[R&F] Samurai is still complete rubbish

[Varek]

I actually think the suggestion to allow purchasing Samurai with Faith is a good one. That should allow Japan a way to avoid having to completely hard build them, which would help alleviate the biggest problem in my opinion.

 

[Karpius]

If you are going to design all these wonderful units you should really check the forums for their use... we've all been saying for forever that they are to expensive.

Yes, they are on the expensive side and few of them are worth the expense to benefit ratio,

But...but....some of them are soooo likable! I am addicted to my Legions! I need help! I buy them, I hard build them, I chop them and I can't get enough! I resist upgrading them and even include a few along side modern armor and mech infantry for large invasions or just keep them parading around because, well....they are Legions!

There must be a support group somewhere.

But seriously, value-wise, @Victoria is right on the money.

 

[Dustbrother]

I always thought a good solution to both Samurai and Beserkers would be to take them out the tech tree entirely and have them as unique tier 3 promotions for swordsmen or warriors. Would kind of fit with their historical background. Samurai were a result of extreme martial tradition so if one of your warriors earns a lot of experience in the early game you can boost them into Samurai. It would give a unique combat play style to Japan and the vikings. i.e power leveling your melee troops into an elite force.

 

[Victoria]

with a UU you should at least be able to upgrade to it.... I mean I can do that with a Jong for goodness sake.... I can have Jongs AND frigates ... i can upgrade my quads to Jongs... its just so wrong... Why cannot I upgrade a warrior to a beserker or a samurai? I want to upgrade my muskets to redcoats .. I mean why not?... a Jong can be done?

As @Dustbrother said... OK lets only upgrade units with 2 promotions to a special unit.

There must be a support group somewhere

I need it bad with the loss of England as a crappy but fun civ.

 

[Karpius]

I need it bad with the loss of England as a crappy but fun civ.

Agreed! It was my second favorite to play. My dream is a Rome/England hybrid civ run by Trajan and Victoria's bastard children. Red Legions popping up in every new settlement or conquered civ, Imperial Portage Centers. All the fun stuff rolled into one! Just haven't come up with a new name for the Sea Dog yet. Mare Canus, perhaps?

 

[Victoria]

Sea Dog yet. Mare Canus, perhaps?

seems just a translation...

marque ships
Sloops (many were)
privateer (done to death)
Sea Merc

To be fair sea dogs is the right name.

 

[Scaramanga]

I actually think the suggestion to allow purchasing Samurai with Faith is a good one. That should allow Japan a way to avoid having to completely hard build them, which would help alleviate the biggest problem in my opinion.

You can buy any land unit with faith in a tier 2 government building.

I think they are off the upgrade path to encourage different styles, Berserkers with Oligarchy/GM Chapel, Samurai with Autocracy/Barracks/Feudal Contract/GM Chapel.

 

[Jewelrunna]

Units should cost the same as the unit before + (the gold upgrade/3) for some reason Firaxis has not worked out that we will not play with all these wonderful unique units BECAUSE THEY ARE TOO EXPENSIVE... because it is so cheap to upgrade its just a stupid waste to build a non ancient/classical unit. 1.5 years just about and that has not sunk in?
If you are going to design all these wonderful units you should really check the forums for their use... we've all been saying for forever that they are to expensive.

Careful now; Firaxis might read this and take the England route of balancing, and remove the upgrade discount policy card to make upgrading worse, instead of actually fixing the problem!

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Units should cost the same as the unit before + (the gold upgrade/3) for some reason Firaxis has not worked out that we will not play with all these wonderful unique units BECAUSE THEY ARE TOO EXPENSIVE... because it is so cheap to upgrade its just a stupid waste to build a non ancient/classical unit. 1.5 years just about and that has not sunk in?

That's exceedingly logical but could create a problem of unit spam. It also doesn't completely address unique units off the upgrade path or the AI (especially City States) being unable to replace their army once it's been lost, meaning that once they lose one war they lose all subsequent wars.

