UU / UB changes

[Swarbs]

It seems that a lot of the UUs and UBs in the game are either not very valuable in terms of helping a civ achieve its goal, or are simply not accessible due to tech requirements. This thread is to discuss which ones may need replacing or improvement, and how they can be improved.

My thoughts to date are:

Antigonid Peltasts
Problem: Not particularly useful, as they cost the same as javelinmen, but only have an advantage when attacking heavy spearmen, which is not particularly useful as they will only just match them for strength.
Solution: Remove bonus attacking heavy spearmen, increase strength to 4, increase withdrawal chance to 40%. Now they are just as strong attaching and defending against legions and phalangites, and can be used as proper skirmishers

Celtic Dun
Problem: Guerilla I is not a very valuable or useful promotion for the Celts. Certainly not worth delaying the production of Gallic warriors to invade Rome.
Solution: +2 culture instead of Guerilla I promotion. Reflects Duns being specific to the Celtic culture, and helps achieve the 3rd UHV

Dacian Dava
Problem: Takes Dacia ages to research, and not useful enough to justify focusing research that early.
Solution: Dava replaces Walls. 75% defence, +25% defence against Espionage and can expose spies in nearby tiles.

Byzantine Heavy Cataphract
Problem: Takes ages to research and is ahistorical (Nicephorus II didn't become Emperor until 969AD, so Heavy Cataphracts are out of the scope of this mod).
Solution: New Byzantine UU: Comitatenses. Replaces Heavy Swordsman so requires only one tech to be researched. 2 First Strikes, +50% vs Melee Units. Reflects the heavy legions which dominated the early Byzantine army up until the Thematic reforms in the 7th century

 

[srpt]

those are all great ideas. any others?

 

[merijn_v1]

Celtic Dun
Problem: Guerilla I is not a very valuable or useful promotion for the Celts. Certainly not worth delaying the production of Gallic warriors to invade Rome.
Solution: +2 culture instead of Guerilla I promotion. Reflects Duns being specific to the Celtic culture, and helps achieve the 3rd UHV

I agree this UB isn't very useful. But I don't like your solution, as it is exactly the same as their UP.
So this needs another bonus for the Dun or another UP.


A suggestion for a new UP:
Power of Warrior Culture
Units have a more deverse promotion pool

Explanation:
Not all promotions are available to all units. Melee units can't be promoted with the guerilla and drill promotion lines, Archery units can't have the Woodsman promotion line, Mounted units can have the Cover promotion etc. The Celtic UP opens up some of these promotion lines.
If overpowered, the UP can be limited to some certain unit cathegories. (e.g. only melee units)

 

[Swarbs]

I agree this UB isn't very useful. But I don't like your solution, as it is exactly the same as their UP.
So this needs another bonus for the Dun or another UP.


A suggestion for a new UP:
Power of Warrior Culture
Units have a more deverse promotion pool

Explanation:
Not all promotions are available to all units. Melee units can't be promoted with the guerilla and drill promotion lines, Archery units can't have the Woodsman promotion line, Mounted units can have the Cover promotion etc. The Celtic UP opens up some of these promotion lines.
If overpowered, the UP can be limited to some certain unit cathegories. (e.g. only melee units)

Good point. The UP is also OP imo - it just encourages you to capture or found useless cities, as even without hammers you can still get culture from them.

So yes, I agree we should change the Dun to give +2 culture and lose the culture UHV. The promotion UP sounds quite good - I relied heavily on Gallic Warriors, and the ability to give them City Garrison promotions would be quite useful. Could also be useful to get City Attack promoted chariots, to deal with any javelinmen the Romans have.

 

[Wessel V1]

I like the UB's benefit. Not because it is particulary useful, but for the double speed the Guerilla II promotion gives. Also, in previous versions the AI liked to suicide an entire stack by entering a forested hill next to a river. In that case the Guerilla I is actually useful.

 

[srpt]

lets try this and see how it goes:

Dun: Walls with 2 culture

UP: all units have access to Guerilla and Woodsman

the UP needs DLL work so it will have to wait til I'm home again tomorrow.

 

[Jusos2108]

Antigonid Peltasts
Problem: Not particularly useful, as they cost the same as javelinmen, but only have an advantage when attacking heavy spearmen, which is not particularly useful as they will only just match them for strength.
Solution: Remove bonus attacking heavy spearmen, increase strength to 4, increase withdrawal chance to 40%. Now they are just as strong attaching and defending against legions and phalangites, and can be used as proper skirmishers

Wow, we must be playing a different game, because I think that the Peltast is extremely useful especially against Roman conquerors and also prevail in the east and can easily take a Seleucid city with phalangite garrison. It is also cheap. In my Antigonid game Roman conquerors spawned at my garrisonless Athens quite early and took it. I built peltasts everywhere and sailed a stack of them + few Heavy Spearmen to recapture Athens while another stack closed in on Pella, which I let the Romans take, from Byzantion. I sat my troops on the forested hills close to Pella and attacked them with peltasts once I had enough. I think I lost 2-3 peltasts while taking down down a Roman stack of 8 legions and 2 catapults.

 

[Swarbs]

Wow, we must be playing a different game, because I think that the Peltast is extremely useful especially against Roman conquerors and also prevail in the east and can easily take a Seleucid city with phalangite garrison. It is also cheap. In my Antigonid game Roman conquerors spawned at my garrisonless Athens quite early and took it. I built peltasts everywhere and sailed a stack of them + few Heavy Spearmen to recapture Athens while another stack closed in on Pella, which I let the Romans take, from Byzantion. I sat my troops on the forested hills close to Pella and attacked them with peltasts once I had enough. I think I lost 2-3 peltasts while taking down down a Roman stack of 8 legions and 2 catapults.

Are you playing Monarch or Emperor? You must have been very lucky to only lose 2-3 peltasts whilst taking down 8 legions with strength 6 vs 6 and them having a first strike. Not to mention lucky that the Romans spawned at Athens and not in Anatolia.

 

[srpt]

I also find the Peltasts useful. I've increased their withdrawal chance in the new version.