Armored Fighting Vehicles (Tanks) evolution path

I'm not sure about names, but I have a suggestion to make.

Light Cavalry :
Dragoons (Early Modern) -> Cavalry (Industrial) -> Armored Cavalry -> Air Cavalry
Heavy Cavalry:
Cuirassier (Early Modern) -> no Industrial upgrade -> Medium Armor (or Tanks) -> Main Battle Tanks

Having the Heavy Cavalry line *not* get a unit in the Industrial era can serve to represent the merging of roles between heavy and light cavalry - that way, the Cavalry and Cuirassier unit would probably have pretty similar stats thanks to the Cavalry being one Era more modern than the Cuirassier, before diverging again when the next upgrade line (Medium Armor and Armored Cavalry) rolls around.
There are some other advantages to this:
Dragoons from the late Renaissance on were also used for scouting, patrolling, raiding - all the 'traditional' Light Cavalry roles, making them the real functional successors to previous light cavalry.
All of Peter the Great's original Russian cavalry were Dragoons and the US Army cavalry first formed in the 1830s all had dragoon-type functions and training, so there are two potential UUs using the Dragoon unit as well.
Having them be 'one Era behind' also illustrates the Heavy Cavalry/Cuirassiers lack of Purpose in the Industrial Era - they clung desperately to the old role of charging Battle Cavalry, but were woefully inadequate at it in the face of rifled artillery and infantry with massed rifles.
Medium Armor I would call Medium Tanks, representing the 20 - 30 ton vehicles with effective high explosive firepower, but that's a quibble: the nomenclature should primarily reflect what the game calls both the light and heavy 'cavalry' line of upgrades.
 
- Ligh Cavalry:
Uhlan> Hussar > Armored Car > Light Armored Vehicle
- Heavy Cavalry:
Reiter > Cuirassier > Heavy Tank > Main Battle Tank

Modern cavalry like Uhlans, Hussars, Lancers, Cuirassiers, Dragoons and Carabiniers were contemporary with each others at some point and their roles changed and mixed in different periods and nations (some even being mounted infantry). There is not point to be picky when gameplay always take (and need) arbitrary licenses beyond the historical source. It is true that Heavy Cavalry was losing progressively their role as a truly armored and charging force as guns increased their range, precision and rate of fire but for sake of gameplay we gain nothing from merge cavalry just one era to be split off again in their mechanized form.

The Helipcoter could be their own line, mainly since famous helicopter models turned to be specialized ground vehicle busters flipping the relation between Light and Heavy cavalry lines.
 
We don't need to merge them for one era ; but the idea I suggested (no Industrial era Heavy Cavalry, but Light Cavalry upgrade to the Cavalry unit) does an almost as good job of representing the fact that Heavy Cavalry lost its role for that era, and light cavalry was essentially just as good.

As for your suggested lines, having the final cavalry unit before the tanks be 17th century model (Cuirassier and Hussar)- implying that there was no change at all in cavalry from then to the 20th century - is a little wrong. Okay ,very wrong actually. The cuirassier can stay, representing the fact that the heavy cavalry was a unit in search of a role during this period, but the light cavalry should definitely have a 19th century Industrial upgrade.

And Heavy Tanks (as Boris pointed out) have no business in the Heavy Cavalry line. They're slow siege and anti-tank units, not at all the kind of offensive weapon that should be replacing cavalry.

Air-Cavalry and Antitank helicopter are two entirely different units, which might not both need to be in the game, but the idea that we can't have air-cavalry helicopter because some helicopters are anti tank is...rather strange?
 
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- Ligh Cavalry:
Uhlan> Hussar > Armored Car > Light Armored Vehicle
- Heavy Cavalry:
Reiter > Cuirassier > Heavy Tank > Main Battle Tank

Modern cavalry like Uhlans, Hussars, Lancers, Cuirassiers, Dragoons and Carabiniers were contemporary with each others at some point and their roles changed and mixed in different periods and nations (some even being mounted infantry). There is not point to be picky when gameplay always take (and need) arbitrary licenses beyond the historical source. It is true that Heavy Cavalry was losing progressively their role as a truly armored and charging force as guns increased their range, precision and rate of fire but for sake of gameplay we gain nothing from merge cavalry just one era to be split off again in their mechanized form.

The Helipcoter could be their own line, mainly since famous helicopter models turned to be specialized ground vehicle busters flipping the relation between Light and Heavy cavalry lines.
Why do you propsed Helicopters as separate units? They're used as Air Cavalry since 1950s. and while they can fly over seas, they ain't be able to fly it all the way across big seas like Gulf of Siam (all the way from Sattahip Naval Base to Songkla) without tender ships of any kind.
 
