Going for Gold: Units

[chicorbeef]

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.

G

Can we nudge its RCS to 8 as well? It should be stronger than an Archer, if even by a little.

 

[Gazebo]

Can we nudge its RCS to 8 as well? It should be stronger than an Archer, if even by a little.

Mobility makes up the difference, I feel.

G

 

[chicorbeef]

Mobility makes up the difference, I feel.

G

And that mobility is compromised by the Archer's 2 Range.
Really though, the Chariot's original Values were 7/8 CS/RCS to begin with. It was nerfed when units around it were buffed. That doesn't make any sense imo.

 

[Owlbebach]

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.

G

That would seriously increase Chariots power

 

[tu_79]

Mobility makes up the difference, I feel.

G

It's either improve its mobility so it is actually a fast unit, or making it as strong as an skirmisher with the caveat of its weird movement.
Your call.

 

[CrabHelmet]

I would much rather increase how strong they are. What's the point of having a unit called a Chariot if it bears no resemblance to actual Chariots? You may as well just not have the unit at all if you're going to do that. It's like saying "eh, Warriors are underpowered, let's give them the ability to do massive AoE damage on death." I mean, sure, balance problem gone, but only by completely running away from the concept of 'warrior'.

 

[Bromar1]

I would much rather increase how strong they are. What's the point of having a unit called a Chariot if it bears no resemblance to actual Chariots? You may as well just not have the unit at all if you're going to do that. It's like saying "eh, Warriors are underpowered, let's give them the ability to do massive AoE damage on death." I mean, sure, balance problem gone, but only by completely running away from the concept of 'warrior'.

Let's just call them 'light skirmishers' if that helps...

 

[Gazebo]

I would much rather increase how strong they are. What's the point of having a unit called a Chariot if it bears no resemblance to actual Chariots? You may as well just not have the unit at all if you're going to do that. It's like saying "eh, Warriors are underpowered, let's give them the ability to do massive AoE damage on death." I mean, sure, balance problem gone, but only by completely running away from the concept of 'warrior'.

That’s hyperbole and you know it.

G

 

[pineappledan]

The chariot rough terrain penalty should stay. If the unit is weak then tweak the numbers; don't just ignore the physical realities of what a chariot is.

Don't fix balance issue by dumping mechanics which add verisimilitude. No one would ask that submarines stop having stealth; I see no reason to treat this any different.

 

[Gazebo]

The chariot rough terrain penalty should stay. If the unit is weak then tweak the numbers; don't just ignore the physical realities of what a chariot is.

Don't fix balance issue by dumping mechanics which add verisimilitude. No one would ask that submarines stop having stealth; I see no reason to treat this any different.

a.) civ is an abstraction, just as a 'forest tile' or a 'jungle tile' is an abstraction
b.) buffing the chariot doesn't change the difficulty in using it with rough terrain penalty + 1 range. It doesn't fit with the other units in its line very well.
c.) if you want to maintain cohesion with theme, remove the penalty and put it at 3 movement (I think it is at 4 right now?) so it can move, shoot, move, but more slowly than the mounted skirmishers that follow.

G

 

[chicorbeef]

@Gazebo , why not make Chariots not vulnerable to Spears, restore them to 7/8 or 7/9 CS/RCS (I believe they used to be roughly at this value and were considered underpowered, not OP), and call it a day? You buffed the Catapult/Archer defenses so that they wouldn't get one-shotted, and are now talking about removing one-shot kills for ranged naval units, so doing the same for Chariots by removing their Spear vulnerability seems fitting (and Chariots were used in infantry battles and often had warriors aboard them so there is some historical basis).

Then being more powerful than the Archer and having more movement would be a solid trade off for its terrain penalties/horse requirement/1 range.

 

[Gazebo]

@Gazebo , why not make Chariots not vulnerable to Spears, restore them to 7/8 or 7/9 CS/RCS (I believe they used to be roughly at this value and were considered underpowered, not OP), and call it a day? You buffed the Catapult/Archer defenses so that they wouldn't get one-shotted, and are now talking about removing one-shot kills for ranged naval units, so doing the same for Chariots by removing their Spear vulnerability seems fitting (and Chariots were used in infantry battles and often had warriors aboard them so there is some historical basis).

Then being more powerful than the Archer and having more movement would be a solid trade off for its terrain penalties/horse requirement/1 range.

Can't take the 'mounted' status away from them or it breaks their promotion pool.

G

 

[Gothic_Empire]

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.

G

If people really, really, really care about this, a defense malus in rough terrain might work too.

 

[pineappledan]

a.) civ is an abstraction, just as a 'forest tile' or a 'jungle tile' is an abstraction

"Immortal George Washington sez Hi. LOL"

Guh... No one is saying civ is a simulation. I am so damn sick of this argument. Versimilitude =/= reality. Got it.

You draw the line somewhere and I draw the line at divesting the game of vanilla mechanics which were put in place specifically to make a unit behave in 1) a unique way which 2) better reflects its real world counterpart.

b.) buffing the chariot doesn't change the difficulty in using it with rough terrain penalty + 1 range. It doesn't fit with the other units in its line very well.

It's not that difficult to use or understand the rough terrain penalty. Are people legitimately complaining that they don't "get" this unit, and that using it is too hard for them? I also don't recall saying anything about changing their range.

If you are still looking for options for how to buff the unit besides simply altering the numbers. adding some sort of adjacency utility would be more palatable to me. Chariots were extremely expensive, and were the most well-trained troops in any army. Some sort of buff to reflect a war chariot's prestige on the battlefield, like a morale boost, would be appropriate.

