Rock Paper Scissors

[Thalassicus]

Right, I agree with you - spears are more expensive and require 2 extra techs, so they should be more powerful. An 10:8 ratio (125%) of spear:warrior strength will buff spears slightly compared to the old 7:6 ratio (116%). Is that a move in the direction you want? I'm very cautious with early game changes, since the balance is so delicate there, which is why I'm leaning to that small increase instead of 11-12 spear strength.

 

[wobuffet]

And this is why I could never play pre-G&K vanilla once VEM was available, and why I doubt I'll ever play G&K once GEM is available.

Yeah, unit balance was actually interesting in VEM. In G&K I'm just pumping out muskets/infantrymen and it's la-dee-dah all the way through everybody's capitals. I never thought I'd say this, but I actually miss having to grind through masses of Levies and Skirmishers .

I'm very cautious with early game changes, since the balance is so delicate there, which is why I'm leaning to that small increase instead of 11-12 spear strength.

This is definitely true.

Swordsmen (requiring one more tech, improved Iron, and more hammers) are obviously way harder to produce than Spearmen and should be significantly stronger. I very much liked VEM's bonus vs Cities for Swords, for what it's worth.

I like making Spears a defensively-focused unit, although I guess that encroaches a bit on Vanguard units' territory... (those are coming back, right? I feel like I'm cheating when I give my Musketmen Medic promotions in G&K after months of VEM .)

 

[glider1]

Hi there
Would it be possible, could I ask that if we want to make changes to rock/paper/scissors, could you separate those changes from improvements to the AI? For example:

GEM/armies = rock/paper/scissors
GEM/ai = pillaging/ai specific promotions

It would be cool to be able to switch various things off and on in GEM, so that we can compare GEM with the base game over time without actually having to abandon the GEM mod altogether to try the base game.

Thanks for this, if this is possible to do.
Cheers

 

[Babri]

I have no problem with making cats and trebs (and maybe cannon?)more resilient to ranged attacks from cities. But I don't see that this needs to weaken their anti-city attack strength. If necessary they could have even more of the flavor they did in VEM, with slightly reduced ranged attack but further boosted bonus vs cities.

Artillery are a different kettle of fish because of their 3-tile range, and because they are relatively more effective vs units. I wouldn't try to balance all siege units based on the performance of artillery. Artillery could arguably be made slightly less effective vs cities.

I think siege units are already quite susceptible to cavalry, and I wouldn't want to make them more susceptible. And sitting 3 tiles away and shooting the city while everything else hides out of range is only going to work if the enemy doesn't have an army (otherwise they're going to be throwing melee/mounted units at your arty).
.

Maybe ranged resistance won't make siege units OP but if city strengths are nerfed to make sword units more viable (as I suggested) then siege unit attacks against cities could be nerfed slightly so they do the same damage to HP as they are doing right now.
And no siege units are not really that weak, they should be more vulnerable. I tried taking down a treb with a knight (drill I) & it required atleast 3 turns to kill it which is a bit too much. Thats why I said give cavalry a bonus against sieges to make them more effective so they can 2 hit a wrongly placed siege unit.

 

[Ahriman]

An 10:8 ratio (125%) of spear:warrior strength will buff spears slightly compared to the old 7:6 ratio (116%). Is that a move in the direction you want?

So, from G&K you move from warrior 6 /spear 11 to warrior 8 spear 10 with 25% defense?

I think the spear would be fine there, but I worry the warrior would be a little strong. Boosting warriors to strength 8 might make ancient era rushes *worse*, because then warriors can be tough enough to take newly founded cities.

 

[mystikx21]

So, from G&K you move from warrior 6 /spear 11 to warrior 8 spear 10 with 25% defense?

I think the spear would be fine there, but I worry the warrior would be a little strong. Boosting warriors to strength 8 might make ancient era rushes *worse*, because then warriors can be tough enough to take newly founded cities.

Warrior is 8 in GK already.

 

[Ahriman]

Warrior is 8 in GK already.

Really? I coulda sworn it was less.... huh. Never mind me then.

 

[mystikx21]

Really? I coulda sworn it was less.... huh. Never mind me then.

I'm not convinced that 8-10 is the best ratio either (I lean more to 7-10, with UUs being +1 and/or bonuses), but I tend to agree with Thal that changing too much in the early balance unit balance is likely to be messy.

Spears got a nerf simply because they're clearly imbalanced when Warriors didn't appear to be. Pikes will likely be the same deal versus their era.

 

[Babri]

I'm not convinced that 8-10 is the best ratio either (I lean more to 7-10, with UUs being +1 and/or bonuses), but I tend to agree with Thal that changing too much in the early balance unit balance is likely to be messy.

