Samurai replace Swordsman?

[killmeplease]

Not agree. The difference between medieval sword and classic sword are much more than the difference between medieval pike and renaissance pike . Medieval swords are actually quite different to the classic era ones, worth to make them a independent unit.

problem is, there were no medieval swordsman units, with exception to spanish rodeleros which had very limited use.

distinction between spearmen and pikemen is more social than technological. spearmen were tribal militias, their formation was divided in groups belonging to different clans consisting the tribe. or it was a feudal levy, a disorganized mass of armed men. while pikemen were drilled troops, what allowed them to use a tight enough formation to use such an unwieldy weapon as pike effectively.

men at arms were simply knights on wage, when kingdoms matured enough to pay for their armies with money. they were mounted troops not foot soldiers. they fought on feet sometimes but just like knights.

 

[nokmirt]

Samurai should be a medieval unit. It would be silly if they were not.

 

[qwerty25]

Having ranged units turn into into melee units was by far the stupidest error of civ 5 vanilla. So no thank you.

While it wasnt the best. I dont think we should try fitting units of every era always into the same categories. Id rather have absurd upgrade paths in exchange for actual different units in each era.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

I don't think it would be hard to come up with a light infantry unit to take over the role of archers in the gunpower era.

 

[killmeplease]

I don't think it would be hard to come up with a light infantry unit to take over the role of archers in the gunpower era.

yeah jagers would fit perfectly

 

[King Jason]

The easiest solution is to modify the promotions. Having both Shock and Accuracy is redundant; They literally do the same thing but for different unit types. Further, for Archers - Range and Logistics absolutely need to go. Unless the A.I. can be programmed to prioritize and actually use that path (doubt it), it needs to be canned. It's grossly overpowered.

With just those two changes, you could have an Archer that upgrades into a musketman and all of it's promotions would be relevant to the muskets new melee status. I'm surprised they're even keeping archers to be honest. I think the only ranged units should be the siege line, personally.

Though slingers only have a range of 1, much like gatling guns. Even though slingers are an early and weaker alternative to Archers, perhaps archers will only have a range of 1 as well and the Archer line will be the "short range" unit line. That could be cool.

With the new movement mechanics, range 1 units might have an interesting niche. Plus that would give both ranged types their own pros and cons. Sieges being able to shoot further, but they can't move and shoot because they need to set up. Archers can move and shoot, but their range is shorter, putting them at risk.

Seems far more balanced than the Archer line that civ5 presented us with.

 

[moysturfurmer]

What about making Samurai a longsword replacement that unlocks earlier than normal? Make em weaker than longswords but give em a promotion that makes gives em a combat bonus against units with a higher combat rating. Voila?

Or perhaps a distinction could be made between classical swordsmen & medieval swordsmen with the prefixes "light" and "heavy?"

 

[Schuesseled]

While it wasnt the best. I dont think we should try fitting units of every era always into the same categories. Id rather have absurd upgrade paths in exchange for actual different units in each era.

His suggestion appear to be to turn everything into a musketman, that's the opposite of the correct direction.

 

[joncnunn]

Moderator Action: We seem to have wondered way off topic for this thread which is the Samurai and what normal unit they replace.

 

[Babri]

problem is, there were no medieval swordsman units, with exception to spanish rodeleros which had very limited use.

I think the major problem with your assertion is that it would compromise gameplay. No medieval swordsman unit means wacky unit upgrades.

Whether the medieval infantry was equipped with swords, warhammers or maces, the point is that medieval armies did have foot soldiers & not all of them were equipped with pikes. We need to represent those in form of a swordsman of some kind of medieval era.

Also if we completely skip medieval swordsman then what will UUs like samurai replace ? Knights again wouldn't make sense from gameplay perspective because then you'll need to make samurai mounted as well which won't go that well with the iconic concept of medieval samurais (historical accuracy aside). I think they are fine as medieval swordsman replacement.

 

[killmeplease]

I think the major problem with your assertion is that it would compromise gameplay. No medieval swordsman unit means wacky unit upgrades.

