Immortal not a melee unit?

[2evster48]

Just tried out Cyrus and when I tried to capture a city with an immortal it wouldn't do it - it kept showing only the ranged option. Is there a tab I'm missing to switch between ranged and melee or is it just an error?

 

[Felis Renidens]

Units with ranged attack can't capture cities. Immortal may have melee promotions but it's ranged, so can't capture. No tab. No error.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

It's a melee class unit with a ranged attack. And like all ranged units, it cannot take a city.

 

[Danspartan]

I still believe this is a bug. In its unit description it says melee unit with ranged attack. But the unit currently only range attacks. If that was the intended purpose, it shouldn't be listed as a melee unit. It should be listed as range. It should only attack/count as ranged when the range attack button is selected.

 

[King Jason]

You're making the mistake many people made when the game first released of confusing unit class with how said unit attacks.

Immortal is a melee unit. It's attack is ranged. Units who's attacks are ranged can't take cities.

To clarify the problem using another unit; Spearmen, for example, are not melee units. They're anti- cavalry units.

A unit's type is independent of their method of attack. As another example, horse units are not melee units; they're either light or heavy cav.

Tldr: The text is referring to unit type. Immortals are melee class units that attack with ranged attacks.

 

[TruthfulCake]

Capturing a city is a function of melee attacks. Right now, the Immortals indeed count as ranged only when attacking.

The unit has all the melee promotions and as such transitions between Warrior and Musketman smoothly. Making it count as a ranged unit would be a bug instead.

 

[Danspartan]

Yeah I very well could be mistaken which would be unfortunate because you then lose a very capable melee unit for attacking cities and replace it with another range which is no stronger than the normal archer and acquired much later. The closest unit I can compare it to is civ 5s impi and I belive they could capture cities. And as far as considering a pikeman or horseman non-melee I feel is inaccurate. I believe they are melee class but sub classified as anti-calvary and horse mounted to give them a niche. It gives them a different purposes/counter to other units or there wouldn't be a reason to build anything other than the strongest unit at the current stage.

 

[Photi]

immortals defend as melee

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Immortals attack like Archers and defend like Swordsmen. Warriors become Immortals which become Musketmen. Immortals utilize melee class promotions and have a bonus vs anti-cavalry units.

They aren't particularly amazing for attacking cities except for withstanding counterattacks. They are good for defense and clearing barbarian camps.

 

[Siptah]

It's certainly not a bug. Ed Beach stated that it is intentional in the live stream. And I think the First Look called them a ranged unit. It really is just a ranged unit replacing a melee unit, nothing more, nothing less. In my opinion such options spice up the game and make civs more diverse. The Maryannu and the Hetairos work similarly, but I don't hear much complaining about that.

And as far as considering a pikeman or horseman non-melee I feel is inaccurate. I believe they are melee class but sub classified as anti-calvary and horse mounted to give them a niche. It gives them a different purposes/counter to other units or there wouldn't be a reason to build anything other than the strongest unit at the current stage.

There no such things as sub classes. There's melee, anti-cav, light cav, heavy cav, siege, ranged and recon for land unit classes. I don't even think the names are official, I think it is just how they are referred to in Forums etc.

Edit: no, they are referred to with these names in the manual as well.

 

[Rosty K]

It should just say somewhere: 'can't capture cities'. For all units that can't

(I mean instead of all these confusing 'ranged melee' and 'melee ranged' things)

 

[King Jason]

And as far as considering a pikeman or horseman non-melee I feel is inaccurate. I believe they are melee class but sub classified as anti-calvary and horse mounted to give them a niche. It gives them a different purposes/counter to other units or there wouldn't be a reason to build anything other than the strongest unit at the current stage.

Well I'm sorry but you'd be incorrect - This is evidenced by many different things in the game, one of which being the Policy cards. If Anti-cavs and cav units are melee class units then Agoge would work on them. Agoge quite specifically reads;

"+50% Production towards Ancient and Classical era melee and ranged units"

Yet only Warriors, Swordsmen, Slingers, and Archers recieve a production bonus; Anti-cav, cav, and siege units are all not effected, as they're a different class of units.

