Pikeman

[Calavente]

archer get weapon promo ??

maybe 2 tier after melee ..

archer are 1 tier after warriors and they don't get weapon promo..

LB I don't remember, but my firebows hadn't weapon promo, flurries neither.
only the X-Bow had some weapon promo but they were tier 3 and 4 units compared to the tier 1 melee unit : warrior.

maybe make archer get weapon promos but not metal promos :
weapon promo connected to other ressources (pig / silk ... maybe add a new ressource appearing mid game ..)

 

[Ekolite]

Warriors can get weapons promotions, why shouldn't archers.

 

[Willgar]

"Steamrolling" the AI works exceptionally well - all the way up to deity, the main problem is that there is no technology check to stop units scaling up with promotions. Would it make sense to restrict promotions by unit level and/or technology.

So no military unit cant get combat 3, Shock, Drill etc unitil particular techs are researched.

Or maybe tier 1 units can only gain XP up to 20 / tier 2 up to 40 / tier 3 up to 60 etc etc.

This is purely a selfish suggestion as since dabbling with the rush tactic (admittedly only as hippus) - i have kinda spoiled my gaming experiance as i can "Win" in under 200 turns on my prefered map combination even at deity - something which i though was beyond me using my old balanced builder/short conflict approach.

 

[Ekolite]

Yeah but that is the strength of the hippus. AFAIK, if you try a nice calm builder aproach with them it doesn't really work out. They are an early game leader, you get horseback riding, build a couple of horsemen, win conquest. Its not cheating, its ''strategy''

 

[Willgar]

Yeah but that is the strength of the hippus. AFAIK, if you try a nice calm builder aproach with them it doesn't really work out. They are an early game leader, you get horseback riding, build a couple of horsemen, win conquest. Its not cheating, its ''strategy''

Yep - trying Dwarfs now with same tactic and it is proving harder ... yeah

 

[Ekolite]

Oh Realy. Are you playing the Lurchip of the Khazad?

 

[Willgar]

Oh Realy. Are you playing the Lurchip of the Khazad?

Played as Lurchip on Deity - much harder - managed to kill the nearest AI real quick but extended wars are hurting my happiness so my steamroller is rolling to a standstill....

 

[onedreamer]

Does anyone else find there to be a logical disconnect here? "These three promotions are better then these two!" Yes, three promotions are better then two, and both are specialized (though Anti-Melee seems a bit more universal then anti-city). Is there some sort of balance problem with level 4 being more useful then level 3?

I shouldn't even answer, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you didn't understand well... first of all I clearly compared two 10xp units, so they are the same level. In fact you can't get shock 2 at level 3, you need prerequisites. And it's even worse than what I pictured: checking on civilopedia it seems that you only need combat I for shock I and nothing for shock II, but I think you actually need combat III for Shock II. So a city raider promoted melee unit will be more effective earlier at steamrolling melee units defending a city than a shock promoted melee unit. Also none even remotely mentioned that this could be a balance problem.

I'm genuinely confused

Actually reading what others are talking about helps a lot, most of the times.

If you know your opponent is piping in Shock units, why would you persist in building Melee with Shock if you can just as easily produce, say, Cavalry with Shock?

Because it is not sure you can (ie: you need horses most of the times). And on the other hand, this is exactly one of the points we were discussing about: the usefulness of pikemen (vs said Cavalry tactic).

 

[onedreamer]

Warriors can get weapons promotions, why shouldn't archers.

because they already have +1 defensive strength compared to their weapon unpromoted counterpart. For example an Axeman has strength 4 (will be 5 with bronze weapons) and an Archer strength 3/5.

 

[galahadba]

well i agree that there is a problem with the tech line to get archer, as you are obligated to develop the meele line, to get mines, chop tress, get weapon promotions and so on, what makes the acher a little underused, but i dont think you have to buff the archer to make it usefull, i think the solution would be to take of the meele units out of the tree branch of the weapon promotions...
you would have to get a new tree for the meele units as you have for archers, having some techs of the branch of the mines as prerequisite... as you have bronze working for the 2 tier arches for exemple...

This would make the player choose wherever it whants defensive units to protect its empire (if he will be more of a builder) or if he wants atack units to expand it... and not as today that he alread have the meele when he developes the obrigatory breanch of the metal techs, and choose if he wants another type of unit to defend his empire or get more usefull religios/ arcane and so on techs.

 

[galahadba]

Makes no sense. To make the unit stronger you need to win fights, so Drill should help in this the Archery units (at least) as much as Combat promo does.

