[R&F] Community Military Patch (or "Make Spearmen not Trash")

acluewithout

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Community Military Patch

This [proposed] mod has been developed by the [CivFanatics Community] to rebalance various standard and unique units. In particular, this patch makes Spearmen line units better value, decreases the dominance of Cavalry Units, improves the combat value of certain unique units, and makes other changes to make cities harder to capture.

Changes to Standard Unit Lines
  • Spearmen line costs modified as follows: Spearmen 60, Pikeman 160, Pike & Shot 240.
  • Spearmen line unit's gain an additional +1 support bonus per adjacent unit.
  • Spearmen line Tier II promotion (‘Square’) now allows Spearmen line units to exert ZOC on cavalry units.
  • Spearmen line Tier IV promotion (‘Hold the Line’) now grants these units the ability to fight at full strength even when injured.

  • Catapult (Siege) line units all receive an additional +5 combat strength vs. when defending against ranged attack when adjacent to at least one Anti-Cav unit (called a "Shielding Bonus").
  • Heavy Cavalry line unit costs modified as follows: Chariot 70, Knight 200. Heavy Cav maintenance costs are increased by +1 for all units (including unique units).
  • Light Cavalry receive a -17 versus walls.
Changes to Unique Units
  • Ngao Mbeba melee strength increased to 40 (the same as a Legion). Cost is 110.
  • Khevsur now receives +7 combat strength when fighting in hills and or forest. Ignores movement penalties from hills and or forests. Georgian cities with Renaissance level walls receive a +15% production bonus when building this unit.

  • Samurai can be purchased with faith.

  • Berserkers are 15% cheaper to build in Coastal Cities.
  • Garde Imperiale and Redcoats costs reduced to 300.
  • Garde Imperiale unit earns experience 20% faster in addition to its other bonuses.
  • Cree start with a free scout unit in addition to any other normal starting units (which prior to the Industrial age, will be their Okihtcitaw unique unit). The cost of the Okihtcitaw otherwise remains the same.
Changes to Buildings
  • Forts. Forts now give all units in the fort +1 vision and +0.5 housing; all ranged or bombard units garrisoned in a fort exert ZOC.
  • China's Great Wall and Rome's Roman Fort and the Alcazar improvement also gets the same benefits as a Fort above, and benefits from the bonuses to Monarchy and Bastions (see below).

  • Walls provide a +5% production bonus to building Anti-Cav per wall level.
Policy Card changes and other Rule Changes
  • Battering Ram and Siege Tower only benefit Melee and Anti-Cav units, and only apply 50% of those units attack to walls or city health respectively.
  • After you unlock Military Tactics, you unlock the Alhambra in addition to the Huey Teocalli, and units receive +20% experience from battles they initiate. The Eureka is now "Recruit a Great General or a Great Admiral".

  • The Eureka for Feudalism is now "build Medieval Walls in two cities".
  • City State Kabul's Suzerain Bonus provides Anti-Cavalry and Ranged Units +1 movement in friendly territory.
  • Professional Army, Conscription and Levee en Masse policy cards only apply to melee, anti-cavalry and ranged units. Professional Army only provides a 20% discount to upgrades.
  • Manoeuvre, Chivalry, and Lightening Warfare do not provide any %production bonus for Heavy Cavalry, so, you will also have to build them at full production, and pay full cost to upgrade them.
 
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Hi All

Given some recent discussions, I thought I’d take a stab at developing a “Community Military Patch” which seeks to rebalance Spearmen units and various Weaker unique units (see here and here). I thought this might be a good project to start with before attempting more involved mods (see my signatures). Either that, or maybe Firaxis might take up some of these suggestions.

Comments are very welcome. Hopefully the internet and forum will be gentle…

In the meantime, here a few of my thoughts.

1. I’ve tried keep changes to the base game to a minimum, and not change what I think are more fundamental game balance / design decisions. As a result, so far I’ve not suggested: moving, changing the pre-requisites for, or otherwise modifying existing technologies; or changing when units unlock or introducing any new units. I’ve tried to avoid changing the combat strength of units, particularly melee units given they benefit from
Oligarchy and its legacy card.

2. I’m not changing that some Unique Units cannot be upgraded to from earlier units, on the assumption that this is a deliberate design decision by Firaxis. Instead I’ve tried to make these unique units more accessible eg by making them slightly cheaper and or improving their overall value.

