Do mounted units feel kinda terrible to anyone else?

[chicorbeef]

In my opinion, skirmishers/heavy skirmishers were mostly fine as they were before Skirmisher Doctrine except for the fact that they were stronger than standard ranged units while coming earlier when they should have just come later in the tech tree.

 

[KlHannibal2]

I think the mobility of mounted units is being done a disservice here. Mobility doesn't simply mean better flanks, or being able to snipe out units, but it also helps in tanking damage, because they can be cycled out much more easily. Mounted units are key for keeping units alive for player armies, in my opinion.

Also, they can move after attacking. While a foot unit would be stuck in front of your line after getting a kill, the horse can move back into line (or further back to heal). The foot unit can attack before and let a ranged unit get the kill, but it will miss out on the heal.

If you have a full carpet of units and no space on the flank, you can still kill one unit in the enemy line with ranged only. Then a few melee horse units can attack one after another without being in ZOC and get stuck after the attack.

Another point: many civs have good bonuses for the melee horse line or a UU with bonuses that carry on. Songhai, Byzantium, Carthage with ignore ZOC general, Huns,...

 

[ridjack]

I still wish the interaction between mounted units and spearmen weren't quite as simple as a straight-up bonus; like, give mounted units no ZoC, then make it so the anti-mounted line either had normal ZoC or a more extreme version like taking all movement points from mounted units immediately. Would also IMO give us a different way to balance the Skirmisher line without needing the current wonky terrain setup.

 

[Rick Drayson]

Resurrecting this old thread.

I too think that mounted units are low value now.
the main reason is that mounted units need room to manoeuvre and due to the one unit one tile blasted rule. That room is often absent or almost always absent. That wars are an unbroken multiple depth row of units and in such a case, mounted units lack of terrain defense bonuses completely negates them.
I personally only build mounted units before tanks (they rock) as a rapid response defense force. OR if i get a mil tech advantage. Knights vs. spearman etc.
I think personally that the only possible fix (other than unit stacking) is to restore terrain defense bonuses. It isn't like cavalry cannot dismount to fight when defending or use hills, forests to disguise movements to attack from unexpected directions etc.

 

[rkkn]

while I'm not sold on mounted units being bad, I think their biggest shortcoming is the fact that their theoretical ability to hit and run is usually negated by the fact that zone of control triggers when attacking

 

[CppMaster]

Yeah, in Civ6 mounted units ignore ZOC. Maybe this is the way?

 

[Bruhmoment]

Perhaps. I don't think they need a buff, but there's options for buffs: make mounted units ignore ZoC, or increase their dmg (maybe against iron units?)

 

[Zhao Yun]

There is a way to use almost every unit in the game. What set horse units apart is their mobility, so you should find ways to exploit that, terrain allowing. From the lancer onwards, the horse melee line is the most powerful unit in the game. The skirmisher line is excellent in combination with roads networks, both offensively and defencively.

 

[Minh Le]

There is a way to use almost every unit in the game. What set horse units apart is their mobility, so you should find ways to exploit that, terrain allowing. From the lancer onwards, the horse melee line is the most powerful unit in the game. The skirmisher line is excellent in combination with roads networks, both offensively and defencively.

Agree. Knight is decent but lancer is OP. Horse skirmishers are great for defending too

 

[azum4roll]

We had a discussion on mounted melee on Discord and here's what I came up with:

All mounted melee units get the following promotion: Damage from Attacking Units reduced by 33%. This encourages attacking the enemy flanks with hit and run while not having to spend as much time healing between each attack (as they currently do).

 

[Minh Le]

That would make them even more OP

 

[azum4roll]

That would make them even more OP

They aren't though. Lancer has exactly one tech to shine since Fusilier unlocks on the tech right after. Mounted melee in general has troubles gaining XP which makes them fall behind for human players.

AI currently likes to form a line of melee - ranged - ranged - ranged - melee. Attacking into the ranged units is suicide since mounted units can't retreat after and they don't get defensive bonuses. They can attack into the melee units and retreat while losing most of their health, while ranged units (mounted or not) can attack every turn as long as there is a line of melee tanking the front, also gaining XP while doing so. In the long term mounted melee just can't promote much unless you're technologically ahead.

 

[Minh Le]

All you need is 1 empty tile on the frontline to make your melee horses shine.
They deal way more dmg than ranged units due to flanking bonuses and higher CS so even if they taking dmg attacking theyre still worth to use.
If they take less dmg when attacking it would make them way better than ranged units.

 

[ilikepickles]

If anything, Horsemen could deal with a small CS buff to make them better against compbows and other classical units, since there's a fairly large tech difference from Military Theory to Chivalry, leading to horsemen feeling obsolete and very fragile in Classical. But I think the melee mounted line from Knight onwards is already very strong (specially Lancers and Landships), with them having higher CS than same era infantry units and access to really good promotions like Charge.

 

[Minh Le]

Problem with horsemen is they have very little support in Ancient/classic era. To be really able to deal dmg effectively, the melee horses need road movement. The only viable early horses is Shonghai horses.

 

[SpecifiedUsername]

The only viable early horses is Shonghai horses.

Inca, Swedish can work too. And the Mandekalus are no longer horsemen anyway which still makes them bad.

 

[Minh Le]

Inca, Swedish can work too. And the Mandekalus are no longer horsemen anyway which still makes them bad.

Oh yeah I forgot about them, and the Iroquois too. If there are jungle and forest

 

[SpecifiedUsername]

Oh yeah I forgot about them, and the Iroquois too. If there are jungle and forest

Yeah but 90% of the time horsemen are trash.

 

[Minh Le]

Yeah but 90% of the time horsemen are trash.

Yeah I think moving them 1 tech later and buff their cs would be a good idea

 

[SullySaltlicker]

One thing I don't like about horsemen is that spearmen just hurt them too much and are too prevalent unless you rush Military Theory. I'd like to see the spearman's Formation promotion reworked to buff its defense when fortified instead of a direct bonus against mounted units, then give melee mounted units a 5-10% buff when attacking unfortified units along with a 10-15% debuff to defense against ranged attacks. This would give mounted units some more versatility for tearing up a line of enemy melee units on the move (even more so siege units, since they can't fortify), while punishing them if they rush in blindly and get surrounded by ranged units. If this was paired with the skirmisher proposal to replace the terrain-dependent buff/debuff with a buff to flanking bonus, then you could see mounted units having a greater presence in war - not only would they still be good for ambushing on the flank, they'd be great for pushing back an enemy advance, but not so much for breaking a defensive line.

The biggest concern with this would be balancing the buff percentages.

Another idea that might be interesting is removing the terrain movement debuff for hills, but not forest/jungle/marsh/desert.