Are LONGSWORDSMEN the new Horsemen?

Are Longswordsmen Fair or in need of Patching?

  • They are absolutely fair, no changes needed.

    Votes: 42 34.7%
  • They are fair but it really sucks if you don't get iron.

    Votes: 59 48.8%
  • They probably need some patching.

    Votes: 18 14.9%
  • They are absolutely NOT fair and must be patched.

    Votes: 2 1.7%

  • Total voters
    121

swordspider

Dread Multiplayer
Joined
Sep 30, 2010
Messages
253
Location
Raleigh, NC
Ok, so quick observation here based on my SP and MP playing, it appears that after the Horsemen were castrated in the latest patch, that now Longswordsmen have become the focus of much ire. There are clear differences, notably the requirement of iron and the depth in the tech tree, BUT, with that said it appears the first to Longs who then uses them immediately has a serious advantage, much like the first to Rifles. A lot of people (especially in MP) are saying they need to be nerfed to. I disagree, but figured I would poll on it.

Case: I did some attack tests without healing and a single longswordsman (on equal unit terrain modifiers) can take out : 4 spears, 4 warriors, 9 archers, 3 swords, 3 pikes - without dieing (he has 1 or 2 HP left at the end of those attack sequences). Obviously, the cost of the unit is far superior to those units, but you are guaranteed a promotion during those attacks and if you choose to heal, you have effectively doubled the unit effectiveness.

Actual MP Gameplay example: I took 5 Longs (I had a general with them in this example) and took out 11 spears, 7 archers, and 4 horsemen along with 5 cities (obviously utilizing the healing upgrade option) and lost only 1 while decimating the opponent's entire civilization. I still think it was fair based on the fact that I had to stress my cities to get the tech first and only built 5 warriors which I turned into swords and then longs... BUT the defender rage-quit saying the whole thing was trash.

So anyway, what is the general consensus?
 
the should def reduce their strenght...usually i build up 2-3 horses in my games.. either to scout..or to distract the enemy from behind..
but since i don't have that much iron.. i can't build up too many longs.. not to mention catapults..
 
I think they are a little too powerful. But then again seeing as I typically construct normal swordmen most of the time even when I can construct longswordman simply because its typically much quicker its not that great of a problem or at least not in singleplayer (I haven't played MP), most of the time I can throw 2-3 regular swordmen at the AI for every longswordmen that the AI has and that's not even counting any of my other units.
 
if I'm going warmonger I'll usually go for 2-1 longswords/siege. I typically don't even bother to build anything else unless I'm very iron-constrained. I think that they're far enough down the tech tree that they're not OP'd, especially considering that knights are similar in overal combat effectiveness. The only thing that I would do is to make some additional pre-reqs for longswords so that you don't get babylons or RA maniacs getting them on turn 65, because even though knights are at the same level in the tech tree they take a lot longer to get.
 
For the love of God, why do people feel the need to nerf every military strategy? I think they already went too far nerfing war in the last patch with the nerf to horses and the improvement to city defenses. No need to go any further with it. Military is a big part of the game and history, if you commit to going down the military path, there should be advantages to it.
 
yeah, even now you can have normal cities with walls and a crossbow fight off multiple longswords. it's not as easy as others, but still doable. ranged units + promos + GG are even more effective post-patch b/c cities can actually hold their own. I had one of my cities get sneak attacked by a CS with a musket, 2 archers, 3 pikes, and a spear last night. city was only 16 str, no money to rush-buy a unit and my entire army was 4 turns away. did I have to get a loan to buy walls? NO! pikes and spear suicided against city, it got down to around 8 hp, but then I was able to pick off one remaining unit per turn until the cavalry arrived. and that was without walls, if I'd had them I could have held off 3 longswords without a ranged defender, probably 4-5 with an xbow or treb in the city.

speaking of crazy city combat, why does an equal battle so strongly favor the attacking unit instead of the city (looks like around 2-1 damage in favor of attacker).
 
macemen are much slower then heavy horse, at least you see them coming. Thats quit a contrast from former - " what just happpaned?-my capital is gone- chapmanion cav rush"
 
macemen are much slower then heavy horse, at least you see them coming. Thats quit a contrast from former - " what just happpaned?-my capital is gone- chapmanion cav rush"

Hehehe, "macemen" he says... xPPP Old habits die hard eh?

