CEP: Armies

[mitsho]

presumably (not in order of importance) a) building costs, b) upkeep costs, c) tech placement ("peaceful line") and d) access to promotions (not sure?). From a gameplay perspective, I'd wager it would be better anyways if the first gunpowder unit would require iron. Otherwise the predominance of iron is quite short (if you f.e. have to "get it" at a nearby City State first). But that doesn't make much sense...

Is it technically impossible to make the scout 'skip' the spearman and upgrade directly to the pike (at a point where horsemen/knights are available, you don't need the scout, at the era of the spear you presumably would want the speed)?

I haven't played it yet, but spears seem to be difficult to balance inbetween useless and too strong. But we're getting there If the main problem is the fights vs. barbs one could give them a strength promotion against barbarians? (Btw. have we tested giving the AI a bonus vs. barbs so that they get less crippled by them when there's a circumstance of bad luck for them?)

 

[Ahriman]

a) building costs, b) upkeep costs

But... that's a bit like saying we'd prefer the knight to the cavalry, because it's cheaper.

c) tech placement ("peaceful line")

If we're adding back military units to the economy lines, then we have to make sure that we add back economy to the military lines, otherwise they aren't worth getting. Given how passive the AI is, it's very easy to ignore the bottom of the tech tree for a long long time.

From a gameplay perspective, I'd wager it would be better anyways if the first gunpowder unit would require iron. Otherwise the predominance of iron is quite short

Frigates are still very useful.

Is it technically impossible to make the scout 'skip' the spearman and upgrade directly to the pike

This seems like it should be possible. You can set any unit to upgrade to any other single unit AFAIK.

(Btw. have we tested giving the AI a bonus vs. barbs so that they get less crippled by them when there's a circumstance of bad luck for them?)

I still don't think this is enough: the AI has to be willing to clear camps. The AI does this far less in BNW than it did in G&K. I don't know why they changed this. And it's probably in core AI, where we can't tweak it.

I suspect that the only solution may be to set the camp rewards and barb spawning back to BNW levels.

 

[mystikx21]

I would push against gunpowder units requiring iron. The solution in GEM was to give the swords units anti-city bonuses and be roughly as strong as early gun units already. Iron works well enough on the same era of ships as guns as it is and is available quite early. I'm not convinced it needs a longer game duration as early and mid-game iron is quite important to expansion. Much more so than horses, which are simply important militarily (horses are good first responders to harry an enemy force before it gets set up).

Scout could easily be set to upgrade to pikes and skip spears yes.

Spears should probably be at least 10 with a defensive bonus and access to offensive promotions. Warriors were 9 at a later stage of GEM as it was.

The vanguard line as currently constructed should do something like this:

1) Moderately weaker and cheaper than mainline or elite units. The last round of strength reductions wasn't necessary. The problem was the speed and defensive promotion lines (healing and trenches) that weakened both the mobile and the mainline unit usefulness.
2) Defensive bonus innate, but not defensive only promotions. They should have the same attack/defend terrain bonuses as anything else.
3) Early access to anti-mobile unit lines could be an option.
4) A case could be made to strip anti-city bonuses, but I'm not sure it is necessary. The point is to let them fight, but not be as effective at it as a more expensive resourced unit or mainline gun units.
5) No movement bonuses unless from a UA (which is arguable). A case could be made for later game modern units to move faster but that's not necessary (it's more important to speed up default railroad movement probably, it's the same as mid-game roads).
6) Sight is fine, but should be paired with something else. It's the movement that mattered between ITC and extra moves.
7) Access to healing is probably fine too but isn't necessary to maintain exclusively.

 

[Thalassicus]

People felt vanguards were too strong, so I made a few changes to each aspect. Their cost went down -30%, strength -5%, promotion bonuses dropped from 25% to 15%, and I removed the speed/sight bonuses from ranks 2 and 3 of Guerrilla and Trenches. I'd be okay with adding some strength back.

