Iron comes late. Too late.

[megamanx06]

Quality is for heroes, mages, and late units.

not at all, especially in FfH where each level of combat is an extra 20% strength, meaning that after a few battles and the right promotions your str3 warriors are more powerful than bronze axemen.

 

[Emptiness]

My complaint with warriors is similar but a bit different than Higher Games complaint with Iron, so I started a fresh thread with some simple comparisons to cut down the animosity and get my main point through without as much clutter.

I just saw this as I was previewing my post. Perhaps you didn't intend your part of this discussion to be about Iron Working. I'll try to read your new thread with an open mind.

------------- Body of original post follows: -------------

We already have your test to prove that warriors > champs on the offense.

You keep repeating that claim. My test did not prove that.

It is true that 24 Warriors have a chance to take a city from 5 Champions, but 5 Champions have no realistic chance to take a city from 5 Champions. This does not prove that the Warriors are superior on the offense. Any unit that does not cause collateral damage or have a higher attack strength than defense strength will have little chance to take a city from an equal number of fully fortified identical units. As the number of units on each side increases, the chance of the city falling rapidly diminshes. Champions, Arquebuses, Horse Archers (I know they don't fortify, it actually doesn't matter), whatever and in any quantity you like...x defenders will have more chance to lose the city to the same amount of s worth of Warriors than they will to lose the city to x of those units attacking. This has absolutely nothing to do with how good Warriors are - you could use Scouts or Adepts or any unit with a lower s cost, because the reason for this phenomenon is the fact that the lower cost unit means more attackers than defenders. In order for x units to take a city from x units they must win every single combat. A greater number of cheaper units can lose combats and still take the city.

Neither taking Bronze weapons away from Warriors nor increasing the cost of Warriors will change this fundamental reality of basic mathematics. 24 strength 3 Warriors will still have a better chance to capture a city from 5 Iron Champions than 5 Iron Champions do. 10 strength 3 Warriors will still have a better chance to capture a city from 5 Iron Champions than 5 Iron Champions do.

I just fought the Sheim and showed that warriors+mages could beat pyre zombies+more mages+heroes, not that that proves anything either.

Now if you take the time to look at the context of a discussion (which you probably didn't as you didn't last time) Senthro said "Show us that Warriors and Mages, or whatever support you want, are the best solution to war. " I happened to have such a game handy, thats whats posted.

You keep saying or implying that I'm not aware of the discussion. I've been in this thread since the start, and I've read all the posts.

There's nothing wrong with the game you posted, and as you say it was completely relevant to Senethro's request for you to demonstrate Warriors + Mages. Good job with the game itself, by the way; I think I would have lost that game.

My response was intended to address the relevance of Warriors + Mages to the overall discussion of Iron Working. Your side discussion (or however you want to characterize it) about Warriors + Mages was posted in a thread about the cost/benefit ratio of Iron Working, and is being offered up (or at least it seems so to me) in support of the position that Warriors are too cost effective. It seems reasonable to me that I could comment on your game as it pertains to the main discussion, which is what I did.

It was suggested earlier that metal lines and melle lines should be split, not whatever you where thinking.

You seem confused about what I said. You just said the suggestion was that the metal and melee lines should be split, I said the suggestion was that Iron Working should be split into two techs. I would hope that you realize that these, despite differences in wording, are the same thing. Unless you imagine that there is a way to split access to Iron (the metal line) away from Champions (the melee line) without splitting Iron Working into two techs (or distributing its features to two techs, which would be effectively the same thing).

If you insist on looking at my words and then trying to use them to insult me, please at least try to understand them first for the sake of the quality of your insults.

IW is the most expensive T3 tech and it doesn't give you a more cost-effective unit in return. Upgrading a limited selection of units shows only that those units have a niche role, its not new units obsoleting old ones.

This I think strikes directly at the heart of the issue. You're not satisfied that people upgrade their Warriors to Champions; you want a situation where Champions are so good (or Warriors so bad by comparison) that people no longer build Warriors when Champions are available. You either didn't read or don't believe my statement about unit costs (cost, whether paid in s, or in s + , is still cost), and that has a huge bearing on how cost-effectiveness is measured or perceived. The only way to stop people from building low-s-cost Warriors and upgrading them to higher-s-cost units is to make Warriors actually go obsolete at some point. That would 'solve' the 'problem', but it would represent a fundamental change in how the mod works. It is probably too extreme a change for the main mod; perhaps someone will work it up as a modmod for those who see the situation with Warriors as a problem.

For Champs to total warriors they need to be closer to triple warriors power, so taking away bronze clubs would be the simplest way. Warriors already had their access to Iron and Mithril taken away, I suppose you don't think those where balance issues either?

Warriors having access to Iron and Mithril must have been removed before I started playing FfH2. I can see why it was removed. As for removing Bronze Weapons from Warriors, that is the best of the suggested solutions that have been made in this thread. I don't support it, because of the early gameplay implications it would have. I can agree that it would be very effective in shifting the focus away from Warriors sooner, but as I mentioned earlier it will only lessen the problem rather than actually solving it. Masses of cheap units will always have the advantage of numbers. That's just how the math works out.

 

[Tlalynet]

Alright, lets go at this discussion from a clean slate.


Remember how earlier I emphasized that in the said situation warriors can damage champions 7\10 times? Because of how HP and chance to hit works in the civ game engine there is a point where become increasingly unlikely to do any damage. First strikes contribute heavily to this but it happens even without them. Reducing warriors to 3 strength puts them beneath that threshold when attacking champions in the same situation. At str 3 they both have less chance to score a hit and do less damage when they do, 24 or even more str 3 warriors are extremely unlikely to beat 5 champs. 10 str 3 warriors would have less chance of taking said city than 5 champs.


