[Vote] (3-19) Proposal: Make Indirect Fire only for its natural units

Approval Vote for Proposal #19 (instructions below)


  • Total voters
    89
  • Poll closed .

DeAnno

King
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Feb 22, 2011
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Voting Instructions
Players, please cast your votes in the poll above. Vote "Yea" if you'd be okay if this proposal was implemented. Vote "Nay" if you'd be okay if this proposal wasn't implemented.

You can vote for both options, which is equivalent to saying "I'm fine either way", but adds to the required quorum of 10 votes in favor.

All votes are public. If you wish, you can discuss your choice(s) in the thread below. You can change your vote as many times as you want until the poll closes.

VP Congress: Session 3, Proposal 19

Right now Indirect Fire can be picked as a leaf promotion in a number of places, and I'd argue it belongs in none of them:

1) Indirect Fire can be taken on Siege units before Field Guns. I'd argue this is a little bit lame because when you upgrade to the Field Gun you lose the promotion. Maybe it sometimes might make sense to do, but you'd always do it with a heavy heart.

2) Indirect Fire can be taken on Archery units. I'd argue this perverts the whole purpose of the Archery line, which is sort of a more rough-and-tumble ranged unit than Siege, meant for fighting other units and occasionally being hit on the front line. It's also extremely antithematic with some of them like Machine Guns.

I propose that the Indirect Fire promotion can no longer be selected on level ups, and is only available henchforth to all the units which natively get it as a basic promotion.

This has an extra good effect in that it limits the power of the Range promotion which is often taken with it. Range by itself is much less objectionable because terrain blocking becomes such a thing; the real problem is ranged indirect units which don't require careful positioning and are relatively untouchable. Sure, this can recur once you get to Field Guns selecting Ranged, and happens naturally with Artillery, but at that point the natural counters to this nonsense are rapidly approaching or already exist: Bombers and Tanks.

In the older eras there is no such convenient way to deal with a Ranged Indirect Composite that just hoarded too many promotions, and once it gets those it'll inevitably hoard more as now it can play things totally safe and never has to be exposed to any sort of danger again. It's something that doesn't belong until the Industrial age in my opinion (Babylon nonwithstanding I guess but at least that's their whole thing.)

This solution also preserves the "coolness" of Range and Logistics at full strength in and of themselves. Though these are both strong promotions with big effects, I'd argue Indirect Fire's combo with Ranged is responsible for the most gross effects. Cutting out Indirect Fire lets the rest of the ecosystem live in peace.
 
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I support this. Another point is that it makes terrain more important for longer which is also a plus in my eyes.
 
I think this is a fair change; the best of the 3 proposals re: indirect fire. Simple and clean, and I don't think anything will be lost by trimming down the promotion trees a bit. In fact, it's probably an improvement to slim the trees down a bit.
 
Great incremental solution to this discussion, thanks for suggesting.
 
I love an 'untouchable' archer with range & indirect fire as much as the next person...but @DeAnno makes a great case for this refinement.

I can only take so many +X% and -Y% multipliers, so this simplicity is appealing. Great point that an indirect fire XP promotion undermines the value of units which naturally have it.

SIDE QUESTION: what is a "leaf promotion"?
 
I love an 'untouchable' archer with range & indirect fire as much as the next person...but @DeAnno makes a great case for this refinement.

I can only take so many +X% and -Y% multipliers, so this simplicity is appealing. Great point that an indirect fire XP promotion undermines the value of units which naturally have it.

SIDE QUESTION: what is a "leaf promotion"?
A leaf is a promotion that is a terminal node on the promotion tree, i.e. it isn't a pre-requisite for any others
 
Maybe remove it from archer units, but Ibwould keep it ok siege. Sometimes you have to take it in a domination game on 1 or 2 units, to keep conquering before field guns. But it is always a costly choice as it means no range. And it becomes obsolete with field guns. Why remove a tough choice with a good reward and a hefty drawback? I don't feel it's unbalanced.
 
Maybe remove it from archer units, but Ibwould keep it ok siege. Sometimes you have to take it in a domination game on 1 or 2 units, to keep conquering before field guns. But it is always a costly choice as it means no range. And it becomes obsolete with field guns. Why remove a tough choice with a good reward and a hefty drawback? I don't feel it's unbalanced.
Good point.
 
Proposal sponsored by L. Vern.
 
wow this maybe the first nerf of the "big 3" promotions that has gotten passed in like forever.
 
It should also be removed for Babylon UU and Iroquois UU (4UC) and replace it with something else. It makes no sense for archers to attack a target they can't see.
 
If you really wants to somehow keep those UUs' uniqueness, I supposed you could simply make this promotion lost on upgrade. This would mean that Babylon's UU would loose this promotion thought the era. Don't know if it is desirable or not, since it usually doesn't happen to other UUs (they keep their special promos). But idk.
 
I see no reason why those units should drop their unique promotions. The rest of the archer line not having access to them just makes it more unique
 
Indirect fire itself is fine, it's only when combined with range that it is a problem. I'd say it would be better to just have taking one leaf promotion block the other, rather than making one completely inaccessible.
 
I think this proposal is better than the current state, so I voted for it, but I personally felt something more like this counter proposal was a better direction:
It was vetoed after counter proposals were closed, so no similar suggestion was able to be proposed to fill the gap.

Or maybe leaning into this change, and having trebuchets get indirect fire (to be lost when upgrading to cannons) for a medieval era conquest spike would be interesting to try for a patch?
 
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