How would you change current base units upgrade trees?

[Boris Gudenuf]

Verrrry interesting.

I'm certainly not daft enough to critique your numbers: you da man on Civ VI Unit Math.

My only comments, then, will be on Resource Requirements.
Light Cavalry traditionally used whatever four legged rejects were ambling about: Heavy Cavalry - including Heavy Chariots - required specially bred heavier horses that were also more expensive to feed and keep.
So, I would make all the Heavy Cav line require first, Horse resources and then (Tanks +) oil.
Horsemen and Coursers and the like could use whatever horse is left over from mounting the Big Boys, so require no Horse resources.
Cavalry would not require horses, because although the 19th century (Industrial Era military) did spend a lot of time and effort breeding 'thoroughbred' or 'hunter type' horses for their cavalry, it was not Resource - Expensive: Everybody who rode horses were riding well-bred horses and spending big bucks on them - the only 'limiting' horse resource was the heavy Horses, now used to haul artillery and other heavy loads (see DiNardo's book on horses in the German army in WWII: they had lots of riding and 'cart' light horses, were horribly short of heavy draft horses after the carnage of 1941 in Russia)
Hellicopters, and anything that flies, require Oil. Oil is the major Limiting resource of the 20th century, and the game has to show that.

I would be tempted (sorely tempted) to introduce Multiple resources for some units that have an outsized effect on the battlefield and are also immensely expensive to raise and keep:
Knights : Iron and Horses
Tanks: Iron and Oil
Fighters and Bombers: Oil and Aluminum
Battleships: Iron/Steel* and Coal, with the option to convert them to needing Oil and pick up an extra movement point
Jet/Stealth Fighters and Bombers: Oil and Composites*

* = Because I want Manufactured Resources like Steel, and the modern Composite Materials, which require big, expensive, and complex industrial plant to produce - the ability to build Steel Mills and feed them as, after all, the defining difference between Major and Minor Powers in the Industrial and Modern Eras. This could be extended to require Composites for, say, some of the Space Projects as well.

 

[Sostratus]

I would be tempted (sorely tempted) to introduce Multiple resources for some units that have an outsized effect on the battlefield and are also immensely expensive to raise and keep:
Knights : Iron and Horses

I think we can have multiple resources for material costs to produce; IIRC people say the game limits to only one type of fuel. Nothing wrong with Knights using 20 iron and 20 horses, or even making horse the "fuel" limiter. I actually would prefer to have stronger heavy cav (+5 vs the +3 in earlier eras) in exchange for it being brutally expensive resource wise, and having a reasonable counter in AC units. The AC units in turn would be handle by the rest of your combined arms force. Fixing unit strengths may even let the Melee +10 to AC units be viable. Although i still think AC promotions are awfully unbalanced.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I think we can have multiple resources for material costs to produce; IIRC people say the game limits to only one type of fuel. Nothing wrong with Knights using 20 iron and 20 horses, or even making horse the "fuel" limiter. I actually would prefer to have stronger heavy cav (+5 vs the +3 in earlier eras) in exchange for it being brutally expensive resource wise, and having a reasonable counter in AC units. The AC units in turn would be handle by the rest of your combined arms force. Fixing unit strengths may even let the Melee +10 to AC units be viable. Although i still think AC promotions are awfully balanced.

Yes, horses, especially horses in melee battle, get used up fast. It would be appropriate to have to keep replacing at least a portion (10% - 20%?) of the horses you put into the unit in the first place.

The two figures that I keep in mind regarding Heavy Cavalry are these:
1. in Tang China, in an army of almost 90,000 men total, the striking force was 1000 heavy armored lance-equipped cavalry - knights,
2. In Napoleonic France, in an army that totaled at one time over 500,000 French troops, and having most of the resources of France and central Europe at his disposal, Napoleon managed to raise exactly 14 regiments of armored cuirassiers: less than 11,000 men.

Knights, Cuirassiers and their equivalent were expensive!

 

[TheSheriff]

Yes, horses, especially horses in melee battle, get used up fast. It would be appropriate to have to keep replacing at least a portion (10% - 20%?) of the horses you put into the unit in the first place.

