About unit line gaps in the tech tree

[Hinin]

Hello everyone,

As you may know, for most unit lines, there is a new upgrade every two tech tiers (meaning vertical columns of technologies in the tech tree ; most eras have two tech tiers), while some have an entire era passing before they get a new upgrade. This, in my opinion, can create balance problems in some ways :
- a unit line may become obsolete for a tech tier or two because no new upgrade is available, making its combat strength suddenly subpar before spiking again a few tech tiers later;
- to follow the idea above, science may become too powerful during those gaps, because the first one to unlock the unit after the gap obtains a major advantage (the Medieval era is famous for that);
- some unique units can be available for far longer than what is the norm (two upgrades, so four tech tiers), making balancing these units more difficult;
- unit line gaps can make some parts of the tech tree poorer as a result in term of military value.

One of the main arguments for these gaps was how they helped symbolize the ebb and flows of the viability of some weapon systems throughout history (cavalry being most prestigious before falling against precise ranged weapons for example) : some eras are ranged focused, while some are melee focused. I understand the argument, but in the context of the game, I cannot agree with it : I do consider that different army specialization should be kept viable throughout the game if you put the science and gold behind maintaing them. Economics, promotions, terrains and tactics should be the main deciding factors for the viability of a unit line in a given situation.

Some of you might know that I proposed a while back in my tweak mod (nowadays obsolete because I do not have the time to maintain it with all the changes the congress introduced) some units to fill some gaps :
- Mounted Melee : I added the Cavalier during the Classical era to fill the gap between the Horseman (Ancient) and the Knight (Medieval)
- Spear : I added the Halberdier during the Classical era to fill the gap between the Spearman (Ancient) and the Pikeman (Medieval)
- Recon : I added the Frontiersman (Classical) and the Light Company (Renaissance)

That said, there are other gaps that I didn't fill :
- gaps for naval unit lines in the endgame (I suppose the long-term naval-enhancement project will provide an answer to this)
- the absence of a melee mounted unit in the Industrial era
etc

My questions are the following :
- should we consider as important that these gaps are filled (so every unit line gets an upgrade every two tech tiers) ?
- if we do, what changes to existing unit lines should be done to keep this make this idea real ?
- should a different process be considered for naval and air units ?

You know my pov and some of the early solutions I proposed, but I'm very curious to hear your opinions on the matter. Feel free to discuss the subject here.

Thanks for reading.

 

[Tekamthi]

I'm probably in the minority in this community but I enjoy the gaps where they are truly historically representative, the ebb & flow as you describe... however I don't think VP is really following this very well/at all. The gaps as we have them are rather arbitrary, and we've already done calendar archers etc. so might as well even everything out. Not something I feel very strongly about however.

On the other hand, I'd love to see a modmod that redoes the tech tree prioritizing for historical alignment, balance secondary

 

[Amask]

I also like the gaps and the way the relative power and roles change over time, but for a different reason than you.
I think that if everything was evened out it will be incredibly boring.
With the exception of wonders and some key techs, there are already very few reasons to get excited about most techs.
Oooh, +1 production on some tiles that I have five of in my empire!
Oooh, +1 gold on a merchant, who even cares?
Oooh, some building that I won't build for a while anyway 'cause there is too much to build already.
I like that some techs give a power spike, and I like that units that were powerhouses for a while eventually take a back seat, only to come to the forefront once again at some later point.

 

[y10]

I definitely agree that the industrial era could use a mounted melee unit. The gap between lancer and landship is very large, and lanships require oil which can be very hard to find. I haven't tried this, but I heard that enlightenment era for VP helps with this. As for the late game naval gaps, I definitely recommend Enhanced Naval Warfare. It is an excellent mod mod.

 

[CAYM]

Try adding the "ERA of Enlightenment." Then it fits perfectly. / Naval Warfare

 

[andersw]

The one gap I dislike the most is the ancient > medieval gap because this is also where you mostly fall behind vs the AI.
Its both a tech disadvantage and trying to not fall apart in happiness and economy.
So you get hammered by knights and try to defend with archers, spears and skirmishers while you also probably cant afford to buy any units.
The gap from spears to pikemen is massive, I try to go currency first for comp bows (its also a tech that helps the economy) to cover that gap.