Whether the medieval infantry was equipped with swords, warhammers or maces, the point is that medieval armies did have foot soldiers & not all of them were equipped with pikes. We need to represent those in form of a swordsman of some kind of medieval era.

Also if we completely skip medieval swordsman then what will UUs like samurai replace ? Knights again wouldn't make sense from gameplay perspective because then you'll need to make samurai mounted as well which won't go that well with the iconic concept of medieval samurais (historical accuracy aside). I think they are fine as medieval swordsman replacement.

its perfectly possible to have no medieval swordsman
theres no renaissance knight for example and it seems nobody complained about it (or even noticed).
its just that classic swordsman should be stronger, e.g. have a bonus vs melee, so it'd be a pikeman counter and we'd get knight-swordsman-pikeman balancing.
no problem for knigth replacement to be a melee class unit (if everybody wants foot samurais so hard, of what i'm sceptical). And they may still require horses to build.

 

[Babri]

its perfectly possible to have no medieval swordsman
theres no renaissance knight for example and it seems nobody complained about it (or even noticed).
its just that classic swordsman should be stronger, e.g. have a bonus vs melee, so it'd be a pikeman counter and we'd get knight-swordsman-pikeman balancing.
no problem for knigth replacement to be a melee class unit (if everybody wants foot samurais so hard, of what i'm sceptical). And they may still require horses to build.

There were a lot of complaints regarding lancers on this forum alone (more than dozens of them IIRC) which kind of relates to your knight problem. Knight should upgrade to lancers instead of pikeman upgrading to lancers.

I think if medieval swordsman unit is skipped I think it won't bode well with majority of fans just like lancers were a controversial upgrade due to an odd upgrade path. It would also look lazy on Firaxis path to skip upgrades for some units while provide them for other units. Another major problem would be how would you balance them without giving them an upgrade? You could give them bonuses against pikemen and such but what about attacking cities, defending against xbows etc. I think it will create more problems than solving.

Also AFAIK armour & weapon technologies improved quite a bit from classic to medieval era. So in a sense a swordsman from medieval era (such as a foot samurai with a katana) would be more than a match for a Roman legion of classic era.

 

[killmeplease]

There were a lot of complaints regarding lancers on this forum alone (more than dozens of them IIRC) which kind of relates to your knight problem. Knight should upgrade to lancers instead of pikeman upgrading to lancers.

I think if medieval swordsman unit is skipped I think it won't bode well with majority of fans just like lancers were a controversial upgrade due to an odd upgrade path. It would also look lazy on Firaxis path to skip upgrades for some units while provide them for other units. Another major problem would be how would you balance them without giving them an upgrade? You could give them bonuses against pikemen and such but what about attacking cities, defending against xbows etc. I think it will create more problems than solving.

Also AFAIK armour & weapon technologies improved quite a bit from classic to medieval era. So in a sense a swordsman from medieval era (such as a foot samurai with a katana) would be more than a match for a Roman legion of classic era.

vanilla pikemen upgraded to muskets and everybody was happy. its lancers which were just superflous.
why should a unit be upgraded every era? why not every other tech? more unit types in a line makes progression in power smoother but is it any good? really it kinda undermines the very idea of the tech tree which is discrete and non linear. why not to tie units' strength to number of techs then like it was made to cities (one of the worst things about civ5 imho) and just update their look with era as for workers and great people?

 

[FaohKi]

That Elephant unit looks Mughal to me, what do you guys think?

 

[dragon653]

well in my personal opinion there should be a classic and medieval era swordsman and the reminiscence era should be the terico and both the pikeman and the medieval era swordsman would upgrade into it i feel that it would be the most natural progression and the samurai were defiantly a medieval era thing so it would be rely weird for them to be a classic era unique

 

[Redaxe]

well in my personal opinion there should be a classic and medieval era swordsman and the reminiscence era should be the terico and both the pikeman and the medieval era swordsman would upgrade into it i feel that it would be the most natural progression and the samurai were defiantly a medieval era thing so it would be rely weird for them to be a classic era unique

The thing is though is there was practically no evolution in metallurgy between the classical era and medieval era.