So as an alternative, I'd propose that military units get a production cost discount if you have less of them than your infrastructure allowance, and that the AI prioritize building military units up to it's infrastructure allowance. The discount could work like the current District discount, though hopefully with less convoluted rules.

So every time you build Walls, Encampments, Encampment buildings, Harbours, Aerodromes, etc. you increase your military infrastructure. As your infrastructure grows, you're able to build additional units at a production discount. So now modern units are only prohibitively expensive compared to upgrading if you're already at your infrastructure cap. Also, if the AI loses it's army, it can rebuild that army after the war at a substantial discount compared to the current situation (and to keep it from being a lame duck, it should prioritize this rebuild).

 

[Archon_Wing]

Mounted cannot fortify

This was one of the worst changes to the series; to allow mounted to fortify. Somewhere up there with warmunger.

 

[PeterChu]

So every time you build Walls, Encampments, Encampment buildings, Harbours, Aerodromes, etc. you increase your military infrastructure. As your infrastructure grows, you're able to build additional units at a production discount. So now modern units are only prohibitively expensive compared to upgrading if you're already at your infrastructure cap. Also, if the AI loses it's army, it can rebuild that army after the war at a substantial discount compared to the current situation (and to keep it from being a lame duck, it should prioritize this rebuild).

In addition to this, additional units beyond the cap could also be related to the increased costs for maintenance, and even to the increased war weariness when you go to wars. With these constraining conditions, it might be possible just to reduce the production cost for military units without causing serious problems on units spamming from AI civs.

 

[Bizrock]

Japan have cultural bonuses (kinda), just put samurai in Civic tree and done. As Samurai historical is something cultural, and not that scientific.

 

[Olleus]

That's exceedingly logical but could create a problem of unit spam. It also doesn't completely address unique units off the upgrade path or the AI (especially City States) being unable to replace their army once it's been lost, meaning that once they lose one war they lose all subsequent wars.

So as an alternative, I'd propose that military units get a production cost discount if you have less of them than your infrastructure allowance, and that the AI prioritize building military units up to it's infrastructure allowance. The discount could work like the current District discount, though hopefully with less convoluted rules.

So every time you build Walls, Encampments, Encampment buildings, Harbours, Aerodromes, etc. you increase your military infrastructure. As your infrastructure grows, you're able to build additional units at a production discount. So now modern units are only prohibitively expensive compared to upgrading if you're already at your infrastructure cap. Also, if the AI loses it's army, it can rebuild that army after the war at a substantial discount compared to the current situation (and to keep it from being a lame duck, it should prioritize this rebuild).

All good ideas. Here is my take on an alternative/additional idea. Its based on around the idea that units have morale and manpower; the first heals quickly for free, the second does not. The aim is to make waging a war an ongoing cost. Right now once you've built your army, you can use it indefinitely for very little cost, any damage you have heals for free (providing you dont lose any units - but who does?).

I propose that when units take HP damage they - in addition - take a fraction of that damage (say 1/2) onto their max-HP. The normal healing which is currently in the game cannot take you past this max-HP. So if my brand new warrior starts at 100HP, gets into some scraps, and ends up at 40HP, I can only heal him up to 70HP. If he gets hurt down to 40HP a second time his max is now a lowly 55HP. The way to bring a unit back to full strength is to retrain it. This is done by bringing it back to a home city and spending production on it, as if you were building a new unit, but cheaper (the cost would be something like 0.5% of the unit cost per point of max-HP lost). Doing this in an encampment would half the retraining cost.

So essentially, each point of damage you suffer costs you some production, rather than just every unit lost. You need to spend that production to heal units. Encampments halve that cost, saving you hammers and (most importantly) time during a war. Offensive wars would be especially harder as you'd have to bring your units all the way back to a city with decent production to fully heal them, and bring a large enough army that you can circle them around and not have an empty front line.

Oh, and get rid of the ridiculous gold-hammer ratio between upgrading-building units. Make units cheaper, but make that ratio something vaguely resembling what those resources are actually worth in game.

