Bronze age Swordsman

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

A thread under Mod Potential series.
Everyone in civ games began with a settler and a warrior.
so often they were either Stone Age or Copper age warriors armed with either clubs, stone axes, or copper mace.
When player developed Bronze Working came Spearman (Phalanx in Civ2) which in game terns NEVER has been a successor to Warrior.
Since Civ3 onwards, Warriors can be upgraded to vastly superior swordsman with ironworking. (And of course! you need iron to make them swords, armors and other accessories), capable of outdoing spearmen except the elite ones like Greek Hoplites.
In civ4. copper was introduced, first as strategic resource, required to make Axeman (and there were headache rules of unit lists what does what. Civ unit combats aren't what I can understand easily)
In Civ5 Axemen disappeared. never reintroduced as bronze age upgrades to Warriors. Also copper became harvestible bonus resource. with Panzer General style combat system easier to understand.
mmmmmmmm
Since Civ 3 and especially in Civ 5 and Civ 6 upcoming NFP expansion. the 'Bronze Age Swordsman' DID returns. as Gaul UU. (the name is not easy to remember but basically gallic bronze swordsman).
So..What's your ideas regarding to 'Bronze Age Swordsman' concepts?
1. An intermediate melee unit upgrades of Warrior, available with bronze working
Actually there's a mod called Axeman and i've tested it before. not what impressed me much particularly with copper being strategic resource and the unit being not much stronger than Warrior. That's when I began working on Slasher unit on ZaabSpicey test version, with limited ability to fight swordsman (but not so much outclassed) but still a badass against spearman. This includes both Axeman and those wielding any kinda bronze swords like Khopesh.... Too bad gametest resulted in Barbarians got them first, ignored Warriors completely. and this ruined game balance particularly with expansions became too difficult. eventually I dropped this idea... but I might pick this up once problems that permitted Barbarians to have them too early is fixed. but not rightnow.

2. Bronze Working tech Attack and Defense combat strengh buffs for Warrior.
3. UU that replaced Warrior but more expensive
4. UU that replaced Swordsman with similiar strenght ( but available with bronze working and no resources needed)
5. No. it ruins balance sorely.

 

[Galvatron]

5. But not for balance... entirely.

I think the swordsman comes at iron working because that's when swords became cheap enough to equip everyone with and quickly became better than bronze.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

But i watched R. Lee Ermey 'Lock and Load' shows before and There's an episode of Hollstadt Sword VS Legionary Gladius. he cited that Hollstadt Sword is bronze sword. and inferior to Gladius
correct?

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

But i watched R. Lee Ermey 'Lock and Load' shows before and There's an episode of Hollstadt Sword VS Legionary Gladius. he cited that Hollstadt Sword is bronze sword. and inferior to Gladius
correct?

The Hallstadt culture may have made bronze swords, but the "Hallstadt Sword" was the first long wrought iron sword, much stronger and longer (70cm versus 50cm) than its bronze predecessors.

What made it inferior to the Roman short sword, the gladius (which, by the way, the Romans had copied from the Celtiberian short sword used against them by Iberian Celts in Spain) was that the long sword was primarily a slashing weapon, and in close formation it was almost impossible to get enough room to swing it, whereas the Gladius was both a slashing and a stabbing weapon, and so could be used from inside a tight shield-to-shield formation.

Also, before modern temperature controls, you could not always be certain of the quality of the iron being made into a sword: Roman accounts mention long swords bent into an L shape after whacking at Roman shields for a while, and Gauls having to stomp on the swords to try to straighten them out. By the first century CE blacksmiths in then-Roman Gaul had invented 'pattern welding' which resulted in much higher quality near-steel swords.