Let's make iron relevant again

[nokmirt]

I would have to say personally that I rarely get Iron even as Rome, so if I could be aware of its location by bronze working that would be just awesome. One thing that I love is how the cats no longer require iron, this I think should stay, but there should be some kind of buff as some are suggesting for having excess iron. Not a huge buff maybe at max 10%, maybe add a hammer plus for having extra iron later in the game, this could justify making iron more abundant. Any thoughts?

That's why Rome builds a million ballistas, instead of legions. In that game Rome did not have access to iron. I wonder if it did, would it have built legions. There were tons of ballistas, and a few CBs and a warrior or a pike, to capture cities. What it did was use ballistas like tanks, or mobile artillery. The ballistas were tough to kill, in rough terrain and there were to many to deal with. They should make baliistas and catapults more vulnerable to attack.

 

[Cromagnus]

That's why Rome builds a million ballistas, instead of legions. In that game Rome did not have access to iron. I wonder if it did, would it have built legions. There were tons of ballistas, and a few CBs and a warrior or a pike, to capture cities. What it did was use ballistas like tanks, or mobile artillery. The ballistas were tough to kill, in rough terrain and there were to many to deal with. They should make baliistas and catapults more vulnerable to attack.

Civ 5 made iron less of an issue imho because of diplomacy. I didn't really see the need to change this in the first place, expect for siege units. A few catapults were usually enough, but zero is a killer. Still, you can almost always find a civ to trade you 2 iron, or a CS to ally.

I think the bigger problem is that swordsmen are weak now. I'd rather have composite bowmen and spearmen than tech iron just to hope I find 2 iron. Yay I have 2 swordsmen! Wooo.

I dunno. They overreacted imho. I think a building like the recyling center that generated 2 iron is a good idea. (Max 3 per civ or something)

But, I prefer the idea of revealing iron at bronze working. Animal husbandry is an early tech and you often want it anyway, even if you're not planning on building horsemen. I think that's why horses are less of an issue. Furthermore, pikeman are now so prevalent who wants horses anyway unless it's your UU?

So, revealing iron at bronze working would be probably the best solution. Along with that, I think they need to take pikemen down a peg to make horses actually useful when it isn't your UU, boost swordsman just a tad, and then everything would be fine. But I think siege units are too critical to make them iron dependent again though.

Also, in general I don't like upgrade paths that require resources. I hate having a bunch of warriors I can't upgrade. Or a bunch of ships I can't upgrade. I'd much prefer that warriors upgraded cheaply to spearmen, and that swordsmen were unnerfed to regain their city attack bonus. That way, you'd still *prefer* swordsmen, but if you didn't find iron, your warriors wouldn't be useless. I dunno, it's complicated lol.

 

[Rpger29]

The simplest i saw was to make iron visible (but not exploitable) at bronze working. That way one could plan more easily second or third city to grab some iron hex.
I wouldn't mind a slight boost to swordsman, or maybe a bonus vs melee? Something to make the bottom path relevant again. With super buffed pike and Gatling gun there are no reasons to tech it unless you war a lot.

I agree with the visible iron at bronzework. I also think horses should be visible at an earlier stage, while exploitable later.

What I find is that the AI and the city settle suggestions seem to take advantage of unseen future benefits, while the player is left in the dark. This isn't a giant difficulty mechanic, but it does make the G&K game kinda cheesy. Previously, the AI didn't seem to settle as often near unseen resources.

 

[smallfish]

What I find is that the AI and the city settle suggestions seem to take advantage of unseen future benefits, while the player is left in the dark. This isn't a giant difficulty mechanic, but it does make the G&K game kinda cheesy. Previously, the AI didn't seem to settle as often near unseen resources.

Uh, they've been doing this since Vanilla.

 

[Lay_Lay]

Pretty cheesy how all we do is mass composite bows these days.
I say, make CB's require iron... or wheat or something like that.

 

[Bandobras Took]

Pretty cheesy how all we do is mass composite bows these days.
I say, make CB's require iron... or wheat or something like that.

Make cities do extra damage against archery units. The problem with making ranged units require a resource is that screws people who want to use them for defensive purposes. Making cities able to decimate archery units (say, one-shotting them) would move offense away from Archery units . . . or at least up the investment more.