I always build at least 2 healers, 2 anti-mounted, and 1 pillager. These are promotion paths exclusive to vanguards in every era. I also build combat vanguards in games with leaders who have a vanguard UU like the Zulu. I will also probably build more once we get the horse/iron mutual exclusiveness reactivated, since half our games will have low iron.

 

[Ahriman]

2) Defensive bonus innate, but not defensive only promotions. They should have the same attack/defend terrain bonuses as anything else.

Agreed. I think this is the most important point.

I definitely think that spears and pikes need to be weaker than the strategic resource requiring sword and longsword. But after the medieval era, this stops working. We don't need strong and weak resourceless melee units.

This is why I proposed merging pikes into gunpowder units in the first place.

Vanguards are the only way to get healing and anti-mounted bonuses,

Why is this desirable?

and the only melee footman in games without iron (half of all games). We'll obviously always need them for those purposes.

This is not true from the Renaissance era.

 

[mystikx21]

One of the core problems with the vanguard line was the way the AI handled it. The AI didn't understand using them as medics or screens to tank for ranged units. Those are very precise roles. What they got instead was a weakened infantry unit that was horrible at offensive warfare in their hands and too easily built and maintained. The reason it was too weak for them was as follows:
1) Defensive only promotions. These don't work for the AI as they're almost like a placement effect and they have the effect of preventing an offensive value. Defensive innate is a better choice to achieve this goal of being better at defense as it doesn't reduce flexibility in attack promotions.
2) Building them took up cost and supply for other units that were better at inflicting damage (ranged or mainline units). And since they were easily dispatched when attacking, this was a waste.
3) Humans were better at using up extra movement effects like ITC or second tier defense movement bonus moves to do raids and finish off weakened units (which in turn weakens mounted units). This was the major imbalancing feature of vanguards in CEP was the extra movement. Scouts are fine.
4) They were overall too weak to do much front line combat. Making them weaker still only enhances this problem. I'm fine with them being weaker, just not too weak.

I don't think the anti-mounted and healing bonuses need to be exclusive for the unit to have a role in combat. With a more limited quantity of iron and horses, and the change to garrison strength, vanguards would serve some valuable defensive capabilities by default, and then have some pop in them to go take the fight somewhere else.

 

[Ahriman]

One of the core problems with the vanguard line was the way the AI handled it. The AI didn't understand using them as medics or screens to tank for ranged units. Those are very precise roles. What they got instead was a weakened infantry unit that was horrible at offensive warfare in their hands and too easily built and maintained. The reason it was too weak for them was as follows:
1) Defensive only promotions. These don't work for the AI as they're almost like a placement effect and they have the effect of preventing an offensive value. Defensive innate is a better choice to achieve this goal of being better at defense as it doesn't reduce flexibility in attack promotions.
2) Building them took up cost and supply for other units that were better at inflicting damage (ranged or mainline units). And since they were easily dispatched when attacking, this was a waste.
3) Humans were better at using up extra movement effects like ITC or second tier defense movement bonus moves to do raids and finish off weakened units (which in turn weakens mounted units). This was the major imbalancing feature of vanguards in CEP was the extra movement. Scouts are fine.
4) They were overall too weak to do much front line combat. Making them weaker still only enhances this problem. I'm fine with them being weaker, just not too weak.

Strongly agree with all this, but then I don't see how we get to here:

With a more limited quantity of iron and horses, and the change to garrison strength, vanguards would serve some valuable defensive capabilities by default, and then have some pop in them to go take the fight somewhere else.

especially for the AI.

 

[Thalassicus]

It sounds like you feel they have too low strength right now, so I will increase it +5%. After this I want to leave them be a while and focus on other things. We've spent a lot of time on the topic, merged them with anti-mounted units, removed the move/sight bonuses from rank 2 guerrilla and trenches, altered their cost and maintenance, and so on. These are some big changes so I want to do some playtesting before making lots of little adjustments.