There are some other advantages to this:
Dragoons from the late Renaissance on were also used for scouting, patrolling, raiding - all the 'traditional' Light Cavalry roles, making them the real functional successors to previous light cavalry.
All of Peter the Great's original Russian cavalry were Dragoons and the US Army cavalry first formed in the 1830s all had dragoon-type functions and training, so there are two potential UUs using the Dragoon unit as well.
Having them be 'one Era behind' also illustrates the Heavy Cavalry/Cuirassiers lack of Purpose in the Industrial Era - they clung desperately to the old role of charging Battle Cavalry, but were woefully inadequate at it in the face of rifled artillery and infantry with massed rifles.
Medium Armor I would call Medium Tanks, representing the 20 - 30 ton vehicles with effective high explosive firepower, but that's a quibble: the nomenclature should primarily reflect what the game calls both the light and heavy 'cavalry' line of upgrades.
1. Is there any difference between 'Dragoons' and 'Harquebusiers' of the same era? (1600s) beyond taht Harquebusiers are Cavs from the beginning but Dragoons began as mobile infantry?
2. Also what are differences between Reiter and Cuirassiers? since both units are Earlymodern heavyhorses armed with 2-3 pistols and AP sword.?
- Heavy Cavalry:
Reiter > Cuirassier > Heavy Tank > Main Battle Tank
 
We don't need to merge them for one era ; but the idea I suggested (no Industrial era Heavy Cavalry, but Light Cavalry upgrade to the Cavalry unit) does an almost as good job of representing the fact that Heavy Cavalry lost its role for that era, and light cavalry was essentially just as good.

As for your suggested lines, having the final cavalry unit before the tanks be 17th century model (Cuirassier and Hussar)- implying that there was no change at all in cavalry from then to the 20th century - is a little wrong. Okay ,very wrong actually. The cuirassier can stay, representing the fact that the heavy cavalry was a unit in search of a role during this period, but the light cavalry should definitely have a 19th century Industrial upgrade.
Names like Cuirassier and Hussar dont need to be anchored to their origin period, both were still used at late 19th century, these is pretty much way CIV6 Cuirassier is based in 19th century ones and not their 17th century equivalent. Anyway if the idea is to show some change Hussar > Carabinier can do a better job, the former using sable or lance in a period when guns still had a week side while the later would show the development of reliable gun for mounted units. Also a more important point, please avoid uning "Cavalry" for Cavalry units when there are alternative names.
And Heavy Tanks (as Boris pointed out) have no business in the Heavy Cavalry line. They're slow siege and anti-tank units, not at all the kind of offensive weapon that should be replacing cavalry.

Air-Cavalry and Antitank helicopter are two entirely different units, which might not both need to be in the game, but the idea that we can't have air-cavalry helicopter because some helicopters are anti tank is...rather strange?
These make my question something. The reduced in significance Heavy Cavalry from late 18th and 19th century were less relevant that early 20th century Light Armored Cars?
As far as I remember CIV jumping from horse to helicopter could be kind of right since in the time of airplane raids and reconnaissance the representation of small light-armored car unit seems irrelevant for the many kilometers broad front battles. Then this open another option:
LCHussar
CCarabinierMedium TankMain Battle Tank
HCCuirassier
Attack Helicopter
So the merge of cavalry would have a significative reason since it turn to be permanent, while helicopter's awkard gap and role relation with others "cavalry" is avoided.
 
While there were cuirassier in the nineteenth century, they were by that point a unit without a purpose, searching for a role on the battlefield. Using it as a nineteenth century unit, even if that's what the game currently does, just doesn't make much more sense. Late early modern is where that unit makes the most sense.

And I still don't see what a merge would give. There's two clear lines both pre- and post-industrial, just one era (industrial) where one of the two lines struggled with not being able to play its traditional role very well. Keeping the two lines separate with one unit lacking upgrade in the indistrial just seems to make the most sense.
 
Why do you propsed Helicopters as separate units? They're used as Air Cavalry since 1950s. and while they can fly over seas, they ain't be able to fly it all the way across big seas like Gulf of Siam (all the way from Sattahip Naval Base to Songkla) without tender ships of any kind.
Light Armored Cars are also cavalry like in fuction and title, so keep the "on the ground" one as their evolution is consistent. About Helicopters they would not flight over open sea of have autonomous long range, their are their own unit line that do not have the same rules that airplanes but neither than light cavalry.
2. Also what are differences between Reiter and Cuirassiers? since both units are Earlymodern heavyhorses armed with 2-3 pistols and AP sword.?
There is some overlap between both them but the simple answer is that Reiter were commonly used for armored cavalry using pistols in 16th-17th century while Cuirassier commonly associated to their 19th form.
 
