Melee class Promotions

[Sostratus]

So, since I like always having too many projects going on, I've been going back to the board on Slightly Less Simple unit balancing.

This thread is aimed at @acluewithout and @Victoria and any other civfanatic who has played enough civ6 to have an intuition on what would be balanced combat. Not historical realism, just generally balanced.

So one of my goals is to give Melee and AC both niches without having melee just hard counter AC all the time.
Looking over their info, and in the context of some wider changes, I think I have a decent conception of what the unit classes' inherent abilities should be. But I keep finding myself seeing melee's promotion tree as something that really needs to be adjusted to make it work. (It's completely overloaded and like the best in the game.) Most of the other trees are pretty okay.

A few things:
In general, I have some roles being "on the field," where the primary purpose is to kill enemy units. I have another set of roles being "in the siege," where you want to take or hold a city.
My first thought is to make melee units a "heavy infantry" type. To do this, melee units will lose their +10 vs AC and instead gain +10 defending against ranged attacks.
Since this starts getting really messy, this is what i am thinking:

• Rank 1: Battlecry: now it's just +7 attacking other melee units
• Rank 1: Zweihander: +10 vs Anticav (this is to mirror the thrust promotion)
• Rank 2: New Tortoise: +7 defending from ranged attacks (this brings the unit from +10 to +17, or halving ranged damage) Reqs Zweihander
• Rank 2: Amphibious: Same as now, reqs battlecry
• Rank 3: Commando: same as now, reqs Amphibious
• Rank 3: Urban Warfare: +10 fighting in districts, reqs Tortoise
• Rank 4: same

So basically, the right column is now Zweihander-Tortoise-Urban. This is the "siege role" melee line: first he gains a very handy boost vs AC to help clear back pesky defenders, then toughens up his ranged defenses to handle city bombardment; then becomes proficient in knocking down the city itself.

Battlecry-Amphibious-Commando, instead, is more about tactical battle "on the field." I happen to find the extra move point extraordinarily powerful, so I would prefer to keep it at rank 3 (to match AC) then move them both to rank 2.

For Anticav, I think I would keep thrust, swap schiltron for choke points, and then where choke points would go, create a promotion "sapping" or something that is like urban warfare. So our anticav units first learn to fight off those dastardly invaders, then hold the rough ground leading up to the city gates (because you placed them well, right??) and then they get a boost to fighting in districts themselves. (making sure no one pillages your campus, etc) Since melee no longer have an inherent bonus against them, schiltron isn't needed.

The balance between melee and anticav (besides costs) will depend on which trooper is experienced: promoted units will beat down the green recruits, but that can even up quick.

Just wanted to see if there are huge holes in this logic. Unit strengths would be similar to what's in my existing balance mod. Note that warriors would be pretty crappy vs barb spearmen until that first promotion, but of course, you could always use your own spearmen... if there's a way to nerf barb spears a little via targeted modifier that would be great.

(Side info: mounted will have a penalty attacking cities, and light cav might get an actual damage bonus vs ranged and siege units to incentivise you to use them for flanking into the soft underbelly, and not just using heavy cav all the time. there will be a lot of tweaking on production costs.)

 

[Victoria]

To me if feels like fitting a square peg in a round hole still.
One of the major failings is having clubs as the start. You are the advanced race and you have not discovered spears, you come across spears as you find one of the less advanced ‘barbarians’ and you do not even get a eureka for facing those spears let alone working out, hey, spears are better than clubs.
The reality is spears have been used since we were cavemen and if you want to represent something else, use a stone axe, not some weird shaped lumpy club from the Flintstones. It’s as bad as using scooby doo for scouts. But the point is spears were the first infantry weapon, spears and slings. Then from a game mechanic point of view it feels like they gave clubs +10 against spears just so you could clear out camps.

I am not sure you can differentiate reality to mechanics on this one because as a mechanic it sucks. They have boostrapped in this weird triangle early which also happens again in napoleonic stages but in between there was no sword replacement... there was polearms and knights. You see they had worked out how to be nasty with mounted with stirrups and lance and armour so no sane infantryman would have walked around without a long pointy thing to make them feel better. And that was what it was, can you hold the line with the pointy thing against the lumps coming smashing toward you. Training and promotion.

