Free bronze weapons for warriors

[Sandro]

AFAIK bog standard warriors can still get (free) bronze weapon upgrades once copper is connected and the bronze weapon tech researched. With their very low cost, no build-requirement, and +25% city defence, one could ask whether this is a good or bad thing?

 

[WarKirby]

I don't see a problem with it. Because axemen are strength 5 with bronze weapons.

 

[someone67]

I don't see a problem with it. Because axemen are strength 5 with bronze weapons.

So you get 1 strength more by building a far more expensive unit. No bronze for warriors!

 

[Guale]

If warriors can't get copper weapons there is virtualy no way to survive an early axemen rush, they should definately keep it. Even with it axemen and archers are still considerably better wat what they do.

 

[WarKirby]

So you get 1 strength more by building a far more expensive unit. No bronze for warriors!

The status quo is the same without bronze weapons. They both get 1 strength.

 

[Sandro]

If warriors can't get copper weapons there is virtualy no way to survive an early axemen rush, they should definately keep it. Even with it axemen and archers are still considerably better wat what they do.

This makes no sense. The reverse problem is much more serious. An early rush with bronze warriors: You quickly research mining - if you discover copper just build warriors in all cities and tech towards bronze working. When you get to bronze working you can immediately have, e.g. 8+ str4 warriors to launch at the nearest enemy who is screwed if he or she does not have copper (which they probably won't have).

Rushing axe-men on the other hand is a very different business. You either have to have _a lot of cash_ (which will slow your research and your rush) to upgrade your warriors _after_ building a training yard or you would have wait with building axemen until after the yard is constructed. All things equal, an opponent will have the same time to research archery and make some archers which can hold their own against axemen.

 

[Sandro]

I don't see a problem with it. Because axemen are strength 5 with bronze weapons.

True, but you are comparing 1 axeman to 1 warrior instead of 1 axeman to 3 warriors. Eight str4 warriors to the first str5 axeman, actually, if you count the hammers needed for the training yard.

 

[WarKirby]

Unless the manual I'm reading is horribly out of date...

Warriors cost 25, and Axemen 60

To be honest, I am a bit confused about the design decisions that FFH has for these early units. If I recall correctly, in vanilla BtS, warriors have 2 and Axemen 5

But in FFH, , the gap is closed by 1 in both directions, warriors becoming stronger, and axemen weaker.

I wonder why this is.

I've always thought though, that it seems a bit odd that something with bronze weapons costs the same as something with...wood, I guess?

I'm thinking it would be nice if bronze/iron/mythril weapons increased the production costs of all affected military units slightly, not enough to make you not want them though.

Personally, how I would solve this problem...

Reduce Warriors to 2
Significantly decrease the cost of both hunting, and archery, so it's easier to get a defence up and not be rushed so easily.

Maybe that would be bad for early strength civs like Clan and Doviello, though. Not sure...

 

[WarKirby]

Also, everyone should use these smileys when talking about stuff in the game. It just looks so much nicer. Quote this post to see how.

 

[odalrick]

I think the strength gap is closed so that promotions will have more effect. In vanilla axemen get +50% against melee too.

Lowering the strength of warriors is not an option. At the same strength as scouts they'd be completely useless for anything.

My preferred solution to the Warrior problem would be closing the cost gap between them and Axemen. Say, 35 or 40 hammers for a Warrior.

 

[cabbagemeister]

From Master Hugian's excellent post on research costs for units:

Bronze Working (720)
Crafting (120) + Mining (200) + Bronze Working (400)

Archery (620)
Crafting (120) + Mining (200) + Archery (300)

To counter a warrior rush, beeline archery. Archers are more expensive, but a few of them in a city can probably hold off a ton of bronze warriors.

 

[WarKirby]

Lowering the strength of warriors is not an option. At the same strength as scouts they'd be completely useless for anything.

Wel, vanilla scouts have 1

 

[Shakiko]

Lowering the strength of warriors is not an option. At the same strength as scouts they'd be completely useless for anything.

My preferred solution to the Warrior problem would be closing the cost gap between them and Axemen. Say, 35 or 40 hammers for a Warrior.

True, but Warriors don't cost (much) more than scouts and can get an still get an upgrade to STR 3 later on, whereas Scouts stay STR 2 all the time.


Making Warriors more expensive would be a nice thing, too , though.

 

[notque]

Warriors shouldn't get copper bonuses. If you want to stop Axemen, get Archers. Recon line shouldn't be as bad as it is.

 

[PotatoOverdose]

This makes no sense. The reverse problem is much more serious. An early rush with bronze warriors: You quickly research mining - if you discover copper just build warriors in all cities and tech towards bronze working. When you get to bronze working you can immediately have, e.g. 8+ str4 warriors to launch at the nearest enemy who is screwed if he or she does not have copper (which they probably won't have).

