Infantry Upgrade to?

[SayHayKid]

I keep changing my mind about the best approach for upgrading Infantry. Currently, I have Infantry (8/8/1) upgrade to Modern Infantry (10/10/1). I also have two other lines:

• Motorized Infantry (10/10/2) upgrade to Mechanized Infantry (12/16/3)
• AT-Infantry (12/10/1; 10/0/1; stealth attack vs tanks) upgrade to TOW Infantry (14/12/1; 12/0/1; stealth attack vs tanks/modern armor).

However, without using auto-production (which I try to limit to specialty units) there isn't an opportunity to build all three lines in significant numbers. I had two ideas.

One is to simplify it down to two lines from three. Infantry would upgrade to Motorized Infantry which would then upgrade to Mech Infantry. The initial run graphic would be the truck/mech and the subsequent animations would be of modern infantry. And then keep the AT-Infantry/TOW Infantry as the resource-less alternative. The other idea would be to have Cavalry (which currently doesn't upgrade) upgrade to Motorized Infantry and then to Mechanized Infantry and keep the Infantry and AT-Infantry the same as above.

Also, I keep debating whether AT-Infantry and TOW Infantry should have higher offense or higher defense. In my mind, with stealth attack vs tanks, they should have higher offense to attack and destroy tanks. However, almost everybody has them with a higher defense to defend against tanks. Thoughts?

 

[Android Assembly]

TOW's "niche" should be defensive bombard, IMO. In vanilla they have an absolutely pathetic 6 bombard power, at a point where people are using modern armour with 16 defence.

The advantage of defensive bombard on units is that you are getting a round of combat where the attacker's defence comes into play, which is almost always going to be weaker then their attack.

 

[Predator145]

I keep changing my mind about the best approach for upgrading Infantry. Currently, I have Infantry (8/8/1) upgrade to Modern Infantry (10/10/1). I also have two other lines:

• Motorized Infantry (10/10/2) upgrade to Mechanized Infantry (12/16/3)
• AT-Infantry (12/10/1; 10/0/1; stealth attack vs tanks) upgrade to TOW Infantry (14/12/1; 12/0/1; stealth attack vs tanks/modern armor).

However, without using auto-production (which I try to limit to specialty units) there isn't an opportunity to build all three lines in significant numbers. I had two ideas.

One is to simplify it down to two lines from three. Infantry would upgrade to Motorized Infantry which would then upgrade to Mech Infantry. The initial run graphic would be the truck/mech and the subsequent animations would be of modern infantry. And then keep the AT-Infantry/TOW Infantry as the resource-less alternative. The other idea would be to have Cavalry (which currently doesn't upgrade) upgrade to Motorized Infantry and then to Mechanized Infantry and keep the Infantry and AT-Infantry the same as above.

Also, I keep debating whether AT-Infantry and TOW Infantry should have higher offense or higher defense. In my mind, with stealth attack vs tanks, they should have higher offense to attack and destroy tanks. However, almost everybody has them with a higher defense to defend against tanks. Thoughts?

If you care about realism then dismounted AT weapons would be very defensive, just like dismounted heavy machine guns. Being dismounted however means they can take cover and be camouflaged much better. Dismounted AT Guns and ATGMs are cumbersome, you can't execute fancy fire and maneuver with them.

Unfortunately in Civ3, there are no combat bonuses. And stealth attack is kinda useless on defensive units.

Personally, I just have AT weapons be bombard units high bombard value but only 1 ROF.