Ranged units need a nerf

[Rebel Fighter]

Anyone else think that the ranged units need a nerf (like, weaker so melee units can kill them easier)? Right now, it seems pointless to get Swordsmen over Composite Bowmen, for example (except to secure the capture of a city).

 

[Snuffleupagus]

I continue to think that artillery desparately need a nerf, but that said,

I think just lowering combat str would hurt the AI way more than human players, and screw up balance. The AI has a much harder time protecting its ranged units from attack, whereas humans are pretty good at positioning.

personally I wonder if consecutive ranged attacks should just have diminishing returns. So you can't just rely 100% on raining arrows ona single target forever. This also seems to have a certain amount of accuracy, as hunkering down against attack (arrows or artillery) could increase defense to consecutive attacks. This could require the occasional melee attack to reset the ranged damage.

 

[I_qua_I]

There's a lot of threads going on about this currently. I'd like to see them changed somehow. Making them much easier to pluck off the map with non-ranged units might be the answer. There's been some other seemingly reasonable proposals as well. I'd do a quick search of the forums and check them out if I were you.

 

[Dissonance]

From one side, I do agree that ranged units become very powerful at certain parts in the game.

On the other hand, combined arms are where it's at.

Also, remember that ranged units are in fact weaker and suffere greatly to cavalry.

 

[BroOfTheSun]

Yes, they need something to nerf their offensive ability. How about something where when a unit is bombarded by a ranged unit, every other ranged attack on that unit has it's damage reduced. This way, it forces ranged units to spread damage, and prevents you from just killing units easily by bombarding them with 3-4 ranged units.

The purpose of this change is to use ranged units to soften up troops, then bring in melee to finish them off. Melee units have more use with this change.

 

[Teholb]

If I have to conduct war in an age that the AI has airplanes available, it's forget it or it. I've never been great with military campaigns, but I really suffer after airplanes hit the field.

Those are the only ranged units I can't stand (though I'll use them to my benefit . . . lol).


Perhaps Rocket Artillery make blitzing a city slightly too easy, but at that point in the game, I think it's justified. At all other points I can deal with the ranged because it has specific penalties. Move and set up to fire, two-tile range, can't fire over hills, etc.

 

[Matjillam]

Also, remember that ranged units are in fact weaker and suffere greatly to cavalry.

No, they really don't

Well, perhaps in an open field, crossbows lose to knights.

But in most circumstances, X-bows will just win over the knights.

Because of the range, crossbows can pick a good position and stay there defensively, where as knights has to be aggressive unless they want to be shot to death.

Crossbow on hills or forest = 16,25 str

Knight = 18

So Knights only deal a little more dmg after a fight. But then the X-bows shoot.....

Even in a straight up fight, if crossbows have ANY position advantage (easy to get with ranged units), they win

SO yeah, to me ranged units REALLY needs a nerf.

Try playing MP, attack that other players army of crossbows with your equal number of knights. You lose....

 

[mabalogna]

Give Cavalry a significant attack bonus against range types
Give Armor a bonus against Artillery/Machine gun

now AI will steam roll humans who build 6 archers and 1 spear - balance acheived?

 

[Matjillam]

Give Cavalry a significant attack bonus against range types
Give Armor a bonus against Artillery/Machine gun

now AI will steam roll humans who build 6 archers and 1 spear - balance acheived?

Nahr, I still just think ranged units should have a minor tweak to their combat strengh

Being able to fight toe-to-toe with allmost any equal age melee fighters is just plain stupid.

Your horsemen should wreak havoc to those composite bowmen if they were able to reach them

 

[Dissonance]

That's practically what I was thinking. Cavarly specializing in defeating ranged units makes sense to me.

Give Cavalry a significant attack bonus against range types
Give Armor a bonus against Artillery/Machine gun

now AI will steam roll humans who build 6 archers and 1 spear - balance acheived?

 

[steveg700]

This is a long, onerous bone of contention that weaves in and out of gripes about other units, including (but not limited to): swordsmen simply being weak pikemen, longswordsmen having the lifespan of a mayfly, pre-artillery siege units dying in one round before they can actually siege, post-artillery siege units being able to obliterate strongest cities in a single turn, and how profoundly stupid it is to field horsemen and knights in a spear-and-pike-filled world.

I have long advocated several changes to the game.

First, the unit unlocked by Iron Working should be a "phalanx" or "testudo", which gets a defensive bonus against ranged attacks. The current iron unit simply has nothing going for it other than a slight, very temporary, strength edge.

Second, reduce the anti-mounted bonus that spearmen and pikemen receive. +50% and +100% is ridiculously over-the-top when the typical bonus ranges between +10-20%. They shouldn't even have the bonus on attack: the wall of pikes isn't for charging.

Third, do not allow ranged to inflict damage when they are engaged in melee. They don't do much, but since they have often already injured the melee units attacking them. Melee units shouldn't have to weather attacks reaching them, then take more damage in retaliation.

In summary, people need reasons to diversify, and the game right now hammers players over the head with disincentives. I'm not going to field a mounted unit just to be effortlessly killed by a resource-free pointy-stick unit. I'm not going to field swordsmen simply to walk into a hail of arrow fire.

