Balancing Ultimate Units?.

[druidravi]

I was thinking the Ultimate units are badly balanced. On one hand you have those powerful game-changing UU's (cough*preatorian*cough) on other hand near useless UU's.This is making some civilizations too strong. I don't think I am going to play Augustus till they either change the traits or Preatorian.

I was thinking of some balance changes. There are 2 ways to go. Making all UU's as powerful as preatorian wouldn't solve it since it would favour civilzations with early Ultimate Units. Here are some balance ideas I thought. Feel free to give your own suggestions.

Spoiler :

Preatorian

Either require both copper and iron to build or reduce str to 7 . It is overpowered imo that axes which are supposed to counter melee have less than 50% odds to attack this monster. Only aggresive civ's axes with shock can take on them. Reducing it to 7 they still will be powerful, however you can't cut through axes and require a token amount of your own axes to protect the stack.

Redcoat --
When in ancient age rome gets Preatorians, england gets their UU late and it is not so powerful as well. It has same base strength as rifles with only a 25% vs gunpoweder units extra. Increasing strength back to 16 should be good. Even though it would have no hard counter in its age, its late arrival should balance it.

Cossack--

Back to str 18 and reducing bonus against cavalry to 25%. Against rifles they will still have an odds of 18 v 17.5 a small margin .

Musketeer-
A strength of 11 with 2 movement. considering Spain has consquidatar which has a strength of 10 ,gains defensive bonus and has 50% vs its hard counter , Musketeer would be like a buffed up knight or a poor man's cavalry . Cavalry is only 2 techs ahead(nationalism,military tradition)

Gallic Sword --

Giving them an unassigned promotion at level 1 so that they if they take guirella 1 from dun, they can take guirella 2 straight away at 0 exp. It will give some reason to build dun.

Samurai -

Giving it a drill1,2 promotion instead of 2 first strikes.

Jaguar
A +50% combat experiance as a unit property not a promotion , str 6 requiring 65 shields with a+50% production with iron. So with Iron you can produce them at 44 shields.Without Iron at 65 shields.

Phalanax-

Strength 5 , +50% vs melee units and reducing bonus against mounted units to +50%. It would just be like an axe with a 50% bonus versus mounted .

Fast Worker
Movement reduced to 2, ignores terrain movement penalties and costs 50shields.

What are your suggestions for Ultimate units.





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[_alphaBeta_]

Well, I think the units are kind of balanced with the leader traits. Some leader traits are a little stronger than others. It makes sense to me that their unique units wouldn't be quite as strong.

I love the redcoat, but I agree with the reduction in strength. As you said, there was no counter unit, and I think this is a problem. At least with prats, axeman come close.

Same for Cossacks, they were unstopable before (unless you had redcoats ).

 

[DigitalBoy]

A poster here said they modded the Praetorian for 6 strength but +25% when attacking or defending a city. Seemed pretty reasonable to me.

 

[Yeekim]

I guess Churchill's protective traits was the reason for nerfing Redcoats.
As per Praetorians, I think it is justified they are above they contemporary units. If they need balancing, increasing their cost is the way to go.

 

[Horizons]

I think Cossacks are still great. They take out cavalry and canons very admirably, meaning that you don't have to build as many riflemen. As for England, they have an unusual unique unit anyway; as many have said they would be better suited to having a ship as a unique unit, an upgraded frigate or something.

 

[_alphaBeta_]

I think Cossacks are still great. They take out cavalry and canons very admirably, meaning that you don't have to build as many riflemen. As for England, they have an unusual unique unit anyway; as many have said they would be better suited to having a ship as a unique unit, an upgraded frigate or something.

Well how many people would choose England on a map with hardly any water? I'm guessing that's why they stayed clear of unique water units. Still, I would have liked to see some.

 

[potatokiosk]

Redcoat: the grenadier needs to be able to counter this. Perhaps change the bonus against gunpowder to a bonus against riflemen, and give the grenadier a bonus against all gunpowder units?