The two figures that I keep in mind regarding Heavy Cavalry are these:
1. in Tang China, in an army of almost 90,000 men total, the striking force was 1000 heavy armored lance-equipped cavalry - knights,
2. In Napoleonic France, in an army that totaled at one time over 500,000 French troops, and having most of the resources of France and central Europe at his disposal, Napoleon managed to raise exactly 14 regiments of armored cuirassiers: less than 11,000 men.

Knights, Cuirassiers and their equivalent were expensive!

That's surprising, considering at Agincourt, the French had about 10,000 armored and mounted knights in an army of about 32,000. It makes sense, seeing as almost the entire structure of the society was built around the knight as a concept. It almost would make sense to have it as some sort of option, where Feudalism would decrease economic output, but would decrease the cost of the knight or of all cavalrymen

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

That's surprising, considering at Agincourt, the French had about 10,000 armored and mounted knights in an army of about 32,000. It makes sense, seeing as almost the entire structure of the society was built around the knight as a concept. It almost would make sense to have it as some sort of option, where Feudalism would decrease economic output, but would decrease the cost of the knight or of all cavalrymen

Remember, at Agincourt most of the French force was a Feudal Host. That is, the knights were given fiefs of land to support themselves and the cost of their equipment and horses in return for their 'sworn' service to their liege lords. Even so, they could only be 'called up' for a few months of the year, and within less than a century (in fact, it was already starting to happen by Agincourt) most of the feudal knights were replaced by Mercenary Men-at-Arms paid by the knights to take their place in the field while the knight stayed home and extracted every bit of value he could out of his properties.
Once the king had to pay for everything directly - largely so he could keep 'his' army in the field for most or all of the year - the direct expense to the State (i.e., the King) rose dramatically. Also, there was an 'indirect cost' - pasturage for all those heavier destrier-type horses was in the long run prohibitively expensive because it reduced food crops and consequently drove up basic food prices all over the country, leaving the King and the Lords to deal with peasant unrest or outright rebellion and increasing demands for relief from the increasingly important merchant class in the incfreasingly-economically-essential cities.

Parenthetically, the game has never accurately modeled the Feudal System that intertwined economic, military, and political mechanisms. I think it should, but for all the discussion it provokes, I appear to be alone in that belief. . .

 

[Sostratus]

the game has never accurately modeled the Feudal System that intertwined economic, military, and political mechanisms.

I grasp that Firaxis is not Paradox Interactive, and they have decided to focus on 'board game' type abstraction of mechanics (this is not necessarily bad - for example, a empire level iron stockpile instead of local stockpiles) and part of that means eschewing the gritty details of empire management in favor of empire building.

But thinking about this statement of yours, I realize that maybe there is a little extra room in how we have military units set up to allow for an interplay with government (and by extension, making militarization a heavier tradeoff with your economy.)
It doesn't necessarily make sense in a civ game where you are Rome for 6000 years that we should impose a feudal system upon players (unless we have a scenario.) But they have had flavor along those lines in the past.
One could decide, for example, that there could be a type of 'feudal levy' policy card that, when you go to build some military units (could be all land units, or even just a subset like AC/ranged) that a city's food income is added to its production. IE, you're directly tying in the agrarian power structure to producing your military in time of need. Or you could more directly have a perk of something like monarchy* be that you can, at the cost of population/amenities, literally levy soldiers from one of your cities, just like we do with CS. On a timer and all that. Or even just have greatly reduced military costs in gold and resources, but suffer the janissary perk of eating a pop when you build one.
Even further, one could create a Military Capacity pseudo resource that determines how many military units you can support - a flat amount based on gov't tier, +X per city, +Y from other sources, like how many encampments and their buildings you have, or something. Then, some policies or governments could modulate the capacity cost of certain units.
This isn't just something for feudalism and chivalry, this would be a way give governments like Fascism unique military bonuses besides the boring +unit production. There's lots of room for flavor in policies and government without creating massive reworks of systems.

*I actually hate the way monarchy is right now. I would rather it have -1 red slot, +1 green slot and become an influence/envoy focused gov't instead of this walls=housing thing. But that's my own peeve about t2 gov't.

