@Sostratus You've convinced me: we should have riflemen. Maybe we'll get them in the next expansion?
Last year I would have agreed with you completely, but since then been looking into it in a bit more detail, and have decided that the classic 'Civ' Rifleman is simply the Wrong Unit between Musketmen or Pike & Shot and the 'modern' Infantry.
Some Dates:
Musketmen historically can be no earlier than about 1470-1475 CE, when a shoulder stock was added to the 'Hackbus', making the matchlock-fired Arquebus, the first practical infantry gunpowder ranged weapon.
Pike and Shot dates from the 1490s CE, when Spain began forming 'Colunelas', units combining pikemen, arquebusiers, and some halberdiers and swordsmen. By about 1530 CE three Colunelas were being combined permanently into the first Tercios, each 3000 men and about 50% each arquebusiers and pikemen.
That means the the independent Musketman as a unit lasted all of 20 years, at most 60 years. After that, virtually all regular 'infantry' units (in Europe, at least) were some form of Pike and Shot: Tercios, Dutch Battalions, Swedish Squadrons/Brigades.
Starting about 1700 the matchlock musket was replaced in virtually all European armies (France started as early as 1689, Russia adopted the flintlock 'fusil' officially in 1708) by the flintlock 'firelock' or 'fusil' with socket bayonet, and the pike became instantly Obsolete: all pike and shot units disappeared practically overnight and were replaced by bayonet-bristling lines of fusiliers.
While rifled barrels for muskets were being made in Germany from 1498 on, the first rifle-armed units were light infantry starting in the 1770s - the British/English Army's first 'standardized' rifled musket was the Pattern 1776 Rifle adopted during the American Revolution, for instance. But these were used only by specialized light infantry (Civ VI's Rangers), not regular 'line infantry.
The first rifled weapons for regular infantry didn't come along until the next century: between 1841 and 1856 rifled muskets were adopted, muzzle-loaders or breechloaders, by England, France, Norway, Sweden, the USA and Prussia. The breechloading black powder rifle became virtually universal by 1865 CE.
Then, in 1882 CE John Maxim patented the first modern machine-gun, and in 1889 CE smokeless powder was patented, and within 5 years the bolt-action, magazine-fed, smokeless powder rifle made all previous infantry weapons obsolete, and remained the primary infantryman's firearm for the next 60 years.
To sum up,
Musketmen - lasted all of 20 - 60 years
Pike and Shot lasted about 175 - 200 years
Fusiliers lasted about 150 years
(black powder)
Riflemen lasted all of 25 - 50 years
(Modern)
Infantry, starting as pure rifle-armed units, lasted about 50 years, but after about 1915 kept adding increasing numbers of non-rifle weapons: first machine-guns, then light mortars, then light artillery, heavy mortars, antitank weapons, until after about 1965 all infantry became 'machine gunners' carrying assault rifles, light or heavy machineguns, or manning heavy weapons like mortars, antitank guns or missile launchers, and even light artillery - infantry' or regimental guns.
Bottom Line: the two least important gunpowder infantry units historically are the old Civ favorite Musketmen and Riflemen!
- And, the most historically significant gunpowder infantry, the Fusiliers that fought the 7 Years War, US War of Independence, and Napoleonic Wars, has never been in the Civ games!
So, I don't want the black powder rifleman no more, and the magazine rifleman is the modern Infantry with additional weapons - which should not be separate machine-gun or antitank missile units, but integrated with the 'regular' infantry as the Modern and Atomic Eras progress.
I've been thinking about Infantry for a while. I think it's a bit of a mistake they don't require a resource like, say, oil. They are just too easy to rush.
But now I'm thinking perhaps Pike & Shot should upgrade to Infantry. The way this would work is:
1. P&S upgrade to Infantry (on the basis that anti-can represent common foot soldiers). They upgrade, they lose both the base anti-cav bonus (you'd have to retool anti-cav promotions a bit to make this work), and would instead get enhanced flanking and or support bonuses and or bonuses when garrisoned and or bonuses when in corps or armies. This means anti-cav - when in large numbers - are more like melee going forward.
2. Melee now get a new upgrade type: marines. They'd still be a melee unit, but would maybe have better movement (e.g. ignore certain terrain, or maybe faster sea movement). Marines would basically stronger than Infantry, but would still have a resource requirement.
3. AT crews etc. are now a whole new unit line that only becomes available late game. They work basically like Immortals: essentially a melee unit but with a ranged attack. They would now inherit the role of anti-cav but could also maybe attack cities.
4. Leave Machine Gun as they are - an upgrade to ranged. But perhaps give Machine Guns ZOC (again, you'd have to tweak promotions), and a flat defence bonus.
See above comments. Pike and Shot should upgrade to Fusiliers, who retain the anti-cav bonus because that's what the socket bayonet gave them, but they also got vastly increased (short-ranged) firepower compared to the matchlock musketmen/arquebusiers that were part of the pike and shot units. At this point, in fact, ALL combatants on foot pretty much convert to Fusiliers: pikes, swords, - every other weapon was discarded as a primary infantry combat weapon, and only kept as a symbol (halbards and 'half-pikes' or spears became a symbols of rank for junior officers and NCOs on foot, swords were the personal 'sidearm' of noble officers, but on the battlefield mostly used for gesturing rather than fighting)
I would merge Melee and Anti-Cav after Pike and Shot, and start a new 'Class' of unit: Firepower Infantry starting with Fusiliers and going on to include Infantry and Mechanized Infantry. I would give the latter two a Ranged Attack Before Melee to reflect the much longer range of their 'personal' weapons (rifles, assault rifles) and make Machineguns an Equipment Promotion/Upgrade that would dramatically increase that Ranged combat factor in the late Modern or Atomic Eras.
Same with the AT units. I'd scrub them as units and make them Equipment Promotions/Upgrades giving the ol' Anti-Cav Bonus to modern units versus Armor.
All that, in turn, would actually reduce the number of units overall while keeping the Effects of the former separate units, and simplifying the late-game Promotion/Upgrade paths.
Marines make no sense as a separate unit. No'marine' unit ever had equipment/weapons that were in any significant way different from the 'regular' troops: modern US Marines, British Royal Marines, and Soviet Naval Infantry fire the same rifles and assault rifles and machine-guns, mortars and light missiles as their 'army' counterparts, the only difference is specialized training in getting their feet wet. The current Amphibious Promotion handles that well enough.
(I bet you could mod a support class in as equipment for a scenario or something. Build the equipment unit, they attach to your soldiers and grant the boost/change the graphic. Now that would be a cool scenario...)
