Land Combat Units Need a Bit of a Rework

[Deggial]

I am not so sure about the seafaring limitations for cavalry.

Obviously it was very difficult in the real world.
But Civ7 is a game.
And while I'm all for game rules inspired by/based on real-world limitations, I don't think this should extend to sea transport.

Cavalry should be able to reach the 'distant lands' to save players some frustration.
Admittedly, my feelings on this are entirely subjective, and I have no justification for why I am fine with the 'no fortification' rule, but draw the line at 'no sea transport'.
Perhaps it is because I do not want to make things too complicated.

On the other hand, no one is stopping the player from creating horse units over there.
Also, the experience gain is now focused on the commander, and there is less need to ship high-level cavalry units overseas.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Commanders are rarely targeted by the AI

My experience is the exact opposite!!

 

[Melkus]

My experience is the exact opposite!!

Possible, I don't have strong conviction about that statement - just feels like I could take a little risk in a tight battle to position them for more XP (when they're unloaded of course), but maybe they ended up below units most of the time anyway.

 

[AriochIV]

There's so much gold and production capacity in the game that the costs of units seem almost trivial. I don't think increasing the cost of cavalry would have much of an impact.

 

[stealth_nsk]

There's so much gold and production capacity in the game that the costs of units seem almost trivial. I don't think increasing the cost of cavalry would have much of an impact.

I usually have a lot of things to spend my gold on (unlike influence, which has some spending limits as you can't initiate endeavors and spying operations you already in). But I agree, that cost alone shouldn't be limited factor.

 

[UWHabs]

There's so much gold and production capacity in the game that the costs of units seem almost trivial. I don't think increasing the cost of cavalry would have much of an impact.

I'm expecting in one of the early balance patches, a lot of the global boosts will shift. Stuff like Gold and silver shifting to be only a 5% or 10% bonus instead of 20%. I like units being relatively cheap and fungible, but switching them to be more like 5-6 turn builds instead of 2-3 turns (or maybe 3-4 turns instead of 1-2).

 

[Krikkit1]

I'm expecting in one of the early balance patches, a lot of the global boosts will shift. Stuff like Gold and silver shifting to be only a 5% or 10% bonus instead of 20%. I like units being relatively cheap and fungible, but switching them to be more like 5-6 turn builds instead of 2-3 turns (or maybe 3-4 turns instead of 1-2).

I think keeping the bonuses high is good, but increase the costs

Bump up all unit maintenance by ages
for military units not in your territory: +100% (additional +100% if at war, additional +200% if in enemy territory)…pillaging/razing can give gold to help offset this

Bump up unit build cost

 

[Melkus]

Bump up unit build cost

I really hope they don't - I can hear the complaints about weaker AIs already, since we're outperforming them tactically by a sizable margin - 3:1 maybe?.

And the first thing AI mods will do is lower maintenance. Maintenance doesn't change much in the battle itself, and tends to neutralize AIs that build up military - we probably don't want that? (YMMV). It's definitely not THE solution.

Lowering the buying bonuses a bit - sure. Maybe make the production bonuses global (not sure about that one, but I tend to hard-build units rarely and consequently often don't slot those )

that the costs of units seem almost trivial

It can feel that way, but then you're probably already cruising to victory anyway. It mattered when I recently wanted to take a well defended capital and needed to keep up the tempo, for instance. (AI does have a tendency to come back a bit and refortify if you let up in these situations.)

Introducing (a few) more asymmetries in the actual battle mechanics would be preferable for me.

[Edited for structure]

 

[Jkchart]

I think some unique infantries are good for the cost. I think if only infantries can fortify, it adds a little bit of movement management to place a cavalry back into the fortification, but why not. I was also thinking that sometimes, cavalry seems not that much more expansive for the added strength. But some unique infantries with their special actions are nice. I don't really know yet. It's already in a nice place overall, but maybe can be improved.

I do agree with this. There are some excellent unique infantries.

 

[AriochIV]

I usually have a lot of things to spend my gold on (unlike influence, which has some spending limits as you can't initiate endeavors and spying operations you already in). But I agree, that cost alone shouldn't be limited factor.

When a current unit typically only takes 2-3 turns to produce, buying them with gold is usually an emergency or an extravagance.

The concentration of production in just a few Cities instead of all settlements has exacerbated the issue. Units HAVE to be relatively cheap or you would never be able to produce enough in just one to three cities.

 

[chrisgatt7]

I would increase the Calvary base attack +5 to widen the gap and then increase maintenance cost by 50%. Until we get resource requirement. If we ever get resource requirements again.

 

[Archanist]

I agree with cavalry not being able to fortify, but would it make sense for Landships and Tanks? Wouldn't they be able to hull down irl?