 

[CAYM]

The one gap I dislike the most is the ancient > medieval gap because this is also where you mostly fall behind vs the AI.
Its both a tech disadvantage and trying to not fall apart in happiness and economy.
So you get hammered by knights and try to defend with archers, spears and skirmishers while you also probably cant afford to buy any units.
The gap from spears to pikemen is massive, I try to go currency first for comp bows (its also a tech that helps the economy) to cover that gap.

As the difficulty increases, this section really shakes mentality. It's a disaster, especially if close to civilization.

 

[KlHannibal2]

I am one of those who enjoy the existing gaps. As was stated before, I feel getting an upgrade for every unit line in every era would make all those units of a line feel the same. But unlocking a powerful unit like knights is meaningful. Also, if the AI gets it before you, you are in trouble. This concept favors more mixed armies. Even if you have a bonus or UU of one line, you should get some other unit lines to help your main line during a period of weakness. I also like having cavalry as main melee units while they are strong. In industrial, they become more of flankers and raiders. You can buy some foreign legions to fill the gap until you get landships.
This concept also favors timing your attacks to your times of strength, instead of giving you equal attack power throughout the game.

 

[Hinin]

The gap between lancer and landship is very large, and lanships require oil which can be very hard to find.

We have janboruta's authorization to use his work for VP, so we can use Poland's Ulhan as an Industrial mounted melee unit.

Spoiler Potential Unit Icons :

I haven't tried this, but I heard that enlightenment era for VP helps with this.

Enlightenment era brings other problems in terms of design, mostly the fact that, to avoid yield inflation, the buildings of the mod are very underpowered.

As for the late game naval gaps, I definitely recommend Enhanced Naval Warfare. It is an excellent mod mod.

It is currently being worked on for integration, but it will take time.

 

[Stalker0]

The one gap I dislike the most is the ancient > medieval gap because this is also where you mostly fall behind vs the AI.

In terms of impact to the game, I would agree. Its common for the AI to get to medieval before you, and so you have to fight medieval units with....whatever you got.

Now whether that's good or not we can debate, but its the one gap in the game that I think has true play impact.

The other major gap as has been noted is Lancer -> Landship. I don't personally mind this as much, lancers are actually very cheap for this phase in the game, it's the one unit I think its spam ability is actually a true asset that I exploit. By the time I make 1 rifleman I can have 2 almost 3 lancers on the frontlines of my war (both due to production speed and actual travel speed). That matters. Also even if its causing me a problem, I generally have the tools at that point in the game to hole up and defend until I hit the next spike of units.


I don't think you need a new unit for ancient -> medieval per say, maaaaaybe moving the pikeman earlier. You can upgrade your spears, they can counter knights which are the real problem, and they are a relatively defensive unit, so someone rushing to them doesn't gain a big offensive advantage, but just lets them hold out better against medieval units. Then they upgrade to the tercio as normal.

So the trick would be, what tech to put it on? I think the only viable tech is likely engineering. While Metal Casting I think makes the most thematic sense, you can rush Metal Casting in 11 techs (technically 9 but I consider pottery and trapping essential techs I don't think its reasonable to play a game without them). Steel takes 15 (again including pottery as a must have). Engineering is 13. The new trireme on Philosophy is 13 (assuming military strategy which again I consider essential to a competitive game)

Metal Casting feels too quick to me. Though we do have the Berserker on metal casting as precedent. Also if I were to compare the two I think metal casting is a "stronger" tech than engineering at the moment, so giving the Pike to engineering would balance the books more.

 

[Stalker0]

Also why we are talking about unit progress, the other progression that feels a bit off to me sometimes is the speed of Metallurgy. It only takes 2 techs after gunpowder to get to metullurgy, so it creates a tremendous pressure at this point in the game. If you are medieval when they get gunpowder, it puts you behind, but xbows can do already against tercio, at least for a time. Ultimately tercio are more defensive than they are offensive, they just can't project power like ranged or mounted units can, and so there are ways to deal with taht tech gap.

But if they get to metullurgy before you have gunpowder your screwed, and even then muskets and lancers are very powerful against tercio.

