bowmen overpowered?

[Bed]

here is the strat i tried some days ago on a pangea map/marathon speed/normal size with babylon civ and allowed me to win easily on emperor then immortal and now deity o_O (whereas i have much difficulty to win immortal usualy)
build order : 1 worker then pump out bowmen + keep money to buy bowmen till you have 6 or 7
science : archery first then take those to work ressources then all science to upgrade bowmen
worker : build farms to grow fast to 5 or 6 then switch city to production only

strat : scout with first warrior till you have 3 bowmen, buy a bowmen as soon as you have 700 golds. Use all bowmen to kill barb camps to gain experience and money (try to get city raider fast)

once you have 3 bowmen, attack the closest civ and kill it, then do the same to the next and third. If you can't wipe entirely the 4th just try to get his capital and down it enough so that it will not attack you for the rest of the game and so on to the win.


In my current deity game i wiped chinese then mongols then aztecs then i took half romans and i am almost done with egyptians. Last will be russian but i am already far away on score and i will hit rifle in 5 turns (and i will be the first to get it).


where is the problem? Is the game really broken?! How can it be so easy to win on deity ?

 

[vexing]

where is the problem? Is the game really broken?! How can it be so easy to win on deity ?

marathon + domination victory is like minus two difficulty levels

 

[Aleenik]

marathon + domination victory is like minus two difficulty levels

Marathon especially. The game is balanced to be played on standard. The AI doesn't handle marathon as well. We've seen this time and time again.

 

[Kbo]

UUs in early game on marathon dominate. By the time you get to your 3rd civ on deity on standard your bowmen are obsolete, if not the 2nd.

 

[Sokar Rostau]

I seem to remember that, at one point, Spearmen could destroy Tanks in Civ IV. THAT's overpowered. It's not the Unit, it's the strat you're using.

 

[ahawk]

I seem to remember that, at one point, Spearmen could destroy Tanks in Civ IV. THAT's overpowered. It's not the Unit, it's the strat you're using.

Pretty sure Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in WWII was able to beat some Italian tanks with spear-cavalry... they were pretty bad tanks.

 

[Bamboocha]

UUs in early game on marathon dominate. By the time you get to your 3rd civ on deity on standard your bowmen are obsolete, if not the 2nd.

Aren't bowmen (or archers) only obsolete by the medieval era? Unless you're beelining machinery (which probably only China or England would do, or maybe Japan (as it's on the way to steel anyway)), so they have a pretty long lifespan compared to some other units.

 

[Arilian]

I have started a Deity, Marathon, Renesance Era start just yesterday with England.

There was a runaway civ (Harun) with Infantry (but strangely no arthillery) and I eredicated him with bowmans. 5 bowman kills a city in 2 turn even if it is 50 STR Then you take they city with a horseman / lancer.

 

[vexing]

Aren't bowmen (or archers) only obsolete by the medieval era? Unless you're beelining machinery (which probably only China or England would do, or maybe Japan (as it's on the way to steel anyway)), so they have a pretty long lifespan compared to some other units.

by obsolete he meant severely outgunned. since the AI produces 3x as many units and it takes relatively 3x longer to get anywhere on standard speed, every conquest takes significantly longer and the AI will reach steel or chivalry before you've conquered too much.

 

[Exterminas]

I will try to explain how game speed affects combat, since the previous posters just referenced that:

Imagine two gigantic clocks hovering over the battlefield.

One is your Tech-Clock, meaning the time it takes you/your opponent to reach the next tech-level of troops and therefore gain an advantage.

The other is the production-Clock. It means the time it takes both parties to produce new troops and move them to the battlefield.

In a Marathon-Game these clocks run really really slow. Meaning that the combat itself is relatively fast, causing strong units to remain strong very, very long.

Here is a more relatable example:
In a quick game you usually pass trough a tech-level during one single war. I even had it once during a single siege. There was this annoying city next to a river and a mountain I tried to take. I attacked with riflemen and cannons. By the time I had killed the defending units and was ready to move in for the kill (had healed my units) I could upgrade them to infantry.

However I had to retreat because the enemy's airplanes from all over his territory made the position impossible to defend.

This stuff does not happen on Marathon. You can often crush three or more Civilizations with your UU. The effect gets even maximized by the AIs stupidity. They don't seem to adjust their spending/teching. For example: If you are beelinging steel on ;arathon, chances are good you will spend your first couple of wars slaughtering archers and swordsmen because the AI is too slow to react or revise it's approach and takes literary ages to react.

 

[Martin Alvito]

I think that w a i n y pretty conclusively demonstrated that Bowmen are an OP unit in this patch. It was well known that War Elephants were the best early UU in prior patches; the cost rebalance on Archers shifted that title to Bowmen.

It's easy to whip the AI with an OP early UU on a game speed that maximizes the value of that UU. If you dial the game speed back to standard, you won't be able to conquer the world with Bowmen but you should be able to set up a winning position with the early rush.

 

[fmlizard2]

I have started a Deity, Marathon, Renesance Era start just yesterday with England.

There was a runaway civ (Harun) with Infantry (but strangely no arthillery) and I eredicated him with bowmans. 5 bowman kills a city in 2 turn even if it is 50 STR Then you take they city with a horseman / lancer.

Can't the same be said of standard Archers? Bowmen are really nice but their real benefit is that they are hardier when faced with warriors and spears in early eras. When faced in melee with an infantry unit that extra defense won't mean much.

Bowmen are nice but you can still do much of the same stuff with generic archers, chariot archers, war chariots, or war elephants.

 

[Karpyan]

It's easy to whip the AI with an OP early UU on a game speed that maximizes the value of that UU. If you dial the game speed back to standard, you won't be able to conquer the world with Bowmen but you should be able to set up a winning position with the early rush.

Unless you're sandwiched between Oda and Alex with poor production and open terrain. That's a reroll (beat them off with Bowmen after 150 turns, but no prospects)...!

 

[bhavv]

I seem to remember that, at one point, Spearmen could destroy Tanks in Civ IV. THAT's overpowered. It's not the Unit, it's the strat you're using.

TBH if a tank is broken / damaged to 99% of its normal functional state,, you could probably destroy it unarmed.

 

[w a i n y]

I think that w a i n y pretty conclusively demonstrated that Bowmen are an OP unit in this patch.

You can just call me wainy . And yeah, they really are, even on deity since you can fairly consistently sell resources and open borders for the full price and get 1.2 bowmen per resource and 0.25 per OB.

 

[binhthuy71]

Some of the comments here highlight a critical difference between Civ IV and Civ V, the change to placed units from the Stack o' Doom. I never had a tank taken out by a Spearman in Civ IV but I did have Tech-ahead invasion forces worn down to nothing by an AI counterattack with junk units that lasted so long that I was able to enjoy a cup of coffee and a piece of toast before the counterattack was finished.

I don't agree that Bowmen or archers are overpowered. They are non-resource dependent and they're relatively cheap which makes them very handy in the early game if you have a no-iron and/or a no-horse start. Digressing from the Mad Tech Rush to get to the NC to research Archery does cost a few turns. It pays off, depending on the level at which you play and your choice of game speed.
My only critique of Civ V in this regard is that it doesn't forward ranged unit specific promotions to musketmen, riflemen, etc. Having fought in a real war against real enemies I can assure you that experience does count. Canning ranged units early game units' promotions seems counter to Civ V's "fewer and better" rationale.

 

[ggmoyang]

anyways Bowman can dominate 2 civs in standard speed deity game, and one another after upgrade to crossbows. Really nice UU.