First, the parts I highlighted in bold from your post contradict themselves. If the enemy probably won't have copper, the same holds true for the player in question, unless the player is somehow immune to the laws of probability. Therefore since it is probable that neither the instigating civ or the victim civ have copper in their first city, the reverse problem can't be much more serious. Working under the assumption that you will get copper in your first city is great, but 9 times out of 10, it won't work, and really makes this entire thread a moot point.

Second, more often than not in recent games, I noticed the AI getting archers. Lots of them. Since Crafting->Minning->Archery is now viable (and in fact archery is cheaper than bronze working) the AI can defend themselves very well if attacked by bronze warriors and not possessing copper themselves. Since bronze warriors require more research and there is a delay between getting bronze weapons and getting the units to the enemy cities, the enemy player has more than enough time to field archers. Taking an enemy city with bronze warriors vs. fortified archers+promotions+cultural deffense/hill/palisade is not a strategy that is prone to success.

Rushing axe-men on the other hand is a very different business. You either have to have _a lot of cash_ (which will slow your research and your rush) to upgrade your warriors _after_ building a training yard or you would have wait with building axemen until after the yard is constructed. All things equal, an opponent will have the same time to research archery and make some archers which can hold their own against axemen.

Well, to your point about archers, they will be doubly effective against bronze warriors because of their higher strength combined with their innate bonuses, city defenses, promotions, and their first strike. Without cats, you'll be lucky to kill 1 defending archer without reloading. So your overall argument in that sense is mildly self defeating.

Also, about the use of the term "rush". Bronze working will take about 60-80 turns to research assuming you ignore education and other techs necessary for economic growth (assuming you don't start with gold or gems in your bfc) which may gimp your civ in the long run. By that time, there are any number of available counter to a rush, some of which have already been discussed. Note: the above assumes normal starts, not advanced which gimps the game in favor of the player and certain broken strategies.

It should be pretty obvious, but I voted for the "No, don't change option", as by the time you can get the bronze warriors, they're only viable in either a defensive role or as a support role for stronger units (assuming a competent opponent). However, If you really feel that any of the suggestions would make the game better, it would be a relatively simple matter to bring about the change via xml iirc (particularly war kirby's last suggestion about bumping warrior strength down). Test the change for yourself, and if you like it, keep it.

 

[odalrick]

Wel, vanilla scouts have 1

So did FFH scouts a while back. Then all units got +1 strength to smooth the progression.

But unless all higher tier units got lowered strength again, 2 strength Warriors are useless for any purpose other than happiness. After 50 turns the only civs that would still be in the game are those that beelined a military tech and were lucky enough not to encounter any Lizardmen.

If someone, by some miracle survives to hook up copper, then warriors would gain 3 str, but that's functionally identical to removing bronze weapons from warriors. (And starting the game by removing 3/4 of all civs, giving Bronzeworking to the remaining ones and ensuring everyone has access to copper. Oh and Barbarian world to simulate all the capitals that were taken over by barbarians.)

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I guess what I dislike is that you can build axemen without access to any metal. are they using wooden axes? then why did I have to research bronze working?

( the opposite happens when I try to build Paladins and realize I have no iron. but I have the finest copper on Erebus! come on, let me build some bronze-weapon-equipped paladins already. they may be a little less powerful, but I want them! )

 

[MagisterCultuum]

A wooden axe wouldn't make much sense. Stone axes on the other hand were used long before man developed metal working.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

so axemen without metal weapons are actually warriors. and warriors with bronze weapons are actually... axemen?

so yeah, I would kinda like having warriors unable to use metal weapons, get obsoleted and having axemen/champions etc. REQUIRE any kind of metal to use. more vanilla-ish I know, but I like a little bit of realism in my dark fantasy

 

[MrUnderhill]

Except that it would screw over any civ that didn't have access to copper, and give civs that do have copper (or if you're a Runes civ, iron) a critical advantage. If you have copper/iron, you can build city-siege units and go killing civs. If not, you're on defense, and other civs will be sending their axemen at you. That was one of my biggest gripes with vanilla civ and FFH did well to avert that.

In FFH, you can progress down the melee line without any resources at least until you get to champions. They won't be full strength, to be sure, since they don't have proper weapons, but it's better than being forced down the archery/recon line or stuck at tier 1 because the map-gods hate you.

As for bronze-less axeman essentially being warriors with +1, think of it this way.
Warriors are basically civilians who were given weapons and some very basic military training, then were told to either defend their cities or take over someone else's.
Axemen represent professional warriors who make their lives off war, even with the same equipment they represent a technological improvement over Warriors.