Redcoat UU's purpose

[Wolfshanze]

I've been pondering this question for awhile...

What's up with the "Redcoat" UU for England?

Okay... I get it... it's supposed to be a tough gunpowder unit... I don't have a problem with that... what I do have a problem with is that what unit is it supposed to be... a Musketman or a Rifleman?

By default in Civ4, the Redcoat is the Rifleman replacement... but the description in the Civilopedia and the unit graphic itself, is so clearly describing/showing Musketman.

So which is it? The description and image given in the game is clearly a Musketman... but the unit it actually replaces is the Rifleman.

Is the English UU supposed to be the Musketman, but accidentally replaced the Rifleman, or is the English UU supposed to be a Rifleman and they used the wrong graphic and description?

Also, historically-speaking, when do you think the English Empire had its finest infantry... in musket times (1700s, early 1800s), or at her height in the Victorian Age (late 1800s).

Musket-based Redcoat (like game UU)

Rifle-based Redcoat

 

[TeraHammer]

Redcoats musketmen were so strong that they had to put in the riflemen category

 

[Wolfshanze]

No serious replies? Anybody?

 

[Gaius Octavius]

This is one of those "what the..." moments in Civ that really can't be explained. I am still trying to figure out why they picked the "Praetorian" instead of a legionary for Rome. Makes no sense whatsoever.

My guess (and that's all it is) is that they wanted something to represent the units fighting against America in the War for Independence, as this is an American game and that's what we associate redcoats with the most. Why they had it replace the rifleman instead of the musketman probably stems from their complete ignorance about historical reality - they just don't see anything wrong with making a musket unit represent the height of the British Empire, just as they see nothing wrong with making Navy SEALs (a very small segment of the U.S. armed forces) represent the entire United States Army.

 

[Wolfshanze]

My guess (and that's all it is) is that they wanted something to represent the units fighting against America in the War for Independence, as this is an American game and that's what we associate redcoats with the most. Why they had it replace the rifleman instead of the musketman probably stems from their complete ignorance about historical reality - they just don't see anything wrong with making a musket unit represent the height of the British Empire, just as they see nothing wrong with making Navy SEALs (a very small segment of the U.S. armed forces) represent the entire United States Army.

What drives me nuts is that they didn't make the Musket unit represent the height of the British Empire... they made the Rifleman the unit. Now, you could argue Victorian England's Riflemen were better then King George's Musketmen, but when they make the Redcoat look like King George's Muskets, but in-game swap it out with the Rifleman, I'm sitting here scratching my head trying to figure out if England's UU is supposed to be the Musket or the Rifle. The description, name and unit graphic would screem "MUSKET", but the unit it actually replaces in-game is the Rifleman... WTH?!?!?

Now if I were to make ONE UU for England, my first thought would be Frigate or SotL... I always think of the British Navy first when thinking of things that made England's military great.

 

[Gaius Octavius]

What drives me nuts is that they didn't make the Musket unit represent the height of the British Empire... they made the Rifleman the unit. Now, you could argue Victorian England's Riflemen were better then King George's Musketmen, but when they make the Redcoat look like King George's Muskets, but in-game swap it out with the Rifleman, I'm sitting here scratching my head trying to figure out if England's UU is supposed to be the Musket or the Rifle. The description, name and unit graphic would screem "MUSKET", but the unit it actually replaces in-game is the Rifleman... WTH?!?!?

I believe that's exactly what I said.

 

[Wolfshanze]

So does anybody want to take a stab and make an educated guess as to if the England UU Redcoat is supposed to be a Musketman or a Rifleman and give their reasoning?

In my own mod, I changed the Redcoat UU to the Musketman, and kept the original graphics and description... or should it be kept as the Rifleman and given the "Zulu Wars" looking unit?

 

[Gaius Octavius]

My guess is that it's supposed to be a rifled-musket.

Personally, I would not mind either a musket or a rifle replacement, but I wish they'd keep it straight!

 

[CyberChrist]

Imho then the UU should be a Rifleman, since it was clearly during the Victorian period that the British Empire was at it's height.

You could use the current model for a flavored Musketman and use a more appropriate model for the UU.

 

[Wolfshanze]

CyberChrist, in my own BtS mod, I currently use the original Civ4 "Redcoat" graphic as the flavor Musket unit for England, and also as the UU (Musket)... I also used a Zulu-Wars model for the English Rifleman flavored unit (but it has default stats... the UU bonuses went to the English Musketman redcoat).

