Land Combat Units Need a Bit of a Rework

[Jkchart]

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.

 

[gdr_willter]

You got some reasonable points. Useless infantry and superior cavalry is long living problem from Civ 5 and 6. As you mentioned, the fortification system in Civ 7 can be a game changer!

 

[Taefin]

Totally agree on taking away cavalry’s ability to create fortifications. I think it’d be simpler, and fine, to let ranged build fortification, especially since it’s often a ranged unit being left in an unwrapped settlement on defense.

And the gold bangle bonus is indeed weird. Was it for defending those tiles against pillaging? Seems annoying to play with/against.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The Cavalry-Infantry-Ranged tripod is the basis for almost all combat tactics, and every game from miniatures to board to computer has wrestled with the problem of balancing them somehow.

Taking away Mounted Units' ability to 'fortify' is a good start to the balance, but Costs are another.

- And Costs means both the cost of building the unit in the first place, and also the cost of maintaining the unit. This is where 'cavalry' get really, really expensive compared to infantry. Feeding a man, either directly or by paying him enough to feed himself, is hard enough (most historical polities simply called up people when they needed them rather than keep them around and have to feed them all the time). His horse, on average, will eat about 5 times more food per day than the man does, by volume, or require acres of pasturage. And that pasturage will be planted in alfalfa or grass that won't feed People. In-game, Cavalry/Mounted should cost at least 3 times the maintenance cost of an infantry or dismounted ranged unit (up to 5 times can be argued, but the figures should be tested for in-game Balance).

And Maintenance Costs can be used to 'tweak' some other things in the game as well. Pastorals by the nature of their pasturized 'economy' can feed horses much easier than settled urban communities - Mongols and their ilk could get a serious Discount on keeping mounted units.

Same with mounted units you 'rent' from IPs - in fact, mounted ranged units should be available only from selected IPs or Mongols and cost much less maintenance, which would neatly put horse archers in their historical niche for once in the Civ franchise of games.

To summarize:

Infantry, either melee or ranged, should be cheap to build and cheap to maintain, can fortify but are weaker in strength and slower.
Cavalry/Mounted are expensive to build and maintain, cannot fortify but move faster and hit harder.
Artillery/Siege are the most expensive to build and maintain, move Very slowly and, while very effective against Walls/Fortifications, should have lower factors against Units.

The relationships and maintenance costs could also legitimately change by Age if we want to get into that much detail: Modern Age artillery, whether field or siege (heavy) are all very effective against any kind of target, unlike the earlier catapults and trebuchets. And the cost of maintaining modern units of any kind goes up dramatically when you also have to supply them continuously with tons of ammunition, fuel, lubricants, spare parts and other equipment, all manufactured in specialized factories and delivered around the world.

 

[ydejin]

Didn’t some versions of Civ give Infantry defensive bonuses based on the terrain type? This seems to be missing here. I’m not sure why they took it out, as it made the game more interesting and seemed like a reasonable “flavor enhancement” for infantry. Perhaps the AI was really bad at understanding it?

 

[Jkchart]

The Cavalry-Infantry-Ranged tripod is the basis for almost all combat tactics, and every game from miniatures to board to computer has wrestled with the problem of balancing them somehow.

Taking away Mounted Units' ability to 'fortify' is a good start to the balance, but Costs are another.

- And Costs means both the cost of building the unit in the first place, and also the cost of maintaining the unit. This is where 'cavalry' get really, really expensive compared to infantry. Feeding a man, either directly or by paying him enough to feed himself, is hard enough (most historical polities simply called up people when they needed them rather than keep them around and have to feed them all the time). His horse, on average, will eat about 5 times more food per day than the man does, by volume, or require acres of pasturage. And that pasturage will be planted in alfalfa or grass that won't feed People. In-game, Cavalry/Mounted should cost at least 3 times the maintenance cost of an infantry or dismounted ranged unit (up to 5 times can be argued, but the figures should be tested for in-game Balance).

And Maintenance Costs can be used to 'tweak' some other things in the game as well. Pastorals by the nature of their pasturized 'economy' can feed horses much easier than settled urban communities - Mongols and their ilk could get a serious Discount on keeping mounted units.

Same with mounted units you 'rent' from IPs - in fact, mounted ranged units should be available only from selected IPs or Mongols and cost much less maintenance, which would neatly put horse archers in their historical niche for once in the Civ franchise of games.

To summarize:

Infantry, either melee or ranged, should be cheap to build and cheap to maintain, can fortify but are weaker in strength and slower.
Cavalry/Mounted are expensive to build and maintain, cannot fortify but move faster and hit harder.
Artillery/Siege are the most expensive to build and maintain, move Very slowly and, while very effective against Walls/Fortifications, should have lower factors against Units.

The relationships and maintenance costs could also legitimately change by Age if we want to get into that much detail: Modern Age artillery, whether field or siege (heavy) are all very effective against any kind of target, unlike the earlier catapults and trebuchets. And the cost of maintaining modern units of any kind goes up dramatically when you also have to supply them continuously with tons of ammunition, fuel, lubricants, spare parts and other equipment, all manufactured in specialized factories and delivered around the world.

Boris Gudenuf always coming in clutch with the additional knowledge. This is excellent information to add and consider. Thanks for sharing your military history knowledge once again!

