GEM: Land Armies

[Thalassicus]

What do you mean by a "range 0 attack"? All units attack targets at least 1 tile away. I'm not planning to change the range of machine guns. I do plan to make triremes ranged so early ships matter more, but that's a topic for a later discussion.

I plan to have similar modifiers for double-attack like were in vem (25% attack penalty, reduces moves after the attack to 1).

 

[mitsho]

Tarqe was suggesting that, basically taking away the attack capability of machine and gatlin guns. Like they were in civ4, just very hard-to-take-out obstacles. I think that's not really fun.

And yes to naval discussion later on.

 

[Thalassicus]

Oh, I didn't read that right.

 

[GenjiKhan]

Is it possible to make the efficiency of ranged attacks decreases,the farther the ranged attack is? Something like -25% damage penalty if the attacked unit is 2 tiles away and -50% damage penalty if it's 3 tile away . I find pretty annoying that ranged attacks doesn't have this penalty .

 

[Stalker0]

I have another vote for nerfing the range promotion, especially for ships. Once a ship has 3 range its game over for a city. Now cities start fighting back once they have artillery, but then I can counter with a range 4 battleship. The AI doesn't use aircraft well enough to counter these units imo.

 

[Thalassicus]

@GenjiKhan
Something complicated like that is not feasible.

@Stalker0
I did some testing and found the Vem range and double-attack promotions were equally useful for ships (with double-shot nerfed). We can figure out if that's still the case once we get to the navies stage of Gem.

 

[Stalker0]

Thal,

I noticed in your army notes that you gave aircraft a 25% reduction in maintenance cost, I was wondering why.

I know from a realism standpoint, aircraft tend to suck way more money than traditional military forces, so was it simply to make aircraft more useful?

 

[mystikx21]

I presumed that was to encourage the AI to use airplanes (and ships).

 

[Thalassicus]

In the late game I encourage the AI to use lots of aircraft. Planes are great for the AI because they are stackable, ignore terrain, and have limited movement options. Aircraft are much simpler to use than land units. It also avoids a problem where the AI used to clog the map with land units, making warfare impossible.

One plane may cost more more than one tank, but if the air unit/wing represents 2 planes while the tank unit represents 1000 tanks, the air "unit" costs less and has lower strength, and we build more of them than tank units. This is also one reason why there's more aluminum on the map than oil. I have not changed unit strengths yet, however - that part will come in the next few days.

 

[Thalassicus]

Edit: moved to the original post, and updated with Ahriman's suggestion to make promotions and great generals less important.

 

[Ahriman]

Knight should not be stronger than longsword. Knight is 4 moves and move-after-attack, and comes on an economy techline. 22 strength for both is probably ok (assuming a city attack bonus on longswords). The mobility advantage is a really big deal.

Similarly, 17 strength for horses seems too high, and 16 for swords might be too high.
I would probably go 15 strength for both (assuming a city attack bonus on swords). Maybe to 16, depending on testing.

It also seems unclear to me whether swords and longswords are intended to have a city attack bonus in this version, or whether horses/knights are intended to have a city attack penalty

I'm not sure with the adjustments that longswords still need to be tougher than muskets. I also think muskets probably need to be as at least as strong as knights. I'd go ~24 strength muskets.

I think the total strength column is confusing and potentially misleading. I also don't understand why the fortify bonus is 55%.

Also G&K great generals are 15%, thats probably reasonable. Similarly terrain promotions are 15%. Are we not keeping that?

I'm not sure that spears need 50% bonus vs horses. +25% defense and +25% vs horses would be fine.

 

[Thalassicus]

I would be okay with making generals and promotions less important, since the AI does not use them as well as the human. I would also be okay with making spears/pikes more of a soft counter for the same reasons. However, faster midgame mobile units penalizes the AI. Conquest is more challenging by increasing strength instead of movement speed.

The city attack bonuses and penalties help emphasize each unit's primary role. I think it's better to fortify units on rough terrain than open terrain, which is the why I picked rough terrain for the fortify modifier.

 

[mystikx21]

Agree that knights +1 is a big change and that 24 is probably too strong.
Muskets change also should be preserved that they're stronger because of the tech coming later. We could rename them to keep a sequence in order to get rid of the GW Infantry name but I think 24-25 is fine for them right now.
Concur: Isn't fortify decreased in VEM and flanking increased (Another reason to reduce knights or horses).
I would err toward 15 for horses and swords, but 16 might be fine. Depends on UUs. 16 works okay if the spears/pikes retain their 50% horse bonus + 25% defence.
Sentinel the new Militia name?
Trebuchets and Catapults going to the VEM style +50% vs city,-50% for units instead of the base attack for units and +100% vs city? Trebs are 14 in GK, Cats 8. Both maybe fine because city HPs are higher in GK, especially with walls/castles. Would restore the feel from Civ4 that siege was necessary to take cities when walls/castles went up.
Archers +1?

@Ahriman Terrain promos run 20-65%. I think given that it's harder to kill things with 100 hp instead of 20 in VEM, this is probably fine instead of 15-45%.

 

[Thalassicus]

I believe combat speed is mostly the same, because both damage and health went up by an approximately equal amount.

Muskets change also should be preserved that they're stronger because of the tech coming later.

Muskets are 1 tech after longswords in G&K, like in vem, so that relationship hasn't changed.

 

[Ahriman]

I feel things were very well balanced in vem's early game, so I want to start with that baseline for knight movement, city attack, great generals, and counter bonuses.

VEM didn't have 4 move knights. VEM didn't have a composite bowman to deal with. VEM didn't have the same tech tree.
I *think* VEM had city attack penalties on knights and horses?

Trebs and cats depend on what their modifiers vs cities are; in GK this is 200%, yes?

I think given that it's harder to kill things with 100 hp instead of 20 in VEM

Other than attacks that deal less than 5 damage, this is a pure rescaling and so doesn't matter. What does matter is that they changed the combat system so that in general units do less damage, I thought?

 

[mystikx21]

Partly it's the rescale. I thought it was less damage too. The main thing I seemed to notice is that it's more likely to run away in a survivable condition early or to repeat barb battles early in game. That might be a perception that is wrong.

 

[Thalassicus]

I intend to keep the original siege unit +50%/-50% modifiers for cities/units. A 200% modifier makes promotions unimportant.

I'm updating the table with Ahriman's suggestion to make units more identical by slightly reducing the overall importance of promotions & great generals. I'm hesitant to nerf spears/pikes because many people said they felt somewhat weak in vem. I think we should keep those at their present 50% vs mounted until we have a chance to test it.

 

[mystikx21]

I think those are testable values for now. Do this include knights at 3 or 4 moves? Do this include any cost adjustments (eg, knights or archers more expensive)? How does the slight uptick in unit strength impact the upkeep calculations?

It looks like between unit cost going to ~x1.8 (from ~1.4?) and the rough ~20% GK strength increase that upkeep is probably scaled higher than vem balance.

 

[Ahriman]

I note that chariot archers aren't in the list of units stats.

I think there is a discussion to be had here; do we want to make them VEM style skirmishers with low ranged strength and move and attack, or do we want to make them GK style highly mobile super-archers that are still good vs cities?

 

[mitsho]

If you frame the question that way, it seems clear that they should be skirmishers, not? That would also fit the barbarian version very well. City Conquest should not rely on (Chariot) Archers imho, better to strenghten melee units.