Gaps between units are still too large.

[Cruor]

I was really hoping G&K would fix this, but it seems it has not. We still have stupidly large gaps in tech between units, at least as far as the info we have goes.

Crossbow men - Gatling gun.. really? What is this, Civ Rev? Can they really not stick say, light cannons in there for a 1 range bombard unit in between? This one really hurts the game for me, correct me if I am wrong but Cross Bows came approx 800 AD, and the Gatling's first appearance and use as during the civil war? 1000~ year difference.

Its still just musket men - rifle men. I dont expect every single evolution of gunpowder based weaponry like Rise of Mankind mod for Civ 4 had, but can we at least have maybe matchlock/flintlock/civil war era rifle?

I hope there is an early cannon but I fear there is not... its still going to be trebs supporting musket men which makes no sense, cannons came before muskets.

I'm glad they added WW1 era units but I fear we will still have a lack of more modern units. I'd really like to see a heavy jet bomber such as the B 52, rather then go strait from a B17-a stealth. Would also leave a nice option, cheaper harder hitting bomber with no evade vs very expensive high evade bomber for heavy AA enemies. I'd like to see 1960ish era tanks betwewn WW2 era and modern but I wont hold my breath.

I hope we see a ship in between ironclads and modern destroyers but again I don't expect it. Id also like to see WW2 era air craft carriers and a modern version (huge difference)

Assuming the ultra units for the new civs count toward the 27 new units and the Victorian steam punk scenario has a few unique units, about how many units could there be that we don't know about yet? After a weak AI, civ 5's lack of units/techs was a big drawback to me, and as far as I have seen it has not received any mods on the level of Rise of Mankind for civ 4, so I'm not holding out hope some master modder will fix it anytime soon.

 

[Liex]

I don't know how it'll be with the archer, composite bowman, crossbowman etc., but right now I feel like the gaps between most units are actually somewhat small. I always find myself with an obsolete army right before dispatching them to enemies' lands. If I stop to build new units and upgrade the obsolete ones, then they'll never be ready to go.

I guess it depends on how you play the game. I usually focus heavily in science, trying to achieve "Scientific Theory"; after that I research those military techs in the inferior part of the tree very quickly. Nevertheless, the 2 tiers gap between units seems to be reasonable.

I hope they fit the crossbowman - Gatling gun with something, though.

 

[Cruor]

Part of it for me I guess, is I always play on marathon or epic... normal is WAY too fast, I like spending a good chunk of time in each era. If they at least add something between crossbows and gatlings, and maybe pop in an earlier cannon so we dont have trebs so late in the game, Id be at least somewhat satisfied.

 

[snarzberry]

I was really hoping G&K would fix this, but it seems it has not. We still have stupidly large gaps in tech between units, at least as far as the info we have goes.

Crossbow men - Gatling gun.. really? What is this, Civ Rev? Can they really not stick say, light cannons in there for a 1 range bombard unit in between? This one really hurts the game for me, correct me if I am wrong but Cross Bows came approx 800 AD, and the Gatling's first appearance and use as during the civil war? 1000~ year difference.

Its still just musket men - rifle men. I dont expect every single evolution of gunpowder based weaponry like Rise of Mankind mod for Civ 4 had, but can we at least have maybe matchlock/flintlock/civil war era rifle?

The difficulty here stems from the nature of the civ 5 model that classifies units such as muskets and rifles, the historic replacements of earlier ranged weapons crossbow/longbow/composite bow, as melee units. So unless we want a complete rework of the system with regards to melee/ranged units then I think we may have to just live with the awkwardness of that time period around crossbows/muskets.

Adding some other hand-held gunpowder weapon as a progression from crossbows as the next ranged unit would result in the difficulty of them co-existing with muskets/rifles which are not ranged and are broad terms which encapsulate whatever hand-held unit you'd choose to use as a direct upgrade from crossbowman.

Light cannons wouldn't work as an upgrade for crossbows as they are a different class of weapon and the cat/treb/cannon line would be the logical place for them.

Grenadiers have been suggested as a possibility but then we'd still have the difficulty of them out-ranging muskets/rifles, that is unless they were reduced to 1 range like the gatling/machine gun which would follow them.

I agree it's a little finicky and counter-intuitive at times around the era that you've pointed out, but unless we want to abandon melee combat unit types completely at that part of the game then I suppose that it's a necessary evil.

 

[Cruor]

I understand what you are saying, but I still think we must have a unit in between crossbow/Gatlings. As you said, grenadiers couldn't work, but I think light cannons could... these are not the big city pounding multi ton cannons, but smaller ones that could be dragged around by a few men each, on wheels. The Gatling guns are not exactly small... and each is manned by several men. Maybe a small version of the early 1700's era mortars? ANYTHING but crossbow men - Gatlings... its just too stupid, just about as bad as knights-tanks of civ 1.

*edit* Rifled muskets is another idea, the type used in the America Revolution to snipe British officers. They had a a very long barrel and slow reload, thus not as good in short range fights or melee as a musket, but were good for sniping. a group of men equipped with these might fit the role.

 

[CYZ]

Part of it for me I guess, is I always play on marathon or epic... normal is WAY too fast, I like spending a good chunk of time in each era. If they at least add something between crossbows and gatlings, and maybe pop in an earlier cannon so we dont have trebs so late in the game, Id be at least somewhat satisfied.

Yes, on marathon the gaps are very large. It's marathon after all

I think with crossbows coming in later (seems logical with the new composite bow) and upgrading into the gattling gun (which I presume comes around the same time of riflemen) the gap is actually smaller than before. I'd really hate to see an light artillery unit in between, that just doesn't make sense.

