Resolved: The Ballista Elephant Is the Crappiest UU in the Game

[vicawoo]

I never knew what to do with Gallic warriors. Unless they're defending against axes on hills, I don't see the point. Maybe if you want to rush on hilly terrain, but I don't do that with jaguar warriors either.

Keshiks, you need two moves to pillage on one turn. Keshik moves to hill mine, pillages copper, axemen moves with keshik.

 

[Roxlimn]

madscientist:

And again I question the actual benefit of such an ability. If you have to get your units to the front through jungle, then you really ought to be building roads to do it in. Even when you're trying to penetrate deep into cultural borders to attack the "front," I rather question the ability of Horse Archers to make much of an impact on cities without the slower units. So all they do is get there earlier and get slaughtered.

If they imparted a "2-movement on any terrain" ability on any stack they go with, then that would actually be a very valuable ability, and more reflective of the Mongolian kind of advance, but they don't.

vicawoo:

So Keshiks are useful, IF the target pillage thing is on a hill, and you bring your pillage stack to it without the opportunity to take the city instead, and even then it only gains you one turn on the pillage capability, whereas you probably spent more than 4 turns getting to that spot in the first place.

Furthermore, this would only matter if the computer AI could actually queue any Copper dependent unit exactly just on that turn, since if it didn't, it wouldn't matter if you pillaged it one turn later.

Even then, such a marginal advantage could easily be recouped by any other Civ with a properly promoted unit, sacrificing only ONE promortion on ONE unit (since it only takes one unit for the succesful pillage) for it.

The fact that practically nobody takes that promotion even when available should tell everyone just how valuable it is, and it's even less valuable on every subsequent unit after the first one or two, for the purpose of hill-pillaging.

To think that the Keshik gives up valuable first-strike immunity for such a questionable gain...

If the Ballista Elephant ability were generally available, it would find itself used on every stack from the Classical Age up to Mechanized War. The capability to single out Knights and Cuirassers and Cavalry is not a mean thing.

 

[ShunNakamura]

I can't believe people are slamming on the Keshik. Losing First strike immunity is nothing. After all with Cavalry you generally want Flanking I + Flanking II which gives you immunity.

And you seriously underestimate the Keshik rush. They aren't hard to get early[as long as you have horses nearby]. And the UB has strong synergy. It is even more powerful if you have a charismatic leader. The Keshiks can easily harras the enemy by running around to back cites that aren't as heavily defended[and they may even out distance the troops that are trying to position a defence[even with roads rivers still stop other units cold... not the kehsik]]. Wish I still had my game where I wipped out two AI's with Keshiks before the Birth of Christ with relative ease. Could have tried for a third but the Maintenance costs would have slaughtered me. The rush can come fast for a couple of reasons. One of which is you don't need roads to speed your army's re-enforcements. My assualt was 2 keshiks harrashing workers and the cities. But it quickly multiplied to 8 Keshiks. By the time the first foe was down I had 16 Keshiks to send at the other. The key is to attack before cultural defenses get strong. It is much harder to pull off than a War Chariot or Immortal rush, but the effect if you get it out early enough is much the same. All that said I do wish it had something other than just that[maybe ignore terrain and move of 3?].

 

[kniteowl]

I can't believe people are slamming on the Keshik. Losing First strike immunity is nothing. After all with Cavalry you generally want Flanking I + Flanking II which gives you immunity.

And you seriously underestimate the Keshik rush. They aren't hard to get early[as long as you have horses nearby]. And the UB has strong synergy. It is even more powerful if you have a charismatic leader. The Keshiks can easily harras the enemy by running around to back cites that aren't as heavily defended[and they may even out distance the troops that are trying to position a defence[even with roads rivers still stop other units cold... not the kehsik]]. Wish I still had my game where I wipped out two AI's with Keshiks before the Birth of Christ with relative ease. Could have tried for a third but the Maintenance costs would have slaughtered me. The rush can come fast for a couple of reasons. One of which is you don't need roads to speed your army's re-enforcements. My assualt was 2 keshiks harrashing workers and the cities. But it quickly multiplied to 8 Keshiks. By the time the first foe was down I had 16 Keshiks to send at the other. The key is to attack before cultural defenses get strong. It is much harder to pull off than a War Chariot or Immortal rush, but the effect if you get it out early enough is much the same. All that said I do wish it had something other than just that[maybe ignore terrain and move of 3?].

