Some reflections about mounted units

[morchuflex]

Hello.

Step by step, I'm modding my game.
I'm now dealing with mounted units and have come to the following questions:

1. Chariots: how to make them useful?
Do you think reducing their cost to, say, 15 shields would be enough of an incentive to use them?
I also want to make them depend on horses. It's only logical.

2. Knights: aren't they a bit too expensive? Or is cavalry too cheap? Being able to upgrade Kn. to cav. for a mere 30 gold is a bit "easy".
Furthermore, I find their defence overrated. They were very vulnerable to archers, for instance.

3. Cavalry: what is this 3 move absurdity? why would they be faster than horsemen? And faster than tanks?

I guess all of this has already been discussed here and there... Feel free to point me to other threads.

Any input welcome.

 

[Cu Chulainn]

Cav being faster than tanks makes perfect sense, and 3 defense for Knights is plenty, if they had any more it would be ridiculous. They are a bit on the expensive side which is why I prefer MI and treb stacks for my medieval combat, the advantage being that your non-barracks towns can make the trebs. Chariots probably can't be made useful simply because no one wants to research the wheel, there's too many techs that are way more valuable to bother with that. Horsemen follow so closely after anyway and are far better there's really no point in making chariots at all. IMO Tanks should be limited by making them wheeled units but that's a different thread.

 

[Gato Loco]

Knights are expensive because you aren't supposed to build a lot of them. I see knights as filling two roles. First, blitzing small pathetic civs that won't put up much resistance to a few good attackers. Second, patrolling ahead of the main stack to pick off any enemy counterattacks. But yes, swords/mideval infantry/longbows are probably better for the brunt of the attacking force, and you might want to skip Chivalry entirely on an archipelago.

I suspect chariots were supposed to be used for exploration, but just can't compete with warriors at double the cost. If you halved their cost and made them come with a tech other than the wheel, people would use them to scout instead of warriors, but other than that, forget it.

I think that Cavalry's 3 move reflects the lack of knights' heavy armor, coupled with advances in logistics and horse breeding over the centuries that allow for a mobile yet devastating mounted force to be fielded in the Industrial era.

 

[morchuflex]

Cav being faster than tanks makes perfect sense, and 3 defense for Knights is plenty, if they had any more it would be ridiculous.

Care to explain why it "makes perfect sense"? A horse's peak speed (even with a man on its back?) may be higher than a tank's but a tank can move for many more hours without resting, and its refueling time is certainly shorter. Overall, I am sure a tank can cover greater distances in a day than a mounted unit. Cavalry, however, may have a superior mobility: it can more easily deal with rough terrain, irregular slopes, little rivers, forest etc.
To reflect that, I agree with you tanks should be somewhat restricted in their movments: they shouldn't be able to cross unroaded mountains, marshes or maybe even forests.
Furthermore you read me too fast. I said Knight defence was overrated, not underrated. I think it should be 2, not three, to reflect knight vulnerability (cf the battle of Azincourt etc.).

 

[Pentium]

I think there were longbowmen, not archers. And Germany did attack France in WWII over forested mountains. Tanks are too slow.

 

[ybbor]

1. Chariots:...I also want to make them depend on horses. It's only logical.

they already do.

 

[RegentMan]

Well, the wheel is always one of my priorities. I need to see if I have horses nearby. But by the time I get the wheel, most of the area around me is explored already, so there's no need for chariots.

 

[Cu Chulainn]

Care to explain why it "makes perfect sense"? A horse's peak speed (even with a man on its back?) may be higher than a tank's but a tank can move for many more hours without resting, and its refueling time is certainly shorter. Overall, I am sure a tank can cover greater distances in a day than a mounted unit. Cavalry, however, may have a superior mobility: it can more easily deal with rough terrain, irregular slopes, little rivers, forest etc.
To reflect that, I agree with you tanks should be somewhat restricted in their movments: they shouldn't be able to cross unroaded mountains, marshes or maybe even forests.
Furthermore you read me too fast. I said Knight defence was overrated, not underrated. I think it should be 2, not three, to reflect knight vulnerability (cf the battle of Azincourt etc.).

Pretty much what I was thinking but further remember that the "Tanks" in Civ represent some of the first tanks used in combat. They were by no means fast, nor were they manuverable, the advantage was in firepower and defense.

 

[RegentMan]

There should be a WWI style tank and a WWII style tank. They wouldn't upgrade, so you'd have to decide if you really needed that WWI tank now or could afford to wait until WWII. Techs would need to be a little apart though.

 

[Admiral8Q]

There should be a WWI style tank and a WWII style tank. They wouldn't upgrade, so you'd have to decide if you really needed that WWI tank now or could afford to wait until WWII. Techs would need to be a little apart though.

I agree completely. WWI tanks could only move at the speed of a soldier on foot. Their whole purpose was to break the trenches stalemate. A WWI tank unit became a mobile trench which would allow the infantry to advance without being mowed down.

