(8-WD) Sweden and Celts Counterproposals

[Flamingcheesepie]

Part 1: Change Hakkapeliitta from Lancer replacement to Cuirassier replacement and give them AOE on move
Rationale: Currently both the Hakkapeliitta and Carolean prefer to kill enemy units, with Hakkapeliitta having healing on kill and Carolean having AOE on kill. By swapping Hakkapeliitta to a Cuirassier, it can instead fall into a more support role, weakening enemy units and allowing Caroleans to finish them off. By taking AOE on move, it allows them to mimic "charging" damage, which was originally why the Hakkapeliitta was a Lancer replacement.

Current Hakkapeliitta
UM - Hakkapeliitta (replaces Lancer):
available at Metallurgy
350 Production Cost
requires Horses
37 CS
5 Movement
No Movement to Pillage
+1 Sight
Hakkaa Päälle! (+20% vs wounded Units, heals 30 HP from killing Units)

Proposed Hakkapeliitta
UM - Hakkapeliitta (replaces Cuirassier):
available at Metallurgy
325 Production Cost
requires Horses
28 CS, 23 RCS (+1, +1)
5 Movement
Skirmisher Doctrine
No Movement to Pillage
+1 Sight
Hakkaa Päälle! (+20% vs wounded Units, Inflicts 5 Damage to all adjacent enemy units on Move)


Part 2: Remove AOE on Move from Scythed Chariot for Withdraw from Melee
Rationale: The Scythed Chariot currently has two unique promotions, one granting AOE on move (Rend), one granting a bonus against enemy "basic" land units (Carnyx). My assumption is that the Rend promotion is a reference to the speed of Celtic chariots, and the Carnyx promotion is a reference to their warhorns. If they no longer have AOE on move, 100% chance to withdraw from melee attacks as well as +1 base moves would also mimic their swiftness in battle.

Current Scythed Chariot
UM - Scythed Chariot (replaces Skirmisher):
Available at Mathematics
100 Production cost
Requires Horses
12 CS, 13 RCS
4 Movement
"Rend" (Inflicts 5 Damage to all adjacent enemy units on Move. Lost after unit upgrade)
"Carnyx" (+10% RCS vs Archer and Melee Units)
"Beam Axle"

Proposed Scythed Chariot
UM - Scythed Chariot (replaces Skirmisher):
Available at Mathematics
100 Production cost
Requires Horses
12 CS, 13 RCS
5 Movement
"Withdraw from Melee"
"Carnyx" (+10% RCS vs Archer and Melee Units)
"Beam Axle"

Note: These two proposals are linked as the Sweden one makes no sense without the Celtic one, but the Celtic one could function as standalone if desired.

 

[pineappledan]

The rend promotion is called that because it had to be something generic. The AOE on move promotion is shared with the Deaths Head Hussar from the Prussia mod.

The scythed chariot is called that because Roman accounts of Celtic war chariots describe some of them having scythes on the spokes so that the chariots could injure enemy soldiers as the chariot passed by them. These scythed chariots also appear in the Ulster cycle, a Irish legend. Thus there are both exogenous and endogenous accounts of celts using these weapons. An example of them can also be seen in the movie gladiator (2003). If AOE on move is taken off the scythed chariot I would suggest the unit’s name and unit icon should be changed because they don’t really make any sense without that ability. Either that or the celts should get an entirely different UU. Maybe a Hobelar?

The AOE on move on the scythed chariot is currently lost on upgrade. This is why the UU has 2 unique promotions; so it can retain at least 1 on upgrade. Are you suggesting Hakka retain AOE on move on upgrade?

 

[Flamingcheesepie]

The Gallowglass exists on the Steam Workhop and to my knowledge can be used without requiring extra permissions, so if someone wants to counterpropose that I'd be happy to see it. Otherwise, there are few (no?) unique skirmishers, so it would be a shame to lose one. Also, I figured that fewer changes would be more acceptable, so keeping the unit similar seemed to be the best choice.

As to the Hakka promotions - I think losing the AOE on move on upgrade is fine if it's too strong, but otherwise it is more interesting that way. I would even rather remove the extra sight and free pillage moves from the Hakka to keep the AOE on move and damage against wounded. If anyone else has something to say about that, I'm interested in hearing it.

 

[azum4roll]

Just dropping a note here: the current state of VP skirmisher line (weak attack/bulk, used mainly for flanking support) makes it really hard to come up with unique versions, to the point that we're changing multiple of them to have better bulk/damage but without Skirmisher Doctrine, and most others just have better movement to augment the support.

On the proposal, I think the AOE on move conflicts with AOE on kill as now you want to make sure you don't accidentally kill units with Hakkapeliitta which means less damage from the Caroleans.

 

[Flamingcheesepie]

I don't see the AOE on move conflicting with AOE on kill - 5 damage is very low and you're unlikely to get an enemy that low. Instead it activates the damage against wounded enemies, so you can charge forwards, attack, and back off, setting enemies up for Carolean attacks.

 

[pineappledan]

With this change we have a total reinterpretation of the AOE damage on move. If this is approved then it means the community thinks that aAOE on move is way weaker than they did 5 years ago.
- we put this ability on a unit that was specifically selected because it had a movement restriction (beam axel), meaning it had a major limitation in rough terrain. This proposal frees the promotion from that
- we put the ability on an early unit specifically because we wanted to limit access to ZOC. This proposal not only puts the ability later, it puts it on a civ that has bonus XP in its UA. The probability that you will see Hakkas with Parthian tactics (+1 moves and ZOC) in your game is high, meaning a Hakka could run back and forth against 1 or more units to inflict 25 AOE damage, and then shoot.
- this proposal makes AOE damage stay in upgrade, making it even more likely that Parthian tactics can be deployed with it. Furthermore, with how this unit obsoletes after cavalry/Military Academies, it is very likely this will create another Minuteman situation, where the +25XP and access to higher promotions makes the UU stronger on upgrade than it is as its own unit in its own time.

The 4UC designers like this ability and want it in the game, but we chose the Celtic skirmisher specifically to limit the ability’s power. If this is moved to a Swedish renaissance unit then the power of AOE on move will be unleashed in a way we specifically were trying to avoid.

 

[Flamingcheesepie]

You know, I forgot about skirmishers getting ignore ZOC - that does make it much stronger. The promotion could be lost on upgrade if wanted.

Alternatively AOE on move and the Celts change could just be stopped and the Hakka could go to cuirassier with a different promotion anyways - to me the more important part is to remove the emphasis on kills for both the Carolean and Hakka, and making the Hakka more of a support unit in cuirassier fits.

 

[Stalker0]

MAGI: @Flamingcheesepie unless I'm mistaken there is no overlap between your 41 and 10 proposals. If that's the case, please go ahead and split these into 2 threads. We expect to have a lot of threads to go through, and it just makes things tidy.

Thank you.

 

[Stalker0]

MAGI: Withdrawn by OP request.

 

[Recursive]

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