 

[Trengilly]

It would fix a lot if they just made upgrading cost more (and eliminate the 50% discount card, or make it only 20%)

As for war balancing -- I think the easiest thing would be to have units outside your home territory cost double maintenance when at war. War should be expensive for crying out loud!

 

[acluewithout]

Sigh. I think I have the minority view again...

I don’t think the problem is really that Knights are too powerful, or cav in general, or that anti-cav are underpowered. Heavy Cav are meant to be hard hitting, and should be able to take cities. Light cav are not actually that strong overall because their promotions lack a lot of punch and gaps in their upgrade path (although they should probably get some minus against walls). Anti-cav aren’t underpowered as such, at least not now they have %prod cards and benefit from oligarchy - they are defensive and so don’t work as a main offensive force, that’s all.

The problem is more general. First, that domination in general is too powerful, which is really because the AI is so rubbish at war. Second, that certain mechanics are unbalanced: specifically, rams versus walls and upgrading.

Rams need to be massively nerfed. They should work for adjacent units only, only for melee and anti-cav (not cav) and be much less effective overall.

Conscription and mercenaries cards also need to be nerfed. Either get rid of them completely, or limit both to melee and anti-cav only (you cant conscript ‘premium’ units like Knights, only rank and file) You should also need two of a resource to upgrade, not one. One resource should just allow healing. You could also maybe make maintenance costs higher for some units if you only have one of a resource.

If war needs further nerfing, I’d suggest that healing in enemy territory, or maybe even neutral territory, shouldn’t be automatic. You should instead have to slot some sort of military card for units to heal in enemy territory (eg ‘supply lines’), or require some sort of ‘supply’ unit (eg caravan?) or a great general to be adjacent to your units (so, if this support unit gets killed, you can’t heal anymore). I’d also get rid of healing via promotions, but leave healing via pillage.

If I was to tweak units at all, I’d give light cav a minus against walls (as I said above), and move the +1 movement promotion for anti-cav down to the first or second tier promotions. I think Military Tactics could also use a boost - maybe unlock another unit like a trebuchet or the above ‘supply’ unit.

The AI should maybe get some free anti-cav and or ranged units in some situations, and maybe get a pass on tougher healing and or ram mechanics, although I get that people often don’t like the computer getting free boondoggles.

Separately: does anyone think there is any design or gameplay reason behind some unique units being able to be prebuilt and some not? I think it’s only just when your particular unit doesn’t replace a like unit in that era. If that’s right, I wonder if it’s just a consequence of how upgrades have been implemented which results in non-replacement unique units being left out of the upgrade path.

My guess however is that’s it deliberate though, because these non replacement units seems to unlock at the same time of some other unit which can be upgraded.

 

[Sostratus]

They're quite viable in SP as part of the right overall strategy,

Actually, in terms of strict gameplay, the player is better off not building khevsurs, berserkers, in favor of just building more swordsmen. You become militarily weaker if you do this. It is a "noob trap." (Even in the best case, khevsurs on hills trade evenly with knights. Which cost the same and outrun them and are on an upgrade path. Sigh.) Samurai are okay, just a bit pricey.

See this comment in the Buff Georgia thread a month back. You actually get about 70 cents on the production dollar if you build Khevs and berserkers and use them in combat. Samurai fair a little better and roughly wash with swordsmen. It's not really that these units are too weak; samurai are actually good on strength, khevs and berserkers are too low- it's that they cost too much. WAY too much.

Pikemen do not counter knights. Not in the way unit counters actually work. You are paying 200 production to deal +4 vs knights, about 1.17x on offense or defense. Knights cost 180, and they have more mobility. But guess what? Pikeman are also countered by swordsman, a unit which costs less than half what they do. Swords also brutally slaughter spearman, which they are also contemporary with, which means there is no reason to field the one unit that upgrades into pikeman against someone with iron (who will field knights against you later,) because those units are at a 21 strength disadvantage to swordsmen. There is no reason to build pikes when you can make xbows, as others have noted.

