Should the Vanguard unit return?

[Ahriman]

Spears/pikes are probably fine with a modest strength reduction and reducing the innate anti-horse bonus to 25%.

25% is fine, but why a strength reduction? Rather, boost the swordsman and horsemen, since they will be rarer since resources will be less meaningful.
We don't need to make spears/pikes worse vs archers and cities.

Do we need a specific mounted counter really though?

Not really, no. It's too narrow a role. It can be a secondary effect of swords and pikes, but the main effect needs to be as general resourceless infantry; ok for holding a line, ok for attacking cities, but not outstanding at anything. They're generalists.

Many of the proposed solutions seem weaker than the problems they're designed to solve.

In my view, the main problems in BNW are:
a) Scouts have no upgrade potential.
b) Pikes -> lancer is a weird upgrade.

It's suggested that insufficient healing is a problem, but I don't think that is the case. Easy access to significant healing just makes warfare easy mode. The AI can't use it very well, it makes combat less lethal and damage less significant, which favors the human player.
It's suggested that there is a need for a recon unit role, but I don't think that is the case either. You can use mounted units to scout and screen, that's part of the advantage of their mobility. Recon also isn't something that the AI understands or can use well.

I just don't see that there is a need for two separate lines of resourceless infantry units.

I suggest:
Spearman - > pikeman -> arquebus -> musket -> rifle -> infantry -> mech inf.
Warrior -> swordsman -> longsword -> arquebus.... etc.
Scout -> pikeman -> arquebus ->... etc
Archer -> Composite bowman -> Crossbow-> Gatling gun -> Machine gun - > Bazooka.
Lancer -> AT gun -> helicopter
Chariot -> horseman -> knight -> dragoon -> landship -> tank -> modern armor -> GDR.
Special forces (ie paratrooper) -> Xcom unit.

You can have sight range promotions on melee units, a 5 hp medic promotion on melee units, anti-mounted/armor promotion on melee units, and so forth.

This gets rid of most of the weird multi-era gaps, means we don't need to add a whole bunch of units, and keeps the AI's army formation concentrated in units that it will use well.

Basically: in early eras we have strategic resource melee units, but that is a temporary unit line that then merges back into the main melee unit line.
Stop thinking about swords and longswords as being the main melee unit link, think of them as specialist city attackers that require a strategic resource, and then merge back into the main melee unit line, which are the general spear and pikes.

The same unit plan could work with scouts -> horseman, but I'm not as fond of that as you may not have horses nearby, and I'm not sure we want defensive promotions on mounted units.

But there is no reason for some separate support unit line that the AI won't use well.

Do we need medics? Do AI use them properly?

No and no.

Warriors should probably be upgradable to the spears line.

I don't have a huge objection to this, but I don't support it: that significantly weakens the factions with a sword UU by being unable to upgrade warriors who have gained experience from barb fighting, and it heavily pushes you towards horses over iron, because you can start building chariots early but you can't build swords until a classical era tech.

 

[Tomice]

I think I got it!






What about a light cavalry line?

Scout-(classic light horse)-(medieval light horse)-lancer-(industrial light vehicle)-gunship?

Each of these makes sense in the scouting role (and healing, if desired). The number of newly added units would be tolerable. "Ignore terrain cost" would be for the basic scout only, all later units would get raw movement points. The "counter" role would be dropped, it isn't necessary.



The 5 upgrade lines would be:

• Light Cavalry (see above)
• Heavy Cavalry (horseman-knight-cavalry-landship-tank-armor-GDR)
• Support fire (archer-compbow-crossbow-gatling-machinegun-bazooka)
• Siege
• Ressourceless Infantry (warrior-spear-pike-musket-rifle-ww2infantry-infantry)

What's left?

Swormen and Longswords could merge with the ressourceless infantry line after gunpowder - probably the easiest way and my personal choice (*).

Currently "lost" units:
-Marine
-Paratrooper/XCOM
-AT gun
-chariot archer

(*) Or we create a full elite (ressource?) line of infantry. With this line, we could also pick up lost units like the marine or paratrooper and maybe bridge the gap with some sort of grenadier unit. But that's probably too complicated.

 

[JohnS]

What horrors would befoul our shores if we simply scrapped the scout?