 

[Phrozen]

The Monarchy thing is also a little too abstracted for me. There is a vast difference between a fuedal Monarch in the European Medieval period and an absolute Monarch in say the European Reneissance period. Medieval monarchs had to be relatively charismatic as the nobility had not yet been militarily neutered and reliant on the state. Even charismatic figures like Babbarossa spent a great amount of their time dealing with their nobles whether that was by diplomacy or military.

 

[Jkchart]

I just want them to hire @Sostratus to rebalance the existing units before we even consider adding more units. Once those are rebalanced and working properly as intended, then we can add units. Are there any absolutely GLARING gaps? Not really for how this game has functioned, but a couple other missing technological advancements like early rifles and trebuchets would be nice.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The Monarchy thing is also a little too abstracted for me. There is a vast difference between a fuedal Monarch in the European Medieval period and an absolute Monarch in say the European Reneissance period. Medieval monarchs had to be relatively charismatic as the nobility had not yet been militarily neutered and reliant on the state. Even charismatic figures like Babbarossa spent a great amount of their time dealing with their nobles whether that was by diplomacy or military.

There are actually two things working here, which it would improve the game immensely to show.

On one hand, there is how much Moral Authority the Ruler had. Being 'Anointed by God' or even considered a Semi/Demi-God and so having virtually limitless Moral Authority dates back to Ancient Era, and was Revived in Europe in the late Middle Ages.
By comparison, the 'first among equals' monarchs with powerful nobility were constant targets whose Moral Authority was strictly and directly related to their own achievements (or lack of them). This too, dates back to Ancient/Classic Era: Darius the Persian opponent of Alexander was the survivor of 20 years of civil war in which the Persian 'Royal Family' had been practically wiped out by assassinations - he was something like a 5th cousin, which was all that was left of the Royal line.

On the other hand, no matter how much or how little Moral or Legal Authority a ruler has to levy taxes or conscription or demand obedience to his every whim, there is a very real factor of the efficiency of the government administration which limits what effect his every whim will actually have. A God King with a few semi-literate lower nobility trying to run a large empire will go almost completely un-noticed outside the immediate vicinity of his own Palace. A King of any kind with a large, literate, and well-trained bureaucracy following well-known procedures can extract more taxes, soldiers, and wealth of all kinds and mobilize far more resources than his predecessor with a few 'Companions'. See China or Byzantium, in fact, for examples of how the 'Imperial Administration' can keep a country going so well that the God King/Son of Heaven becomes almost irrelevant to the running of the country.

In other words, there should not only be a Government Type: Oligarchy, Democracy, Autarky, Kakistocracy or whatever you want to call it, but also a measure of Administrative Efficiency that modifies what that government is actually capable of. That Administration would be a product both of general Literacy and education (Science totals, number of Campuses, etc) and also the degree of training and guidance that the multitude of scribbling clerks and tax assessors get (Government Plazas and Buildings, Civics).

This would allow for a great increase in the variety of effects from the government types and some serious trade-offs and decisions required by the gamer. In the new Post-GS Spirit of Trade-Off Empires it would no longer be about which Bonus you want from a government, but what kind of comprises you have to make to pull more out of your population before they start revolting - and even God's Anointed Kings can be disposed of, as Charles I of England or Louis XVII of France could attest.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I grasp that Firaxis is not Paradox Interactive, and they have decided to focus on 'board game' type abstraction of mechanics (this is not necessarily bad - for example, a empire level iron stockpile instead of local stockpiles) and part of that means eschewing the gritty details of empire management in favor of empire building.

But thinking about this statement of yours, I realize that maybe there is a little extra room in how we have military units set up to allow for an interplay with government (and by extension, making militarization a heavier tradeoff with your economy.)
It doesn't necessarily make sense in a civ game where you are Rome for 6000 years that we should impose a feudal system upon players (unless we have a scenario.) But they have had flavor along those lines in the past.
One could decide, for example, that there could be a type of 'feudal levy' policy card that, when you go to build some military units (could be all land units, or even just a subset like AC/ranged) that a city's food income is added to its production. IE, you're directly tying in the agrarian power structure to producing your military in time of need. Or you could more directly have a perk of something like monarchy* be that you can, at the cost of population/amenities, literally levy soldiers from one of your cities, just like we do with CS. On a timer and all that. Or even just have greatly reduced military costs in gold and resources, but suffer the janissary perk of eating a pop when you build one.
Even further, one could create a Military Capacity pseudo resource that determines how many military units you can support - a flat amount based on gov't tier, +X per city, +Y from other sources, like how many encampments and their buildings you have, or something. Then, some policies or governments could modulate the capacity cost of certain units.
This isn't just something for feudalism and chivalry, this would be a way give governments like Fascism unique military bonuses besides the boring +unit production. There's lots of room for flavor in policies and government without creating massive reworks of systems.

