Swordsmen and Catapults: who cares?

[stormerne]

Remember the Chariot in Civ1? Vastly overpowered and available with The Wheel. A bunch of those would often bring a quick win at the top difficulty level (Emperor). They got nerfed in Civ2.

I can only hope Civ5 horsemen don't get any of their characteristics removed. I like them. Just charge 50% more hammers/gold for them, that's all.

 

[eewallace]

I think the finite quantity of horses (like iron) was supposed to limit the number of horsemen, and that would probably work great...except for the fact that horses are really plentiful, at least in all of the random maps (normal resources) that I've come up with so far.

 

[madscientist]

Seams to me like an easy fix to teh horsemen issue (yeah I know there is another thread, but too many to read at this stage).

My opinion

1) Up the costs to build as mentioned.

2) Get the AIs to build Speas/Pikes more often.

3) Add a 10% penalty for moutned versus cities.

4) Decrease teh frequency of horse resources but keep the varying numbers, nice to have some spots have 2, 5, or more horses which changes strategy a bit as far as setting or culture expansion.

 

[Seanner]

Along with horses being superior combat units, there's the issue of the way the tech works...the first tech you can research reveals them, whereas iron takes much longer and is so is harder to settle and set up, if you even can at that point. It's also closer to the top of the tree..AH gives trapping and the wheel, both of which one would want, and then HBR is RIGHT after wheel, whereas iron is two away from mining and more or less useless unless you are spending the first 50 turns building barracks/armory/epic and not actually making a single unit.

That leads to the following strategy: if iron working IS worth it, and the techs are in theory balanced, then that implies you MUST make use of the barracks/armory/epic (else it would be overpowered when you did use it if you normally didn't need it). So you SHOULD spend 50 turns building all that, with the idea that meanwhile you were hoarding gold from luxury sales and TPs to buy up a bunch of high-promoted units to catch right up to the number of units you would've built by then (since the general reasoning for not building the rax is it takes too long relative to how many units you build in the first place). The obvious downside here is now you have less gold, and are stuck with higher maintenance costs..but none of that matters at this point. What should be the best army on the field at this point will make that up in pillaging.

Of courses, horses are better at that too

EDIT: IW is also 50% more expensive than HBR..

 

[SolkaTruesilver]

Why take swordsmen and catapults?

Because I'm playing the frakking Roman Empire, and these are my Unique Units!

Or, alternatively, in my current game, I culture-farm my neighbours with Aztec Warriors. I plan to have them upgraded in time to swordsmen to keep that +3 healing/kill.

(Also, my empire is a 1-city is in the middle of the woods of a Great Plains map, so little advantage to building roads, so little advantage to having horsies)

 

[Bibor]

Why to take Swordsmen and Catapults?

1. Cavalry is the last upgrade.
2. Any industrial-age unit kills Cavalry, starting with Infantry.
3. Because experienced Swordsmen promote to Mech. Inf with March, Cover, triple Shock/Drill, and experienced Catapults promote to Artillery with triple Accuracy/Barrage, Logistics, Range and March.
4. By the Industrial age city defenses have higher strength than Cavalry.

Granted, if you play pangaea (or continents where by some miracle one AI haven't cannibalized its own continent) it works. But good luck invading a continent full of Artillery, Infantry and anti-tanks.

 

[ICNP]

And make iron revealed at bronze working. So Swordsmen get more love.

 

[PestWulf]

I would also add that if they wanted to "fix" the lower ages, they could leave the units alone and put the change in city walls. If a city has a wall, it gives the normal protection but an additional protection against mounted attacks.

If the goal of the game is to make the units individually useful, then against fortifications cavalry should be about the lowest in usefulness. If the city doesn't have walls, then cavalry can maintain it's power, but fortifications of any type should blunt cavalry. This would make the reason for siege equipment much more valid, if of course that is how they want the game to be, which it seems like they do.

 

[duxup]

Why to take Swordsmen and Catapults?

1. Cavalry is the last upgrade.
2. Any industrial-age unit kills Cavalry, starting with Infantry.
3. Because experienced Swordsmen promote to Mech. Inf with March, Cover, triple Shock/Drill, and experienced Catapults promote to Artillery with triple Accuracy/Barrage, Logistics, Range and March.
4. By the Industrial age city defenses have higher strength than Cavalry.