 

[sukritact]

Is there a reason we want to merge scouts into other lines; it really doesn't seem to work for me.

Every other game I know seems to have separate scouts; RoN, Civ 4, AoE (although the Egyptians have this weird thing where the priest also doubles as anti-myth); and all have separate cavalry and light infantry lines; I don't understand why there's so much opposition to a dedicated scouting line here.

 

[mystikx21]

What modern resources would apply to Marines and Paras? I'm not sure that's desirable as they're both heavily specialised units already. Taking out the ability to build a tank or airplane instead of them wouldn't be that useful, and iron or horses (neither of which makes any sense) wouldn't be a functional limitation by the late game.

I think albie's proposal with some adjustments is the easiest compromise here (basically adds a two recon unit upgrades, which can be lowly regarded by the AI to not spam as opposed to the vanguards, and a skirmisher unit in the late renaissance-early industrial era). Ahriman's is probably the easiest to implement though.

The point about the UU swords I hadn't considered. That does make sense, though there's a practical limit on the number of warriors you could upgrade or the number of chariots you could build, so it's not a huge factor.

 

[Ahriman]

Is there a reason we want to merge scouts into other lines; it really doesn't seem to work for me.

We want the scout to be able to upgrade, otherwise it rapidly becomes obsolete and dies when anything sneezes on it. Without upgradable scouts, we end up with a situation where players either prioritize building a warrior over a scout, or where the scout isn't worth preserving and just gets suicided, gifted, or disbanded.

It's vastly simpler to just let the scout unit upgrade into another line than it is to create an entire new unit line. And the utility of the scout as an ignores-terrain explorer unit is significant at the beginning of the game, but then rapidly wears out as the world is settled.

What modern resources would apply to Marines and Paras? I'm not sure that's desirable as they're both heavily specialised units already.

Agreed. There is no need for these units to need a strategic resource; strategic resource units should be powerful and elite, like tanks, battleships, and aircraft.
[Actually there's really no need for a marine unit at all, just have amphibious promotion for infantry.]

though there's a practical limit on the number of warriors you could upgrade or the number of chariots you could build, so it's not a huge factor.

Right, but upgrading 2 warriors to swords is a big deal. It means I get the swords out faster, it makes a rush feasible.

My main problem with Albie's proposal is that I'm not sure what a skirmisher is for than an arquebus can't provide, and that there is then a huge gap between the skirmisher and a paratrooper. Also note that currently paratroopers are in fact Atomic era, not modern era.
We're talking about 7 tech tiers.

And I just don't see that the recon line does to make the game better.

We don't want combat units that ignore terrain: terrain is fun.
We don't want lots of combat units that withdraw: the AI doesn't know how to use them (leaving slots behind them).
And the AI can't use healing or extra sight very strategically.

We have a lot of clutter with an arquebus, a skirmisher, and an explorer.
And we have a huge tech gap between the explorer and a modern era "Recon".

 

[sukritact]

I've always found the Ignore Terrain that scouts get really fun...

I'd still rather see upgradeable scouts; if the ignore terrain really becomes weaker throughout the game (really? I never found this the case in unmodded games where I manage to upgrade my scouts via ruins) we can give them other exploration bonuses; allow them to enter territory sans open borders, or bonuses against barbarians, or allow them to cross mountains, embark faster, get higher rewards for meeting CSs, Ruins, capturing encampments, etc.

As for the large gaps; that just ends up being a matter of finding appropriate names; I do intend for this line to be scrapped when it's finished its use; just build a couple and have them last for as long as you need instead of being murdered by barbarians.

I'm surprised people don't see scouting as more important given the world congress....

 

[Ahriman]

I've always found the Ignore Terrain that scouts get really fun...

It's fun in the early game for exploring.

Beyond that, I think it's not fun, because it starts to break down the basic core combat mechanics: that if I have rough terrain between you and me, then only mounted units can attack me. It breaks the rule that you have to stop when you cross a river. It means that marshes and hills and deserts and forests don't matter anymore, which makes battlefield placement less interesting.

It also means that roads and railroads can't be used, which means that ignore terrain units become less mobile as the game goes on.

I'm surprised people don't see scouting as more important given the world congress....

