Companion Cavalry - WAY TO OP

[zcole89]

Now, before I begin, I have I been playing Civ since the very first one. I have always been a decent player, prince has never been an issue. Emperor level in Civ 4 BTS was very challenging for me to beat, although I did several times.

I just won an emperor game, small map, domination, in 375AD, turn 129. 6 C cav, 1 GG from the honor tree, and I took over the entire world. This should not be possible at all. I find this to be very lame on the AI in this game.

The first Civ I attacked was the Germans, they had an equal army too me as far as numbers. When he sent 3 archers into my territory, in front of his warriors, and I killed them all without a single damage point taken, I thought, what a moron. Then, I took his first city, and killed 4 warriors/3 pikeman, without losing a unit, I thought, crappy play. Then I took his capital, without even a single ounce of resistance, and I thought, just wow, are they really that lame?

Then I moved on to the romans, who were ahead of me in science and resources. They had 4 iron tiles, 3 6, 1 2 in there starting two cities, and did not have a single lego. There 8 warriors were no chance to my 6 CC. 2 turns later, their civ was conquered.

Then I went to the last opponent, the Russians. It was 300 AD and they had 1 military unit, and only one city. In the city they had spent the entire game building wonders that do not matter. Pyramids, Great Wall, Hanging Gardens, etc.

The AI is lame, and broken. The basic mechanics of the game are good imho. However, you need to give the AI a brain, or players like me will be discouraged. Civ 4 BTS made me have to think at the high levels. This game is lacking that all together.

 

[SuperJay]

The AI is lame, and broken. The basic mechanics of the game are good imho. However, you need to give the AI a brain, or players like me will be discouraged. Civ 4 BTS made me have to think at the high levels. This game is lacking that all together.

I agree, and welcome to warfare in Civ5.

If you want to put on your rose-colored glasses, you could say that Alexander's cavalry were OP in real life, and that your playthrough where you steamrolled the entire world was just being historically realistic. It's not bad AI, it's roleplaying!

 

[KopOut]

I agree. Companion Cavalry are juggernauts. You can take out entire civilazions in a few turns with 3-4 CCs.

Horsemen are pretty overpowered too IMO.

 

[CTH]

I won an Deity game small map with Companion Cavalry on turn 92, with a little bit of planing and a little bit of luck I could have won before turn 80...

 

[Abremms]

horsemen in general are too strong, really need to be taken down a peg. make it so mounted units can't take walled cities and make the AI build alot of walls, imo.

 

[Paeanblack]

"When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept for there were no more worlds to conquer."

Yeah, he really did kick some ass back in the day.

What I'd love to see is empires fragmenting when they get too large, so you can conquer/colonize all this land during an expansion phase, and end up losing most of it without really suffering that much. Then you get to do it again if you wish.

This is what I'm thinking: if your happiness bucket is empty, then your puppets go back into revolt. If your happiness bucket stays empty, the your puppets start breaking away and forming NEW City-States. Annexed cities never leave (and the revolt is your warning to annex the puppets you want to keep)

I'd love to see a game where major powers disappear and reappear.

 

[Abremms]

"When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept for there were no more worlds to conquer."

Yeah, he really did kick some ass back in the day.

What I'd love to see is empires fragmenting when they get too large, so you can conquer/colonize all this land during an expansion phase, and end up losing most of it without really suffering that much. Then you get to do it again if you wish.

This is what I'm thinking: if your happiness bucket is empty, then your puppets go back into revolt. If your happiness bucket stays empty, the your puppets start breaking away and forming NEW City-States. Annexed cities never leave (and the revolt is your warning to annex the puppets you want to keep)

I'd love to see a game where major powers disappear and reappear.

what would be even better is if those new city states could unite, either though conquest or diplomacy to form new civilizations to threaten you.

although i think annexed cities should be able to revolt as well, but at a much higher level of unhappiness. like if puppets revolt at -5, then annexed cities go at -10 or something.

would be a great mechanic, i hope it at least ends up as a mod.

