Some UUs come WAY too early...

hoopsnerd

hoopsnerd

Prince
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Aug 2, 2007
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Why are some UUs so incredibliy historicly innacurate? The Incas have a Quecha in 4000 BC? Here are some examples.

Inca: Empire started ~1300AD. UU comes in 4000 BC.
Malinese: Empire started ~1300 AD. UU comes with Archery.
Mongolia: Empire started ~1200 AD. UU comes with Horseback Riding.
Persia: Empire started ~200 BC. UU comes with The Wheel.
Zulu: Empire prominient 1700-1900 AD. UU comes with Hunting.

I know that civ isn't intended to be totall historicly accurate, but whats up with these WAY too early UUs? I think that the only civs with extremely early UUs should be Babylon, Egypt, Sumer, Greece, and Maya. I mean, Shaka Zulu fought the British in South Africa, I don't think he was fighting them with spearmen. Incas get an extremely early and effective UU and UB, even though they didnt even found Cuzco until 5000 years later? I don't think that everything has to be historicly perfect or anything, that would be impossible... but 5000 years off? thats a little bit much considering the game only spans 6000.
 
Why get worried about a little thing like UUs, when you can found the city of Washington 5700 years before George Washington was born? Who would ever play any civ other than Sumer or Egypt, if the game designers were worried about that kind of historical accuracy?
 
If you think thats something, just tell any Marine that they're replaced entirely by Navy Seals and see what they have to say about that ;).
 
Umm... The Zulus *did* fight with spears and cow-hide shields in their war with the United Kingdom. They had a few muskets and rifles when the war started, but those were out of date and not very helpful. After Isandlwana they captured enough British weapons to arm a number of Impi, but the spear (I don't remember the term for the spear, Wiki Impi and it should be there) was still the main weapon of the war.
 
You've missed something- not all civilisations in real-life start at the same point, and so technological development is skewed- Sumeria had the wheel and writing long before northern Europeans, and the Inca hadn't developed gunpowder, or even the working of copper and iron into weapons by the time the Spanish Conquistadores came a-knocking. In Civ, they are aligned thus to make things easier- it makes the game more fair and adds a what-if element to it. I know Rhye's and Fall does a good job of a better timeline, but as a basic game Civ vanilla still works quite well.

Now, when you say the Inca and Zulu Empires started, the people had not advanced as far as the western medieval standard we take for granted. In 1300AD, well into European Middle Age, the Inca people were effectively stone age. The same could be said for the Zulus when faced by rifle-toting European settlers in South Africa.

Now I'm sure you'd agree with me that these UUs are, on the whole, a fairly good choice for their civilisations. As the Inca Empire never advanced in its own right after the Spanish invaded, it is hard to think of any UU other than a Quechua or similar warrior. Same with the Zulus- the Impi is a signature Zulu soldier, and therefore a well-chosen UU, and the fact they had them in 1700-1900 when fighting the British in the Zulu Wars shows that as a civilisation their military didn't go further than stone age tribes well into the European 'standard' colonial era.

Now, are you saying that, in Civ, the Zulus should still be in the Stone Age in AD 1700, while the British Empire have redcoats? I don't know how Rhye's manages this, but if this were the case in unmodded Civ, that wouldn't be very fair, and the game would be restricted so people would all choose the powerful civs, such as Britain, that can last the historical race with great technological advancement.

The game is a what-if game, and Firaxis have made it so a unit is available as soon as you, the player, have the technology and resources to use it. So unless you want the Zulus to wait until rifling before they can get Impi spearmen, or Inca until the middle ages to get a simple warrior, then the current system works well. Horseback riding is all that is needed to train a Keshik, and although the Skirmisher and Immortal do not use the techs they require, it is because they replace a standard unit that does that they have this requirement.

If your virtual Mongolia/Mali/Zulus developed at the same pace as their real life counterparts, then they'd still have Keshiks/Skirmishers and Impi in their requisite time periods. I'm also fairly sure these peoples had horseback warriors/javelins/spearmen centuries if not millennia before the empires started.
 
