ElliotS
Warmonger
Wouldn't demolishing the benefit of faith-buying Archaeologists hurt it quite a bit?
Going for Gold: Units
- Thread starter Stalker0
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KtD is a solid reformation without the archaeologist stuff anyways - that's just icing.
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ridjack
Emperor
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Can confirm; it's probably my favorite general-purpose belief (now that the WC votes rely on Holy Sites rather than number of CS). I've chosen it a LOT in the past, and I almost always forget that the Archaelogist-purchasing is even part of it until I go to select it.
On-topic: Are Chariot Archers fulfilling their intended role? Playing as Mongolia combined with reading discussions elsewhere on the have made me realize how pointless the unit feels to me. Even playing as the (ranged) Horse Lord himself, I'm generally not building any ranged mounted units until Skirmishers unless I happen to get a huge tract of open land with lots of barbarians to train them on. I think I've probably built more War Elephants than Chariot Archers over my time playing VP, and the Elephants aren't even possible to build in ~75% of games.
Not even convinced that's a problem, but possibly worth discussing.
I think chariot archers are for epic and marathon players. For standard it’s not that chariots are bad, it’s simply that by the time you have built your initial stuff and are ready to field and army you have moved on to stronger units.
I don’t think any reasonable buff would change thst, and the buff that would make them truly important to standard players would make them OP.
But when the ancient era is stretched out they have a niche, so best to leave them be.
ridjack
Emperor
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Sounds completely reasonable.
ElliotS
Warmonger
Yeah the fact that they now only require 1 tech means they have utility in PvP even on standard, as well as plenty of relevance in epic and marathon. They're a strong unit, but timing does make them hard to use in standard speed games.
They are interesting as an experiment to see which movement and attack system is better, the archer's 2 move 2 range or 4 move, 1 range. However from my guys the answer has had a clear answer of archers. I find them weaker than an archer, but with a horse requirement, so unless I just really don't want to discover trapping or military theory I'm not using them.
Gothic_Empire
AKA, Ramen Empire
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I occasionally find myself using them on Standard, especially if I'm tech hard toward libraries or something but need some defenses.
tu_79
Deity
The idea behind chariots is ignoring the tech with horsemen (military tradition) for a while. Chariots are not as useful as horsemen, but they do the work against barbarians if the terrain is flat. Perhaps you wanted to focus on Construction (Mausoleum, Babylon walls, quarry luxs) and this means delaying horsemen.
What drives me back most of the time is that the terrain is rarely favorable to chariots, so I end up building spearsmen or archers.
What drives me back most of the time is that the terrain is rarely favorable to chariots, so I end up building spearsmen or archers.
lunker
Warlord
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Playing a game rn and spawned between an aggressive Rome and France. They both built an army comp of Chariots and Warriors -- something like 3 chariots and 1 warrior. 1 archer and a no-walls city at each front was enough to hold back their entire armies. I felt kind of bad for the AI since I'm positive if they built nothing but warriors or had archers instead I would have been in dire straights.
Yeah, the "end movement on rough terrain" debuff makes them useless
pineappledan
Deity
I will always disagree with this sentiment...
lunker
Warlord
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That said it would be strange not to have that penalty as I find skirmisher-type units work best when stationed behind rough terrain and it would be pretty strange to see chariots do the same.
I can imagine horse archers fighting in a forest but not chariots...
I'm going to drop the Nerf Bomb here: don't you think UUs obsolete too slow? It's fun for the player to build masses of UUs and then upgrade them even a couple eras later, but I think the AI doesn't get it, and it feels like a cheap player friendly tool.
It also makes players with a early UU being way too good at warmongering long after they unlocked it: when I see Persian pikemen without the healing promotion, or Indonesian longswordmen without special trait, I feel bad for the AI knowing that in their pants I'd be still producing the old-but-not-obsolete UU and upgrading it. Civs with a medieval UU don't really have an edge over player-controlled Civs with an ancient/classical UU until past renaissance (when most UUs finally obsolete at gunpowder, but the player upgraded - and hopefully kept alive - masses of those already).
It also makes players with a early UU being way too good at warmongering long after they unlocked it: when I see Persian pikemen without the healing promotion, or Indonesian longswordmen without special trait, I feel bad for the AI knowing that in their pants I'd be still producing the old-but-not-obsolete UU and upgrading it. Civs with a medieval UU don't really have an edge over player-controlled Civs with an ancient/classical UU until past renaissance (when most UUs finally obsolete at gunpowder, but the player upgraded - and hopefully kept alive - masses of those already).
pineappledan
Deity
The opposing argument: late obsoletions open up the game for some civs in ways that would otherwise make the game unplayable.
For instance. I like jaguars as much as the next guy, but if I wanted to reveal iron and chop forests to get at my luxuries I would have to unlock spearmen and make my jaguars obsolete. Aztecs are then put in a position where they either get a UU and cripple their economy, or they get a normal start and only 2-3 chances to build their UU. Eff that. Pushing obsoletion techs further back makes it so everyone gets a chance to play around with their uniques without feeling like they have to avoid obsoletion techs.
This swordsmen suggestion comes up pretty frequently, I really think you break the Aztec if you do this, at least in human hands. I would consider a sword with jaguar promotions stronger than a legion or mohawk warrior.
Indeed, and a crossbowman with Incan slinger promotions is way better than a cho-ko-nu for example. I'm torn about that, because from a 'having fun' perspective keeping your old batch of heavily promoted units is pretty cool, but on the other hand the AI is not that good at keeping units alive and upgrade them all the game long, it feels quite cheap to abuse even more this flaw by being able to produce->upgrade your old UUs way longer than intended: I consider civs with a good UU supposed to be dominant for one era, or the next one at best, not the whole game thereafter or such perk would have to be part of their UA instead of a promotion.
Leaving aside the poor jaguar example (going obsolete in 2 techs instead of 14 - steel to bronze working), other UUs wouldn't be that nerfed going back to vanilla 'obsolescency rule': atm spearmen UUs becomes obsolete after 3 eras and 24 techs, archers in 19, horsemen in 25, gunpowder in 20-22, and you can produce Sea Beggars in the Atomic Era just to make some examples. Most of the time as a player you use hammers to build them and upgrade (to the current unlocked upgraded unit that is not making your UU obsolete yet) the turn they're done, and the AI at least in my experience isn't trained to do the same.
Leaving aside the poor jaguar example (going obsolete in 2 techs instead of 14 - steel to bronze working), other UUs wouldn't be that nerfed going back to vanilla 'obsolescency rule': atm spearmen UUs becomes obsolete after 3 eras and 24 techs, archers in 19, horsemen in 25, gunpowder in 20-22, and you can produce Sea Beggars in the Atomic Era just to make some examples. Most of the time as a player you use hammers to build them and upgrade (to the current unlocked upgraded unit that is not making your UU obsolete yet) the turn they're done, and the AI at least in my experience isn't trained to do the same.
chicorbeef
Emperor
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Let's continue the Chariot discussion here...
We could then nudge them up to 7/8 (this was their original value, don't know why it was nerfed) and with the Horseman being moved back we should be able to call it a day.
What if we removed their vulnerability to Spearmen? Chariots were used against Infantry in the Ancient Era and often had warriors aboard them.
We could then nudge them up to 7/8 (this was their original value, don't know why it was nerfed) and with the Horseman being moved back we should be able to call it a day.
Just dropping the rough terrain penalty on chariots would probably be enough to make them useful. I honestly don't care about the realism of 'chariots can't ride through forests!' at this point.
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