Numidian Cavalry too strong?

[madm]

Hi there, I'm a big Civ player (since Civ I actually) and thought I'd seen it all, but recently came across a very easy conquest victory with numidian cavalry (I'm playing Rise of Mankind). With 50% against melee and giving it some city attack promotions no other civs could come up with a good defense. Are these units just too strong in the early game? What's your opinion about that?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

In normal games they don't get city raider.

 

[phungus420]

Wow, they get City Raider in RoM? They are already one of the stronger UUs in my oppinion. I consider them top tier at least. Of course they are no Pretorian, but nothing is. Anyway, yeah, your balancing issue is with RoM itself and should be brought up in that subform.

In default BtS many people actually claim Numidian Cav are weak (which is probably why Zap buffed them). They are crazy in my opinion though, Numidian Cav are insanely strong as is. There is a reason I can move up a difficulty level when playing carthage with or without Hannibal's financial trait. The best way to use Numidian cav is to max out their flanking, and then mass suicide attack with them, you basically use them like catapults. You see with the huge withdraw bonuses they get you end up attacking with 70-80% survival odds from the start. Then you can just pick off the wounded troops remaining. Plus you always end up with insanely promoted Numidians that way...

 

[Belisar]

City Raider Numidians would be scary by themselves, then, after the upgrade, think about other CR mounted units

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Keshiks are even better than numidians, but numidians are indeed a solid UU.

Although their usefulness depends on having horse and a neighbor vulnerable to a rush, but that's ok. Hannibal has good traits too. In fact, he's the only CHA HA UU guy.

Edit: Yes, city raider III knights with their first strike immunity would be borderline ********. Cavalry even more so.

 

[Joecoolyo]

Edit: Yes, city raider III knights with their first strike immunity would be borderline ********. Cavalry even more so.

Its not ********, its crazy awesome!

 

[Jrrd Tzu]

Hannibal is awesome, and I think the Keshik is better by 1 Str points and ignores terrain. Course, I think over all, the Numers are more advantageous str. wise, 50% to everything but mounted (7.5), and immune to 1st strikes. In a fight? Well, Ill just say I think the Keshik and spear-line are the only groups you wouldn't attack with Numers. It's a solid unit.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Hannibal is awesome, and I think the Keshik is better by 1 Str points and ignores terrain. Course, I think over all, the Numers are more advantageous str. wise, 50% to everything but mounted (7.5), and immune to 1st strikes. In a fight? Well, Ill just say I think the Keshik and spear-line are the only groups you wouldn't attack with Numers. It's a solid unit.

Longbows, horse archers, and elephants can be problematic also, but NC ARE good.

 

[Jrrd Tzu]

Longbows, horse archers, and elephants can be problematic also, but NC ARE good.

Was so pumped about the numers I had to test. I wasn't all impressed. Maybe it's my poor execution, but they seem lacking to me. Give me an immortal or even a war chariot instead. Heck, the horse archers are better with promos! They seem broken, kinda like gaelic warriors to me. But again, maybe it was execution..

 

[Ghpstage]

Was so pumped about the numers I had to test. I wasn't all impressed. Maybe it's my poor execution, but they seem lacking to me. Give me an immortal or even a war chariot instead. Heck, the horse archers are better with promos! They seem broken, kinda like gaelic warriors to me. But again, maybe it was execution..

Well in single player Numidians only real advantage in attack is the boost against spears, they are weaker against archers by a long shot (A big advantage in itself). They are much better in defending against enemy stacks though!

Numidians are good UUs as they can keep attacking cities after the enemy gets spears and defend better than normal HA (also more flank damage due to higher damage strike?)

Gallic warriors, broken? In what way?

 

[Jrrd Tzu]

Well in single player Numidians only real advantage in attack is the boost against spears, they are weaker against archers by a long shot (A big advantage in itself). They are much better in defending against enemy stacks though!
Numidians are good UUs as they can keep attacking cities after the enemy gets spears and defend better than normal HA (also more flank damage due to higher damage strike?)

