(2-06) Proposal: Please Perpetuate Pilum

[crdvis16]

Pilum is an awesome special promotion for Rome's UU. It does 10 damage to adjacent units who end their turn next to a fortified Legion. It encourages an interesting twist on warfare where you want to plop the Legion in a good defensible spot and then fortify them, preferably with a medic unit nearby. They act as mini mobile citadels!

However, the promotion is lost on upgrade. I hate promotions that are lost on upgrade... it feels unfun. It makes you not want to upgrade your Legion and it ends a period of uniqueness to playing Rome when the game has barely begun!

Proposal: Remove the 'lost on upgrade' attribute on Pilum so that any Legions that survive the early game can continue to act as mini citadels going forward as later era melee units. To compensate, remove the free Cover I promotion to make Legions a little less tough.

I know Pilum is a great unique promotion but I really don't think this change would be over the top. It's really not THAT easy to keep melee units alive so the number of Pilum Legions upgraded into later melee units would continually dwindle as the game goes on. And losing Cover I would reduce their survivability a bit, forcing Rome to invest in more promotions on their Legions in order to get to Cover I/II.

 

[azum4roll]

What do you feel about Impi losing Spear Throw on upgrade?

 

[crdvis16]

I generally dislike any promotion being lost on upgrade. The civ UUs giving a unique play experience is part of what makes the game fun. I get that some of them persisting on upgrade doesn't make much sense in terms of realism but IMO gameplay concerns > realism concerns.

 

[Delvemor]

There is a reason why very good UU promotions such as Pilum and Spear Throw are lost on upgrade, they are just that good and there is also the historical aspect of it. As the Romans or the Zulus you get a very nice edge during their respective era, but then I think it's fair that they lose some of that edge later. The Romans still get to rebuild everything faster and the Zulus still retain their other special promotions.

 

[crdvis16]

IMO I think the advantage of those UU promotions naturally fade anyway even if they are kept on upgrade. When you first get Legions they probably make up a high % of your melee units so Pilum is a big deal. If Pilum was kept on upgrade its net effect would fade in later eras for two reasons:

1) it's hard to keep all of your units alive all game so you're likely to lose a few the longer the game goes.

2) your unit cap increases and you inevitably have to build more units including melee units.

The net effect of 1 and 2 above is that the longer the game goes the lower the % of your melee units have Pilum. Much later in the game you might end up with just a few in your whole army at which point its more for fun and not all that overpowered.

 

[Delvemor]

The net effect of 1 and 2 above is that the longer the game goes the lower the % of your melee units have Pilum. Much later in the game you might end up with just a few in your whole army at which point its more for fun and not all that overpowered.

This argument is very questionable. It's not that difficult to preserve your most valuable units. Even if their proportion in your army lowers as the game goes on there is no reason that you can't involve them in the action as you see fit. The reason you will have to build more units is simply to defend the areas where your best units are absent. If I had my former Legions now being Mechanized Infantry with Pilum I would definitely use them in priority on the offense.

 

[Stalker0]

I do think it is somewhat "arbitrary" which UU benefits linger and which ones don't.

Pilum is awesome, is it more awesome than all of America's g guns having range and being able to just move through terrain because of their minutemen benefit? Or German riflemen getting their bonus vs max hp because of lands?

 

[crdvis16]

You can certainly prioritize using them in the hotspots to maximize their impact but that might up the chances of 1) above occurring. And sometimes you might not really have the ability to make sure your Pilum mech infantry are in ALL of the hotspots. Later game warfare is often happening along much bigger borders (consolidated empires from conquering with long borders, defensive pacts leading to multi-front war, etc). If you only have a few Pilum units at that point their overall impact would be diminished. A single Pilum in an area doing some damage is a lot different than a whole line of Pilum.

Further- late game warfare is often a bit more fast paced. It's much harder for a melee unit to sit still to fortify with Pilum and take hits with 3 range artillery, aircraft, or logistics ranged units hitting at the same time. I think late game their best use would probably be sitting in a citadel in good terrain where they are more likely to be able to fortify for a long time.

I really don't think it would be gamebreaking. But I do think it would be more fun, especially in the mid game.

 

[Stalker0]

You can certainly prioritize using them in the hotspots to maximize their impact but that might up the chances of 1) above occurring. And sometimes you might not really have the ability to make sure your Pilum mech infantry are in ALL of the hotspots. Later game warfare is often happening along much bigger borders (consolidated empires from conquering with long borders, defensive pacts leading to multi-front war, etc). If you only have a few Pilum units at that point their overall impact would be diminished. A single Pilum in an area doing some damage is a lot different than a whole line of Pilum.

Further- late game warfare is often a bit more fast paced. It's much harder for a melee unit to sit still to fortify with Pilum and take hits with 3 range artillery, aircraft, or logistics ranged units hitting at the same time. I think late game their best use would probably be sitting in a citadel in good terrain where they are more likely to be able to fortify for a long time.

I really don't think it would be gamebreaking. But I do think it would be more fun, especially in the mid game.

I think that is looking way too far in the future. The real change here isn't about mech infantry.