The graphic to use for the Musketman vs the Rifleman is not my problem... as seen in the top post, I have unique flavor models for both the English Musketman and Rifleman (as seen in above pictures)... my problem is figuring-out if I should give the English UU bonuses to the Musketman or Rifleman... currently I gave it to the Musketman, mostly based on the fact I think Firaxis intended the Musketman, but used Rifleman by mistake... both the graphic and description they chose clearly refered to Revolutionary-timeframe Redcoats, not Zulu-War Victorian Rifleman... though, like you said CyberChrist, a good argument could be given that the English Empire had her finest soldiers during Victorian times... who knows...

I dunno... I keep flip-flopping as to which unit the UU bonus should go to...

 

[GeneralMatt]

I think the problem comes in that they tried to use the Rifleman unit to cover both the Flintlock Musket to repeating Rifle era's. The musketman in game is clearly more of a arquebusier of the late 1500's than a musket infantry of the 1700's and stuff.

I would really love a musket infantry put in between the musketman and the rifleman. The Redcoat would replace that.

The redcoats of the Revolutionary War era were pretty much the best in the world, they only "lost" that war because of logistical supplies, bad politicians and the French and Spanish helping the US.. But anyways.
These redcoats also fought in India and had some historic battles there also.
So it is a good UU, I think it just need a better unit to replace. Or just make it look muskety earlier on, then it can look Napoleonic era, then Zulu war era. The problem lies in that the British infantry were so good so long it makes it hard to choose..

 

[Wolfshanze]

So you champion the "Musket" unit UU over the "Rifleman" unit UU Matt?!?!?

There is no in-between, so without making an extra unit, the choice is either musket or rifle.

 

[BoydofZINJ]

Since the red coats were so powerful I vote Rifleman (as is)

 

[GeneralMatt]

Wolfshanze@ I do not know which I would prefer. Probably the Rifleman if I had to pick.
The musketman is not the right type of musket man at all to replace. At least the redcoats did survive into the rifle age (they did use rifles though. ) so if they "Rifleman" graphics I would be happy,

Lord Olleus@ I agree with you pretty much, it is screwed up. But instead of removing the rifle era, I would just extend the whole tech thing a bit, so you could have both the Napoleonic Muskets and the Zulu War Rifles.. But it is dreaming I fear. They did the same thing with Civ 3, though in Civ 2 they got it right. They went (as far as I remember) Musketman (Georgian Era)-> Rifleman, forgot about the arquebusier era..

 

[Wolfshanze]

Well, Musket by definition "is a muzzle-loaded, smoothbore long gun, which is intended to be fired from the shoulder."

Rifled muskets have existed for some time, but were so slow to load and would often foul the barrell after limited use, they were never widely equiped amongst standing armies until he invention of the Minié ball... which allowed for muzzle-loading rifles to become common, but this didn't occur until the Crimean War of the 1850s at the earliest, and was-itself short-lived as the breech-loading rifle become common by the 1870s.

I just described the end of the musket period (which is quite clear)... smoothbore muskets were dominate up until the 1850s when replaced by the muzzle-loading rifle, and then breech-loading rifle in the 1870s.

The start of the musket period is more fuzzy... smoothbore handheld muskets in widespread use pretty much started in the 17th century (1600s), and was itself preceeded by the arquebus of the 16th century (1500s). The only major design change between 17th and 18th century muskets was the switch from matchlock to flintlock.

To be honest, I don't really blame Firaxis for having "just" a Musketman and a Rifleman. While the (in-game) "Musketman" can cover anything from a 16th century arquebus to a 19th century smoothbore musket, there's really not a whole-lot of development of musket technology in that period... what made 19th century musketmen more effective then 17th century musketmen was more tactics then technology.

Of course... graphically military uniforms changed considerably (many times) during the musket time-frame... the English alone sported too many uniforms in-between 1600 and 1850 to nail-down one specific look.

The only thing I hate is folks trying to pawn-off revolutionary war or napoleonic war uniforms as "Rifleman" units. The earliest widespread use of rifles of any sort was the Crimean War of the 1850s, and more commonly "proper" rifles were widespread in the 1870s.