On non-pangaea maps, a scout isn't what gets you in touch with other players, typically it takes a caravel to do that.

As for the large gaps; that just ends up being a matter of finding appropriate names; I do intend for this line to be scrapped when it's finished its use; just build a couple and have them last for as long as you need instead of being murdered by barbarians.

If you made all the other units non-buildable, so that literally all you are doing is upgrading a couple of scouts from the beginning of the game, that would be fine.

But I don't think that is how it will play out; I think that like GEM we will see AI armies with large numbers of recon units that don't fight very well.

The other thing that I don't like is that it ended up reducing the importance of military techs. If you have to pursue military techs to get good units, that makes it harder to just run and grab all the economy techs without becoming vulnerable. But as soon as you start putting more unit upgrades onto the economy techs, it becomes much less risky to ignore the military techs.

* * *
The core principle of Communitas was always supposed to be to stick close to the vanilla game when possible, and to only add things that were clear improvements or fixed obvious problems.
But "no recon unit line in the mid-game" isn't an obvious problem. Creating an entire unit line so that the scout has something to upgrade to seems like overkill.

 

[sukritact]

But they're explorers I'm not at all advocating them for anything other than exploration they're not going to fight, and they'll be horrible at it if and when they do.

Still; you need units to explore inside the continent, archipelagoes are a different matter.

How does the AI work here exactly? What prevents them from upgrading rather than building; what stops them from maintaining just one ore two; I'm genuinely ignorant here.

We could have Scout, Adventurer, Explorer, then have them peter out from there with the last upgrade being the Recon; it's supposed to be a unit whose importance diminishes.

 

[Ahriman]

But they're explorers I'm not at all advocating them for anything other than exploration they're not going to fight, and they'll be horrible at it if and when they do.

Will the AI know that?

Still; you need units to explore inside the continent

I've never not been able to discover a civ on another continent from the sea. Unless I am planning an intercontinental invasion, there is no utility to me exploring the interior of another large continent - and if I need to do so, I'll just send a mounted unit and explore using their road system.

By the time I can get to other continents, ignoring terrain is obsolete for exploration purposes because of the road network.

Similarly, the explorer unit in Civ4 was hardly ever worth building; land exploration is an early game thing.

Exploration is too narrow a goal after the early game to be worth having a dedicated unit for.

And its not worth building units that don't have full upgrade paths into the late game.

What prevents them from upgrading rather than building

I don't think it is possible to have a unit that can be upgraded to but can't be built.
And most people haven't proposed making these units unbuildable, they've advocated having them as a regular secondary unit line like vanguards were.

If you want to have a medieval era explorer unit that the scout upgrades into that is the same as the scout with higher strength, then I would be ok with that.... but then merge that unit back into the melee unit line, with the explorer upgrading to arquebus, so we don't end up with dud units around.

 

[Tomice]

But "no recon unit line in the mid-game" isn't an obvious problem. Creating an entire unit line so that the scout has something to upgrade to seems like overkill.

It's not only the scout!

The whole "counter" line is a mess. It has ressource and non-ressorce units, fast and slow ones. And to top it all, the counter role was never overly meaningful. Also, we always had troubles giving spears a proper role, let alone to balance them well.

The 2 or three additional units I suggested are not only to get a successor to scouts. It is to find a new home for some units that seemed very much "forced" into the counter tree.

Apart from that, there are a lot of cool promotions that get little attention on mainline combat units (like sight, healing or retreat from melee). This is either because the promos would be too strong on an already powerful unit or because we need raw strenght on combat units first and foremost.

The vanguard line aimed to improve this, but it had some flaws.

My suggestion tries to achieve something similar. But it's not adding an extra line like vanguards were, but it rearranges the counter line to achieve this. It's not that much of a change at all.

 

[sukritact]

How does the AI handle scouting in the early game? Don't they scout?

I meant that they are buildable; but the priority is to upgrade as opposed to constructing more unless necessary....

Merging into the Arquebus is fine with me; but what do we do with promotions?

Tomice's idea sound reasonable, but a feels a but weird IMHO.

 

[Ahriman]

The whole "counter" line is a mess. It has ressource and non-ressorce units, fast and slow ones. And to top it all, the counter role was never overly meaningful.

