Javelin thrower

[Angel-Julia]

In my current Illians game i was supprised with the jevelin thrower hammer cost. a UU that replaces archers, though the difference is that they cost 90 hammers instead of 60 hammers, and then not requiring achery range.

Sure, it means that you can build them anywhere, though its normally not an issue, i normally just have 1 city outputting lots of achers for my entire empire.

so Illians that are supposed to be a defencive civilisation are penalised by having their archers increased in price by 50%. that's even worse than the possibility of building ice mana nodes not being implemented yet.

 

[Skyre Noktis]

Just to clear up what looks like a misconception here, you can only get ice mana from the Illian palace or from Letum Frigus. It's intentional that you aren't supposed to be able to build ice nodes.

 

[a_civilian]

Unless it changed since I last checked, javelin throwers are also weaker than archers - 4 strength instead of 3/5.

 

[lordrune]

This is true, although they do have two first strikes IIRC, so they end up being around as good defensively, especially in a city - and the extra offensive strength makes them usable in counterattack.

 

[Angel-Julia]

no they dont have two first strikes, just one like their archer counterparts.

they end out being weaker than archers, and cost 50% more. and Illians are supposed to be a defencive civ, why the sucky UU replacement for archers? what's the deal?

pop quiz, you can:
a) build a Str 4 bronze warrior(+25 city def) for 25 hammers
b) build a STR 4 javelin thrower (+25% city def, 1 first strike, 20% chance of doing 10% dmg) for 90 hammers

which one is the better choice for city defence? that's right, use those beackers to research archery! for we all know that an extra 1st strike on a unit is worth 65 hammers.

I would sugest making javelin throwers like archers, though maybe slightly better as Illian is supposed to be a defencive civ.

e.g. 60 hammers for str 3/5 +35% city def, 1 first strike, 20% chance of doing 10% dmg.
thus they would be identical to their Archer counterpart, though getting a bit more city def which ties in with the Lore of Illian being a defencive civilisation.

 

[DaveGold]

Many people have said that bronze warriors are overpowered, so comparing javelin throwers to them is always going to have one result. Bronze warriors are better costed than hunters, horsemen, axemen, archers, and scouts too.

I don't find much advantage, if any, from javelin throwers compared to archers but that 4 attack can sometimes be useful. My javelineers certainly seem to get more xp and become better promoted units. They're fit for purpose. They help add theme to the game.

 

[Emptiness]

You say that the Illians are supposed to be a defensive civ, but I disagree. In my opinion, the fact that they have Javelin Throwers instead of Archers supports my position that they are intended to be played aggressively. Javelin Throwers are more expensive than Archers and worse defenders. The civs with Javelin Throwers are therefore at a disadvantage when forced to defend their cities from enemy attack. They must try to avoid that situation, by either keeping the enemy on the defensive or by defending aggressively by attacking encroaching enemy stacks before they reach a city. If they play defensively they will be forced into a situation where the cost-inefficient Javelin Thrower is their best defender, but by aggressive play they can go the entire game without having to run afoul of this inefficiency.

 

[Earthling]

All in my view -the Illians should have stronger defensive options; I was always annoyed by the perception of being purely a rush civ because that doesn't scale well to many (most) game settings and also interferes with them being geared towards being a late-game civ. (Militaristic enough to threaten an early neighbor, yes. Meant to go to and stay on offensive wars from the very start like Clan or Doviello, no) If I had to place it I would say it should feel like the Illians are somewhat annoying outsiders but they aren't worth the time and trouble and hardship for other civs to invade and conquer mostly worthless icy wasteland anyway...until they start threatening the rest of the world with a serious chance of Perpetual Winter again.

This includes fixing the Javelin thrower; making it the same cost as archers and maybe slight differences (bonuses) is fine though. I'd in fact rather discourage the Illian Mounted line, if anything, though currently these are not UU's. (natural withdrawal stacking from homeland/Ice is great, but works just as well on recon/bonuses to melee line).

Bronze warriors could and should also be easily overhauled; I think a lot of people have agreed on that, so it's not a particular fault of the Javelin UU.

 

[mcwill123]

I agree the javelin throwers make no sense. The current Illian game I'm playing really drives the point home. Last night I was playing a few turns and needed to train some military units. Hrm. What should I choose? An axeman in 3 turns or a javelin thrower in 5 turns. Hrm. What to do? (Edit: To be fair, this was a somewhat perverse using Perpentach as the Illian leader and he was in aggressive mode.)

 

[Azhral]

Javelin Throwers were not for the Illians. They are a Doviello UU (which kinda makes sense, making the player defend less and attack more) that the Illians had way back in Shadow when they were an unplayable civ. Then Ice rolled around, the Illians were fleshed out, but somehow still had the Javelin Thrower.

Simply reducing the cost for parity with archers would actually make them quite useful, just as good on the offense as an Axeman or Bronze Warrior, with the added bonus of being able to defend better against counterattacks. And for the Illians especially, no need for a building.