^ But the term 'Cuirassiers' is quite ambigious though.
In Earlymodern Era the term is used with Reiters interchangebly. though Reiters are associated with Germans (and being German mercs, also the first to use Wheellock guns. Reiters under foreign services also came from Germany), Cuirassiers however has no racial distinctions... more generic simply put.
About Earlymodern Lightcavalry.
Waht about 'Harquebusiers' 'Carabiniers' or 'Dragoons' name?
 
Cavalry terminology gets really confusing from the Renaissance on, because, as said, the same terms were used through several of the Civ 'Eras'. BUT what those terms were referring to changed in both function and appearance, so that representing them in Civ gets very tricky.
Let me take them in rough chronological order:
Reiters first appear in the records about 1546, and they are Light Cavalry - men armed like a knight ( or Gendarme) with lance and sword but on smaller horses and with less (but never without any) armor. With a very few years they threw away the lances and adopted the new pistols (first appearance, about 1550), so that they became pistol-firing cavalry armored with a cuirass and helmet.
At about the same time the Harquebussier was developed in France as a similarly-armored man on a lighter horse than a Knight but armed with a smaller arquebus - the first 'carbine', in matchlock form.
Within a century, both Reiters and Harquebussiers were being referred to simply a "Horse", were armored with metal or leather breastplates, helmets, and carried swords. pistols, carbines, or any combination depending on how much money was available to equip them.
Technically, Gustaphus Adolphus' cavalry in the 1630s and 40s were all Harquebussiers, but they carried neither pistol nor harquebuss, nor did they wear metal armor - they charged at speed with swords in a tight formation, so that from that time the terms Reiter and Harquebussier stop having any real meaning.

The first Dragoons appeared about 70 years after the first Harquebussiers or Reiters (in 1618), and from the beginning were not regarded as 'cavalry' but as mounted infantrymen armed with full-sized arquebus or matchlock muskets. Because they used whatever horses were left over after the 'real' cavalry got theirs, they were cheap to form and maintain, and so were used for all the Light Cavalry duties that the older light cavalry had gotten too heavy to perform - no dragoons ever wore any armor or carried lances, and originally weren't even expected to fight on horseback, and certainly not to charge anybody. However, the longer they stayed on horses, the more they disliked getting off of them, so that within a little over a century, Dragoons were 'medium' cavalry and charging the enemy sword in hand. The British Army even invented Heavy Dragoons that, although not armored, were big men on big horses able to fight it out with enemy Cuirassiers.

Speaking of whom. The term Cuirassier appears in the mid- 17th century to describe those few Harquebussiers/Horse who were still wearing 'real' armor (metal breast and back plates and sometimes helmets) instead of leather or thick wool coats. For instance, the French Army by 1690 had 28 regiments of 'Horse' (unarmored) cavalry but only 1 regiment of armored Cuirassiers, the Cuirassiers du Roi - Cuirassiers were Expensive units to form and maintain!

Ulans or Uhlans started out as Lithuanian light cavalry with lances, Hussars as Hungarian light or heavy cavalry with pistols and swords who later dropped the armor in favor of some of the most elaborately decorated uniforms anywhere. Both types were adopted by other armies, and the lance was also adopted by other units, like the British Light Dragoons of the early 19th century and all the German cavalry by the late 19th century - right about the time the chance of actually getting close enough to stick the lance in somebody had become vanishingly small.

So, here's my conclusion for what it's worth:
___________________Renaissance_______Industrial______Modern________Atomic
Light Cavalry.....................Dragoons................Uhlans*.............Armored Car.......Light Armor**
Heavy Cavalry...................Cuirassiers......................................Medium Tanks....Main Battle Tank
* - As said, Hussars, Light Dragoons, Lancers, Chevau Leger were also used but all were similar
** - this represents the heavy armored cars, lighter modern armor like the AMX-13, Strykers, etc, which can be extremely heavily-armed by earlier standards, but remain lighter in armor and faster than the Main Battle and other heavier tanks.
The Helicopter could also be the Atomic Era "light cavalry' Upgrade, since it took over a lot of the scouting and 'pursuit' functions, or it could be a new Low Altitude Air unit, which could have the following Upgrades:
Modern: Air Observation (the really light aircraft like the Fieseler Storch, Piper Cub, or Po-2 used to spot for artillery, liaison communications and short-range reconnaissance)
Atomic: Helicopter Gunship
Information: UAV (armed Drones)
 
While there were cuirassier in the nineteenth century, they were by that point a unit without a purpose, searching for a role on the battlefield. Using it as a nineteenth century unit, even if that's what the game currently does, just doesn't make much more sense. Late early modern is where that unit makes the most sense.

