Fixing the Melee Line

[Aaron90495]

I haven't looked at the tech tree (and want to avoid doing so so that BNW is more "new" when it comes out). Two questions: 1) do we know what the 34-strength unit is (referred to in a Q&A), and 2) is there any possibility, not having seen unit Civilopedia pages, that unit strengths/promotions got changed? While not perfect, simply adjusting strength values could still make a significant difference in melee/ranged balance.

 

[Matthew.]

I haven't been around much in the last month, but from what I've seen the tech tree and combat strength of units seems largely unchanged. But who knows, changing numbers like that is so easy compared to adding new content that there is still plenty of time for the final BNW build to change numbers around.

 

[Bisqit]

There's something wrong with melee units?

 

[wigwam]

I haven't looked at the tech tree (and want to avoid doing so so that BNW is more "new" when it comes out). Two questions: 1) do we know what the 34-strength unit is (referred to in a Q&A), and 2) is there any possibility, not having seen unit Civilopedia pages, that unit strengths/promotions got changed? While not perfect, simply adjusting strength values could still make a significant difference in melee/ranged balance.

Yeah, there were two 34-strength units (both Cavalry UUs). We actually have seen some Civilopedia pages, and it doesn't look like anything's been changed.

 

[Securion]

Just give them a +50% vs ranged units.

 

[Dunkah]

Thinking about it more, a city-assaulting role for swords seems best.

See this is the type of comment you get when the whole thing is broken like it is. No offense Matthew. I'm just using this post as an example.

Swordsmen weren't city specialists. Bowman weren't the end all be all either.

It's totally unrealistic that in an engagement in real life that the bowmen would be running from hill to hill sniping units in the flatlands one by one.

There would be a battle line and the swords and spears would be in the front and the bowman would be in the back and they would all meet and there would be an epic clash.

There wouldn't be these "people running all over the place like chickens with their heads cut off" tactics.

Honestly it doesn't really matter how much you tweak them/ rock-paper-scissors them or give this unit a bonus against cities/ archers/ melee/ cavalry. Until you fix the formations there really isn't going to be a balance that the human can't exploit over the AI.

 

[Matthew.]

See this is the type of comment you get when the whole thing is broken like it is. No offense Matthew. I'm just using this post as an example.

Swordsmen weren't city specialists. Bowman weren't the end all be all either.

No offense taken. Comment was purely from a gameplay standpoint. I'm well aware of the AI's... lack of tactical capability and also the issues people have with 1UPT especially from a realistic/historical perspective. And, of course, there will always be an "optimal" and everything else will seem weaker in comparison. Even games touted as being well-balanced like Starcraft 2 have a host of units that don't get a lot of use.

But being realistic, they are not going to completely overhaul the game for BNW and from the looks of it so far, we will be lucky to see any changes at all. Thus, the best we can hope for is small changes. I hate seeing Civ's like Rome, Japan, etc. cast off as lower tier simply because the sword line is such a poor choice. Now with Indonesia having a UU sword (not to mention Poland's lancer, but that is another topic), I fear the Civ will be garbage before BNW is even released, if the sword line and melee in general doesn't get some changes.

Games are about interesting choices. Having so many advantages to sticking with CB's and ignoring the bottom half of the tech tree versus a weak melee unit with no place in the game and a tech path that actually puts you behind the competition--that is not an interesting choice.

 

[kaspergm]

Sadly, there is no reason to believe that a single thing was done to this issue. We *might* see an indirect boost to the melee line courtesy of the fact that Workshops will now double not only as local production boost but also as granting the ability to transport production in domestic trade routes, thus making the lower tech tree slightly more important, but I'm afraid that's all we will see and that the impact of this will be minimal.

 

[Hulking Lummox]

Sadly, there is no reason to believe that a single thing was done to this issue. We *might* see an indirect boost to the melee line courtesy of the fact that Workshops will now double not only as local production boost but also as granting the ability to transport production in domestic trade routes, thus making the lower tech tree slightly more important, but I'm afraid that's all we will see and that the impact of this will be minimal.

Good point about the indirect buff to that part of the tech tree. The interesting thing however is that the granary comes sooner and food indirectly increases production anyways and so I think the problem is still there. You can avoid production DTRs for a good while (at least until your cities get too big and unhappy, which I mean "oh boo hoo, my cities are big") and thus teching workshop probably is still not essential for early strategy. And if it does become essential it is probably just for pumping out more CBs and XBs heh.

@mathew. I just saw what you said about MN! Rock on! I am only here for another month though

Back on topic, Has anyone ever suggested that archer units not be allowed to attack the inner hex surrounding them? It worked in old school tactical rpg games.

 

[Hakan-i Cihan]

Sadly, there is no reason to believe that a single thing was done to this issue. We *might* see an indirect boost to the melee line courtesy of the fact that Workshops will now double not only as local production boost but also as granting the ability to transport production in domestic trade routes, thus making the lower tech tree slightly more important, but I'm afraid that's all we will see and that the impact of this will be minimal.

Unfortunatly you are probably right about the part that there is nothing done about the issue in units strength. But we can still hope that there are new promotions added, changed or removed which could balance the range units - melee line issue.

 

[DudewiththeFood]

Here's my idea. Ranged attack strength is scaled to the proportion of the enemies health. So if an archer would normally deal 40 damage to a scout that is at 50hp, it only deals 20 damage. Also, make city strengths much lower but walls giving much bigger bonuses. The swordsman line has a +20% attack against cities (like in Civ4) to show them being professional hand-to-hand warriors while improving overall melee stats because in a melee head-to-head fight, there is no way crossbowmen could stand up to pikemen. Then cavalry units only need extra speed further down the promotion tree and everything is more or less balanced out against each other.