*I actually hate the way monarchy is right now. I would rather it have -1 red slot, +1 green slot and become an influence/envoy focused gov't instead of this walls=housing thing. But that's my own peeve about t2 gov't.

Expanding on my previous Post: Monarchy could simply mean a 'Government by genetic chance' as one writer once put it, but the details could be affected by the Administrative Ability the Monarchy commands. That might even include Great People/Special Governors: here's a chance to get Cardinal Richelieu or Talleyrand to help your government out.
Some Civics might only be available to certain government types or certain levels of Administrative Efficiency. A general tax on incomes, for example, is a hugely lucrative way to extract Gold from your population, but such a tax is virtually worthless without a trained and efficient crew of bureaucrats to extract it: Rome's 'Tax-Farming' system probably did more damage to the Empire than the barbarians did, because it made it impossible to get enough Gold out of the population to maintain the Imperial legions.

Specifically as to Fuedal Mechanics, I've thought for a while that they could be tied to the physical component of the Foedal Fiefs on the ground: Castles.
Get the Civic Fuedalism, and you can build Castles - an Improvement, not a Building. A Castle builds like a Road, in that it is 'added' to a tile in addition to whatever 'extraction' Improvement is already there. In time of War, each Castle provides one Knight Free of charge. That Knight cannot be Promoted, and disappears as soon as the war stops. BUT in order to maintain that Knight, the Castle removes all Resources from the tile. Too many Castles, and you literally starve your cities.
In addition, each castle acts as a Fort with a built-in Garrison, so the tile cannot be pillaged or moved through by an enemy unless he attacks the Castle, which means a landscape full of castles would be a nightmare (as Medieval Europe was) for an army to try to cross.

As soon as Bombards arrive, the Castle becomes Obsolete as a Fort - the graphic changes from a turreted Castle to a Castle Ruin, which can be cheaply converted into a Chateau/Stately Manor Home or become a Tourist Attraction in the Industrial Era.

Every castle within a city radius could also contribute to a 'Independence' (lower Loyalty) movement as the aristocracy, safe inside their stony walls, start paying less and less attention to the Central Authority - which is pretty much the history of Medieval France and Germany in a nutshell - until either you get a city/area in revolt or Central Authority has to clamp down on them - like, by invoking another, different Civic like Aristocratic Officers which 'conscripts' the feudal aristocracy as officers and leaders of the new-fangled Pike & Shot and Cuirassier units: Each such unit would get a 'free' promotion if it is accompanied by a 'reduced' Castle (see Castle Ruin above) representing the nobility putting aside their out-dated plate armor and turning themselves into Generals and Colonels of the 'new army'.

Note that Aristocratic Officers as a Civic would be available to several types of Governments: the Dutch Republic, Venetian Oligarchy and virtually all the various Monarchies in Europe and the Chinese Empire all used that system. On the other hand, the 'egalitarian Democracies' stemming from the Enlightenment (USA, France) did away with the aristocracy as a class and so wound up creating higher Military Academies (St Cyr, West Point) to 'build' their Generals and Colonels from.

Well, almost turning into Random Musings on the subject here, but I think the idea of a Government System that includes separate Government Type and a 'mechanism' of Government Efficiency bears study as a set of Game Mechanics.

 

[awesome]

Needs more cowbell.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Needs more cowbell.

As they say, Go Cowbell or Go Play Solitaire. . .

 

[Jarms48]

I posted this a long time ago, but it’s still relevant:

Recon:
- Ranger / Highlander: Production cost reduced to 370.

Melee:
- Ngao Mbeba: Strength increased to 36.
- Legion: Can use "builder charge" to place a road. Roman forts count towards Ballistics eureka.
- Berserker / Khevsur / Samurai: Can upgrade from Swordsman.
- Garde Imperiale / Redcoat: Can upgrade from Musketman. Can upgrade into Infantry.