I won't mind if warrior UUs become as strong as spears. IIRC it was so VEM.

 

[Thalassicus]

I think leader balance is too complex to apply one principle to all UUs. I like each leader to combine long term advantages with a short window of ultimate power. I use short-term bonuses like +str to give that brief flash of power.

 

[Seek]

Do siege units not get the bonus vs cities when on defense? That seems inconsistent..

 

[Stalker0]

Do siege units not get the bonus vs cities when on defense? That seems inconsistent..

I was wondering that too, normally city bonuses do apply to defense.

 

[Babri]

Do siege units not get the bonus vs cities when on defense? That seems inconsistent..

I appreciate your point. I think we would be able to fix sieges if they get 200% defence from city attacks.

 

[Thalassicus]

Siege units will have a defensive bonus against cities in Gem as in Vem.

G&K siege devalues promotions, which devalues experienced units. It follows their overall balancing strategy of making all units closer in strength and abundance (like how they buffed pikes and nerfed swords). As I mentioned earlier, I prefer rare but powerful elite units, so I plan to make promotions important for siege in gem like they were in vem.

 

[Calavente]

well, a lurker comment :

pikes should rule. especially pikes tercios.
periode.

Pike should out-perform longsword and all other units in renaissance era.
THEY were the queen of battlefield until cannon and rifles appeared.
(but it is different for attacking cities)

the only chance to win aggainst a "tercio" of pikes was another one... and a heavy cavalry charge... sometimes ; if you got lucky and a horse "kamikazed" into the wall of pikes.

that's one thing I dislike in cIV and CiV : pikes comes too early and are too weak.

renaissance era pikes were not "special /counter" units
they were the main field unit ; winning against cavalry (obvious), against swords (obvious also... you can't enter into combat range against 3/4 lines of pikes ; plus there were generally archers/crossbows and then musket at the core of the square) ; against archers (armor; + fast moving) ; against trebuchet (anything is strong against trebuchets)

so a way to balance them would be : make them stronger, make them more costly (they were elite units, very numerous : roughly 3000 guys in one tercio ; often mercenaries as very costly ; they needed to have a lot of fights in order to earn their pay) and make them come later.

pikes tercio came way after knights. in Medieval era there were some pikemen but they were mostly men at arms with long spears ; not "fighting units made of pikemen". those arrived later with the Tercio or pike-squares.

the Pikemen are not only guys with pikes ; it is a very disciplined unit, very elite, (it takes a lot of training to not flinch against a charge of heavy cavalry...)

please ; change it so pikes become the main unit between knights-era and rifles-era...

 

[zarakand]

That's pretty cool I didn't know that bout Pikemen. From a gameplay perspective I think having a varied army is more fun and it doesn't matter to me what unit is the uber unit (pikes right now and axe men in civ 4)

 

[GenjiKhan]

Some of my suggestions:

- Add the promotion of gaining +25 health for every killed enemy unit to Lancers,as they were mostly used to chase wounded enemy units and buff their movement to +1 . To compensate that,nerf its strenght to be similar to Knights . And to avoid future issues,make them lost this bonus when upgraded to Anti tank unit;
- Nerf the strenght of WW1 air units and make them more vulnerable to interception,as they were made mostly of wood;

well, a lurker comment :

pikes should rule. especially pikes tercios.
period.

Pike should out-perform longsword and all other units in renaissance era.

If Pikeman became stronger,as you suggest,what would be the role of Longswordmen,Musketman and Knights?

 

[lindanealmck]

I know it's later in the game, but is is really cool when you upgrade Longbows to Gatling Guns (still have a range of 2), or the Chinese Chokanus (still have 2 attacks). An advanced unit, can earn both upgrades which makes them quite powerful on attack or defense.

Gods and Kings definitely requires a mix of units to take a city.

 

[Dunkah]

In the Ancient Era cities fire arrows at the attackers while defending. Later they switch to Catapults and later still Rockets.

Why not increase the range of City defenses to 3 after Artillery is discovered? or simply During the Industrial - Modern Era's?

Would be a nerf to Artillery and Battleships, beacuse they wouldn't be immune to counter battery fire, but would reflect the widening of the battlefield over much larger areas. (after all Artillery = win... Battleships = win).

 

[mitsho]

It would be. But unfortunately it's not possible. The range of cities is set for the whole game and cannot change in-game. So either you make it range 3 from the start or you don't. At least that was what it was like in Vanilla. Maybe G&K changed it, but I doubt it...

But you already seem to know it since it's in your sig