 

[Paeanblack]

what would be even better is if those new city states could unite, either though conquest or diplomacy to form new civilizations to threaten you.

although i think annexed cities should be able to revolt as well, but at a much higher level of unhappiness. like if puppets revolt at -5, then annexed cities go at -10 or something.

would be a great mechanic, i hope it at least ends up as a mod.

I would use the happiness bucket instead of the current level of unhappiness. This means that if you are at, say, 600/1000 in the bucket and suddenly have huge unhappiness per turn, you still have some time to rectify the situation. It also means no revolts during a Golden Age.

However, it does mean that after a major conquest period during a GA, you may be in danger of losing some puppets when the GA ends. Think of the Roman Empire, Mongol Empire, Ottoman Empire, British Empire, Soviet Empire...well, pretty much every example in history that has the word "Empire" attached to it.

In terms of gameplay, it wouldn't be that big of a deal if the puppets went rogue...since they aren't flipping back to an opponent. Also, it is self-limiting, since each puppet that splits off will reduce your unhappiness.

I'd love to see this in the game...where most of the major powers get to go through some crazy expansionist/warmongering period (usually with their UU), but what really happens in the long run is that they leave a ton of new City States in their wake, and they each got a turn at controlling a big part of the world. Their core cities have still grown, and they got to research a little faster when they were big, but it didn't snowball into permanent world domination.

 

[The Tollan]

I would use the happiness bucket instead of the current level of unhappiness. This means that if you are at, say, 600/1000 in the bucket and suddenly have huge unhappiness per turn, you still have some time to rectify the situation. It also means no revolts during a Golden Age.

However, it does mean that after a major conquest period during a GA, you may be in danger of losing some puppets when the GA ends. Think of the Roman Empire, Mongol Empire, Ottoman Empire, British Empire, Soviet Empire...well, pretty much every example in history that has the word "Empire" attached to it.

In terms of gameplay, it wouldn't be that big of a deal if the puppets went rogue...since they aren't flipping back to an opponent. Also, it is self-limiting, since each puppet that splits off will reduce your unhappiness.

I'd love to see this in the game...where most of the major powers get to go through some crazy expansionist/warmongering period (usually with their UU), but what really happens in the long run is that they leave a ton of new City States in their wake, and they each got a turn at controlling a big part of the world. Their core cities have still grown, and they got to research a little faster when they were big, but it didn't snowball into permanent world domination.

That does sound like a good idea. It would require effort to balance things out (however much in the game needs balancing right now anyways) but it has much, much potential.. It would be great if cities could go renegade on you and eventually become independent. The only thing I would fear is to make sure that strategies revolving around obscenely anachronistic rapid technological research don't become more powerful in some way.

 

[isau]

They really need to deal with the fact that calvary can attack and run out of range of return fire on the same turn. But a general -25% to attacking cities would be welcome too.

 

[Blacklanner]

for both horses and especally cc, the speed is the real killer. I like the idea of walls giving a city +100% defense vs mounted units personally, but that wouldn't fix the horse/cc balance problem, just make the rush a little harder to pull off.

I think the way to go on balance is to give horsemen -1 speed and cc -1 str and -1 speed

 

[Terrance888]

No, just make Companion Cavalry much more expensive: IRL Alex can't have more than 5, and most likely had 3: two for flank guard, and 1-3 for his shock troops.

 

[kelemvor]

What about "opportunity fire"? That would definitely negate the huge horseman advantage.

 

[vendur]

People complain about them being overpowered, and then they purposely mess with the game settings to make them even moreso. Sounds like they like them overpowered. Try playing on a stanard map sizes. I'd also like to see the saves of that guy who claimed to win deity alexander by turn 90 or whatever. Got your saves at turn ~30, ~60, and ~90? Color me sceptical.

 

[Terrance888]

Hey Vendur.
I played the Demo on the biggest, hardest setting possible.
Forgot to remember turns tho. But I did win before anyone hooked up Iron.
I conquered a CS, sold it for a load of $$$, then bought and puppeted my way across the world. If I need money, I'll sell a few cities and reconquer them later with reinforcements. My puppets made enough hoptites to cover the few times I get a counter attack (Bismark hit be with 6 brutes, two which had charge and other promos) and my cavalry wipped their bums clean.
It wasn't even funny.

