Improvements in the unit roster

[AbsintheRed]

I'm not really sure about the melee line yet.
Probably not too many new units there, most of them would be quite redundant.

For extra flavor:
4. Militia unit. Appears only for independent revolts if they occur, or instability. Strength of four, +25% hills and forests defense, and +10% city defense.
5. Barbarian Peasant units that can spawn during instability or peasant revolts (if a mechanic like that is ever made)
A) Peasant: (same as SOI) 3 strength and +50% vs mounted units.
B) Peasant: 4 strength, +50% vs melee units.
C) Peasant: 5 strength, +25% forest and hill defense.

On the other hand this is something I definitely plan to do for the mod.
Not yet sure about the details, but sounds cool already.

 

[gilgames]

Yes mace was wiedly spreaded, however the flail not so wiedly.
It would be good to have a maceman with mace

 

[Baron03]

I'm not really sure about the melee line yet.
Probably not too many new units there, most of them would be quite redundant.

On the other hand this is something I definitely plan to do for the mod.
Not yet sure about the details, but sounds cool already.

Yeah, the only thing that I thought could be groundbreaking would be the Man-at-arms and halberd units, but it's still redundant.

I liked how SOI, and Sengoku mod would make some spawn for Orthodox civs. If it isn't tied to just stability, then maybe unhappiness around a city, high inflation factor, or possibly many turns war. Maybe historical ones too with several units or to represent uprisings.

 

[TheMulattoMaker]

Polearms are also good imo, particularly now guisarmers have the extra strength against cavalry. Although maybe pikemen should have a reduced bonus (+25%) against light cav, as by the time they come to prominence the light cav will be moving towards gunpowder units, so a pike will be of less use against them. That would mean pikes were still superior to mid game light cav (str 9) but only equal to pistoleers and worse than late game hussars.

Would it work to just give the later, gunpowder-equipped cavalry units Feint, to offset the pikes' bonus?

 

[The Turk]

Representing peasant rebellions would be really nice. Peasant rebellion dominated the 13th and 14th centuries, and would be a nice touch if you had unhappiness or instability.

 

[Swarbs]

Would it work to just give the later, gunpowder-equipped cavalry units Feint, to offset the pikes' bonus?

It may do. But then you block them obtaining that promotion through the promotion lines, so there won't be a need to pursue specialism by giving them the Flanking promotions which precede Feint IIRC. If they start with Feint you will have pikes with 50% vs light cav and pistoleers which are capped at 25% vs pikes, so still at a disadvantage. Whereas if pikes have the bonus reduced to 25% then pistoleers have the choice to specialise and gain a matching 25%.

In general I'd prefer to keep that strategic choice open so you can go for specialised light cavalry, otherwise the Combat line becomes superior imo. I suppose you could achieve the same by giving pistoleers and hussars a base 25% vs polearm (not through feint) so they can then specialise towards Feint as well to gain 50% if you don't want to reduce the bonus for pikes.

 

[Swarbs]

Yeah, the only thing that I thought could be groundbreaking would be the Man-at-arms and halberd units, but it's still redundant.

I liked how SOI, and Sengoku mod would make some spawn for Orthodox civs. If it isn't tied to just stability, then maybe unhappiness around a city, high inflation factor, or possibly many turns war. Maybe historical ones too with several units or to represent uprisings.

Man at arms as currently proposed doesn't sound that strong. 6, +10% vs polearms, and +10% city attack and defense is just a slightly stronger swordsman, and 7 or 8 is a non specialised maceman. I'd say it would need a stronger specialism if we were going to include it - maybe emerging later with 9-10 and +50% vs heavy infantry and +50% vs archery to reflect the importance of foot knights against longbows? That makes it an advanced city attack unit which fills the gap between maces and muskets.

Halberd units again would need to be more than just an anti cav unit imo. As proposed it will be a combination of maceman and guisarmer which wouldn't have a major role imo, other than as a slightly better anti heavy cav unit. Maybe we could consider adding it as a mercenary unit, equivalent to pikemen but with +50% vs polearms as well to reflect the role of halberds in deciding pike contests?

 

[Baron03]

Man at arms as currently proposed doesn't sound that strong. 6, +10% vs polearms, and +10% city attack and defense is just a slightly stronger swordsman, and 7 or 8 is a non specialised maceman. I'd say it would need a stronger specialism if we were going to include it - maybe emerging later with 9-10 and +50% vs heavy infantry and +50% vs archery to reflect the importance of foot knights against longbows? That makes it an advanced city attack unit which fills the gap between maces and muskets.

