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Unit Balance by Sostratus 1.0

A first release of a unit balance mod. In this v1.0 my intention is to make the smallest changes possible to have the largest impact possible. This means I did not add new modifiers, change unit classes, promotions, etc.
There will likely be another version of this where I go a little more experimental to solve the extant issues that this one cannot.

The folder should be unzipped and dropped into */Documents/MyGames/Sid Meier's Civilization VI/ Mods/

Overview:
In general units in civ6 follow a progression of +10 strength per era, starting at 25 in the ancient era, with the atomic and info eras being considered the same era.

Unit classes then have attributes that adjust them around that central trend line. After pondering the game for a long while, this is my view on what we have now, understanding they have made tweaks and exceptions:
Melee: generic unit, on trend. +10 Bonus vs Anticav
Anticav: generic unit, on trend, +10 Bonus vs Mounted
Light Cav: Fast unit. Strength generally below trend.
Heavy Cav: Fast unit. Strength above trend.
Ranged: Ranged strength 5 below trend; melee strength 15 below trend
Siege: Bombard Strength on trend, melee 12 below trend.
Recon: ??? Answer unclear, ask again later.

Naval Melee: Strength below trend
Naval Ranged: Ranged Strength near contemporary land units, Melee 10 below that.
Naval Raider: Ranged strength on trend, melee 10 below trend.

There are 3 notable exceptions. Units you start with, warriors and slingers, are 5 points below an ancient era unit. This is likely because they come turn 1 and are essentially "half an era" less advanced than other ancient era units. Archers sit between an ancient and classical unit. This is likely because they recognized that archers @ 20/10 simply could never compete in the classical.

Macro Description of My Changes:
There are some odd spots where this general behavior seems to have been deviated from. It is at these spots I also felt balance was worst. (It is likely to me that a lot of those choices were driven by the incredible paucity of units in vanilla.) In particular, as a group, almost all modern era units except the Heavy Cav are inexplicably 5 points lower than they should be. This drives a lot of problems.

So largely I took the rules for unit classes, formalized them, and applied them with a handful of exceptions.
Melee: On trend strength
Anticav: On trend Strength
Light Cav: Fast, on trend strength
Heavy Cav: Fast, +5 strength over trend (they were already 3-5.)
Ranged: Ranged 5 below trend, melee 15 below
Siege: Unchanged
Recon: what I did here was take the model of the Ranger unit and apply it backwards to skirmishers and forwards to spec ops. Ranged strength 5 below trend, Melee 20 below trend, 3 move. This is a bit experimental but it allows recon units to function as true skirmishers, since they can actually deal damage in combat. If you get Ambush, yes, these units will become much tougher - but only as strong as a melee unit of that era. And you have to really sink the promotions in to get there. I am not upset that a highly promoted special forces/ "navy seal" unit could take on an infantry unit in direct combat.
Naval Melee: On trend Strength
Naval Ranged: On trend ranged strength, melee 5-10 less than that.
Naval Raider: On trend ranged strength, melee 10 less than that.
With naval units, since the land units of the modern era got a power bump, naval melee and raider needed them too to stay competitive vs units and cities. Battleships were given +5 in both cases. Missile Cruisers got the stats of the nuke sub, which felt a little more justified since they use oil and nuke subs do not (in base game, nuke subs are as strong in ranged as a missile cruiser, as tough in melee as a destroyer, and resourceless. This seemed too strong.) This is an area to watch for future changes. Naval units don't see a lot of direct late game combat so it is hard to test them.

Notably I kept industrial era mounted both to the trend. There are very few industrial upgrades, so I didn't feel confident keeping heavy Cav at +5 for fear they would just bulldoze everything. Plus, hey, it can be time for light cav to shine!
I also notably adjusted spearman to 30. This is to allow it to actually survive in any way in the classical, so that pikes can be upgraded to. They get the archer treatment of straddling the two eras. It does make barb camps a bit tougher when you use warriors, though. It doesn't seem to have made much difference, nor does it seem to slow down the AI or CS barb clearing.
UUs with higher strength than normal in many cases, but not all, kept that bonus.

Detailed Changelog:
Ancient Era
  • Spearman, Hoplite to 30:c5strength:
  • Heavy Chariot to 30:c5strength:
Classical Era
  • Swordsmen, Ngao, Hypaspist, Toa to 35:c5strength:
  • Legion unchanged. Ave, true to caesar
  • Horsemen, Hetairoi to 35:c5strength:
  • Varu unchanged.
Medieval Era
  • Pikeman, Impi to 45:c5strength:
  • Knights, Mamluk to 50:c5strength:
  • Mandekalu to 51:c5strength:
  • Courser to 45:c5strength:
  • Black Army to 48:c5strength:
  • Berserker to 45:c5strength:
  • Samurai to 50:c5strength:
  • Skirmisher to 40:c5rangedstrength:/25:c5strength:.
  • Warak Unchanged.
Renaissance Era
-No changes
Industrial Era
  • Cavalry, Huszar to 65:c5strength:
  • Cossack remains 67:c5strength:
  • Cuirassier to 65:c5strength:
  • Rough Rider remains 67:c5strength:
  • Ironclad to 65:c5strength:
Modern Era
  • Infantry, Digger to 75:c5strength:
  • AT Crew to 75:c5strength:
  • Battleship to 75:c5rangedstrength:/65:c5strength:
Atomic Era
  • Machine Gun to 80:c5rangedstrength:/70:c5strength:
  • SpecOps to 80:c5rangedstrength:/65:c5strength:
  • Helicopter to 85:c5strength:
  • Destroyer to 85:c5strength:
Information Era
  • Modern AT to 85:c5strength:, 2:c5moves:
  • Missile Cruiser to 85:c5rangedstrength:/80:c5strength:
  • Nuclear Submarine to 85:c5rangedstrength:/75:c5strength:
Resource Changes
  • Rough Riders now cost 10 iron.
  • Ironclads now cost 20 iron, and require no coal upkeep.
  • Helicopters now use oil instead of aluminum.
Unit Upgrade Changes
Rough rider now replaces Cuirassier and now upgrades to tank.
Varu, Mamluk, and Winged Hussar upgrade to Cuirassier. This seems to be an oversight from GS adding the base unit.


Notes:
In this first release I have not adjusted pre-industrial naval units. Their issues are... more substantial.

If you see an error or something that isn't working correctly, please reach out to me. If you have feedback after playing a game or two, please also reach out. I am particularly concerned with the recon line and light cavalry.
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Sostratus
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Unit balance by one of the best math geeks on this forum. Rest assured that each change in this mod is based on a deep understanding of the game's mechanics and follows an overarching and well-considered design goal.
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