Pikeman upgrade to Lancers?

[Babri]

You don't go from infantry to cavalry its just stupid. Lancers are just garbage anyway.
Its a huge kick in the balls to both Germany and the Celts. Theres no excuse for them
to be changing the upgrade path like this.

Both are anti-cavalry. Seriously do u use pikes to kill swords & take down cities. If u use to hold line using pikes then u can use muskets/rifles instead since they don't require any resource.

Infact pre G&K it was ridiculous that everything upgraded to rifles which actually dumbed down the whole battle mechanics in renissance, now u have units with different upgrades so renissance combat doesn't suck as it did in vanilla where only rifles & cannons were viable units as cavalry would loose even to knights & lancers were useless at that time.

 

[Wolfbeckett]

I'm pretty sure he ment knights. I apologize for using the term calvary myself, but I tend to when I refer to mounted units for short hand.

If he meant knights then it's an even more pointless complaint. Knights have only 20 strength compared to the lancer's 25 and gain nothing compared to them, why would you want to spend horses on them when you can get a unit that is just like them but with 20% more strength and a bonus against other mounted units?

 

[Bob_]

The interesting thing is that if two armies consist on pikemen only and one can upgrade to lancers, the army which didnt upgrade will have the advantage because of the anti-cav-bonus.

As far as I see it:
Pikemen= 18*2 =36 against lancers
Lancers= plain 25 against Pikemen

The only solution is to not upgrade every pikemen but only some of them in order to have some more tactical choices

 

[DemonMaster]

The interesting thing is that if two armies consist on pikemen only and one can upgrade to lancers, the army which didnt upgrade will have the advantage because of the anti-cav-bonus.

As far as I see it:
Pikemen= 18*2 =36 against lancers
Lancers= plain 25 against Pikemen

The only solution is to not upgrade every pikemen but only some of them in order to have some more tactical choices

I don't have the game yet so info is her is taken from other threads sites, but doesn't a pikeman have a str of 16 and the mounted bonus is +50%?

 

[Bob_]

I don't have the game yet so info is her is taken from other threads sites, but doesn't a pikeman have a str of 16 and the mounted bonus is +50%?

Not sure! Can someone confirm? But even in this case it would be still pretty much a stalemate, altho of course the extra movement is an advantage

 

[Barghaest]

I have no issues with them... I used Lancers quite a bit in Civ V pre-G&K. Quite a powerful and mobile unit great for tearing down ranged/siege units not just cavalry. They upgrade to anti-tank guns which makes them good vs tanks as well as having a high enough CS to take out AA guns/artillery (although they lost a little mobility going from lancer to AT gun, but keeping the promos from lancer makes them a bit more useful).

 

[Babri]

Not sure! Can someone confirm? But even in this case it would be still pretty much a stalemate, altho of course the extra movement is an advantage

Yes the strength is 16 & bonus reduced to 50%. Also pikes die to crossbows due to lack of speed but lancers don't. Also lancers can pillage & scout more efficiently so they are definately better than pikes.

 

[Lyoncet]

I don't have the game yet so info is her is taken from other threads sites, but doesn't a pikeman have a str of 16 and the mounted bonus is +50%?

Yes, that's correct.

Honestly this wouldn't be an issue if Civ V had miltiie upgrade options on some units, but that would probably require them to add a greater range of units a la Civ IV. Which IMO would be a good thing, but that's not the direction they wanted to go with the game.

 

[blackcatatonic]

Given that Catapults no longer require Iron, that should free up more Iron for more Swordsmen, making it less likely that one might end up with an army composed mostly of Pikemen.

I don't really see the problem with this upgrade path. As others have pointed out, it makes sense. When I get the XP I'll be trying out the Celts first so I'll soon be able to report whether or not it makes sense.

I take it Lancers still upgrade to Anti-Tank Guns?

 

[smallfish]

I take it Lancers still upgrade to Anti-Tank Guns?

They still go through that AT/Helicopter line, yeah

 

[GeoModder]

What they should do is have variable upgrade paths so we can choose what we want.

Now that's innovative (within certain bounds). :b:

 

[Barghaest]

Yeah, I'd go for a choice of upgrades as well that way you could choose things like whether a chariot archer remained a ranged unit (became composite bowman) or remained mounted (going into knight). Would make a great deal of sense with UUs since some UUs (especially in the mounted areas) are ranged while base is melee.

Then people who desired pikes to go to musket could do so while other could choose lancer.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I never used Lancers before, but I always scratch built a Musket army after Gunpowder anyway. This will just give me some Lancers to supplement them.

