Should cavalry upgrade to Tanks?

[skywalker]

Cavalry to tanks? Are you nuts? As many have said, that's incredibly unbalancing, even (especially?) if you have extra links in the chain.

My solution is KISS: have them upgrade to infantry. No extra units needed.

 

[Ozymandias]

The u.s. military decommissioned thousands of horses when they considered them obsolete. They didn't disassemble them and use their parts to make armour divisions. I think upgrading to anything similar to a tank, anything mechanical from a horse-riding unit, is absurd.

However, i do think it's a good idea to have some more modern/industrial units to carry the utility of the horses unit over into later ages. Maybe a horse-borne guerilla unit or such.

Yes, but you still have a cadre of trained troops specializing in certain tactics, especially recon; these would certainly not be discarded along with the horses! (and, indeed, AFAIK, never have been, with the personnel either being reassigned or, often enough, kept together and upgraded to AFVs)

-Oz

 

[Abaddon]

personally i think anything upgrading sux

 

[Acronym2]

Historically, I believe upgrading a cavalry unit to an armored unit is correct. To take the pre-WWII German Army in example: most Panzer Regiments were created from Cavalry Regiments. However, the imbalance created when a 19th century cavalry unit is upgraded to the tank is significant. Perhaps an interim unit with an attack of 10. Some type of armored unit that might be the result of an early "Armored Vehicles/cars?" Tech. An Armored car unit might make sense as an interim unit. These where the first armored vehicles and where very much in use in various forms by WWI. Another way to go would be to simply use a WWI tank as the interm unit, but I think an early armored car would be much better way to transition cavalry to tanks.

 

[Gord the Rogue]

I always make my tanks from cavalry. Build in your capital of the barracks, armory, military academy, Alambra, Brandenburg gate, heroic epic, and then make your cavalry. They will get their healing promotions and then when you upgrade them to tanks you now have healing tanks. And then upgrade them to healing modern armor. And don’t forget to also get all eight promotions for your scouts, and then find an agent ruin to upgrade them to an archer. Your archer can now be upgraded all the way to a bazooka and when it’s eight promotions it has three movement, four visibility, heals 25 HP every round no matter what you do.

 

[Ozymandias]

@Gord the Rogue - Welcome to CFC!

You've made a good point - indeed, one which I like - but "bumping" threads more than a year or so old is generally viewed as unhelpful.

-z

 

[Civinator]

I always make my tanks from cavalry. Build in your capital of the barracks, armory, military academy, Alambra, Brandenburg gate, heroic epic, and then make your cavalry. They will get their healing promotions and then when you upgrade them to tanks you now have healing tanks. And then upgrade them to healing modern armor. And don’t forget to also get all eight promotions for your scouts, and then find an agent ruin to upgrade them to an archer. Your archer can now be upgraded all the way to a bazooka and when it’s eight promotions it has three movement, four visibility, heals 25 HP every round no matter what you do.

Unfortunately this seems to be a wrong post in the Civ 3 forums. 8 promotions for scouts and other units, 4 visability and healing 25 HP every round in Civ 3 ???

 

[timerover51]

Going back to the original poster, Cavalry to Tanks is one of those 50-50 things in my book. First, cavalry converted from horses to mechanization in about 20 years, a far shorter period of time than other upgrades. Some countries still used cavalry in World War 2, but those were special circumstances. Probably the biggest user of horsed cavalry in WW2 was the Soviet Union. That is the main reason that I do not upgrade the Cossack unit to a Tank. The British mechanized their cavalry units gradually prior to and during the war. The U.S. Army's First Cavalry division was dismounted and sent to the Southwest Pacific as infantry under Dug Out Doug. Essentially, it is a toss up. The Poles were still using Lancers at the start of WW2, along with a few tank units converted from Infantry. Either way would be correct.

 

[Ozymandias]

In the early days of the Vietnam War, the 7th Cavalry - Custer's old unit - was revived as a helicopter/infantry assault unit; this isn't a direct unit upgrade path, but I can see an argument for this.

I almost never play the unmodded game anymore, so I tend to upgrade Light Cavalry Units to Armored Cars, and Heavy Cavalry
to Tanks ...

@Gord the Rogue - See? We " " can make bad calls, every now and again.

-z

 

[tjs282]

At risk of adding to this mega-necro one of my aims in my own tweak-mod-in-progress was to de-populate the build-lists of inappropriate/ redundant/ obsolete units and buildings, especially in the late-game (Industrial era onwards).