I get it. with a strategic resource requirement, 1 less range, a rough terrain penalty, making them situationally as mobile as archers, a 50% damage malus vs spears, and barely any more RCS/CS than a base archer, they aren't looking too good right now.

That's a lot of stuff going wrong for this unit, but if your only solution is just to make chariots less interesting then we need to think harder.

 

[Stalker0]

a.) civ is an abstraction, just as a 'forest tile' or a 'jungle tile' is an abstraction
b.) buffing the chariot doesn't change the difficulty in using it with rough terrain penalty + 1 range. It doesn't fit with the other units in its line very well.
c.) if you want to maintain cohesion with theme, remove the penalty and put it at 3 movement (I think it is at 4 right now?) so it can move, shoot, move, but more slowly than the mounted skirmishers that follow.

G

Yeah I’m a game where a chariot has the same speed as a mechanized infantry unit, we have to accept some things just can’t be truly represented in civ.

 

[chicorbeef]

Can't take the 'mounted' status away from them or it breaks their promotion pool.

G

I thought ranged/ranged mounted had the same promotions early on? I don't really care about the T4's, no one's going to get to them pre-Skirmishers.
We could just add a -50% penalty to Chariots on Spearmen then, it'll get the job done.

 

[Gazebo]

"Immortal George Washington sez Hi. LOL"

Guh... No one is saying civ is a simulation. I am so damn sick of this argument. Versimilitude =/= reality. Got it.

You draw the line somewhere and I draw the line at divesting the game of vanilla mechanics which were put in place specifically to make a unit behave in 1) a unique way which 2) better reflects its real world counterpart.

It's not that difficult to use or understand the rough terrain penalty. Are people legitimately complaining that they don't "get" this unit, and that using it is too hard for them? I also don't recall saying anything about changing their range.

If you are still looking for options for how to buff the unit besides simply altering the numbers. adding some sort of adjacency utility would be more palatable to me. Chariots were extremely expensive, and were the most well-trained troops in any army. Some sort of buff to reflect a war chariot's prestige on the battlefield, like a morale boost, would be appropriate.

I get it. with a strategic resource requirement, 1 less range, a rough terrain penalty, making them situationally as mobile as archers, a 50% damage malus vs spears, and barely any more RCS/CS than a base archer, they aren't looking too good right now.

That's a lot of stuff going wrong for this unit, but if your only solution is just to make chariots less interesting then we need to think harder.

Does 'rough terrain penalty' make chariots interesting? Genuine question.

IF (big IF) people find chariots frustrating, what about this:

- Chariots/War Chariots become melee.
- Horsemen become a classical unit
- 'mounted skirmisher' line doesn't start until classical

Hm?

G

 

[pineappledan]

Does 'rough terrain penalty' make chariots interesting? Genuine question.

In my books, yes. It's the only unit which moves this way. Furthermore, it's one of the few places where rough vs open terrain is still a core component of your tactics, since shock and drill are reworked in VP.

I've chosen to go to war with certain civs over others as egypt, based on what terrain is in their empire. Having a key component of your army more effective in specific tile types, even for a single era, makes for some fun decision-making on where/how to expand.

IF (big IF) people find chariots frustrating, what about this:

- Chariots/War Chariots become melee.
- Horsemen become a classical unit
- 'mounted skirmisher' line doesn't start until classical

I'd probably be cool with that.

Alternative proposal:
- keep them as ranged
- increase production cost to 100 (10 more than horseman, same as swordsman)
- increase CS/RCS to 11/10 (-1 CS/RCS from skirmisher)
- Give them a 1 range aura which boosts CS of adjacent units by 10% (lost on promotion)
Similar to war elephants then. very expensive for their era, good stats and an army boost which might keep them as a viable part of your army composition after they obsolete to skirmishers. Players can make the decision if they would give up the 10% aura for +1CS/1CS and better movement.

I think the biggest problem facing chariots is the ancient era passes by too fast. If chariots had some longevity as a support unit then people might think about using them more.

For Egypt's war chariot. same CS/RCS, but reduce build cost by 20. Everything else stays the same (+1 move, moved to wheel, no horse requirement, production on kills)

 

[Deadstarre]

Can't take the 'mounted' status away from them or it breaks their promotion pool.

G

it doesn't, the pool comes from their attack range not the mounted status

UPDATE Units SET IsMounted = '1' WHERE CombatClass = 'UNITCOMBAT_ARCHER' AND Moves >= 3;
UPDATE Units SET IsMounted = '0' WHERE Type = 'UNIT_CHARIOT_ARCHER';
UPDATE Units SET IsMounted = '0' WHERE Type = 'UNIT_EGYPTIAN_WARCHARIOT';


           <Type>PROMOTION_SKIRMISHER_MOBILITY</Type>
           <Description>TXT_KEY_PROMOTION_SKIRMISHER_MOBILITY</Description>
            ...
           <MaximumRangeRequired>1</MaximumRangeRequired>

 

[Gazebo]

it doesn't, the pool comes from their attack range not the mounted status

UPDATE Units SET IsMounted = '1' WHERE CombatClass = 'UNITCOMBAT_ARCHER' AND Moves >= 3;
UPDATE Units SET IsMounted = '0' WHERE Type = 'UNIT_CHARIOT_ARCHER';
UPDATE Units SET IsMounted = '0' WHERE Type = 'UNIT_EGYPTIAN_WARCHARIOT';


           <Type>PROMOTION_SKIRMISHER_MOBILITY</Type>
           <Description>TXT_KEY_PROMOTION_SKIRMISHER_MOBILITY</Description>
            ...
           <MaximumRangeRequired>1</MaximumRangeRequired>

That's only part of the story on the DLL side. Considering that I wrote all of that code, I think I'd know.

G