 

[cakes]

it's just a matter of adjusting to the expansion. next time don't build so many pikemen

 

[Calouste]

If I could hold out till rennaissance and bulb rifling,

Rifling is now an Industrial tech and bulbing is nerfed.

But Muskets and Cannon are still available fairly early.

 

[huserib]

The changes that affect this are many, and you'll see when you play the game.

Landshernichkteflatuten (German Landscknecht UU) have been debuffed in early game power along with their pikeman cousins, in that they take significantly longer to get to. Before, Germany could easily rush to CS and pump them out, so you'd see those huge German armies of them which could go toe-to-toe with swordsman in what was really the classical era. Also, they are less effective in the renaissance era. You truly see the armies merge as knights give-way to muskets supported by outdated pikeman and crossbows. Eventually, you just want those units gone. Before, a well upgraded pikeman could last you quite some time, but not so much post G&K, as upgrades really don't mean as much as they did before.

So with the revised mechanics, now they can demolish swordsman, but the cheapness isn't so great when your economy is that much stronger 40+ turns later, and other medieval units will stand up to them and take just as long to research. Crossbows take the same number of techs now, just a different path, and knights and long-swords are only one or two techs greater if that's your counter. Simply put, you are not going to have an army of pikeman clobbering classical era units and ready to shrug off medieval and renaissance units thanks to upgrades.

In multiplayer, if your opponent sees you as Germany and thinks you're going to pump them out, he'll be waiting with his crossbows. It just doesn't make sense to pump them out knowing full well you're going to need combined arms, even old Bismark doesn't do that anymore. Their advantage is that you get a couple of extra turns of productivity in that era as Germany, since your army is a bit cheaper to build.

As to the lancers, I don't know off the top of my head, I think it's at least 6 or 7 more techs to get rifles over lancers now. And lancers really don't suck anymore, but that is coming for a guy who actually built 2 or 3 of them as fast scouts and flankers. I liked them before, but now I enjoy them. Haven't got to anti-tank and helicopters yet, so I'll reserve those opinions for later.

 

[oddtail]

Yes the strength is 16 & bonus reduced to 50%. Also pikes die to crossbows due to lack of speed but lancers don't. Also lancers can pillage & scout more efficiently so they are definately better than pikes.

Wait, didn't positive modifiers of units remain after upgrading them?

If so - and if it hasn't been changed in G&K - then Pikemen upgraded to Lancers should retain the +50% strength bonus against mounted units, while having a higher basic strength. Can someone please confirm one way or another? I'd hate it if the bonus wasn't available for the upgraded units...

Also, I'm fairly surprised that people consider lancers from Vanilla so useless. I always found them to be very powerful units (granted, I mostly played in multiplayer against friends), in that they could attack the enemy and safely retreat out of his range. With Great Wall, they were practically unstoppable in sufficient numbers. But oh well, I'm probably just a bad player for enjoying them as a unit .

 

[nokmirt]

Pikeman upgrading to Lancers makes more sense than pikeman upgrading to rifleman. Also lancers were buffed to not be as terrible as they were pre-expansion.

Actually, Tercios etc did upgrade to infantry regiments armed with muskets, as pikes became more and more impratical as battlefield tactics and technology evolved. So, it would be better to have pikes upgrade to rifles, in the game. There needs to be an era with pikes and muskets, that gives way to adopting mostly muskets as time goes on, then into rifles. Horse units should upgrade to horse units IMO. This is an easy change via xml, for those who don't think pikes should up to lancers.

 

[DemonMaster]

<>There needs to be an era with pikes and muskets<>

Pikemen are the main army during the medieval age (no SR requirement) so if you have a lot of them you will probably not be able to upgrade them all to Lancers since (I guess) Lancers require the SR Horses.

So you (probably) will have pikes and musket together.

 

[Arkangelus]

You don't go from infantry to cavalry its just stupid. Lancers are just garbage anyway.
Its a huge kick in the balls to both Germany and the Celts. Theres no excuse for them
to be changing the upgrade path like this.

I'm sure that the Celts are just DECIMATED by having their free pillaging UU upgrade to something with 4 movement

Celts especially, foreign land bonus and free pillaging from the PW, bonus vs mounted from Pikes, can move after attacking from Lancers and bonus vs tanks from ATs, eventually ignoring terrain movement costs when they become helis. Nope, that sounds like a potentially awesome line for extremely advanced and promoted support units.