I therefore have Cavs (+UUs) "Upgrade to: Light Tanks" at MotorTransport (A.D.M = 10.6.3, B.R.F = 8.0.1, 100s, needs Oil + Rubber; Radar, Blitz, Wheeled but ignores move-cost [=2] for Desert, Tundra and Floodplains*), but left the "Upgrade" unit-ability unchecked, to force the human player to build them from scratch, rather than stockpiling Cavs and then mass-upgrading**. If lacking one or both of the LT resource-requirements, Cavs can of course continue to be built.

I also find the one-dimensional "World-Domination by [Horse-unit]-Stack'o'Doom" strategy really tedious (and being on the wrong end of it even more so!). So all my Mounted/Wheeled/Tracked units have been nerfed relative to the stock-game:
— Maximum M=2 (UUs with M=3 got various stat-, terrain-movement, HP, and/or unit-ability buffs instead)
— Wheeled flag (if they didn't already have it), to keep them off unroaded high-defence terrain; exceptions for the "lightweight" Horse-UUs, (MWarriors, Keshiks, Ansars)
— On the grounds that mobile units should cost more per capita than foot-units, most M=2+ units get no bonus-HP, whereas "defensive"-flagged Foot-units all have +1HP from Muskets onwards, and +2HP from RepParts onwards (i.e. Mounted/Wheeled units have HP-nerfs relative*** to their era-equivalent foot-units)
— Default retreat-probabilities inverted, to make Regular units more likely to run away when redlined than Elite units

*'Proper' Tanks must (also) still be built from scratch, and have been made more expensive (120s; Modern Armor now cost 140s), and require Iron (yes, 3 resources in total!). I removed their Blitz-ability (Panzer still have it, but now also only M=2) — but gave them defensive-bombardment (B.R.F=12.0.1), in addition to their ZoC. The LT currently uses the Tank's art-files, but my intention is eventually to direct the PRTO entry to use the "Scout Tank"(?) files from the WWII Pacific scenario.
**Although the AI-Civs will still be able to upgrade Cavs —> LTs, that's not so much of an issue. Because once an AI-Civ has built a big Cav-stack, they tend to start the "Napoleonic Wars" of the pre-Industrial era — and once they learn RepParts, they tend to switch to building Infs or Guerillas as their preferred attack-units (= "WWI"!), because these defend better than Cavs. So by the time they learn MoterTransp, they generally won't have many Cavs left to upgrade...
***My basic "Ivory" [Strat Res]-requiring Elephant-unit — available to Carthage, Egypt, Zulus, India, Persia — has A.D.M=4.2.2 but gets an actual nerf of –1HP; WarEllies are A.D.M=5.2.2 and –1HP; all are Wheeled, but ignore move-costs of Marsh and Floodplains; and they can also build Roads and clear Forests/Jungle, faster than ordinary Workers

 

[Theov]

I have Cavalry upgrade to tanks in my mod, but there is a strong argument to be made that this is OP.
A runaway civ can just dominate the late Medieval Era and then with cash available easily continue this thoughout the game.
Does the AI upgrade its units in a smart way??
I am almost leaning against these upgrades, just to balance the game and to stop a runaway civ.

 

[Gord the Rogue]

In the early days of the Vietnam War, the 7th Cavalry - Custer's old unit - was revived as a helicopter/infantry assault unit; this isn't a direct unit upgrade path, but I can see an argument for this.

I almost never play the unmodded game anymore, so I tend to upgrade Light Cavalry Units to Armored Cars, and Heavy Cavalry
to Tanks ...

@Gord the Rogue - See? We " " can make bad calls, every now and again.

-z

Ha I didn’t realize this post was about Civ 3. But everyone should immediately play Civ V lol and get some super scouts and tanks going. Civ 3 is actually the only one I never played.

 

[Ozymandias]

Ha I didn’t realize this post was about Civ 3. But everyone should immediately play Civ V lol and get some super scouts and tanks going. Civ 3 is actually the only one I never played.

Horses be horses, and tanks be tanks.

After 24 years ( ; etc.) since its release, Civ 3 has remained my favorite (and, admittedly, changes in graphics style, lack of unit stacking, etc., does have something to do with this) but the modding possibilities now available with Civ 3 are what have definitively made it remain my favorite. A chap called Flintlock has somehow "hacked" his way into the game's .exe, with breathtaking effects. And the miracles Civinator has worked into his "CCM 2 Epic Mod" did (albeit differently) equally breathtaking work with the game, as is, turning it (arguably) into a "Civ3 2.0" or some such.

 

[timerover51]

Ha I didn’t realize this post was about Civ 3. But everyone should immediately play Civ V lol and get some super scouts and tanks going. Civ 3 is actually the only one I never played.

I have tried Civ4, and based on that experience, I will definitely stick with Civ3. Each one is entitled to his or her own opinion. That is mine.

