CEP: Armies

[Bridger]

I don't think vangaurd units should get defense-only promotions. I think we should think of them as "light infantry" as opposed to the "heavy infantry" or "cavalry" lines.

Also: how the hell are people playing with this already? I don't see a new version on the site

 

[Ahriman]

I don't think vangaurd units should get defense-only promotions.

Agreed. Defense only is a big part of what messes up the AI. The AI doesn't use swordsmen or horsemen effectively enough to use vanguards just for defense, and the tactical unit AI doesn't think of melee units as just being defensive.

 

[mystikx21]

3.05 had a distinct effect but moving in this direction. Promotion changes are a part of the upgrade package most likely so I suspect most of the comments are directed at making those adjustments alongside unit upgrade paths and combat stats.

I think the "vanguard" or "light infantry" line could have an innate defence bonus instead of the counter-unit bonuses most of the units get in vanilla, or smaller effects but use both, but I agree completely it should not have defensive-only promotions. We need units that can fight well enough on both sides of the front for the AI to use them well, even if they can be used better on defence than offence. Vanguards in previous iterations did not do this because of the defence only promotions on top of weaker strength.

 

[Ahriman]

I think the "vanguard" or "light infantry" line could have an innate defence bonus

Yes, we used to have those on spearmen and pikemen in VEM, until the defensive vanguards were introduced and they became too similar. Intrinsic defensive bonus and the regular offensive/defensive promotions sounds good.

 

[Thalassicus]

A mix of units with offense and defense capabilities encourages us to use combined arms. This is an important design goal. The ideal army proportions are:

• 2 siege units - catapults
• 2 strategic slow - swords
• 2 strategic fast - horses
• 4 common range - archers
• 2 common melee - vanguards
• 2 healers - vanguards

8 of these are good for attacking units (horses, swords, archers), and 4 for defending against units (swords, vanguards). Gem ensured AIs build armies in these proportions, and I will carry over that feature to Cep once I have time.

 

[albie_123]

Shouldn't Warriors upgrade to Swords? They aren't in 3.1.

 

[Thalassicus]

I just upgraded some warriors to swords in my current game. Are either of those unique units in your game?

 

[albie_123]

Ah, sorry, it was a Brute, not a warrior.

 

[Thalassicus]

Unique warriors upgrade to spearmen in the mod, so people with those UUs can always use them later, even if they don't have iron. This was done to improve a few leaders like the Aztec Jaguars and German barb capture.

 

[albie_123]

Have Vanguards been balanced in regards to strength? Conscripts are better than Musketmen and Militia are basically as good as Arquebusiers. Either the vanguards need to be weakened or they need to come later.

 

[Thalassicus]

Vanguards have 25% less strength than equal-tech Soldiers (warrior, sword, etc). There might be an error in my table... I'm checking now. ("Units" table of CEP_ArmiesCities.xls)

Edit:
The vanguards you pointed out unlock later than the soldiers (conscript-musket), or have lower strength (militia-arque). Well, at least they do on my table. I haven't reached the tech tree stage of adapting the mod yet. That will rearrange some units' positions.

One factor is the arquebusier and musket have tech adjustments to balance them. This basically means I consider the Arque a column 6 unit (alongside knights and longswords) instead of a column 7 unit (beside militia). This adjustment lowers both the cost and strength of the arque and musket. I typically adjust things when techs are easy/hard to reach... which will become a bigger factor once we get the tech tree updates in.

 

[albie_123]

I thought Soldiers were still meant to be considerably 'better' overall than vanguards.

The difference between Arqs and Militia is less than 10% of strength, and the Militia get a defense bonus AND are considerably cheaper.

Conscripts, on the other hand, take the same amout of techs to get as muskets and are better in every single regard.

Why is the difference in strength so small? It's definitely not 25%.

 

[Lissindiel]

I've thought, I should bring vanguard discussion from the navy thread here. So, more broken english incomming.

The difference in strength is not the main problem. Problem is combination of high defense and high mobility. However, taking mobility away from vanguards will make them almost useless, if their other promotions will be left unchanged. Here's what I think: give spears standard infantry promotions back, remove all and every mobility, defense and sight promotions, set their strength at 80-85% of strategic infantry. Make "Cover" and "Siege" promotions available for swords only (even slaped onto them when hired, maybe) - this will make them a superrior unit for offense. Vanguards can have anti-cav promo, but swords should probably be able to get it at level up too. At industrial era just merge this two lines into one - don't see any reason to divide infantry to meatshield and elite at that time - it just should stand betwen enemy and more squishy ranged units, take fire and kill weakened enemy units when possible.

As for the recon role - there is a lot of ideas in this thread for the recon line.

 

[Thalassicus]

@albie_123
The positions of these units on the tech tree will change when we get to the tech tree updates. Muskets end up easier to reach, and Conscripts harder to access. Rifles also move left one column and become contemporaries of Conscripts.

 

[albie_123]

Okay, sorry.

Also, I haven't played with them yet, but just looking at the tech tree, it seems to me that Bazookas are pretty strong (85 ranged AND melee strength, compared to Mech Infantry's 70). Not sure how strong we want them.

 

[Thalassicus]

Thank you for mentioning that, I forgot to include bazookas on the Armies table that controls all unit stats in the mod.

I decided to try something new for BNW. In the past I held unit build costs to a solid 10*strength formula, used maintenance to customize units. The cost over-time usually matters more than the build cost. It also ensures our gold per turn drops only when we upgrade units, not just constantly rising when we're not doing anything. However, this approach doesn't always work well with some game effects like free units or leader bonuses. It also discourages upgrading a little more than I'd like.

I'm going to try adjusting build cost instead of maintenance. For example, instead of giving ships low maintenance, I will lower their build cost instead. This will obviously allow us to build and replace armies faster than the maintenance-changing approach, but it will be interesting to try out. I think it will encourage more expendable units, ones we're willing to sacrifice to protect important units. It will be easier to rebuild those expendable units if they cost less. This appeals to me because I won't obsess about having a 100% victory rate anymore. It also avoids the two main issues with the maintenance version, compatibility and upgrades.

 

[albie_123]

Sounds good to me. I also like the idea of having a powerful unit that takes a long time to build rather than one that drains my treasury when active.

 

[ExpiredReign]

This appeals to me because I won't obsess about having a 100% victory rate anymore.

You know, it never occurred to me before but that is exactly what I do.

Changing that aspect of how units are viewed by means other than their strengths might be very interesting. For me at least. The quality of discussion by most of you guys about military units completely baffles me sometimes. But sometimes I am easily baffled.

 

[albie_123]

GEM helped this a lot by displaying maintenance cost when you hovered over a unit. I loved this, it allowed me to compare strength, promotions and maintenance directly, which helped me decide if a given unit was worth the cost or not.

Without that UI feature, all maintenance sort of gets lumped together. We don't think, "I don't need these particular units", we think, "I've got an army that's too big".

 

[Ahriman]

Playing 3.1.6: the spearman seems really weak. At 9 strength, with only defensive promotions, it is barely and better than the strength 8 warrior. They're really not worth building, the only time you'd get them is from upgrading a scout.

I think that there needs to be some reward to getting bronze working early and spending your precious early hammers to build spearmen. They need to be good at fighting - against barbarians at least, which is most of what you'll be doing in the early game. But a strength 9 defensive unit doesn't help much. I need to attack barb units to stop them from pillaging my stuff.

[I haven't checked, but this will also affect spear UUs, like the hoplite.]

I'm also worried about the later versions of this: why would I ever want to build a weak midgame "vanguard" unit rather than a stronger musket unit? There just isn't a decent role for them.