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[member66170]

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[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Light and Heavy cav have been mentioned a number of times so I think there are two classes of cavalry.
Machine gun as a light ranged unit make the ranged upgrade tree look more complete. Helicopter is probably a light cavalry unit.

Special abilities of the 6 main lines:
*Frontline: Bonus against anti cav
*Anti cav: Bonus against cav
*Heavy cav: Ignore zone of control
*Light cav (guess): Move after attacking
*Heavy Ranged: Bonus against cities
*Light Ranged (guess): Bonus from standing in forts and urban terrain or can recive defense bonuses which heavy ranged probably cant.

I think siege tower ability only applies to the unit the tower is attached to while the battering ram give bonus to all melee attacks against the city it is next to.

 

[Battlehelm043]

I find it odd that the infantry upgrade path skips the Industrial era; just seems so weird to me... I was hoping maybe one of YTers or one of the Dev Let's Plays would address this or at least the reasoning behind this. Guess we still won't know until the 29th at the earliest...

 

[BrokenBokken]

Considering in the most recent livestream they said heavy calvary ignores zoc I find it unlikely that light and heavy share the same tree. It would be odd to lose and gain that advantage.

 

[ThomasClark]

In the last development video they stated the heavy cav upgrade line was heavy chariot, knight, tank, which is quite spread out. So the light cavalry line is perhaps horseman, cavalry, gunship.

We also know there's a recon line with scout, Ranger, and I'm guessing a 3rd late unit, like a commando.

The gaps are interesting. I wonder if it's to leave room for expansion pack units, or to prevent a particular army build from maintaining constant dominance via continuous upgrades.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

As I see the gap have two purposes:
*Nerf tech a bit by making the gap between upgrades futher apart.
*Add variety to units by having two lines of each major type.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Let's take a look at the various 'categories' and their Eras, because I think it illustrates something:
Melee:
Warrior (Ancient Era)
Swordsman (Classical Era)
Musketman (Renaissance Era)
Infantry (Modern Era)
Mechanized Infantry (Information Era)

Melee Spears
Spearman (Ancient Era)
Pikeman (Medieval Era)

Scouting
Scout (Ancient Era)
Ranger (Industrial Era)

In other words, if you merge Melee and Spear Melee, you have a new unit in each Era up to the Information Era, EXCEPT for Industrial and Atomic: In those two, you have only the Ranger (Scout) in the Industrial Era.

I suggest from this two things: either they expect that Pikemen (Spear) and regular Melee will Merge to Musketman in the Renaissance Era, and then ALL Melee units can Upgrade to Rangers in the Industrial Era, or that the melee units' upgrade path is simply wretchedly broken: there are two many gaps in critical periods of the game.

Likewise, for 'Ranged' units:
Slinger, Archer (Ancient Era) - Light?
Catapult (Classical Era) - Heavy/Seige?
Crossbowmen (Medieval Era) - Light?
Bombard (Renaissance Era) - Heavy/Seige?
Field Cannon (Industrial Era) - Heavy/Seige?
Artillery (Modern Era) - Heavy/Seige?
Machine-gun (Atomic Era) - Light?
Rocket Artillery (Information Era) - Heavy/Seige?

To get an Era-smooth upgrade path, the 'heavy' and 'light' ranged units have to be merged, and that makes no sense from their capabilities or from even a cursory historical standpoint. Keep them separate, and each Upgrade path has major gaps: like no 'light' ranged unit from Medieval to Atomic Eras, which is a long time to keep Crossbows around ...

If you do the same thing, merging the current Mounted Units, there is still a gap in the Renaissance, when there is no new mounted unit of any kind. Likewise, as was pointed out, there are long gaps in each individual line: Heavy Chariots-Knights-Tanks-Modern Armor skips Classical, Renaissance, Industrial and Atomic Eras and the Light Mounted line skips Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance, Modern and Information Eras.
Again, that makes Knights your only Heavy Mounted unit throughout the Renaissance AND Industrial Eras, and keeps Classical (Light) Horsemen around until the Industrial Era.

All of this is going to result in a graphically ridiculous game, with units from a 1000 years ago side-by-side with units from the current era because the game simply doesn't give you any choice. It also results in a long time between Upgrades, or a set of Upgrades that make no sense in either historical or gaming terms.

Unless we've missed something in the Tech and Culture Trees that have been released/leaked and the units we've seen so far...

 

[Magil]

AT Crews may not be a support unit anymore, they may have been moved to the spearmen line. Since they serve a similar purpose.

