Is Weapon Upgrade from Ancient Ruins a bit overpowered and unrealistic?

[ColinTH]

You're referring to picking the "reseed random number generator" advanced option and reloading until you get what you want, right?

I agree it's human nature. (And yeah, I've done it.) However, you can only get about one upgrade per every three ruins even with reloading. There's some sort of "cycling" count kept.

No, (I wouldn't use the reseed random number generator), but if you reload after an unsatisfying ruins and wait one turn, then you more often than not get a different outcome.

One upgrade every three turns, that's interesting, so if you had seven ruins in (your area) and you had the patience you could get three upgrades?

I seem to remember in civ4, scouts had a better chance of something good from a then (goody hut)! Perhaps they could implement something similar?

 

[ColinTH]

I havn't tried this on Immortal/Deity, but I used to play as England on Archipelago with raging barbarians. Now just because I could do this, why not! Research to optics ASAP, have a trireme and a scout along with your original warrior, leave your shores in unison with the trireme leading the way. Find a barbarian camp and allow your scout to take the final kill, do this over and over taking first the sight promotion then the movement promotion. Enter a ruins and become an archer, escort back to base, pick up another scout, and do the same again. While all this is going on, head towards machiery, when researched, upgrade to longbowmen. Now you have two longbowmen with extra sight, extra movement and extra range (not to mention Englands extra embarked movement). If you can find some iron to upgrade your warrior/s, the world is your oyster!

Like I said earlier, we will do what ever it takes to gain the upper hand, and some of us have patience! Why on earth would we accept the result of a prized ruins that gives you a map of the surrounding area that you have discovered previously (in my case it is nearly allways the case, because of Englands extra movement and the fact that I take a mini army with me)?

I am sure that I am not the only one who can't resist the reload, wait a turn and then re-enter the ruins sickness! My answer is to turn them off to save myself from my own msigivings!

I think ruins should give -
1 - gold as is.
2 - culture as is.
3 - Never a map that include 75% allready charted area, give us something else instead, (we know the AI allredy know where every resource is)!
4 - Barbarian camps as is, except if you have researched honor (maybe this is the case as is).
5 - Only the first horizontal line of techs, eg not writing or bronze working.
6 - No unit upgrades unless you have researched the tech (as mentioned).
7 - City expansion as is. (I love this one).

 

[Callonia]

the weapon upgrades is perfectly fine, i used to conquer the world with modern armor and mech infantry in classical era. Such puny spear men against my live breathing dragons hehehehe.

 

[ColinTH]

the weapon upgrades is perfectly fine, i used to conquer the world with modern armor and mech infantry in classical era. Such puny spear men against my live breathing dragons hehehehe.

Whatever pleases you most, if you have the options then why not use them! My grand children liked to play the game your way, but that was pre october patch, after the said patch they both stopped playing. They are seven and twelve years old!! You could say the patch "ruined" their fun!!

 

[Randall Turner]

Colin, having those upgraded scouts isn't much of a big deal if they can't upgrade further. ie, what you describe is perfectly fine. (A really mobile longbowman.)

Limiting the goody-hut weapon upgrade on most maps to already researched tech, specifically archery, is a bit limiting. The AI snaps up almost all the ruins, the buggers. Getting one scout->bowman is just good fun. And I don't really think of "archery" as all that esoteric. It was the subsequent upgrades (ie, rifleman etc.) that unbalanced things - when they fixed that, they fixed the problem.

Go ahead and have fun with your one or two uber-fast-bowmen, don't feel guilty.

And yeah - finding one of those "outlier" ruins when you're in Medieval period, I'll specifically find a scout (leveled up to +1 speed) to run over there and trigger the ruin, hoping for a Ranger or Commando-type unit. But by then you've got Archery anyway.

 

[Callonia]

Whatever pleases you most, if you have the options then why not use them! My grand children liked to play the game your way, but that was pre october patch, after the said patch they both stopped playing. They are seven and twelve years old!! You could say the patch "ruined" their fun!!

lol, it was fun the first time but not after 2nd time xD

I actually prefer having scout archers, they're just so darn fun to use. Plus, most of times you'll tend to have just one or none. Never had two scouting archers, I haven't been that lucky enough yet.

 

[ColinTH]

Colin, having those upgraded scouts isn't much of a big deal if they can't upgrade further. ie, what you describe is perfectly fine. (A really mobile longbowman.).

If you play on Marathon game speed, those fast moving far seeing Longbowmen supported by longswords are game winners, you have plenty of time to puppet a few cities. Once you get them up to double shots you have a serious medievil period war machine. They are still useful even against riflemen, because with good positioning they won't get caught (and of course they can run through forests and over hills, because they were once scouts).

Anyway, I agree with the op, and as a consequence I don't use ruins.

 

[thadian]

think ruins should give -
1 - gold as is.
2 - culture as is.
3 - Never a map that include 75% allready charted area, give us something else instead, (we know the AI allredy know where every resource is)!
4 - Barbarian camps as is, except if you have researched honor (maybe this is the case as is).
5 - Only the first horizontal line of techs, eg not writing or bronze working.
6 - No unit upgrades unless you have researched the tech (as mentioned).
7 - City expansion as is. (I love this one).

I agree with all of this, except i would almost rather have a choice than an uncontrolled dice roll. maybe present 3 options on a list and let me choose. also, i hate it when my units are sideways-graded. when my warrior becomes a spearman i have to pay more for a swordsman.