The real change is longswords and tercio. Effectively extending Rome's UU power through another 2 eras. Now past that point is where the iron restriction gets you, as you can only upgrade so many legion, and so many of your tercio will have to be made, and no longer have the bonus. So from a power standpoint, I think that is the area of debate

 

[pineappledan]

I agree that the cutoff for making pilum lost on upgrade feels arbitrary when you have other units that arguably get to keep stronger abilities. For Impi and the spear throw, you could argue that's actually a unit model limitation, because Impi's have a unique ranged attack animation separate from their melee attack. this is the same reason why the Legions lose one of their other unique abilities: legions have unique improvement animations for their road/fort construction. Losing 1 of their abilities is enough, IMO. Pilum is good, but it's not That good. And Rome certainly does seem like it could use some love, if those recent AI games are any indication.

 

[Rekk]

Offtopic, but Spear Throw doesn't need to be lost on upgrade due to model limitations anymore. Everything after Impi is shooty, so there's not much effort required to make the ranged attack the same as the melee attack (as is done with GDRs).

 

[Delvemor]

I guess Pilum promotion does become less relevant as the game advances even though in my current game I still have Fusiliers fortified against waves of enemy Fusiliers and Lancers, out of sight of their Gatling Guns. But at the end it would not be that big of a deal if Legions were to keep that promotion, it would even be fun honestly. So I would not vote against it.

While Rome AI might need help, playing Rome doesn't feel weak at all.

 

[Jhang]

I second this motion in favor of keeping Pilum, losing unique promotions stinks and keeping unique promotions is fun.

I would even go further to suggest that all promotions be carried over by default, and only technical limitations should restrict them from carrying forward. I don't see why the Hussar's shako is necessary for that +1 to sight, that is immediately lost on upgrade. That would be my only point of rejecting the proposal, that it's not inclusive enough.

Maybe that ought to be a counter proposal though.

 

[nekokon]

10 dmg from pilum is hardly considered op so I'm ok with keeping it through upgrade.

 

[rusbeh]

I second this motion in favor of keeping Pilum, losing unique promotions stinks and keeping unique promotions is fun.

I would even go further to suggest that all promotions be carried over by default, and only technical limitations should restrict them from carrying forward. I don't see why the Hussar's shako is necessary for that +1 to sight, that is immediately lost on upgrade. That would be my only point of rejecting the proposal, that it's not inclusive enough.

Maybe that ought to be a counter proposal though.

Disagreed. I think it's thematic and fun that some civs like Rome are really strong in the classical era and somewhat drop off in medieval. It's also gamey to later recruit old units just for the sake of their promotion and requires a lot of tedious micro to keep those certain units alive the whole game. Hard no from me.

 

[AndreyK]

Disagreed. I think it's thematic and fun that some civs like Rome are really strong in the classical era and somewhat drop off in medieval. It's also gamey to later recruit old units just for the sake of their promotion and requires a lot of tedious micro to keep those certain units alive the whole game. Hard no from me.

It is not possible to produce obsolete units. If you don't want to keep units alive, then don't.

 

[ma_kuh]

Honestly I almost feel like all civ-specific promos should be by unit class, not a single era's unit (of course maybe unlocking only after a certain era). It feels like anyone who doesn't have this as the case has feel-bad moments when you age up. Iroquois, Songhai, America, Inca are all examples where they carry their army-wide uniqueness forward.

At the very least it's super inconsistent right now, and I'm all in favor of anything that normalizes this, one way or another.

 

[Rekk]

Honestly I almost feel like all civ-specific promos should be by unit class, not a single era's unit (of course maybe unlocking only after a certain era). It feels like anyone who doesn't have this as the case has feel-bad moments when you age up. Iroquois, Songhai, America, Inca are all examples where they carry their army-wide uniqueness forward.

At the very least it's super inconsistent right now, and I'm all in favor of anything that normalizes this, one way or another.

Going this far reduces the uniqueness of a UU considerably.

The whole point of the UU mechanic is to give a set period of military strength for a civilization, differentiated by UA promotions that are supposed to be a part of the civilization's game wide kit.

 

[CppMaster]

Going this far reduces the uniqueness of a UU considerably.

The whole point of the UU mechanic is to give a set period of military strength for a civilization, differentiated by UA promotions that are supposed to be a part of the civilization's game wide kit.

It's still unique to the civilization. By making it permanent, it would be more consistent with UA and UB.

 

[pineappledan]

Honestly I almost feel like all civ-specific promos should be by unit class, not a single era's unit (of course maybe unlocking only after a certain era). It feels like anyone who doesn't have this as the case has feel-bad moments when you age up. Iroquois, Songhai, America, Inca are all examples where they carry their army-wide uniqueness forward.

So basically the unique unit lines mod?

Unique Unit Lines

Unique Unit Lines (steam workshop) (github) Applies unique promotions from a unique unit to the whole unit line for the civilization. Promotions must not be lost on upgrade to be considered. Requires version 17/04/2020 or later of Vox Populi. Click on the overview button on the top left for...

forums.civfanatics.com

Personally, I like the dichotomy of 1 obsoleting unique unit bonus and 1 permanent UB or UI bonus. I think it livens up the game to have discrete power spikes for civs.