Emperor: Win Every Game with Horsemen

[Wulf38]

Even on Continents/Emperor you can wipe your continent with mounted, go astronomy early, embark to the other continent and win domination before any civs reach the renaissance. No need to ever stop, just wage war constantly until you win.

 

[nebux]

for me taking cities in civ 5 is too easy, a way to improve would be:
build a wall, melee receive -50% damage to city, cavalry -75% siege remain the same. i don't get how a horseman is able to jump the city gates, well maybe with the help of catapult.
fort: penalties improve with cavalry doesn't do any damage to cities
and restore the defender can attack more that once, now instead the city attacks more

 

[Dizzy75]

I think it could probably use a rebalance, but I don't think this is too much of an issue in SP.

The fear I have is in MP, if it emerges as a dominant strategy, then it definitely becomes a balance issue that needs to be fixed. That is, the best response to this may be to go Bronze Working and mass Spearmen, but if rushing Horsemen is at least as good as massing Spearmen, then this is broken, in my opinion.

 

[Uncle_Joe]

I guess on reflection what I really don't understand is the swordsman/horseman balance.
Horseman have double the movement, require a much more accessible resource (which they don't have to share with siege), can move after attacking (which surely compensates for no defensive bonuses) and yet are higher strength than swordsmen who cost the same.
And their production is boosted by stables, should you so desire.

Again, as I said above - Horsemen have a direct counter, Swordsmen do not. Depending on the terrain, the additional movement may or may not come as heavily into play. Also, not getting terrain benefits is a pretty substantial penalty.

The fear I have is in MP, if it emerges as a dominant strategy, then it definitely becomes a balance issue that needs to be fixed. That is, the best response to this may be to go Bronze Working and mass Spearmen, but if rushing Horsemen is at least as good as massing Spearmen, then this is broken, in my opinion.

So far, it has not proven to be a problem in MP for us. Spearman do a number on Horseman and you can use units' ZOCs to control the movement of the horses.

Personally I'm just happy that mounted units arent as useless as they were in Civ4 for the longest time. Historically, mounted units dominated late Ancient and Medieval warfare for centuries but were so often neglected in Civ. I'm not convinced at all the the units themselves are unbalanced, but the AI certainly is not up to snuff to handle them atm.

 

[Dizzy75]

So far, it has not proven to be a problem in MP for us. Spearman do a number on Horseman and you can use units' ZOCs to control the movement of the horses.

Personally I'm just happy that mounted units arent as useless as they were in Civ4 for the longest time. Historically, mounted units dominated late Ancient and Medieval warfare for centuries but were so often neglected in Civ. I'm not convinced at all the the units themselves are unbalanced, but the AI certainly is not up to snuff to handle them atm.

I could believe that, since Spearmen have other uses and are easier to acquire since they don't require a resource. So, as with the GDR issue, it looks like this is just another problem with the stupid AI?

 

[Ahriman]

for me taking cities in civ 5 is too easy, a way to improve would be:
build a wall, melee receive -50% damage to city, cavalry -75% siege remain the same. i don't get how a horseman is able to jump the city gates, well maybe with the help of catapult.

I like the idea of walls giving extra bonus vs cavalry. Don't think that melee should get an extra penalty, they already take a lot of damage from attacking a city.
My concern is nerfing Mandelaku cavalry.
But I don't think it really solves the problem, since the AI can't/shouldn't build walls in lots of cities in the early game.

Historically, mounted units dominated late Ancient and Medieval warfare for centuries

Then make them more expensive (they were only ever the aristocrats, they were never the core of any urban-based civ's army) and/or make horses much rarer.

 

[budweiser]

Well, how does the Diety level AI hold up against a horse assault? Does it lose every time? Must you as human stop at some point and carry on the game?

 

[elthrasher]

I'm not convinced at all the the units themselves are unbalanced, but the AI certainly is not up to snuff to handle them atm.

This seems to be the problem. The game needs a smarter AI. I played the first half of a game on Immortal last night as Alexander. I never won at Immortal on Civ IV, but this was too easy. I got horses right away, grabbed a city state and then ran down two enemy civs, bringing me up to 8 cities pretty fast. By making them puppets, happiness wasn't a problem since every time I grabbed a city I'd get a new happiness resource and I really had nothing better to do than build a coliseum and a circus in Athens.