 

[douche_bag]

About the chariots: I think chariots should be just as strong as horsemen, the only disadvantage chariots should have is the fact that they're wheeld units and can't move through mountians,jungle etc. without a road. Another cool feature I'd like to see is having cariots only availible to all civs of the mediterranian culture group. I've never seen any other civilizations using them besides egypt, carthage, rome, greece and so on. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Tomoyo]

The Mesopotamians used chariots too. (The Hittite's UU is the three man chariot! )

 

[douche_bag]

yes but aren't the hitties part of the same culture group?

 

[viper275]

1. Maybe even less. I find them quite useless.
2.

aren't they a bit too expensive?

Being able to upgrade Kn. to cav. for a mere 30 gold is a bit "easy".

3. I don't think it's that far off, although maybe they should make horsemen faster.

What douche bag pointed out is correct. I'd look for more generic units (I mean... Zulu Knights, think about that) or make units culture-specific.

 

[Tomoyo]

yes but aren't the hitties part of the same culture group?

No?

 

[mikehunt]

Care to explain why it "makes perfect sense"? A horse's peak speed (even with a man on its back?) may be higher than a tank's but a tank can move for many more hours without resting, and its refueling time is certainly shorter. Overall, I am sure a tank can cover greater distances in a day than a mounted unit. Cavalry, however, may have a superior mobility: it can more easily deal with rough terrain, irregular slopes, little rivers, forest etc.
To reflect that, I agree with you tanks should be somewhat restricted in their movments: they shouldn't be able to cross unroaded mountains, marshes or maybe even forests.
Furthermore you read me too fast. I said Knight defence was overrated, not underrated. I think it should be 2, not three, to reflect knight vulnerability (cf the battle of Azincourt etc.).

in real life tanks need fuel supply lines. horses can feed where ever they are at the time

 

[RegentMan]

Suppose you're fighting a war in the tundra. You can establish supply lines over snow; a horse can't really eat in the tundra.

 

[Uiler]

Chinese used chariots too.

 

[Uiler]

Here's some info on chariots from Wikipedia:

As states grew in size, speed of movement became crucial because central power could not hold if rebellions could not be suppressed rapidly. The first solution to this was the chariot which became used in the Middle East around 2000 BC. First pulled by onager, oxen, and donkeys, they allowed rapid traversing of the relatively flat lands of the Middle East. The chariots were light enough that they could easily be floated across rivers. The breeding of more powerful horses soon allowed them to be used to pull chariots, and their greater speed made chariots even more efficient.

The power of the chariot as a device both of transportation and of battle became the central weapon of the Assyrians, who swept through the Middle East in the 1700s BC. The Assyrian chariots were worked by two men: one would be a bowman and fire at the enemy forces, while the other would control the vehicle. Over time, chariots carrying five warriors were developed. The effectiveness of these vehicles is still somewhat in doubt. In China, chariots became the central weapon of the Shang dynasty, allowing them to unify a great area.

Although chariots have been compared to modern-day tanks in the role they played on the battlefield, i.e. shock attacks, the chief advantage of the chariot was the tactical mobility they provided to bowmen. Because tightly packed infantry were the formation of choice, in order for ancient generals to maintain command and control during the battle as well as for mutual protection, a force of chariots could stand off at long range and rain arrows down on the infrantrymen's heads. Because of their speed, any attempts to charge the chariots could be easily evaded. If, on the other hand, an infantry unit spread out to minimize the damage from arrows, they'd lose the benefit of mutual protection and the charioteers could easily overrun them.

From a tactical standpoint this put any force facing chariots on the horns of dilemma, making chariots indispensable to armies of the day. Chariots, however, were complicated pieces of hardware that required specialized craftsman to maintain them. Such services, therefore, made chariots expensive to own. When chariots were owned by individuals within a society, it tended to give rise to a warrior class of specialists and a feudal system (an example of which can be seen in Homer's The Iliad). Where chariots were publicly owned, they helped in the maintenance and establishment of a strong central government, e.g. the New Egyptian Kingdom.

While useful in the Middle East, chariots were not used everywhere. In some areas, most notably Egypt, chariots were used to transport nobles, but the army's core was still the infantry. The Nile allowed for easy transportation of massed infantry by ship, making chariots' speed far less of an advantage. Egypt's main enemies were the Saharan nomads and the southern Nubians, who could be repulsed by the superior numbers of the Egyptians. This abandoning of chariots made Egypt vulnerable to any outside invaders, such as the Hyksos or Persians, who did reach them.

In China chariots were used heavily in Shang (Yin) period, through Zhou and then the entire Spring and Autumn and Warring States period. Eventually they got superseded by mounted cavalry during I think Han maybe? North China is pretty flat you know.

 

[douche_bag]

I think chariots should have the same stats as horsemen: 2/1/2, the only exeption is that they're wheeld units. I don't think the horsmen tech should be so close to the chariot tech anyways. The horsemen look more like a dark age unit (end of ancient times or beginning of medevil age) than a bronze age unit.