Early on the difference between spear, sword and horse was as much on promotion and skill than anything else. An early triangle should be at +5 not +10. I think you are on the right track with 'club' being defensive against ranged by default because they had a decent shield and advanced tactics by skilled troops could make that more effective.

To me the mechanics we have work generally but are messed around by 'clubs' and spears. They should just ditch clubs and start with spears... you are a new empire just coming from being a barb, you haave spers and they have spears. They are entrenched at home, you are entrenched at your home. Its all about weiht of numbers and skill of troops rather than having a whopping +10 so you can clear out barb camps with an inferior weapon.

Ranged are about 5 strength too strong for me but should get first shot in a melee. Yes your longbow could be awesome, even your xbow... but only after years of practice. training and promotion.
Melee is overloaded but ranged is just silly, marred by a limited movement system so it is harder to close with them.

I have played a lot of systems in my time including a lot of tabletop recreation when younger and nothing is perfect, rules can always be abused. I think the system would work better if there was a unit between sword and musket, but there is not one and that I imagine is why the design is stepped. In general is works fine or it would not have been accepted and TBH, bar the beginning joke with clubs it sorta works and sorta sucks.

Your idea is fine but based on previous threads and my own thoughts you are just not going to get a concensus. It's also tweaking a mechanic based on history that has compromises so I struggle to deal with your request for a pure mechanic when it is not. And I am not sure to what end apart from as a paper exercise which in reality is what it is. Doomed to drift down the list in Ideas and Suggestions.

To clarify with an example. If you changed barb spears with clubs and removed all base benefits
A Spear would be -11 vs swords
A Spear would be -11 vs horses
A spear would be evens versus archers

A Club would be -16 vs swords
A club would be -16 vesus horses
A club would be -5 verses Archers
A club would be -5 versus spears

Actually that works... a club is now worse than a spear... remove the +10 from clubs and spears but up the maintenance on horses because... you have a horse.
Allow Spears promotions versus Spears/Swords or Horse
Allow Clubs Promotions versus Spears/Swords or archers
Allow Horse Promotion versus Swords or archers
Allow archers .... <----- here is the other issue. These little monkeys gete a promotion versus everything. And do not tell me ranged on land were any good against ships let alone allow a promotion here.

So you have some good ideas but to my way of thinking it just does not cut the mustard. And we all seem to have our own pet ways.

 

[Sostratus]

You are the advanced race and you have not discovered spears, you come across spears as you find one of the less advanced ‘barbarians’ and you do not even get a eureka for facing those spears let alone working out, hey, spears are better than clubs.

It annoys me to no end, the way warriors turn into swords.

Your idea is fine but based on previous threads and my own thoughts you are just not going to get a concensus. It's also tweaking a mechanic based on history that has compromises so I struggle to deal with your request for a pure mechanic when it is not. And I am not sure to what end apart from as a paper exercise which in reality is what it is. Doomed to drift down the list in Ideas and Suggestions.

This is to help make a new mod. While generally I try to consider many sides, I don't have every perspective of everyone. I'm not trying to make the perfect combat system, just improve what i see as some of the imbalances of what we have.

What I don't want to do is make a nice little mod that overlooked a MASSIVE hole between how some of the classes interact. Then I would be sad, and have soiled the reputation of my House for untold generations.

I think the system would work better if there was a unit between sword and musket,

My current plan is to rewrite the unit class characteristics and promotions, and tune all the costs based on science! (numbers and formulae.) I then really would like to work with someone to integrate a couple of the S&T / Civ5 models to import a handful of units to plug the "longsword," trebuchet, and Riflemen gaps. (This would let me solve almost all UUs that cannot be upgraded into as well.) I have reasons!
I figure as the NFP content rolls out, I can pivot as needed, but I think the community should have a potential blueprint mod of what combat balance could be that could hopefully, inform the next "Vox" project mod in some way. (Either going in that direction or rejecting it.)

 

[Victoria]

longsword

This unit class is a bit of a fallacy. They were individuals rather than units so I guess you are implementing to balance the Rock Paper Scissors?
I am unconvinced this was their intent anymore, just an assumption made by others. They seem more of a progression than a triangle and I guess that’s sort of how they came about.
I have no issue with warriors into swords, to me it reflects infantry advances rather than a weapon change, wether it be Gallic or Carthaginian but once again it all personal.
Wish you the best. Think about those ranged promotions and replace a barb spear with a barb club.

