Longbows crush rifles

[ds61514]

mongols can take a 17 str city state with 2 unpromoted horsemen and a GG

What the...Mongols?!?!

Or do you mean Songhai?

Or are you releasing some beta testing info. Inquiring minds want to know .

 

[JoyG]

The issue here is they're trying to combine a tactical combat game with a civilization game. Having archers have ranged attacks and melee units not makes for great tactical battles. But then half way through the tech tree they decide to ignore that and make ranged units melee units instead. There's a reason that basically all modern combat units are ranged units today, they're just at such an advantage.

They should have either stuck with having all ranged units being ranged, and just ignored that a 'battlefield' is a continent wide, or made all units that aren't flying have a range of 1.

I agree. They tried to fit a combat system meant for smaller combat fields and limited scenario to a world wide large map, with hexes large as a mountain, and a scenario that cover thousand years. This causes many issues.
A solution could be how Master of Magic worked: on the strategic world map, units moved as usual, in stacked armies, but once two armies confronted each other and the battle started, the game switched to a tactical map on a different scale. Then the units were moved in a tactical way 1upt. The cons were that the visual had to change for every battle, but these were the old times: with modern 3d engine this system might run smoother.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

What the...Mongols?!?!

Or do you mean Songhai?

Or are you releasing some beta testing info. Inquiring minds want to know .

Lol my bad. Late and confused. Horsemen + gg abuse is the point

Edit: Although Songhai can definitely crank units early with some moneys . Monty can really trash down the culture lines too. If you get on a roll with him it's amazing what you can unlock...play a crowded map for some abuse XD.

 

[Zen Blade]

Since someone just mentioned experienced...

I think unique units, and the ability to "instantly heal" also make the winning juggernaut that much more unstoppable.

I have seen too many occasions where a player is besieging a city, reaches experience threshold, fully heals, and continues to march through enemy land...

I think the full heal option needs to be removed, or at least significantly nerfed in enemy territory.

 

[anti_strunt]

Not to worry, I didnt think you were being arrogant. I agree fans which place high demands on realism should probably not expect a mainstream game like civ to cater to them out of the box. Moding and slightly nicher games like EU are their best hope. But even so I dont think they shouldn't be vocal about what game they want civ to be. I mean Firaxis use forums like this to know in which direction their 'core' fans want them to take future expansions and titles and you can never know how many people agree with you until you make a rant thread and get shouted down

I'm currently looking to make my own game so I can make it as immersive as I want... ETA Q3 2012...

 

[gunter]

It reminds me the well known spearman-tank paradox.

We have a new paradox here

 

[revengeofmakno]

I really don't understand how anyone can defend a combat system with this kind of completely absurd anomalies. As several have argued well, for a large number of people a certain amount of realism is needed.

Likewise, I do not understand this buying into romantic conceptions about the power of archery. The relative merits of bows, crossbows and smooth bore firearms is a complicated discussion and it involves an interaction of economics, culture, politics, physics and battlefield psychology and other factors. Offhand, unidimensional statements and generalizations don't sum it up properly. But one thing is clear, it was not just a matter of recruitment, training and logistics, battlefield performance and results had a lot to do with the change-over.

For those who are really interested in the subject, I have two suggestions,

1) Pick up, handle and try using each of those i.e. bow, crossbow, smoothbore-muzzle loading- blackpowder firearm at various ranges, while bearing in mind that what you have in your hand is likely made with modern materials.
Then try out an older breech loading, single shot rifle such as an 1871 11 mm Mauser or something along those lines.

2) Read a detailed history of the Janissaries (and the wars and battles they participated in!) during the period 1400 - early 1500s. All the various factors come into play and are encapsulated as an elite force of composite bowmen deliberately transfers over to so-called primitive firearms and proceed to become the most feared and successful troops of their time.

