Idea to Solve the Musketman Problem...

[uncarved block]

Another way to extend the lifespan of a unit is to give it a niche that's useful in the bigger picture. Before Warlords, I might have suggested giving the Musketmen City Garrrison 1 for free, but with Protective, that's right out. So how about a +25% bonus for defending cities, a la Longbowmen? The manual already suggests that the unit is probably better for defense than offense, but nothing in the game mechanics gives you any reason to do so. IIRC, you can build Longbows even after discovering Gunpowder, and the way city defense works now, you'd be a fool to pick Musketmen: they both upgrade to Riflemen, the LBs are 30 Hammers less, and you can pick up two promotions that reinforce the LBs special ability with ease.

With a boost to city defense, Musketmen become cheap(er) city defenders, able to stand up to Grenadiers without City Raider promotions fairly well, and maybe even Riflemen if the MM has two CG promotions (again, barring CR Riflemen.) In other words, you'd have a tolerable city defender that you won't feel bad leaving behind. (Although Cavalry would still beat them easily.) I don't know about the rest of you, but every Grenadier or Rifemen I leave behind to hold cities for sure feels like a waste of offense. A city defending Musketman would fill this role until Infantry rolls around-- a heck of a lot longer window than currently, without any huge change to game balance.

 

[civ_king]

protectives could get garrison II there should be 1 more upgrade 2 musketmen
in the american revolution there were special muskets that could effectively snipe and eliminate targets basicaly better then the recoats BUT they were muskets

 

[voek]

However, I do think that Warlords has weakened Musketeers by changing Napoleon from Aggressive (and therefore removing its free Combat I) and introducing stables, which makes it much easier to counter them with Pinch-promoted knights and elephants.

It's insane medieval units can get pinch, a bonus against gunpowder units. How on earth this can be justified? They should remove this promotion option for medieval units, making musketeers also more useful.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

It's insane medieval units can get pinch, a bonus against gunpowder units. How on earth this can be justified? They should remove this promotion option for medieval units, making musketeers also more useful.

They can't get pinch until gunpowder is discovered.

 

[Dominico]

Just to wade in here, im not so sure muskets are that bad, they are not obsolete that fast.

Also dont they have a totally different set of promotions to grenediars making them a very different style of unit. Since promotions heavily affect how you can use the unit.

 

[Kaleb]

oh yes please! something that actaully makes musketmen useful. I think I can count the number of musketmen I have built in 4 games on Monarch on my fingers!

delaying the arrival of the grenadier seems like a moderate step to fix this problem...

 

[aelf]

Hmm... voek has a point. Removing Pinchability from medieval units would make the advent of gunpowder more significant than it is now. And it's not that hard to change so cost-effectiveness is not an excuse not to fix this aspect of the game. They've improved Creative a little, so if enough of us continue to raise this problem it may actually happen.

 

[Uncle_Joe]

After scanning the list of changes for the upcoming Warlords patch, there doesnt appear to be any mention of Musketmen. So, they apparently didnt see fit to change anything in regards to this.

Personally I'd prefer for Muskets to be useful for a little longer and I cant quite figure out why they have yet to make a tweak of some sort (cost, str etc). But for whatever reason this has eluded their balancing tweaks for a year now.

 

[Antilogic]

Just to wade in here, im not so sure muskets are that bad, they are not obsolete that fast.

Also dont they have a totally different set of promotions to grenediars making them a very different style of unit. Since promotions heavily affect how you can use the unit.

Actually, they don't. I think grenadiers can get the same promotions as musketmen can, because they are both gunpowder units. And they do obsolete fairly quickly as they are implemented now, because all you have to do is research Chemistry (which isn't that tough--likely less than 10 turns even on epic) to get another +3 base strength on your unit.

I haven't been able to test this yet, so I don't know if Military Tradition is too far or just Nationalism. I am thinking about uncarved block's suggestion, though...

 

[quizibuk]

protectives could get garrison II there should be 1 more upgrade 2 musketmen
in the american revolution there were special muskets that could effectively snipe and eliminate targets basicaly better then the recoats BUT they were muskets

They had rifles in the revolution, Kentucky rifles, they have been around since the 1740 or 50's

 

[Antilogic]

If I'm not mistaken, they had a special ammunition as well, a cylindrical round that rotates vertically and causes a nasty wound that pretty much guarantees your internal organs would be mutilated beyond repair (for the day's surgical techniques) and thus you die. Not very pretty.

 

[aelf]

After scanning the list of changes for the upcoming Warlords patch, there doesnt appear to be any mention of Musketmen. So, they apparently didnt see fit to change anything in regards to this.

Sadly, as I said.

 

[JLH Fans]

They should get +1 strenght.

 

[Eskel]

The Musketman matter has been annoying me since Civ3.
And it is still almost unusable in Civ4...
In Civ3 I solved the problem by moving riflemen and infantry later in the tech tree and adding few rennesaince technologies. Moreover, I added also new musketman unit and called the old one an arquebusier, and both of them worked fine, were playable and I have a lot of fun with them (though I have to say that I lowered prod cost as well).
Hope somebody at Firaxis will get similar idea soon. If not in new expansion to Civ4, maybe in Civ5 at least.