Pikeman upgrade to Lancers?

[Calouste]

I wish Dragoons were included in the game. It coul be a cool unit: can fight both on horse or on foot. So if your sources of horses are pillaged, they can still fight as infantry unit. Maybe it would fill the gap between knight and cavalry.

That would more likely be modeled in Civ5 as a mounted unit that gets defensive bonuses, like the Conquistador.

 

[Vidszhite]

Question 1: Why is this year old thread necro'd and nobody seems to notice?
Question 2: Why don't people recognize that while Lancers aren't the best, their upgrades are certainly serviceable in the later eras?

1) Lancers are still crap.
2) Every unit the Lancer upgrades into is crap too.

Helicopters can't even stand up to WWII Infantry for pete's sake, and they're Information Era units that cost Aluminum. Helicopters and AT Guns are wayyy over-specialized, and when other units can do their job just fine, and then go on to do other jobs, that's the mark of a useless unit.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

1) Lancers are still crap.
2) Every unit the Lancer upgrades into is crap too.

Helicopters can't even stand up to WWII Infantry for pete's sake, and they're Information Era units that cost Aluminum. Helicopters and AT Guns are wayyy over-specialized, and when other units can do their job just fine, and then go on to do other jobs, that's the mark of a useless unit.

Lancer is fine in the Renaissance era... it is terrible in the Industrial and Modern eras.

It should be between Knights and Cavalry.

(Helicopter could be improved as well..after all they gave paratroopers range 9 from 5)


as for necroing the thread... they made the impi (pikes) upgrade to Rifleman.. so hopefully they may finally fix the pike line in the Fall patch.

 

[3drawegroeg]

Pike to Lancer was a great change. It increases variability from game to game due to resource availability. Lack of strategic resources should matter. That's all been debated to death, though. I just came here to say that pike to winged Hussar upgrade is @\/\/3$0/\/\3. They have a short shelf life, but they're incredible during their window of opportunity.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Pike to Lancer was a great change. It increases variability from game to game due to resource availability. Lack of strategic resources should matter. That's all been debated to death, though. I just came here to say that pike to winged Hussar upgrade is @\/\/3$0/\/\3. They have a short shelf life, but they're incredible during their window of opportunity.

The problem with lancers is their window of opportunity closes in the early Industrial Era. They can't upgrade to anything until the Atomic Era.

That's why Lancers should be in the mounted line
and
Pikes+Spears should be in the Melee line.

 

[megabearsfan]

This issue has been debated to death in the 2K forums as well.

I also do not like the Pike to Lancer upgrade for several reasons.

First and foremost, the pike is the default infantry unit of the Medieval era. Longswords are a resource unit and are supposed to be specialized at capturing cities. The default infantry unit of one era should upgrade to the default infantry unit of the next era (Ancient being the only exception, as the Warrior and Spearman are both "default" units). Thus, the pike (as the default unit of the medieval era) should upgrade to the musket (as the default infantry unit of the Reniassance). You should not have to build an entire new defensive army just because you entered a new era. If that's what they wanted to do, then nothing should have upgraded to the Musketman, and Longswords should have upgraded to Rifles (as in vanilla game). Or muskets and rifles should require a resource (i.e. saltpeter). If the devs want spears/pikes to be a specialized unit, then they should reduce their base strength so they aren't as competitive against warriors/swords and aren't practical for use against an invasion force, then introduce a NEW classical/medieval infantry unit (i.e. a axe/mace) that can act as a resourceless-default unit.

Secondly, the jump from foot unit to specialized mounted unit back to foot unit then to helicopter is jarring.

Lastly, the civilopedia says that the invention of muskets and bayonets obsoleted pikes and spears. So there

If you ask me, the upgrade tree in general needs some work.

 

[thegingerninja]

Also, something stings about a unit upgrade being completely wasted in combat by its predecessor in combat because it is now the thing it is supposed to kill

 

[DemonMaster]

Also, something stings about a unit upgrade being completely wasted in combat by its predecessor in combat because it is now the thing it is supposed to kill

But they have the same target, the same purpose. The same concept. Lancers is more offensive though.

 

[Walter R]

...and guess what the most common militaristic CS unit gift is?! I tend to swap them with inland city garrisons so that I can use the more useful promoted ranged units at the front - I guess everyone else does? I agree the AT gun is rubbish but the helicopters can be great - bugs me that they can't fly out over water though, this seems a silly restriction.

 

[Babri]

But they have the same target, the same purpose. The same concept. Lancers is more offensive though.

The problem is that lancers don't actually specialise in killing mounted units practically speaking. Even without formation promo they'll be able to defeat knights. And even in current state (ie having anti-cav bonus) they fail miserably against cavalry which has much higher strength. So lancers should actually be in between knights & cavalry.

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[ledfranklin]

I really liked this change. I think having a strong, cheap, front line unit that lasts as long as the pikeman did and upgraded to another relatively cheap unit made going to war to easy. Throwing the SR in the line makes them more important and makes you think a lot more about what you're building. I would have actually nerfed the pikeman a little and buffed the swordsman/longswordsman a little to make iron even more crucial. Wars throughout history have generally been fight over two things, religion and resources. This might require domination to be a more strategic victory by first having to conquering cities with SRs, allowing you to build more units to go conquer more cities. But this could also be chalked up to a fundamental view difference, where some people think that domination should be the "default" VC and others do not.