 

[FinMc]

I think moving spears up a tiny bit is an excellent idea. I have a lot of emperor games I am forced to abandon if an AI I am close to gets a lot of medieval techs fast and then I get dumpstered by knights. If I was able to hold on for ~50 turns I could survive the rest of the game, but I just get overrun.

I also agree that gunpowder>metallurgy is too fast.

 

[pineappledan]

I like the 3 tech gaps in some lines, but I think there need to be a few consistent unit lines that upgrade consistently each era that anchor the unit progression. Without the consistency of some unit lines, the inconsistency of other unit lines is less coherent.

I'm probably in the minority in this community but I enjoy the gaps where they are truly historically representative, the ebb & flow as you describe... however I don't think VP is really following this very well/at all. The gaps as we have them are rather arbitrary, and we've already done calendar archers etc. so might as well even everything out. Not something I feel very strongly about however.

The archer/calendar thing was deliberately to make ranged units upgrade on a consistent 2-tech rotation in the 2nd line of every era, offset from the infantry line which, with the exception of the spearman->pikeman 3 gap break, upgrades every 2 techs in the 1st line of every era. The spear/pike gap in the melee line is covered by the swordsman, which collapses into the same unmounted infantry line in renaissance, so it's not really a gap.

Likewise, this is why I wanted to add the Galley, and move the melee boat line to a consistent 2-tech rotation.

 

[ma_kuh]

One thing I reminded myself of recently was that in vanilla, warriors +> swords, not spears (ruins notwithstanding, of course), and I think there might have been something to that choice. It does some work with suggesting a seesaw between unit lines, and gives you these natural power spikes to play around. But maybe the ship has sailed on that one. Just something to consider.

For naval lines, I feel like there's a space to extend the "submarine" concept all the way back to Ancient, by adding a kind of "mounted" line to the "range" and "melee" lines we already have. It would operate somewhat similarly to boarding+navigation melee, but with an emphasis on sniping ships and trying to get away from melee counter-attacks. And then you could have a 3-unit rotation of upgrades, giving each a time to be top-ship.

But we have a hefty update to naval already pending, so the time isn't really right.

 

[Anarcomu]

Looking at warrior => spearmen, I guess the reasoning is that if you get some warriors with XP, when swordsmen show up and you get no iron, at least early warrior could upgrade to spearmen. If you train swordsmen, you have the iron for it. Further, if you reach medieval era without iron, you couldn't even upgrade warriors to pikemen, You would be stuck with them until you get iron to upgrade them all the way to Tercios.

 

[stii]

I think warriors>spears is right. The issue is just that spears/pikes are terrible.

Tthe fact a knight beats a pike in a straight up fight is rather awkward.

 

[Stalker0]

I think warriors>spears is right. The issue is just that spears/pikes are terrible.

Tthe fact a knight beats a pike in a straight up fight is rather awkward.

Ultimately knights are more expensive and are a strategic unit, so the idea they beat a pike 1 on 1 isn't really a problem to me. They were the premier units of the medieval era for a reason. And also if you consider a defending pike that is healing after the knight attacks (especially with a medic behind them)....I don't know if a knight really does win that trade effectively.

The biggest problem pikes face is xbows, which tend to murder them pretty hard. I mean hell they murder longswords pretty well too.

 

[Phosphoraptor]

I think some existing unit line strengths/gaps in certain can be allowed as long as there are enough units in the previous tier to tide you over. The more important thing would be to even out unit distribution among tiers, I dont want a repeat of the Knight rush days.

 

[stii]

Ultimately knights are more expensive and are a strategic unit, so the idea they beat a pike 1 on 1 isn't really a problem to me. They were the premier units of the medieval era for a reason. And also if you consider a defending pike that is healing after the knight attacks (especially with a medic behind them)....I don't know if a knight really does win that trade effectively.

The biggest problem pikes face is xbows, which tend to murder them pretty hard. I mean hell they murder longswords pretty well too.

the issue is there is no reason for knights to fight pikes at all. They win the trade by standing there while a ranged unit shoots the pike. It doesn't need to be perfect rock/paper/sissors but pikes shouldn't lose to everything. There is just no reason to ever build them.

 

[ma_kuh]

The reason is you have no strategic resource for a sword or horse, or you need bodies faster, or you're fighting in forests and jungles where you can make use of Woodsman. They're army filler, but they still have a role to play.