 

[Knut_Are_M]

Makeing cities do more damage to archers can be changed to archers take retaliatory damage when attacking cities.
If that was the case achers would be inferior to siege weapons vs cities.

Archers, composite bowmen, crossbows and mounted archers are still way to good vs units and have no real counter vs units. There defensive and offensive stats are to high. They can stand in the front lines and win the battle.

All ranged damage was increased by 50% per ranged Strength point. Number of ranged Strength points was increased in G&K as well. Result was ranged units own early game. Even there defensive strength ratio vs melee units was improved in G&K.

PS you need 2 privateers for every single frigate. you see privateer attacks and take as much damage as it deals. Frigate returns fire and does more damage and take none.

 

[budweiser]

Limit the shots each enemy unit can recieve from your archers to 1 per unit.

 

[azzaman333]

Swords and Longswords are too quickly obsoleted by Pikes and Muskets respectively. That's the issue. The only thing you really miss out on if you lack Iron is Frigates.

 

[Zaimejs]

What if you didn't need any resources to build anything, but if you had the resource you got a bonus? Factories can be built, but without coal, they run at 1/2 efficiency. Frigates can be built without iron, but they attack at 1/2 strength. I hate that I can't build Frigates without iron, but I can't build Galleys either.

I agree with making iron more relevant, and making swordsman and longswordsman more important. Didn't they used to have city attacking bonuses? Do they still have those?

The thing that makes Civ V awesome is that even if I don't have a resource, I have ways of getting it without settling. So even if iron is more important, it doesn't make or break me if I don't have it because I can probably get it from someone somewhere.

 

[smallfish]

I agree with making iron more relevant, and making swordsman and longswordsman more important. Didn't they used to have city attacking bonuses? Do they still have those?

Yes melee units can still get the Siege promotion. The trick is to get them leveled up (terrain 1 - terrain 2 - Siege - terrain 3 - Blitz/Cover; in no particular order except the first three of course)

 

[terveurn]

There was a computer game put out in the early 1990 called "Guns or Butter" (like a very early Civ) where you had only certain resources and you had to allocate each just to build things (ie you had to have iron / charcoal / wood)

What was interesting is you could build tanks in ancient times - but you had to wait something like 1500 turns for the tank to be completed.

Moderator Action: *snip*

 

[Smokeybear]

Yes melee units can still get the Siege promotion. The trick is to get them leveled up (terrain 1 - terrain 2 - Siege - terrain 3 - Blitz/Cover; in no particular order except the first three of course)

Which, unless you use a mod that allows more than 2 levelups from fighting barbarians, isn't likely to happen for your sword units until long after their early city-conquering adventures, in my experience. The trick, is getting those 5 levelups into them before they've already been converted to musketmen (or killed).

 

[King_Course]

I have grown so acustomed to not having any iron. It is way too scarce, and then has too little use. I play on higher levels, and that means that pikemen are coming out at just about the same time you have mined your iron and build a few swordmen.

So you skip iron, and do a NC dash to Civil service to Education.

Then play catchup militarilly, usually ending up with you bypassing iron/steel and begin to field musketeers.

The thing is that outside of being historically incorrect as pointed out, it is also a dull way to play. Because Ironmen and Longswords are cool units. So are horses. But Pikemen ruin them. Even Knights must accept these reserve-guards-stronger-than-everything-else unit.

I too would like Iron to be more common first of all, and then do something about those pikemen as they are making the military branch of the tree not worthwhile. I like the idea of iron for cannons, paired with a more common occurence of mines that would be fun.

Interesting decisions, as Sid Meyer is quoted for saying. I have 8-10 iron and need steel soldiers, cannons and frigates. How should I chose.

Instead of now where it is; I got my hand on 2 iron from some faraway CS, now I can build 2 frigates, and will have to turtle through the iron age as usual.

 

[steveg700]

The problem is, for every one person saying iron is irrelevant, there were two or three complaining about swordsmen, horsemen, and any resource-dependent unit being too good. You know, because in some game they might wind up as the guy without that resource. Clearly, when the player is dealt a rough hand, there's something broken that needs to be fixed, right?