Well i simply don't agree with the fact of the drill being underpowered it just have changed its caracteristis becouse of the others changes made for promotions, maybe put drill needing lvl 3 or more unit, so people don't take it for weak units would solve the probem

What other promotions are you talking about ? It's the same game.

what i mean was that changing the powers of the promotions (CS for example) and the easy of get XP actually changes the all the dinamic of the game, the better order of getting theses promotions, and the adiction of so many promotions/spells, etc makes actually a very diferent game from civ4 vanilla that you canot use it to compare... so in vanilla Drill is a good choice to compete with combat, here not... it is actually a good choice for well promoted unit, what don't make it uselless, as you get MANY well promoted units in this game, being it heros, or even by taking of the limit of 10 XP from barbarians what make it very easy to get hight promoted units

Sorry if it is dificult for me to express correctly, but english is not my native language.

 

[Rutee]

I shouldn't even answer, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you didn't understand well... first of all I clearly compared two 10xp units, so they are the same level. In fact you can't get shock 2 at level 3, you need prerequisites. And it's even worse than what I pictured: checking on civilopedia it seems that you only need combat I for shock I and nothing for shock II, but I think you actually need combat III for Shock II. So a city raider promoted melee unit will be more effective earlier at steamrolling melee units defending a city than a shock promoted melee unit. Also none even remotely mentioned that this could be a balance problem.

....You really are missing the point.
"The Three City Raider promotions are better at taking down melee units in cities then the two melee promotions!"
There are /three promotions/ here, compared to /two/. In general, I think we can both agree that a unit with three promotions is better prepared for a given task then one with 2, no? Leaving aside, for a brief moment, that "Melee unit within a city" is a smaller set then "Melee unit" or "Unit in a city", there isn't much of a balance problem with "+110% vs. Melee Unit within a city" from three promotions, especially when most situational promotions are worth 40% each. Sucks to be a melee unit defending that city, sure, but the fact remains that the total promotion is less then three other situational promotions. More food for thought: You seem to prefer the 80% on Shock II, for a total of 120% in 2 promotions; Given that most other situational bonuses are 40%, why should Shock/Cover/Formation II be 80%? Isn't there a 'balance issue' there? Or better, Shock II, in its old form, was better for attacking a City defended by a Melee unit then a unit with City Raider III.

Now if you mean "The shock line could use a third promotion", I'm more inclined to agree, but on the other hand, Shock is useful with any set of goals, within the general context of war. As a rule, City Raider is only useful when you're mounting an offensive war, and even then, not always.

Actually reading what others are talking about helps a lot, most of the times.

Cute; I read what you said, and understood it completely. Your logic is flawed.

Because it is not sure you can (ie: you need horses most of the times). And on the other hand, this is exactly one of the points we were discussing about: the usefulness of pikemen (vs said Cavalry tactic).

I have no doubts on the merits of pikemen against cavalry, but were they necessary? Consider: Of the lategame units, only one has a bonus against a unit class, inherently; Champions have bonuses against.. Melee. Which includes other Champions, so the bonuses cancel each other out; I would posit that Champions receive that bonus entirely so that UU Champions aren't quite end-all. Should there really be a unit that exists solely to cancel out another unit class like that? Especially with the Hippus and their reliance on mounted units; Mass producing pikemen would be a no brainer against them. Their only recourse is to play like every other civ, essentially. Without pikemen basically saying "lolzno" to cavalry, cavalry can actually do things without vastly outnumberring any potential pikeman force on the other side. It's not like their high move doesn't have a balance to it anyway (The loss of defensive bonuses).

 

[westamastaflash]

This is why I don't like Axemen in Vanilla. Virtually pointless to build swordsmen since in MP vanilla your opponents will have stacks of axes.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

So a city raider promoted melee unit will be more effective earlier at steamrolling melee units defending a city than a shock promoted melee unit. Also none even remotely mentioned that this could be a balance problem.

I rarely rush to warfare, but I'd be interested to hear if it is an effective tactic for you.

(But I didn't so much say shock is a blanace problem (now), just that ai could promote their units better, and if they did archers would come a bit more in style.)

 

[onedreamer]

No, I don't rush Warfare because I don't like rush tactics in FFH2. When I get it though I build city raider melee units, and my current combat5 or shock2 units will be escorting them. But I do think it would be an effective tactic to rush it, since it also allows Form of the Titan. Like I said city raider is not better than shock2 in any aspect:

The downsides of City Raider are that it needs far more advanced tech, that it's useless outside cities and that reaching 10xp is harder. If you overcome these downsides though, it's decisively better.

(for attacking cities).