Unfortunately, a lot of this is due to players who griped endlessly that it was unfair to have resource-intensive units be stronger than resource-free units, and basically argued that everybody should have equal access to all strategic resources. The dev's responded by whacking horse and iron units with the nerf bat. Hard.

 

[Kopiok]

First, the unit unlocked by Iron Working should be a "phalanx" or "testudo", which gets a defensive bonus against ranged attacks. The current iron unit simply has nothing going for it other than a slight, very temporary, strength edge.

Second, reduce the anti-mounted bonus that spearmen and pikemen receive. +50% and +100% is ridiculously over-the-top when the typical bonus ranges between +10-20%. They shouldn't even have the bonus on attack: the wall of pikes isn't for charging.

Third, do not allow ranged to inflict damage when they are engaged in melee. They don't do much, but since they have often already injured the melee units attacking them. Melee units shouldn't have to weather attacks reaching them, then take more damage in retaliation.

In summary, people need reasons to diversify, and the game right now hammers players over the head with disincentives. I'm not going to field a mounted unit just to be effortlessly killed by a resource-free pointy-stick unit. I'm not going to field swordsmen simply to walk into a hail of arrow fire.

I agree so much on what you want to change, but I might change things slightly differently.

1) I don't necessarily think the Iron unit should get a ranged attack damage reduction. That's what the Cover promotion is for. It's criminally underrated (or is it?). I think the Iron unit is actually just fine. The problem with it is Pikemen. They come so soon after and are superior in every way, including bonus vs. mounted. That superiority is the issue.

2) Instead of just reducing their attack bonus, completely re-balance their attack strength in general. Pikemen should not be stronger than Swordsmen. Their whole purpose should be dealing with Mounted units. They should have a lower attack strength overall, so Swordsmen still defeat them, and then given a decent % bonus vs. mounted so they still do better than Swordsmen vs. Knights. This will prevent them from being the obvious, superior choice for army make up and cause Knights to regain their effectiveness since armies' melee won't be virtually 100% pikes.

3) I completely agree with this and am somewhat surprised it doesn't work this way already. Ranged can already get superior terrain positioning, no retaliatory attack, as well as act as back line support. This would make it more important to have melee units protecting your ranged as opposed to having waves and waves of crossbowmen dominate.

 

[RealHuhn]

I always said that in G+K, ranged units were overpowered.

However, in BNW swordsmen are actually a very good unit, just because you get them earlier and finding iron is not a gamble anymore. This leads to well promoted longswords and musketmen. So they are more useful as well.

Combined arms seem to be the way to defend and attack now which feels just right.

 

[dexters]

Ranged units are what they are. Very useful under human control. Nerfing them does nothing as the human player will just build more, and shifts the balance even more towards bombers.

There's nothing wrong with having a unit that makes you go 'oh fudge ' and the AI and Human player correctly targets artillery units.

Also combined arms is where it's at. Fast moving units to flank, infantry to soak up enemy fire and artillery to support the whole thing.

 

[wilro85]

I will propose two potential implimentations of the same solution: ammunition for ranged units.

Option 1 (simple but kind of stupid): Everytime ranged units fire they take damage when they aren't in friendly territory. The damage should be small but noticable, probably 5 points per volley. Eventually they will run out of arrows/rocks/bullets/shells/etc and either have to return to friendly territory to quickly stock up on new ammo (via healing) or they will need to fortify and heal and "manufacture their own ammo" in the field.

Option 2 (elegant but harder to impliment): Ranged units (and possibly even gun powder melee units) will have an ammunition counter representing a finite number of attacks. This number will recharge quickly in friendly territory and will recharge slowly in neutral or enemy territory. To support long seiges the player will be able to construct "supply caravan" units that can travel back and forth from friendly territory to the battle line and deliver supplies (similar to the great admiral's heal function, but re-usable and mostly only affecting ammo). Different units would carry different amounts of ammo and there could be logistics and pack mule promotions to ensure units can do extended missions with minimal field support.

 

[Dai]

I agree so much on what you want to change, but I might change things slightly differently.

1) I don't necessarily think the Iron unit should get a ranged attack damage reduction. That's what the Cover promotion is for. It's criminally underrated (or is it?). I think the Iron unit is actually just fine. The problem with it is Pikemen. They come so soon after and are superior in every way, including bonus vs. mounted. That superiority is the issue.

Cover is potentially pretty nice, but I think it's overshadowed by the promise of the higher-end promotions that require sticking to Drill or Shock until they're unlocked. If the cover promotions unlocked the sexy high-level promotions, they might be a more appealing option, but that starts to set a weird precedent.

 

[Superwide]

nothing overpowered about ranged units at all. They can only stand a chance in forests, which is realistic.

 

[dexters]

nothing overpowered about ranged units at all. They can only stand a chance in forests, which is realistic.

They're also extremely hard to move around until you get roads under them.

Great wall + forested captial is a death trap of siege units.

 

[MadHaxxor]

they just need a city penalty, like in vanilla civ 5

 

[Falconiano]

No, people just need to l2p.
Cavalry eats rangeds for dinner.
So cavalry is OP too? No. Cavalry eats rangeds, rangeds eat melee.

Paper is not OP because it beats rock, since scissor can cut it easily.