 

[Strategist83]

1) Lancers are not a crappy unit. They deal as much damage against mounted as a next-tier (renaissance vs medieval) unit (yes, the Lancer is a medieval era unit, even if it's technically placed in Renaissance). They absolutely slaughter Knights and can move after attacking, to boot. The only reason people dislike them is, as usual, that they base their balance observations upon what is needed against the AI. The game is not - and should not - be balanced around this.

2) Germany in particular just breaks down due to this change as they can no longer convert their Landsknechts into their WW1 & WW2 armies as intended (which is the real use of the Landsknecht unit). At the very least an exception needs to be made so that Landsknechts upgrade into the Rifleman series. It makes no sense that Germany ends up with massive anti-cavalry/defensive unit armies rather than an offensive one.

*

The problem is that lancers don't actually specialise in killing mounted units practically speaking. Even without formation promo they'll be able to defeat knights. And even in current state (ie having anti-cav bonus) they fail miserably against cavalry which has much higher strength. So lancers should actually be in between knights & cavalry.

Total nonsense. First, Lancers are decidedly an anti-cavalry unit meant to battle Knights. Second, the Formation promo gives them high enough strength to battle Cavalry (33 vs 34) at significantly lower hammer cost. Lancer is fine.

 

[Falconiano]

This mod fixes it. What's the problem?
Or edit your XML files.

 

[Past Redemption]

This issue has been debated to death in the 2K forums as well.

I also do not like the Pike to Lancer upgrade for several reasons.

First and foremost, the pike is the default infantry unit of the Medieval era. Longswords are a resource unit and are supposed to be specialized at capturing cities. The default infantry unit of one era should upgrade to the default infantry unit of the next era (Ancient being the only exception, as the Warrior and Spearman are both "default" units). Thus, the pike (as the default unit of the medieval era) should upgrade to the musket (as the default infantry unit of the Reniassance). You should not have to build an entire new defensive army just because you entered a new era. If that's what they wanted to do, then nothing should have upgraded to the Musketman, and Longswords should have upgraded to Rifles (as in vanilla game). Or muskets and rifles should require a resource (i.e. saltpeter). If the devs want spears/pikes to be a specialized unit, then they should reduce their base strength so they aren't as competitive against warriors/swords and aren't practical for use against an invasion force, then introduce a NEW classical/medieval infantry unit (i.e. a axe/mace) that can act as a resourceless-default unit.

Secondly, the jump from foot unit to specialized mounted unit back to foot unit then to helicopter is jarring.

Lastly, the civilopedia says that the invention of muskets and bayonets obsoleted pikes and spears. So there

If you ask me, the upgrade tree in general needs some work.

While I agree with the just of the argument, I have to question a few things. First off, from a historical standpoint, not only were pikemen not the default infantry unit, they hard to even classify as soldiers, since except with notable exceptions (Tercios and dutch/german infantries) pikemen were peasants handed a pike and told to stand there. After stopping the inital charge, a pikeman would still get absolutely butchered by anything that looked at them funny, something you'll see in almost any RTS that utilizes them (a severe weakness to flanking.) That said, Firaxis' seeming unwillingness to change the default line into something else puts pikemen in an awkward situation, and I'd argue tht instead of arguing about pikemen, as the default medieval unit, turning into a niche renaissance one as the problem, we should argue about the condition that make that the reality, when historical medieval combat was almost entirely decided by one of three things: the initial ranged bombardment, a calvary charge, or the dismounted knights who accompanied either of those forces. Pikemen had little to do with any of that, and are given a much larger importance in Civ than makes any real sense.

I do have to agree that Pikes to Lancers is a jarring upgrade, and makes almost no sense. However, the alternatives are just as bad, if not worse. You can have it have no upgrade path, a la vanilla, which just makes the unit completely useless and promotes terrible gameplay. The other alternative is to put it in the mounted line, which is really just as jarring, since you go from knight with lance/sword to lancer with pike to Cavalry with gun, and more importantly promotes even worse gameplay, wince the middle unit now directly counters both of the ones on the side, and it comes out as barely weaker than cavalry when matched up it directly, begging the question of why you even bothered.

Ultimately, I think it's a pointless discussion. The change was made for gameplay reasons, and to nerf a criminally overused unit (pikemen) and buff a totally unused one (lancers). I would argue that lancers are, on a whole, better than they're typically given credit for, though (although I certainly agree that AT guns and Helicopters aren't worth the hammers.)

 

[Louis XXIV]

...and guess what the most common militaristic CS unit gift is?!

To be fair, they tend to send you what you don't have a lot of. If you build more Lancers, they wouldn't be sending them to you

 

[ekat2468]

My main problem with Lancers it THEIR upgrade path: If I get a unit in the renissance.... can I have it upgrade before the atmoic era?

 

[elbeasto]

Lancers and AT guns shouldn't even be in the game but if a unit must upgrade to a Lancer, let the Horseman have an optional upgrade path, either to Knight or Lancer.

But FFS let the Pikeman upgrade to a Musketman, that makes sense.

 

[reddishrecue]

The pike upgrade path is like that because it counters lancers. It should upgrade to muskets when there are no horses though.

 

[kk1000]

Anti-mounted is their thing. Yeah, beware.


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[Modus Pwnens]

+1 Pikes should upgrade to muskets. Historically, in the early modern armies, the ratio of pikes to muskets steadily dropped. As the guns got more effective, pikemen would be given muskets. Right up until the bayonet, when the pike became obsolete.

The pikeman's skill is as an infantry soldier. His skill at using a pike does not translate into skill at riding, or at using a lance on horseback. It would be far easier to hand him a musket than to train him to ride.