Great info. I noticed the disadvantage against archers RIGHT away. Flank dmg confuses me. I'm not sure how this works. My thought was it has a chance to do collateral dmg to the specific unit? However I didn't see this.

Numidians are good UUs as they can keep attacking cities after the enemy gets spears and defend better than normal HA (also more flank damage due to higher damage strike?)

What do you mean by, "after the enemy gets spears"? I'll be honest. I don't recall any defensive scores, or how they are calculated. I've only seen STR and figured the % of def. augments X str when defending. Hey, i'm the new guy!! IF anyone wants to explain to me how "def" works, and calculations? I'd be grateful.

Gallic warriors, broken? In what way?

Gallic warriors seems comparatively weak to the axe (str 7.5 to the 6 str ga) and not much better than the Sword. Lukewarm at best. G1 makes the unit terrain dependant for an advantage, and while the promo line is cool, It seems like woodsman (if I had to choose between the two) has more utility, and instead your pigeonhold to G1 line. Besides, probably just throw C1 or CR1 on it since it has the same bonus sure the sword. Again, lukewarm.

So to me, this unit is only good when the circumstance is attacking a city from a hill or defending your tile enhancements...on hills. Not saying I can't think of other ways to use it. I just think a swordsman with g1 maybe shouldn't be called a UU.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

So to me, this unit is only good when the circumstance is attacking a city from a hill or defending your tile enhancements...on hills. Not saying I can't think of other ways to use it. I just think a swordsman with g1 maybe shouldn't be called a UU.

They can also be built with copper, so can come slightly sooner or with EITHER metal.

 

[Ghpstage]

Great info. I noticed the disadvantage against archers RIGHT away. Flank dmg confuses me. I'm not sure how this works. My thought was it has a chance to do collateral dmg to the specific unit? However I didn't see this.

The archers disadvantage is pretty bad . Flank attacks cause damage to a number of same or earlier era siege in a stack if your attacking Horses survive, whether they win or withdraw. Flanking promos boost chances of survival, and therfore make it more likely to flank. Flank attacks can't work when attacking cities or forts.

I think, though am not sure, that the damage they cause is determined by the units damage per strike in combat against the unit it is actually fighting, it was put as a question for a reason .

What do you mean by, "after the enemy gets spears"? I'll be honest. I don't recall any defensive scores, or how they are calculated. I've only seen STR and figured the % of def. augments X str when defending. Hey, i'm the new guy!! IF anyone wants to explain to me how "def" works, and calculations? I'd be grateful.

Numidians are better against spears as they get a +50% bonus against all melee.
On defense, bonuses increase a defending units base so spears have 4+100%=8 against horses.
Attacking units bonuses subtract from the defender, in Numidians case, it reduces Spear bonus to 50% (100%-50%) leaving 6v5 in favour of the spear, giving the spear less advantage over them than they have against regular HA (8v6).
Article explaining all combat

Gallic warriors seems comparatively weak to the axe (str 7.5 to the 6 str ga) and not much better than the Sword. Lukewarm at best. G1 makes the unit terrain dependant for an advantage, and while the promo line is cool, It seems like woodsman (if I had to choose between the two) has more utility, and instead your pigeonhold to G1 line. Besides, probably just throw C1 or CR1 on it since it has the same bonus sure the sword. Again, lukewarm.

So to me, this unit is only good when the circumstance is attacking a city from a hill or defending your tile enhancements...on hills. Not saying I can't think of other ways to use it. I just think a swordsman with g1 maybe shouldn't be called a UU.

As TMIT mentioned the ability to be built with either copper or iron is pretty big itself.
Gallics are also the only melee unit that can access the Guerrilla promos, they keep any G promos they have when they upgrade too.

Hills are pretty common on most maps, the G1 alone makes it capable of defending against non AGG axemen at favourable odds on hill tiles, handy but not exactly game changing.
G2 available with a barracks makes Gallics nearly unkillable till macemen (while on hills anyway), but more importantly increases speed by a considerable amount, while not all tiles are hills, the fact they are common means some extra speed is gained (a lot in some cases) hitting faster is quite often better than hitting slightly harder as you will face fewer defenders. You can also pillage the turn you move into a hill.
G3 gives 50% withdrawal when attacking, this means 50% fewer losses when attacking , the hill attack bonus is just a little icing on the cake.
Hills also cannot be chopped.

