[GS] (Poll) Tanks v Infantry

[Sostratus]

Normally I've been pure melee for the the front-line units. I'm a man of the people. But with GS' new resources and new units, I find Heavy cav to be irresistible.

Usually I end up opening warriors->swords, then transition into knights -> Cuirs->Tanks

I'll be real. The main downside to knights was that muskets and pike and shot would come out and you were flailing a bit. Now we have Cuirs. At 64 strength, they can run close to even against Pike&shot, and crush muskets, though they are pricey.

But once we get to the modern era, tanks and infantry both require oil.
Infantry 430 prod, 70str, 2 move, 1 oil
Tank 480 prod, 80str, 4 move, 1 oil
The constraint is oil, not production. The tank is clearly the superior choice here. It also fights at parity against its counter, ATcrew. So why would I choose to use infantry who fight ATcrews at +10 and Tanks at -10, when i can have tanks that fight infantry at +10 and AT crews at parity? Even if you run somehow ran out of oil you can still fight infantry on equal footing with the -10 penalty. They cost just 11% more for +10str and +2 move. Legions cost 20% more than swords for +4str and fort building.

Modern armor only has a +5 advantage over mechanized infantry, but it still fights Modern AT at parity.
Do you guys take advantage of armored units? Is it worth switching over even if you were using muskets actively? *coughs in ottoman*

 

[ezzlar]

Since pillaging is the way to go nowdays, movement and no zoc affected are superior.

 

[BarbarianHunter]

Do you guys take advantage of armored units? Is it worth switching over even if you were using muskets actively? *coughs in ottoman*

Military academy trained units gain +75% experience which will ease the transition and also get you promotion insta-heals in areas without pillagable farms, so they may actually be better than carrying on with muskets/infantry. I Send infantry to the borders for barb patrol work as the game progresses. As the previous poster said, movement and no zoc affected are superior for both pillaging and taking cities (and avoiding the encampment 1 move, stop, 1 move, stop, finally attack the city, syndrome).

 

[Archon_Wing]

The oil requirement really makes infantry kinda suck if you ask me. It's probably tanks or helicopters for me, but mainly planes.

 

[AriochIV]

I use both. Since a lot of combat is city siege, the ability of infantry to get up close to a city without being demolished by ranged attacks is key.

 

[Sostratus]

Since a lot of combat is city siege, the ability of infantry to get up close to a city without being demolished by ranged attacks is key.

Tank's tier 1 promotion is +7 defense vs ranged (barding.) Not quite as good as testudo but tanks have much higher base strength.
I initially felt the same way because I legit never used cavalry, but H cav is no slouch in the promotion dept either. I find tier 2: Rout, +5 vs damaged units, is quite a good promotion too. Even just comparing a 2 promotion infantry to a tank fresh off the assembly line:
Infantry with battlecry and commando has 77 str attacking vs melee and ranged, 3 move
Tank has 80 str attacking and defending melee/ranged, 4 move.
Even if the infatryman has tortoise, he's up to 80 defense vs ranged... the same that tanks have inherently, and they get 87 defense at 1 promotion.

 

[Myomoto]

The big question to me is: Why do heavy cavalry fight the anti-cavalry units at parity?

 

[criZp]

The big question to me is: Why do heavy cavalry fight the anti-cavalry units at parity?

because firaxis can't balance

 

[AriochIV]

Tank's tier 1 promotion is +7 defense vs ranged (barding.) Not quite as good as testudo but tanks have much higher base strength.

Even with this promotion I find that cavalry have trouble holding position during a tough siege, whereas infantry on a tile with a terrain feature can take a lot more fire.

 

[Sostratus]

The big question to me is: Why do heavy cavalry fight the anti-cavalry units at parity?

So, if you map and track unit strengths over time, it is very clear that whoever originally designed the units had it set up so that the "standard unit" in an era is +10 per era starting at 25. I've written about this in depth. That gives us:
Ancient - 25 (spears)
Classical - 35 (release swords were 35)
Medieval - 45 (don't get me started on pikes. Samurai were released at 45 strength like longswordsmen would have been)
Renaissance - 55
Industrial - 65 (notice how Redcoats and gardes Imperiale are base 65 str riflemen)
Modern - 75 (they messed up everything here)
Atomic/Info - 85 (mech inf are 85)
(The starting units, warrior and slinger, have a -5 from this schedule. Ranged units are normally -5 ranged strength from the standard, except archers, probably because they need to be decent against classical units.)
Problem: someone said we should have huge gaps in the unit trees for whatever reason. Okay, fine cries as riflemen are deleted. But then we have an issue: there are almost no industrial units originally, only cavalry and field cannons. Well, hey, they thought, we should not make the gap between muskets and infantry so big. (Carl probably rushed them and rolled Ed hard so he nerfed them.) So instead of 75, they made them 70. Someone forgot to tell this to the heavy cav department. Normally, heavy cav were sitting at +3 str vs standard; see chariots at 28 and knights at 48. Tanks are simply +5 over standard. I get it; they need oil, a hard to find resource, and they are tanks and round numbers are nice. +5 is like ~22% combat bonus or something. So now, infantry and AT are -5 from where they should be, creating this +10 strength gap. It is horrible.
Then they compounded the problem because in GS, since there are no industrial era melee or Anticav units, they couldn't just release cuirs over 65 strength, because Pike and Shot couldn't keep up. So they stuck them at 64. It has messed up literally everything.
Fix: make infantry and AT crews 75 as they were intended, and for goodness sake, buff modern AT to 85. Mech Inf was 80 str on release (because upgrades should only be 10 per era!) but they quickly saw that wouldn't cut it against armor. They forgot about humble AT crews, just like they forgot to give +1str to legions and ngao when they boosted swords in the first patch. But now its awkward and no one wants to bring it up.