Keep in mind this is the most recent build. Things may have changed in terms of what unit is what and what units there are between when we originally saw the tech/civic trees and now.

 

[pholtz]

I think there are advantages to upgrades skipping eras. A player may need to change his strategy. No longer having the best army all the time and continually upgrading it, but having periods of expansion alternating with consolidation or even defense. It could make for more interesting game play.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Another thing is that it make many unique units alot more interesting with long upgrade paths. Take the samurai for example. It is a medieval era melee unit (which don't generally have such unit). This give Japan a huge advantage because samurai will destroy pikes without effort.

 

[ThomasClark]

Another thing is that it make many unique units alot more interesting with long upgrade paths. Take the samurai for example. It is a medieval era melee unit (which don't generally have such unit). This give Japan a huge advantage because samurai will destroy pikes without effort.

Good point, Japan, Norway, England, France all come to mind first as getting good use from this perk. I am guessing you will have to hard build these units, which is a negative, but it will be even better if you can upgrade to them.

I like how they built clear opportunity costs into archers. Archers will be pretty dominant when they first take the field, but you have to go to a dead-end tech to get them, and then presumably wait until Crossbowman to upgrade them. Meanwhile, you could decide to forego archers and tech to Catapults instead.

 

[pholtz]

Also, from what I have seen, upgrading units is expensive, you have other uses for that gold and may only want to upgrade highly skilled units. The most effective army may be one created just before the attack, using 50% bonus civics.

 

[Magil]

I really hope that pikes upgrade to muskets rather than being kept around to become an anti-tank unit later. AA and AT screams to me as units that should be supports rather than standalone. Medieval armies did have divisions of pikes (and once the bayonet was introduced they were replaced by muskets), but a division of AA guns on their own on the front line is plain silly.

Btw: do we know how support units work? Do they give a bonus to the unit they are stacked with? Do they have some intrinsic ability. All I know about them is that they can stack and have 0 strength.

I think you misunderstand. While the AT crew appears to be a normal unit, the anti-air gun is definitely a support unit. You can tell by the difference in icons--the AT Crew has the "bubble" icon while the AA Gun has the "diamond" icon.

I agree it'd be strange if there were no upgrades between pikemen and AT crews though, which is a point against the theory.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I think you misunderstand. While the AT crew appears to be a normal unit, the anti-air gun is definitely a support unit. You can tell by the difference in icons--the AT Crew has the "bubble" icon while the AA Gun has the "diamond" icon.

I agree it'd be strange if there were no upgrades between pikemen and AT crews though, which is a point against the theory.

Agree on both points.

Also, the AT Crew (Chemistry) comes before the other tube-fired rocket weapon icon (Composites). Is it a TOW?

 

[apocalypse105]

Spearman (A)->Pikeman (M) -> ? Musketman

Finally no more useless lancer's

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Spearman (A)->Pikeman (M) -> ? Musketman

Finally no more useless lancer's

As far as I know, we're only sure of the Spearman-Pikeman progress, everything else, and specifically any Upgrade line beyond that, is speculation.

In fact, I don't think we've seen a recent Tech Tree/Unit Build for any era later than the Medieval.

The shame of it is, with the specific Promotions in Civ VI, they could have included a lot of the Special/Support units as Promotions - the AT Crew, which appears to represent a bazooka/antitank rocket, for instance, which is a weapon that has never been fielded by any army as a separate unit - it's added to infantry units at the company or battalion level.

Promoting Pikemen to Musketmen would almost make sense, except that the placement in the Tech Tree and the graphics indicate that the Musketman, as in previous Civ games, represents the Matchlock musket, which was always used in conjunction with Pikes, not replacing them - there's a reason the period from about 1550 to 1690 CE is known in military history and wargaming as the "Pike and Shot" period.

The really interesting solution would have been to make the Musketman a Ranged Unit, range = 1, that can stack with a Pikeman unit - thus conveniently representing the 'standard' military formation of the European late Renaissance Era. Of course, to make this work well you'd have to allow both Pikemen and Musketmen to upgrade to Fusilier/flintlock muskets at the beginning of the Industrial Era, with the concurrent Ranged Unit being the Field Cannon.

Obviously, they did nothing like that and we're stuck (again) with ridiculous separate units like bazooka teams and machine-guns (never fielded separately above battalion level units since e WWI, by the way, except in the Soviet Army in WWII, which had brigade-sized Fortified Sectors that were mostly machine-guns) and the game is missing some of the most important military units in World History...'