And I still don't see what a merge would give. There's two clear lines both pre- and post-industrial, just one era (industrial) where one of the two lines struggled with not being able to play its traditional role very well. Keeping the two lines separate with one unit lacking upgrade in the indistrial just seems to make the most sense.
The problem is that 20th century onward seems a massive change in warfare that civs represent as a convoluted mess of scale-less units, some examples:
- Battles turned to kilometers long and months lasting fronts, this change of scale add to the absurdity of units or even armies formed exclusively of MachineGuns or Bazookas :crazyeye:. In this context specific vehicles as units are also overdatailed when those vehicles were just a part of a more diverse brigade not just armored ones but also infantry or artillery ones.
- The introduction of airplanes also reduce the relevance of light armored cavalry in both reconnaissance and raiding roles.
- If the role of a unit line is such that we can save their upgrade for one era (like Heavy Cavalry in Industrial) that mean also that their role in gameplay is expendable. So there is not a big lost to turn two cavalry lines in just one when new lines like airplanes and helicopter are going to be introduced later.
- The current existence of Light Armored Vehicle when Helicopter are around for decades make it clear that their roles are different and turn one in the other would be awkward.
- Helicopter having their own movement rules different from cavalry and airplanes is also an obvious call of their unique role, also allowing to have their own bonus relation to others units.
 
That takes for granted the idea that a)unit Rock-Paper-Scissors is needed, and that b)the different part of the Rock-Paper-Scissors triangle should remain in a similar balance throughout the game. Both of which I fundamentally disagree with.

I do not find thhese conclusions, especially the second, all that good. Units rock-paper-scissors is a generally poor design mentality that try to pigeonhole units into "this unit beats that unit but lose to this unit" for simplicity, but result in a game that tends to downplay other critical factors (like terrain) in favor of "this unit beats that unit".

Even worse, the idea that the rock-paper-scissor is essential to the balance of the game create a battlefield stasis (which is exactly what you describe) : heavy cavalry must go up in strength every era to keep up with the other unit and remain able to be its part of the RPS mechanism, else, which means the strength and quality of the different units must always remain the same throughout the game, preventing any fluctuation or shift in which arms and which unit types are dominant on battlefields at any given time. But this is very poor at representing history, where the relative effectiveness of units did fluctuate, and it create a boring game environment where upgrades are largely meaningless for most of the game, except those rare periods where you are ahead or behind an opponent by one era.

There is no reason for every unit to need an upgrade in every era. Sometime a unit line will be at its peak usability ; sometime it will fall behind because it's just not its era, and that's what should happen to heavy cavalry in the XIXth century, before rising again with medium tanks.
 
Cavalry terminology gets really confusing from the Renaissance on, because, as said, the same terms were used through several of the Civ 'Eras'. BUT what those terms were referring to changed in both function and appearance, so that representing them in Civ gets very tricky.
Let me take them in rough chronological order:
Reiters first appear in the records about 1546, and they are Light Cavalry - men armed like a knight ( or Gendarme) with lance and sword but on smaller horses and with less (but never without any) armor. With a very few years they threw away the lances and adopted the new pistols (first appearance, about 1550), so that they became pistol-firing cavalry armored with a cuirass and helmet.
At about the same time the Harquebussier was developed in France as a similarly-armored man on a lighter horse than a Knight but armed with a smaller arquebus - the first 'carbine', in matchlock form.
Within a century, both Reiters and Harquebussiers were being referred to simply a "Horse", were armored with metal or leather breastplates, helmets, and carried swords. pistols, carbines, or any combination depending on how much money was available to equip them.
Technically, Gustaphus Adolphus' cavalry in the 1630s and 40s were all Harquebussiers, but they carried neither pistol nor harquebuss, nor did they wear metal armor - they charged at speed with swords in a tight formation, so that from that time the terms Reiter and Harquebussier stop having any real meaning.

The first Dragoons appeared about 70 years after the first Harquebussiers or Reiters (in 1618), and from the beginning were not regarded as 'cavalry' but as mounted infantrymen armed with full-sized arquebus or matchlock muskets. Because they used whatever horses were left over after the 'real' cavalry got theirs, they were cheap to form and maintain, and so were used for all the Light Cavalry duties that the older light cavalry had gotten too heavy to perform - no dragoons ever wore any armor or carried lances, and originally weren't even expected to fight on horseback, and certainly not to charge anybody. However, the longer they stayed on horses, the more they disliked getting off of them, so that within a little over a century, Dragoons were 'medium' cavalry and charging the enemy sword in hand. The British Army even invented Heavy Dragoons that, although not armored, were big men on big horses able to fight it out with enemy Cuirassiers.

