Infantry/artillery now require oil?

[funkymunky]

I don't recall this being the case before the April patch, but it now looks like infantry and artillery now consume oil. Why?

I find this personally annoying, as the upgrade path from musketmen to infantry is already pretty wide (and for bombards -> artillery), but also it makes no sense to me. If anything, these units should consume iron (to cast their gun barrels), which is already basically obsolete by the renaissance era. Or perhaps iron and niter. But oil? Where is the logic in that?

 

[Xur]

Board game logic... Ed wanted to make a board game, but was forced to make a civ game... and this is the result.

 

[Weraptor]

According to Ed, they need to oil their rifles and cannons... so here you go...

 

[Aristos]

According to Ed, they need to oil their rifles and cannons... so here you go...

Seriously?

 

[FenrisWolf456]

It's been that way since GS came out. I remember learning that infantry required oil, and that it made me not upgrade my units when I got the tech because I would end up flooding the world. It was likely to represent the mass use of vehicles to move troops and equipment around (despite the large use of horses still). Personally I would have gone with something like Nitre for infantry (the world wars certainly increased the need for bullets and explosives, which nitre basically represents as a resource for), which would have extended the need for Nitre for more than just a relatively small window to upgrade through muskets and cavalry.

I really need to sit down and learn how to adjust upgrade and fuel costs so I can tweak things to my own liking.

 

[King of Prussia]

It has been that way since GS release. I wouldn't be against those units requiring it, if oil was more common. instead it is usually all in one part of a continent. I have seen resources only being in one players territory, while the neighboring 2,3 or even 4 civs don't get any. setting aside the grouping issues, 3 or 4 per turn of oil isn't enough to make a decent military. even 6-8 is meh. and this isn't getting into wanting to power your factories. if it was a one time buy, rather than both upkeep and one time buy,

 

[Aristos]

It has been that way since GS release. I wouldn't be against those units requiring it, if oil was more common. instead it is usually all in one part of a continent. I have seen resources only being in one players territory, while the neighboring 2,3 or even 4 civs don't get any. setting aside the grouping issues, 3 or 4 per turn of oil isn't enough to make a decent military. even 6-8 is meh. and this isn't getting into wanting to power your factories. if it was a one time buy, rather than both upkeep and one time buy,

I would. Infantry has no justifiable oil requirement as represented in civ, for that we have Mech Infantry. Same for Artillery, for that we have mobile arty. Now, if they want to use oil for inf or art, create a support unit called "Truck" or something that uses 1 unit of Oil and adds mobility (no strength) to said units.

As it is now, it's pure nonsense. Even more so that the combos (corps, armies) use the same amount per turn as one sole unit ...

 

[Socrates99]

Yeah not a fan of this req. Oil is in way too high demand in in later eras. At minimum infantry shouldn't have this req. It makes it too hard to build a navy.

 

[King of Prussia]

I would. Infantry has no justifiable oil requirement as represented in civ, for that we have Mech Infantry. Same for Artillery, for that we have mobile arty. Now, if they want to use oil for inf or art, create a support unit called "Truck" or something that uses 1 unit of Oil and adds mobility (no strength) to said units.

As it is now, it's pure nonsense. Even more so that the combos (corps, armies) use the same amount per turn as one sole unit ...

i can understand the corps/army costing the same, to encourage making said units, while not making things worse between resource requirement and economy. i believe unit upkeep follows similar rules. I believe the down payment is the same though for resources. you could make it harder to make said units, but it may make it too hard in the late game to find anyone worth fighting, if only you could field armies. or on the flip side, if only they could because you dont have the resources. while that issue is there currently, it could be made worse.


as for the first part. meh. oil can be needed from the weapons, to supplying said troops. even at creation, the moving of people to be trained. supplies for training etc,. resource requirements(and maintenance) in this game are heavily abstracted. it isn't hard to come up with some reason why things are the way they are. i don't consider this any worse than the other oddities.

i dont have much of an issue with Mech costing oil per turn, because at that point you have more options for power plus its a mech unit.

edit, and to be clear, i wouldn't be against them removing the requirement for oil period for infantry. too many other units need it. but i can also live with just a down payment. they could probably do that for a few other units and leave the upkeep to only a few very powerful units.

 

[funkymunky]

Has it been that way since GS? Honestly, I've only played all the way through 2 games since the GS update, so I could've missed it the last time.

Another fact that makes this even more odd is that RPG units do not require oil (and neither do RPG's mech upgrade). So what makes RPGs oil-free but regular infantry oil-dependent?

 

[Aristos]

Has it been that way since GS? Honestly, I've only played all the way through 2 games since the GS update, so I could've missed it the last time.

Another fact that makes this even more odd is that RPG units do not require oil (and neither do RPG's mech upgrade). So what makes RPGs oil-free but regular infantry oil-dependent?

My intuition? Their way of "boosting" the AI as it loves to spam the antitank line since ancient era times... instead of making the AI better, they make its preferred weapon easier to spam.

 

[Tabarnak]

I like to invade Canada only because of that.

 

[Takfloyd]

It is a terrible design and I expect it to be changed before too long. The resource requirements are just completely nonsensical in general. Hence, this mod: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/logical-resource-requirements.642600/

 

[Bechhold]

I like to invade Canada only because of that.

If you are playing Earth TSL then and you start as the US you should have every single Resource no problem

 

[Sostratus]

The biggest issue with infantry oil is that it obsoletes the entire line.

Who in their right mind would ever use precious oil on an Infantry unit:
70str 2 move
When for barely 11% more production, you could have
TANKS.
80str, 4 move.