I think the key to those UU's is simply what type of 'timeperiod' those people were in at the time they came into contact with western Civs.. The most advanced military units the Zulu's, the Inca's, etc. could bring to bear were essentially stone age units.. That's why it isn't very odd to see these units appear right from the start..
 
(Almost) As a joke, they should add "+200% against Gunpowder units" to the Impi. 12 strength against a Rifleman? Still at a disadvantage, but at least you can relive Isandlwana if you've got any of your old units left over from the Ancient Era.
 
Threads like this are funny. :)

Civilization is a strategy game -- not an adventure game.

It's about gameplay balance -- not precise historical accuracy.

I'm sorry.
 
hoopsnerd said:
Civ has given us the impression that the UUs are intended to come during the "golden age" of a certain civilizaiton. How can a civilization have had a golden age before it even existed? That's my point...
Click to expand...


Simple for the Incas 4000 BC (civ timeline) = 1300 AD (real world timeline)

because they were on a Very technologically limited continent/region

similar for Zulus, Malinese, Mongolia, etc.

[Persia I agree is bad.. but The Persian Immortal is the only thing capable of attacking the Babylonian Bowman... and isa particularly vulrnerable to the Greek Phalanx, so it works.]
 
I think the Unit which the UU replaces is based on the kind of techology that civ had at the time. For example, the Incas Quechua (which by the way is the name of their LANGUAGE, not army) replaces the warrior because the Incas had something near to Warrior tech at the time they existed. Hey, they didn't have the wheel in the 15th century (I'm sure they knew that round things rolled, but they just never knew of a use for that knowledge).
EDIT: Crosspost.
 
hoopsnerd said:
They must have invented photography in 3000 BC then... oh wait, it's the 19th century :)
Click to expand...

Read what I said. Then read again. Then again and again. Then read your first post. Then again and again. Then you compare both, again and again. Perhaps you will finally understand what I wrote! :rolleyes:
 
OTAKUjbski said:
Threads like this are funny. :)

Civilization is a strategy game -- not an adventure game.

It's about gameplay balance -- not precise historical accuracy.

I'm sorry.
Click to expand...

That's my point exactly... it would be more balancing NOT to have so many early UUs. In the very early game, every unit is so important that having an "uber-warrior" (Quecha) isn't balanced as well as it could be. The difference between a Quecha and a Warrior is the difference between starting with 2 capital cities or 1. Immortals, War Chariots, and Quecha rushes are all a cheap tactics, but at least Egypt and argueably Persia deserve an early UU... although immortals should replace horse archers.
 
Well, they could have changed the base strength of the Impi (and others mentioned) to match up more evenly with the time period they were actually in. It would be impressive to see an Impi with base str 8, + 50% vs. riflemen, and 0-1 first strikes go up against a rifle and win. There. Historical accuracy along with game balance. However, the OP later posted:

hoopsnerd said:
Civ has given us the impression that the UUs are intended to come during the "golden age" of a certain civilizaiton. How can a civilization have had a golden age before it even existed? That's my point...
Click to expand...

Unless you want to watch the game progress to the 1300s before you start playing the game (as inca) then we must excuse the historic founding dates of empires. However, the UUs could be edited to fit history more accurately.
 
hoopsnerd said:
That's my point exactly... it would be more balancing NOT to have so many early UUs. In the very early game, every unit is so important that having an "uber-warrior" (Quecha) isn't balanced as well as it could be. The difference between a Quecha and a Warrior is the difference between starting with 2 capital cities or 1. Immortals, War Chariots, and Quecha rushes are all a cheap tactics, but at least Egypt and argueably Persia deserve an early UU... although immortals should replace horse archers.
Click to expand...
Quechuas aren't that good. Usually the AI doesn't prioritize archery as much as it should. But maybe that's because it knows about my Quechuas.
 
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