If anything, in this regard Civ VI is even worse than Civ V, and Civ V's rendition of military units and their associated Technologies was utterly mediocre from the Renaissance on...

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Anti tank are probably normal units and play the same role as pikes and spears do and tanks are the cavalry in the three last eras. Infantry naturally is great against anti tank much like sword are against pikes.

Given that metal casting lead to ballistic we can assume that bombard and field cannon is two separate classes as it would be very strange to put the next unit so close as the next tech.

I think the paths are something like this:
Warrior (A) ->Swordsman (C)-> Musketman (R) -> Infantry (Mo) ->Mechanised Infantry (In)
Spearman (A)->Pikeman (M) -> Bazooka (Mo) -> AT Crew(In)

The jump between pike to AT is not that much larger then the jump from musket to infantry. It is important to note that you can form corps around the industrial (probably nationalism) and Im pretty sure mobilization civic give armies. I guess both corps and armies are roughly equal to a unit upgrade
So the true tech tree should maybe look like this assuming you are equal in science and culture.

Warrior (A) ->Swordsman (C)-> Musketman (R) -> Musket corps (I) -> Infantry (Mo) ->Mechanised Infantry (In)
Spearman (A)->Pikeman (M) -> Pikeman corp (I) -> Bazooka (Mo) -> AT Crew(In)

The anti cavalry line may never need resources which is why Im not sold about pike upgrade to musket (who need resource). The anti cav line only upgrade in the same eras as heavy cavalry line and the jump between knight to tank is the same as the jump from pike to bazooka. Against cav, pikes are just slightly weaker then musket while being both cheaper and without resource needs.

Cavalry tree probably looks like this:
Chariot (A) ->Knight (M) ->Tank (Mo) -> Modern Armour (In)
Horseman (C) -> Cavalry (I) -> Gunship (At)

The anti cavalry line always upgrade in the same eras as the heavy cavalry line. Gunship have been a cav upgrade in older civ games so I assume the same here. The jump between horseman to cavalry is as big as the jump from knight to tank.

Ranged:
Slinger (A) ->Archer (A) ->Crossbowman (M) ->Field Cannon (I) -> Machine gun (At)
Catapult (C) -> Bombard (R) -> Artillery (Mo) -> Rocket Artillery (In)

Unlike the other two major types the ranged line do not seem to have any gaps which is interesting.

 

[usadefcon1]

I'm sure we'll know more on the 29th, but here's my guess:

Melee = Warrior, Swordsman, Musketmen, Infantry, Mechanized Infantry

Ranged = Slinger, Archer, Crossbow, Cannon, Machine Gun

Siege = Catapult, Bombard, Artillery, Missile Artillery

Recon = Scout, Ranger

Anti Cav = Spearmen, Pikemen, AT Soldier, Javelin

Light Cav = Horseman, Cavalry, Helicopter

Heavy Cav = Chariot, Knight, Tank, Modern Armor

Melee Ship = Galley, Caravel, Ironclad, Destroyer

Ranged Ship = Quadreme, Frigate, Battleship, Missile Cruiser

Covert Ship = Privateer, Sub, Nuclear Sub

Fighter Aircraft = Biplane, Fighter, Jet

Bomber Aircraft = Bomber, Stealth Bomber

Everything else is either Covert or Support (Aircraft Carrier, AA Gun, Observation Balloon, Medic, etc)

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

From the screenshot thread it is clear that machine gun is a ranged unit and cavalry and tank are light and heavy cav with separate promotion trees.

 

[dturtle1]

The shame of it is, with the specific Promotions in Civ VI, they could have included a lot of the Special/Support units as Promotions - the AT Crew, which appears to represent a bazooka/antitank rocket, for instance, which is a weapon that has never been fielded by any army as a separate unit - it's added to infantry units at the company or battalion level.

AT Crew sound to me like a dedicated Anti-Tank Gun, such as the venerable and highly adaptable 88mm Gun which is also a an AA Gun as well. Also, what are the Civ's representation of a unit, considering you can form Corp's and Armies. Would 3 Infantry units in a Corps with an AT support Unit attached be considered a reasonable representation. Great War tanks were never their own unit as well, being attached to infantry brigades. If they were included in an expansion further down the track, should they just be a promotion as well?

I find the implementation of Support units perfect for these kind of concepts. Support Units are not separate entire units, that is why you need to attach them. Promotions to me are not tactical addons, they acquired skills. IDK...AA and AT to me sounds perfect as a support unit that attaches to a regular unit, as does Observation Balloons for Industrial Era Artillery and Battering rams for Classical Swordsmen