[R&F] Samurai is still complete rubbish

[Scaramanga]

There must be some developer tactic we're missing with anti-cav. They seem to rely on support bonuses in triangle and diamond formations and getting promoted.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

There must be some developer tactic we're missing with anti-cav. They seem to rely on support bonuses in triangle and diamond formations and getting promoted.

I can guarantee the AI is missing it, if there is one.

Someone who plays multi-player would be able to tell us for sure.

 

[Victoria]

There must be some developer tactic we're missing with anti-cav.

I have looked long and hard, I have even play entire games with spears. When they announced the zulu I laughed... they just die to xbow.
Spears die to bows badly, support does not count for ranged and so this means the spearmen have 0 defense against ranged

The dev's probably think combined arms but all mounted or all ranged beats anything with spears in it.

 

[Sostratus]

There must be some developer tactic we're missing with anti-cav.

The dev's probably think combined arms but all mounted or all ranged beats anything with spears in it.

I will bet you both 5 fake internet points that the reason we have what we do is because of civ5's tech tree.
Back in those primordial days, we had a similar roster of early game troops.
The anti-cav:
Spears: 11Str, 56 prod, +50% vs mounted
Pikes: 16Str,90 prod, +50% vs mounted
The melee:
Swords: 14Str, 75 prod, req 1 iron.

But there is a problem- pikeman are better in a fight than swordsmen, and happened to sit on the optimal tech path, while our hack n' slash lads were on a detour and you had to gamble that you could get iron. This effectively meant that it was really easy to stave off an aggressive opponent by teching to civil service, deploying pikes, and at least being able to hold them back pretty effectively. The result was a reinforcement of the meta of rushing civil service to get to universities, and no one used swordsmen unless you had a unique. Even then, not so much- unless you were Rome, because legions actually were stronger than pikes #Ave. This was bad because again, people only rush pikes, putting mounted in a tough spot, messing up our dreams of combined arms, etc etc.

Pikes and spears have carried over almost identically. (FYI, +10 combat strength vs mounted in civ6 = +50% vs mounted in civ5.)
Ignoring the timing of these units, note that in Civ6 they decided to give melee a +50% vs anti-cav. Precisely to avoid the situation where you would only want to build anticav, since it beats back horsies plus could hold out decently against melee troops.
All well and good if this had been deployed to civ5; swords would beat down pikes (21 vs 16,) who would still be the go to counter for knights (24 vs 20.) Combined arms at last!

But, then they gave swords 35 (later upped to 36 because of those pesky horsies) strength since they have to straddle two eras. Which is fine, because they'd still beat down spears pretty effectively (10-11 strength difference and 65 vs 90 cost. That's +50% attack/defense for about 50% more, pretty well done.) But they kept the bonus vs anticav too, and now everything is messed up because swords are too dominant. They also did some role reversal and put pikes on a leaf tech instead of the main path. Did you ever wonder why military tactics was set up that way in vanilla? It's because pikes at civil service was too good.

This theme- a mechanic to directly solve an issue from civ5 is meshed together with a redesigned game system built from scratch, that creates a new problem- is very common in civ6. This is why our UUs from military tactics are in such a bind: anticav was too good because of tech path and combat power vs melee, so we directly changed those PLUS made a leapfrogging unit tree so these uniques can't upgrade from anything.

 

[Scaramanga]

I have looked long and hard, I have even play entire games with spears. When they announced the zulu I laughed... they just die to xbow.
Spears die to bows badly, support does not count for ranged and so this means the spearmen have 0 defense against ranged

The dev's probably think combined arms but all mounted or all ranged beats anything with spears in it.

I know all ranged kills pikes but all mounted too?. If I see crossbows and have pikes I back up quick, but that's what good scouting and terrain analysis is for.

Also, the Hold the Line promotion gives +10 to ranged against cav if you can grab it.

 

[Victoria]

I am with you that ranged are very strong, swords are very strong, horse a very strong......it’s a 3 horse race with the pikes watching from a leaf tech.

 

[MarigoldRan]

So mod the XML and make pike units cheaper like the Impi, which is a good unit because of its cheapness.

 

[Mr. Shadows]

I haven't made a real Deity run since R&F but Impi are extremely viable at Emperor level, so much so that I suspect they can do just fine at any level. They're cheap and they upgrade (heal) quickly. Single Xbows aren't that dangerous to Impi Corps, and you can afford to have a lot of them. I'm also interested to take a second look at Hoplites now that anti-cav has been added to Agoge. Having said that, ordinary spears and pikes are still lack-luster even with the addition of Agoge. I agree with the OP that Samurai are generally unappealing other than for era score. Personally I'd love to see a scenario that high-lighted the Samurai the way Vikings, Raiders and Traders does for the Berserker. Berserkers are tons of fun in the scenario, but just as impractical as Samurai in the regular game.

 

[acluewithout]

When people say anti-cav are weak against ranged, is this because they don’t have a promotion vs. ranged?

 

[Mr. Shadows]

When people say anti-cav are weak against ranged, is this because they don’t have a promotion vs. ranged?

That, and the fact that they don't have the mobility of cavalry so they can't (always) attack without getting shot first. Horsemen don't get a buff against ranged but they can strike from three tiles out.