I'm very happy that the crossbow->riflemen issue has been fixed actually! As for every other unit upgrade, the gap is rather too small than too big. Though actually, it seems just about right in 95% of all cases.

 

[Montov]

ANYTHING but crossbow men - Gatlings... its just too stupid

Anything but the current situation where crossbowman is a dead end. We don't know the new tech tree, but I think the gap will not be too large.

 

[AriochIV]

All I can say is that Crossbows -> Gatling Gun is an improvement over Crossbows -> Riflemen.

 

[Pouakai]

We've got Composite Bowmen, Crossbows might come later

 

[Camikaze]

This wouldn't really make much sense in normal speed games, because you wouldn't have time to build most of the units. Less is more in this sense; to a large extent extra units become superfluous. It's not solely a military game, and I think having a ridiculous number of units would spark arms race and make warfare even more dominant.

Ed Beach mentioned in one of his interviews that units are of the elements of the game that gives the best sense of progression (comparing it to diplomacy). I wouldn't think there's too much to worry about with the number of units.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Do you really want to spend the entire game upgrading units?

 

[elprofesor]

Yeah, there are two different issues here:
A normal game of civilization takes 10+ hours (at least for me). In that time, you are reproducing the last 5000 years of our history.
If you put every single significant advance in military science in the game, then every tech would unlock >two units (or else you split every tech in many mini-techs, but the arm race would be just as fast).
If you only put a new unit every two techs (roughly the case now), the arms race problem is somewhat less significant, but then you have that weird problem where longswordmen upgrade to riflemen, etc.

You have to strike a balance. If you put more units in the game, then either you sacrifice gameplay, or you lessen the strength difference between upgrades, or you double the number of techs, and thus the length of a single game, which is already quite long for those of us that don't eat Deity for breakfast.

 

[Louis XXIV]

With the addition of the Composite Bowman and a possible new era, I think the tech tree has been significantly reworked. While there's a gap, I think it's a less pronounced gap. Unfortunately, I think it's one that will have to stay. There's never been a convenient unit to stick there. Every time I've made proposals to fill in units (I always used Mortar instead of Machine Gun, but the point stands), that gap has been awkward. Grenadier is really a poor choice and Field Artillery will confuse most people (why does the cannon need to be set up but not the field artillery?).

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I think it's just part of the suspension of disbelief necessary for a game that spans 5000 years or whatever. If it's fine that an archer can shoot across ~200 miles of land then it should be fine that they can shoot at riflemen. If you keep adding things and adding things and adding things then you might have the details right but the "wider picture" becomes a muddy mess.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I don't think Crossbows will go on campaigns with rifles, they'd be too weak. You'd probably keep them at home until you get Gatling guns.

Besides, things are at least better. I used to keep Crossbows until they were killed off or completely ineffective.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I don't think Crossbows will go on campaigns with rifles, they'd be too weak. You'd probably keep them at home until you get Gatling guns.

Besides, things are at least better. I used to keep Crossbows until they were killed off or completely ineffective.

Yeah, I like that they added a unit after crossbows (if for no other reason than to keep from losing ranged promotions). I wonder about the space between Gatling Gun and machine gun though. Will it seem like you really have no time to use the Gatling before they're obsolete? I don't really use muskets much in the game now. It's great to hear that they're revamping the tech tree, and I'm excited to see how that sort of thing changes.

 

[Cruor]

I think a lot of you guys must play on normal speed for fast or online gameplay. I dont look at civ that way. If I want to play a multiplayer game, I play WoW, SWTOR, BF3, World of Tanks, years ago played Command and Conquer, and I may play the new C&C coming out. If I wanted to play an empire based game online, then I would do a Total War game, based in an era rather then all of history.

To me, CIV is suppost to take a long time... you play it leaning back in your chair, pondering your moves each turn, sipping a drink. In my opinion, normal speed is WAY too fast, it should take days to beat a game... as you all stated its about 5000 years of history, it shouldn't go by in a night of playing. They made a game for people who want fast game play, its name is Civilization Revolution. I personally want to manage every aspect of my empire, and see the advancements through out history. (actually I could do without workers, I prefer the CTP version of paying for improvements) This is why I liked Rise of Mankind so much, I wish it would be made for Civ 5 but it seems its not going to happen, or at least not until after its last Xpac comes out.

While I do no agree with those of you who want to play Civ fast, and don't want to upgrade tons of units, I understand your position. However, in the case of crossbow-gatling gun, its just too wide of a gap... they have got to get something in there, again Id suggest some kind of early mortar. I would also be all for a new method of upgrades, maybe refitting the unit for free except it takes several turns and city production, and keep the current method of paying gold if you want it to be instant.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I like to play on Marathon speed too, but I can only think of a few instances where the wait between units is too long. And I'm going to reserve judgement about G&K until we can get a peek at the revised tech tree.

 

[SeptimusOctopus]

The game is balanced for normal speed. I'm kind of worried that the gaps are too small considering they've added so many units to the game. Of course the tech tree has been reworked so there's really no way to know how it plays out until the expansion is actually released.

I played civ4 on epic and marathon almost exclusively; that game's normal speed did feel too fast to me, and I felt that sometimes my units became obsolete between building them and marching them to the front lines. Civ 5 is much slower all around, so in that respect I think they've finally got a normal speed that doesn't feel too quick.

 

[Cruor]

I like to play on Marathon speed too, but I can only think of a few instances where the wait between units is too long. And I'm going to reserve judgement about G&K until we can get a peek at the revised tech tree.

Its not so much of a wait as it is stupid looking... I just don't want my rifle men backed up by trebs or go from Xbows-gatlings... its just stupid. I can have suspension of disbelief for some things but as I said this is a 1000 year gap in techs, something needs to be in between.