 

[Deggial]

The initial (Shaffer's) main point of limited resources and units they fuel was the creation of some (rare) elite units vs. numerous mediocre units. While those elite units could be seen as the terrifying center of an army, all the common units would be the body, the replaceable masses.
In vanilla Civ this worked quite well: Swordsmen and longsworsmen where the rare elite while spear- and pike-men could be seen as rank and file. It worked because:
1) the strength difference was remarkable enough and
2) the spear-men line finally upgraded into the infantry-line
G&K, while all in all a great improvement, messed this up a little bit by dividing both lines in two parallel strands with all to equal strength.

A solution should achieve two goals:
1) Re-create the feeling of elite units that need iron as compensation for their power
2) Prevent a player without iron from missing an entire era-upgrade
Moreover I would add as an additional goal:
3) Sharpen the different unit-line's profiles

---

To solve this challenge, my idea was to create some additional units. They should be available with the same technologies as the elite version, possess lesser strength but don't need iron. Then I read the thread again and I realized that this proposal:

I think being able to add an "upgrade" to melee units is sensible. Reinforcing their armour/weapons what not at the cost of an iron. The addition to strength should be percentage wise. I really like that idea - maybe a mod could be done of it?

… is exactly what I wanted to achieve – but it was simpler. Gucumatz, I don't like your idea... I love it!

Anyway, you may find totally new names for the new units or you may just name them “Swordsman” and “Elite-Swordsman” - here are my proposals:

– Classical era --

Spearman
56
09 (-2)
Abilities: +100% bonus vs. Mounted, break attack *)

Peasant (or light swordsman)
62
12

Swordsman (or elite swordsman)
75, Iron
15 (+1)

Horseman
75, Horses
11 (+1)
Abilities: Move after attacking, no def. bonuses, -33% vs cities, +33% Str. on open terrain

– Medieval era --

Pikeman
90
14 (-2)
Abilities: +100% bonus vs. Mounted, break attack *)

Light Infantry (or light longswordsman)
100
18

Longswordsman (or elite longswordsman)
120, Iron
22 (+1)
Abilities: free promotion: siege (OPTIONAL; might be too much!)

Light Cavalry
110, Horses
16
Abilities: Move after attacking, no def. bonuses, -33% vs cities, +33% Str. on open terrain

Knight
120, Horses + Iron
20
Abilities: Move after attacking, no def. bonuses, -33% vs cities, +33% Str. on open terrain, break lines **)

Musketman (for reference only)
150
24

*) new ability „break attack“: Prevents cavalry's “move after attack”
**) new ability (free promotion) “break lines”: may chose all adjacent hexes after attacking an enemy to move on – even behind the attacked unit.

The two new abilities where introduced to “sharpen the unit's profile”, as I mentioned above.
a) The “break attack”-ability is quite intriguing, as I think. Currently, the anti-cavalry units are not able to hunt their targets down. They are simply to slow to do so. I read a book recently, where a cavalry-attack against a group of pike-men was described: The riders were “immobilized”, their attack was broken and they were bound in a close fight.
b) The additional cavalry-strength on open terrain was introduced to compensate for the just described indirect degradation. And because I feel that the higher maneuverability in appropriate terrain should be reflected somehow.
Another possibility would be an +33% strength increase after moving at least one tile before the attack. I would love this, too!

---

Seeing iron with bronze-working is quite a good proposal, IMO.
Additionally it might be a good idea to decrease the usual amount of iron per deposit and increase the number of deposits while equalizing their scatter on the map.

 

[civ54lyfe]

There are elegant ideas here, but, if they just blithely made iron another do-or-die resource, then I'd be pretty annoyed. There's plenty of heartburn ahead with coal/oil/alum/uranium.

 

[Bechhold]

Why not just expand the resources into Tiers, Iron in the Industrial age can be manufactured into Steel which can build Battleships etc.

 

[Unresolved]

Why not just expand the resources into Tiers, Iron in the Industrial age can be manufactured into Steel which can build Battleships etc.

I like that. Then we can just smelt horses into iron .

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

Modern navy should require iron. You've had over 100 turns to get some.