 

[Cakeathon]

The things about late game units is that it's a lot more about tech path than their actual stats. Infantry requires oil, which requires refining, which is 1 tech away from combustion(tanks) and is on a completely different path on the tech tree. It's extremely inefficient to go infantry tech-wise, you could just beeline tanks and get them out 20 turns earlier. Somebody beelining could already be at modern armor by the time you research all those extra techs.

 

[Red_warning]

It's a problem that infantry and tanks both cost 1 oil per turn in maintenance, I think there should be some additional cost to tanks since they in most cases are outright better.

 

[UWHabs]

Which I use usually depends on my mode of attack from earlier units. If I did warriors->swords->muskets, then I'll usually continue with infantry. If I used knights, then I'll go with tanks.
And if I'm starting fresh, then probably tanks because they move faster. Move->pillage or pillage->move are such powerful tools, not just for the massive science/culture/faith/gold that you can get, but if you need to run over a farm to get some free healing. Although if you have the promotions on them, infantry with +1 move and a GG have 4 moves, and they rock.

 

[RohirrimElf]

I’m using more infantry. Just because i’m leaning more towards melee units when i reach the later era’s and i keep them around.

 

[criZp]

Tanks could perhaps have -1 sight.

 

[Sostratus]

The things about late game units is that it's a lot more about tech path than their actual stats. Infantry requires oil, which requires refining,

The massively split upper and lower tech paths in that part of the tree are atrocious. I complained about the lack of interplay earlier - new players can easily unlock infantry without realizing what a detour it is to refining. Thing is, the top half of the tree has so much good stuff you often want to rush, like big ben, hydro dams, industrialization in general - that going the bottom feels like a detour. I definitely think they need to tie more of it together in the modern era. Or make virtually everything in that level of the tree require industrialization.

Tanks could perhaps have -1 sight.

IMO following the civ5 model might be the best option: tanks are intentionally good units but they use up limited oil. So you cannot spam them. If infantry didn't need oil, then most armies would be infantry. The warmonger willing to commit oil reserves to his armies instead power plants would be rewarded with a handful of extra powerful units. It's a clear tradeoff. And desperate players could spam AT crews to defend against you.

Otherwise, we are faced with a stark reality: +10 combat strength is a 50% boost. Tanks cost 10% more than infantry and 20% more than AT crews. That's hardly a counter unit- esp since tanks can literally drive around them.

 

[Tech Osen]

Zone of control is the biggest factor for me really. Getting cities under siege is pretty crucial. Frankly I feel it's too much of an advantage for cavalry, there should be a counter, anti-cav being the most logical choice of course. Taking a city with just cavalry that has an anti-cav as garrison is rough though.

 

[acluewithout]

@Sostratus I cannot challenge your math-fu, for I am tired and have not had enough coffee.

But here are my poorly thought thoughts.

First. Infantry really should require oil. They are too easy to rush and or spam. Oil makes sense too - jeeps transport them to the front line, they have things made of plastic. Melee and Heavy Cav also usually use the same resource, because the game is always making you pick between them. After all, Heavy Cav aren’t Heavy Cav at all - they’re Super Melee. That’s why cheeky Melee keep finding extra movement too - via promotions or mechancised infantry.

Second. While Infantry should require oil, the way this has been implemented is a mess. No one really thought through how the tech tree works with all this, which is totally annoying.

Third. There is an easy, if partial, fix. Units should consume strategic resources to heal. If you had that, then tanks could require oil to build and oil to maintain (like they do now); but infantry would only use oil to build (and heal). So now the difference is clear, both infantry and tanks require an upfront oil investment, but only tanks require ongoing support. You’d maybe have to tweak build and maintenance costs a little to make this work (maybe building costs three oil or something, but maintenance stays at one per turn).

Fourth. Leaving all that aside, there are still legitimate differences between Melee and Cav. HC now have higher maintenance (I think). Melee also benefit from Oligarchy Legacy Card. By the late game, I’m not sure these differences are quite enough. FXS could still tweak this a bit more - eg maybe Cav generally don’t benefit from the conscription type Cards, so you always have to wear their cost.

Fifth. Anti-Cav is a mess. I really think AC should upgrade into something other than AT crews and AT crews should be a new unit type. Particularly now, because AC are your go to no resource unit, and so you can end up with heaps of guys with bazookas running around which is just weird. And we probably do need an Industrial Era Melee unit now with all the other extra Cav units. All a bit of a mess really.

 

[Disgustipated]

jeeps transport them to the front line

Most WW2 infantry marched on foot. Or used railroad. Imho only mech infantry should require oil, not regular infantry.

 

[acluewithout]

Well, maybe I was wrong to refer to Jeeps. I just mean the oil represents resources used maintaining infantry, not necessarily used by them directly.