 

[Sostratus]

This unit class is a bit of a fallacy. They were individuals rather than units so I guess you are implementing to balance the Rock Paper Scissors?

I use longsword only because it was the medieval melee unit in civ5. I agree strongly that we need a medieval melee trooper though. (I would personally call him a "halberdier" or "man at arms" or something, but longsword is something people on here have awareness of.)

Think about those ranged promotions and replace a barb spear with a barb club.

Ranged is so hard to balance due to innate factor of being ranged... Getting +12 vs everyone after 2 promos is simply rude. I drew out a wider plan which focuses on having melee be a soft counter to ranged (they can take a hit) and mounted be a hard counter - heavy via being brutes who will cleave them in twain, and light by getting an explicit combat bonus against them and being great flankers. So hopefully I can sidestep some of it by simply making them more threatened + toning down arrow storm.

 

[acluewithout]

New @Sostratus Mod! Exciting!

But so much to parse!

I’ll put my thinking cap on and try to come up with some more useful comments. But I have a few initial thoughts.

Starting Warriors are where the problems start. I agree that starting with clubs is where a lot of problems really start with combat balance. Melee are powerful, but in principle resources should be a constraint on that. But being able to build Warriors really undercuts their resource requirements.

You could just get rid of Warriors for AI and Player Civs. Perhaps Barbs still get them as a unique barb unit. Maybe City States build Spears from the start. But the Civs just start with Slingers and Scouts. It would really change the early game dynamics. Perhaps too much. But getting rid of Warriors would open up some room for wider rebalancing.

Melee Promotions. I generally like the idea of Melee being mechanically “Heavy Infantry”, but I’m not sure messing with Melee Promotions or giving them a permanent boost v Ranged is the best approach. The Melee Promotion tree is one of the best designed promotion trees in the game - there are real hard choices about how you develop Melee. I also much prefer how Melee (and Heavy Cav) are already a soft counter to ranged but in a more nuanced way because it relies on promotions. I think just giving Melee a hard defence to Ranged would just be too blunt and kinda boring.

Melee v AC. I’d also be wary if losing Melee’s bonus v AC. Yes, it’s problematic, but apart from the whole Rock Scissor Paper thing, it does fit with Melee having a role of punching through defences. I think it could be made better with more nuanced bonuses, eg firearm units get bonuses v non-firearm, that sort of generally implement the v AC +10 but not quite, eg perhaps swords don’t get a bonus v Spearmen. But I think that would be hard to balance right. Might be better just to keep the +10.

Anti-Cav. In my view, it’s really AC that need help. Your balance mod already helps them in terms of power level. But the bit they’re missing is a distinct niche v melee. Beyond their RSP role, their main niche seems to be “no resources” and “defensive”, but the problem is that resources aren’t much of a constraint and AC aren’t really better at defending than Melee.

One thing I’ve thought about a lot is making AC more distinctly the “cheaper” fighting unit, by giving them additional ways to earn production bonuses. My suggestion is walled cities get +% to building them (and maybe siege, which otherwise don’t have production bonuses). That would make AC even cheaper, but in a way that’s more nuanced. There would also be a nice synergy, because walls are defensive anyway like AC, and it would also make walls a bit more interesting.

I think giving AC additional support bonuses etc would also help, as that would make them better defensively but in a way that’s more situational. It would also synergise with the whole AC are cheaper to produce thing, because the support bonus really requires you to have more units in general.

I think another approach would be to make AC more about “infrastructure”. Perhaps AC uniquely get combat bonuses or promotions based on what Encampment Buildings you used to build them , a bit like the Nihang.

Lastly, I think something that would help them massively is reworking their promotion tree. Currently one half is about being better v melee. The other is about being better v cav. I’d keep the first one, but rework the better v Cav as something like better v siege. I’d particularly like to see the flanking bonus come earlier, losing the additional movement (which is such a sad more rubbish version of the melee unit additional promotion), and gaining a capstone ability like no negative from being injured. There might be a case for also giving them a promotion v ranged, perhaps at T3 so not cutting into Melee’s niche too much, which would both buff AC v ranged but also help weaken Ranged a little.

TLDR. Don’t change Melee promotions or just remove +10 v melee across the board. Instead, find a way to improve the USP of AC, and then rework their promotion accordingly.


Hope that helps.