@mystikx21
Once we activate the AI part of the project, they will build several units of each specialization for vanguards; this is assured. The default AI combat package for vanguards is defense. This instructs them to use vanguards to screen ranged units like archers and siege. However, they also have an attack bonus when using vanguards, so they can use them for offense or defense.

I frequently use vanguards for attacking in the first 2 eras when there's not much else available to fight barbarians. This is the most important time period of the game, because early successes create a snowball effect in Civ. Vanguards are also essential for any successful military campaign to keep units alive.

Vanguards are the only way to get healing and anti-mounted bonuses,

Why is this desirable?

Units with exclusive abilities encourage combined arms, and giving promotions like medic to a strong unit like a swordsman makes it overpowered.

 

[mitsho]

But... that's a bit like saying we'd prefer the knight to the cavalry, because it's cheaper.

No, since the first upgrades into the latter. We are comparing contemporary infantries here, right?

If we're adding back military units to the economy lines, then we have to make sure that we add back economy to the military lines, otherwise they aren't worth getting. Given how passive the AI is, it's very easy to ignore the bottom of the tech tree for a long long time.

Agreed. It's a bit of a shame that the unit cap doesn't play a bigger role here. Conquest oriented empires build more units, do we know if the AI runs into/over that cap sometimes? That might be a reason for their weakness.

This could be a benefit on that side of the tech tree, making it worse for peaceful empires having to defend against an invader (thus building units hastily, thus reaching the limit sooner).

Frigates are still very useful.

At sea yes, not so sure how useful they are on land

For the conquest empire, that means switching gears. It's a change of roles. I see I'm the only one arguing this so I'll drop it again.

This seems like it should be possible. You can set any unit to upgrade to any other single unit AFAIK.

Then what is the argument against that? Seems logical to me (especially if the movement bonuses/ignore terrain promotions have been removed for vanguards).

 

[Ahriman]

Units with exclusive capabilities encourage combined arms.

It isn't combined arms when the two unit types are basically the same: resourceless melee units.

Your argument seems to suggest that we should split the swordsmen line in two, one of which can only get open terrain bonuses and the other can only get rough terrain bonuses. Because then that would mean we would have to use both swordsman types, which would encourage combined arms.

[In other words: why not just have healing and anti-mounted promotions on the core units, so you can specialize through promotions, rather than through unit selection?]

 

[mystikx21]

I think the only strength modifications from actually looking at the spreadsheet were to spears to 10, but since they're first out of the gate, that matters a lot.
Conscripts and Paras were fine at the high end. Pikes and militia looked okay except for the defensive-heavy nature.

 

[Thalassicus]

@Ahriman
The medic promotion is overpowered on soldier units. Firaxis dealt with it by making it useless, but I like having healers.

@mystikx21
Units follow the formulas on the UnitFormulas table, just to the left of the Units table.

 

[Ahriman]

No, since the first upgrades into the latter. We are comparing contemporary infantries here, right?

The point I was making is that a more expensive unit with higher strength is better, it is something we tech for.

It's a bit of a shame that the unit cap doesn't play a bigger role here.

I'm glad that the unit cap never binds. I think it was a mistaken mechanic. It is a mechanic whose only function is to hurt the AI, I've never encountered it as the human. Army size is already constrained by maintenance costs.

I have no opinion either way on whether scouts should upgrade to spears or pikes.

* * *

@Ahriman
The medic promotion is overpowered on soldier units. Firaxis dealt with it by making it useless, but I like having healers.

How is it any less overpowered on a slightly weaker unit?

I disagree that +5 health per turn is useless, but I think large amounts of healing are overpowered in that they can let you sustain bombardment without taking damage - in the same way that cities that were healing 30+ health per turn was overpowered.

 

[mystikx21]

@Ahriman
The medic promotion is overpowered on soldier units. Firaxis dealt with it by making it useless, but I like having healers.

