Pikeman upgrade to Lancers?

[Bibor]

With the new HP system, it would be really an amateur move to ignore the high movement and "withdraw after attack" mechanics of lancers.

 

[Calouste]

In the first game I played with G&K I got a Jaguar Lancer (goody hut upgrade of the original Jaguar to a Spearman):
- Double movement in Forest/Jungle
- +33% attack in Forest/Jungle
- +33% vs Mounted
- Heals 25 HP after kill
- Drill III

You can run, but you can't hide

 

[aluelkdf]

Going from pikeman to rifleman doesn't really make sense because there is such a huge gap in technology.

But I don't like how pikeman now upgrde to lancers either. I don't see how a non-mounted unit can turn into a mounted unit. A mounted unit should always be mounted (until mounted units are obsolete and can be upgraded to tanks and things, as tanks are basically mechanized cavalry.) And a non-mounted unit should always remain a non-mounted unit)

I think it would make more sense for pikeman to upgrade to mesketmen. Historically that would be more accurate. When gunpowder was invented, foot soldiers started using muskets.

 

[Esoteric Arcane]

Swordsman,longswordsman are your foot soldiers, but the way this game is designed limits them so people usually spam pikes or archers. The anti cavalry route went mounted aka lancer, they still arnt designed to go against your infantry. The unit in real life was usually just a quick squad formed up given pikes to slow the cavalry from tramping the rest of the army, a small force, such as your anti tank weapons. Usually you'll see more tanks than this unit, and people would spam it more than regular units if infantry required a material

 

[Dregor]

I was surprised by the change in upgrade path, but really it's ok. Except in the rare circumstance where you don't get any horses... which I of course have run into in my first G&K game..

 

[Arkangelus]

I have to agree with the OP. Lancers are not a proper upgrade for your main infantry force. Spearmen/Pikemen are the main infantry force, Swordsmen/Longswordsmen are the specialists that you might not even have. What about the Spanish UU? It's basically a mixed group of musketeers and pikemen, why should Spanish Pikemen upgrade to Lancers instead of them?

The upgrade line should go Horsemen -> Knight -> Lancer -> Cavalry -> Tank -> Modern Armor.

I think that Firaxis just didn't like that people only built Spears/Pikes, probably why they made catapults/trebuchets not require any special resources. Forcing us to use mounted units which not many people like is not cool though.

It now means that the Spanish UU is now properly unique - instead of everyones upgraded-to-Riflemen having a mounted bonus, only the Spanish ones will. The legacy of the Tercios, making a Unique Unit (gasp!) WORTH BUILDING!

I genuinely find it hard to get over just how venomous some people are about this! The unit tree has been rebalanced, they felt that Lancers weren't useful enough before - now they are It seems to come as some sort of greivous impunement to some peoples honour though to be FORCED to use a unit that they didn't have a high opinion of before!

**

Another little minor thing I've thought of - Immortals. They'll now upgrade through to Lancers and helicopters, meaning you can't just keep 6 or so from the beginning and use them to hold off attackers forever, fortified Riflemen healing 40% per turn. It'll add some more military strategy to Persia, especially as their ability gives an extra movement in golden ages... double healing rate Lancers with 5 movement, March will be vital and for border conflicts you can jump back across into your own lands to double the healing bonus. Slightly powers down their main force on the attack since the Rifles wont have it. And also means that finding the fountain of youth is no longer pointless - the sole time I've been able to settle it ironically was as Persia and it did nothing!

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Or I could simply replace them with a line unit thats actually useful rather than use
a crap unit that no one used and for good reason. As it is its not even worth the cost
of upgrading them.

What? The reason nobody used them was because they were out all by themselves without an upgrade path.

I actually think this change was a pretty elegant solution to two different problems.

 

[Lukin]

What? The reason nobody used them was because they were out all by themselves without an upgrade path.

I actually think this change was a pretty elegant solution to two different problems.