 

[The Rev]

Excellent point about the Janissaries. In the 15 and 1600s bows were certainly in decline. I think that was likely because armor in Europe had improved by that period to the point where bows could no longer Agincourt-ify an attacking army, and mass warfare was beginning to develop, along with urbanization, so it became that much harder to find a large enough body of men skilled in archery (of course with Janissaries that was less of an issue, as they were raised to be Janissaries from a very young age). Though during the Napoleonic Wars, Wellington is known to have gone so far as to have requested a unit of longbows, but was told there were no longer any competent longbowmen. Of course, by then though, armor had almost completely disappeared from the battlefield. So yes, longbows did get replaced fairly early into the age of gunpowder, and yes, longbows might have been at least situationally useful, if not cost-effective during later periods. Personally, I just like to pretend that the English are using a whole bunch of Jack Churchill

 

[GreyIago]

I just don't understand why Civ hasn't, over it's decade+ of games, hasn't commissioned a full and detailed study of military units.

I mean, it's not like there is still controversy over the use of certain military units in certain military battles. Everyone is in complete agreement over which units are better than others and why. History certainly doesn't have any freak events where an underdog unit won over an advanced unit.

Also, while we are here in a forum full of threads accusing of "dumbing down" the game shall we discuss what is apparently an utter lack of strategy and a demand for "dumbing down" a unit to make it "much more easier" to defeat under the guise of "balance".

 

[Flavorable]

Jack Churchill

That made my day.

"If it weren't for the yanks, we could have kept this war going for another 10 years!"

 

[HeavyTwenty]

Most of you guys who want realism should really try Napoleon Total War or any of the Total War series.

This is Civilization. Entire armies are represented by a tiny little icon. Get over it.

If you want to discuss balance, that's understandable I suppose.

 

[GreyIago]

Most of you guys who want realism should really try Napoleon Total War or any of the Total War series.

This is Civilization. Entire armies are represented by a tiny little icon. Get over it.

If you want to discuss balance, that's understandable I suppose.

I want to know why Infantry and Armor have the same health. And why airplanes have the same health as ships. THERE ARE MORE PLANES IN A SQUADRON THEN SHIPS! THEY SHOULD HAVE DIFFERENT HEALTH!

 

[Saarud]

It's all about scale you know. Timescale are not realistic in the game neither are economy, political or science and ofcourse not wars and combat as well. Everything has been abstracted to fit into a game that goes from 4000 BC to 2050 AD.

1 crossbow unit in the game aren't actually just 10 or 100 or 1000 or 10000 or even 100000 individuals with crossbows. It's just an abstracted game term for a unit of indivuals (the number are not important) that has the characteristics of somewhat like a crossbowman.

 

[Vladesch]

The combat system needs a concept of armor, which reduces the incoming damage. If battleships had armor 10, then a 1-6 bow would never do any damage.
Maybe this is undesirable from a game design perspective to have relatively invulnerable units, but it would be the case IRL with tanks vs bows.

 

[Nutteria]

Bows and Longbows should NOT have 2 let alone 3 range.At the very best they should be able to shoot from two range when a unit attacks them serving as an extra defence output.Also attaking citys with bows/longbows after early medival is borderline absurd both ingame and in RL.

The thing that brakes the game is that medival units are hardcoutnering renessance units.They are faster to be produced have better siege/long range options and are mowing down rifles like nothing happend.Also I find it pretty absurd that a tribueshe can oneshot cannons/rifles or a bowman/longbowman can outrange them.Its Beyond absurd.

 

[dannythefool]

The combat system needs a concept of armor, which reduces the incoming damage. If battleships had armor 10, then a 1-6 bow would never do any damage.
Maybe this is undesirable from a game design perspective to have relatively invulnerable units, but it would be the case IRL with tanks vs bows.

The aspect is there, for certain units, combat strength is reduced when they're defending.

But tanks vs bows, or as in the thread title, longsbows vs riflemen, isn't as easy as adding armor. Battleships and tanks have armor, but riflemen? No. Modern infantry does, but defeating them with a bow in this game is bloody hard. And keep in mind that a longbow was able to pierce a knight's metal armor.