Halberd units again would need to be more than just an anti cav unit imo. As proposed it will be a combination of maceman and guisarmer which wouldn't have a major role imo, other than as a slightly better anti heavy cav unit. Maybe we could consider adding it as a mercenary unit, equivalent to pikemen but with +50% vs polearms as well to reflect the role of halberds in deciding pike contests?

I wasn't sure how early or late a Man-at-Arms unit would appear, if it could be implemented. I guessed the original numbers when I first thought of this two or so years ago, because I thought it would be a cheap unit to use in large numbers. But I like your idea of using it to represent a foot knight unit!

A halberd is basically redundant because it is a mix of two present units. I think the tagmata represents it somewhat, but it is a very limited mercenary. The halberd as a mercenary might be best anyway.

 

[Ogi123]

Currently unit rooster has lot of problems. Some units are to close to each other in tech tree or in abilities other are barely used, some are used almost exclusively etc.
So some thoughts about units, first of all heavy cav is to strong, from both gameplay and historical reasons it should not be answer to everything. Historically heavy cavalrymen were limited in quantity, but barring including military limits where all unit types cost various amount of points, this isn't possible to be adequately represented in mod.
Secondly melee line is to close to each other in terms of capabilities, longsword and mace-man for example.
Thirdly archery units sucks, but that more expression of civ 4 mechanics, defending cities is lost cause due to collateral damage.
So my proposed unit line up looks something like this:

Tier "zero" - units with no tech prerequisites.
1)Warrior/Axeman: S6, +10% city attack
2)Spearman: S5, +50% vs HC, +25% vs LC
3)Skirmisher: S3, 1 first strike, flanks siege, 40% retreat, -20% city attack, thwart spies, immune to first strikes
4)Lancer: S6, -10%city attack
5)Archer: S4, 1first strike, collateral damage (3units/20%)
6)Catapult: S3, +100% city attack, collateral damage (4units/40%)
7)Galley: S3, M4, cargo(2)
8)War galley: S4, M5

Heavy infantry:
1)Swordsman S8, +10% city attack
2)Heavy swordsman S10, +10% city attack

Polearm:
1)Heavy Spearman: S7, +50% vs HC, +25% vs LC
2)Guisarmer: S9, +50% vs HC, +25% vs LC
3)Pikeman: S11, +50% vs HC, +25% vs LC

Archery:
1)Crossbow S6, 1first strike, collateral damage (4units/30%)
2)Arbalest S8, 1first strike, collateral damage (5units/40%)

Heavy cav:
1)Armoured Lancer: S9, -10% city attack
2)Knight: S12, -10%city attack
3)Demi Lancer: S15, -10% city attack, 20% retreat
4)Cuirassier: S18,-10% city attack, 20% retreat

Light Cav:
1)Mounted sergeant: S6, 1 first strike, flanks siege, 40% retreat, -20% city attack, thwart spies, immune to first strikes
2)Light Cav: S9, 1 first strike , flanks siege, 40% retreat, -20% city attack, thwart spies, immune to first strikes
3)Pistolier: S12, 1 first strike , flanks siege, 40% retreat, -20% city attack, thwart spies, immune to first strikes
4)Hussar: S15, 1 first strike , flanks siege, 40% retreat, -20% city attack, thwart spies, immune to first strikes

Gunpowder:
1)Musketman: S12, 1first strike
2)Line infantry: S16, 1first strike, +25%vs heavy cav

Siege:
1)Trebuchet: S4, +100% city attack, collateral damage (5units/40%)
2)Bombard: S6, +100% city attack, collateral damage (5units/50%)
3)Cannon: S10, collateral damage (5units/60%)
4)Field artillery: S14, collateral damage (5units/70%)

Naval:
1)Heavy Galley: S6, M5
2)Gun Galley: S8, M5
3)Caravel/Carrack: S10, M7
4)Frigate: S12, M10
5)SoL: S14, M8

Transport:
1)Cog: S4, M5, cargo(3)
2)Holk: S6, M7, cargo(4)
3)Galleon: S8, M9, cargo(5)

No privateer, instead ship can take privateer promotion, witch gives hidden nationality.
Bronze casting should disappear from tech tree, what civ uses bronze in middle age Europe?
Horse Archer and HHA replaces mounted sergeant and light cav for some civs, they have 2 first strikes instead of one.
No arquebus, longbow or grenadier they are not necessary in unit line up.

Opinions?

EDIT: other variant is to lower polearm str by one but increase heavy cav bonus to 75%. This however requies further changes in other unit types.