Speaking of whom. The term Cuirassier appears in the mid- 17th century to describe those few Harquebussiers/Horse who were still wearing 'real' armor (metal breast and back plates and sometimes helmets) instead of leather or thick wool coats. For instance, the French Army by 1690 had 28 regiments of 'Horse' (unarmored) cavalry but only 1 regiment of armored Cuirassiers, the Cuirassiers du Roi - Cuirassiers were Expensive units to form and maintain!

Ulans or Uhlans started out as Lithuanian light cavalry with lances, Hussars as Hungarian light or heavy cavalry with pistols and swords who later dropped the armor in favor of some of the most elaborately decorated uniforms anywhere. Both types were adopted by other armies, and the lance was also adopted by other units, like the British Light Dragoons of the early 19th century and all the German cavalry by the late 19th century - right about the time the chance of actually getting close enough to stick the lance in somebody had become vanishingly small.

So, here's my conclusion for what it's worth:
___________________Renaissance_______Industrial______Modern________Atomic
Light Cavalry.....................Dragoons................Uhlans*.............Armored Car.......Light Armor**
Heavy Cavalry...................Cuirassiers......................................Medium Tanks....Main Battle Tank
* - As said, Hussars, Light Dragoons, Lancers, Chevau Leger were also used but all were similar
** - this represents the heavy armored cars, lighter modern armor like the AMX-13, Strykers, etc, which can be extremely heavily-armed by earlier standards, but remain lighter in armor and faster than the Main Battle and other heavier tanks.
The Helicopter could also be the Atomic Era "light cavalry' Upgrade, since it took over a lot of the scouting and 'pursuit' functions, or it could be a new Low Altitude Air unit, which could have the following Upgrades:
Modern: Air Observation (the really light aircraft like the Fieseler Storch, Piper Cub, or Po-2 used to spot for artillery, liaison communications and short-range reconnaissance)
Atomic: Helicopter Gunship
Information: UAV (armed Drones)

1. King Gustavus Adolphus has to equip his cavarly as 'lightweight chargers' because Sweden at that time wasn't rich enough to equip Reiters (or even Cuirassiers) properly with armor. AFAIK he has to make do with what Sweden could afford, and work around Imperial Enemy tactics. his 'Line Cavalry' is one such solution....
Is this what Hakkapellita (Heavily associated with Finns) actually is? And should it be Cuirassiers replacement? (Since Swedes couldn't afford to equip any cavalrymen as such, and King Gustavus himself could no longer wear cuirass like he was once able to)
2. And in this context 'Cuirassiers' should also includes Reiters?
3. Cavalries that France used in Battle of Rocroi. there are those that armored like Reiters. what did French call them? Cuirassiers? Reiters (Loaned from Southern German probably)? or what?
And Heavycav is blanked out in Industrial Era. mmm did British Heavy Dragoons (did they wear Reds and did they join Waterloo ? how well did they do against Napoleon's so many cuirassiers?) also counted amongs 'Cuirassiers' despite that they don't wear cuirass?
Did Britain also deployed Heavy Dragoons against Americans in War of 1812 too? (the war that US Army is lacking any Heavy cavalry of any kind).
FOR MODDING: In case that Cuirassiers has no successor in Industrial Era.
3.1 Did Ballistics still a valid prerequisite technology?
3.2 Should this unit appears in Early, Mid, or Late 'Renaissance'?
3.3 What are stats so to be able to still finish off Fusiliers of 1680s-1830s but not Riflemen of 1840? (Given coding status or skills, having Riflings a tech boost to Fusilier isn't quite possible so the two units still have to be separated and this means Renaissance has to be longer so to meet with Game default era 'Industrial Era Start' (1725). And this means Cuirassiers shown up AFTER Pike and Shotte?
3.4 And then should Dragoon shown up around the same time as Pike and Shotte (and thus BEFORE Cuirassier) ??
4. And this mean 'Cavalry' in civ 6 is correctly placed as 'Light' cavalry?
5. Are you sure that Dragoons also initially equipped with Matchlocks? In English Civil War. Dragoons tend not to use matchlocks but using more advanced firearms (wheellocks and proto-flintlocks)
6. Proper graphical representations of Dragoons please.
A. English Civil War Dragoons.
B. 1680-1700 Dragoons with contemporary uniforms.
and weapon choices?
A. Matchlock musket
B. Wheellock musket
C. Flintlock or proto flintlocks with fishtail stock (Earlymodern Design).
D. Flintlock or proto flintlocks with 'cowfoot' stock (Enlightenment Era designs).
7. Should 'Dragoon' still requires 'RESOUCE_HORSE'? and should it still remains vulnerable to anticavalry? (it only make sense if enemy infantrymen were pike and shotte or more modern :p )
8. If taking 'organization' a criterion. it means Light cavalry upgrade path to Helicopter (Aircav) is more correct than to Light Armor? (and this included not just gunship helos but also assault troopers that ride transport helos (the likes of Hueys and Blackhawks for example) to battle). I'm not sure if pure 'Chopper' unit of that kind ever exists on earth? if Helos to be of new class like that. will it still requires airbase or airport to work like any 'Air units' in game or will it be 'Ground Units' as before?
 
