Tank vs Spearman

[AnonymousSpeed]

It's an old joke that is a bit less worn out than the Ghandi joke exclusively because people complain about it less. However, with Civilization 6's new combat system, where a difference of ~30 combat strength means instant destruction, there's no way a 25 strength Spearman could ever stand up to an 80 strength tank...right?

WRONG.

Spearman has 25 Combat Strength
Plus 10 for the tank being a mounted unit is 35
Echelon promotion (+5 vs. cavalry) increases that to 40
Units get +2 combat strength when defending on rough terrain, which stacks when on a wooded hill
That's a potential +4 combat strength for 44 total
Choke Points promotion (+7 on woods, hill, or marsh) brings the Spearman to 51 combat strength
Since we're adding in terrain, the Spearman would get another +5 if the tank attacks across a river brings us to 56

Impressive but still pretty much annihilated, we're going to need to bring in some heavier firepower
Armies have 17 extra combat strength compared to the base unit, that's 63
Great General increases combat strength by 5 to 68

Still not good enough, bring in the backup
Support bonuses give +2 strength for each adjacent ally when defending
Spearman can have up to 5 units adjacent to it since one tile needs to be vacant for the tank to attack from
Square promotion doubles support bonuses to +4
5 x +4 = +20 combat strength for 88 combat strength total
Our spearman now how more strength than the tank does

I thought we could go further than this using the Hold the Line promotion, but unfortunately that doesn't actually benefit anti-cavalry units
Which sucks because we can't go even crazier and make our Spearman so strong it one shots the tank
#AntiCavBuffPlease
Final combat strength in 88

So there you have it. Civilization 6 still falls victim to the age old Spearman vs Tank meme. That isn't necessarily bad, mind you. It's just the case in extremely specific scenarios you are highly unlikely to ever encounter, but which are none the less possible in the unmodified game.

This list doesn't include any civilization specific modifiers, so it would be possible to go ever higher than 88 for some leaders. Of the top of my head, Teddy's Spearman would have 93 combat strength if on the home continent, and the Hoplite could get a pretty significant 98 combat strength by having one of the supporting units be another Hoplite. For reference, a Modern Armor has 90 combat strength.

Please share any ways to get even higher combat strength when fighting tanks below.

EDIT: I meant to put this in General Discussions but I forgot to make sure I was posting in the right place drat my sincere apologies.

 

[Siptah]

Oligarchy! +4
The Spearman being from a deity AI civ! +4
Defender of the faith! +10
Giant‘s Causeway! +5

That‘s +23. A hoplite could one-shot a modern armor.

 

[AnonymousSpeed]

Oh, forgot about Oligarchy. Somehow. I even had it in mind when I initially came up with the idea for this thread.

Defender of the Faith or Crusade are +10, Oligarchy is +4, that's 102 Combat Strength for the defending Spearman.

I was more thinking of what a human player could set up, but that is true about the Deity AI. I won't include that in the total though, partly because I forget what that bonus is.

Wars of Religion is +4, situational but available to all leaders. It's less likely you'll have that and Crusade active than than that and Defender of the Faith. Either way, that's 106.

 

[UWHabs]

Monty could be even better than a hoplite, as he could potentially have like +20 for luxuries on a huge map. And the GG bonuses stack, so if you have all 3 GG of the era that would be another +10 from the above calculations.

 

[Siptah]

You missed my edit: I added Giant‘s Causeway +5

3 GGs from the same era? Is that possible?

 

[Sostratus]

3 GGs from the same era? Is that possible?

There are 3 great people from each era, per type. To affect spearmen, you'd need:
Boudicca
Hannibal
Sun Tzu.
This is in theory doable, but you'd need the right combination of slow tech/civic progress and a ton of encampment spam, to pump out enough projects to actually accumulate the points to get them all before they expire. Because usually, people are already triggering the medieval GP by the time encampments are actually widespread enough. (This is why we never see almost any GP from classic)
But, if you could get the first two, fast enough, the third would be locked in, and then you could exhale and just beat your rivals to it vs rushing against science pace.

So that's, what- 106+10(extra GG) +5(giant's causeway)=121, excluding leader stuff? (Huge maps have 12 default players/6 continents, and thus 24 luxuries iirc. Monty could push it all the way to 121+24=145!!)

They'd also have 5 movement from those generals. Any civ could, in theory, one shot modern armor with spearmen.
Realistic? I mean, Sun Tzu was pretty clever, I'm sure he'd figure something out...