 

[kb27787]

I am with you that ranged are very strong, swords are very strong, horse a very strong......it’s a 3 horse race with the pikes watching from a leaf tech.

I agree that ranged and horses are strong... But am I missing something? To me, swords absolutely suck. If you have iron you would use knights over swords any day.

 

[acluewithout]

You can get to swords faster than knights, because you can pre-build swords from turn one. It just depends how much warmongering you want to do - often you can be done before you’d ever need to build knights.

The other thing about melee more generally is that they benefit from Oligarchy, and have more upgrades, so they stay relevant for longer. Knights are a huge - but potentially temporary - power spike.

I think the slightly nuts thing about this entire conversation however is that you can largely thump the AI with anything. It only puts up a fight in the ancient and classical eras, and even that is not a big deal. If you’re planning lots of dom, I think the biggest advantage to Knights is just speed, so you can get from one easy victory to the next faster.

 

[Pietato]

Swords are good if the distance is small or your warriors are already swarming an enemy. Otherwise Knights are king because of their mobility and how they ignore zone of control. Knights will take an entire civ out much, much faster than Swords.

Also Knights actually last a long time because you form corps, then armies.

 

[Victoria]

I agree that ranged and horses are strong... But am I missing something? To me, swords absolutely suck. If you have iron you would use knights over swords any day.

You start with a foot army and then make a knight army, that does not mean you stop using your foot army.
I do think you are missing something. Swords like knight have an anti ranged promotion amd swords with ram do go through cities faster than ranged. Swords also get to muskets and infantry before tanks.
Knights are OP but a sword army does not suck... look at legions. If you think they suck in comparison to knights then fair enough, but then so do ranged.

 

[criZp]

I just noticed I have the Berserker written as "move and attack" rather than "move after attacking" which is how the ability actually works. What I wanted to do was allow them to attack twice on the same turn. But I couldn't seem to make that work, even though there's a unit ability promotion that does the same thing. Could have been error on my part or maybe just doesn't work.

you have to give the berserker the "move after attack" ability AND the "extra attack each turn" ability.

 

[criZp]

- Can only be hard-built.

hard-built is not a word. it can only be built.

 

[stinkubus]

Edit: actually, one more suggestion. Either unit might benefit from earning experience a little faster, e.g. like they were trained in a Barracks even if you don't have a Barracks. That would be very punchy for Japan given it's half-price Encampments. Alternatively, Samurai would also maybe benefit from +1 movement.

The amount of XP you can earn from a given battle has a hard cap which is trivially easy to reach. This would end up being a nothing bonus.

 

[Victoria]

The amount of XP you can earn from a given battle has a hard cap which is trivially easy to reach. This would end up being a nothing bonus.

I just finished working out the XP formula. Use an archer to shoot modern armour and it will reach the cap.
It’s all a question of attacking stronger troops so maybe you have not noticed but a warrior gets +1 XP when attacking spears as it is based on base strength before any modification.
I’ll do a write up on the whole thing, it’s pretty appalling that spec ops get 0 XP for attacking a siege tower escorted by infantry or even air attacks on AA/SAM get 0 XP

 

[kb27787]

You start with a foot army and then make a knight army, that does not mean you stop using your foot army.
I do think you are missing something. Swords like knight have an anti ranged promotion amd swords with ram do go through cities faster than ranged. Swords also get to muskets and infantry before tanks.
Knights are OP but a sword army does not suck... look at legions. If you think they suck in comparison to knights then fair enough, but then so do ranged.

For some reason I never really enjoyed the legion that much. Sure, if you can reach the target then they are OK, but ZoC/encampments screw them up pretty bad (see below). MAYBE you can take out a nearby neighbor with them but in my experience, deity AI has fast enough tech such that you cannot quite finish them off with just legion alone... deity AI swords and horses (+4 from difficulty) are pretty much just as strong as legions anyway.

Well there are times where X-bows are better than knights (usually when defending) and quite often the starting archers end up as X-bows which help out your knight army (by taking out low HP stragglers on dangerous tiles where you don't want your knights to end their turn on) but they are more anti-unit rather than siege. Their ability to attack without enemy retaliation makes them superior in some circumstances. X-bows and knights (combined arms) are a great combo. The knights can still reach their targets due to their 4 movement and the X-bows help soften them up. It makes it easier getting favorable trades in melee combat (especially if playing as Scythia, having archers help your horses as backup is great in keeping the horses healthy as even if the archer does only 1 HP damage, that damage gives the horse +5 when it does the melee attack)..

Whereas swords with 2 movement simply get stuck and quite often your X-bows prevent your swords from reaching their destinations. All the enemy needs to do is to fortify a melee unit on a hill (say, behind a river, or next to their city so your swords cannot surround it) and then quite often your swords have no choice but to bash their heads against the target one at a time.

 

[Victoria]

Just remember that a lot of people don’t play deity and the shift is to earlier value.
Deity knights are great, well any knights are great until you find Gilgamesh already has muskets.
Knights are just for Christmas (and an Easter tank) there is some middle ground value for the foot.

It’s also about experience, knight/ram... bash biff... zzzz, done it too much.

I quite like playing with an army mix, you can play it just fine on Emperor and to a degreee immortal, you just have to have done the deity win to death.