It's Unique bonus (ignore terrain) is the same as the mobility promotion which is available after flanking two, I wish they could keep the ignore terrain bonus, they would have been pretty dangerous as knights without the requirement of promoting to Flanking II.

 

[ShunNakamura]

Well I almost never take the mobility promotion. Anyways mobility doesn't say it ignores movement, just that it subtracts 1 from the movement cost. Though I guess that comes to the same thing. I wonder how hard it would have been to make it so that mobility made the Keshik have 3 moves.

Anyways my main point was that Flanking II is easy to get and is generally something you grab with early cavalry. So you will have immunity to first strikes one way or the other most of the time. Getting to Mobility as soon as they are built is a pain though. You need 10 xp for that and in an early rush that is NOT going to happen. Getting the 5 xp for Flanking II however is relatively easy. My path for Keshik rush is to pick up AH, The wheel[if horses need roads to get connected] Horseback Riding, and then Archery. Whilst Archery is being researched I build the Ger in my production city. Of course that is only the techs needed for the Keshik... I may pick up stuff like BW or whatever inbetween depending on what worker techs I need.


So what I am saying is that making up for the lose of First Strike Immunity is harder than gaining the ignore train advantage. The Keshik gives you a leg up. In addition if you just want a Keshik for attacking Axes and Swords you don't need to have mobility to have them keep up with those on the Flanking line of promotions. Thus you can focus on combat/Shock. or Combat/Formation or whatever it is you need.

Though as I stated earlier I wouldn't be against them getting a slight buff. They certainly aren't a top tier unit currently[but something has to fill the lower tiers, yes?]. Perhaps instead of ignore terrain they just get a free mobility promotion[and maybe free flanking or a withdrawal boost since the Mongols hit and run often].

 

[Slobadog]

-1 movement cost is not the same as ignore terrain movement cost. Mobility is useless on a forest/hill combo.

 

[madscientist]

madscientist:

And again I question the actual benefit of such an ability. If you have to get your units to the front through jungle, then you really ought to be building roads to do it in. Even when you're trying to penetrate deep into cultural borders to attack the "front," I rather question the ability of Horse Archers to make much of an impact on cities without the slower units. So all they do is get there earlier and get slaughtered.

If they imparted a "2-movement on any terrain" ability on any stack they go with, then that would actually be a very valuable ability, and more reflective of the Mongolian kind of advance, but they don't.
.

Well, I'll got through the Keshik agrument once more then just stop and agree to disagree.

No matter what, the Keshiks get 2 moves. They excel at city attack, or any unit attack especially when with a stack. The reason is that when they do attack and win, they can retreat back to the safty of the stack without being destroyed during a counter attack. To what benefit? Means you have saved a promotion, get the unit stronger (it is already well promoted from the GER, ). They calso attack stacks of enemies that have cats, causing collateral/flanking damage, and again return to the safty of the city or stack. In my RPC Ghengis agme I had ALOT of very highly promoted Keshiks that were not only taking out archers, but longbows with ease.

 

[futurehermit]

Not to mention Keshiks are great at stifling an opponent. If you're able to pillage metals and food and production tiles and loosely surrounded your opponent the best they are able to do is pump archers (fairly slowly) in their cities which you can destroy with catas + x at your leisure.

 

[vicawoo]

Well, I'd start a pillage war with chariots.

I do get mobility on 1-2 mounted units, so I can pillage hills or forest roads. Every turn costs you gold, and an extra turn can let you pillage another cottage. However, getting 10 experience risks your unit quite a bit, and often you want your flanking 2 unit to weaken enemy cities.

Also, once you cut off their copper (or even just the forest road, if it's too heavily defended), it's just a matter of luring out their spearmen. Your reinforcements will come many turns faster. Honestly, I'd rather have Mongolian units be Praetorian horse archers, but I think I tend to use their ability more than berserkers (saves at most one turn as well, right?)

 

[futurehermit]

Keshiks are good but teching to horse archers is a pain

 

[Roxlimn]

Strangely enough, that's one of the points I was trying to make. The Berserker ability is also rather marginal, but since it's a "main-type" kind of unit, a unit you'd be well advised to build anyway in many games, the UU and its attendant abilities get used more often than otherwise.

The Horse Archer is not at all this kind of unit, and the Keshik isn't such an improvement on the Horse Archer that it'd make a significant impact on this general lack of emphasis, to say the least.

If you can pillage an enemy with Keshik, then chances are you could have done much the same with Horse Archers or Chariots anyway. In fact, most of the excellent pillaging stacks rarely use Horse Archers OR Keshik in the first place, since they're not universally available, and expending tech and production to get Keshik online is a questionable investment in the best of circumstances.