@mystikx21
Units follow the formulas on the UnitFormulas table, just to the left of the Units table.

I was looking at the effect of the 5% boost. Spears are probably the only unit that this matters appreciably because the difference from 9 to 10 strength can be significant in the early game. 15 to 16 or 20 to 21 is less noticeable and can be adjusted back easily if necessary later (if they get offensive promos instead for example).

I generally agree a significant number of changes have gone in already that should address the issue (movement was a big one). The main concern now is over the defensive promos only versus the flexible offense/defence promos and an innate defence boost.

I'm not as worried about having two lines, or having mounted-healing roles, though both of those are things I'm not persuaded we need, I'm willing to test it for a while and see how it plays with the AI. The defensive only issue though I think cripples the AI too much even with improvements in force composition as that doesn't seem to have helped even with the AI improvements in GEM. They basically provided easy kills that got in the way of better and more threatening units.

 

[Ahriman]

I'm not as worried about having two lines, or having mounted-healing roles, though both of those are things I'm not persuaded we need, I'm willing to test it for a while and see how it plays with the AI. The defensive only issue though I think cripples the AI too much even with improvements in force composition as that doesn't seem to have helped even with the AI improvements in GEM. They basically provided easy kills that got in the way of better and more threatening units.

I think this is a fair compromise, I'm happy to try it out for now and see how the AI performs, as long as we're open to discussing the issue later if it turns out to be a problem.

 

[Lissindiel]

I still think vanilla spears are better. In 3.0.5 vanguards could do everything: attack sities, kill barbarians, scout, take tons of damage. Now they are useless. Tweaking numbers will not fix them - unit, which combines low attack with high mobility and defense is doomed to be broken. They will always be either too fast, too unkillable or too weak. What's wrong with vanilla spears, anyway? They were a great unit for "no iron" games.

 

[Stalker0]

Just a random thought, could common units be given a higher heal rate than other units?

Instead of giving them a defense bonus, how about a healing one? This would model the "common" element a bit more. Sure spears are weaker than swords, but i can train dozens of spearmen for every elite solider, so i can replace ranks quickly.

 

[stackpointer]

Is it technically impossible to make the scout 'skip' the spearman and upgrade directly to the pike (at a point where horsemen/knights are available, you don't need the scout, at the era of the spear you presumably would want the speed)?

It should be pretty simple. If I remember correctly, this would only need a simple sql or xml edit. You don't even need to remove the scout -> spearman promotion, you just need to set the technology that it becomes "obsolete" with further up the tech tree (presumably up to the next promotion technology) so you can build both. I would actually do this with scouts along with the other UU (pathfinders, jaguars) so you can choose to build both the UU and next level promotion (jaguars/spearmen) depending on the situation and needs.

 

[ExpiredReign]

Just re-reading over this post and this:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=12627625&postcount=29

should probably be looked at again.

Jaguar & Maori Warrior at 10 upgrade to Spearmen of 9.

 

[Thalassicus]

@ExpiredReign
I changed spears back to vanilla strength levels for the next version.

@Lissindiel
Why do you dislike units with a defense bonus? I believe that's your concern, if I understand right. I searched your recent posts for an explanation, and apologize if I missed it. I'm willing to try out spears without defensive bonuses. I can do that for the next version.



============

I'd like to propose a compromise which combines the parts I feel are most important, while adding things which appear to be the main points of others here.

Vanguard units are the main resourceless unit path. They have good base defense strength, and exclusive access to reconnaissance, healing, and anti-mounted promotions to specialize them for unique tasks. Scouts are on this unit path. I'm adding the main requests I've seen here over the past week:

• Adapt the main unit path instead of creating a new path.
• Use standard Shock and Drill promotions as the core promotion line, instead of creating defensive promotions.

This goes well with my goal to change existing stuff when possible, instead of adding new stuff. Adding new stuff dilutes the uniqueness of things in the game.