On woodsman, forests being more common and AI being typically poor at removing it all you can be sure to gain the defense and move bonuses more often than with G2, however the forests will be chopped eventually, and no strategic resources for pillaging except elephants can be found in forest/jungle, jungle elephants will be chopped early due to the food issue too....

W3 vs G3 is a more difficult comparison.
G3 withdrawal means you will need to spend less while fighting a war, and will probably mean better experienced troops. The bonus to attacking hills is not eactly a huge bonus though. Also makes attacking without siege a lot more viable.
On the other hand W3s healing allows attacks to continue faster, I wouldn't use W3 on a large percentage of my troops though as W3 doesn't directly help attacking cities, and the first strikes while handy are of most use while defending a forest. They do mean you more likely to damage the top defender in a city though.

 

[Crusher1]

The problem with HA, NC, Keshiks is they take a lot longer to start your initial war - tech expensive and hammer expensive. So even if you do a 2 city rush it will take a longer time which compounds complications vs more culture, more units, and a longer time your economy is wrecked.

Imo a better idea is to chariot rush your way into another civilizations land while setting up a solid 6+ city empire then launch a massive 30+ NC, HA, Keshik war before they get LBs. Once they get LBs mass the horse UU with cat support. Of course, pillaging enemies military resources and attacking with nothing more than sword/axe could get you a bunch of land sooner.

Anyways, I'm not actually very fond of the more expensive horse units in general. I'd also rather have WC or Immortals any day.

 

[The_Dwarf]

Their Unique building actually is even more powerful, I would complain more about that being too strong actually.

 

[Joecoolyo]

No my god... their indestructible! Ahhh!!!

 

[DABegley]

The Numidian archers do have some flaws but your not taking into account the effects of stables and the Charismatic trait. Stables plus barracks gives NCs 2 promotions right off the bat. This allows you to specialize troops. Such as CI/FII (FI is a freebie for NCs) for attacking archers, this gets you to 5.5 and a high withdrawal probability. Or CI/Shock which gives you a 9.25 against any melee units. They will also chew up siege units with the flanking attack. Lastly the immunity to first strikes takes some of the sting out of defending archers. One fight and you also get a third promotion to help against whatever troubles you run into.

I was so intrigued by the discussion that I fired up Hannibal last night and tried an NC rush. Despite having the only horse resource in an incredibly inconvenient spot, far away and close to Isabella, and no copper or iron I managed to rush a settler over to grab the horse, build up 8 NCs and charge Isabella. Took two cities, one was Madrid with a shrine, made peace for two techs, 150 gold and 6/turn. I had just finished researching construction as peace was made so I am using the 10 turns to bulk up siege units for round 2. I would have continued the war but I noticed Justinian with 3 triremes and 3 galleys cruising my coast. That highlights the last point in the NCs favor, speed. I was able to get a good enough force of troops back to Carthage in time to face the invasion that I believed was coming despite Justinian being at pleased and the same religion as me and below me in the power graph. I was correct, it came and I held. Round 2 tonight.

Now NCs are not the uber-unit that Praets are, pikemen and especially elephants really bother them, but the combination of speed, multiple quick promotions which allow unit specialization and inherent traits (FI, flanking attack against siege and first strike immunity) make them very powerful.

 

[Jrrd Tzu]

...the ability to be built with either copper or iron is pretty big itself. Gallics are also the only melee unit that can access the Guerrilla promos, they keep any G promos they have when they upgrade too.

I didn't know this about the copper. This is probably the biggest advantage over all, imho. Early units are always good. And thought it doesn't seem popular, I enjoy Dog Soldiers for this fact. I'm a sucker for NAE, what can I say.

Hills also cannot be chopped.

This is the best point, cause I appreciate frankness. Added attack bonus makes me a convert. I might just hook up a Boudica game