[R&F] Spotted: Anti-Cav Policy Card

[Disgustipated]

Maybe they should give cavalry combat penalty on defence

Am I the only one who misses attack and defense values for units? I think it was Civ 4 that changed this, and it's been this way ever since. Civ4 made up for it by having certain units have damage boosts to other types of units.

 

[Stringer1313]

You can use the upgrade trick to build siege units cheap, especially since you can now faith purchase catapults as soon as you have monarchy and the chapel and upgrade to bombards for a low cost. Recon can use the cheap scout to get alot of low cost rangers.

To be honest upgrade should probably be nerfed to a great degree and in such case production cards will become alot more valuable.

Then the AI will be even more hopeless. They need to just give all AI the Tomyris ability except it applies to all units.

 

[Olleus]

Am I the only one who misses attack and defense values for units? I think it was Civ 4 that changed this, and it's been this way ever since. Civ4 made up for it by having certain units have damage boosts to other types of units.

I have often wondered this. But that would mean abandoning rock-paper-scissors, having both systems at once would be too much.

 

[Archon_Wing]

That's not going to matter much.

Anti-cav is inherently a reactionary unit. There is little point in building them preemptively since they would be useless if the enemy didn't attack or went something else and even if they were built, your opponents are under no obligation to suicide into you due to the superior mobility. So you can't chase them down and you also have no ability to really launch a counteroffensive because they are bad at everything else. Bascially, massing spears and pikes against cavalry overwhelmingly favors the later because they can always take potshots at you and you can't. And this is skewed by the fact that it requires a fairly useless tech.

So the card doesn't help. Maybe the units themselves could be a little cheaper. Personally I think what pikes could do is negating the defense of mounted units with 1 hex much like the varu effect. Horse units getting defense bonuses being added in Civ 6 was never something I was in with.

tl;dr Pikes are easy to counter, when pikes don't really counter knights that well to begin with.

 

[NukeAJS]

The recon policy card definitely needs +50% recon unit build. The only time I've ever used that card were some of my first play throughs. Around my third or fourth start, I realized how horsehockey scouts were and how much of a pain in the ass barbs could be so it's the disclipline card everytime now.

 

[liv]

Perhaps the card will help if you do not have iron? Cannot build swords or knights. So that may make these units worth while for warmongerers?
I also think that the card is a small plus for Gorgo. Hoplites became cheaper to build. The support upgrade for these units is pretty good.

 

[Tomice]

Anti-cav is inherently a reactionary unit.

I really don't see much sense in this whole rock-paper scissors thing.
Would have preferred a "levy defensive melee" vs "professional, offensive resource-using melee" myself.

 

[Archon_Wing]

I really don't see much sense in this whole rock-paper scissors thing.
Would have preferred a "levy defensive melee" vs "professional, offensive resource-using melee" myself.

There's nothing too wrong with the concept. Situational units aren't a bad thing. It rewards good planning where a support unit or two helps a lot as opposed to just massing one of the same thing.

The problem here is that hard building by the medieval era takes too long and waiting 6-7 turns to pop out a pikeman while your lands are being pillaged is a terrible propositon. So I think units past the early game just takes too long to build in general. The prevailing strategy is just to make a bunch of whatever you need early on and upgrade them and if people do this, naturally the defender has really no time to react to such a thing besides doing it themselves.

Funny enough the situation is quite similar to Age of Empires 2 mid game where pikes were very good against cavalry but even in those cases it's a losing fight for the same reason; you can't put pikes everywhere to stop where they can go without crippling their offense so if you couldn't make knights of your own, the only suitable counter was a lot of crossbows which were upgraded from leftovers in the previous era. Which I think is the actual solution here too.

And of course, Pikes upgrade into crappy anti-tanks, which have the additional disadvantage of probably never actually facing tanks.

 

[NegativeZero]

That's not going to matter much.

Anti-cav is inherently a reactionary unit. There is little point in building them preemptively since they would be useless if the enemy didn't attack or went something else and even if they were built, your opponents are under no obligation to suicide into you due to the superior mobility. So you can't chase them down and you also have no ability to really launch a counteroffensive because they are bad at everything else. Bascially, massing spears and pikes against cavalry overwhelmingly favors the later because they can always take potshots at you and you can't. And this is skewed by the fact that it requires a fairly useless tech.

tl;dr Pikes are easy to counter, when pikes don't really counter knights that well to begin with.

I agree Pikes are useless and the tech should be skipped to allow players to directly upgrade Spearmen into Pike&Shot @ Metal Casting.

Rene. Pike&Shot is where anti-cav will shine as they out-of-the-box beat Ind Cavalry units (65 vs. 62) with their inharent +10 combat str vs. mounted units even without oligarchy's legacy card.
Players can easily build cheap spears and upgrade @ Metal Casting w/ 50% discount. This may not take advantage of the production policy, but you'll get a quick counter unit that has no resource requirements.
In a long drawn out war, the anti-cav will at least require less gpt to maintain.

