Is America useless?

[apocalypse105]

1 Manifest Destiny

There unique ability is just awesome you can see farther in combat as result you can spot enemy unitst from far away. Dont know why you are complaining its a average unique ability


2 Minuteman

This Unique unit is usefull it start with a promotion 20% on rough terain so with a baracks and armory you can give him good promotions from the start.. However I do agree its is obsolete quickly wich i thinx they need to rebalance They can simple rebalance this by:
Let rifling requre chemistry... (or minute man must become rilfeman)
In marathon games, or games where everyone hates you and you are at war with a lot of people this unit is olso usefull



3 B17
Well the samurai is the same unit as a longswordsman but start with a promotion... So you can argue thats a bad unit. but its a godo unit. Same with the B 17 you can get acces to promotions you normally wont have if you build baracks and armory

 

[apocalypse105]

[ Minutemen would obviously be more useful if Pikemen to Musketmen

This is the case in the vanilla enchanched mod its really balanced out firaxis should patch this in original civ 5

 

[elprofesor]

Well, Minutemen wouldn't be notably more useful if Pikemen upgraded to Musketmen, since half its bonus is a free promotion (for earlier March/Blitz), so either you are going Shock with your pikemen, in which case it's just some free 20% combat in rough terrain, or you are going Drill, in which case you won't get the bonus at all, since you already have it, or don't have promotions at all, in which case you are better off building Minutemen in your Barracks/Armory city.

And Pikemen upgrading into Musketmen would make Jannissaries way too good; I do think that the only way to make Musketmen more useful is to make Rifling come later; oh, and make Musketmen cheaper (they are currently more expensive than Longswords...).

 

[apocalypse105]

Well, Minutemen wouldn't be notably more useful if Pikemen upgraded to Musketmen, since half its bonus is a free promotion (for earlier March/Blitz), so either you are going Shock with your pikemen, in which case it's just some free 20% combat in rough terrain, or you are going Drill, in which case you won't get the bonus at all, since you already have it, or don't have promotions at all, in which case you are better off building Minutemen in your Barracks/Armory city.

And Pikemen upgrading into Musketmen would make Jannissaries way too good; I do think that the only way to make Musketmen more useful is to make Rifling come later; oh, and make Musketmen cheaper (they are currently more expensive than Longswords...).

Let rifling require chemistry that should do the trick if not another technology

 

[Knut_Are_M]

in order to boost the muskets, you could lower cost to 100 hammers on quick, allow pikes to upgrade to muskets, and add one or more prerequisite techs for rifling.
you could add banking, printing press and chemistry.
now that should slow it down quite a bit.(it would also boost lancers usefulness)
Ps i also think dynamite needs a real slowdown, perhaps dynamite should also require scientific theory. it is usually a game changer.

as for america, yes it's UA is weak, and the bonus units come late.
give it sentry,medic promotion and a 75% discount on tiles, and it will be ok.
still not great but ok.

 

[apocalypse105]

in order to boost the muskets, you could lower cost to 100 hammers on quick, allow pikes to upgrade to muskets, and add one or more prerequisite techs for rifling.
you could add banking, printing press and chemistry.
now that should slow it down quite a bit.(it would also boost lancers usefulness)
Ps i also think dynamite needs a real slowdown, perhaps dynamite should also require scientific theory. it is usually a game changer.

as for america, yes it's UA is weak, and the bonus units come late.
give it sentry,medic promotion and a 75% discount on tiles, and it will be ok.
still not great but ok.

The unique ability is actuall pretty good you can see farther in war and purchasing important resources cheap.


ANd rifling should indead require more technologies certainly chemistry.
And lowering the cost of musketman should be better and historicly correct it was easy to train those soldiers and the material was cheap early arquibuisiers(guns) fire slow

 

[Knut_Are_M]

compared to 85% of UAs in the game then yes.
compared to France,China,Korea,Babylon,Persia or the UB of egypt and it is a big no no.
perhaps it is better to nerf those UAs/UBs then to boost everyone else.

+you cannot really afford to buy tiles, when you have to get gold for swordsmen or you loose!
also France gets those tiles for free.

Ps: you are sort of forced to work hammer tiles, and high food yield tiles. And the rush starts at turn 35, you cannot afford to wait 25 turns for it to pay off.

 

[RD-BH]

You can't afford not to buy tiles.
Buying just one +3 gold tile:
... cost ~50g (assumes 2 tiles)
... adds +2g/t (improved to +3g/t)
... saves 20t+ natural growth
... pays for itself ~25t

Pure profit.

 

[Mesix]

Not to mention being able to settle on the river and/or coast and spend <100 gold to get that resource three tiles away from the city immediately (no waiting for culture to pop the third ring). There is a lot to be said for optimal city placement and the ability to cheaply grab resources. I am still working my way through the various civilizations, but America is fast becoming one of my favorites.

America does need to be played a bit different. Most civs benefit from early was by getting promotions for units which will be upgraded later while crippling the nearby AI player(s) and grabbing a sizable chunck of land. America is better played in a building style early, rexing a few cities with setlers, building up technology, and then beelining Gunpowder.

If you think about the tech tree as upper and lower halves, a player will typically prioritize one over the other. For a culture or technology builder, the upper half will be prioritized. For a warmonger, the lower half will be. To effectively play America, you should prioritize the top half early (up to Education) skipping Iron Working and all of the military techs which come after it. Once you have Universities up and scientists boosting your tech, switch to the lower half until you get Gunpowder. Once you go, spam Minutemen and return to the culture/science techs at the top of the tree. If your Minutemen do not win the game for you, then eventually return to pick up Rifling later when you have a huge force of Minutemen to upgrade. In my America game, I already had Replaceable Parts before returning to the bottom half for Rifling.

To sum it up...America is good if you avoid ancient era wars, take advantage of your midgame opponents with your UU when they are still sporting Longswords and Crossbows, and then dominate in the late game if it gets that far.