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That takes for granted the idea that a)unit Rock-Paper-Scissors is needed, and that b)the different part of the Rock-Paper-Scissors triangle should remain in a similar balance throughout the game. Both of which I fundamentally disagree with.

I do not find thhese conclusions, especially the second, all that good. Units rock-paper-scissors is a generally poor design mentality that try to pigeonhole units into "this unit beats that unit but lose to this unit" for simplicity, but result in a game that tends to downplay other critical factors (like terrain) in favor of "this unit beats that unit".
Historically the classification of the different kinds of 19th century cavalries was vague and changing, keep an "archaic" heavy cavalry add nothing to gameplay when both cavalries could be upgraded to a general (medium) cavalry with Carbine as main weapon. The player dont need to keep around downplayed units for the sake of a historical trivia, the players dont have commitments to the prestige traditions of Heavy Cavalry, manage those unit is a hassle to gameplay. Similarly the player dont have the need to pigeonhole mechanized units in the role of pre-industrial cavalries.

Even worse, the idea that the rock-paper-scissor is essential to the balance of the game create a battlefield stasis (which is exactly what you describe) : heavy cavalry must go up in strength every era to keep up with the other unit and remain able to be its part of the RPS mechanism, else, which means the strength and quality of the different units must always remain the same throughout the game, preventing any fluctuation or shift in which arms and which unit types are dominant on battlefields at any given time. But this is very poor at representing history, where the relative effectiveness of units did fluctuate, and it create a boring game environment where upgrades are largely meaningless for most of the game, except those rare periods where you are ahead or behind an opponent by one era.

There is no reason for every unit to need an upgrade in every era. Sometime a unit line will be at its peak usability ; sometime it will fall behind because it's just not its era, and that's what should happen to heavy cavalry in the XIXth century, before rising again with medium tanks.
Exactly the warfare changed! And that change include the obsolescence of whole lines. Transform the whole line is more effective to portrait warfare milestones that keep around obsolete units or turn them in overspecify weapons/vehicles that dont represent significative combat units.

Heavy and Light cavalry have the perfect oportunity to fuse in the Industrial Era, and turn into the Tank (mechanized cavalry-armored vehicles) line onwards, this change warfare ballance, save us from "pigeonhole" units and is a big fluctuation or shift in witch arm dominant battlefield, again considering also the introduction of airplanes.

There is nothing of what you said that is not going to be archieved with the fussion of cavalries but to keep around a less relevant unit for the sake of say "look an archiac unit that was of reduced role like in real history!"

By the way either fuse "Melee" and "Anti-cavalry" lines in Pike+Shoot or if Musketeer and Pikeman still are their own merge them in Fusilier/Rifleman(Line Infantry). The Early 20th century Infantry would be unlocked by the Machine Gun tech (Replaceable Parts?) that allow this unit to "entrench" for a defensive bonus (and animation) againts infantry assaults, but still vulnerable to Tanks. Then another later tech (Rocketry) allows this Infantry unit to have a AT bonus (and animation) against Tanks when they fought on a District or Improvement title, representing the vulnerability of Mechanized Cavalry in urban combat. So no more fixed roles, a real changing ballance of power, bonus from terrain and general situation not from classes, no more "museum" units waiting to be uprgraded two eras later and no more pigeonhole weapons/vehicles as whole brigades/divisions/armies for the sake of role lines continuity.
 
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The player doesn't need to care about "prestige of cavalry". The player is going to keep their heavy cavalry around because they want to upgrade their cavalry to medium armor and main battle tanks. We're talking about the best units in the game: of course having units pre-built that you can upgrade with cash is something you want. That's why they remain useful - not because you get to do something with them now, but because they are a pre-build for the best combat units of the post-Industrial game.

Which is the other problem with your idea - if the light cavalry line upgrades right into medium and main battle tanks, which is not what happened historically, that'S going to lead to a large imbalance in the use of medium tanks vs light/recon armor: since players will have a lot of medium/main battle tanks (because all their cavalry units upgraded into them) and no armored light/recon units (because none of their units upgrade into them, so they have to be built from scratch), and the medium/main battle tanks are the more powerful ones.

At least if you're going to do that then it's essential to keep unit balance that cavalry upgrade into the light armor line. That way players will have light armor units, and have more of an incitative to build the medium armor/main battle tank (since it's more powerful).

Because I'm virtually certain that with your plan? We might as well just not have the light armors in the game.
 