....You really are missing the point.
"The Three City Raider promotions are better at taking down melee units in cities then the two melee promotions!"
There are /three promotions/ here, compared to /two/. In general, I think we can both agree that a unit with three promotions is better prepared for a given task then one with 2, no? Leaving aside, for a brief moment, that "Melee unit within a city" is a smaller set then "Melee unit" or "Unit in a city", there isn't much of a balance problem with "+110% vs. Melee Unit within a city" from three promotions, especially when most situational promotions are worth 40% each. Sucks to be a melee unit defending that city, sure, but the fact remains that the total promotion is less then three other situational promotions.

You aren't really reading anything, are you ?
1) again: none even remotely mentioned this is a balance problem (except you)
2) again: you cannot get shock 2 in two promotions, so I don't know why you insist considering shock2 two promotions. We aren't confronting promotions, we are confronting which unit is most effective with which promotion, hence since shock 2 requires more experience for a smaller bonus compared to city raider 3, it is less effective, despite your contorsions in trying to demostrate otherwise.

 

[Grey Fox]

It's good that Melee units can now take the drill line, but I think that the Drill line needs more stuff leading off of it. I see that Blitz require Drill IV now, excellent move! Moving it to an earlier tech is also a good move, since Blitz was practically only available to Orthus Axe, and Flurries before. (and very late game, with your high exp units).

It's also good that the Cover II, Formation II, and Shock II were reduced to 40%. +80% from two promotions is still great.

One of the biggest strengths of Combat I-V is that most promotions require some of the Combat promotions, Shock II require Combat III, Formation I require Combat II, etc.
Heroic Strength/Defense I require Combat V and Heroic. What if they could require Combat V OR Drill IV? Or perhaps make a Drill V.

And it would be nice with some new promotions that require the Drill line which are only available to Archery units. Just some quick examples on ideas:

• Arrow Barrage I - Requires Drill II and Archery (would require archery units to have iCollateralDamageMaxUnits set to some number)
  • +25% Collateral
• Arrow Barrage II - Requires Drill IV and Archery
  • +25% Collateral
  • +20% vs Melee
• Precision - Requires Drill III and Archery
  • +20% vs Heroes
  • +20% vs Mounted
• Ambush - Requires Woodsman I, Drill I and Archery
  • +20% Attack and Defense in Forests
  • +1 First Strike Chance
  • +20% Withdrawal
• Drill V - Requires Drill IV and Archery
  • +25% chance for First Strike Chances (making it 75% I think? The first strike might still lose the round if I understand correctly)

Or something like that.

 

[onedreamer]

the drill line available to melee units is certainly good for the promotion itself, but it only makes archers even less desirable... maybe archers should be able to get a new promotion that makes them immune to first strikes ?

 

[Tobbe_1]

It's good that Melee units can now take the drill line, but I think that the Drill line needs more stuff leading off of it. I see that Blitz require Drill IV now, excellent move! Moving it to an earlier tech is also a good move, since Blitz was practically only available to Orthus Axe, and Flurries before. (and very late game, with your high exp units).

It's also good that the Cover II, Formation II, and Shock II were reduced to 40%. +80% from two promotions is still great.

One of the biggest strengths of Combat I-V is that most promotions require some of the Combat promotions, Shock II require Combat III, Formation I require Combat II, etc.
Heroic Strength/Defense I require Combat V and Heroic. What if they could require Combat V OR Drill IV? Or perhaps make a Drill V.

And it would be nice with some new promotions that require the Drill line which are only available to Archery units. Just some quick examples on ideas:

• Arrow Barrage I - Requires Drill II and Archery (would require archery units to have iCollateralDamageMaxUnits set to some number)
  • +25% Collateral
• Arrow Barrage II - Requires Drill IV and Archery
  • +25% Collateral
  • +20% vs Melee
• Precision - Requires Drill III and Archery
  • +20% vs Heroes
  • +20% vs Mounted
• Ambush - Requires Woodsman I, Drill I and Archery
  • +20% Attack and Defense in Forests
  • +1 First Strike Chance
  • +20% Withdrawal
• Drill V - Requires Drill IV and Archery
  • +25% chance for First Strike Chances (making it 75% I think? The first strike might still lose the round if I understand correctly)

Or something like that.

I really like these ideas! Great.

 

[Sureshot]

archery units currently can't get woodsman.. which they really should since Ljo's main religion (Leaves) special promotion (woodsman2) can't even be applied to their ideal units (archers).

anyone notice that woodsman2 cant be applied to melee anymore? seems like only recon can get it now.

 

[Humakty]

Archers don't seem so useless to me, I often build some to have the nice garrison promotions. The fact is I rarely have more than one per city, early game, because I don't promote my experienced warriors into archers.
What is a shame is that the archer line is useless in a battle group, exception being the crossbowman.
So I do fully support Grey Fox ideas.