[Vote] (2-38) Increase Skirmisher RCS By 1

[rusbeh]

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VP Congress: Session 2, Proposal 38
The 7 RCS of the skirmisher is lackluster compared to other skirmisher line units. This is supposed to be a great unit as it requires horses. Heavy skirmisher for example deals a lot of damage on its own (14 RCS) to units like the pikeman. Same can be said about every other skirmisher line unit except the skirmisher. I propose we increase the RCS by 1.

 

[Rekk]

Skirmishers aren't meant to do "loads of damage".

 

[ma_kuh]

Skirmishers feel alright to me. Honestly +15% CS probably wouldn't make much of a difference either way, but I don't see the need for the buff. Civs that rely on UU skirmishers to be the main component of an army, that might need to be looked at. It is true that they don't really do much damage alone, but their role is to make other melee units wreck, not to deal damage themselves.

If you haven't already, I'd recommend trying them out with Shock melees, the double-flanking amplifies the benefits of the Shock line, and makes picking off units in open/semi-open terrain feel great.

 

[rusbeh]

Skirmishers aren't meant to do "loads of damage".

Yeah but 8 RCS isn't "loads of damage". Currently they just tickle enemies.

 

[alchx]

The nuance is that the skirmisher does less damage than the chariot. But it costs more and appears decently later.

If we improve the chariot, then we pay for our long-range unit to become individually weaker. It is stronger than chariots in interaction with troops, but individual firepower drops, although opponents get more units and are stronger than warriors or slingers.

 

[ma_kuh]

Maybe the chariot should just be a melee unit with ranged+melee attacks, and upgrade into the horseman...? It seems like that's secretly its combat role, despite being categorized as a skirmisher.

 

[azum4roll]

I don't know if they're at the right RCS, but their CS is simply too high despite being a mobile support unit.

 

[KlHannibal2]

+1 RCS would definitely be OK for me. Egyptian war chariots have more RCS and get weaker when they are upgraded.

 

[rusbeh]

I don't know if they're at the right RCS, but their CS is simply too high despite being a mobile support unit.

Their RCS is definitely low compared to other skirmisher line units. The heavy skirmisher has twice the damage

 

[pineappledan]

Stalker's damage calculations from the main version post:

For context here is the skirmisher with a +1 and +2 values, just to showcase

vs Spearman
Spearman with Formation II in Open Terrain
CS: 13.8, 21.72 vs horse

Archer (Accuracy 1)
RCS: 10.8, deals 26.0 damage

Horseman (Shock 1)
CS: 14.3, deals 22.8 damage, takes 35.3

Skirmisher (Accuracy 1) - RCS 7
RCS: 8.4, deals 12.5

Skirmisher (Accuracy 1) - RCS 8
RCS: 9.6, deals 15.0

Skirmisher (Accuracy 1) - RCS 9
RCS: 10.8, deals 17.3


also for another showing, here it is against an Archer
Vs Archer (Accuracy I) in Open Terrain
RCS (defensive): 9.9, CS: 6


Archer (Accuracy 1)
RCS: 10.8, deals 31.4 damage

Horseman (Shock 1)
CS: 14.3, deals 64.2 damage, takes 14.0

Skirmisher (Accuracy 1) - RCS 7
RCS: 8.4, deals 27.4 damage

Skirmisher (Accuracy 1) - RCS 8
RCS: 9.6, deals 29.5

Skirmisher (Accuracy 1) - RCS 9
RCS: 10.8, deals 31.4

This seems fine. The 8 RCS skirmishers can function as a stronger base for UUs like the hunnic horse archer. it doesn't look like the skirmisher will flip into a real damage dealer on account of this, and it would resolve a bit of funny business with chariot archers having a higher stat than their upgrade.

 

[CrazyG]

People are comparing skirmishers to ancient era units, and they look okay. Not even good, just okay. Swordsmen blow spearmen out of the water. Even with +1 RCS, I'm not convinced they are even better than an ancient era unit. Even if their RCS is even to archers they deal less against the very common spear units due to the anti-mounted bonus.

This is a classical era unit, compare to classical era instead. They do dramatically less than composite bows. They take ranged hits so poorly due to their low RCS. Against swords their damage is pathetic. Spears (or eventually, pikemen) take more from archers.

 

[ma_kuh]

I don't disagree entirely, but two things: I don't think it's really fair to compare a ranged unit whose purpose is direct damage (the composite bow) and a technically-ranged unit whose purpose is to give melee units +5/10/15% CS (the skirmisher), pit them against a unit that has innate anti-mounted defense, and say the composite bow is stronger. If we really want to compare the numbers we should be adding the 2-6 damage skirmishers add to one or two spears and horsemen that attack near them. Secondly, maybe the composite bow is over-tuned as well?

 

[KlHannibal2]

I don't disagree entirely, but two things: I don't think it's really fair to compare a ranged unit whose purpose is direct damage (the composite bow) and a technically-ranged unit whose purpose is to give melee units +5/10/15% CS (the skirmisher), pit them against a unit that has innate anti-mounted defense, and say the composite bow is stronger. If we really want to compare the numbers we should be adding the 2-6 damage skirmishers add to one or two spears and horsemen that attack near them. Secondly, maybe the composite bow is over-tuned as well?

While the increased flanking bonus and lower direct damage from skirmishers is great for civs with melee cavalry UUs like mandekalus, it is awful for civs with skirmisher UUs. I think they are in a rough spot atm. How to fix that? Even if you boost the UUs, the units will become weak again after upgrading. And ranged cav UUs were not among the strongest UUs before the skirmisher change.

