1300 BC American Rifleman

[PanzerEric]

I am playing a game as the Romans on King difficulty and a completely unexpected unit showed up next to Rome....an American Rifleman. Mind you this occured on turn 108 at 1300 BC! How could this have happened? It must have been the mother of all tech slingshots! I have received free techs for competing research agreements and also completing The Great Library. But there is no way I am aware of that Washington could get Rifling by turn 108. On the tech tree if you follow the "metals" path you would have to research

Mining>BW>Iron Working>MetalCasting>Steel>Gunpowder>Metallurgy>Rifiling

Absolutely no way to get a rifleman by 1300 BC. Am I missing somethng?

I saved the game, but I can't figure out how to post a screenshot.

 

[RickAucoin]

He hit a few lucky Ruins that upgraded his unit.

 

[lissenber]

. But there is no way I am aware of that Washington could get Rifling by turn 108. On the tech tree if you follow the "metals" path you would have to research

Maybe washington got a unit upgrade from ruins. Not sure how it works but i assume a crossowbowman will upgrade to rifleman. Maybe he got 2 unit upgrades. Archer--->crossbow--->rifleman. Could be as simple as that.

 

[Shillen]

Maybe washington got a unit upgrade from ruins. Not sure how it works but i assume a crossowbowman will upgrade to rifleman. Maybe he got 2 unit upgrades. Archer--->crossbow--->rifleman. Could be as simple as that.

No, crossbowmen don't upgrade to riflemen. It's a relatively short path to rifleman from warrior.

warrior->spearman->pikeman->rifleman. So it only takes 3 ruins (2 if you started with a spear) and that's why you see it quite often in games.

edit: I take that back, crossbows do upgrade to rifles also. So there's two ways it can happen.

 

[bhavv]

No, crossbowmen don't upgrade to riflemen. It's a relatively short path to rifleman from warrior.

Yes they do.

Archer > Crossbowman > Rifleman.

 

[DonRuggio]

That will need nerfing in a patch I think as then too much luck comes into it. Mind you, as an experiment in Civ 4, I plastered much of a huge map with the 'pies' and had Archology and shielding on most my core cities by 1510 AD - it was giant robots v spearmen...

 

[Mac2411]

I've seen this multiple times and it is reported by others in at least two different threads. Personally, I shut off ruins in my games until this is fixed because it is so unbalancing.

 

[Dizzy75]

[Edit] I'm an idiot. You said BC, not AD. Nerf ruins.

 

[Nyarlathothep]

Same thing around the same time (1300/1200 BC) happened to me. ALSO playing as Romans. ALSO the Americans got the Rifleman.

And promptly began to annihilate the continent.

 

[Komutan]

Rifleman is nothing. Yesterday I upgraded one of my units to mechanized infantry in Ancient Age

Sure, I was extremely lucky, nonetheless this is a big balance problem. I could conquer the whole world with that single unit easily.

I think a single unit should not be able to upgrade itself more than once from ruins.

 

[bluedevil99]

I can certainly see this happening (though not often) and you can take advantage of it yourself on Archipaelgo maps. Similarly to how the CIV AI didn't know to rush astronomy, the CiV AI doesn't know to rush optics. You can easily pump an early trireme or two (esp as England) and just rack up the ruins the minute you hit Optics and gain embark. I had an early classical era pikeman doing this and had I thought about it could easily have wandered around the map racking up ruins and had a ridiculously advanced unit or two very early. Of course, as it was, I bulb-beelined my way to Ships of the Line and wiped everybody out with ridiculous ease... navy is flat out awesome in this game.

 

[PanzerEric]

I agree that the ability to upgrade to Rifleman while in the BC era should be nerfed in the next patch. Upgrading warrior to archer or warrior to spearman as often happens is within the "feel" of the game. If one of my units upgraded to rifleman, and I happened to win the game I would feel cheated that I ony won due to the incredible luck of the upgrade gods.

 

[AlienFromBeyond]

Personally I've taken to disabling Ruins in my games now, they're just too ridiculous at this point in time.