Or one could simply scrap the bonus against gunpowder that redcoats have and give them the amphibious promotion for free. Still useful on Pangea because it can be a fast way to invade and destroy weak points.

 

[King Flevance]

A poster here said they modded the Praetorian for 6 strength but +25% when attacking or defending a city. Seemed pretty reasonable to me.

I believe you are referring to a post I posted this week. I have recently modded them, jags, and axes so far.
Praetorian: (As you mentioned)
6 1
+25% City Attack
+25% City Defense
In this way, Praets are still are a natural 7.5 vs, a city with no promotions. However, on the field they need protection.
With City Raider (1) - 8.7
(2) - 10.2
(3) ..Beats me.... enough. Yet on the field... whammo 6 str. They need guarded.

However my axes are now a 4. They are still very vital but vs. a Praet with no promotions for either, they are 6 vs. 6 whether it be praets or normal swords.

I talked with some other members on the boards a lil while back and it seems the popular idea is taking them down to a 7 str.

Jags, I modded them in the Woodsman 1 promotion, but I just felt uncomfortable leaving it at that because it is a defensive promotion. The '+10% City Attack' they gain naturally isn't even enough to take them into a 6 str. So I bumped them up to 6 also. I like the idea about raising production costs and having them double with iron. Not sure if I wanna do that or not yet but it is a good idea.

I haven't moved into the modern era yet for my mod so I am not sure how I am going to handle them entirely yet. I am going to bringing a good amount of new units anyways so I kind of need to balance as I get to them, personally. Musketeers are going to gain a better window due to the stretch between muskets and rifles I am going to add in. Your idea for the Samurai is interesting too.

 

[LucyDuke]

Well how many people would choose England on a map with hardly any water? I'm guessing that's why they stayed clear of unique water units. Still, I would have liked to see some.

It hasn't stopped the Vikings - their UB is useless without a lot of water, and their UU is pretty unremarkable on dry land. If it was one or the other, water UB or water UU, it wouldn't be so bad, but as is, there's absolutely no reason to play Ragnar unless there's a lot of water around. An English naval UU, but maintaining the UB, wouldn't be overwhelming.

 

[CivDude86]

Just give the redcoat -50% defense vs grenediers. Same thing for cossacks with rifles.

 

[BeefontheBone]

FWIW, those are unique units. Civ4 is not a show presented by Ross Kemp...

 

[vb1]

Cossack--

Back to str 18 and reducing bonus against cavalry to 25%. Against rifles they will still have an odds of 18 v 17.5 a small margin .






Phalanax-

Strength 5 , +50% vs melee units and reducing bonus against mounted units to +50%. It would just be like an axe with a 50% bonus versus mounted .







.

Dont agree with this, with those changes the above units wouldnt have any counters. Which means, mass them and win. Even more problematic with Phalanx.

About England getting an unique ship, we've been there in Civ 3. Did you like it? I dont think anyone did.

 

[DigitalBoy]

Dont agree with this, with those changes the above units wouldnt have any counters. Which means, mass them and win. Even more problematic with Phalanx.

Yeah, axemen were bad enough in the earlier versions; they had to give chariots a pretty crazy attack bonus to balance things out. Now we're going to buff the phalanx (which I think is actually a pretty good UU as it stands) by making it an axeman with an attack bonus against the only decent counters to axemen?

 

[Idlenessss]

Everything has a counter via having enough units and putting them in the right place with the right promotions. U want phalanx not vulnerable to axemen? just give them melee boost. But that doesnt solve everything. Redcoats are a great UU and all but england doesnt get aggresive boost and they also typically like to get on the coast for their financial boost which means they wont have great production. really they need this great UU to have a chance in any wars at that stage of the game.

 

[SkippyT]

I think the phalanx idea is riddiculus.
Others, I might say Ok to.
But a 11 strength musketeer? I'd rather give it +25% mounted and 2 movement.