Fixing the Melee Line

Aaron90495

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As we all know, G&K turned melee units almost exclusively into meatshields.

What do you think will be/can be/should be done in BNW to make the melee line useful again?
 
Make 'em cheaper and stronger?
 
Right now ranged units are far more efficient in most ways.
 
Give ranged units a penalty to attacking cities(or a bigger one if they already have it) and change the placement of the swordsman/longsword on the technology tree.
 
Nothing, melee works perfectly fine
 
Nothing, melee works perfectly fine

My problem is that a desired army composition is about 3:1 ranged to melee. Fortify just a few age-appropriate melee units in front of your ranged units for ZOC and an easy, effective siege.

I'm not saying we should go back to how you could spam melee units to take a city in Vanilla, but the fact that melee units are almost entirely unwanted kills both depth and realism.

Give ranged units a penalty to attacking cities(or a bigger one if they already have it) and change the placement of the swordsman/longsword on the technology tree.

This is a very good idea. Plus, wiping out the bonus at Gatling Guns balances the fact that Gatlings are the first one-tile ranged unit.
 
Give ranged units a penalty to attacking cities(or a bigger one if they already have it) and change the placement of the swordsman/longsword on the technology tree.

Traditionally ranged units were what you use to weaken a city so you really want to keep that dynamic in game. Also the problem isn't just with city attack - it's combat in general - meat, ranged with either a cavalry unit behind it that can come through to destroy melee or another line of ranged can be unstoppable in civ5 if executed right. In many ways it's the Henry V tactic - the melee units are just there to stop the others getting to the ranged units. Thats why the English ranged units can be so devastating with their 3 range - you can have two lines of them behind grunts and it's very hard to get to them without your side getting decimated.

You really need to give melee units bonuses against ranged units so that if they get a shot on them they pretty much destroy them rather than weaken ranged units attacking ability. You really need to make it so that if the melee or cavalry units break past the melee line into the ranged units they slaughter them because unless that happens that melee unit will just become mince next turn.
 
Im just sayin, I like the fact that a front line of ranged marching toward your border is nothing to sneeze at now, move in close with your melee, and problem deterred, melee are weak at distance but strong up close........makes since
 
I've always thought that ranged units should NOT be used to kill units, but only weaken them down to about 10% health. That way, you HAVE to have a melee unit accompanying them. Once Gatling Guns come around, then I think ranged units should be able to kill units.
 
Something that I realized while taking the 13th me with crossbowmen is the same thing that I have realized about the tech tree.
Both systems have game mechanics that make them poor history simulators. I was wondering why I could always beat history in my tech level and date (railroads in 1500 for example) and then I realized that as a civ player we are leaders who predict the future. Pottery is probably the best early tech choice not only because it gives us shrines and granaries, but because of the techs it leads to. This makes sense and is really the only way the game would work, but this is not how discoveries worked. Issac Newton didn't define laws of physics so that future generations would have theaters and muskets.
IRL the Romans weren't very fond of archers in their ranks, and several medieval generals thought the long bow to be cowardly and un-noble. We have no such honor codes, we are just playing a game after all, so if melee and range are to be balanced to reality. We (the generals and commanders) should be the ones who agree, the archers should be weak, and vulnerable to attack, while melee can dish and take the majority of the heat. A melee defensive penalty for range units (except machine and Gatling guns, who were made for defensive warfare) would be appropriate, and making sure that contemporary melee and range units are uneven in the melee's favor. Or we can play the game and spam crossbowmen, like good ol' times.
(sorry for being so needlessly philosophical, I just finished speaker for the dead by Orson Scott Card and feel very in the mood for deep thinking)
 
Traditionally ranged units were what you use to weaken a city so you really want to keep that dynamic in game. Also the problem isn't just with city attack - it's combat in general - meat, ranged with either a cavalry unit behind it that can come through to destroy melee or another line of ranged can be unstoppable in civ5 if executed right. In many ways it's the Henry V tactic - the melee units are just there to stop the others getting to the ranged units. Thats why the English ranged units can be so devastating with their 3 range - you can have two lines of them behind grunts and it's very hard to get to them without your side getting decimated.