Two things that complicate the entire Late Game Cavalry discussion are not represented adequately or at all in the game:
1. The extra cost of maintaining Heavy Cavalry units of all kinds from Cuirassiers to Main Battle Tanks. Cuirassiers required big horses, carefully trained and fed on grain - so they took Food away from the civilian population, never a popular move for any government. Napoleon, with access to the resources of most of the European continent, only managed to raise and maintain 14 regiments of Cuirassiers (12 of Cuirassiers and 2 of Carabiniers who were Cuirassiers in all but name), or about 10,000 men in an army of over 1,000,000. Gustaphus and Sweden famously could not afford to raise any of the heavy horses required, so wound up using lighter, unarmored cavalry as "Battle Cavalry" in the Cuirassiers' role. At the other end of the Upgrade Line, Main Battle Tanks today are being designed, built and manufactured by only 10 countries out of over 200 because of the technological complexity and expense of design and construction. And in between, during WWII on average at any given moment 1 out of 3 German Medium or Heavy Tanks (Pz IV, Panther or Tiger models) were under repair: a 33% 'surcharge' on the combat capabilities of the 'Heavy Cavalry' unit at the time.
2. The problems of Strategic Movement. Shipping Heavy Horses for heavy cavalry by sail and Main Battle Tanks by air present Massive costs: and horses lost in transit were nearly impossible to replace except by shipping more out from 'home', while Main Battle Tanks are largely impossible to transport in any numbers by air because of the extreme aircraft required, and the cost of also shipping or pre-placing all the support, supply and maintenance facilities required to keep them working. This is the primary reason the US Army began the development of the Light Armor Strykers and other vehicle systems lighter than the 25 - 30 ton Bradley and 55 ton+ Abrams vehicles - the heavier types were just too hard to move around the world by air, and required extreme diplomatic and pre-planning efforts to make sure they could still operate for any amount of time once they got where they were needed: note that the first Gulf War in 1991 required a six month preparation time to get all the heavy armor into place and ready to attack. Given that Civ only has turns lasting 1 year or more, this sort of problem becomes invisible in the game, but needs to be modeled somehow to make sense of the IRL considerations we are trying to model.
 
Dragoons changed uniforms and appearance considerably from 1620 to 1820, but the most distinctive Dragoon uniform was that of the French army from about 1680 to 1740:
img4149.jpg


The floppy cap with hanging bag is very distinctive (it was copied by early Russian dragoons, but by no one else).
Dragoons should never require any Horse resource, because for the most part they got whatever horses were 'left over' from everything else: "They were all on four legs this morning" pretty much describes them, and there's no reason for the game to require any more effort than the actual armies made.
 
The player doesn't need to care about "prestige of cavalry". The player is going to keep their heavy cavalry around because they want to upgrade their cavalry to medium armor and main battle tanks. We're talking about the best units in the game: of course having units pre-built that you can upgrade with cash is something you want. That's why they remain useful - not because you get to do something with them now, but because they are a pre-build for the best combat units of the post-Industrial game.

Which is the other problem with your idea - if the light cavalry line upgrades right into medium and main battle tanks, which is not what happened historically, that'S going to lead to a large imbalance in the use of medium tanks vs light/recon armor: since players will have a lot of medium/main battle tanks (because all their cavalry units upgraded into them) and no armored light/recon units (because none of their units upgrade into them, so they have to be built from scratch), and the medium/main battle tanks are the more powerful ones.

At least if you're going to do that then it's essential to keep unit balance that cavalry upgrade into the light armor line. That way players will have light armor units, and have more of an incitative to build the medium armor/main battle tank (since it's more powerful).

Because I'm virtually certain that with your plan? We might as well just not have the light armors in the game.
1- Industrial "Medium" cavalry allow players to not need to wait, keeping their units truly usefull another era while they would still be upgraded to Tanks later.
2- First the light cavalry would not upgrade to tanks since it first upgraded to "medium" cavalry, secondly there were not such thing as an true historical horse cavalry upgraded to tanks. Armored vehicles took a role similar to previous horse cavalry but there was not a common practice of actual exclusive horse riders units being trained to use tanks, have a lot of horse cavalry units never traduced to an equivalent number of tanks units.
3- The need of extrategic resources and cost of cavalry would already mean a low ratio vs infantry, plus the characteristics of Industrial "medium" cavalry still would make them a unit not supposed to be massed, and the cost and resources to upgrade them to Tanks also help to balance them, there is not going to be cheap huge tanks armies just because light and heavy cavalry fused before.
4- Again, airplanes are massive game-changing element of mechanized warfare, they can do most of the reconnaissance and raiding. Also the recon/scout line are supposed to be elite units usually behind enemy lines (included air transported).