Still, the archery path for either civ is pretty meh. In both cases you're far better off sticking with the Melee or Mounted lines.

 

[Tlalynet]

I never looked at their stats before, wow, what a terrible unit. They are barely better than building Shamen and using them as an offensive unit (as shamen get free XP and only have 1 str less). Having no build prereqs doesn't cost justify 30 hammers, and +1 attack doesn't justify -1 defense of a defensive unit. If they where 60 hammers with no build prerequisites they still wouldn't be better to build than bronze axemen on defense unless it was specifically to defend a city on a hill.

So we have a unit that is never going to be the best defender, always the most expensive (same price as a wood golemn, yikes!), never the fastest, never the best attacker, and with no real special abilities, and as a lone perk no build prerequisites (which is meaningless if you're Dolevio)

Yeah, they could use a buff. 4/5 at 60 or even 70 hammers wouldn't be too bad.

 

[Angel-Julia]

I take the illians as a VERY defencive civ.
1: Homeland advantage=defencive
2: winterborne, with temple of the hands, you get bonus fighting on the snow in your BFC
3: thier real strength comes late in the game, with a LOT of hamemrs to build their rituals, thus a builder approach. linked with homeland and winterborne, it means turtling in and building those rituals.
4: they play by screwing the rest of the world, deepening downgrades everyone elses land, wkile they have snow-covered land which is not impacted, thus hurting others and not themselves. this ties in with the builder, while staying at peace, making everyone elses land worse and fighting a cold-war.

These factors indicate they are undoutably a defender-builder civilization, cominu out in the end with mega-rutuals that screw everyone else over, and godly Auric ascention & the dragon.

thus to tie in with this, they shouldent have the main defencive unit (archer) screwed over by increasing its cost by 50% and making it a worse defender. it should be the oposute, make Illlian javelin throwers better defenders. make it worth the effort to build some defence for a builder civ instead of just hoards of axemen.

Yes Doviello is supposed to be aggressive civ, in the case of Doviello i can see the increased attack at cost of decreased def, though for Doviello attacking it still does not compare to axemen, and is no reason to go down a different research path.

Maybe the opposute direction should happen for Illian,
e.g. make it like an archer, but better defender.
e.g. 60 hammer, 2/6 instead of 3/5 or str4.

One other approach wouyld be to make it a unit designed for stack defence. increase the 20% chance to do 10% dmg to 30% or 40% chance to do 10% damage. so stacked javelin throwers have some point in stack defending from SOD (though minimal extra benefit for 1-1 combat)

 

[Tlalynet]

2\6 would be really strong, I like it.

 

[DaveGold]

Am I right in thinking that people in early chariots used javelins as weapons? If that's the case then the javelineers should promote up to chariots, even though in terms of gameplay they work well promoting to horsearchers.

 

[a_civilian]

I take the illians as a VERY defencive civ.
1: Homeland advantage=defencive
2: winterborne, with temple of the hands, you get bonus fighting on the snow in your BFC
3: thier real strength comes late in the game, with a LOT of hamemrs to build their rituals, thus a builder approach. linked with homeland and winterborne, it means turtling in and building those rituals.
4: they play by screwing the rest of the world, deepening downgrades everyone elses land, wkile they have snow-covered land which is not impacted, thus hurting others and not themselves. this ties in with the builder, while staying at peace, making everyone elses land worse and fighting a cold-war.

On the other hand, priests of winter and stasis make a strong case for an early rush and I have found Illians to be extraordinarily effective rushers.

 

[Emptiness]

The Illians can be played defensively, of course. Because the Javelin Thrower is a poor unit, however, they are incentivized toward preemptive strikes against encroaching stacks. They still receive the advantages of Homeland and Temple+Winterborn when attacking within their own territory. A more cost-effective city defender is unnecessary.

 

[Angel-Julia]

A more cost-effective city defender is unnecessary.

yeah, axemen. more cost effective, and also stronger if you have bronze(which i normally do).

Why even have javelin throwers in the game then? why not just delete archery units and say Illian cant have any defender.

I'd like to see it that there is some purpose to building them.

 

[Earthling]

Actually I think now that Illians should get regular Ice Archers. If only to bring in like 1000 noobs from the regular civ sections; but they say any business is good business.

(I really like the idea I've seen elsewhere of decreasing movement speeds on ice; if anything I'd rather discourage the mounted line for the Illians. A rather un-useful Archery line is fine for the Doviello so I can also see how the problem of it just being grandfathered in to the Illians is part of that)

 

[DaveGold]

Bows probably cannot flex in the cold weather. There's one good reason not to give the Illians ice archers (although it doesn't explain why everyone else's bows works in ice terrain).

 

[Azhral]

Considering that with Defender (+10% withdrawal) the Illian cavalry are some of the best in the game, making it possible to get 95% withdrawal Horse Archers and Knights.