Polearm:+75% vs HC, +25% vs LC)
Spear(S4)->Heavy spear(S6)->Guisarme(S8)->Pike(S10)

Heavy Infantry:+10% city attack)
Axe(S5)->Sword(S7)->Heavy sword(S9)

Archers: (collateral damage)
Archer(S3)->Crossbow(S5)->Arbalest(S7)

I also have some doubts about line infantry, increase bonus vs heavy cavalry to 50%? Change strength to 18 but remove bonus altogether?

I have also thought about Final Frontier model of doubling price for every next tech level unit with corresponding +50% str increase. For example: Spear(s4/30h)->heavy spear(s6/60h)-> guisarme(s9/120h)->Pike(s14/240h), but this is only viable if you have max 3-4 units in line, or starting units are really weak and cheap.

 

[El Bogus]

I actually like that the base units like archer, spearmen and axemen resemble their counterparts in vanilla civ. When you try out a new mod it's always nice to have some things that you already know from the vanilla game. Stuff like this is first-time user friendly. I don't know how strong of an argument this is, though.

 

[Swarbs]

Opinions?

Overall I think your proposal isn't great - making every unit line consist of carbon copies of the unit before but with slightly higher strength doesn't do much for gameplay variety or historical representations imo. I'm also not sure why you've reduced and in some cases removed the bonuses. Or removed longbows, arquebus and grenadiers, other than for the fact that they don't fit into you linear progression of units.

My general opinion is that your proposed roster is needlessly simplified, to the point of being more akin to what you'd expect in vanilla, rather than in a mod which reflects a rich and evolving period of history.

Thirdly archery units sucks, but that more expression of civ 4 mechanics, defending cities is lost cause due to collateral damage.

This is the part I do agree with, to an extent. Archery units are still very strong, particularly with cavalry having a city damage penalty and the ability to flank attacking artillery. But personally I think archery, and possibly some gunpowder, units should have access to a high level promotion (possibly needing Combat II or CD II) which caps collateral damage at, say, 10%.

That way they still take some collateral damage, but can't be collateral damaged down to next to useless by the relentless use of siege weapons.

 

[El Bogus]

But personally I think archery, and possibly some gunpowder, units should have access to a high level promotion (possibly needing Combat II or CD II) which caps collateral damage at, say, 10%.

Ahem, Drill.

 

[Swarbs]

Ahem, Drill.

Drill reduces the rate at which collateral damage accumulates, but doesn't cap it. Even with 60% less collateral damage, units can still be damaged down to 30-50% health, making them easy for other units to kill. Drill is also more than countered by Barrage.

But yes, I could see an argument for making the new promotion (let's call it "Hardened") available with Drill II and City Garrison II, rather than Combat II. Also maybe only cap the damage at 20%, so siege weapons still have some impact.

 

[Ogi123]

Overall I think your proposal isn't great - making every unit line consist of carbon copies of the unit before but with slightly higher strength doesn't do much for gameplay variety or historical representations imo. I'm also not sure why you've reduced and in some cases removed the bonuses. Or removed longbows, arquebus and grenadiers, other than for the fact that they don't fit into you linear progression of units.

My general opinion is that your proposed roster is needlessly simplified, to the point of being more akin to what you'd expect in vanilla, rather than in a mod which reflects a rich and evolving period of history.

That's simply not true, extent of my changes was finding new role for archery units, adding one heavy and one light cavalry, adding one polearm unit and removing some units witch I believed are superfluous. If you want talking about carbon copies that's situation already present in mod. My changes are mainly about gameplay , because when was last time you build guisarmer or arquebus? Knights without counter are unfunny situation.
Historically speaking such progress is realistic, there was constant improvement in arms, armour and tactics, but heavy shock cavalry for example has same role in 500AD as in 1800AD.
Bonuses are to be fine tuned, bit my main worry was to avoid low strength high bonus units, because due to stack mechanics such units are purely defensive/anti-barbarian.
As for vanilla, you now that only reason for grenadier vs line infantry attack bonus is that in civ4 have same unit with same bonus only vs rifleman?

 

[AbsintheRed]

Currently unit rooster has lot of problems. Some units are to close to each other in tech tree or in abilities other are barely used, some are used almost exclusively etc.
So some thoughts about units, first of all heavy cav is to strong, from both gameplay and historical reasons it should not be answer to everything. Historically heavy cavalrymen were limited in quantity, but barring including military limits where all unit types cost various amount of points, this isn't possible to be adequately represented in mod.
Secondly melee line is to close to each other in terms of capabilities, longsword and mace-man for example.
Thirdly archery units sucks, but that more expression of civ 4 mechanics, defending cities is lost cause due to collateral damage.

