(8-03) 4UC Assyria: Iron Chariot Rework and Lamassu Gate Tweaks

[azum4roll]

Links:

[DLL] - (8-NS) 4UC Assyria

This is a thread for discussing the addition of 2 more unique components to the Assyrian civilization.

forums.civfanatics.com

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UU2 - Iron Chariot (Mounted Melee, unique UnitClass, upgrades to Knight)
Unlocks at Bronze Working
100 200 (same as Swordsman)
Requires 1 Horse and 1 Iron
17
4
No Defensive Terrain Bonuses
Can Move After Attacking
City Attack Penalty
Beam Axle (Entering Forest, Jungle, Marsh, and Hill costs +1 Movement (does not stack). Lost on Upgrade.)
Shock Cavalry (+20% Combat Strength when attacking into or defending in Open Terrain.)

It is designed to be an absolute menace that requires both early game strategic resources, and nothing can really beat them 1 on 1. There's no point making Horsemen or Swordsmen - just make these.
It's supposed to be a dilemma whether you go for the Royal Library or this first; both are really worth rushing.

The original proposal ability is annoying to use. This is much more AI friendly - unless they somehow waste all their horses on Chariot Archers, this is the only unit they should be making.
Bronze Working is selected as the unlock tech since it's really the only tech that's more rushable than Military Strategy to prevent AI from wasting horses on Horseman, while still revealing Iron.

UB - Lamassu Gate (replaces Walls)
Unlocked at Construction
Standard costs
+1
+6
+125 HP
+1 Strike Range
-5% Empire Size Modifier for Unhappiness from Needs
+10% Strike Strength
+20% Military Supply from Population (+10% if supply rework passes)
When you produce a Unit in this City, gain Faith equal to 15% of the Unit's Production cost

+30% city strike strength is Military Base, Red Fort and Order combined. There's no reason to make such a powerful (late game) ability that you need to permanently take 2 CS off the city early on.

EDIT 1: Iron Chariot is now a unique mounted melee unit class unlocked at Bronze Working. Shock Cavalry is nerfed to +20%. The costs stay expensive.

 

[pineappledan]

UU2 - Iron Chariot (replaces Horseman)
Requires 1 Horse and 1 Iron

This is so limiting that I think you would need to make the iron chariot a unique unit class. Needing BOTH horse and iron to work could make you unable to build horsemen at all in a situation where a regular civ could, and almost certainly means fewer of them.

This is all to prevent the addition of a unit that, instead of using SRs, gains combat bonuses from available SRs. I would argue that this is more AI-friendly than the hard limit, and that spamming the unit as a SR-free horseman is valid. In this case I think the fix is worse than the original problem.

 

[azum4roll]

Allowing Horseman to exist means AI will be making them instead, since Military Strategy is required for Iron Working.

 

[pineappledan]

rather than make a unique unit class, you could make this chariot a unique replacement for the war elephant, since that’s basically what this unit is. It has +1 CS from a war elephant, unlocks at the same tech level, and swaps 3 moves for 4 moves with a rough terrain penalty.

 

[azum4roll]

rather than make a unique unit class, you could make this chariot a unique replacement for the war elephant, since that’s basically what this unit is. It has +1 CS from a war elephant, unlocks at the same tech level, and swaps 3 moves for 4 moves with a rough terrain penalty.

It also has no Feared Elephant and requires different resources. It's made to replace both Horseman and Swordsman, at least in open terrain.
It's unlocked at Iron Working (with a greater CS increase to compensate) to give time for connecting both Horse and Iron.

 

[pineappledan]

Except now you can't build horsemen without iron, which is a restriction no other civ has to deal with.
The stars have to align on your start for this unit to be deployable in a timely manner. Even if you have both resources it will take you far longer to connect them than it would to just get horse. You probably wont see these until you have teched to swordsmen, and at the end of it you effectively have a swordsman with +1 CS and a movement bonus in open terrain, but it costs 2 SRs instead of 1.

Compare to the current proposal which allows you to connect the resources AFTER you have built the unit.

Allowing Horseman to exist means AI will be making them instead, since Military Strategy is required for Iron Working.

This is fine. Spamming a SR-free unit is valid strategy.

 

[azum4roll]

Spamming a SR-free unit is valid strategy.

Spamming a unit at the cost of not having a UU is not.

at the end of it you effectively have a swordsman with +1 CS and a movement bonus in open terrain

It's much stronger than Swordsman in open because of the +30%.
I was debating giving it 18 CS, but that would be near unkillable so I settled for 17.

 

[Rekk]

This is fine. Spamming a SR-free unit is valid strategy.

Horsemen require horses, and spamming them means that there are none left for the UU.

 

[pineappledan]

It's much stronger than Swordsman in open because of the +30%.

Debatable because it also takes +33% vs spears and doesn’t have discipline. Also for the same SRs a normal civ could have a horse and sword attacking in the same turn.

Once again, it also costs 2 different resources, and effectively makes Assyria incapable of fielding horsemen. It will just as likely set Assyria back than actually be a bonus. I would just as soon have regular horsemen. This is why I say it needs to be a unique unit class; this unit isn’t worth blowing up the horseman slot.

I don’t think it’s a terribly high bar to make a UU at least as good as what it replaces. You are proposing to make Assyrian horses completely unusable in certain situations, and far harder, later, less numerous, and much more expensive to use in every other situation.

 

[azum4roll]

I don’t think it’s a terribly high bar to make a UU at least as good as what it replaces.

Every elephant (-1 move) and chariot (Beam Axle) UU already doesn't do that.

Is it not reasonable to have Horse and Iron by early Classical? You have time to settle and/or trade for those.

There's no simple way to teach the AI that "you have this unit later, don't waste your horses on inferior units before then".

 

[pineappledan]

just make it a unique unit class. You’re the guy who always goes on about unique units with drawbacks from the base unit being bad. A horse UU requiring an extra copy of a separate SR is a bigger drawback than anything in the game already.

 

[azum4roll]

EDIT 1: Iron Chariot is now a unique mounted melee unit class unlocked at Bronze Working. Shock Cavalry is nerfed to +20%. The costs stay expensive.

This is the best I can do to make the AI produce these.

 

[Recursive]

This proposal can be accomplished without new DLL code, and is therefore sponsored by @azum4roll.

 

[hokath]

@pineappledan
So this new building has faith on it (stacked with Order, even) despite there being no other faith on the civ.
Is this desirable?

 

[pineappledan]

It’s not ideal, since this makes Assyria a strong founder.

 

[azum4roll]

We'll have 4 civs with +1 faith on an Ancient building. Nothing that guarantees founding.

 

[Recursive]

Timestamp post to arrange all the threads in a neat order.