Do you think current unit upgrade paths are fine?

[Phrozen]

Scout line should go:

Scout -> Peltast -> Skirmisher -> Ranger -> Commando -> Spec Ops.

 

[agonistes]

Quite a few of the land unit promotions don't do it for me.

I wouldn't mind seeing more specialization in the promotions, regarding type A vs. type B.

Of course, aside from Civics and Techs, I think we could use a 3rd military tree, or instead something like the envoys, where every x turns you can pick from several choices that upgrade your military.

 

[Hauptman]

The way it stands, if you play to maximize and win, you build 2 types of units. Slingers and warriors. Then upgrade them as you progress... never making new units. That makes every other unit worthless, and just a side bit of flavor, but ultimately nothing but a drain on your goal if you actually make them. Why spend 10 turns making spears when I'll have Swordsmen in 13 turns of research? Why bother making a chariot at all when it'll be useless in 20 turns? Same with a horseman... Ok not entirely true, as horsemen are absolutely brilliant if you can get one to level 2, and will never cease to be your most prized unit. As it stands I dont build new units until very late game, just for the variety (and helos are awsome!) because for 80% of the game those 4 archers and 3 warriors are all I need on land, because you know, once frigates happen, your army just collects dust anyhow.

There is so much to complain about in civ 6... the list goes on for miles, and units are low on that list. But I can see where you all are coming from. It's just pointless unless everything else is fixed. You can win this game without ever building a single unit... and use that one lonely warrior the throught the entire game, as the AI is completely inept at war and cant take a city when you leave it wide open for them (please firaxis let me trade a capital, if the ai cant take it back!)

Also, why does everyone compare to civ 5? That game was poop too. CIV (4) was the ultimate expression of what this game aughta be. But that's besides the point I guess.

 

[Manifold]

I would not design a complete unit upgrade paths if it should be realistic. There were many inventions in history which change military warfare massive. It would be not accurate to give a battleship experience from ancient sea fights. I think about the introduction of gunpowder, tanks...and the Dreadnought which is a very good example for a new weapon without predecessor.

But this is a game and should be fun. So, of course it is cool that my ancient warrior becomes my superhero in the information age.
That is also way I miss some more catchy and bombastic units like:

Gladiator
Ancient naval ram ship (Phoenicia)
Scorpio / Roman Ballista
Crusader / Mujahideen
Trebuchet fires rotten cadaver
Landsknechts / Reisläufer
Grenadier
Airship
Flamethrower
Armored Recon Car
Combat Swimmer
...

 

[Olleus]

There's good discussion of this on the front page already. But generally, I agree with you. I think there's a need to reshuffle things slightly to avoid the larger gaps. I have something like this in my mod, 8 Ages of War (see sig for more details)

Spoiler :

Ranged Strength/Combat strength (m=moves, r=range)]

Era | Melee (+12 vs Anti-cav) |Anti-cav (+15 vs cav) |Heavy Cav |Light Cav |Ranged (-17 vs cities) |Siege (-17 vs units) |Recon
Ancient |Warrior 20 |Spear 28 |Chariot 30 (m3+1) ||Slinger15/5(r1) Archer 18/7 || Scout 10 (m3)
Classical |Swords 36 (Iron) ||| Horseman 34 (m4) (Horse) ||Catapult 28/16
Medieval || Pike 44 | Knight 46 (m4) (Iron)|| Crossbow 34/22
Renaissance | Musket 54 (Niter) ||| Cavalry 52 (m4) (Horse)|| Bombard 46/34 (Niter)
Industrial || Fusilier 62 ||| Field Cannon 52/40 || Ranger 55/45 (r1 m3)
Modern| Infantry 72 || Tank 72 (m4) (Oil) ||| Artillery 68/52
Atomic|| AT Crew 80 || Helicopter 80 (m5) (Aluminum) | Machine Gun 70/58 (r2)
Information | Mech Infantry 90 (m3) || Modern Armor 90 (m4) (Uranium) |||Rocket Artillery 84/64 (r3)

</shameless plug>

The only large gap is for heavy cavalry between knights and tanks, to represent the lack of any real-world heavy cavalry in the 1815-1915 period. Other than that, the melee/anti-cav units and heavy cav/light cav units leapfrog each other. Every era unlocks one or the other, but the bonuses are such that both are useful (ie, a spear is better than a sword against cavalry, and a sword is better than a pike against melee).