The movement of mounted units is the largest problem in combating them, but if they intend to take territory/cities they will have to stand and fight some anti-cav units.

I would like to see ZoC effect mounted units if exerted by anti-cav, move up the Redeploy (+1 movement) anti-cav promotion to 1st/2nd tier, or straight up increase anti-cav combat str.
Any of these would make them more useful as a whole.

Perhaps the card will help if you do not have iron? Cannot build swords or knights. So that may make these units worth while for warmongerers?
I also think that the card is a small plus for Gorgo. Hoplites became cheaper to build. The support upgrade for these units is pretty good.

I don't think warmongers will build many anti-cav (except for UUs) as they don't provide enough movement for conquests while they are still relevant. They are defensive units to promoted the turtle/defensive style that R&F promotes and enhances.

Gorgo's UU certainly benefited as it's major limitation was production inefficiency.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I really don't see much sense in this whole rock-paper scissors thing.
Would have preferred a "levy defensive melee" vs "professional, offensive resource-using melee" myself.

Hmm . . . . maybe a "draft" type mechanic for the spear line might make them interesting.

 

[Phrozen]

Spear line should be much cheaper than other units as it was the backbone of armies for several reasons: cheap, easy to train, not many resources needed, effective due to range of spear/pike, and not much training needed. There are of course several more expensive versions like hoplites, landsknechts, and swiss pikes but majority were cheap.

Hmm . . . . maybe a "draft" type mechanic for the spear line might make them interesting.

Historically accurate for Europe. Not Japan. Not sure about China, India, or Middle East.

 

[pgm123]

Historically accurate for Europe. Not Japan. Not sure about China, India, or Middle East.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding. Are you saying a levy of farmers acting as a line of spearmen wouldn't be accurate for Japan?

 

[NegativeZero]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding. Are you saying a levy of farmers acting as a line of spearmen wouldn't be accurate for Japan?

As units in civ 6 take gold per turn to maintain, I'm of the opinion that forces are professionally trained. I feel Levy/Drafted forces would need their own unit category to define and make consistent with civ 6.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

As units in civ 6 take gold per turn to maintain, I'm of the opinion that forces are professionally trained. I feel Levy/Drafted forces would need their own unit category to define and make consistent with civ 6.

Was just an idea that came to mind when thinking of ways to make the spear units more likable. Not sure if i like it or not but it could be interesting.

You would have to still feed them though.

 

[Phrozen]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding. Are you saying a levy of farmers acting as a line of spearmen wouldn't be accurate for Japan?

During times of war yes there were of course. During times of peace the peasants were disarmed. In Europe even in times of peace peasants were armed most of the time by feudal/legal obligation to participate in a levy/militia. European peasants, even though armed, couldn't go out in public armed though unless called up.

 

[Ferocitus]

Sometimes I disagree with what they do, but understand the design philosophy it comes from, or see that its for marketing reasons. This? Utter stupidity is the only possible explanation in my book.

Or they have something in mind after the dust settles on the R&F expansion,
after adjusting all manner of bonuses and other aspects they have in mind in
light of the game play of hundreds of thousands of players, their opinions, and
with the data they collect along the way.

But you stick with your "utter stupidity" line - it stands as a fitting
testament to your keen intellect, and another reminder to never read youtube
comments.

 

[Disgustipated]

I do often build one spearman because they are slightly stronger than warriors, and it seems to help when doing the early archer/spearman/warrior rush. I may build one or two, but I just never seem to need to use them for their intended use. I'll upgrade them, but I see no reason to hard build them later in the game.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I do often build one spearman because they are slightly stronger than warriors, and it seems to help when doing the early archer/spearman/warrior rush. I may build one or two, but I just never seem to need to use them for their intended use.

when you think about it, a guy with a spear should be able to whoop a guy with a rock pretty handily

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I sometimes build one or two spearmen to counter horse barbarian camps, if they seem to crop up in the same place over and over. But I still use them in conjunction with a warrior or slinger/archers.

 

[Josephias]

As units in civ 6 take gold per turn to maintain, I'm of the opinion that forces are professionally trained. I feel Levy/Drafted forces would need their own unit category to define and make consistent with civ 6.

As cost increases by era on Civ VI, make spear units cost a gold level less (-1) than the era they belong to - plus, get them adjacency (no flanking) bonuses in general. (This is, extend the +10 adjacency hoplite bonus to all spear units, even if you in turn reduce the strenght of individual units --> hoplites can get a strength bonus, plus a greater adjacency bonus,and maybe negate the melee unit bonus against them). Make them as well cheaper to produce.

The main idea here is making them the "core" of your army, easy to use as meatshield, you able to field much more of these units than of other types. Cavalry line will have a tough time against them because they have no specific bonuses, and cannot fight many, but you can use mele units with is bounus, (or heavy cav, at some cost, due to increased strenght), to "break" them (kill alternate units to negate adjacency) - and then they become easy prey.