Settling over resources. Human exploit?

[chicorbeef]

Spearmen buff made early CS bullying a lot easier, and you can defend better against AI horsemen but I can see how it couldn't really counter horsemen in a pvp scenario, where a human would mostly focus on destroying improvements/making your life miserable with 4 movement units and winning the game without having to actually win a battle. Not that I play mp nor care about VP being balanced for it

A bit OT but I'm going to share my (under testing) change: I'm moving horsemen to a more advanced (3rd column) tech. It addresses the gameplay issues of chariot archers not being used much (not a good use of the limited horses you have early on, and by the time you connect them you're already 1 or 2 techs ahead) and horsemen being too good in player hands. It also has some historical basis, with cavalry starting to be a thing in classical era only. Their production cost is raised a bit, especially the faith one: in current VP being able to buy 1 horseman for 100 faith is too cheap, when a composite bowman costs 200, and both are 90 hammers.

Atm my modmod has horsemen in the place where Masonry tech is, I just had to rename that so that it'd make some sense to have some military there (so masonry became military theory, walls are moved to where horsemen were, watermill comes earlier, melee chariots - I said good riddance to the siege tower - and elephants - capped at # - stay in the same spot... ok you've got an idea).

I don't know whether I want this or not, I'm a bit of a Horseman junkie, but it's definitely interesting. You changed Chariots to melee? What are their stats?

Why say goodbye to Siege Tower? Just move it to the same tech Horsemen are on, right?

 

[randomnub]

Oh no what I meant was that I only got rid of the Assyrian siege tower and gave them a heavy (melee) chariot UU in place of horsemen (moving the 'good at taking cities' perk into the UA). I already complained a bit in past in the Assyria thread about the towers and dont' want to derail this thread too much, let just say I like the chariot model more than the tower (invisible when stacked, and you keep them even in information era) and they aren't worth the hammers in ancient era when you're better buy more units, or beeline the library. Those chariots aren't powerhouses but one of their perks is coming earlier than the 'now' classical horsemen, while ranged chariots are the only way to make use of horses for everybody else for a while. I know it's not for everybody, was just sharing

 

[chicorbeef]

And how is the change from Horsemen to Masonry-renamed working out? I like the idea tbh. It would be more historically accurate/balanced.

And why not move Elephants along with Horsemen? Elephants pre-Horsemen feel wrong and sound a little imbalanced.

Edit: I just did this change myself (without the Assyrian Chariot). Now I just need to test it.