Is Melee really as bad as everyone says?

[Resipsa]

Do it.

Oh, and the best leader for such a challenge is definitely Elizabeth, purely because trolling people is good

I'm gonna say Asaka is the best, mounted units don't suffer from attacking cities penalty you can at least mitigate the damage from city attacks.

What settings Pangea/Immortal/Dom Victory?

 

[BroOfTheSun]

I'm gonna say Asaka is the best, mounted units don't suffer from attacking cities penalty you can at least mitigate the damage from city attacks.

What settings Pangea/Immortal/Dom Victory?

That works. Epic speed too. I like Continents plus better. You can only use melee ship units too.

So the basic conditions are:
- No archery units
- No siege units (no artillery)
- No ranged naval units (no subs, frigates, etc.)
- No bombers (fighters are ok, but you can only use them for interception and barrel rolls)
- No nukes or cruise missles
- City bombardment is ok, you're only using it for defense

Good Luck!

 

[steveg700]

evilcat, steveg700:

I think that the ability to concentrate fire is greatly exaggerated. In a defensive war, enhanced defender mobility through the road network can easily allow a bunch of horse units to attack the same unit without retaliatory attacks, which is more than can be said for ranged units.

Ranged units don't need any road networks to dogpile enemies. Your mounted units will wind up getting bogged by some bit of terrain or ZOC. Mass fire is a much bigger reality with ranged units than those walking flanks of pikemeat.

The true strength of ranged units is that they can shoot without being damaged, making them equivalent to melee March units with slightly weaker attacks. Anyone who's used March melee units will know how much of an upgrade that is.

Mass fire is the true strength, and not just in Civ but in any turn-based game where one side goes all at once without giving the opponent a turn. Happens in tabletop RPG's, war games, etc. Well-known issue.

Having said that, not taking any retaliatory damage is certainly nothing to sneeze at.

On the offense, I would say that siege is a better unit than Ranged, for the +200% City Attack bonus. I would not use crossbows for sieging then. Not strong enough. I'd upgrade what I already had, but I won't build more unless I'm critically low on ranged units. In this case, I would say that it's less optimal to build ranged than more siege and more melee to tank the siege units.

That is, if I had Trebs, I would build those instead of crossbows for siege situations.

The advantage of the ranged weapons is that they can step and shoot, getting damage right away. They also take less damage from the retaliatory attack. Siege engines have a nasty habit of going from full health to crippled or even dead in one retaliatory salvo. Really need to get the Cover promo for them ASAP.

Having said that, as long as you can mass fire on the city, it doesn't matter whether you have Xbows or trebs or a combination thereof. You only need one melee unit to step in through the rubble and plant a flag.

Of course, with ranged units you'll have the broader utility of being able to kill units effectively, and once devoid of any units an AI civ will start forking over the keys to its cities and save you the hassle of bombardment.

 

[Browd]

For the melee-only/no-ranged-unit challenge, take a look at this thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=489978&highlight=melee

 

[GrantBud]

Melee Units protect and assist your range, while range go on the offensive. Not unlike modern warfare for that matter.

 

[Buccaneer]

In the early game, I would choose a 5/1 ratio. Only when I can get Longswords would I do 4/2, assuming no Cats/Trebs in the mix. All terrain dependent of course. If I have a promoted Horse or a Knight, I would tend to make it 4/1/1 (realistically, 8/2/2) in attacking walled Medieval cities that are defended. But ideally, 4/0/1/3 (Trebs). Still, the point is taken about a 4/2 or 5/1 ratio Range/Melee.

 

[Roxlimn]

steveg700:

Actually, I find terrain to be a bigger hassle with ranged units because they can't fire past forests and jungles and hills, even when you have a road network. A force of Knights can take out a unit on or near your roads and then retreat to safe distance without being attacked, offering superior concentration (6-10 units) in terrain you can control directly (roads). The main problem with them is that they take damage for every attack and get weaker with every attack, so you can't use them turn after turn unless you're Japan.

The advantage of the ranged weapons is that they can step and shoot, getting damage right away. They also take less damage from the retaliatory attack. Siege engines have a nasty habit of going from full health to crippled or even dead in one retaliatory salvo. Really need to get the Cover promo for them ASAP.

I think it really depends on a lot of unmentioned factors here. With specific sorts of terrain, a ranged unit won't have advantage over a siege unit - the same terrain that advantages ranged over siege advantages mounted and melee over ranged.

Neither will be taking damage from retaliation attacks. You have melee to tank that.

It does, actually, kind of matter whether you have crossbows or trebs on attack. Against cities, crossbows have ranged strength 18. Trebs have ranged strength 42 - stronger even than a Gatling Gun. One Treb is stronger on the siege than 2 crossbow units. This can matter very much if your angle of attack on a city is limited by terrain or neighbor city bombardment.