At my last save it was the early ADs I think. I had just got a DoW from Germany, but I was able to upgrade my horsemen to knights and Bismarck retreated his forces (just swordmen and archers, looked like) without even giving it a try (this shows at least some intelligence on the part of the AI). Somebody on the other continent was collecting heads so maybe there will be a challenge later in the game, but I kind of doubt it since I'm well on my way to early rifles and cavalry with a couple of scientists saved.

At this rate I'd say Deity should be pretty doable for most players using a strategy like this unless it's a heck of a lot harder than Immortal. I don't see myself keeping interest in this game without a few challenges. This was my first game on Immortal and I killed two AIs and will probably crush a third without losing a single unit! Yeah, I'm good, but I'm not that good. The AI is that bad. Also, I was watching TV at the same time.

 

[alpaca]

Whoever says that Horsemen have an effective counter unit seriously needs to try them. The game has a serious emphasis on attack over defense and spearmen won't have an easy time even getting close to the horses. Sure, if you can catch one in the open you have a good chance of killing it, but if the horse attacks, they inflict as much damage on the spears as vice-versa. And then retreat, get the next horse in and wipe the spear off the map. Then retreat that horse, too.

Mobility, high strength, move after attacking, a general emphasis on attack, useless ZoC (units should lose all movement points when going into a zone of control and then only be able to attack adjacent units but not move anymore), and what you get is a very dominant strategy you can't counter, only copy. Things get even worse with companion cav who have even more mobility and an even higher strength.

Fixing the ZoC and the emphasis on attack over defense in flat terrain would go a long way towards fixing this issue in my opinion.

Edit: I once again agree with Ahriman, I never build swordsmen, either. I guess the idea is that swordsmen don't have a real counter unit while horsemen have one (but one that doesn't work).

 

[Solarus]

I agree with the balance issue. Its rather serious
I've been playing Civ 4 BTS for quite some time, and it took me several weeks after beating the game on Prince to come to a stage where i could beat it on Monarch.

In Civ 5, with the horseman rush described above, Emperor on Pangea was like taking candy from a baby. I finished the game in 112 turns, with 6 horsemen total......absolutely no resistance at all from the AI, in less than 2hrs (whereas Civ 4 games used to take me of the order of 15hrs or so).......

Hopefully all these game-balance and AI issues will be addressed soon.....

 

[Becephalus]

I think they probably underestimated what an advantage it is to retreat after you attack for a human. And just the advantage of more MP. In Wesnoth when we were balancing the units we slowly over time pulled all the units MP closer and closer together.

Having both 3 and 11 move units seemed like a good idea to someone in the beginning, but as a serious MP community developed it was obvious you should spam 11 move units. Just too much more flexible. So they were nerfed, and then after that moves reduced to 9. Then the 3 move units got boosted to 4 so they weren't so worthless. And so on.

Eventually I think us MP devs were getting close to having the range be 4-7 when I stopped playing


I would prefer the following changes:

Horsemen is representing non-stirruped cavalry (think greece/rome). It has like 8 STR. Then you need an intermediate horse to represent stirruped Mongols/Turks/Huns etc. Maybe at STR 12? but two techs higher up. In exchange maybe ditch the lancer or cav, no need for two horse units in that very brief era (by then even on epic the tech tree is just blazing by).

Anyway just mo. They really need to re-balance the tech speeds late-game, the building costs/worthwhileness early game) etc.

 

[rune42]

Here's the problem:

Unupgraded spearmen has a strength of 14 against horsemen.
Unupgraded horsemen has a strength of 12.
Unupgraded companion cavalry has a strength of 14.

Seems, balanced, right? Well, lets see what happens when you factor in promotions...

Spearmen with a general nearby has a strength of 15.75 against horsemen.
Horsemen with a general has a strength of 15.
Companion Cavalry with a general has a strength of 17.5.

Uh oh.

Horsemen are extremely mobile. Companion Cavalry even more so. You will almost always achieve a flanking bonus with them due to their mobility(unless you suck at basic tactics). Lets factor in a general and flanking bonus into the equation.

Spearmen with a general and 2 flanking bonuses has a strength of 17.85 against horsemen.
Horsemen with a general and 2 flanking bonuses has a strength of 18.6 against all units.
Companion Cavalry with a general and 2 flanking bonuses has a strength of... 21.7 against all units.

Oops.