I don't force myself to use Keshik as Mongols any more than I force myself to use Praetorians as Romans. The Praetorians are nice and all, but I won't take them to war half a continent away if I can more profitably expand organically into mostly empty land. Similarly, IF the Keshik could be used profitably, I'll spend the effort to get them, but most of the time, they simply aren't; sometimes even if you have all the tech and production to make them.

This makes them, to me, the most useless UU in the game, moreso even than "late game" UU like Panzers or Navy Seals.

Part of the reason people sometimes think that the Keshik is useful is because of the Ger. The high promotions makes it seem like the Keshik would be a useful unit to generate, but in that circumstance, you're really usually better off waiting for the more beefy Knight or Cuirasser or Cavalry and using the Ger on them rather than on Keshik. The Ger makes all the Mongol cavalry slightly stronger, in the same way that the Roman Forum makes all the Roman units (even more) indirectly slightly stronger.

If you take the cost of HBR AND the Ger, AND finally the Keshik at face value, without any bias on the basis of you "having" to use it because you're doing Mongols, then it seems apparent to me that much of the supposed power of the Keshik really is simply an expression of the usefulness of the Ger itself, and the Mongols could not really do worse if they simply had normal Horse Archers.

 

[madscientist]

. The Ger makes all the Mongol cavalry slightly stronger, in the same way that the Roman Forum makes all the Roman units (even more) indirectly slightly stronger..

The Ger give an extra +2 XPs, that's not a slight improvement. With one of Vassalage or theocracy you start with 9XP unit which means it needs to win 1 battle to get promoted and thus is a fast way of buildign GG points. If you have both vassalage and theocracy your starting with 11 XP or three free promotions. A pretty darn good UB. Not the best, but not the worse.

The roman forum offers 25% GP production, so I fail to see how it make slighly stronger units. For the record I love the roman forum especially playing as Agustus.

 

[Elandal]

The Berserker ability is also rather marginal

Referring to Amphibious promotion I guess? Sure - it's marginal. I've used it well to attack cities over rivers as well as coastal attacks, but the mainstay is normal over the land not crossing river city attack. Most macemen do just that

But considering the mainstay use of macemen (city attack - some get stack defence promotions or come from a long line of warrior-axes who have been woodsmen from the time they met their second lion), the second unique feature of Berserker is excellent: +10% city attack. Far from marginal considering the main use of macemen.

 

[Roxlimn]

Elandal:

The +10% City Attack ability is not the subject of the "marginal" adjective, as you have guessed. Still, I also rather question if the advantage of the bonus on city attack is as large as that of a Swordsman's compared to an Axeman, which some people mistakenly believe it to be.

madscientist:

The Roman Forum's slightly greater number of GPs allows you to bulb or settle a GP earlier, which grants your economy some sort of tangible gain, which translates to a stronger army in whatever way it manifests, hence "stronger" units, albeit in a very indirect way.

In the same way, a Ger also very indirectly boosts your economy, by allowing you to field in stronger cavalry, which you will use to defend yourself more cheaply, or gain new cities.

Don't get me wrong, I like the Ger. I think that it has a greater impact on Mongol strategy and play than the Keshik does. In fact, beelining for Guilds and level 4 (after one battle) Knights is, IMO, a strong play under either Mongol leader. Even against Pikes, a Combat 2 Shock Knight can hold his own, and a Combat 2 Formation Knight is probably better than a Cossack (comes earlier, longer unit shelf life with upgrades, etc, etc.)

But it's not Charismatic. It's not even Aggressive or Protective. It's just a UB, and its only direct application is to a military unit of a specific class. Therefore, given the yardstick of what a "substantial" buff to a military unit could be, it's really just a very slight bump over the Stable. A 2 XP Cavalry bump, to be exact.

 

[Bhruic]

The Ger give an extra +2 XPs, that's not a slight improvement. With one of Vassalage or theocracy you start with 9XP unit which means it needs to win 1 battle to get promoted and thus is a fast way of buildign GG points. If you have both vassalage and theocracy your starting with 11 XP or three free promotions. A pretty darn good UB. Not the best, but not the worse.

No, but I think the point was that it artificially inflates the perceived value of the Keshik. Because the UB increases the XP of the UU, it seems like the UU is stronger than it really is. If you look at the UU standing alone, or you consider the UB with regards to other Horse units, then you get a better sense of the UU itself.