Generally I agree with the thought behind all these.
Though the exact suggestions are not that close to the way I image the unit roster.
Won't talk about strength and bonuses in detail (not yet), but generally I also want to see bigger variance.
For example the best way to handle the differences in usefulness between heavy and light cavalry during the timeline is to vary their bonuses/penalties against the other contemporary unit classes. Strength alone is not enough for that for a proper representation IMO.

So far I only talked about the cavalry in detail:
Your cavalry lines are more or less the same as the ones I proposed, so obviously I like it
I also like the thing that you want to give somewhat bigger city attack penalties to light cav than to heavy.
Same for giving a little bigger retreat chance for the later heavy cavalry units, that's also a nice nod to them not being as heavy anymore.

On the other hand, I think it would be much better to have Horse Archers available at game start.
Also there is no need to have Heavy/Improved Horse Archers around the 3rd tier of light cavalry units. Not for any major civs. Special barbs/mercenaries like Keshiks and Turkopoles are not a problem, they can be simply stronger but still replacing HHorse Archers.
So Horse Archer <- > Skirmisher and HHorse Archer <-> Mounted Sergeant, while the 3rd tier Light Cavalry unit (whatever name we find for them) will be also available for Hungary, Bulgaria, etc. from around the 11th century. I think all of our playable nations switched to the more settled-type light cavalry by that time.

No privateer, instead ship can take privateer promotion, witch gives hidden nationality.

I was thinking about this, but AFAIK it caused strange behaviour in the other mods that tried to do it this way.

Bronze casting should disappear from tech tree, what civ uses bronze in middle age Europe?

That just an unforunate name. Represents metal working, and actually all civs start with it.

No arquebus, longbow or grenadier they are not necessary in unit line up.

I'm also not sure about grenadier.
The rest are needed for a nice representation in the unit progress IMO.
More detail in the following post.

 

[AbsintheRed]

EDIT: other variant is to lower polearm str by one but increase heavy cav bonus to 75%. This however requies further changes in other unit types.

Polearm:+75% vs HC, +25% vs LC)
Spear(S4)->Heavy spear(S6)->Guisarme(S8)->Pike(S10)

Heavy Infantry:+10% city attack)
Axe(S5)->Sword(S7)->Heavy sword(S9)

Archers: (collateral damage)
Archer(S3)->Crossbow(S5)->Arbalest(S7)

I also have some doubts about line infantry, increase bonus vs heavy cavalry to 50%? Change strength to 18 but remove bonus altogether?

I have also thought about Final Frontier model of doubling price for every next tech level unit with corresponding +50% str increase. For example: Spear(s4/30h)->heavy spear(s6/60h)-> guisarme(s9/120h)->Pike(s14/240h), but this is only viable if you have max 3-4 units in line, or starting units are really weak and cheap.

You can add a new post instead of editing an older one.
This was just be chance that I noticed this edit.
Don't really want to comment on it actually, exact values will come after the unit list is more final.
Maybe one thing: Adding an extra unit to the polearm line is something I probably also want, especially if the early timeline is extended.

 

[AbsintheRed]

So this is the "next" post mentioned above.
My initial ideas about defensive archery and gunpowder units:

• Archer: available from start, very basic city defence unit.
• Some kind of improved Archer (Bowman, Shortbow, whatever we call it): first available from around 800. We need another unit between the initial Archer and Crossbows. Maybe the Byzantines start with it, so early barbs won't be such an annoyance (harmful to the countryside, but less dangerous to your cities), and the Arab player will want to go for African targets instead of Anatolian.
• Crossbow: available from around 1050. Available way too early right now. Mainly for city defence, clear upgrade of the previous unit.
• Arbalest: available from around 1200. Improved crossbow.
• Longbowman: have some attacking capabilities, also more useful in the open field. Mostly active between 1250-1450. Much earlier for England, as it's UU (Yeoman Archer, or simply English Longbow as it is right now).
• Arquebus: available from 1450, with the new Matchlock tech. The first gunpowder unit. Only slightly better than Arbalest and Longbow overally, with the latter still having better stats against some unit classes and/or for some specific roles. Janissary and Tercio moved to replace the Arquebus. I'm also thinking about adding the Black Army, which will be a special mercenary unit available for Hungary.
• Musketman: available from around 1600, with Flintlock. Clearly superior than the all the previous 3. Black Guard, Musketeer, and Karolin stays at Musketman.
• Line Infantry: 18th century

So I want to separate the crossbow line and the longow a little more in functionality, and have both type powerful in the 13-15th centuries.
Also the arquebus comes way too early right now. Around 1300. Having it in the proposed way will still leave more than enough room to play around with longbows and arbalests, but also fits more into the upgrade line.
Also the better timing for Matchlock and Flintlock allows us to have all UUs available in a historically more correct time.