 

[Sostratus]

Melee Promotions. I generally like the idea of Melee being mechanically “Heavy Infantry”, but I’m not sure messing with Melee Promotions or giving them a permanent boost v Ranged is the best approach. The Melee Promotion tree is one of the best designed promotion trees in the game - there are real hard choices about how you develop Melee. I also much prefer how Melee (and Heavy Cav) are already a soft counter to ranged but in a more nuanced way because it relies on promotions. I think just giving Melee a hard defence to Ranged would just be too blunt and kinda boring.

Melee v AC. I’d also be wary if losing Melee’s bonus v AC. Yes, it’s problematic, but apart from the whole Rock Scissor Paper thing, it does fit with Melee having a role of punching through defences. I think it could be made better with more nuanced bonuses, eg firearm units get bonuses v non-firearm, that sort of generally implement the v AC +10 but not quite, eg perhaps swords don’t get a bonus v Spearmen. But I think that would be hard to balance right. Might be better just to keep the +10.

My thinking was that currently, melee have a +10 vs AC and a +10 promotion vs ranged.

However, I find the AC bonus to be very abusive right out of the gate. Now I do have a whole bunch of resource usage & maintenance changes in mind too, which will help differentiate things, but I don’t really want to change the class system. (If it were me, there would be gunpowder and armored subclasses.)
So, I thought hey, why not just switch these abilities. It does lead to an interesting scenario where promoted AC with thrust can actually punch back at fresh melee.
That said, since I already am looking at making some classes have inherent bonuses of 5, that might be another route for melee (+5 vs AC into a Zweihander if you need to specialize.) I am also trying to consider early promotion tree strength vs accessibility of the unit.

For example, pretend we have “unwashed levied peasants” and “battle born knights”
If anyone can train up some peasant fodder, I would feel they should not have their promo tree front loaded with power. The harder to come by units you need to sacrifice for, I am more okay with having flexibility there.
I consider battlecry to be almost too good for example, especially given it leads to commando, on something like a warrior.

 

[Sirsquier]

I think the best solution is to make it more historically accurate. Give AC a bonus vs melee until mustketmen. Then give melee an insane boost against AC (+13 or something) to encourage the player to create them. Also make ranged very weak on defense against anything besides ranged. Give scouts a slight up in CS and give melee a strength against them. Finally, give recon a bonus against AC when attacking.

 

[Sostratus]

I think the best solution is to make it more historically accurate.

As tempting as this is, it does not a very interesting combat system make. You would basically end up with "everything dies to heavy cav" in various forms, save for a period in the renaissance/industrial, which would instead be "artillery slaughters everything." But heavy cav would also cost a king's ransom to upkeep. Real life is not balanced!

If you haven't, I would suggest reading the description of my unit balance mod to understand where I am coming from on this. What I didn't do there was really address unit costs in a substantial way, nor inherent class abilities. The melee bonus vs AC is something i believe was added as a response to civ5's peculiar tech tree: swords required iron, but pikes didn't and also sat on the path to rush universities, making pikes a great choice for defense your empire (because they didn't need a resource + were part of tech rushing.) The only way a +10 works is if melee and AC units upgrade at the same time, which they do except for the classical and medieval eras which is where all the problems are. So that's why i mentioned I would like to get a medieval melee unit in the game to rectify the problem. So I am somewhat split on it.

Also make ranged very weak on defense against anything besides ranged.

Ranged units already are quite fragile; their dominance tends to lie in situations where an enemy cannot reach them; either due to terrain, guarding them with another unit, or if they sit inside a city or encampment. I accept that the more skilled a player, the more valuable ranged units are strategically. However, i would pinpoint light cavalry as the ideal ranged unit counter - they are very fast and ignore zoc - with heavy cavalry following behind as a fast, all purpose hammer. I intend to make light cav even more potent vs ranged.

What I wanted to do in this thread is try to get as many perspectives as possible specifically on the melee/anticav issue. Not because I have a dearth of ideas, but because i don't want to overlook anything.

 

[Sirsquier]

As tempting as this is, it does not a very interesting combat system make. You would basically end up with "everything dies to heavy cav" in various forms, save for a period in the renaissance/industrial, which would instead be "artillery slaughters everything." But heavy cav would also cost a king's ransom to upkeep. Real life is not balanced!