Enemy AI units are actually not that hard to kill, especially on friendly terrain. The less ranged units you can eat away with on defense, the more siege you can bring on the counter-offense. It is better, IMO, to have a mix of siege and ranged rather than have an all-ranged support behind the melee.

 

[JustinianIV]

Well, lets put it this way; I go whole games and win without ever building non-mounted melee units. This is on immortal. I only use mounted units for taking cities.

I might have the occasional melee unite gifted to me from a city state, but even then they only serve to bolster my numbers and deter the enemy from attacking. They don't get their hands dirty.

 

[Rhaegar7]

Melee units are fine for multi. If you're doing a lot of tricky targeting with ranged units, then mixing in 2-3 knights will deal with that. They can hit and run your archers without taking damage from the pikes. It really depends on the terrain I guess. I, myself, don't see much of a problem.

 

[Catan_Settler]

This is a single player problem, not a game balance thing IMO. The AI is just so terrible that you can go with all archers, with a horse in the back to capture the city. If you try multiplayer like that you're in for a nasty surprise-- oh , yeah they know that one melee is your only guy to take the city. They will kill it first, every. Single time. The real problem here is that the AI needs work-- big time. Melee are very strong, you just need to play against people who know that. AKA: not the AI.

 

[Altisma]

This is a single player problem, not a game balance thing IMO. The AI is just so terrible that you can go with all archers, with a horse in the back to capture the city. If you try multiplayer like that you're in for a nasty surprise-- oh , yeah they know that one melee is your only guy to take the city. They will kill it first, every. Single time. The real problem here is that the AI needs work-- big time. Melee are very strong, you just need to play against people who know that. AKA: not the AI.

This is a bigger multiplayer problem than singleplayer. I'm willing to guess you never play much multiplayer.

 

[Catan_Settler]

Whaaaa, dude what are you talking about? It's only in single player that some weak ass 4 comp bow 1 warrior rush going to do anything other than get killed. In MP you need something like 2:1 ratio of ranged to melee or any half awake player will stop you. Kill the melee first, is a sound tactic for a reason ya know.

 

[Altisma]

Whaaaa, dude what are you talking about? It's only in single player that some weak ass 4 comp bow 1 warrior rush going to do anything other than get killed. In MP you need something like 2:1 ratio of ranged to melee or any half awake player will stop you. Kill the melee first, is a sound tactic for a reason ya know.

Your forgetting a horse can move 4-5 tiles and take a city before its even seen. I never had a problem in multiplayer doing wars with 1-2 melee units and 8 composite bowmen. However with the BNW expansion using early units is now pointless since your gonna go into a gold deficit and have 0 science.

 

[Alzadar]

We assume the fight is in open territory

This seems like a really flawed premise, when do you ever fight away from cities in this game? The only things to fight over are cities (or maybe rarely fighting at a choke point), and ranged units have a huge advantage for both attacking cities (more units can attack, no counter-attack) and defending cities.

They should really remove the penalty melee units face when attacking a city.

 

[Antarion]

melee changed a bit its role. in vanilla you could easy mass melee and they steamrolled range units.

now melee is much weaker an the offense. you deal still more damage but you also gain alot back for fighting, while range units dont suffer the same. the advantage is, melee can soak up alot more damage then range units, since their strength is alot higher.

if u combine some boni from honor with melee units they get alot better then without it, also dont forget that flanking bonus! imho if u play honor i can field 2 melees per 1 range unit, else i change it to 1 melee per 2 range units rather.

but finally the mix is the most important key role. dont focus only on one type of units.

melee fighting nee

 

[FeiLing]

I think melee units are really good. How else would you be taking cities?

 

[VainoValkea]

Just taking units with melee units is a necessary evil, I'd do that with ranged units too if I could!

 

[Falconiano]

I fixed all the melee issue.
Basically I made Cover instantly available from the first lvl-up.
The AI will always go Cover 1->2 so I can't chew them easily with ranged.
This significantly increased the difficulty of warfare.

 

[Furycrab]

Maybe in 4 crossbows/2 swords versus 6 words the latter would win. How about 12 swords versus 8 crossbows/4 swords? Clearly the pure swords team doesn't stand a chance.

Even then though, depends on the terrain and promotions in question. Also who is the Aggressor. Also if you include things like horse units, a few knights could easily make it impossible for either side to truly advance.


Where ranged truly begins to shine is if a City is involved and even more so if you have proper terrain to make a good defensive line. You can however with melee units as the aggressor create scenarios where the defender almost wishes you would just straight up fight them. I've been having lots of fun using horses to pillage around making gold while the unit itself stays healthy enough to keep taking a hit or two here and there.

 

[adwcta]

I fixed all the melee issue.
Basically I made Cover instantly available from the first lvl-up.
The AI will always go Cover 1->2 so I can't chew them easily with ranged.
This significantly increased the difficulty of warfare.

smart. now time to make fraxis do this. I think swordsmen should just get a free cover promotion. they're holding a shield aren't they?