 

[Roxlimn]

Thinking about it more, a city-assaulting role for swords seems best.

In open space melee do OK for fortifying positions and sniping out weaker targets, but once you get cramped up around an enemy city, that is when ranged really starts to outshine melee. It is difficult to justify bringing in more than one or two melee (to cap city, and horsemen are better at it than swords) because you need the ranged to drop city health and keep enemy targets down without losing too many of your own units.

The previous role of fortifying positions is no longer relevant in such a scenario, because you are on the moving offensive. Perhaps fudge with the numbers a bit to make pikes/horses for holding the line in open space and have swords as specialized city-assault.

If we're talking about city assault, then the top role should be (and largely is) given to siege units, not ranged. The chief ranged units that function exceptionally well for sieges are UUs. CBs and Xbows "function well" in the sense that they're packaged with strong techs. If their tech positions were reversed with melee, I don't think they'd get as much use.

 

[kaspergm]

From MadDjinn's live stream: Iron now revealed with Bronze Working, and Iron Working tech cost equal to other Classic II techs ... good news, although I would still push Iron back to Mining.

 

[Jabberwockxeno]

But the longswordsman and later line are unchanged.

Looks like I'll have to work on that mod.

 

[SnowKomodo]

Interesting. The tech tree reveal showed Iron at Iron Working, but they had since changed it between then and now. Wonder when that change was implemented

 

[Jabberwockxeno]

The rock/paper/scissors system does face a bit of a challenge here. In theory, the order would be:

Pikes > Horses > Archers > Swords > Pikes

In order to achieve this, we would probably need both an attack and defence stat in melee as well as ranged as discussed above. However, one quickly runs into a dilemma here: If Swords need to be vulnerable to Archers, they need to have low (ranged) defence, but that will also make them completely useless during sieges, which is contrary to what one would want, because swords would seem to be the desired melee unit to bring to sieges.

Another scheme would be like this:

Pikes > Horses > Archers > Pikes
Swords > Cities
Siege Weapons > Cities

The rock/paper/scissor of Pikes/Horses/Archers comes pretty naturally from Archers being able to attack without taking damage, Horses being able (theoretically at least) to move in, attack, move out; and Pikes getting their bonus against Horses.

Taking out Swords from the regular rock/paper/scissor and focusing them more against Cities would be good in many ways, but leaves the dilemma of how Swords should interact with other units. I guess having it somewhat even with the Archer (both are vulnerable to each other), having it at slight advantage towards the Pike (Sword has the higher attack) and a slight disadvantage towards the Horse (Horse has higher attack and movement) could work.

I always figured it SHOULD be Horseman > Warrior > Spearman > Horseman...

 

[Hakan-i Cihan]

I know that it won't be adding anything to the upcoming expansion, but I have an idea for nerfing ranged units (archer-line especially). Maybe it would beusefull for mods. It is been talked in this thread already I believe about the idea that ranged attacks should be less effective against wounded units. This idea shoul be extended to the attack distance. Ranged attacks 3 tiles away should be less effective than that of 1 tiles away. The combination of both these ideas worked out properly should do the trick.

In numbers the idea should works as following:
An archer unit would do normal damage to units 1 tile away, 10% less damage to units 2 tiles away and 20% less damage to units 3 tiles away (assuming he has the promotion to do 3 range attack). If it attacks an unit with full health it should do the damage as described above. If it attacks a unit with health between 75-50 the attack would be 8% less effective and for units with 50-25 hp 15 % less damage for units with 25-1 hp 25% less effective. These numbers are just "indication" and can be changed of course. And maybe give the archery line units a promotion to reduce the effect of these attack penalties, which they could acquire after 3 promotions.

This will reduce the strength of archery-units and it will make melee and mounted units more usefull. Because now you should use melee and mounted units after range attacking to finish off the wounded units.

 

[e3do]

I'm obviously late, but here's what I think could be a partial boost: make march available for melee units after Drill/Shock 2. Considering all the obvious benefits ranged units have over melee, I think it's a bit ridiculous they can also reach march so much sooner. That extra 40 XP required is roughly equivalent to an entire era or two. So while march on GWI and cavs are nice, if youve managed to keep your best melee units alive, a composite bowman could have had that promotion ~60 turns sooner.

You need only to look at are what the best melee uniques in the game: the caroleon, janissary, immortal and jaguar. Each has a unique healing promotion making mass rushes with those units actually viable (well the jaguar is debatable, you probably want to save those for later).

Allow all melee units to reach march sooner and they'd be buffed up over the course of the game. I can usually get my initial warrior at least close to Drill/Shock 2 after some barb hunting, so having that guy reach march at some point while he's a swordsman, would make him pretty beastly from the medieval on. Anyways, just my thoughts. It would make combat vs the AI even easier, and range would still dominate, but at least for me, it'd be more practical to use melee units.

 

[funkymunky]

Maybe they should buff the strength of archers but shorten their range to 1 tile, like the machine guns. That way they could better resist melee & city attacks, but their shorter range wouldn't let them kill melee units so quickly.

 

[Louis XXIV]

That would remove the point of even having melee units as a shield, wouldn't it? The idea of a shield wall with archers behind them was a common tactic, particularly in Mesopotamian warfare. It would be a shame to lose that. I'm not sure what changing it to a distance of one would really add.

If a mechanics change is needed (I'm not sure it is), I think removing the ability to completely kill through range would make the most sense overall.