Swords are incredibly powerful units because they have to be the melee line answer to late middle ages units like xbows. This makes them way too strong in the classical and obsoletes early anticav (spears) leading to a dearth of units to upgrade into pikes. IMO, even if you fix the production cost of military tactics units, these ironclad lads are the real problem.


What would need to be done, IMO:
Anti-cav:
Boost spears to 30 strength to make them worth building. Horseman are stronger than spears 1v1, which is depressing. And as mentioned, murdered by swords.
Make pikes a true "no resource; levied peasants" unit. (reduce build cost to about 130-140ish.)
Melee line:
Split swords into an early classical unit (swords as we know them) which are weaker+a little cheaper (80), and a mid-medieval unit which is stronger than current unit and costs about 140.
something like 30->45ish. The "longswords" can come at military tactics and be the base unit for these civs UU. 45 is for round numbers, true balance is more like 43.

Heavy cav: we'd need to up heavy chariots to 30 as well to compensate for spears buff.
Barbarians: this would upset how spears guarding camps interact with starting warriors. Maybe barbs need a unique unit to fill this role.
Tech: general pass to make techs unlocking units somehow require the tech that unlocks the predecessor.

i would much rather see a true overhaul of how our two infantry lines interact with each other, but that's the quick and dirty.

 

[acluewithout]

@Sostratus I think I need to read your post a couple more times to really get it, but that sounds really spot on. I also agree the pricing of units is totally out of whack, particular Military Tactics UU, and particularly when you starting looking at production to melee strength ratios.

One point about Spearmen line: you can eliminate their vulnerability to melee with your first promotion or by garrisoning the unit in a city centre. So, the units are maybe better than they look on defence.

The snag is melee and heavy cav are also good on defence (I mean, there’s no magic to defence). Given spears aren’t really cheaper than melee, their use case over melee is a lot weaker / limited. I think the advantage of the spearmen line, if there is one, is that it lets you focus on particular tech lines, instead of travelling down the one with swords or the one with Knights.

To my mind, the biggest advantage melee have is that you can build them from turn 1. That’s massive. You can build warriors, use them to get the boost to bronzeworking, then straight into swords. It’s why I rarely build Knights. I have a perfectly good army long before I would actually be building Knights.

Spearmen line would be very different if you started with them, and then got your first melee unit at bronzeworking.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Well, what I'd do is make spearmen ancient units so they don't cost any maintenance and pikemen will cost 2. I'd also make it so that they negate defensive bonuses for mounted units. making them a true counter.

And maybe cost a bit less in production.

I don't think it's groundbreaking.

 

[Olleus]

i would much rather see a true overhaul of how our two infantry lines interact with each other, but that's the quick and dirty.

I believe I've done that with 8 Ages of War (see signature). The two melee lines "leapfrog" each other in terms of strength, so that - at every point in the game - there is some use to having both melee and anti-cav units.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

@SostratusSpearmen line would be very different if you started with them.

Bang on. What's the idea behind club armed Warriors??? Civ starts with the agricultural revolution, not cavemen. And heck, even cavemen probably used spears, not clubs any way.

If you simply started the game with Spearman and had to wait until Iron Working to create Swordsmen, the game would play quite differently. No cheap Warriors to Swordsmen upgrades and a starting AI army that is better equipped to handle a later Horseman/Knight rush.

Early Barbarians would be a lot tougher, though, if you didn't have a starting Warrior to clear out barb camps single-handedly.

Well, what I'd do is make spearmen ancient units so they don't cost any maintenance and pikemen will cost 2. I'd also make it so that they negate defensive bonuses for mounted units. making them a true counter.

And maybe cost a bit less in production.

All of these, especially the production one. Move Spearmen down to cost what Warriors do now. Scale Pikemen cost accordingly. Pikemen costing more than Knights is silly, from both a realism and a game balance perspective.