I agree. So have spears and pikes be generic melee units, rather than anti-mounted units. Tone down the mounted bonus and either boost their strength slightly or give them a defensive bonus.
[They can still get more anti-cav role through promotions if desired.]

I think AT guns and helicopters are fine; niche, late-game specialist units.

And have lancers hit and run fast-attack rather than anti-mounted (which we already did in GEM). Maybe they could get a bonus vs siege units, so they're good at running down cannon.

The 2 or three additional units I suggested are not only to get a successor to scouts. It is to find a new home for some units that seemed very much "forced" into the counter tree.

But we don't need to have full lines for everything. It's ok to have niche AT, AA, helicopter, Paratrooper units in the late game that don't come from anything earlier.
[Lancer can upgrade to landship too, or we could live with the slightly awkward lancer->AT->helicopter.]

I don't see why we need light horse units, and I don't see why we would want to spend out precious horse units on a weak recon unit rather than a powerful horse unit that could also have a recon role (because of high movement points).
What does a light horse unit do that regular mounted units don't do already?

I just don't see recon as being a function important enough to justify an entire unit line.
* * *

How does the AI handle scouting in the early game? Don't they scout?

They explore. But then they don't need to keep exploring once they've done that. They are done with land-based exploration by the medieval era - as is the human player.
But that isn't the same as a tactical recon unit, and it doesn't really need multiple upgrades of explorer units.

I meant that they are buildable; but the priority is to upgrade as opposed to constructing more unless necessary....

But you have a risk that the AI builds a bunch of dud units.
It might be that this isn't a big problem if you can code the AI to never have more than 1-2 of them, but then a unit line where you only ever want 1 per game is a bit dull.

Merging into the Arquebus is fine with me; but what do we do with promotions?

Just leave them; there's nothing wrong with defensive or heal outside territory bonuses on a melee unit.

* * *
I think it would help if for any proposal, there was a clear exposition of what the problem is in the vanilla game that is being solved. If the issue is with lancers and AT guns, then target those; they don't need to be tied into scouts.

 

[Tomice]

A nice graphic says more than 1000 words

@Ahriman:
I didn't say that light cavalry necessarily needs to use horses, they could be ressourceless as well.
And especially paratroopers and marines could stay niche units. I'm no big fan of AT guns I have to admit though.

 

[mitsho]

Though lancers would benefit from a unit that upgrades into them... ;-)

The problem with a recon unit as used in real life military is that it's the wrong scale for the civ5 battlefield. Basically, those units would be 'civilian units' that can't be taken and are behind/at the enemy line. Not doable with civ. So the recon unit becomes moot.

It were doable if scouts were air like units that are stationed and can do broad and precise (to take huts) recon missions (and can be stationed in any city, thus hopping around).

Yeah, we don't want that.

So if recon falls away (mostly), then healing stays. And even though it might be "better" (higher nortality rate) for combat and the AI, i wouldn't want that. I like healing and I put my fun over a perfect AI sometimes, sorry Ahriman ;-)

I say a basic infantry line scout --> pike is the best. this basic infantry takes those specializing promotions, but is weaker than the sword line.

If we look at the number of units, do we need the arquebusier at all? Make muskets the pike upgrade & leave longswordman alone, buffs them by making them relevant longer, iron units are countered by horses and vice versa due to their strength... ;-) gotta go...

 

[Ahriman]

A nice graphic says more than 1000 words

But.... I still don't see why you need classical and medieval units in the light cavalry line.
Why not just let the scout upgrade into something else, and not start the line until lancers?
If the goal is to do something with lancers and AT guns, that can be considered, but it seems unrelated to scouts. These are two separate conversations.

And scout promotions are about healing and defense, which don't make sense on lancers or gunships.

Also note that the AT gun was modern era, not industrial, and that the gunship is atomic era.
And the Tank is atomic era too, as is the bazooka. The modern era is basically 1890s-1920.

I'm not attached to the AT gun, I hardly ever use them, but I can't think of anything particularly logical that would fit instead.

I didn't say that light cavalry necessarily needs to use horses, they could be ressourceless as well.

