Feedback: Units

[Simon_Jester]

Whenever you build a unit, you should ask yourself: what can stop this unit reliably?

If the answer is "nothing," you're doing it wrong. If the answer is "superior technology," probably still wrong. If the answer is "not much at its own tech level," there's still a problem: the main game units are basically balanced among themselves.

Horsemen... well, what can beat them? Their high (for ancient times) strength and bonus against melee units makes them capable of overmatching their dedicated counter unit, the Spearman. The Elephant could counter them but isn't available until a bit later and will not be available to many civilizations anyhow. They can even attack cities pretty competently, and they show up well before the Longbowmen who could stop them.

So... then what?



Also...

Heavy Footman really shouldn't upgrade to Musketman. This is especially striking for the Kongo unique unit, which gets a +50% against archers and a move of 2. It's stronger than almost anything else in its era, being more effective against Pikemen than any mobile unit before the invention of the tank.

The only thing it gains by "upgrade" to a Musketman that it now reliably beats Crossbowmen, and has a tiny increase in performance against cavalry, gunpowder, and siege units. And that's at the cost of losing its mobility (OUCH). Worse yet, it becomes drastically less effective at attacking cities defended by Longbowmen, which is otherwise something it would excel at.

Some upgrade.

For normal Heavy Footmen it's not so bad, but really, given a choice between building a Musketman and building a Pombos, I'd usually take the Pombos. Among other things I like to keep building Melee units as long as I can for the City Raider promotions, since those aren't available to gunpowder units.

 

[Keinpferd]

For the sake of the rock-scissors-paper-principle I suggest, horsemen and horse archers shouldn't stand a chance against spearmen, unless they are promoted to just about Combat III. Could be adjusted in the CombatModifiers of the spears.

I believe, in Realism Invictus they even disallowed mounted units to take cities, in the same ways helicopters can't enter a city to "conquer" it, even if all defenders are killed.

 

[Simon_Jester]

I actually don't mind the idea of some cavalry being able to engage spearmen effectively- but that should be a special role. The cavalry that can do that shouldn't be able to stomp all over everything else in the enemy army too, because the point is that you can't win wars by building a lot of one unit. That's the real reason for "rock paper scissors" rules: nothing can dominate alone.

Cavalry suitable for fighting spearmen... honestly, I think horse archers make more sense in that role because tactically you can imagine them staying out of range and pelting an enemy phalanx. It worked for the Persians at Carrhae, although lance charges were involved when the Romans tried to form a testudo to defend themselves against the arrows.

The real problem is just that you shouldn't have the same horsemen who can reliably defeat any other unit in the game except other Horse Archers and Horsemen going on the rampage.

I think cavalry and helicopters should be able to take cities, because in real life both those things are possible. Helicopter gunships can't, admittedly- but airborne infantry can, and there's no real model for "air cavalry" except that.

 

[Robuzon]

I think cavalry and helicopters should be able to take cities, because in real life both those things are possible. Helicopter gunships can't, admittedly- but airborne infantry can, and there's no real model for "air cavalry" except that.

Paratroopers pretty much fill the role of air cavalry once you have gunships. When when you combine paratroops and gunships you have a way to attack, conquer, and reinforce within a 5 tile radius. (its never made sense to me that you can't drop and attack in one turn, but at least the two of them together you've got something that resembles modern air cavalry)

 

[Simon_Jester]

Arguably, yes- although you can't use paratroops effectively at a significant distance from your own positions.

As to why paratroopers can't attack in the same turn? Hm. I can handwave a justification. If you look at successful real paratroop operations, most of them involve putting the air-mobile units somewhere as a screen or blocking force, or having them seize some piece of land the enemy hasn't built strong defenses around. Airborne troops are lightly armed by nature; they're not good at set-piece assaults into the teeth of enemy defenses. So you drop them to occupy terrain, not to duke it out with enemy forces, if you want them to succeed.

 

[inasnapp]

paratroopers would be outrageously overpowered if they could drop and attack in the same turn.
they beat infantry outside of cities and/or with effective naval and air support, and have a longer range than tanks.
that being said helicopters are basically broken in bts. it doesnt make sense that the gunship is the only unit in its class, and it cant even fly over water, unlike real helicopters.
It is also unfortunate that helis cant carry infantry units, or operate like air cavalry.

 

[Simon_Jester]

Helicopter operations are very rarely carried out over bodies of water hundreds of miles wide (i.e. Civ ocean tiles). Helicopters are emergency-prone and very vulnerable to AA fire, so it's a bad idea to fly large numbers of them over open water.

I suspect the Civ game code doesn't allow for airborne transports of troops. An air cavalry unit might be interesting- helicopter stats, no bonus against armor, but does get defensive terrain bonuses. You'd use them to dart ahead and seize ground for an attack, but they'd be vulnerable to getting crushed by a counterattack if the enemy's alert.

