Zhahz said:
There are some interesting combos available but how often are you really going to attack with a rifleman UNLESS you've specifically designed it as a former city raider melee unit. And how many of these are you realistically going to be able to build up and afford to upgrade under normal circumstances. I'd rather simply build cavalry and have my slower riflemen defending.
Neato, but not really a big deal.
BTW, for someone who mentioned it - there are no units that upgrade to tanks, so you can't really build them oddball promo packages.
Short answer, yes I build alot of rifles and I afford to upgrade the majority of my city raiding melee forces to rifles as well. And yes, I will attack with rifles that are not former city raiders over using cavalry, too.
Long answer, I almost always play an aggressive civ and rarely make much use of cavalry as city attack troops. They only get 15 base strength to the rifleman's 14, and they dont get the free combat I promotion that the rifle gets with agressive trait. So they end up being effective strengths of 15.4 and 15 at manufacture. A rifle costs 110 hammers, and a cavalry 150. Since cities aren't going to run away from me, and I can't take them faster than the siege units will arrive, cavalry have no real advantage in speed in the role of city attacker.
Even if I get rifles first, they computer will not be far behind. Assume they will be useing rifles as well, which are +25% vs mounted making cavalry even worse city attackers. Finaly, if you look at their promotion choices they only realy have pinch and combat to increase their effectiveness in a fight, and flanking to try to escape alive when they lose. There is no way to create a powerfull cavalry attacker by any upgrade means, AND they are basicly a dead end since gunships are both far away and lackluster. Gunpowder upgrade path is far smother and more effective.
All three of these examples totaly ignore the effects of siege weaponry except in assuming the defender's walls/culture effect have been brought to zero. If you soften up with catapults/cannon first, then the enemies strength will be reduced accordingly. Hard fights become even fights, even fights become overwhelming victories, etc.
A level 4 rifle owned by an agressive civ and of recent construction ment to attack will probably have combat III and pinch. VS a defender with garison II, in a city on a hill:
Attacker 14 str, +30% combat III
Defender 14 str, +25% fortified, +25% hill, +45% garrison, -25% pinch
18.2 vs 23.8 in favor of defender.
And now a cavalry level four in same situation is probably either combat II and pinch, or it has flanking II and pinch. So:
Fighter 15 str , +20% combat II
Flanker 15 str
Defender 14 str, +25% fortified, +25% hill, +45% garrison +25% mounted, -25% pinch.
18 vs 27.3 in defenders favor for the fighter, 30% chance to escape alive.
15 vs 27.3 in defenders favor for the flanker, 50% chance to escape alive.
EDIT: Error here in that it takes combat I for pinch, so our flanker can't have pinch. Replace pinch with combat I, odds are instead 16.5 vs 30.8 for the flanker, even worse.
Assuming the cavalry gets his withdrawl, you are left with a unit that has very low strength and gains no defensive bonuses that is now in an inconvinent location inside enemy territory. The only options to counter this are to bring rifles to protect the cavalry that retreated (negating speed advantage) or bring enough cavalry to take the city in one turn and still have enough uninjured units to effectively protect both the retreated units and the city occupation after your turn ends while the rifles catch up to take over.
So the rifle is clearly the better attacker for an aggressive civ even if you didn't upgrade a melee to take advantage of those options. If you take out the extra combat rank and make it combat II instead, the rifle is still at 16.8 and better than a cavalry even for a non agressive civ. Better being defined in this case as more likely to win.
And now a level 4 melee unit upgraded to a rifle ment for city offense, with City Raider III and combat I from being an aggressive civ.
Attacker 14 str, +10% combat I
Defender 14 str, +25% fortified, +25% hill, +45% garrison, -75% raider, -10% raider III gunpowder component
15.4 vs 15.4 an even fight
This is the best deal yet for the attacker. Since it only costs 145 gold to upgrade a mace into a rifle I consider it a bargin to be able to preserve that kind of combat advantage into one of the toughest eras to conquer in.
145 gold to upgrade a unit sounds like alot of money, but consider this; A core city with a bank, a market, and a grocer has a +100% commerce rate. This means that Wealth will turn hammers into coins at 1:1 rate. Which is better? To pay 150 hammers building cavalry in a core city and leave a maceman with city raider III sitting on his duff somewhere, or spend 150 hammers producing wealth instead and turn that maceman into an unrivaled attacking unit and pocket the extra 5 gold?