Because mounted units have no city combat penalties, and still get terrain defense bonuses (unlike past iterations of civ) you are literally throwing oil away on infantry. Tanks are straight up twice as fast and hit 50% harder.
Put it another way: a tank unit is an infantry corps with +2 movement.

Now, the mechanized infantry vs modern armor isn't as lopsided. The Armor only has a 5str, 1 move advantage and it does cost 680 prod instead of like 650. (A 5% increase.) But then again, it is straight up a better unit.
Also: tanks & ModArmor hit an antitank/modern AT unit at parity since they are 10 points stronger in both cases. That's right kids, the Antitank units don't actually beat tanks in combat, only on cost. A modern armor unit is a whopping 17% more expensive than an antitank unit.

To put this in perspective with early game warfare: Swordsmen and legions both cost identical iron. Legions have +4 str and cost 22% more for this privilege. Legions are actually overpriced based on tank/infantry.
Okay, a concrete example since I know people will mention tank and infantry are different unit classes.
A sword costs 90 and takes 20 strategic resources. A hetairoi costs 100 and takes 20 strategic resources. This is exactly 11% more, just like the tank is.
Therefore, it would be internally consistent if Macedonian Hetairoi (a heavy cav unit) was buffed from 36 to 46 strength, and 4move, and this would be considered balanced against a swordsmen (36str, 2 move.)
This is obviously not balanced.

The solution is to actually just increase the strength of infantry, antitank, and modern AT units by 5 so they are 75 & 85. But they've never addressed modern combat & I have to assume they are aware after 2.5 years. If you plot out the units' strength it's very noticeable that these 3 units deviate from the trend line and the +10str/era rule.

 

[acluewithout]

The biggest issue with infantry oil is that it obsoletes the entire line.

Who in their right mind would ever use precious oil on an Infantry unit:
70str 2 move
When for barely 11% more production, you could have
TANKS.
80str, 4 move.

Because mounted units have no city combat penalties, and still get terrain defense bonuses (unlike past iterations of civ) you are literally throwing oil away on infantry. Tanks are straight up twice as fast and hit 50% harder.
Put it another way: a tank unit is an infantry corps with +2 movement.

Now, the mechanized infantry vs modern armor isn't as lopsided. The Armor only has a 5str, 1 move advantage and it does cost 680 prod instead of like 650. (A 5% increase.) But then again, it is straight up a better unit.
Also: tanks & ModArmor hit an antitank/modern AT unit at parity since they are 10 points stronger in both cases. That's right kids, the Antitank units don't actually beat tanks in combat, only on cost. A modern armor unit is a whopping 17% more expensive than an antitank unit.

To put this in perspective with early game warfare: Swordsmen and legions both cost identical iron. Legions have +4 str and cost 22% more for this privilege. Legions are actually overpriced based on tank/infantry.
Okay, a concrete example since I know people will mention tank and infantry are different unit classes.
A sword costs 90 and takes 20 strategic resources. A hetairoi costs 100 and takes 20 strategic resources. This is exactly 11% more, just like the tank is.
Therefore, it would be internally consistent if Macedonian Hetairoi (a heavy cav unit) was buffed from 36 to 46 strength, and 4move, and this would be considered balanced against a swordsmen (36str, 2 move.)
This is obviously not balanced.

The solution is to actually just increase the strength of infantry, antitank, and modern AT units by 5 so they are 75 & 85. But they've never addressed modern combat & I have to assume they are aware after 2.5 years. If you plot out the units' strength it's very noticeable that these 3 units deviate from the trend line and the +10str/era rule.

@Sostratus Good post. I really hope FXS read your posts.

I do really like the idea of infantry requiring oil, but it is not well implemented at all. Niter and Oil in particular are not well balanced across the various unit lines, which just makes the existing cost / power issues even worse.

On anti-cav, I really don’t think they should upgrade into anti-tank units. It’s just silly. The AT crew and modern AT crew should just be a new unit class, focused on tanks, helicopters and aircraft that have a low defence but a ranged attack. Pike & Shot should upgrade to something else, although I don’t know what really, and maybe lose the -10 v melee when they do upgrade.

 

[Zenstrive]

You don't need to use artillery if bombers are much more efficient in mowing down defenses. Get three bombers and one cavalry and mow down your peskiest neighbours.

 

[TrailblazingScot]

I don't recall this being the case before the April patch, but it now looks like infantry and artillery now consume oil. Why?

I find this personally annoying, as the upgrade path from musketmen to infantry is already pretty wide (and for bombards -> artillery), but also it makes no sense to me. If anything, these units should consume iron (to cast their gun barrels), which is already basically obsolete by the renaissance era. Or perhaps iron and niter. But oil? Where is the logic in that?

A very poor decision. Too little oil is available on typical maps to build much of anything and it makes having any sort of military very dependent on luck and conquest. If that is a nuisance for a human player, it is a nightmare for the AI.

So, stuck with building AT crews who do not require oil for some reason...

 

[Tech Osen]

On anti-cav, I really don’t think they should upgrade into anti-tank units. It’s just silly. The AT crew and modern AT crew should just be a new unit class, focused on tanks, helicopters and aircraft that have a low defence but a ranged attack. Pike & Shot should upgrade to something else, although I don’t know what really, and maybe lose the -10 v melee when they do upgrade.

The civ 5 set up where the top of the anti-cav were helicopters made a lot more sense. But civ 6 has the distinction between light and heavy cavalry and the light line had to go somewhere I guess. And with helicopters now taking aluminium as upkeep they compete with the much more useful bombers and fighters so I rarely bother with light cavalry any more.
Resource upkeep as an idea has it merits but currently it just makes some lines useless.

 

[Zenstrive]

I have been seeing more oils available albeit in water tiles lately
Maybe that's just me playing Island Plates always (the most fun map type)