Bh

 

[madscientist]

Elandal:

The +10% City Attack ability is not the subject of the "marginal" adjective, as you have guessed. Still, I also rather question if the advantage of the bonus on city attack is as large as that of a Swordsman's compared to an Axeman, which some people mistakenly believe it to be.

madscientist:

The Roman Forum's slightly greater number of GPs allows you to bulb or settle a GP earlier, which grants your economy some sort of tangible gain, which translates to a stronger army in whatever way it manifests, hence "stronger" units, albeit in a very indirect way.

In the same way, a Ger also very indirectly boosts your economy, by allowing you to field in stronger cavalry, which you will use to defend yourself more cheaply, or gain new cities.

Don't get me wrong, I like the Ger. I think that it has a greater impact on Mongol strategy and play than the Keshik does. In fact, beelining for Guilds and level 4 (after one battle) Knights is, IMO, a strong play under either Mongol leader. Even against Pikes, a Combat 2 Shock Knight can hold his own, and a Combat 2 Formation Knight is probably better than a Cossack (comes earlier, longer unit shelf life with upgrades, etc, etc.)

But it's not Charismatic. It's not even Aggressive or Protective. It's just a UB, and its only direct application is to a military unit of a specific class. Therefore, given the yardstick of what a "substantial" buff to a military unit could be, it's really just a very slight bump over the Stable. A 2 XP Cavalry bump, to be exact.

The way I look at the GER is this, it's the only thing in the game that helps a mounted unit more than any other CIV. Mounted units get no trait benefit (like melee/archer/gunpowder). Add that both Mongol leaders are Agressive and you have a civ that is really equipped to dominate in war, rivaled only by a few (Tokugawa/Boudica/Churchill).

 

[Roxlimn]

I'd dispute that. Prior to Knights, the return-for-investment of mounted units during war in general is mediocre at best. After Cavalry, it's nonexistent. Therefore, the Ger only really helps the Mongolian war machine in a window of opportunity, not unlike most unique units.

Contrast this, for instance, against the Ikhanda, as used by Shaka. Not only is the building cheaper to build because of the Aggressive trait, but it is a unique building, meaning that Shaka is in a rare position of being able to access his unique building power, early, often, and nearly universally throughout his cities. This grants him a stronger economy that gets installed early and lasts throughout the game. His unique unit, powered by his trait, is actually a perverse and continuing pillaging and stack defense threat for its lifetime, and it's a generally useful kind of unit to be building, from a tech that everyone wants.

Once you get Nationalism, Shaka can effectively draft level 3 (actually level 2 with Combat 1 free) units, and his Ikhanda will help deal with the unrest throughout his cities. If you have a Globe Theater Draft Machine and even one other modest "Draft Engine" city (and a modest 12 city nation), you can generate upwards of 35 units in ten turns with barely a hit on your economy. When you send that monstrous stack to war, each city you conquer can easily build its own Ikhanda, which ameliorates both the happiness issues, and the maintenance issues of your new cities.

I'd say that Shaka and his Zulus are a much more powerful war machine than either Mongol leader and the Mongols.

 

[futurehermit]

The Ger improves horse archers (their UU), elephants (an already powerful unit), knights (an already powerful unit), and cavalry (an already powerful unit). It is active during the phases of the game where you will likely be going to war (with a win by late renaissance being ideal for domination wins and stopping warring by then being ideal in space wins).

Overall the Ger is a nice UB imo.

 

[Roxlimn]

I don't share a similar experience. I go to war whenever the conditions are favorable for it. The period typically characterized in the game as Medieval and Renaissance don't, IMO, characterize a period that's especially conducive to expansive war.

An early war in the pre-Classical and Classical Age is doable and even quite powerful a move. A short and brutally quick war after the acquisition of Advanced Flight (and blitz Gunships) is also effective for the push for Domination or even Diplomatic. Snatching a few (or a lot) of coastal cities with "beelined" Marines is also a powerful war move.

I'm not contesting that the Ger is a nice UB, so it's pointless to argue against a point I'm not making. What I'm saying is that the Mongol war machine isn't all that.

 

[madscientist]

What I'm saying is that the Mongol war machine isn't all that.

Good Lord! An I spent a whole week playing/posting and RPC game to try to give the Great Kahn his proper respect!!! I'm sorry, but the Mongols have the best early war-machine game. Honorable mention to Boudica's Celts, and proper respect to Roman Prats (Although neither of the Roman leaders are Agressive).