 

[chrisgatt7]

I agree with cavalry not being able to fortify, but would it make sense for Landships and Tanks? Wouldn't they be able to hull down irl?

Tanks can indeed intrench ...

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Tanks can indeed intrench ...

- Ever since 1941, in fact, when the Soviets dug in tanks in the Moscow Defense Zone in front of Moscow. By February 1944 in the Red Army's Manual for Tank Platoons, Companies and Battalions, Paragraph 270: " For a tank fire nest (nepodvnzhnoy tankovoy tochki) a hidden firing position with good observation and a good field of fire will be selected. The tank will be dug in and camouflaged. The range to reference points will be measured, the aiming points prepared and a target sketch (map) completed." (my translation).

1st Guards Tank Army, after the initial clashes with the German 48th Panzer Corps at Kursk on 5 - 7 July 1943, dug in most of its tanks for a determined defense of the Verkhopenye area - and were later roundly criticized for not keeping their armor mobile for counterattacks.

The modern equivalent is the use of bulldozers (or dozer blades mounted on tanks) to create artificial 'berms' or earthen barriers and cover as well as tank-sized dug-outs to protect the vehicles. These last were used extensively by the Iraqi Army in the first Gulf War, with the same effect as the Soviet Kursk example: it immobilized their armor so it could be destroyed by American firepower. The Israeli use of berms and other Shaping the Battlefield techniques in the Golan Heights area in 1973, by contrast, used the earth barriers and cover to maneuver their armor while protected from enemy fire and observation, and was extremely effective in creating 'kill zones' for enemy armor and infantry.

The fact remains that cavalry, tank, and similar military formations rely on their mobility for much of their effect, whether it is in mounting charges to strike the enemy with a physical and moral Shock or getting to good terrain first to deny it to the enemy (classic example Buford's cavalry division on 1 July 1863 at Gettysburg). That means, though, that 'digging in' has generally never been part of the cavalry's preferred method of fighting, except in very specific circumstances, like the emergency defense of Moscow in 1941 or the US Army cavalry in the Civil War and later 19th century, which successfully adopted traditional cavalry tactics to the new rifled firearms and flexibility required to fight native Americans who were much better horsemen than they were. How peculiar that American example was is indicated by the European cavalry forces, who were utterly unable to seize and hold advanced terrain in 1914 and, in the French and Prussian cases specifically, utterly incompetent at basic scouting: American observers like James Wilson and Phil Sheridan noted occasions when Prussian and French Corps were only a few kilometers apart and neither knew the other was there!

All of which means it would be legitimate to remove defensive bonuses from Cavalry units to reflect their penchant for the mounted charge in tactics, and from tanks to reflect the removal of their tactical mobility when 'dug in' - and note that the modern examples, including the posted graphic, all reflect the use of dug-outs, berms, and such by Main Battle Tanks which are not modeled in Civ VII (yet!)

 

[Kayak06460]

As it stands, the current balance is like this:

• Infantry is middle in cost.
• Cavalry has +5 CS compared to infantry of the same tier, ignores ZOC, as a higher move, and is a bit more expensive.
• Ranged units are both less expensive than infantry but have a ranged attack that is either better at killing units or districts respectively.

Now this is all fine and dandy, except for the fact that infantry absolutely suck compared to Cavalry which are stronger, move faster, and ignore ZOC for a not that steep production/gold cost increase. It's made worse by not requiring any resources for cavalry and instead allowing empire resources to stack CS and make those units even stronger.

My thoughts for rectifying this are 1) to make Cavalry more expensive, and 2) I think Cavalry units should either have a penalty to fortification building speed, or simply not be able to build fortifications entirely. In fact, Infantry should probably be the fastest at building Fortifications (so slower for Siege and Ranged units and possibly not at all for Cavalry) and would give this unit class a realistic niche while preserving the relatively simple combat RPS mechanics in game. I get it, infantry has always been the meat shield compared to cavalry, but it was the core unit of most armies because it was cheaper, and you could use them to dig in. Civ 7 should reflect this better.

In addition, having only played with about half of the civilizations, I do think that most of the Unique Units are either good upgrades, or truly great ones. Except for ONE:

• Gold Bangles Infantry, the Songhai unit, which has very weird and situational benefits that are difficult to take advantage of. It should swap the trade route plundering bonus for getting extra gold from every pillage. It's easier to accomplish, and appropriately flavorful for the Songhai military. Also, the +5 CS on a resource tile is weird and difficult to use. If the devs really want to keep the bonus, I would suggest making it on/adjacent to a resource tile to allow for more flexibility and less strict placement for that +5 bonus. The bonus could be slightly nerfed to a +3 or +4 to compensate.

Anyone else have thoughts about the current land combat situation? I don't mind the simple RPS mechanics, and commanders are awesome, but I feel like infantry needs an actual niche and role that the other three land unit classes very clearly have and fill well.