 

[turtlefang]

I usually get one or, at most, two weapons upgrades a game. If I'm lucky, one of them is a scout upgraded to an archer. Usually, its a warrior upgraded to a spearman since that what has a higher likelihood of finding a hut.

I don't find this very unbalancing (and I much prefer the scout to archer upgrade).

The only one I don't like is the map - it usually just shows most of an area that I have already explored. But its the luck of the draw.

 

[Randall Turner]

If you play on Marathon game speed, those fast moving far seeing Longbowmen supported by longswords are game winners, you have plenty of time to puppet a few cities. Once you get them up to double shots you have a serious medievil period war machine. They are still useful even against riflemen, because with good positioning they won't get caught (and of course they can run through forests and over hills, because they were once scouts).

Anyway, I agree with the op, and as a consequence I don't use ruins.

Oddly enough, the only time I played England at Marathon settings was on an Archipelago map, and it was before they fixed this bug - I did encounter the OP's problem, had a couple of upgraded riflemen-scouts. They were too strong.

But it sounds to me like you just have a good army setup. The key is that you need to support the bowmen with swordsmen for anything serious (though they're great barbarian busters) - to me, it's only a problem when you can start sending the upgraded units out to take cities solo. But, I never leveled my scout-longbowmen up as much as you did. <shrug> No stress.

 

[eric_]

I think it's feasible that an exploring unit would find a bow and arrows, a spear, etc. It's a little less believable when it comes to guns, unless there are already civs in the game that have discovered gunpowder, since manufacturing guns requires more refinement than creating a spear or even a sword.

Maybe that prereq should be tied in with ruins upgrades: someone on your continent has to have discovered the prerequisite tech.

 

[Helmling]

Unrealistic, yes, but hardly overpowered. Unless you are Greece or Persia, getting a spearmen is a negligible upgrade. In fact it hurts you if you were going for a swordsmen/longsword as you just had to replace that sword/longsword with a spear/pike. Maybe if it came in the early industrial after you'd just bulbed infantry, and got a mech, it would be overpowered, but it's rare to find a ruin that late in the game.

IMO getting a tech, 30 culture, and pop are all more game changing then getting a unit upgrade in the early stages of the game. Gold can be too if you turn it into a RA or something.

That 30 culture is a killer. I've quit games after depleting ruins without finding one of those. But then I'm a big baby and I quit all the time anyway.

 

[ColinTH]

When I play archipelago sometimes you are lucky enough to find a ruins tucked away near the ice also with a barbarian hut, it can be guarded by a single trireme which stays put until it gets double sea promotion (bombarding barbarians), replace, same again over and over, until you reach your Navy size that you require. In the mean time you have been researching steel, enter the ruins with your LS now you have a rifleman, you can't tell me that it's not game changing, a rifleman up against muskets at best, in human hands he is almost a superhero, because he will be supported by other troops and a navy! I can't help myself from doing these things, so to say it is the AI that get the advantage with ruins is incorrect on certain map types.

Like I have said previosly in this thread if if you don't use radom seed, if you try and fail, wait one turn and try again, eventually we humans will get what we want.

If I find such a ruins whilst playing archipelago as the English, whatever plans I had at the outset change to domination, it is a huge logistical undertaking but definately achieveable even on Deity and all because of a rifleman way ahead of it's time.

 

[ReesesPieces]

IMO, Weapons Upgrade from Ancient Ruins is unrealistic and a bit unbalanced. I think it should be changed, so:

• It maintains the current behaviour only if you have the required technology. For example, a warrior would be upgraded to spearman only if you have researched Bronze Working.
• The unit receives extra XP if you don't have the required technology. A warrior would receive extra XP instead of being upgraded to spearman if you haven't researched Bronze Working.

One of my most easiest games was the one in which I was playing with the mongols. I remember being in the middle age with 2 cavalries, due to keshik being promoted through ancient ruins weapon upgrade. As you can imagine, enemy cities were falling very quickly, thanks to cavalry/keshik/khan extra mobility and cavalry strength (instead of horseman).

My spearmen got boosted to pikemen no less than 50 turns in, I didn't pay it much mind, until I reached the point where you research the tech that unlocks Pikemen normally, that is when I realized how big of a boost it was.

 

[Guerrilla]

I found it amusing when my medieval unit entered a ruin during the medieval Era and was upgraded to an anti-tank gun unit.

I found it off-putting at first, but then I explained it to myself as being from some ancient advanced civilisation, like those stories about Atlantis or "Ancient Aliens".

 

[Equilin]

Just played YnaEMP as Attila two days ago.
Got nearly 10 ruins total.
2 of them are battering rams.......
Europe was rekted.

 

[noto2]

Weapons upgrades can be quite ridiculous sometimes, but these situations are rare. Getting a Pictish warrior or Hoplite on T5 is very powerful, though not game-breaking. But I've had games where I have a pikeman before T20 because of two weapons upgrade huts in a row. Still, even in a case like that, there's not a whole lot I can do with one pikeman other than clear barb huts. On his own he's not really a threat to anyone.

 

[miaasma]

people expect realism in civ games?

 

[beetle]

But I've had games where I have a pikeman before T20 because of two weapons upgrade huts in a row.

Was that a while ago? Supposedly they patched it out so that a scarcher will not upgrade to XB.

 

[noto2]

Yeah, probably a long time ago. I distinctly remember an Alexander game where I got a Hoplite from a ruin, which made me happy, and then it promptly turned into a pikeman from another ruin. You'd think that would be a game-breaking stroke of luck, but really, it hard barely any impact at all. All it meant is I had a good barb hut busting unit.