Ranged:
- Maryannu Chariot Archer: Production cost reduced to 110. Does not replace Heavy Chariot (I think they did this now).
- Saka Horse Archer: Increase attack range to 2. Production cost increased to 120. Can upgrade into Crossbowman.
- Crouching Tiger: Unlocked at Gunpowder. Increase attack range to 2. Can upgrade from Crossbowman. Can upgrade into Field Cannon. Production and gold cost increased to reflect new changes.
- Machine Gun: Increase attack range to 2.

Anti-Cavalry:
- Spearman / Hoplite: Production cost reduced to 60.
- Pikeman: Production cost reduced to 160 (might not be required as I believe the Knight’s production cost went up).

Heavy Cavalry:
- Winged Hussar: Can upgrade from Knight. Can upgrade into Cuirassier.
- Rough Rider: Can upgrade from Cuirassier. Can upgrade into Tanks.

I need to update this list for GS.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Just a few comments.
Originally, Civ VI tried to have units upgrade every other Era. They didn't do that well, so we wound up with Knights that took 3 Eras to upgrade to Tanks, and Scouts that took 5 Eras to Upgrade to Rangers. Now, as of GS, they have started 'padding' the Unit Upgrades so that they have a number of 1 Era gaps:
Courser to Cavalry
Cuirassier to Tank
Caravel to Ironclad
This in addition to the air units, which are all 1 Era upgrades.

In addition, Civ VI has a number of 'Artificial' Units that don't belong in the game at all:
Musketman - Yes, I know it's a 'staple' of Civ games, but in fact the first matchlock arquebus appears in 1472, the first effective 'musket' handgun, and the first pike and shot unit, the Spanish Colunela (predecessor of the Tercio, which was three Colonelas combined into one unit) appears in 1493 - 21 years later. The 'Musket' was ALWAYS combined with something else, because a 'musket man' had virtually no melee factor - he carried a 20 lb clumsy club and a cheap short sword that he wasn't trained to use, and virtually no armor.
AT Crew and Modern AT - at the scale of the game, these are part of every regular Infantry and Mech Infantry unit. As separate units they are ridiculous.
Machine Gun - even more so. Machine-guns have been integrated with regular infantry units down to battalion (less than 1000 men) since 1914.

Finally, we have the ludicrous situation in which troops armed entirely with shooting weapons (modern infantry) have no ranged factor at all, while troops whose 'ranged' weapons (slings, bows) have a fraction of the range of modern infantry weapons are 'ranged' in the game.

My solution, which I've come to after quite a bit of thinking and rethinking the Civ VI units, is to add two things to the general Civ VI units:
1. Melee and Anti-Civ lines both end in the Renaissance Era. At that point, both Swordsmen and Pikemen can be Upgraded to a new Category: Firepower Infantry. The Firepower Infantry Category is as follows:
Pike and Shot - Renaissance Era
Fusiliers - Industrial Era
Infantry - Modern Era
Mech. Infantry - Atomic Era
Firepower Infantry all have one 'unique' capability: they have a Ranged Factor before Melee on both defense and attack. This represents the fact that their primary weapons are ranged weapons, even though their doctrine may call for them to 'close with and destroy the enemy'. Pike and Shot and Fusliers both have an Anti-Cav capability as well, because they have either bayonets or pikes with them in dense formations.
When Upgraded to Firepower Infantry, Melee or Anti-Cav lose all their Promotions from the former Category, but they immediately get Promotions in the Firepower Infantry category up to 1/2 the promotions they previously had, rounded up. So if you had 3 Promotions before, you lose 1, had 1 keep 1, had 4 lose 2.
.

So then TWO late game antitank units are subject to <Delete> command?. That's mod heavy. I don't know what the points adding this unit as separate one.
if making a combined class 'Infantry' (Which i'm doing rightnow) isn't hard enough. removing two antitank units entirely is also mod heavy. but it makes more sense and some mod is doing this too.
IF this solution is taken then there can be no changes in Heavy Cavalry class ? even in real life. AFVs are designed and indeed impervious to small arms that can easily ward off small arms bullets, the very weapon that simple infantry units can easily ward off Cuirassiers rampage early when the Great War broke out in 1914?