If you haven't, I would suggest reading the description of my unit balance mod to understand where I am coming from on this. What I didn't do there was really address unit costs in a substantial way, nor inherent class abilities. The melee bonus vs AC is something i believe was added as a response to civ5's peculiar tech tree: swords required iron, but pikes didn't and also sat on the path to rush universities, making pikes a great choice for defense your empire (because they didn't need a resource + were part of tech rushing.) The only way a +10 works is if melee and AC units upgrade at the same time, which they do except for the classical and medieval eras which is where all the problems are. So that's why i mentioned I would like to get a medieval melee unit in the game to rectify the problem. So I am somewhat split on it.


Ranged units already are quite fragile; their dominance tends to lie in situations where an enemy cannot reach them; either due to terrain, guarding them with another unit, or if they sit inside a city or encampment. I accept that the more skilled a player, the more valuable ranged units are strategically. However, i would pinpoint light cavalry as the ideal ranged unit counter - they are very fast and ignore zoc - with heavy cavalry following behind as a fast, all purpose hammer. I intend to make light cav even more potent vs ranged.

What I wanted to do in this thread is try to get as many perspectives as possible specifically on the melee/anticav issue. Not because I have a dearth of ideas, but because i don't want to overlook anything.

Honestly, most of what I said was to try to rebalance and be accurate. However, it annoys me that melee has a bonus against AC. It shouldn't. Also historically AC was very powerful.

 

[Sostratus]

Honestly, most of what I said was to try to rebalance and be accurate. However, it annoys me that melee has a bonus against AC. It shouldn't. Also historically AC was very powerful.

Yes, I'm sorry if i came off as sharp toned. It's tough to work within the existing system because obviously, roles have massively changed over time, and treating anticav as the "resource free unit" makes things very challenging- especially given how the resource system underwent a huge shift! So even though, eg, Swiss mercenaries and their pike charge were incredibly OP for 100 years, are they really civ 6 pikemen? Or do pikemen represent something closer to levied feudal soldiers? I should find out what happens if I make the upgrade table merge unit lines. Now that would be something... (Assuming promotions don't totally break.)

 

[Victoria]

Or do pikemen represent something closer to levied feudal soldiers?

Well yes
If you put the Swiss in the game, there is only one special unit you would sensibly give them and quite rightly they would be awesome. Civ allows for the elite.

 

[The googles do nothing]

To do this, melee units will lose their +10 vs AC and instead gain +10 defending against ranged attacks.

This is going to be interesting experiment. (for me) the games start by defending with archers against a rush, latter attacking against a barrage of crossbow fire.

Melee and AC are classes that i don't get to higher promotion levels too often. Can't farm like ranged and can't run away like cav.

 

[Galvatron]

One of the major failings is having clubs as the start. You are the advanced race and you have not discovered spears, you come across spears as you find one of the less advanced ‘barbarians’ and you do not even get a eureka for facing those spears let alone working out, hey, spears are better than clubs.
The reality is spears have been used since we were cavemen and if you want to represent something else, use a stone axe, not some weird shaped lumpy club from the Flintstones. It’s as bad as using scooby doo for scouts. But the point is spears were the first infantry weapon, spears and slings. Then from a game mechanic point of view it feels like they gave clubs +10 against spears just so you could clear out camps.

You're a little confused here.

The spear comes in prehistory yes, but the spearman doesn't. The first human fighters, tribal warriors, are skirmishers, hence warriors in game. The spearman and phalanx come at the dawn of history, long after the warrior. The warrior may even predate the human race, let alone history. Similar behaviour is found among chimpanzees.

I'm pretty sure the reasoning behind the melee class is that it's the elite infantry, warrior class, that is for breaking ranks of the enemy. Essentially discounted knights. As opposed to the the rank and file conscripts that are for holding ground, spearmen.

 

[acluewithout]

My thinking was that currently, melee have a +10 vs AC and a +10 promotion vs ranged.

However, I find the AC bonus to be very abusive right out of the gate. Now I do have a whole bunch of resource usage & maintenance changes in mind too, which will help differentiate things, but I don’t really want to change the class system. (If it were me, there would be gunpowder and armored subclasses.)
So, I thought hey, why not just switch these abilities. It does lead to an interesting scenario where promoted AC with thrust can actually punch back at fresh melee.
That said, since I already am looking at making some classes have inherent bonuses of 5, that might be another route for melee (+5 vs AC into a Zweihander if you need to specialize.) I am also trying to consider early promotion tree strength vs accessibility of the unit.

