Do you use Swordsman now?

[Piousflea]

I think Swordsmen would be fine if you could reveal Iron earlier.

 

[iconocast]

if u bee lin for swords u seem to be able to get them well b4 pikes. if u have iron that is. thats the only gamble. dosent seem to bad

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

What do you want the most CS with all prerequest or Metal Casting with all prerequest. This gives you either sword or pikes and many other things. However for about 500 breakers you can get steel if you got MC and IW which allows you to uppgrade to longsword and 2 techs more you get muskets.

 

[AfterShafter]

I find the upgrade path to be worth it if I'm playing a militant game. If I can recall, iron working is along the way to metal casting or whatever tech gives you the +2 production building, which is a significant boon if you're going militant. Add to that that the swordsmen upgrade path is one that lasts all game with the same type of quite powerful units that are useful in every single era. When those heavily upgraded pikes turn into lancers, all of the sudden you're either training new front line units or are adopting an unorthodox style for attacking cities.

I don't think they need a buff. Simply because they aren't the obvious choice every time and there is another viable option to leading with swords that has distinct advantages in itself doesn't make them underpowered. The path Iron Working is on is not without its charms, and swordsmen upgrade to muskets/rifles/great war infantry unlike spears, and keep the upgrades they have from their very first unit. Elite front line units are to be treasured, and if you did happen to invest in the honour tree early on and kept going to war, by the time you're hitting infantry you will likely have some utterly amazing units spearheading your army. If you went for spears, you essentially lose the entire early period as a time for training your front line troops, since spears turn into cavalry type units after pikes.

Edit: One thing I'd like though.. Reveal iron with bronze working. Make going swords less of a gamble.

 

[Mark the Bold]

Not to go off on a tangent, but Iron Working is great because it allows you to build heroic epic. Heroic epic is a must-build National Wonder for all warmongerers.

 

[MooFreaky]

Swords are worth the extra cost IMO simply because they upgrade to gunpowder units rather than to horses.

I'd much rather be spending gold to get some veteran muskets than to buy/build noob ones.

That said, it is only if you have the luxury of time that you can do this. If you are at war and things are more urgent then you go Pikemen nearly every time.

 

[19Mellon73]

In my opinion the relative strengt of sword and pike are good as they are now. Pikes where some kind of regular army after all ( or professional mercenaries in the case of Landsknechte ). A 4.5 meter long pike is not that easy to handle, I guess !


But, I think swords should get "cover" ( they are carrying a shield after all )
As regular army pikes should get a bit more expensive, hammerwise. (upgrade to Lancer would become cheaper that way)
The cover promotion should not be carried over to Longswords ( 2 handed sword after all)
I like the early iron visibility idea.

just my 0,02 €

 

[ahawk]

I never bother going swordsmen anymore unless I'm Japan (can upgrade them into Samurai and save some production) or Rome (Legion is still a reasonable unit, since I can always build a few and use them to build roads or something until I can attack anybody). Other than that, swordsmen are now like muskets used to be... obsolete far too soon.

 

[GhostSalsa]

One thing I'd like though.. Reveal iron with bronze working.

For real. All the other strategic resources give you advance warning so you can invest on the right part of the tree without a gamble. This would be the easiest fix to the swordman problem.

Another mentioned fix that I liked was penalizing pikemen against ranged attacks. Pikemen should be swiss cheese on ranged. Seriously, what are they doing that level 1 warriors aren't... swiping at the arrows in mid-air with their pikes?

 

[apocalypse105]

If you are playing defencivly go for pikeman and horses so you can focus on wonders and economy..


Swordsman are more usefull for domination victories simply because there upgrade path is great..

You proparly will not be able to rush you're oponent with a few swordsman you will need catapults and some other units..

It seems that they are useless but they upgrade to swordsman a strong infantry unit of 21 strenght So it beats the pikeman easy and can't even fight against knights

But the best way to use swords is that you can upgrade them into musketman This is extremely usefull if you are constantly fighting .. Musketman is one of the strongest units in the renaissance...

After that they upgrade to rifleman and so on while pikes upgrade to lancers and it takes a lot of more tech to get to anti tank guns

 

[Liegence]

I almost always work through Education and build my army with Muskets after the Epic finishes. Pikes are nice and on that tech path, swords are weaker and I have a history of bad luck when spinning the wheel of iron. So, no. They're not worth it imho.