I totally agree with everything you point out. Especially, a resource/unit requirement . How can you have cavalry without horses or tanks without oil? This applies also to factories without coal or oil. This is a huge omission!

 

[King Flevance]

I am a big fan of the increased 3-5x maintenance idea for cavalry.

Currently I am sporting a decent army in the ancient age with Rome as I was at war with 3 of my neighbors all at once and I pushed them back by fighting on 2.5 fronts. (Thankful for a mountain range blocking paths but then I needed to push through it later.) My army is mixed but currently is mostly infantry legionnaires atm due to a heavy hit from war elephants. However, running the "-1 maintenance costs for units" is currently saving me 30+ GPT. I am still pulling in over 80 GPT. If cavalry were to cost 6 gpt in maintenance, I would be hesitant to build up a lot of them.

I do like the idea of pastoral towns to lower maintenance cost of cavalry to counteract this. I am just not sure how it could be implemented as simply making it town specialization could just break it. Each Pastoral town would need to only make, say 5 units cheaper or something weird like that. But it would be really cool to see this implemented and then it would feel cool (or scary) to see the Mongols cavalry running amok due to pastoral town specialization.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I am a big fan of the increased 3-5x maintenance idea for cavalry.

Currently I am sporting a decent army in the ancient age with Rome as I was at war with 3 of my neighbors all at once and I pushed them back by fighting on 2.5 fronts. (Thankful for a mountain range blocking paths but then I needed to push through it later.) My army is mixed but currently is mostly infantry legionnaires atm due to a heavy hit from war elephants. However, running the "-1 maintenance costs for units" is currently saving me 30+ GPT. I am still pulling in over 80 GPT. If cavalry were to cost 6 gpt in maintenance, I would be hesitant to build up a lot of them.

I do like the idea of pastoral towns to lower maintenance cost of cavalry to counteract this. I am just not sure how it could be implemented as simply making it town specialization could just break it. Each Pastoral town would need to only make, say 5 units cheaper or something weird like that. But it would be really cool to see this implemented and then it would feel cool (or scary) to see the Mongols cavalry running amok due to pastoral town specialization.

"Pastoral Towns" should really be "A Pastoral People" - either a specialized Civ like Mongolia or Scythia or a specialized IP. From any of which you should be able to 'hire', rent or buy cavalry units with a lower maintenance cost. In fact, certain cavalry units, notably horse archers and cataphracts, should almost be ONLY available this way.

On the other hand, these units, if upgraded to more 'normal' Cavalry, lose that low maintenance advantage because they are now dependent on the 'civilized' supply chains, and of course any 'cavalry' that are actually landships or tanks will cost you severely in maintenance/supply every turn.

All of which means that 'cheap cavalry' hired from native horsemen pretty much disappear by the end of the Exploration Age. That's not really a serious deficiency, since the Designers have hammered that each Age should be different: if you want to play with Mounted Hordes, you aren't going to do it in 1890 no matter who you are!

 

[CoconutTank]

-1 maintenance cost on Cavalry could be a fun military IP suzerain bonus during Antiquity. IIRC Scythia currently shows up as a military IP in Antiquity anyway.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

-1 maintenance cost on Cavalry could be a fun military IP suzerain bonus during Antiquity. IIRC Scythia currently shows up as a military IP in Antiquity anyway.

Scythia is also a Modded Antiquity Civ with Unique horse archers

And another Antiquity IP is Longcheng, which was the capital of the Xiong-Nu, the first 'Northern Barbarian" group to harass the Chinese state with massed cavalry.

In Civ VI I had already noted that the military City States should have gotten Unique Units available to hire as Mercenaries, like Cretan Archers, Baleric Slingers, Hun, Scythian, or Sarmatian horse archers or cataphracts, Hessian grenadiers, Swiss pikemen, etc. I'll go 'on the record' as suggesting that is still not a bad idea to provide more variety to the unit arrays now that each Age is reduced to a single trilogy of upgrades for each of three basic land combat units: melee, ranged, cavalry.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Taking the ability to fortify from the cavalry is stupid. No.

Maybe they could be more expensive, but still be able to fortify. Amazing how many people can get around a horrible idea.

Simply stating your opinion does nothing to convince anyone your opinion has any value.

Why is it stupid?

What else could be used to balance the abilities of mounted versus non-mounted units?

Note that Cavalry was never intended to hold ground on defense. In fact, men on horseback standing still were always beaten by anybody that attacked them, because a standing horseman gives up all his advantages in speed and shock and maneuverability over the infantryman.

Denying cavalry the ability to 'fortify' and enhance their defense is both accurate historically and would help differentiate mounted units from non-mounted in the game to the better balance of both.