Lack of late game range units

[player1 fanatic]

I think game suffers from the lack of late game range units.
And I do not mean bombard units, since those get -17 combat penalty against fighting other units.

The last ranged unit is machine gunner. It arrives at start of atomic era but has poor range. Still, useful at that point.

Then, at the dawn of information era, it gets severely outclassed by mech. infantry and modern armor, which have 90str, compared to machine gunner range attack of 75str and defense strength of 65. So, they can neither effectively attack such units or defend from them. On plus side, they are better at attacking units then bombers and rocket artillery, due to their -17 combat penalty that reduces their effectiveness to 62 to bombers and 67 to rocker artillery. But those units are better defended due to range, on better defense value (rocket artillery).

 

[kampori]

2 machine gunners, or a machine gunner army can easily take out a mech infantry. Machine gunners are my front line troops. Send in a wave of machine gunners and mop up the survivors with modern armour and mech infantry.
Take out the city with rocket artillery and Bob's your uncle

 

[lindsay40k]

Well yeah an army of them can grind down a Mech unit but a Mech army's going to thrash them and run them into the ground. They're a unit that can play offensively in their era but later on want to stay behind walls.

It's still odd how they're outranged by archers, but with Range Logistics gone that's more forgivable now.

 

[smartcanuck1988]

I guess the emphasis is on air units at that time so personally I'm OK with it.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I think they are designed to be city garrisons at that point, providing a little extra damage.

 

[kampori]

Yes, so you play offensively with them. A few hits with machine gunners, and the modern armour, with upgrade damage to injured troops, will finish it off. If you have jet fighters, use them too. By the time you lose 1 machine gunner, you can take out several mech infantries. Park a few mech infantries of your own near your machine gunners to protect them. In my many wars in Civ 6, my gunners were by far my most useful troops. Never lost many of them. Helps that the AI tend to ignore them and go for the armour/infantry

As for the range. It was the same in CiV. As soon as you unlock gattling guns, the range game is over until you get mech artillery and planes and battleships. Which is why crossbowmen, upgraded with the +range perk, and then upgraded to gattling guns were insane. Having a machine gun with +2 range is crazy powerful

 

[Helmling]

Take out the city with rocket artillery and Bob's your uncle

That is so weird. I was teaching my students idioms today and one of them looked up a list that includes "Bob's your uncle" and I had to admit I'd never heard that one and BOOM there you go using it.

 

[Shabbaman]

I think game suffers from the lack of late game range units.

I'm not sure it suffers, I feel the lack of late game ranged unit shows the shift in importance to air units.

That is so weird. I was teaching my students idioms today and one of them looked up a list that includes "Bob's your uncle" and I had to admit I'd never heard that one and BOOM there you go using it.

That's the bee's knees.

 

[criZp]

2 machine gunners, or a machine gunner army can easily take out a mech infantry. Machine gunners are my front line troops. Send in a wave of machine gunners and mop up the survivors with modern armour and mech infantry.
Take out the city with rocket artillery and Bob's your uncle

I think we're assuming equal amount of units here. How easily does your gunner army deal with a mech army?

 

[ddd123]

I think game suffers from the lack of late game range units.
And I do not mean bombard units, since those get -17 combat penalty against fighting other units.

The last ranged unit is machine gunner. It arrives at start of atomic era but has poor range. Still, useful at that point.

Then, at the dawn of information era, it gets severely outclassed by mech. infantry and modern armor, which have 90str, compared to machine gunner range attack of 75str and defense strength of 65. So, they can neither effectively attack such units or defend from them. On plus side, they are better at attacking units then bombers and rocket artillery, due to their -17 combat penalty that reduces their effectiveness to 62 to bombers and 67 to rocker artillery. But those units are better defended due to range, on better defense value (rocket artillery).

I think too its wierd but I also think it works!
I mean by the time you have machine gunner they are +7 3 star so they totally overpower any melee unit since they attack twice per turn and can attack after movement meaning they can still one shot "ranged".

The problem in the game is how too much OP the ranged are early so ofc you feel the lack of something so op late but its more a early balance problem tbh...

Also both gamewise and as realism it makes sense cause you have flying units then, so once you fly who cares of machine guns...
And dont forget that bombard get op with the range, sure the penalty is big but since you can bombard from 6 tiles away they are still op... you can reduce cities but still harass others too, anyway its clear that super late game the focus is melee+ air, like it was in our world since WW2 where tanks+ air and later nukes decided wars.

 

[unpossible251]

Hmmm. Same thing as with civ5.

I think its less weird when you kind of come to accept that aircraft take on the role of light ranged damage in the late game that was previously held by crossbows etc.

Sure, its silly to think that mechanised infantry have less range than anceint era archers. But i just kind of imagine the world got bigger and aircraft fill the long range niche of siege work.

 

[player1 fanatic]

The problem is that they do not take role statwise.

Both bombards and air units have poor combat rating against units. It is decent enough until you get to information era mech. infantry, which is exactly the moment where machine gunners start to feel as obsolete last era unit, due to low defense and not good enough range attack.