I'm fine with them, more buffs, less nerfs please ^^
 
For the love of God, why do people feel the need to nerf every military strategy? I think they already went too far nerfing war in the last patch with the nerf to horses and the improvement to city defenses. No need to go any further with it. Military is a big part of the game and history, if you commit to going down the military path, there should be advantages to it.

I agree, thus the question. Judging by the polls, everyone agrees, so looks like we're all good to go.
 
Nerf everything! Of course iron-based units are overpowered because horse units got totally nerfed in the patch. Somebody should save time and mod the game so all units have 1 combat strength and all cities have 1 million combat strength.

To the OP: how can your single longsword 23 units? It seems like since the patch every battle results in at least 1 damage to the victor - a change I find rather annoying since I don't think archers ought to be able to damage modern armor, but that's my experience. Isn't 9 the maximum number of units you can kill without stopping to heal?
 
this part of the forum is ridiculous.

i wonder how many of these threads are created just for pure trolling.

the couple of posts above are correct, less just 'nerf' the hell out of the whole game eh.


go at a Civ with 4/5 of the most up to date units in the current game and cities will fall, thats the way it is.
 
Like Sulla said in his analysis its not good to penaltize everything in the game. If something feels overpowered, rather buff others than nerf one unit. In my opinion it would have been better to boost all other units and possibly cities too so that they would have been on same level with horsemen, even though the effect would still have been pretty much the same.
 
I think it's fine like that. I voted it sucks if no iron so i think a little raise of probabilities of iron appearing on map should be better.

Addind a new unit in the tech tree with 12 to 16 strengh may be nice too, but not reachable earlier than steel to keep the possession advantage of stronger units.
 
I think Longswords are fine, though I do sometimes feel like they come far too quickly. Just adding another pre-req tech might be enough for me, but having said that I've never found them to be too OP, so I'd say they're mostly fine as is
 
For me, longswordsmen were always the unit of choice for rush. I never much understood the glorification of/complaints about horsemen.


But the problem is definitely that it is a pure luck if one have iron or not. Ok, there are city states with iron, or one can trade it otherwise. But, honestly, it's kind of "different" when one is lucky and gets a 6 iron hex for free.

I would definitely suggest to make iron more abundant than now. I also think there should be 3 and 5 iron hexes (i.e. nerf 6->5, buff 2->3).

Moreover, many of the units should require iron. Muskets, rifles, infantry should require 1, tanks, mech inf, antitank, artillery should require 2. Air units should require aluminum (_and_ oil - all of them), and GDR also maybe aluminum.
 
there are already too few units in the game, there's no need to nerf the stronger ones even more by making them that much harder to get. besides, if all the melee units in the game required 1+iron and horses are weak vs cities, how exactly would you propose to play as a smaller civ and/or without iron? iron is already the most important strategic mineral by far, and warmongering is already more prevalent than many people like.

I really do like the idea of adding another pre-req, however. machinery would make the most sense b/c it's also on the bottom of the tree, but CS would be acceptable as well since then you would need almost the same amout of beakers to get steel as chivalry.
 
I honestly feel this last patch went too far nerfing horsearchers and improving city defenses and walls. Something had to be done, but they went overboard with it. Now it's ridiculously difficult to take a city with walls. You can surround the city and knock its health down slightly, but it'll regenerate almost fully by the next turn, meanwhile your units will all get attacked by nearby cities and units, leaving your units almost dead if not dead. No matter how many units you bring, it's virtually impossible because city defenses will heal so much every turn, and your units will just get obliterated. The AI's preference for ICS has made it even worse because now the AI has several cities close by to fire on your units.
 
I honestly feel this last patch went too far nerfing horsearchers and improving city defenses and walls. Something had to be done, but they went overboard with it. Now it's ridiculously difficult to take a city with walls. You can surround the city and knock its health down slightly, but it'll regenerate almost fully by the next turn, meanwhile your units will all get attacked by nearby cities and units, leaving your units almost dead if not dead. No matter how many units you bring, it's virtually impossible because city defenses will heal so much every turn, and your units will just get obliterated. The AI's preference for ICS has made it even worse because now the AI has several cities close by to fire on your units.

i wouldn't say taht

take swordsmen and 1-2 catapults plus some other units againsts a 15-16 city defense,you will take it down easily...it all depends on what you bring to take the city...
after the patch. they made a siege weapon a MUST in any atack against cities..
 
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