(9-39b) Hoplite Unity Promotion Renamed To Phalanx and Nerfed

[FPXI]

Motivation:
The original post is a very good idea to bring down a unit that is widely agreed to be a little overpowered. This counterproposal seeks to solve the same problems while integrating feedback from the comments. The problems with Hoplites as is are:

• It's too strong too early. Between the UA and the multiple UU combat modifiers, Hoplites are far and away the most powerful thing in the ancient era and they stay relevant for a very long time.
• The strength persists well beyond the ancient era.
• The great general points don't synergize with anything else in the kit and take up design space that is needed in other kits. They're a remnant of the old Companion Calvary UU and serve no real purpose here. It's bloat and can be cut.
• The Unity promotion is too vague, especially when the culturally specific Phalanx name is available.

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Proposal: Rename Unity to Phalanx and remove the flat 10% combat boost. Hoplites also lose the Great generals II promotion.

Hoplite (differences from current bolded, removals struckthrough, differences from spearmen underlined)
Cost: 70

/ 150 🕊

Moves: 2

Strength: 14 (+2)
----------------
Free Promotions:

• Phalanx (+10%
  
  Combat Strength, +15%
  
  Combat Strength per Adjacent Owned Land Unit.)
• Great Generals II
• Formation I (+33%
  
  Combat Strength VS Mounted Units, +15%
  
  Combat Strength when defending in Open Terrain.)

---

References:

Motivation: Hoplites are probably the strongest Ancient unit. They have +2 combat strength over Spearman, two very good free promotions, and are resource-free. Probably a bit much for how spammable they are until Medieval. The other unique Spearmen only have +1 strength and arguably weaker promotions (except maybe Immortals). Unity and Greece's UA allows Hoplites to gain considerable bonuses to combat strength at a time when many promotions aren't available yet. The Great General points also feel a bit random on a Civ with no other Great General synergy, and I'd assume they were just ported over from Companion Cavalry.

TL;DR: Rename Unity to Phalanx, remove base 10% and reduce adjacent scalar to 10%; remove Great Generals II.

Current (differences from Spearman underlined):
Cost: 70 / 150 🕊
Moves: 2
Strength: 14 (+2)
----------------
Free Promotions:

• Unity (+10% Combat Strength, +15% Combat Strength per Adjacent Owned Land Unit.)
• Great Generals II (+100% Great General Points from combat.)
• Formation I (+33% Combat Strength VS Mounted Units, +15% Combat Strength when defending in Open Terrain.)

Proposed (differences from current bolded, removals struckthrough):
Cost: 70

/ 150 🕊

Moves: 2

Strength: 14 (+2)
----------------
Free Promotions:

• Phalanx (+10%
  
  Combat Strength per Adjacent Owned Land Unit.)
• Great Generals II
• Formation I (+33%
  
  Combat Strength VS Mounted Units, +15%
  
  Combat Strength when defending in Open Terrain.)

 

[Legen]

I sponsor this.

 

[Recursive]

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