I don't think we want highly mobile units in the early game that don't need a strategic resource, and it is weird to have cavalry that don't use horses.
* * *

Though lancers would benefit from a unit that upgrades into them... ;-)

Anything would, but it doesn't seem critical. I'd prefer it to be on its own than to have pikes upgrade into it.
The other option is just to merge the lancer into the mounted line, either literally (so knight -> lancer -> dragoon) or from the outside (lancer -> dragoon).

So if recon falls away (mostly), then healing stays. And even though it might be "better" (higher nortality rate) for combat and the AI, i wouldn't want that. I like healing and I put my fun over a perfect AI sometimes, sorry Ahriman ;-)

I'm not saying no healing promotions at all, I'm saying leave it as it is in BNW, and leave it on regular melee units rather than trying to create a new unit line for it.

I say a basic infantry line scout --> pike is the best

AGreed.

If we look at the number of units, do we need the arquebusier at all? Make muskets the pike upgrade & leave longswordman alone,

Remember that this is with the renaming, so the arquebusier is renaissance era (BNW = msuket), muskets are industrial era (BNW = rifle), rifles are modern era (=BNW Great War Infantry).
So yes, we need that, there has to be a Renaissance era melee unit. And I think it makes the most sense that both longswords and pikes upgrade into it. We don't want either to be deadweight in the Renaissance era.

 

[Tomice]

Oops, left out the atomic era

I could agree to letting lancers be the start of a new line (with a faster AT gun replacement and gunships).

Or we make lancers the upgrade for knights, while the (stronger) cavalry would have to be built from scratch. Both would then upgrade to landships -> Lots of historic flavor in this version...

 

[Babri]

You need horses though; and we'd have to deal with the elephant UUs; the image of Chang Sueks or Indian War Elephants doing reconnaissance seems ridiculous to me. The main problem for me is flavor baggage; you simply do not have knights running around looking for stuff; there's this expectation of mounted being a combat unit as opposed to one that runs away all the time (scouts should try and run away and retreat, they're not suited for combat); the phrase "here comes the cavalry" illustrates that perfectly well.

Alternate idea; the scout DOES NOT upgrade; instead, it automatically gains combat strength as the player progresses through the ages; just enough not to get clobbered by other units of the era. (maybe with a "Loner" promotion that lowers combat strength near friendly units); basically the unit remains valid (and is valid only for) its single purpose: exploration, throughout the entire game.

Warriors also upgrade to a resource needing sword unit, so scout one isn't a problem.

About the UU point, the upgrade path could be changed accordingly, after all Battering Ram don't upgrade to pikes. That is not a real problem.

This is ciV game. Gameplay triumphs realism. I don't see any problem in knights doing some scouting & such. And a cavalry unit specializing in scouting will most probably lack fighting promotions so that balances it out.

 

[Babri]

A nice graphic says more than 1000 words

@Ahriman:
I didn't say that light cavalry necessarily needs to use horses, they could be ressourceless as well.
And especially paratroopers and marines could stay niche units. I'm no big fan of AT guns I have to admit though.

If they won't need resources then we would be back to the vanguard problem we started with. I think units classes should be multi-purpose. Just as I said earlier that horsemen/knights could be used as scouting purposes or as mobile fighting force.

 

[mitsho]

that's how we started, a recon upgrade for the scout, then they got the healer role, and lastly the defense modifiers to not make them too strong on offense (they still were, but as damage soakers).

round round we go... ;-)

@ahriman. I feel like the gap between longswords and muskets/arquebusiers isnt large enough. longswords and gun1 ("to avoid confusion") are pretty similar after all... It's quite an investment to go for them, but unlike the mounted line, where you can keep on upgrading them til the end, swords vanish into the main infantry line and the iron gets used for ships... So basically why not shift the whole infantry line 1 tier back, or make longswords go directly to gun2. you can beeline for longswords, but isn't that mostly worth it when you got an uu of that type? Or can we give the ls (and swords?) a promotion that stays with them and differs them from the "main" line? Basically, the merge of pikes and la into gun1 isn't the best. It's okay later on in the industrial era when the city attack get's replaced by artillery fire and all, but renaissance is too early. It's a boost for swords if we have a pike->halberd and a longsword -> musket line which both merge into the rifle. Otherwise you do mix the main infantry (healer. scout, "vanguard") with its promos quite early into the main line!