 

[Civinator]

If you want to discuss Civ 3 compared to Civ 4, 5 and 6 in a polite not agressive style, here is a good place for it: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/why-are-you-playing-civ-3-after-all-these-years.676431/

 

[Gord the Rogue]

I have tried Civ4, and based on that experience, I will definitely stick with Civ3. Each one is entitled to his or her own opinion. That is mine.

Well I was talking about Civ V, not Civ IV. I do like from civilization IV that you can attach settlers to fighting units and have them be escorted.

 

[Quintillus]

It probably depends on the timescale of the game. On the epic game time scale, the answer is likely "yes" - the transition was only a few decades, after all, and conceptually that's the continuation.

Thinking about it at a shorter time scale, one of the main arguments for "no" would be that it takes a lot of industrial production to build a battalion of tanks. You don't just need new firearms or new shields, you need whole new assembly lines. This is essentially the same argument as to why a Frigate shouldn't upgrade to a Destroyer.

I tend to buy that "things that fundamentally had to be rebuilt shouldn't upgrade", in part due to the logic of it, and in part because it means the transition is more gradual. Think about what happens when a civ mass-upgrades horsemen to knights, and then imagine that happening with tanks; whoever got Tanks first would have a humungous first-mover advantage, even beyond what it was historically.

In the early days of the Vietnam War, the 7th Cavalry - Custer's old unit - was revived as a helicopter/infantry assault unit; this isn't a direct unit upgrade path, but I can see an argument for this.

Ah yes, the Air Cavalry. I watched We Were Soldiers last year, about that unit. Certainly an interesting idea for a cavalry upgrade. Wonder how it would work in-game? Maybe something like a 12/10/4 A/D/M unit? Not as powerful as a Tank on the offensive but able to reach deep into enemy territory? Or 12/10/2 but treats all terrain as roads, a sort of super-Conquistador unit?

Ha I didn’t realize this post was about Civ 3. But everyone should immediately play Civ V lol and get some super scouts and tanks going. Civ 3 is actually the only one I never played.

I'm curious, did you come across this thread via the "Similar threads" feature or some other way? Much debate has been had about that feature and whether it's a good thing that it suggests threads from other Civ iterations, or not.

I've tried Civ V, wasn't my cup of tea. The lack of unit stacking and the poor AI (compared to III and IV) were key differences for me. Civ3 regularly goes on sale for $1.24 (US), it's a very low-risk Civ game to try from a financial standpoint!

 

[Ozymandias]

Ah yes, the Air Cavalry. I watched We Were Soldiers last year, about that unit. Certainly an interesting idea for a cavalry upgrade. Wonder how it would work in-game? Maybe something like a 12/10/4 A/D/M unit? Not as powerful as a Tank on the offensive but able to reach deep into enemy territory? Or 12/10/2 but treats all terrain as roads, a sort of super-Conquistador unit?

A fine film. I think 12/10/4 A/D/M sounds about right, with a bunch of "Ignore Terrain Costs" thrown in.

My full thinking would be a horseback line, perhaps ending in a "Modern Cavalry" Unit (late 19th Century repeating rifles?) to Armored Car to Air Cav. Another line (probably from a recon infantry line of some sort) to modern - 6x6? - land units as well.

 

[Takhisis]

Four movement points? What monstrosity is this?

 

[Brenshar]

Going back to the original poster, Cavalry to Tanks is one of those 50-50 things in my book. First, cavalry converted from horses to mechanization in about 20 years, a far shorter period of time than other upgrades. Some countries still used cavalry in World War 2, but those were special circumstances. Probably the biggest user of horsed cavalry in WW2 was the Soviet Union. That is the main reason that I do not upgrade the Cossack unit to a Tank. The British mechanized their cavalry units gradually prior to and during the war. The U.S. Army's First Cavalry division was dismounted and sent to the Southwest Pacific as infantry under Dug Out Doug. Essentially, it is a toss up. The Poles were still using Lancers at the start of WW2, along with a few tank units converted from Infantry. Either way would be correct.

A nitpick, Polish cavalry doctrinally abandonned lances about a year before 1939 probably the result of reorienting strategically from the USSR towards Germany. Cavalry units to this goal were planned to be modernized into 4 motorized/mechanized units with light tanks (1 was completed and another partially, but both with only a single tank company), while the remaining brigades were to be become semi-motorized but retaining their mounted-infantry/saber-cavalry combat regiments.

I've made it so cavalry upgrade to light tanks using the M3 graphics from the war in the pacific scenario, a 9/6/3 unit that requires rubber (alternatively, just oil), and those upgrade into tanks which are more resource intensive (also requiring iron).