Cruedly put in that situation (12.8, wasn't it? I'll round to 12) Champs do 33 damage and need four consecutive wins to get out scotch free. The warrior has a 25% chance per round to hit and will do 12 damage. That 12 damage most the time puts the champs in a downward spiral because its applied against STR and not just total HP. At 3 str warriors chance to hit is only 20% and they take 38 damage, which only gives them 3 rounds, and at less odds, and they only do 10 damage, so attrition is less. Its not quite the falloff point I was talking about but it does make a big difference. That rounding probably cut off the 4th hit for the warrior, but oh well.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=137615

Masses of cheap obsolete units shouldn't have the advantage with the BTS engine. The engine gives an advantage to quantity when you have just outdated units like maces vs rifles or spears vs knights, it doesn't give you the advantage if you build 4 warriors instead of 1 War Elephant. Its the same in FFH under most unit lines, scoutspam sure wont work and 3str warrior spam won't work either. Warriors have just a little too much STR (its the same as horsemen and hunters for petes sake, and they are field T2 units)

The suggestion WAS that the metal lines and melle lines should be split, Tasunke suggested it. Smelting and IW where never the same techs, so he didn't mean a split like you suggested.

Warriors DO go obsolete in the main mod, they are coded too anyway, its just that because of build prerequisite it doesn't kick in properly. They obsolete for the Dolievio as soon as you get a few key techs. If you could have no build prerequisites you would see that they go obsolete once you get most your Teir 2 units. For all intents and purposes its a bug that you can normally build them alongside paladins or phalanx. You actually brought up part of the problem I've so far forgotten to mention. If you build stables+training yard+archery range (+any unique thing I may have forgotten) warriors will be off the build list for that city.

I understand your commerce point, but I don't think its an intended decision, you can't choose to build hunters once you get rangers (though you CAN choose to build T3 units when limited T4 units are available)

Would the lack of bronze warriors really change the early game that much? I lacked bronze in my game and it didn't cost me much, even when I was going for the Kurios (and that was a kind of foolhearty run).

Sorry for being snarky, its getting to be a bit of a tedious thread. Thx for the compliment but you probably could have done well with that game, Yggdrasil start is huge.

I'll condense what I'm saying into to codified points in effort to stop this thread from wandering.

#1. Warriors are basically a teir 2 unit you start the game with, they don't usually obsolete because they are allowed so many upgrade paths and their 4str points lets them compete with other units for way way too long. I would like it if they went obsolete properly and they didn't get bronze clubs.

#2. Iron working is the most expensive tech line to unlock T3 units. I believe this is a relic of when the metal line was Uber and before it was nerfed and balanced, I don't see why it should be 1000 more expensive than even sorcery, though I could understand if the two lines where the same price.

Oh, and mithril warriors was back when I was researching summoning to build puppeteers

I got my savegame up by the way, I'm not exactly sure when I can continue it.

 

[Breunor]

I have to admit I HAVE wondered how the equation works, is spamming warriors better than building stronger units? Thanks everyone for the thread, there is a lot ot think about here. I tended to build the stronger units historically but I did often wonder about it!

I DO know that the Bannor in crusade can wipe out just aobut anything with enough demagogues, I guess it is a similar issue.

I'm not sure if it has been brought up before, but do people spamming warriors for suicide troops run into war weariness problems?

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[Tlalynet]

I had 1100 WW at the end of my last major war, I had nationhood so it was no big problem, but it was becoming a annoyance in my larger towns. At peak my unit maintainence was 60gpt per turn, after that war it was 6, then it dropped to 1 with waning.

Skelies create WW and where a big contributor to that 1100.

I'll upload my turn 350 but uploads only seem to work in the evening for me. I can upload my turn 1 save as well if anyone wants to try that game out.

I totally killed OS (wouldn't capitulate even with only 1 skellie with less than 1 str) I've been infrastructuring for about 30 turns now, pausing only to banish the infernals from my plane (I didn't want their manes to get out of control with all my death adepts). I'm 8 turns off of Str of Will, and that is a game ending tech. I have death, so +4 archmages, and I'm Sidar, so +3 archshades without losing the ability to wane. 11 Archmages. Ouch.

I split my stacks into one major and one tiny army and sent the AI into move from city to city trying to defend everything mode, the effectively repelled the tiny army with half their SoD while my major army crushed the other half of their SoD and took two cities. Catapults where too slow to keep up with my big army and shadowwalk actually saved my butt (I should give it more credit in the future) Shadowwalk+Blur is death to archer line units...

I plan to kill the Lanuen before I upgrade archmages, just because I haven't yet faced champions this game and that is their staple unit. I already have 48% of the pop and 41% of the land, so domination is not far off.

Got it up, Yay!

 

[Medicine_Man_55]

I'm sure this has been suggested in this thread or elsewhere, but what really should be done is the melee units and the metal weapon upgrades should be separated on the tech tree.

The warrior->axeman->champion upgrade path could follow a strategy line such as warfare->military strategy, or perhaps new techs to serve this purpose, while bronze working and iron working keep the weapon upgrades. Reducing the base (defense) strength of archers by 1 and allowing them to use bronze weapons could also work well with this change.

 

[Tlalynet]

Here is my start, note Yggdrasil, I didn't even have to move to see it, its a pretty good Sidar emperor start no matter what your strategy so I recommend it.

You can settle with Ygg, 3 dyes (under jungle), bananas (also under jungle), and 2 crab. There are enough hills for early hammers too Once you get calender\BW you have a solid economy to start with. And to beat all, the 'ocean' is tiny so you never get naval barbs or pirates pillaging.

Watch for the two lizard dens to the south, they spawned a lot in my game.