Granted, if you play pangaea (or continents where by some miracle one AI haven't cannibalized its own continent) it works. But good luck invading a continent full of Artillery, Infantry and anti-tanks.

I agree, but the fact that you're building units because they'll be useful centuries from now seems a bit off

 

[Bibor]

I agree, but the fact that you're building units because they'll be useful centuries from now seems a bit off

Getting a siege unit to 5 promotions takes a lot of time and effort.

 

[mrt144]

Why to take Swordsmen and Catapults?

1. Cavalry is the last upgrade.
2. Any industrial-age unit kills Cavalry, starting with Infantry.
3. Because experienced Swordsmen promote to Mech. Inf with March, Cover, triple Shock/Drill, and experienced Catapults promote to Artillery with triple Accuracy/Barrage, Logistics, Range and March.
4. By the Industrial age city defenses have higher strength than Cavalry.

Granted, if you play pangaea (or continents where by some miracle one AI haven't cannibalized its own continent) it works. But good luck invading a continent full of Artillery, Infantry and anti-tanks.

This is such myopic thinking. If the tactic can effectively WIN you the game in the BC era, it doesn't matter that you will have 4 suboptimal units hundreds and hundreds of turns later. It also doesn't preclude you from actually building those other units.

 

[automator]

I'm so used to not using horsemen in Civ 4 that I haven't once used them in Civ 5, but the numbers (and the mad proliferation of horses on maps) show me that they are far to powerful at the time and place.

 

[duxup]

Getting a siege unit to 5 promotions takes a lot of time and effort.

Oh I agree. My point though was that when you can build the superior horsemen the fact that I'm building other units just to get them promoted and not because they as a unit are handy right now, but because later when I upgrade them centuries from now they'll be useful seems a bit off.

 

[TrailblazingScot]

I think walls should stop horsemen being able to attack the city. Would make walls a good investment and mean that seige equipment has an actual role.

 

[Buccaneer]

I think the finite quantity of horses (like iron) was supposed to limit the number of horsemen, and that would probably work great...except for the fact that horses are really plentiful, at least in all of the random maps (normal resources) that I've come up with so far.

So is iron, esp. through Patronage. I think the first place to start would be to greatly reduce the number of resources and bonuses in getting them, esp. from city-states. In other words, you would be hard pressed to be able to build four horse units early on unless you get really lucky. Once you have them, they should not be able to clobber cities so easily. Fast movements and fighting on open ground, yes, but not against cities.

 

[Buccaneer]

I think walls should stop horsemen being able to attack the city. Would make walls a good investment and mean that seige equipment has an actual role.

How about having AI cities automatically come with walls and have significant horse penalties against walls - or more accurately, have walls provided a bonus against mounted units? That way they don't have to change horse units numbers.

 

[stii]

Horsemen having higher attack than swordmen is just absurd.

I do find cats useful from defending your cities from waves of Ai attackers.

 

[gaiko]

"Ranged units become the next OP thing though because the A.I. is terrible against those too, but that's more of a defensive issue than an offensive one. On the offense, it's much more of a challenge without horses."

Agreed, and I see little discussion of how OP ranged (not siege) units are in city attacks in the BCs. They need to be nerfed too, viv-a-vis cities. I typically need only 2-3 ranged units (archers, chariot archers (+horsemen, of course!) or crossbows) backing me up to take down cities, and never need siege.

Conversely, nerf siege in the open.

 

[eric_]

I'm so used to not using horsemen in Civ 4 that I haven't once used them in Civ 5, but the numbers (and the mad proliferation of horses on maps) show me that they are far to powerful at the time and place.

Maybe the developers just wanted to help us get over not using horseman

 

[greggbert]

Ive always thought that walls are very undervalued in all Civ games.
Historically most ancient and medieval cities had city walls and defensive structures.

Maybe the walls should give you a 100% city defense against mounted units. That would be a great way to get ppl to use them. Also you wouldn't have to expire the walls bonus because in modern times people stop using mounted units anyway.

In the total war games, if a city has walls horses are practically useless. I'm not saying civ needs to be total war, but that would be a cool change that makes more sense. Then you could use your catapult to soften the city so your horese could attack!

Edit: Kitten, yeah what you said. (Just read it)