Romans could produce higher carbon steels and these were being smelted during the peak of the Empires wealth and this steel was just as good as any steel that could be found during the high-late middle ages.

However that wasn't the norm either in Roman times nor in the middle ages. The thing is that for most applications high carbon steels weren't necessary and the extra cost involved probably meant that the benefit was rarely worth it - they just didn't always bother forging high quality steel.

Roman legions may have had inferior quality of metal in their equipment but it didn't really matter. A low carbon sword is still lethal. Ultimately it was the organisation, training, economy, leadership that made them successful as was their policy to add defeated people into their armies. The quality of the weapon probably made very little difference to the outcome of a battle or war.

The Roman helmet though was one of the best mass produced helmets in military history - the amount of protection it offers, made it a magnificent piece of armor.



European Knights may have had better armor then the Romans did but you have to take into consideration the size of the armies here. The knights were the aristocrats - roman aristocracy on the otherhand considered themselves above warmongering and would spend their time talking philosophy or politics, bathing or whatever else the luxurious life in Rome offered.
Most European medieval kingdoms could rarely equip, pay, supply and field and army over 15,000 in size - and that was generally only temporarily - usually you are talking about < 0.5% of the population.

Rome on the other hand had armies deployed across a vast empire in the 100,000s - In the Punic wars Rome had 5% of Italy's population deployed.
Then during the peak of the empire consider the number of legions deployed from Britain, to Germany, to the Danube, to the Persian front etc...

 

[Redaxe]

On that subject the big difference to military technology was the stirrup - this was the defining point that made the large cumbersome phalanx armies obsolete. With the stirrup a horserider could stand up on the horse and shoot from a bow or use a lance - hence the knight was born. Before the stirrup cavalry charging was especially dangerous as it was easy to be thrown from a horse from moderate impact.

Nomadic horseman adopting the stirrup is what caused the collapse of many Chinese dynasties, the avars brought the stirrup to Europe around 600ad and ravaged the Roman territories etc..

So the ancient/classical era should emphasise the phalanx and legions, while the middle ages should focus on horse archers, cataphracts and levied soldiers.

If there is to be a difference in medieval and classical swordsmen there should probably be a man-at-arms or a militia unit. The reason why medieval europe didn't have permanent standing armies is because they lacked the economy and social stability but that wasn't a technological progression it was a lack of political/economical structure. Byzantium in the East maintained the best armies in the middle ages until about 1100 but they ultimately turned to mercenaries.

I'd keep the classical era swordsman as the premier iron age unit but make it more expensive to train and upkeep. Then I'd have a peasant militia/man-at-arms which represents cheaper levied unprofessional soldiers - so depending on what your economy can sustain you can either choose superior but more expensive armies or cheaper conscripted peasants.

 

[stealth_nsk]

The thing is though is there was practically no evolution in metallurgy between the classical era and medieval era.

Pattern welding evolved by 6th-7th century in Europe making blades much better. And mass production of iron with blast furnaces, etc. allowed a lot of armor evolution. Not a huge leap, but quite noticeable.

Romans could produce higher carbon steels and these were being smelted during the peak of the Empires wealth and this steel was just as good as any steel that could be found during the high-late middle ages.

If I'm not mistaken, Romans weren't that good at steel themselves. They conquered most of the Celtic lands, though, and gained access to their high-carbon steel.

 

[Ravihon]

Historically they have been a special warrior caste phenomenon in Japan alone not exactly mirroring the nobility in Europe. As warriors they were using all sorts of weapons, mounted and or unmounted. So if you really want to replace some other unit game play wise, I would choose the KNIGHTS. Although I also believe you could justify adding them without replacing another unit...

 

[moopoo]

Has there been any indication in any of the videos or articles so far that unique units replace normal ones? We've seen it with buildings, but I've not heard any replacements for units yet.