 

[Nightstar]

Regarding the Horseman unit being overpowered for its era, perhaps changing its bonus against Melee units to a bonus against Archery units would work? That would make Spearmen effective against them again, and their penalty when attacking cities should keep them from dominating the city assault role. Also, it would fill in a gap in the rock/paper/scissors system, as I believe there are currently no non-unique anti-Archery units in the game.

 

[Simon_Jester]

I thought it was Horse Archers that had the penalty when attacking cities.

Thing is, there's nothing for a dedicated anti-archer unit to counter, aside from city defenses. Archer units are just plain objectively weaker than normal units, by a considerable margin. Unless you get really stupid about your use of terrain, an Axeman (or an unmodified Strength 6 cavalry-type unit) can easily overrun a defending Archer in the classical age. By the time the more powerful Strength 6 archery units show up, they're dealing with Strength 8 and 10 attackers.

The real role of a dedicated counter-archer unit is to play city-buster, in my opinion.

 

[Keinpferd]

Horsemen: I would more carve out interrelationships of units with each other individually in the CIV4UnitInfos.xml with these tags:

<UnitClassAttackMods/>
<UnitClassDefenseMods/>

This tells the horsemen that they're strong or weak not versus all melee but spears or swords or axes specifically.

The downside is, that each entry here shows in the pedia and in the left lower corner unit box interface during the game, not very elegant, too much information, and looks a bit knocked together, if you define like eight special power relationships of a unit.

As everbody knows, Civ IV isn't a tactics game. Actually, horsemen should be split into fast moving, unarmoured horsemen equipped with spears who do three quarters of the killing, when the enemy formation has dissolved, and can be used for reconnaissance, fast enough to tactically retreat and avoid a skirmish. Heavy pre-knight ancient horsemen can form wedges and power charge frontally, withdraw, charge again, try to break through, flank, protect from being flanked, or kill off the enemy cavalry in melee. But they tire out quickly and are butchered by spearmen and phalangists in good order. Just very little of this can be brought to the Civ IV combat system, unfortunately.

Horse archers: A city attack penalty would fit them, too. Too bad, we have no ranged ability for them. The 20 percent withdrawal chance isn't really doing much for their life expectancy.

 

[inasnapp]

Helicopter operations are very rarely carried out over bodies of water hundreds of miles wide (i.e. Civ ocean tiles). Helicopters are emergency-prone and very vulnerable to AA fire, so it's a bad idea to fly large numbers of them over open water.

I suspect the Civ game code doesn't allow for airborne transports of troops. An air cavalry unit might be interesting- helicopter stats, no bonus against armor, but does get defensive terrain bonuses. You'd use them to dart ahead and seize ground for an attack, but they'd be vulnerable to getting crushed by a counterattack if the enemy's alert.

fair enough, I am more concerned by the fact that helicopters are limited. Sure it wouldnt be a great idea to mass them over water in a combat situation; but the fact that they cannot travel over water at all bothers me. They cant traverse water in friendly or enemy territory in bts even though they are frequently used for that purpose in real life

 

[inasnapp]

I think horsemen and horse archers should have switched stats. Horsemen (as they appear in HR) are quick units sure, and have a certain advantage over infantry, but need to be within range of a lance to do damage to their opponent, (by then spearmen would have thinned out their numbers)
horse archers are not only fast enough to avoid a formation of foot soldiers, but can engage them from a distance, thereby taking away even the spearman's advantage against mounted units.

 

[Simon_Jester]

Arguably yes. Ancient heavy cavalry wasn't really revolutionary in its military impact on the open field, and was more useful for skirmishing and less so for shock. Horse archer civilizations were quite effective at beating down even strong 'melee-oriented' armies in classical times.

 

[Nightstar]

The Infantry unit should probably require the Rifling tech as a secondary prerequisite. As the tech tree currently stands, it is possible to get Infantry before Riflemen.

 

[Simon_Jester]

Actually, I like the idea of the higher-level infantry units having multiple prerequisites. The kind of army they represent really requires a certain degree of industrial and social organization to operate. If that isn't there, you can give your native warriors rifles and they still won't be a match for a foreign army from the country that made the rifles in the first place.

 

[Xyth]

I haven't forgotten about the Horseman problem, I've just been busy with the Corporations. Thanks for the feedback so far though, I'll review it all when I get a chance.

Heavy Footman really shouldn't upgrade to Musketman. This is especially striking for the Kongo unique unit, which gets a +50% against archers and a move of 2. It's stronger than almost anything else in its era, being more effective against Pikemen than any mobile unit before the invention of the tank.

