[Complex] (9-NS) Babylon : Sabum Kibitum as a pikemen replacement (4UC patch)

[supermash]

Hello everyone, it is my first congress proposal, don't hesitate to correct me if my proposal has an incorect format

motivation: the Sabum Kibitum is an unique spearmen repleacement for Babylon, a little bit stronger (+1 ) with two extra starting traits. One give +50% xp bonus in combat and the second give +5% power per level above 1.
On the paper this unit is not bad but not excellent either. However is doesn't fit into the actual babylon kit, let me explain

Babylon is a civ focus mainly on science victory because of his UA and has some possibility for other victory types thanks also to his UA giving the extra building cost reduction on buy.
So on paper once again an ancient era unit based mostly on heavy early wars is possible to play for a domination victory even if it is not very optimal to do so.
However on practice this unit show almost no plays unless you plan from the start to do an blitz ancient era war which is a possibility on some small maps.
Because the most common opening as Babylon is to go for the North technology part to unlock very quickly your Bowman, babylon walls, and getting the Alexandria library or the Alexandrian Lighthouse for mid and late game. Also getting north unlock earlier settlers which is a complete must have as babylon is more designed to play wide than tall (and the current meta rewards actually way too much the wide empire).

And so why i explain all of this above ? Because To unlock the Sabum Kibitum you need obviously the bronze technology to unlock spearmen and this technlogy place is the complete opposite of all your kit. Meaning if you go there you will lose a heavy ton of time especially that Babylon is very short on time for the opener. Each turn ,you need to monitor everything (science, production and even gold spending) carefully at 200% else you will be far behind as all your kit is ancient era based on wall and building production with extreme settling colonization policy.
So when you unlock this UU, generally it is already middle classical age or even medieval era on greedy build. And because your opener is not this military bottom branch you go first. The tempo when you get this UU is already mostly gone. Spearmen even unique shine before opponents get mass archers, skirmishers or swordman. But after it falls very quickly and even more with pikemen upgrade as actually they are average and will have probably a rework to unlock them in late classical era and no longer in medieval.

And what about some argument like it will help for defense ? Well you prefer having bowman and babylon walls than a mass spearmen for defense so the actual kit before the 4UC already respond to that answer for that era.

I did 5 complete playthrough as Bbaylon on 5.0 and the only time i used as "intended" this unit by leveling them was during a playthrough i go military rush ancient era, kill 1 or two civs on standard setting and then getting hated by everyone for the rest of your game getting even more wars on a 4UC that encourage defense while wide and not conquering everyone with a spearmen having only the +1 to help you in that task early on.
The 4 other times, the Sabum Kibitum was just something i mostly avoided, maybe getting one or two units for the frontline but nothing extremly valuable as if you mass them and try to xp them later like for tercio (because pikemen are too bad to level up alone even on counter match up). you will just spend a ton of early gold (remember Babylon hate spend gold outside for building production) and getting tercio Level 1 or 2 (maybe 3) and using the +50% xp bonus to get a barely 10-15% in renaissance or later (which is completely average in that era and later).

To conclude my motivation i will just say that the best solution i will propose is to move this unit to a pikemen replacement as buffing or change too much this units would cause the following problems :
1 - More early or power overall will encourage ultra agressive rush in ancient era. And to be honest, nobody like these kinds of strategy (on MP you are getting insulted at best, and vs AI win the game in 50 turns on standard speed is not very fun overall).
2 - encourage to go unlocking them without the intention of rush someone will just make a beginner traps for most players
3 - if they are too strong even just for defense on Ancient era, some player might feel completely powerless vs Babylon even with rushing early civs as they would have 3 heavy defensive UC availaible early on (and Bowman is the strongest of all ancient era units).

