Going for Gold: Units

[pineappledan]

They are meant to be continuously firing over a nice meat line that protects them. In this context they do plenty of damage, st a cheap hammer price, and no strategic cost.

Composite bowman is 13/11 and costs 90
Catapult is 12/6 and costs 100

I disagree with you. The main value of a composite bowman over a catapult is it can take a hit. The one thing that a Composite bow can do that a catapult can't is afford to play a bit riskier without being punished as hard. If you are wholly reliant on a melee wall, then Catapults can do the job just as well, and a hell of a lot sooner. Otherwise, you are re-building your army composition for 1 extra RCS, and no one is going to do that.

 

[CrazyG]

Otherwise, you are re-building your army composition for 1 extra RCS, and no one is going to do that.

Catapults get a minus 33% RCS against land units, have different promotions, and have limited movement in enemy territory.

 

[Bromar1]

I would probably field more comp. bowmen if the upgrade cost from archers were lower. Maybe if it went from 70 to 60, it'd be slightly more attractive to go for engineering

 

[yogiebere]

Is it possible to look at making a few minor buffs to Composite Bowman? Even just a +1 RCS or slightly lower upgrade costs could make this unit more attractive. I doubt adding 1 RCS would make it OP.

 

[Stalker0]

Is it possible to look at making a few minor buffs to Composite Bowman? Even just a +1 RCS or slightly lower upgrade costs could make this unit more attractive. I doubt adding 1 RCS would make it OP.

I think you all really underestimate this unit. C Bowman do a lot of damage on their attacks, and unlike knights and longswords they can keep doing their damage without needing to heal. That's the trick of ranged units that can be forgotten. Melee units are very splashy, but over time the ranged unit just keeps pounding out that damage.

I use the unit and I think its works great.

 

[pineappledan]

I'm not advocating for any changes either, just relating my own experience with the unit. It doesn't fit my normal playstyle or my tech progression, and I'm sure there are other players that make better use of it.

If I were to change 1 thing about CompBow, I might advocate for a reduction of their build cost by 5-10, but that's about it.

 

[Galbias]

I feel like Foreign Legions are in a bit of a weird spot right now. They're significantly stronger than Riflemen that come at the same technology, 52 CS vs 45 on top of having the foreign territory promotion. However, they upgrade to regular old Infantry which are 55 CS (but which still costs like 900 gold to upgrade, I never bother).

I'd suggest moving them back in the tech tree a bit while reducing their CS down to 48 or so so the upgrade is worthwhile; right now it feels a bit strange how huge the gap between Landsknechts and Foreign Legion is, and then the gap between FL and Mercenaries is relatively short.

Alternately they could just upgrade to Mercenaries, not sure how feasible that is.

 

[CppMaster]

However, they upgrade to regular old Infantry which are 55 CS (but which still costs like 900 gold to upgrade, I never bother).

Or reduce upgrade cost.

 

[YukiN]

Upgrading to mercenaries sounds fine mechanically. Keep them to their own line. Neat and tidy.

Flavour wise it's a bit more problematic, since foreign legions aren't really mercenary armies, and are associated with the French Republics and freedom.

 

[pineappledan]

Unless we’re willing to add an entire mercenary line, which means adding a mercenary Tercio, then I would leave as is. It would be weird if FL interacted with mercenary that way, but landsknecht didnt. Also, you would get over stacked unique promotions on those upgraded FLs

 

[Rekk]

After spending a lot of time with Naval Ranged units during this game, I'm coming to the conclusion that Targeting + Logistics is better against cities than Bombardment + Broadside in most circumstances, which means that Targeting is better than Bombardment in almost all circumstances.

As a refresher,
Bombardment gets:
Bombardment III = +15% ranged combat strength, OR 60% against cities.
Ironsides = I think this works out to full combat strength at all health values? Also given by the Imperialism Finisher.
Shrapnel Rounds = 50% ranged combat strength against land units, for a total of 65% against land units.
Broadside = +40% ranged combat strength against cities, for a total of 100% against cities.