You really need to give melee units bonuses against ranged units so that if they get a shot on them they pretty much destroy them rather than weaken ranged units attacking ability. You really need to make it so that if the melee or cavalry units break past the melee line into the ranged units they slaughter them because unless that happens that melee unit will just become mince next turn.

I'd have no problems with melee units(aside from the tech pathing) if I only had to fight units. I would not hesitate to do an only-melee army if all I had to do was kill an endless wave of units. But trying to take a city purely by melee compared to ranged is suicidal and something that I believe is unbalanced to the point that I never attack a city with a melee without good reason.
 
I've always thought that ranged units should NOT be used to kill units, but only weaken them down to about 10% health. That way, you HAVE to have a melee unit accompanying them. Once Gatling Guns come around, then I think ranged units should be able to kill units.

There's really no need to change it at Gatling Guns or at all - neither Gatling nor Machine Guns were very mobile, so one could just say the enemy ran and hid or something. A consistent rule could be justified here.
 
Im just sayin, I like the fact that a front line of ranged marching toward your border is nothing to sneeze at now, move in close with your melee, and problem deterred, melee are weak at distance but strong up close........makes since

Thing is, they really aren't. Yeah, a few upgrades and open ground and you can run over un-upgraded enemy archers with relative ease, but more often the melee will move in, maybe get a single hit or two and not kill anything, then fall the next turn.

Perhaps giving all warrior units a free cover promotion would be enough. Not mounted, just the warrior line. It would help soak up the damage so they can close that gap more efficiently. It would also help get extra promotions on those warrior units. The game does currently try to compensate (an attacking warrior gets 5 exp where an attacking archer only gets 2 exp) but I think most of us can recall the numerous times we've had +1 range logistics archer units, but struggle to think of games where there are blitz, march, double cover warriors running around.

Could even go one step further and keep that free promotion off of pikes so it is a bit more balanced between swords and pikes. I don't think that would be enough to convince players to give up pikes and take the detour to swords, but at least players wouldn't be punished as much for trying to make swords work. (yes, currently you are punished as going pikes to uni's will keep you competitive in tech where trying to sink the beakers into long swords first delays uni tech at no real advantage)
 
I'd have no problems with melee units(aside from the tech pathing) if I only had to fight units. I would not hesitate to do an only-melee army if all I had to do was kill an endless wave of units. But trying to take a city purely by melee compared to ranged is suicidal and something that I believe is unbalanced to the point that I never attack a city with a melee without good reason.

Nit-picking, but 6 warrior-line units surrounding a city (every adjacent tile) will drop the city in two turns if they are roughly equal in combat strength to that city. Pillage on the second turn will cover any damage taken. Of course if enemy city strength gets out of control, warrior effectiveness drops extremely fast.

Just throwing that out there, since some may find it useful knowledge when trying to analyze if they have enough to take an enemy city or not.
 
Nit-picking, but 6 warrior-line units surrounding a city (every adjacent tile) will drop the city in two turns if they are roughly equal in combat strength to that city. Pillage on the second turn will cover any damage taken. Of course if enemy city strength gets out of control, warrior effectiveness drops extremely fast.

Just throwing that out there, since some may find it useful knowledge when trying to analyze if they have enough to take an enemy city or not.

That's good to know, but not very relevant in higher difficulties I think. I would need to get LS by turn 100 to take cities with a defense of 23ish. Doing that would just kill my science rate. Whereas I've taken a 70 defense city out with crossbows before(heavily promoted of course).
 
Yep, definitely not trying to argue the benefits of melee (which are so few), but for difficulties that the majority play on (emperor and below) you can still keep pace with enemy city defense. Not that I suggest it as a viable strategy, just throwing it out there since half the difficulty of taking cities in this game is knowing how much firepower you are going to actually need.
 
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