 

[Ahriman]

Part of the problem is: a 7+100% bonus is not the same as strength 14, because other modifiers are applied to the base, not the modified version.

Add some more modifiers and this starts becoming incredibly apparent.
Eg:
Spearman vs horseman = strength 14 vs 12
Spearman vs horseman, both with a terrain promotion and a great general = 17.15 vs 17.4

And as to "no hard counters".... archers and swordsman have a hard counter - horsemen.

Horsemen either need to be significantly more expensive, or have strength toned down, and maybe make strategic resources much more rare.

*edit*
Heh, ninjaed.

Companion Cavalry with a general and 2 flanking bonuses has a strength of... 21.7 against all units and cities.

IIRC flanking bonuses don't apply to cities?
But as for the rest, agree completely.

 

[Celevin]

Combat bonuses should be multiplicative, then rebalanced around it. It's been a sore spot since the beginning of Civ4 for me.

 

[rune42]

No flanking to cities? Never noticed. Well, theyre still overpowered regardless.

 

[JudgeDeath]

I do agree that a city attack penalty wouldnt be out of whack though. Taking cities should not be the role of Horseman...

Tell that to Jenghis Khan.

 

[ohioastronomy]

It's the retreat after movement part that is broken. The AI simply isn't that good at protecting friendly vulnerable units or reaching enemy ones. If you inflict damage you have to be in a place where you can get hit, period. You'd at least need more than 3-4 to wipe the map.

Also, instant heal should simply be removed as an option. Slow down the blitzkriegs.

 

[Uncle_Joe]

Then make them more expensive (they were only ever the aristocrats, they were never the core of any urban-based civ's army) and/or make horses much rarer.

As long as the wouldnt be to the point where they wouldnt get built, I could see increasing the price a little.

Whoever says that Horsemen have an effective counter unit seriously needs to try them. The game has a serious emphasis on attack over defense and spearmen won't have an easy time even getting close to the horses. Sure, if you can catch one in the open you have a good chance of killing it, but if the horse attacks, they inflict as much damage on the spears as vice-versa. And then retreat, get the next horse in and wipe the spear off the map. Then retreat that horse, too.

I have...a number of times. If you fight in vast open area then yeah, they will run circles around you. But that really shouldnt be the case in most games. And Spearmen are almost half the cost of Horsemen so you should be able put up a pretty large front of them.

In the end, I'm sure there will be plenty of units/tactics/slingshots/whatever that can completely dominate the AI. Reacting to each one with nerfs isnt necessarily the way to go IMO. Handle the AI first, THEN see what turns out to be too powerful. I really wouldnt want to go back to the days of never using mounted units.

 

[alpaca]

I have...a number of times. If you fight in vast open area then yeah, they will run circles around you. But that really shouldnt be the case in most games. And Spearmen are almost half the cost of Horsemen so you should be able put up a pretty large front of them.

In the end, I'm sure there will be plenty of units/tactics/slingshots/whatever that can completely dominate the AI. Reacting to each one with nerfs isnt necessarily the way to go IMO. Handle the AI first, THEN see what turns out to be too powerful. I really wouldnt want to go back to the days of never using mounted units.

I don't think it's only the AI. I don't see how I would be able to defend against them, either, without building them myself.

It doesn't only work in grasslands: In hills, let's put a horseman and a spearman one tile apart. The horseman can move (2 moves), attack (1 move) and retreat back with his last move, so the spearman can't counter-attack. If you don't have a bottleneck to defend, I can do this with 2 or 3 horsemen and still kill your spearman without you having a chance to strike back. Being 60% more expensive doesn't matter if I can kill one of your units without running a risk of losing one of mine. Since the ZoCs are semi-useless the horseman can still retreat even if you have a large frontline.

In my opinion, the large movement alone without being able to move after attacking would be enough of a bonus to warrant using mounted units. They are much more mobile, can navigate tight spots much more easily, and can flank the opponent a lot better.

 

[Show]

I cannot vouch for its viability on Immortal/Deity (although I will be playing some Deity games this weekend), but on Emperor and below you will win 100% or near-100% of the time.

This works on deity too, it's pretty much what people have been doing since release really, nothing new. If you don't use Alex you might need some ranged backup to speed things up vs spearmen but it's still very simple.

They need to buff spearmen I think, they aren't an effective counter to mounted units because of the immense difference in base strenght.