So the best option after discussion on Reddit was to move this UU to Pikemen replacement as they will probably be set on Classical era and so will stay in the scope of historical apperance. Also it will make Babylon less overstack on Ancient era as Ancient era doesn't allow many mass production and no report of units from previous era.
This following proposal might be changed depending on Balance proposal around early game units

Proposal :
Sabum Kibitum (Pikemen replacement)
19 (from 17)
2
Formation 1
Quick Study
Legacy : +10 % (5% actually) Combat Strength per level beyond 1 capped at +40% (in level 5 , no cap actually)

Thanks for your feedback i will read it carefully : you can also reply on reddit here

 

[FPXI]

So, I very much sympathize with this. The unit is very cool, and as you say, it will typically see little play because it's not really in the path of what Babylon wants to be doing early game. I'm against this change though because it's historically pretty weird and also, This is a nerf which Babylon doesn't need. Because of the nature of this unit's promotions, the earlier this unit unlocks the better. Moving it to Pikemen doesn't really help with any of the existing problems. What probably would help is if they were just a little cheaper.

 

[supermash]

So, I very much sympathize with this. The unit is very cool, and as you say, it will typically see little play because it's not really in the path of what Babylon wants to be doing early game. I'm against this change though because it's historically pretty weird and also, This is a nerf which Babylon doesn't need. Because of the nature of this unit's promotions, the earlier this unit unlocks the better. Moving it to Pikemen doesn't really help with any of the existing problems. What probably would help is if they were just a little cheaper.

well in terms of historical accuracy, Pikemen will be placed on late classical era and will see a new skin with lather armor or something like that. So it will fit based on the current 4UC early game proposal balance.
Moving it to pikemen is totally not a nerf at all. It will allow for more units as you will have promotion from spearmen while in the actual situation you have to build it immediatly to use them.
And there is a big misconception with the quick study promotion. Because in theory you wanna them early but too early means without access to barrack and later armory. So they will start level 1 instead of level 2 or 3. So unless you play on epic or marathon a very long war and some units get level 4 before medieval. The Sabum Kibitum will just stay a waste of money from upgrade to later units and from the unkeep.

So starting later doesn't nerf the unit concept as it will start with higher Level from barrack and later armory. And having a middle age or late classical unit will help 100 times more for mid game transitionning while all ancient era cluster the kit well too much and makes quick drop in powerspike for Babylon.

And for your idea to make them a little cheaper it was my first idea as a buff. But after internal testing with an internal mod the reduction , it was just confirming the 3 points above i told that would encourage you to play even more hyper aggressive and early rush and would be largely frustrating for most players in Multiplayer mainly (like imagine you have to build a very early army to counter that but if babylon don't rush, you are behind in technology or culture so you will be in both lose lose situation).

 

[hokath]

Legacy : +10 % (5% actually) Combat Strength per level beyond 1 (capped at +40% in level 5)

This effect doesn't have a cap atm

 

[FPXI]

This effect doesn't have a cap atm

Nor do I think it should. There's a fun dream in here of Babylonian super units.

 

[supermash]

Nor do I think it should. There's a fun dream in here of Babylonian super units.

for testing it multiple times. it is very rare you get melee above level 6. so you are capped naturally around +25%.
So i think increase the amount and cap it makes overall a little bit stronger than infinite but very slow growth

This effect doesn't have a cap atm

no it is not actually but is needed if we increase the power of this promotion. because +5% per level is rather weak, most UU got between +20 to +50% (for very late units) without much conditions in general. The actual power for most Sabum Kibitum rarely got more than level 4 in a non-snowballing game so the power in terms of actual balance is around +10,+15% or rarely +20% or above which is below the average standard of most UU. that's will be the balance if they start pikemen. Else they will start with lower XP because your first units will lack barracks and then maybe armory if they start as spearmen replacement

 

[hokath]

Just to clarify, I wrote that because it means this requires a DLL sponsor

 

[azum4roll]

I don't see why numbers have to be multiples of 5. We can easily adjust the strength without capping it otherwise.

 

[supermash]

I don't know either. I am new to the VP community so i don't really know if it is a mandatory rule or more for comfort for manual calculation. In the doubt i did apply this rule to my suggestion.

Because yes it is 5 or 10 % with that rule and nothing in the middle like 8%.

I saw you can sponsor DLL change @azum4roll . Do you wanna sponsor it ?
Else do you think it is complicated to do DLL programmation to sponsor it myself? Sorry for the personal questions if it is against this section rules (i don't know exactly what i can do and say here)

 

[Recursive]

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