This is a really good point. Civ V's early units really progress too fast (Catapaults > Trebuchets in what, 3 techs?). Some of them end up in dead-ends.... having an upgrade path for everything is elegant.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I think the main problem here is resources. Spears and Pikes don't need anything and after this you need Horses, and after this you don't need anything for anti-tank again.

Interesting question, if you, for example, playing defensive tall empire and don't have horses, will you be able to upgrade Pikes to Anti-tanks directly, or you need to purchase horses?

 

[Esoteric Arcane]

Good question, usually in other games you can skip an upgrade but still have to pay for upgrade jump (additional cost)

 

[Txurce]

Even if you had only one horse, you could upgrade them every two turns from pike to AT.

 

[MadDjinn]

Good question, usually in other games you can skip an upgrade but still have to pay for upgrade jump (additional cost)

it is an idea. Unfortunately not in the game yet.

@Txurce

Personally I like this change. The Lancer/Musket/Ironclad/Cavalry units (all same-ish era) were horrible in vanilla - mostly due to issues in unit design, but also due to lack of upgrade path for the Lancer/Musket.

Now no one can say that the Ottomans suck because you have to build their two UUs from scratch

Could we have had Pikes go to muskets and Knights-Lancers-Cavalry as the way to do it? Sure, but then you have a unit in the middle of the Knight-Cavalry path as the one meant to counter BOTH of them. Seems weird.

 

[RealHuhn]

I've just played a game as Sweden and they have the Hakkapeliitta (Lancer UU).

I allied with a militaristic city state after I got civil service and they gave me around 4 Landsknechts.
I beelined metallurgy and upgraded them. Supported by two trebuchets (later cannons) and a musketmen I conquered my whole continent without much resistance.

Bottom line: Lancers are very useful! Kill units with them, soak up some damage from cities, retreat when seriously wounded. Siege units do the rest.

2nd insight: Sweden's UA is amazing. Great scientists are nerfed, so it's easier to gift them to city states. You can even gift great generals or great prophets which are both quite easy to get. Being allied with all cultural and mercantile city states will give you more science in the long run anyway.

 

[Gamewizard]

I love the changes to the unit lines, I was thrilled when I saw my pikes would upgrade to Lancers (I did have like 16 horses anyways). They are a great unit to finish off a unit, as they can ignore ZoC when they defeat a unit, so they can kill and retreat. If you are on a map with lots of flat terrain, they will absolutely dominate their era.

 

[Lyoncet]

I think since Lancers are much better than before, the main gripe isn't gameplay as much as common sense. So you have spears, which were historically (with exceptions, like the Spartan Hoplites) not exactly a professional army. Spears upgrade into Pikes. Makes sense, since pikemen formations were very often peasants who knew which end of the stick was pointy. Then instead of taking the pikes and giving the rabble muskets (again – many musketmen were just farmers with guns), they... get trained as cavalry. And then after that they get taken off their horses and are told to stand behind big guns. And then they get taken off the guns and put in helicopters.

The real problem, IMO, is that upgrade lines are now organized not by what makes sense in terms of the gradual process of adapting obsolete tactics and equipment to meet new battlefield realities, but rather by the unit's role in your army. So if mounted units -> tanks, then by necessity spears -> horses, then guns, then helicopters. This feels really forced and gamey, which, in a franchise that makes an effort to be somewhat historical (your mileage may vary – but let's not get into that) are two things that break the atmosphere and diminish the experience.