 

[stormerne]

I'd love to see a game where major powers disappear and reappear.

You mean respawn conquered civs, so that by the time you got to the other end of the continent conquering what you thought was going to be the final capital, you had to fly back again to take out the new capitals? (and so on...) Might be a lot of fun actually!

 

[stormerne]

I'd also like to see the saves of that guy who claimed to win deity alexander by turn 90 or whatever. Got your saves at turn ~30, ~60, and ~90? Color me sceptical.

Choose Alex on standard size pangaea, normal speed.
Found city. Beeline Horseback Riding.
Build scout. Build worker. Build settler.
Settle new city next to horses and pasturize () the horses immediately.
Build CC in both cities and buy third CC.
Open Honor policy tree and shout "Lay on, MacDuff"
Keep building CCs. Hatch GGs. Ignore CSs.
Puppet capitals; raze all the rest. Rake in their horses.
At the end you'll take out entire civs with all your CCs in a single turn, perhaps two for the very last one if it needs four CCs per city not three.

I know this can be done. But don't ask me for the saves because I played it very fast on an airplane trip before the laptop battery could run down! Just to see if it could be done. It can. And I have to say, in all honesty, it gets pretty boring towards the end - rather mechanical and not really much challenge. Because of that I'm not really inclined to repeat the exercise (a third time) just to satisfy someone's skepticism. But I do encourage you to try - if you don't mind getting bored after a while.

 

[vendur]

Choose Alex on standard size pangaea, normal speed.
Found city. Beeline Horseback Riding.
Build scout. Build worker. Build settler.
Settle new city next to horses and pasturize () the horses immediately.
Build CC in both cities and buy third CC.
Open Honor policy tree and shout "Lay on, MacDuff"
Keep building CCs. Hatch GGs. Ignore CSs.
Puppet capitals; raze all the rest. Rake in their horses.
At the end you'll take out entire civs with all your CCs in a single turn, perhaps two for the very last one if it needs four CCs per city not three.

I know this can be done. But don't ask me for the saves because I played it very fast on an airplane trip before the laptop battery could run down! Just to see if it could be done. It can. And I have to say, in all honesty, it gets pretty boring towards the end - rather mechanical and not really much challenge. Because of that I'm not really inclined to repeat the exercise (a third time) just to satisfy someone's skepticism. But I do encourage you to try - if you don't mind getting bored after a while.

Don't ask for the saves cause you aren't going to get those saves. You aren't going to even produce a CC until 65, and maybe if you got lucky on resources you can buy 2 more at that point. It will be at least turn 70 before you even attack the first other AI with your CC. they will have at least 2 cities by then, half a dozen soldiers. Take at least 5 more turns dinishing them off. Then you have to find your way to 3 other vics and do the same, each one will have more troops and more cities by then.

 

[stormerne]

:shrugs: You're right, vendur, you need luck.

I remember the first time I tried this I was very unlucky with the map, or at least I think so. I had a bad initial start position, I was a long way from resources, and I was near the fat end of a pear-shaped pangaea that took ages to explore before I found most people hiding in the stalk. It was an even slower start too because I was demonstrating the game to my wife and I didn't even found a second city till around turn 50! And yes you're right, by then Suleiman (random civ choices) had (IIRC) four or maybe it was five cities! And yes I probably took three turns max to take his whole civ (can't remember exactly, but I do remember that was the slowest). But I'd got so much gold I'd bought my way up to perhaps eight or nine CCs by that time.

The main thing is the fact I didn't know what I was doing (as a cultural player) so it took ages! But if even a dork like me, with a slow start, and with all the odds against me, and doing it for the first time, still managed to finish that first attempt in around 140 turns, just think what a bit of luck could bring when I repeated it. More to the point, just think what a more experienced and knowledgeable player like yourself could do.

 

[vihta]

I don't even use Horsies anymore. They take the fun out of it. I've been cheesing some "achievements" with them but thats about it