 

[The Turk]

Shouldn't Longbowmen and Arquebus exist side by side? It's not like the Arquebus was accurate at all, or an improvement from bows. Arquebus' just required less training (less skill required than using a bow), but as a weapon they were less useful. I would separate bow and gunpowder units, but have bow units die out eventually.

Same goes with Crossbows and longbows, they should exist side by side.

 

[Ogi123]

Shouldn't Longbowmen and Arquebus exist side by side? It's not like the Arquebus was accurate at all, or an improvement from bows. Arquebus' just required less training (less skill required than using a bow), but as a weapon they were less useful. I would separate bow and gunpowder units, but have bow units die out eventually.

Same goes with Crossbows and longbows, they should exist side by side.

No, just no that's not how gunpowder firearms worked. All combat in time frame of mod from historical perspective was based on breaking enemy unit morale and causing them to flee. Initially that was done by softening enemy via missile fire and then trying to decide via shock. Before gunpowder shock could be only adequately delivered by melee action. Gunpowder personal arms were revolution, you could for first time break enemy via firepower.
Also all this myths about cheap, unreliable arqebuses are just that myths. Excluding very first handcannons, gunpowder weaponry was far much lethal and accurate than longbows and crossbows/arbalests. Not mentioning that man at arms in full plate harness was basically immune to arrows/bolts.

So this is the "next" post mentioned above.
My initial ideas about defensive archery and gunpowder units:

• Archer: available from start, very basic city defence unit.
• Some kind of improved Archer (Bowman, Shortbow, whatever we call it): first available from around 800. We need another unit between the initial Archer and Crossbows. Maybe the Byzantines start with it, so early barbs won't be such an annoyance (harmful to the countryside, but less dangerous to your cities), and the Arab player will want to go for African targets instead of Anatolian.
• Crossbow: available from around 1050. Available way too early right now. Mainly for city defence, clear upgrade of the previous unit.
• Arbalest: available from around 1200. Improved crossbow.
• Longbowman: have some attacking capabilities, also more useful in the open field. Mostly active between 1250-1450. Much earlier for England, as it's UU (Yeoman Archer, or simply English Longbow as it is right now).
• Arquebus: available from 1450, with the new Matchlock tech. The first gunpowder unit. Only slightly better than Arbalest and Longbow overally, with the latter still having better stats against some unit classes and/or for some specific roles. Janissary and Tercio moved to replace the Arquebus. I'm also thinking about adding the Black Army, which will be a special mercenary unit available for Hungary.
• Musketman: available from around 1600, with Flintlock. Clearly superior than the all the previous 3. Black Guard, Musketeer, and Karolin stays at Musketman.
• Line Infantry: 18th century

So I want to separate the crossbow line and the longow a little more in functionality, and have both type powerful in the 13-15th centuries.
Also the arquebus comes way too early right now. Around 1300. Having it in the proposed way will still leave more than enough room to play around with longbows and arbalests, but also fits more into the upgrade line.
Also the better timing for Matchlock and Flintlock allows us to have all UUs available in a historically more correct time.

That's five archery units for first half of tech tree, won't they obsolete too quickly? For comparison you have same number of heavy cavalry in whole tech tree. I'm not a fan of longbow this was exclusively English weapon made possible by they culture, they weren't used in continental Europe.
About gunpowder, will arquebus be useable in such roster? If it's strength is to low nobody will build it, that's main problem of all counter units, with low str they are pure stack defence.
Flintlock mechanism is late 17th century as far as mass equipment is concerned, besides firing mechanism itself is irrelevant, tactical function is more important. For me line infantry is collusion of flintlock firing mechanism and socked bayonet witch give way to new tactics.
For me Musketman should be used with pikeman to simulate pike and shoot and later give way to line infantry. I guess you could put arquebus before that, but it should be replacement for archery units, they were much better after all.
Oh and initial firearms were much more powerful and accurate than archery counterparts, but they were also much more expensive. So arqebus should be powerful, expensive option. If you don't have sulphur or want cheap obsolete troops you build arbalest/longbow.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Shouldn't Longbowmen and Arquebus exist side by side?

Same goes with Crossbows and longbows, they should exist side by side.

That's how it is in my suggestion.