The only thing it gains by "upgrade" to a Musketman that it now reliably beats Crossbowmen, and has a tiny increase in performance against cavalry, gunpowder, and siege units. And that's at the cost of losing its mobility (OUCH). Worse yet, it becomes drastically less effective at attacking cities defended by Longbowmen, which is otherwise something it would excel at.

Some upgrade.

For normal Heavy Footmen it's not so bad, but really, given a choice between building a Musketman and building a Pombos, I'd usually take the Pombos. Among other things I like to keep building Melee units as long as I can for the City Raider promotions, since those aren't available to gunpowder units.

I'm not happy about the 'Musketman bottleneck' in the upgrade tree, for regular or unique units. I've made a note to review it for 1.18.

The Infantry unit should probably require the Rifling tech as a secondary prerequisite. As the tech tree currently stands, it is possible to get Infantry before Riflemen.

Good catch, fixed for 1.18.

 

[lindsay40k]

One thing that's always bugged me come industrial warfare is the WWII-era Sherman graphic that's used. If anyone's made a Mark 3 graphic, I'd live to see the Tank unit get bumped up to Automation (would share with Mobile Artillery, historically I think this is OK but balance-wise might warrant concern) and a Land Ship unit that moves slowly and doesn't have Blitz be used for the earlier Tank.

 

[Simon_Jester]

Hm. I don't feel that reflects the role of the tank in warfare. In World War One, for a period of a few years, the typical tank was a big walking-speed thing- but this actually changed very quickly. The typical tank of the 1920s and 1930s was an armored platform of up to around ten tons, generally faster than a running man when on good terrain, and armed with heavy machine guns and/or a small-caliber cannon.

The role of "landship" tanks in World War One was relatively minor and aberrant- the 'standard' international design quickly evolved toward distant ancestors of the mobile, single-turreted vehicles we think of as tanks today, although experimentation with big, boxy, multi-gunned vehicles didn't end until the 1930s.

I don't think there's room in the tech tree for three iterations of "armored unit," and even if there were, I don't think we should restrict the first iteration to being a glorified siege engine just because the Mark I and the A7V were. After all, the FT-17 and Whippet were near-contemporaries and considerably more mobile...

 

[lindsay40k]

Hmm...

You know how the Siege Tower upgrade to Bombards, same as the Trebuchet?

There might be an argument to do away with this convergence, and have a Battery Tower as the Gunpowder era siege engine instead, and have that upgradeable to a Landship.

One can imagine a near-Industrial nation making use of Battery Towers to conquer a less-developed rival, then finding themselves forced to rapidly develop Landships when engaged in a meat grinder with another advanced nation and regarding their Battery Tower crews as the most suited to retrain as tank crews. (The BT might be an interesting unit as well; fearsome City bombardment, but 'snipeable' by ranged Siege weapons in the same way that a mainline Khmer Ballista Elephant can potshot Mounted units.)

It's not as if the British government putting Landships into battlefield service in 1916 marked the first point in history where armoured combat vehicles were conceived and possible. Games of Civ see manned colonisation spaceships launched in the 1500's; I think we can afford a little leeway in having Landships around - after all, any player piling XP onto them is going to want to grab the tech needed to upgrade them into mobile Blitz units pronto, so in practice the Landship will probably have a fairly appropriately short lifespan.

A da Vinvi Steam Tank could even fill the gap between the BT and LS, if we're tempted to Rewrite History in a slightly extreme manner; I'm not proposing that here, but floating the idea. Perhaps vulnerability to ranged Siege fire could make the BT and Steam Tank technically buildable but essentially bad units that simply provide continuity and provide a historical flavour of the many bad ideas military minds have had... /crazydigression

By the way, Xyth, whilst double-checking these units in the Civilopedia, I notice that the Ram and Tower both only have Drill promotions listed, whilst the Catapult and Trebuchet can take Accuracy, which they can't actually use until they're retrained with Bombards... just flagging that for your attention.

 

[Simon_Jester]

It'd be annoying to have an army of highly promoted artillery units that I've been keeping since the Iron Age which don't get Accuracy...

More generally, I don't think "Battery Towers" belong in the game as a unit. For one there's no real artwork for it, for another they're ahistorical in terms of actually having a major role in warfare- which is arguably also true of "Landship" tanks.

Personally, I think the best idea would be, if we're going to have Landships at all, to simply make them 'early' armor, outside the progression lines of cavalry and infantry and siege weapons. You'd build them for a specific purpose (say, major city attack bonus, and that early in the game no one has dedicated counters to armor units), then fairly quickly upgrade them to general-use Armor units.

A plausible stat line might be, oh... 18, +50% City Attack, move 1. That way it still makes logical sense to upgrade to Tank units, but they have a clearly defined mission role in a world where a lot of cities are still being defended by Riflemen.