I'm also thinking of adding a new military policy every era that gives +4 combat strength to units from the previous era. So there would be a classical policy that gives +4 to spears/chariots/archers, and a medieval one that gives +4 to swords/horsemen and catapults in order to make them useful that bit longer and 'tighten' the leapfrogging.

Moderator Action: Post merged with existing thread

 

[mrwho]

The two most glaring gaps in the upgrade lines for me are catapult to bombard and swordsman to musketman. For some reason the early gaps feel much more substantive to me than the later ones. The tech tree might need reworking, but at the very least I'd like to see trebuchets and longswordmen upgraded. I'd also move caravels a little earlier in the tech tree to make the gap to them less jarring. I'd probably be more inclined to focus on cavalry if the two lines were merged together as well.

 

[Uberfrog]

I'd also move caravels a little earlier in the tech tree to make the gap to them less jarring.

The naval tech line is a bit of a mess, but mainly because there are relatively few naval techs forming that sparse branch at the top of the tech tree.

I'd like to see a medieval upgrade to the Galley (a Cog, perhaps), which is a sitting duck to any city or Crossbowman at that stage, and more era-appropriate than a Caravel with its cannons showing up too early. I'd also like to see the Galleass return as a late medieval/early renaissance upgrade to the Quinquereme.

 

[Olleus]

The naval tech line is a bit of a mess, but mainly because there are relatively few naval techs forming that sparse branch at the top of the tech tree.

I'd like to see a medieval upgrade to the Galley (a Cog, perhaps), which is a sitting duck to any city or Crossbowman at that stage, and more era-appropriate than a Caravel with its cannons showing up too early. I'd also like to see the Galleass return as a late medieval/early renaissance upgrade to the Quinquereme.

That would work. Maybe also move the frigate a little later and rename is Ship-Of-The-Line?

 

[BenitoChavez]

I haven't read the whole thread and this may be a bit off topic, but Machine Guns....why is their range only 1 when all the other ranged units (besides slingers) have a range of 2? It's practically a downgrade when promoting Canons to Machine Guns.

 

[Olleus]

Machine guns should obviously be changed to range two mortars. Maybe add a machine gun to the unit model for Infantry to make it clearer what they represent.

 

[Gehennas]

Machine guns should obviously be changed to range two mortars. Maybe add a machine gun to the unit model for Infantry to make it clearer what they represent.

Honestly, I would like to see opposite: archer/xbow/cannon stats buffed but range reduced to 1. With Civ 6 movement rules even cavalry has hard time dealing with archers.

 

[UWHabs]

Honestly, I would like to see opposite: archer/xbow/cannon stats buffed but range reduced to 1. With Civ 6 movement rules even cavalry has hard time dealing with archers.

If you make archers all start with range 1, but maybe add a "+1 range" promotion as a tier-2 promotion, that might strike a nice balance. Of course, dealing with the range-1 slinger early in the game is just frustrating.

 

[Prima Italia]

The most glaring to me are the knight to tank(!) and horseman to cavalry. I would prefer something in between such as the landship as an upgrade for the knight and lancer for the horseman to bridge the gaps.

 

[pietro1990]

Honestly, I would like to see opposite: archer/xbow/cannon stats buffed but range reduced to 1. With Civ 6 movement rules even cavalry has hard time dealing with archers.