I think the problem rests with the fact that the civilopedia doesn't typically use consistent wording in their unit descriptions. The biggest culprits I noticed being spears and pikes specifically, however sometimes the description will not even specify, such as saying something like "a medieval era unit" - this is where you have to turn to the unit class that is specifically listed with the rest of the stats on the unit's civ page. As another example, Catapults and the siege line are all specifically referred to as Bombard units, as opposed to Ranged units, like the archer line. So there's another example; Catapults and Archers both have ranged attacks, but only Archers are Ranged Class (Though amusingly, and more inconsistently, despite the fact that all of the descriptions refer to the aforemention cat+ units as bombards, their promotion class is siege ). They certainly could have been clearer with this in certain spots, or even better, simply have picked less general type names for the Melee class units and Ranged class units, since technically speaking, anything with a melee attack is a "melee" unit, and likewise for range. But, they didn't, so we're left having these discussions.

 

[Tuvok694]

Units with ranged attack can't capture cities. Immortal may have melee promotions but it's ranged, so can't capture. No tab. No error.

It's a melee class unit with a ranged attack. And like all ranged units, it cannot take a city.

Strange: I just captured a German city with an immortal unit. Is there currently a bug concerning these units?
And when fighting against other units: How can I force the immortal to perform a melee attack instead of a ranged attack. There is no button for melee attack in the menu, just that icon for the ranged attack.
Am I missing something?

 

[Rosty K]

It was changed in the latest patch. Now they can take cities again.

As for the melee attack - um, just as with any other unit - try to move it to the target?

 

[WillowBrook]

Strange: I just captured a German city with an immortal unit. Is there currently a bug concerning these units?
And when fighting against other units: How can I force the immortal to perform a melee attack instead of a ranged attack. There is no button for melee attack in the menu, just that icon for the ranged attack.
Am I missing something?

It was given a melee attack last year in a patch, then something with R&F took away its melee attack, but it's back with the latest patch.

I've not played Persia yet, can't help with picking melee over ranged.

 

[DWilson]

It was a bug that caused them to lose the ability to capture cities. Many believed it was intended, and so implied as such when this thread formed, but they fixed it in the most recent patch.

 

[Karmah]

Well I'm sorry but you'd be incorrect - This is evidenced by many different things in the game, one of which being the Policy cards. If Anti-cavs and cav units are melee class units then Agoge would work on them. Agoge quite specifically reads;

"+50% Production towards Ancient and Classical era melee and ranged units"

Yet only Warriors, Swordsmen, Slingers, and Archers recieve a production bonus; Anti-cav, cav, and siege units are all not effected, as they're a different class of units.

I think the problem rests with the fact that the civilopedia doesn't typically use consistent wording in their unit descriptions. The biggest culprits I noticed being spears and pikes specifically, however sometimes the description will not even specify, such as saying something like "a medieval era unit" - this is where you have to turn to the unit class that is specifically listed with the rest of the stats on the unit's civ page. As another example, Catapults and the siege line are all specifically referred to as Bombard units, as opposed to Ranged units, like the archer line. So there's another example; Catapults and Archers both have ranged attacks, but only Archers are Ranged Class (Though amusingly, and more inconsistently, despite the fact that all of the descriptions refer to the aforemention cat+ units as bombards, their promotion class is siege ). They certainly could have been clearer with this in certain spots, or even better, simply have picked less general type names for the Melee class units and Ranged class units, since technically speaking, anything with a melee attack is a "melee" unit, and likewise for range. But, they didn't, so we're left having these discussions.

Magic the gathering popularized precise language in games something like 25 years ago. Are the UX designers too young this days to know best practices?

 

[jddods]

I can remember precise language being used in tabletop wargaming 40 years ago (WRG Ancient).

 

[Karmah]

I can remember precise language being used in tabletop wargaming 40 years ago (WRG Ancient).

True ,I do too.I use to spend afternoons playing those games, I was a GM for Rolemaster also ! Talk about nerdy language precision !
That's why I said 'popularized' and not 'introduced' in the case of Magic in the 90's. You got to give wizard of the coast this , they managed to make a holisitc complexity of gameplay out of a set of very simple *,but precise*, atomic rules which inspired many successors. It's not different to what Civ is actually doing ,yet the language and the whole ontology has a lot of imprecisions. Like the spearmen being left out of agoge. I'm pretty sure it is something that would never have happened if they took the time to revise their hierarchy of concepts.