3. I’ve deliberately not given Heavy Cav negatives to attacking cities. My take is that Heavy Cav are meant to be hard hitting – I’ve instead tried to balance them by making them more expensive to build and maintain overall.

4. I’ve not removed Cav’s ability to fortify, or suggested they cannot ignore ZOC against spears. My concern is that either change might negatively impact the tactical options available to players. I also think the spears / ZOC feels a bit gimmicky.

5. The costs of various units are ‘work in progress'. I’ll try to be more scientific about costs later.

6. I've mostly tried to improve Spearmen by making them cheaper, giving them some slight buffs, and then trying to nerf cav units slightly. I've also tried to make Military Tactics more valuable given it's a leaf tech.

7. I think Spears may need some further tweaks. In particular, they should maybe get +15 against Cav (see the 8 Ages of War mod), and or should maybe not get a negative to melee when defending instead of a buff when fortified.

Also, point of clarification. I don't actually think Spearmen are trash... but they certainly could use a little more love...
 
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It might also be good to have a separate mod which provides free units to the AI.

I was thinking AI could get:

- Free bombard line unit when settling on coast, otherwise free anti-cav when it settles a city anywhere else.

- Free ranged when AI builds ancient walls.

- Free ranged naval vessel when AI builds a harbour.

- Max number of units would be based on difficulty: max 3 bombard, anti-cav, ranged and naval ranged at King and Emperor, 4 at Immortal, and 5 at Deity.
 
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Made some tweaks. Key change is that Spearmen line always get improved support bonus, and Pikes and Medieval Unique Melee units now unlock at Castles.

Original text below.

Changes to Standard Unit Lines
  • Spearmen line costs modified as follows: Spearmen 50, Pikeman 150, Pike & Shot 230.
  • Spearmen line units all receive an additional +10 combat strength vs. all units (including ranged) when fortified on hills or rough terrain.
  • Spearmen line units provide +5 defence vs. cavalry, and +5 defence vs. ranged, to all adjacent units of a different unit type once you unlock Military Tactics.
  • Spearmen line Tier IV promotion (‘Hold the Line’) now grants these units the ability to fight at full strength even when injured.
  • Heavy Cavalry line unit costs modified as follows: Chariot 70, Knight 200. Heavy Cav maintenance costs are increased by +1 for all units (including unique units).
  • Light Cavalry receive a -17 versus walls.
Changes to Unique Units
  • Berserkers cost 180. Receives double yield from pillaging in addition to its other abilities.
  • Samurai cost 180, and can be bought with faith. Unit receives +1 movement.
  • Impi cost reduced to 120.
  • Ngao Mbeba melee strength increased to 40 (the same as a Legion). Cost is 110.
  • Khevsur cost reduced to 150. Combat strength increased to 42. +7 combat strength when fighting in hills and or forest. Ignores movement penalties from hills or forests.
  • Garde Imperiale and Red Coats costs reduced to 300.
  • Garde Imperiale unit earns experience 20% faster in addition to its other bonuses.
  • Cree start with a free scout unit in addition to any other normal starting units (which prior to the Industrial age, will be their Okihtcitaw unique unit). The cost of the Okihtcitaw otherwise remains the same.
Changes to Buildings
  • Forts. Forts now give all units in the fort +1 vision and +0.5 housing; all ranged or bombard units garrisoned in a fort exert ZOC.
  • China's Great Wall and Rome's Roman Fort and the Alcazar improvement also gets the same benefits as a Fort above, and benefits from the bonuses to Monarchy and Bastions (see below).
Policy Card changes and other Rule Changes
  • Battering Ram and Siege Tower only benefit Melee and Anti-Cav units, and only apply 50% of those units attack to walls or city health respectively.
  • After you unlock Military Tactics, you receive +15% production when running Encampment and Harbour projects, in addition to spearmen line units providing additional defensive bonuses to adjacent units (see above).
  • Professional Army, Conscription and Levee en Masse policy cards only apply to melee, anti-cavalry and ranged units. Professional army only provides a 20% discount to upgrades.
  • Manoeuvre, Chivalry, and Lightening Warfare do not provide any %production bonus for Heavy Cavalry, so, you will also have to build them at full production, and pay full cost to upgrade them.
  • You require two of a strategic resource to upgrade a unit that requires that resource.
 
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