(And yes thanks to all contributors so far!)

 

[King of Prussia]

Economy wise. Maintenance costs are kinda irrelevant outside the start of the game. You would need a lot of units to put a dent in your hundreds or thousands of gpt. If the economy was rebalanced, then this could be a way of balancing them. 3-5x the infantry cost might be a good start. Making them cost more hammers and therefore increase their gold purchase cost would have more of an impact in the current system. These changes would be more detrimental to the AI.

As for combat itself. Removing Cavs ability to fortify and/or gain defensiveness from fortifications are options. Making them take longer to fortify when the base time is 2 turns, would mean you never bother fortifying imo. Other options are penalties for attacking into rough terrain, or being melee attacked. UUs have plenty of room to be exempt or modify some of these attributes.

Here are my thoughts on ranged in general. Arty should do more damage vs naval than then do land. They should do less damage to land units than archers. Archers should do less damage to naval than Arty. Archers and arty should be very weak to any melee attacks. Archers should do less damage than a melee attack as you arent receiving damage in return. When ranged is too strong, it makes it very oppressive to move up/attack. This gives them both a proper place, while making them weak when lacking a front line. With that said, perhaps fortifications could be too strong.

Agree on the Bangles unit. This can apply to traditions as well, if they are too narrow focused. Its not a bonus is its rarely used.

Overall i think combat is in a good spot. Biggest issue with combat right now is dealing with UI. While i haven't tried every unit yet; I haven't seen any units personally that i thought were really broken.

 

[CoconutTank]

Also vote for Cavs not being able to fortify.

In addition to that, I'd like to propose Cavs getting a combat penalty against walls and fortified units. That could move Cavs more towards having an open battlefield niche, while Infs would be better for dealing with urban warfare. Infs can use their temp fortification to be pseudo Anti-Cav, but doing so would take turns and require them to be stationary.

 

[Melkus]

I like the extra maintenance cost for horses. And in addition to being unable to fortify, make it so that they maintain fortification, but don't benefit from it.
A food cost would be original too, but raises the knotty question where to subtract it.

Unique cavs can get a rebate.

 

[Melkus]

Or make them way more expensive to build, but only if you don't own a corresponding horse resource?
They probably won't do that after simplifying resources.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I wonder, for how many of you this imbalance prevents using infantry? I usually have some amount of infantry unit by the time I discover Wheel, so in antiquity I actually have more infantry than cavalry.

 

[Melkus]

Sure, that's the infantry era - very early - but as soon as cavs come online, I build them instead of infantry. (Plus they're quicker to deploy at running battles at this point.)

Not to mention they even have a substantial bonus against infantry (another +1 with horse resources).

 

[Arcaian]

Trying to think how we could model the more intense logistics of cavalry in a Civ 7-y sort of way, one possibility would be to make it so that horses need to be slotted into a settlement to get the bonus? Increased maintenance seems hard to balance in Civ 7, it's not very impactful on its own - instead needing to spend limited resource slots to dedicate some of your empire's logistics towards maintaining your cavalry. You could make it only apply to cav from that settlement, or in a certain distance from it, but I think that'd be too complicated, personally.

 

[bumpyglint]

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 agree with you and made a really similar post when the game came out

The only things that I would add to your consideration are:

1) Infantry has some policies that decrease a lot their production cost. With that policies can be ok to build infantry
2) The "real" power of infantry/ cavalry depends a lot from how many strategic resources you have. I've no idea if at the moment Iron is more spread than horses, but in some situation with more Iron than horses it can definitely be better to build infantry. Anyway considering this is a niche situation, obviously I would nerf cavalry/ increase strenght to infantry

On the Gold Bangles Infantry, I agree with you totally. Probably the +3 bonus but adjacent to any resource is the best solution.

 

[Melkus]

Infantry has some policies that decrease a lot their production cost.

That's true - but even when playing Persia with Immortals and an additional 50% production bonus via tradition, I still bought chariots in a pinch because it didn't apply to gold (which at least works out for Persia - you end up with a mixed army)

 

[The_goggles_do_nothing]

Infantry set to alert in rural tiles could add +1 Production to a settlement.

 

[Vincent_lacruz]

Problem of cavalry is that they often are out of range of the commander, so no xp nor bonus. Or they are just infantry with useless movement that keep with the commander...

 

[Melkus]

out of range of the commander

Sometimes they are, but I'd recommend the first Maneuver promotion, and just moving your commander up and back during the turn. A bit of click work, but worth it. (And Commanders are rarely targeted by the AI.)

 

[Leucarum]

Agreed that infantry usually feel like the weakest link. I'm not sure if faster fortifications would really cut it though. Maybe combine thst with a larger health pool?

If anything though I hink the higher CS would make more sense on infantry - since then cavalry would feel more like skirmishers trying to pick off vulnerable units. That falls down a lot on the realism tree when you get to tanks, but would probably be more fun for gameplay.

I will say though that Civ7 genuinely feels like the best combat has ever been in Civ, and this would just be making an already good system even better!

 

[Goldflash]

Would giving Infantry some bonuses against Cavalry help? Perhaps something unlockable, on a mastery, that gives a bonus to attacking Cavalry? Like, if your infantry can catch a horsie unwares you get a +4 bonus or something.