For example, pretend we have “unwashed levied peasants” and “battle born knights”
If anyone can train up some peasant fodder, I would feel they should not have their promo tree front loaded with power. The harder to come by units you need to sacrifice for, I am more okay with having flexibility there.
I consider battlecry to be almost too good for example, especially given it leads to commando, on something like a warrior.

I fear I may not be a huge help for you on this thread. Oh well...

I like the concept of AC as the mass peasant / conscription army and Melee as the elite warrior caste. In some way, Melee’s +10 v AC sort of captures that - eg the elite Melee just hit the less professional Soldiers harder, but then they lose that against battled hardened AC (ie Thrust) as the experience gap closes.

But the RP element falls down early game. You start with your elite warrior class via Warriors; and Spearmen (essentially Hoplites) feel like they should be considered a more professional army.

Anyway, I agree with not messing with the classes per se. And I also think Melee’s +10 v AC cam be abusive early. But I also think that generally the +10 v AC is okay, it’s just in a few specific instances it breaks down.

My thinking on the relationship of Melee v AC was to just make Melee’s bonus v AC more situational. So, for example, maybe Warriors don’t get a +10 v AC. Instead, that only happens from Swordsmen onwards. Or maybe it only happens once a certain Civic is unlocked (eg the way flanking and support works).

I really don’t think your wrong wanting to get rid of the +10 v AC or rework Melee Promotions. My thought is just that going down that route may end up requiring a heap more changes then just tweaking AC here or there. It also risks messing with a line of units and promotions (ie Melee) that are on their own terms pretty well balanced.

Hmm. What if AC swapped Echelon for a promotion that gave them a ranged defence, swapped Redeploy for Hold the Line, and then got a better capstone ability? That would make AC more durable, because stronger v ranged, would help nerf Ranged a bit more, AC are still distinct from Melee because they do t get +1 movement, and AC are just a bit better v Cav. Add in some sort of nerf for Warriors v Spearmen, and I think that would make AC a bit more competitive v Melee in terms of wanting to build AC.

You're a little confused here.

The spear comes in prehistory yes, but the spearman doesn't. The first human fighters, tribal warriors, are skirmishers, hence warriors in game. The spearman and phalanx come at the dawn of history, long after the warrior. The warrior may even predate the human race, let alone history. Similar behaviour is found among chimpanzees.

I'm pretty sure the reasoning behind the melee class is that it's the elite infantry, warrior class, that is for breaking ranks of the enemy. Essentially discounted knights. As opposed to the the rank and file conscripts that are for holding ground, spearmen.

Don’t disagree, but two small points. One, I take your point about Spears v Spearmen, but I think Warriors would be more realistic having spears instead of clubs, even if they aren’t admittedly an organised phalanx of “Spearmen”. Two, I agree the Melee line sort of represents “elite” fighters or a “warrior class”, but then I don’t get why you start with these elite fighters from turn one. To me, Melee units in that sense shouldn’t develop until a bit later in the game.

 

[Victoria]

The spear comes in prehistory yes, but the spearman doesn't.

so... those barbs in the hill in that fort are skirmishers with spears? Or have they discovered spearmen?
Do you think the first skirmishers had spears or lumpy clubs? You could not hunt with a lumpy club. And how does a lumpy club beat up spearmen, not the ones in the fort but the ones you build with all that hard work getting to bronze working?
Rationalise all of that for me too please, especially how barb spearmen act like spearmen.

 

[Sostratus]

so... those barbs in the hill in that fort are skirmishers with spears? Or have they discovered spearmen?
Do you think the first skirmishers had spears or lumpy clubs? You could not hunt with a lumpy club. And how does a lumpy club beat up spearmen, not the ones in the fort but the ones you build with all that hard work getting to bronze working?
Rationalise all of that for me too please, especially how barb spearmen act like spearmen.

I’m not sure how we ended up with anti cavalry being the defends of barb camps. The only thing it seems to achieve is letting warriors beat up on it, and making heavy chariots useless against them.
I really hate how limited I am with melee/AC because of barb camps. Maybe I should make them guarded with melee units instead- it wouldn’t really matter except when they start having swords; although you have to deal with barb swords already.

 

[acluewithout]

I’m not sure how we ended up with anti cavalry being the defends of barb camps.