Underlying the decision to make promotions follow role rather than form largely follows because Civ V has linear upgrades as opposed to Civ IV's multiple choices. And underlying this, there simply aren't many units in Civ V, which is at least in part because 1UPT means you can't mix units effectively, so you can't get the right units to the right places consistently if they get specialized. And alongside that is the fact that units' special attributes are all promotions, and those promotions carry over upon upgrade, so if you had a Civ IV Axman upgrade into a Civ IV Swordsman with Civ V rules, it would have +50% vs melee and +10% vs. cities, just to name one problem. Just counting land units, each era has one unit that fills each roll: infantry, mobile, anti-mobile, ranged, siege. When you have so little choice, you're going to be forced to make weird upgrades whichever way you decide to structure the paths. I think the best solution by far would be to include more units. G&K gives us more units but aside from melee ships and keeping the ranged line from dead ending, it doesn't actually add to the number of unit roles you'll have at any given technological level. It just adds a few more levels (Great War and Marine/Paratrooper, even if the latter existed in Vanilla). Without more types of units, you won't really be able to get both functional and role-based consistency across upgrade paths. As opposed to Civ IV, in which you could usually get both.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I don't know about that. Didn't a CivIV caravel turn into a submarine, calvary into helicopter? That doesn't make much more or less sense than giving a horse to the guy with the long pole, to turn him into a guy with a long pole and a horse.

 

[Esoteric Arcane]

Good read Lyoncet.

I like Civ because you can go from beginning to end and it ususually offered more units than other types such as the Call to Power, which offered very few choices of units. I actually wouldnt mind the ability to create units such as Alpha Centauri style, problem though is that Civ V is streamlined so much, I doubt Ill ever witness that. I put mods into civ 4 that added more units during the timelines, so i could function as a real army than just specilized rps, the concept was still there, just more complex, and as long as i dont have to move a gun barrell from one town, and move two tank tracks to another, etc to build a tank, but thats all done for me, that level of complexity i can deal with I try playing some games with that COMPLEX of micromanagment i found unfun. But if you wanted to say put armour and a guy on a horse, youll pay the cost for the horse, the iron and the training (production time increase basically) The simple aspect is there already.

I also felt that during the ww1-2 and modern times a conversion should be added. You have too many dd's and need to field a light carrier quickly, pay the conversion cost, or place it in a city and they will take turns to convert the ship to a CVL. Need it back to being a destroyer? Send it too a city and etc.. Again a dream I wont ever see Same can be done with pikemen, want to give them a horse, (convert to lancers), want to take away the pikes and give them muskets? (convert to muskateer) Want to give them bows and arrows, (convert the unit to archers)

 

[Lyoncet]

I don't know about that. Didn't a CivIV caravel turn into a submarine, calvary into helicopter? That doesn't make much more or less sense than giving a horse to the guy with the long pole, to turn him into a guy with a long pole and a horse.

Yes, but horse-drawn-cart - horse - horse - horse-with-gun - horse-with-gun - helicopter is much more palatable than stick - stick - horse - gun - helicopter. Although you may be right on caravel-submarine; I don't think I did many ship upgrades in Civ IV.

Honestly I think a much smaller-scale solution would have just been to have had the Renaissance anti-cavalry be another infantry unit, although I don't know enough about Renaissance warfare to suggest an alternative.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Yes, but horse - horse - horse - horse-with-gun - horse-with-gun - helicopter is much more palatable than Civ V's scattered stick - stick - horse - gun - helicopter line.

Honestly I think a much smaller-scale solution would have just been to have had the Renaissance anti-cavalry be another infantry unit, although I don't know enough about Renaissance warfare to suggest an alternative.

Haha, no I understand. I guess it just doesn't bother me that much. I would have been okay with a new Ren unit, but this works for me too (and takes care of the lancer "problem").

 

[Barghaest]

This is a really good point. Civ V's early units really progress too fast (Catapaults > Trebuchets in what, 3 techs?). Some of them end up in dead-ends.... having an upgrade path for everything is elegant.

Now they just need to progress scouts... really sucks having to say goodbye to level 13 scouts because they can be one-shotted after a time. Still useful outside combat to watch passes/serve as medics for armies for a while but I hate seeing them just disappear into uselessness with no upgrade when ranged/siege units and cities can disintegrate them.