Just lower there melee strenght... I don't know why they gave crosbowman the same melee strenght as their range strenght.

for example: if it has 16 range strenght it should have 8 meel strenght

 

[Metecury]

The naval upgrade tree is just sad, to go from muskets to WW2 infantry is quite a stretch as it is to go from a knight to a ww2 tank. The civ V formula was not so bad after all, I prefer variety and historical accuracy.

 

[Manifold]

At the moment I am missing most:

1. "Rifleman" between Musketman (Infantry of the Line) and Modern Infantry.

2. The "Infantry of the Line" should come after Musketman.

3. The "Machine Gun" should be moved to the Anti-Cav category behind Pike & Shoot before the AT Crew.

4. The "Self-propelled artillery" replaced the Machine Gun as ranged unit.

5. The "Armored car" fills the cap between Knight and Tank.

6. "Assult troops" category should include the "Battleaxe-man" -> "Gladiator" -> "Landsknecht" -> "Grenadier" -> "Flamethrower" -> "Marine"

7. much more naval units: Galeass, Cog, Fire ship, real Privateer, Ship of the Line, Paddle steamer, Torpedo boat, Stealth ship.

EDIT:
8. Cuirassier (or Hussar or Mounted Raider) between Horseman and Cavalry

 

[pgm123]

The light cavalry line is a joke. The horseman is very powerful in the Classical Era, but are obsoleted the moment Knights appear.

The bigger issue for me is that there's no functional difference between light and heavy cavalry. Both move fast and ignore zone of control. So, you build light cavalry if you have horses and heavy if you have iron.

 

[steveg700]

The issue here is deeply systemic. Changing around the upgrade paths and inserting units here and there are just treating various symptoms. In Endless Legend, you build units in a fashion that resembles how you build ships in our space 4X cousins. In Civ VI, you're stuck ordering off the menu.

But whatever. It's a problem that units have generational separations between upgrades. Horsemen to Cavalry is a separation of three eras. So, when I get Cartography, they just become scouts, swimming around the map. What else are they good for? Nuts.

Another civ shows up with AT crews, and they're able to wreck me. Not because I have tanks or cavalry, I just happen to still have minutemen instead of infantry at the moment. I lose due to the generational gap.

With recon units, they're so weak and out-of-whack even when they're era-appropriate that using them in combat makes little sense. They start as melee, but upgrade to ranged? And with Spec Ops they go to ranged 2? Just weird.

Meanwhile, ranged units start ranged 2 but eventually wind up ranged 1? And they top out without an Information Era upgrade? Huh.

Not fine to me.

 

[Metecury]

At the moment I am missing most:

1. "Rifleman" between Musketman (Infantry of the Line) and Modern Infantry.

2. The "Infantry of the Line" should come after Musketman.

3. The "Machine Gun" should be moved to the Anti-Cav category behind Pike & Shoot before the AT Crew.

4. The "Self-propelled artillery" replaced the Machine Gun as ranged unit.

5. The "Armored car" fills the cap between Knight and Tank.

6. "Assult troops" category should include the "Battleaxe-man" -> "Gladiator" -> "Landsknecht" -> "Grenadier" -> "Flamethrower" -> "Marine"

7. much more naval units: Galeass, Cog, Fire ship, real Privateer, Ship of the Line, Paddle steamer, Torpedo boat, Stealth ship.

This is exactly what I want to see. The only correction I'd make is to split the assault troops between mercenaries to be hired only by gold (Battle axmen and Landskenecht) support units (grenadier and flame thrower should give a one tile ranged attack to melee units) and the marine as a stand alone unit.

 

[drubell]

The bigger issue for me is that there's no functional difference between light and heavy cavalry. Both move fast and ignore zone of control. So, you build light cavalry if you have horses and heavy if you have iron.

Which would be fine if there was a unit between the Classical Horseman and the Industrial Cavalry, but since there isn't, the light cavalry line is woeful in Civ 6. And as far as I can tell, this wasn't changed in the R&F tech tree.