I think the intention was likely to make clearing barb camps harder, given Spearmen are a stronger base unit and (in principle) better on defence. It also helps distinguish the camp defender from the normal units the camps spawns, a bit like a “boss” fight.

Your balance mod actually helps clarify that, because by putting Spearmen back on the power curve, the Barb Spearmen actually become a real challenge early game.

I really do think they way forward here is nerfing or eliminating the starting Warrior and then tweaking the AC unit slightly so they have a more strategic value / better USP.

What if the +10 v Melee got tweaked like this:

Warrior, no bonus. [or eliminate Warrior, and make it a UU for Barbs]
Swordsmen, +10 v Spearmen only
Medieval Melee, +10 v Spearmen and Pikes
Muskets, +10 v all non-gunpowder units
Infantry, +10 v all non-gunpowder units, and +10 v District Defence

Basically, Melee would only get their bonus v AC in the very early game (excluding Warriors). Late game, they’d lose their bonus v AC, but would gain some other fairly punchy bonus eg v district defences.

I think an approach where the Melee v AC bonus floats between Eras would require a lot of tuning, but the main benefit would be that the strategic role of units would actually evolve over the various eras.

Combining that with giving AC a bit more defence v ranged, and something that just tweaks their USP a bit (eg, if their main USP is “cheaper, but weaker / slower”, then maybe +% from certain infrastructure to make them clearly cheaper), and I think you’d have a situation where Melee are still the preferred unit, but AC are a good option in particular situations or if you can’t build anything else.

 

[Sostratus]

Your balance mod actually helps clarify that, because by putting Spearmen back on the power curve, the Barb Spearmen actually become a real challenge early game

Don't I know it! It's eye opening who much making spears fight warriors at parity shifts the early game.

Combining that with giving AC a bit more defence v ranged,

I am hesitant to do this because I very much like that mounted is a prime way to mow down the blades of archers that crop up on the lawn of battle; and anticav are good at stopping mounted. It's a nice dynamic because as you know, pikes and spears are a bit better at their current strength values in my mod. You can use pikes in a very general purpose way.
Rather, I like giving melee the ability to cut through anticav and have a siege orientation via resisting range. This is really just about preserving the use case for melee over heavy cav. Having thought more, I don't want to make melee so good vs ranged that you don't really want mounted troops, though.

Oh, and while I am considering some tweaks to just warriors specifically, I also have been given the Infantry/AT crew/Modern armor triangle late game. Gotta think long and hard about that little fiasco. (I would like to make adjusts to infantry resource usage. Balance is so delicate. I need a gauntlet and 6 glowing stones...)

 

[acluewithout]

I think there’s a difference between being good a mowing down Ranged and Defending Ranged. I agree Light Cav (and to some extent Heavy Cav) should be good at killing Ranged. But I think both Melee and AC should be good a resisting damaged from Ranged.

Giving M and AC defence v Ranged doesn’t really devalue LC or HC v Ranged. Rather, M and AC can resist Ranged for a little bit, but you still ultimately need Cav to clear out Ranged otherwise your M and AC units will get crushed by attrition.

I also think AC specifically need resistance v Ranged, because AC also need to be good at Seige. I like that AC are more “defensive”, but they need to be able to provide defence also when your attacking / projecting power. eg you should be killing units and attacking cities with your Melee and HC units, but your AC should also be deployed protecting strategic objectives eg protecting your Ranged or Siege Units, or protecting your Ram or Tower. Currently, they’re let down in that roll by their vulnerability to Ranged.

eg Imagine your on the Attack. You try to take a walled enemy city. You surround it with Melee and AC, with the Ram linked to the AC unit. Your AC help maintain the Siege and help resist enemy LC and HC and also help protect your catapults and own Ranged units. And then your Melee units actually smash against the City to take it.

AC seek sort of designed to have the role described above, but it’s he total weakness to Ranged that hurt them. Give them a slight defence v Ranged as a promotion, and they could maybe do their job. You then keep Melee as your more pro-active Attack unit because of Battle Cry and the potential for extra movement (both via their promotions and as Mech Infantry late game, and by removing ACs extra movement promotion).

Also, speaking of Infinity Gauntlets, I think another complication is that FXS will inevitably have at least one Game Mode focused on combat, will have new combat units to fill gaps, and will probably tweak units via a patch. So, that might end up moving the goal posts a bit...