Targeting gets:
Targeting III = +30% ranged combat strength against land and naval units (ie. all units but not cities), +30% against units below 50 hp (note that this doesn't seem to be 50%, Dreadnought ships have an increased threshold before this takes effect).
Indomitable = Immune to boarded, +25% combat strength when defending.
Logistics = -30% ranged combat strength, but can attack twice.
Splash Damage = deal 5 damage to adjacent enemy units in range.

It looks like Broadside ships have more than double the combat strength against cities compared to Targeting ships (+145% difference, in fact), but remember that this doesn't mean that they'll do double the damage. Because of how combat strengths interact, this happens instead:

interestingly enough, here are what the combat values show after all attacks have been expended:

So, in this example, at the expense of 1 move, a targeting ship will deal ~50 damage to that city, while the Bombardment ship will only do ~42. The targeting ship can also be used to hit land and naval units twice at +0% (+30% if below 50 health) vs Bombardment's 15% against naval and 65% against land.

Two possible counterpoints:

• in this example, the Logistics Targeting ship is supposed to only be doing 12 damage to the city, but it is somehow doing double that (bug that needs to be reported). Interestingly enough, 65 combat strength is too high and 32.5 is too low. The Logistics Targeting ship should be at 60 combat strength against cities:

 50 * (1 + 0.15 + 0.1 - 0.3 + 0.25) = 60

• Logistics Targeting ships benefits extremely well from external modifiers: Statue of Zeus, Conscription (Authority), Great Admiral, Regimental System and the Imperialism finisher giving it Bombardment's Ironsides. Bombardment will do better compared to Targeting against cities for Civs who don't take Authority and Imperialism.

 

[Enginseer]

Ye except you needs to get those units to those high experience in the first place. It's easier to get earlier bombardments ships than targetting ships.

 

[Rekk]

If I understand you correctly, I think you mean that it's easier to deal extra damage to cities using bombardment instead of targeting, if a ship only has 1 or 2 promotions? I concede that this is true, but also leads to the conclusion that Bombardment is only meant for the early game and is undesirable in the late game.

 

[CrazyG]

I agree that bombardment is pretty bad. Early game I would take it on one or two ships, but that's it. By the time you reach cruisers, you should never take it.

 

[Rekk]

I think Logistics is a problem, especially when Indirect Fire and Extra Range can't be used to balance it out, and naval units have enough movement that they can almost always afford to shoot twice. Maybe the AI just hasn't been good enough at forcing Boarded Promotions on my ships, in order to severely limit my maneuverability and reduce the number of instances that I can fire both shots.

I also think that the Bombardment line suffers even more in Imperialism.

 

[Gazebo]

Re: Targeting, there's actually a bug in the SQL giving those units more damage versus other units than it should.

I've also noticed the AI ships taking bombardment suffer a bit, it's getting a +5%/+5% buff for next beta.

G

 

[Rekk]

How is everyone finding the Ranged Naval Bombardment / Targeting balance?

Is Logistics still the heaviest weight in the decision-making process?

 

[Gidoza]

I think Logistics is too powerful on any unit it comes up for.

Blitz is not as powerful seeing as melee units always take damage (also could we get a description fix for Blitz..."multiple times" is deceptive and makes it seems like more than two attacks are possible).


Anyways, with regard to Logistics - the main reason it's too powerful is that it really cleans out the alternative promotion option because the double-attack makes up for any damage that would otherwise have been acquired by the other promotion line (e.g. for ships, getting two attacks against a city will mostly balance out what Bombardment would have provided). The doubled experience points also makes the promotion highly lucrative because it adds insult to injury by making such a unit even more powerful. Consequently, the incentive when picking promotion lines isn't about what kind of unit to have (e.g. a unit-killing unit or a city-killing unit), but rather about what kind of promotion to reach (that is, Logistics).

Suggestion: Make Logistics independent of any promotion line, available at level 6 or 7. No matter which promotions you take, Logistics will always become available then and is of course always a good choice. The point is that you can plan your units out based on a specific intention (killing units or killing cities, or whatever) rather than aiming for a promotion - which isn't what any real-life unit would ever train for.

 

[Enginseer]

Or we make it -50% xp, so no double xp.

 

[Stalker0]

Or we make it -50% xp, so no double xp.

Or just throwing it out there...we remove it. Seems like its always been a constant source of trouble.