played for the lulz and I had a good few of them.

The soldier and his guard with the most XP and he was one out of eight with a similar XP level. It was glorious.

 

[Redaxe]

Impis are fine but civil service is too early in the game and Shaka rushes it. Impis completely dominate other units in that era, even the strongest melee infantry that comes around that time, the legion, is no match. Composite bows cant hurt them, and their high mobility means they can rotate injured units effectively. Only when crossbows and longswords can then impis be countered, but they are alot further down the tech tree. I think this is a huge balance issue.

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One thing I wish Civ 5 could do was give you more of a choice between cheaper/expendable and expensive/elite units. I think Pikemen should be a more professional late medieval/renaissance soldier that fights alongside musketmen, cannons and knights.

Pikemen could be moved to and unlocked in a later tech such as Chivalry or Steel. For Civil Service perhaps a "man-at-arms" unit would be the late classical-middle age soldier that represents armies from the era where the Roman Empire had collapsed and the hardened, professional well equipped soldiers like the Legion were replaced by cheap, expendable peasant armies. This creates a distinction between the elite soldiers like swordsmen, legions and hoplites and the cheaper more replaceable civilian soldiers unlocked by Civil Service.

I'd give the Man-at-arms the following stats
Combat strength: 13
Hammer cost: 45
Notes: Maximum unit upkeep cost of 1 (regardless of era)
upgrades to musketman (loses maintenance reduction)

The main advantage of this unit is it is cheap and requires no special resources (it's only a bit more expensive than the warrior) although it has no bonus to cavalry so they are about on par with spearmen but weaker than Hoplites and swordsmen. This way you can easily and quickly field a massive army.
But if your empire and economy are both powerful than you can ignore these units and stick with the better swordsmen unit until you get steel and gunpowder units.

 

[Vitruvius]

To add on top of that, i would love to see the whole unit maintenance thing reworked so it scales with hammer cost.

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