Which leads back to my original point in this thread... the revolutionary war English Redcoat uniform being used as a "rifleman" is just plain wrong. That uniform CLEARLY belongs on a Musketman, and if the "Redcoat" is supposed to be a "rifleman", it needs to be a Crimean War to Zulu War Redcoat uniform instead.

As it stands now... from Vanilla to BtS Civ4, we have "Musketman" and "Rifleman" units. I definately don't think the Rifleman should be eliminated... maybe make a Str-8 Arquebus unit with a 25% bonus vs Melee and Knight units and a Str-10 Musket unit (no bonus)... leaving Grenadiers and Rifleman alone (though like in my own mod, Grenadiers should have a city attack bonus instead of a rifleman attack bonus).

Of course, even with the above proposition, you'd still have a "uniform quandry" for the "Musketman" unit... still having to figure-out which uniform to use for the unit from the 1600s to the 1800s.

Maybe just ditch the whole "Grenadier" name and use the Grenadier as a type of Napoleonic age unit (with a new name...). Then all the Musket units could be 1700-ish uniforms and the newly named Grenadier Napoleonic uniforms... or perhaps just keep the Grenadier name and just make then all Napoleonic uniforms anyways... who knows?

 

[GeneralMatt]

It is an interesting thing to ponder on.

To be honest, I don't really blame Firaxis for having "just" a Musketman and a Rifleman. While the (in-game) "Musketman" can cover anything from a 16th century arquebus to a 19th century smoothbore musket, there's really not a whole-lot of development of musket technology in that period... what made 19th century musketmen more effective then 17th century musketmen was more tactics then technology.

For sure, but personally I feel that those changes in tactics makes it worthwhile to add a new unit in there. For example, compare real life infantry (what the game represents I mean) and real life marines. (Again, the units the game represents). The only main difference is there tactics and training, even down to the weapons they are similar (Different in game sure, but in real life they all would have many similar weapons I am sure, at least no more different than a matchlock and a flintlock).

The flintlock invention itself changed the tactics, firing became more rapid, allowing more advanced moving, and it was better vs everything as a result.

But then this is all probably personal preference, from the 1750's to WWII being somewhat of a hobby of mine..

 

[Wolfshanze]

Two major inovations/tactics changes altered the effectiveness of musketman over 200 years of use... one was the switch from pikeman to bayonettes for cavalry protection, the other the tactic of large volley fire in-line formation... other then those two changes, I'd say there wasn't a whole lot of differance in musketman (matchlock to flintlock was a good step, though that was more a reliability factor then anything else... tactics didn't change a whole lot, the two biggest impacts on musket warfare were the changes I mentioned at the start of this post).

Surely 19th century musketmen were more effective then 17th century musketmen, but I don't know what you'd do stat-wise in Civ4. The Grenadier unit pretty-much spans the differance between musketman and rifleman.

 

[CyberChrist]

You could easily emulate the Flintlock by making a Promotion called Flintlock that added 1 First Strike(or whatever), and then give it to all existing Musketmen on discovery of the appropriate tech - and all Musketmen produced there after. This promotion should of course be stripped from the Musketmen on upgrade to Riflemen(or whatever).

The same could be done with Bayonettes also (giving +25% vs Mounted or whatever).

 

[Wolfshanze]

You could easily emulate the Flintlock by making a Promotion called Flintlock that added 1 First Strike(or whatever), and then give it to all existing Musketmen on discovery of the appropriate tech - and all Musketmen produced there after. This promotion should of course be stripped from the Musketmen on upgrade to Riflemen(or whatever).

Is that possible in game-terms? To grant all existing units a promotion from a tech-advance, and strip said promotion with an upgrade?

It's one thing to say "do this", it's another to make it happen... I know the promotion itself could be made, but to add it and delete it through a tech advance and unit upgrade, is that possible?

 

[Verge]

I find myself not particularly troubled by the discrepancies of the English unique unit, despite my knowledge about them. The game's depiction of the redcoat is that of the quintessential British soldier in a broad, conceptual sense that isn't necessarily anchored in a specific time period. So the reason behind the uniform's appearance problem isn't so much of a historical oversight as it is a developer's decision to adopt the classic appearance of the British redcoat as it is most familiar to an American audience (in accordance to the lore of the American Revolution).

And if that isn't a satisfactory answer, then perhaps invoking the inconsistencies of the airship unit will suffice.

/invokes