I'm sure we're all glad that new units were added in BTS. But are there still historically important (and game worthy) units not yet included in the game?
First for me is the early gunpowder using bombardment weapons. It seems glaringly strange that my riflemen are accompanied by catapults, just because I haven't run up to Steel yet. But even for the first generation of musketmen, gunpowder siege weapons accompanied them. This needn't be much better than a catapult, as it ignored walls/castles as a gunpowder tech unit.
Modern air units get little coverage. No biplanes for the dawn of flight -- early air combat wasn't that effective, and the airship stats might work for them, with tweaks. Rocketry should yield jet fighters, the first and second generation types through the cold war era, with the advanced flight model being an advanced jet fighter. A strategic jet bomber would be nice to bridge the gap between the WWII era bomber and the stealth craft.
The Airship is too good for its tech. While recon balloons might not be quite so cool, they were used for decades before self-propelled, steerable airships came along.
Naval war is missing something in the modern era as well. Between ironclad and destroyer, you had coal-powered predreadnought battleships (slow and powerful precursors to the WWI era ships, though some saw service in that war) as the big bosses of the sea. Destroyers were never the dominant combat ship. Armored Cruisers filled a middle role, fairly powerful major warships, faster than battleships but not as tough.
Then there were torpedo boats, which were the original reason for having destroyers. While mainly built for coastal defense (and thus functionally replacing the ironclad's role in the game), torpedoes made them a serious threat to much larger warships, even battleships were sunk by them.
Submarines were initially another sort of torpedo boat, with the ability to submerge. The WWI era were slow and clumsy in many ways, forced to run on the surface much of the time. This was made up for by the difficulty in killing them with the weapons of the era. Destroyers really came into their own as a category defending against torpedo boats and submarines, using their speed and weapons to protect fleets.
The submarine in the game is more like a WWII era vessel. The ability to operate long periods submerged developed, as well as effective sonar (for destroyers to hunt them with).
The game's attack submarine fills a missing role nicely, but their prey -- missile submarines -- are sort of absent. We have them, but they are just the original submarine with the ability to fire missiles. Ballistic (tac nuke) missile submarines are completely different -- much larger, generally faster, always nuclear powered, better armed -- from the WWII sorts. Moreover, in the real world diesel (oil) powered submarines remain in use, as cheap alternatives to attack submarines.
A downside of adding more industrial or modern era units is that there aren't enough techs to give them a long lifespan in the game. Another way to say this, though, is that the technological progress in the modern era is fast and furious, obsoleting things as soon as they are built. Now, for computers, this is definitely true
But that doesn't mean we can't live with the same effect in the game.
A perennial issue with new units is AI use of them. I'd like to think that the AI can adapt to units which have a clear role and are the best fit -- most units in a general category tend to work like that, with the newer models clearly better than the old. Simply having more generations to upgrade/develop through shouldn't matter that much.
If you like wars, it is nice to have the tools to fight them with historical tactics and feel. The right unit for the right era helps.
First for me is the early gunpowder using bombardment weapons. It seems glaringly strange that my riflemen are accompanied by catapults, just because I haven't run up to Steel yet. But even for the first generation of musketmen, gunpowder siege weapons accompanied them. This needn't be much better than a catapult, as it ignored walls/castles as a gunpowder tech unit.
Modern air units get little coverage. No biplanes for the dawn of flight -- early air combat wasn't that effective, and the airship stats might work for them, with tweaks. Rocketry should yield jet fighters, the first and second generation types through the cold war era, with the advanced flight model being an advanced jet fighter. A strategic jet bomber would be nice to bridge the gap between the WWII era bomber and the stealth craft.
The Airship is too good for its tech. While recon balloons might not be quite so cool, they were used for decades before self-propelled, steerable airships came along.
Naval war is missing something in the modern era as well. Between ironclad and destroyer, you had coal-powered predreadnought battleships (slow and powerful precursors to the WWI era ships, though some saw service in that war) as the big bosses of the sea. Destroyers were never the dominant combat ship. Armored Cruisers filled a middle role, fairly powerful major warships, faster than battleships but not as tough.
Then there were torpedo boats, which were the original reason for having destroyers. While mainly built for coastal defense (and thus functionally replacing the ironclad's role in the game), torpedoes made them a serious threat to much larger warships, even battleships were sunk by them.
Submarines were initially another sort of torpedo boat, with the ability to submerge. The WWI era were slow and clumsy in many ways, forced to run on the surface much of the time. This was made up for by the difficulty in killing them with the weapons of the era. Destroyers really came into their own as a category defending against torpedo boats and submarines, using their speed and weapons to protect fleets.
The submarine in the game is more like a WWII era vessel. The ability to operate long periods submerged developed, as well as effective sonar (for destroyers to hunt them with).
The game's attack submarine fills a missing role nicely, but their prey -- missile submarines -- are sort of absent. We have them, but they are just the original submarine with the ability to fire missiles. Ballistic (tac nuke) missile submarines are completely different -- much larger, generally faster, always nuclear powered, better armed -- from the WWII sorts. Moreover, in the real world diesel (oil) powered submarines remain in use, as cheap alternatives to attack submarines.
A downside of adding more industrial or modern era units is that there aren't enough techs to give them a long lifespan in the game. Another way to say this, though, is that the technological progress in the modern era is fast and furious, obsoleting things as soon as they are built. Now, for computers, this is definitely true
But that doesn't mean we can't live with the same effect in the game.A perennial issue with new units is AI use of them. I'd like to think that the AI can adapt to units which have a clear role and are the best fit -- most units in a general category tend to work like that, with the newer models clearly better than the old. Simply having more generations to upgrade/develop through shouldn't matter that much.
If you like wars, it is nice to have the tools to fight them with historical tactics and feel. The right unit for the right era helps.