I clearly mean that the Light Armor line is not needed, Light Armors are just a part of Armored, Infantry or Artillery brigades on massive battle fields. They are not around like Mongol riders as autonomous raiding groups. Airplanes and Recon Elite units are a better representation of those roles for the scale of contemporary warfare.
 
Two things that complicate the entire Late Game Cavalry discussion are not represented adequately or at all in the game:
1. The extra cost of maintaining Heavy Cavalry units of all kinds from Cuirassiers to Main Battle Tanks. Cuirassiers required big horses, carefully trained and fed on grain - so they took Food away from the civilian population, never a popular move for any government. Napoleon, with access to the resources of most of the European continent, only managed to raise and maintain 14 regiments of Cuirassiers (12 of Cuirassiers and 2 of Carabiniers who were Cuirassiers in all but name), or about 10,000 men in an army of over 1,000,000. Gustaphus and Sweden famously could not afford to raise any of the heavy horses required, so wound up using lighter, unarmored cavalry as "Battle Cavalry" in the Cuirassiers' role. At the other end of the Upgrade Line, Main Battle Tanks today are being designed, built and manufactured by only 10 countries out of over 200 because of the technological complexity and expense of design and construction. And in between, during WWII on average at any given moment 1 out of 3 German Medium or Heavy Tanks (Pz IV, Panther or Tiger models) were under repair: a 33% 'surcharge' on the combat capabilities of the 'Heavy Cavalry' unit at the time.
2. The problems of Strategic Movement. Shipping Heavy Horses for heavy cavalry by sail and Main Battle Tanks by air present Massive costs: and horses lost in transit were nearly impossible to replace except by shipping more out from 'home', while Main Battle Tanks are largely impossible to transport in any numbers by air because of the extreme aircraft required, and the cost of also shipping or pre-placing all the support, supply and maintenance facilities required to keep them working. This is the primary reason the US Army began the development of the Light Armor Strykers and other vehicle systems lighter than the 25 - 30 ton Bradley and 55 ton+ Abrams vehicles - the heavier types were just too hard to move around the world by air, and required extreme diplomatic and pre-planning efforts to make sure they could still operate for any amount of time once they got where they were needed: note that the first Gulf War in 1991 required a six month preparation time to get all the heavy armor into place and ready to attack. Given that Civ only has turns lasting 1 year or more, this sort of problem becomes invisible in the game, but needs to be modeled somehow to make sense of the IRL considerations we are trying to model.

Dragoons changed uniforms and appearance considerably from 1620 to 1820, but the most distinctive Dragoon uniform was that of the French army from about 1680 to 1740:
View attachment 651677

The floppy cap with hanging bag is very distinctive (it was copied by early Russian dragoons, but by no one else).
Dragoons should never require any Horse resource, because for the most part they got whatever horses were 'left over' from everything else: "They were all on four legs this morning" pretty much describes them, and there's no reason for the game to require any more effort than the actual armies made.
Translate the historical cost/rarity of units to gameplay is just partialy done by strategic resources and gold maintenance cost. While the differentiation between "high quality" horses for some mounted units and not for others is not the most intuitive option. I know it was discused before if horses should even be a "strategic" resource but for me whatever horses is a must to train or just a cost reduction bonus these should apply to every unit that visually mount a horse.

The issue of MBT as an "elite unit" constructued by few countries is basically the same for fighter and bomber airplanes and capital warship, still the game allow to built them relatively easy for any player. The use of names like "Medium Tank" > "Main Battle Tank" is to represent the whole armored-vehicle/mechanized cavalry divisions, specific types of armored vehicles are not more needed that the many subdivision or mixed kinds of warplanes. Even more if the game have a "Future Era" the armored ground vehicle upgrade could be named after the planed smaller, less crew and mobility focused doctrine.
 
Dragoons changed uniforms and appearance considerably from 1620 to 1820, but the most distinctive Dragoon uniform was that of the French army from about 1680 to 1740:
View attachment 651677

The floppy cap with hanging bag is very distinctive (it was copied by early Russian dragoons, but by no one else).
Dragoons should never require any Horse resource, because for the most part they got whatever horses were 'left over' from everything else: "They were all on four legs this morning" pretty much describes them, and there's no reason for the game to require any more effort than the actual armies made.
1. Graphic representations. If Dragoons first appeared in 1620 as such do you still think this style of uniform is still valid to represent dragoons?
for weapons then...? Flintlocks of which style (fishtail or cowleg stock)? or wheellocks?
2. Vulnerability VS any infantry with Anticavalry ability please. (regarding to their roles and their actual combats IF this unit becomes 'Cavalry' in Industrial Era (while Cuirassiers has no successor in the same era).
And what to do with Reiters?
 
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