Pikeman upgrade to Lancers?

I don't see much wrong with the promotion line. Perhaps making Lancers resourceless would make things better?

 

That would be another completely valid way of addressing the issue, yes. I'm not exactly an expert on renaissance-era military formations and units so anyone who is could probably give better suggestions for individual units than I could.

 

I'll go one further. Around the time of line infantry we can get 'skirmishers', which would be a unit between crossbows and gatling guns. I still think crossbows are around for too long....

 

I keep waiting for the OP to come back from his rants and admit that he was wrong.

By the time the pikes get upgraded, they should have had a promotion or two or three and that would make very powerful Lancers since they are already faster Musks.

 

Maybe he moved on because he wasn't wrong and got tired of trying to prove it? I think people need to look past the "pikemen have bonus to mounted, so they should upgrade to the lancer which also has it". That's like musketmen upgrading to cavalry just because they both have guns. Pikemen to muskets makes a lot more sense. Look at civil war stuff, the musketmen basically walk up to the other army, fire once, then beat and stab the other guys to death with the musket.

Every single game I've played in G&K, I just disband my pikemen instead of upgrading them to lancers. The AI *always* has tons of pikemen and very few mounted units making them a very poor unit to have. They still suck vs cities and you still need a special resource for them.

 

I've said this a few time, but nobody seems to listen, maybe this will help:

PIKEMEN ARE NOT EXCLUSIVELY ANTI-CAVALRY UNITS. WHEN YOU ARE LOW ON IRON, FOR MANY AIs AND FOR ALMOST ALL CITY-STATES, THEY ARE PRIMARILY AN INFANTRY UNIT MEANT TO HOLD THE LINE WITH DEFENSIVE BONUSES TO PROVIDE COVER FOR RANGED UNITS BEHIND THEM. LANCERS CANNOT DO THAT.

 

Why can't Lancers hold the line?

 

In middle ages the longsword got one more strength then the knight, In renisance the lancer which is cavalery, anti cavalery got one more strength then the musketman who is the uppgrade to longsword. So lancer is not a bad unit and probably dominate its era better then knigth dominate its era.

 

I'm sure they could if the opposing units were outteched since they don't get defensive bonuses, but the lancers are best for hitting the flanks and retreating behind melee zone of control - take out range/siege (and most likely become a sacrifice ) - scouting - pillaging - finishing off the enemy city.

Could also be fun to build like a dozen or more lancers and sneak attack.

 

They dont get defensive bonuses (+25% for rough terrain), and they can't fortify (+20% per turn stationary to a max of 40%), they don't get bonuses for being in forts/citadels. A pikeman is better at defending against another pikemen or lancers than a lancer is.

In addition, for most of they're life time they will be fighting against riflemen or GW infantry. Against these, they have no hope of holding the line. They are still useful due to their fast movement to capture cities which have had their health reduced by artillery/ships/bombers, and to finish off weakened ranged units, but to hold the line? Nonsence.

 

At this point in the game IRON units are OBSOLETE so Lancers DONT Need to do the job Pikes once did they ONLY need to be anti-mounted.

Muskets are Available for you to use as your front line with no resources and Gunpowder is needed before Metallurgy.

Whats so hard for people to understand that it makes more sense to have the
anti-mounted unit become an anti-mounted unit on upgrade?

 

Do you really want me to retype everything I just posted or what? The sooner we stop making the argument that both Pikes and Lancers are defined by the fact that they have a bonus vs. mounted and only by the fact that they have a bonus vs. mounted, the sooner this conversation will actually start moving again.

 

Also, since Pikes never upgraded to Muskets, you had a time period where you had to build a different set of units as modern front line infantry anyway.

 

I don't disagree the Lancer is the oddball out in the entire line.

But at the point they come in the need for a cheaper front line infantry not requiring a resource goes out the window due to muskets being available.

Therefore the need to replace the pikeman with a unit that can hold the front line AND be anti-mounted isn't necessary the only thing that make the Pikes unique over the muskets at that point is the anti-mounted part so having it upgrade to a anti-mounted unit is the only major area that the next unit up needs, hence Lancer.

However I think the Lancer has a lot of inherent flaws as I mentioned before.

Maybe Lancers should be replaced by a Infantry style unit thats uses gunpowder but is specifically a Anti-mounted unit thats cheaper than muskets to build but can hold the lines like you want. But isn't as strong as Muskets but when it gets it bonus vs mounted it does do high damage to those units. IDK

I just personally feel its logical to keep 5 completely distinct Sets of units rather than have 2 sets merge and one start back up halfway.

 

Forward motion!

 

@ Hyper Nova:

You do not always need to have the 3-4 'roles' (melee, ranged, siege, anti-mounted?) filled at all times. To an extent it makes the game too linear. Instead of recognizing a system and bending over backwards to make units fit into it, why not just create a better system?

 

Maybe, I don't know thats just how its seems to have been designed. If you were to make a "better" system you would probably have to start from the ground up and that might be a topic for a whole new thread.

 

I'm not arguing that there is no need for lancers, only that pikeman shouldn't upgrade to them.

Let say I'm playing as china and my army consists of chokonus and pikemen, which works fine as a combination. No need for expensive resource consuming longswords. Pikemen providing defence, CHK the attacking power. Clearly, I want my pikemen to upgrade to another defensive unit. But once I reach metalurgy my pikemen upgrade to lancers - clearly not the unit I want. Sure, I could build a whole load of new musketmen/riflemen, but that's annoying. I want the unit which fills the role of a front line infantry unit to upgrade to the next unit which fills the role of a front line defensive unit.


The way the game should work IMHO is to go back to how it works vanilla. The expensive and cheap infantry units merge (which is historically accurate and makes for good gameplay as there is no modern resource requirement for infantry units) and two bring back two mounted unit type:
Light cavalry: horseman->lancer->something new->helicopter
Heavy cavalry: knight->cavalry->landship->tank->modern armour

Lancers with no more moves than cavalry are useless, as cavalry are only 1 tech up and literally better at everything, even killing other cavalry. Lastly, the anti-tank gun and AA gun should be merged into a single unit as, frankly, neither are useful enough in their own right. Being good against only 1 type of unit when the enemy might yield 5 or 6 different ones is not enough. A field gun or battery (modelled on the german 88mm) would be a unit actually worth building. Similarly, the SAM batter should be replaced by an RPG unit of some sort which is good against both aircraft and tanks. The helicopter would be relegated to a light cavalry recon/hit-and-run style of attacks.

In fact, I did a mod which did the latter for vanilla, will probably re release for G&K in a few weeks, once I've really gotten to grips with modern warfare.

 

Lord Olleus: For your "something else", what about a light tank, like the Renault FT-17? Weaker than a heavy tank, but more movement points and perhaps the ability to move after attacking. It would fit perfectly.

 

Tell that to my Hakkapaliita wall, bub!