 

[ma_kuh]

Honestly, my approach would probably be to put Skirmisher Doctrine's flanking bonus into a main promo line, call it "Skirmishing", so that it becomes opt-in, and let the other promo line be an attempt to make a direct-damage skirmisher work, probably with Barrage. And if I was feeling really spicy, I'd go ahead and make archers no longer have access to Barrage, only Accuracy, so the foot archers' niche is starting a fight, and the mounted archers' niche is ending them. But those are the thoughts of madness that have no business in the pre-holidays VP Congress. I'll save those gems for the new year.

 

[azum4roll]

Honestly, my approach would probably be to put Skirmisher Doctrine's flanking bonus into a main promo line, call it "Skirmishing", so that it becomes opt-in, and let the other promo line be an attempt to make a direct-damage skirmisher work, probably with Barrage. And if I was feeling really spicy, I'd go ahead and make archers no longer have access to Barrage, only Accuracy, so the foot archers' niche is starting a fight, and the mounted archers' niche is ending them. But those are the thoughts of madness that have no business in the pre-holidays VP Congress. I'll save those gems for the new year.

This sounds interesting. Can the current "double flanking bonus" column support different multipliers?

I wouldn't change the default lines though. This new line will be the third stem line for skirmishers, and all the support leaf promotions (Medic) will be moved there.

 

[Rekk]

The whole point of giving them Skirmisher Doctrine was to give mounted range a niche that wasn't "archers that can run fast". Making it a promotion line necessarily entails that they go back to being "archers that can run fast" to justify choosing the Archer promotion lines instead of the Skirmisher one.

 

[alchx]

The whole point of giving them Skirmisher Doctrine was to give mounted range a niche that wasn't "archers that can run fast". Making it a promotion line necessarily entails that they go back to being "archers that can run fast" to justify choosing the Archer promotion lines instead of the Skirmisher one.

Previously, Skyrmishers and Archers were in the same technology.

If you reduce the number of horses at the time of map creation, then it will make sense to fight for this valuable resource so that it is possible to produce a 'fast running archer'. And the value of the skirmisher will increase, but he will need to increase the attack power, because. it is a resource intensive unit.

Now these horses are everywhere. Every AI has them in abundance, despite the fact that the AI builds an incredible amount of units.

In general, I liked the old skirmishers more - they ruled in open spaces, but carelessly entering the forest or on the hill became an easy target. And they didn’t run 5 cells.

 

[ma_kuh]

The whole point of giving them Skirmisher Doctrine was to give mounted range a niche that wasn't "archers that can run fast". Making it a promotion line necessarily entails that they go back to being "archers that can run fast" to justify choosing the Archer promotion lines instead of the Skirmisher one.

I get it, and I think they do this well, but I also think this new approach undermines skirmisher UUs a little. Some skirmisher civs like Mongolia or the Huns have ways of making the UU relevant (Mongolia lets it play with skirmisher doctrine, and Huns want melee units mixed in for the UA), but for others there's a tendency to build the unique thing, and it'll be an adjustment to realize your UC is a support unit, not a main combatant.

I think there's a middle space where you can support situations where the skirmisher can act as an archer on wheels, and I think the right way to support that is by guiding the promos each line is allowed or incentivized to take. Also, making skirmisher doctrine a promo line means you can give it to pathfinders, which I think is part of making pathfinders have a relevant combat tool, beyond "tanking" (why should they be good at this?), pillaging, or gaining sight... all things that are in the skirmisher's list of roles as well.

But to be honest, what I really want to do is learn enough about modmodding to make these changes for my own games, and play with some ideas before suggesting anything for VP. I think the current skirmisher design is solid, and even if they had an "archer" path I wouldn't want them doing anywhere near the damage of archers, so for the purposes of this discussion and proposal, whether they have archer promo lines or not isn't really the point.

 

[Stalker0]

I get it, and I think they do this well, but I also think this new approach undermines skirmisher UUs a little. Some skirmisher civs like Mongolia or the Huns have ways of making the UU relevant (Mongolia lets it play with skirmisher doctrine, and Huns want melee units mixed in for the UA), but for others there's a tendency to build the unique thing, and it'll be an adjustment to realize your UC is a support unit, not a main combatant.

I think the answer is to adjust the civs, not the fundamental mechanic. The mechanic is working, its the first time in years I think the skirmisher is actually working as both a worthwhile unit that is not incredibly OP. Now is there some growing pains with certain civs, absolutely, but as you said we found ways to address this with civs like the mongols. No reason we can't do it for other civs with skirmisher UUs.

 

[pineappledan]

I get it, and I think they do this well, but I also think this new approach undermines skirmisher UUs a little.

Our control over what skirmisher line UUs do is incredibly granular.

• Horse Archer - As you say, merely being a stronger skirmisher is enough, because Huns' UA augments mounted melee, which can be used in tandem with the skirmisher for bigger hits for coercion
• Camel Archer - This UU was already irrelevant to the civ's kit before we changed anything
• Naga Malla - Basically isn't a skirmisher at all, has completely different abilities and stats
• Hussar - has +1 moves and ignores ZOC. Austria's UU is mostly irrelevant to Austria's kit, but its abilities are still a perfect match for the skirmisher UU.
• Berber Cavalry - another case of a UU whose abilities perfectly augment the base skirmisher's high mobility and flanking ability. These are the fastest units in the game
• Comanche Rider - leverages and repurposes the skimisher body into a highly mobile pillager unit, like a 6 move science viking
• Cossack - probably the the only unit that legitimately suffered from the change in the base skrimisher's role.