 

[GreekIrish]

I play as the Iroquois and they don't require for their unique swordsman. I just skip Longswordsman and don't start making new units until Musketmen.

 

[RealHuhn]

I play as the Iroquois and they don't require for their unique swordsman. I just skip Longswordsman and don't start making new units until Musketmen.

But even as the Iroquois, swordsmen are pretty bad. I'd say they need a (small!) bonus against ranged attacks which disappears after upgrading to longswords.

 

[AriochIV]

I think the stats of the Swordsmen are fine, but I think they need to move Iron Working a tier earlier and/or change the prerequisites to make it so it's not so easy to skip until the Medieval era. Right now the opportunity cost is too high -- Iron Working is expensive and there are a lot more attractive options to research instead.

 

[Buccaneer]

??? If you are going conquest and do not have an early UU, Swords are about the only and best choice (along with supporting cats, bowmen). It seems incongruous to say that Swords are useless when you really have no plans to use or prioritize them effectively. They can be used successfully early on to conquer multiple civs, if you make it a focus.

 

[AriochIV]

??? If you are going conquest and do not have an early UU, Swords are about the only and best choice (along with supporting cats, bowmen). It seems incongruous to say that Swords are useless when you really have no plans to use or prioritize them effectively. They can be used successfully early on to conquer multiple civs, if you make it a focus.

Swordsmen can certainly be effective if you're being aggressive and are actively fighting, if you beeline for Iron Working and you happen to have Iron in your territory. The problem is that there's no way to know whether you have any Iron or not until you've already researched Iron Working... it's a bit of a gamble, because it's an expensive tech that's a bit out of the way of other crucial infrastructure techs.

 

[Babri]

??? If you are going conquest and do not have an early UU, Swords are about the only and best choice (along with supporting cats, bowmen). It seems incongruous to say that Swords are useless when you really have no plans to use or prioritize them effectively. They can be used successfully early on to conquer multiple civs, if you make it a focus.

Firstly as AriochIV stated IW is very risky since u may find iron or miss it. Secondly its cost is very high. And finally by the time u research IW it is not long before pikes start appearing which are clearly superior & u would need to wait till longswords to fight them.

So the solutions can be :-

1. Lower the cost of IW so that it is reasonable.
2. Iron revealed at bronze working.
3. Higher strength for swords, 15 would be appropriate.

 

[Buccaneer]

Firstly as AriochIV stated IW is very risky since u may find iron or miss it. Secondly its cost is very high. And finally by the time u research IW it is not long before pikes start appearing which are clearly superior & u would need to wait till longswords to fight them.

So the solutions can be :-

1. Lower the cost of IW so that it is reasonable.
2. Iron revealed at bronze working.
3. Higher strength for swords, 15 would be appropriate.

So you propose to make Swords even easier to get and/or more powerful? What's the challenge in that? As it is, as Arioch said, it is out of the way and you have to focus more on it; thus, a key decision-making criteria. Changes to the game should be to make the game more challenging at higher difficulties for human players. (I have a hard time winning consistently at Immortal but I would love to play at Prince and try to work my way up, ala Civ4.) Back on Swords. The AI opponents will jump ahead and get Pikes early, which can be a hassle but it's a good thing. No reason to dumb-down the game in giving us more of an advantage.

 

[Peacemongerer]

For real. All the other strategic resources give you advance warning so you can invest on the right part of the tree without a gamble. This would be the easiest fix to the swordman problem.

Another mentioned fix that I liked was penalizing pikemen against ranged attacks. Pikemen should be swiss cheese on ranged. Seriously, what are they doing that level 1 warriors aren't... swiping at the arrows in mid-air with their pikes?

Well they've got significantly better armor from what I can tell than the basic warriors (I don't even think they have armor), which has to count for something against arrows.

 

[Tabarnak]

I will use them if i can get some iron. For an initial rush, i will pick CBs over swordmen. But when important techs are discovered and i have to go further into the tech tree, i will research iron working before civil service or theology for example.

Then i have to make a decision. Do i use them for more puppets or only for defense? It depends of quantity earned and actual situation and goals reachable.

Steel tech is certainly a lot better in term of pure warfare. Swordmen can be valuable if you want to go pretty deep into the top tech tree(science/gold) and want to reach the ren. era ASAP without need of better defense.