Tanks, does anyone use them?

[Danceofmasks]

Or ... maybe if upgrading a unit makes them lose half their XP (and levels)?
It's not like handing a pikeman a rifle means they know how to use it.

 

[Shakira42]

Recently started playing with a mod that (among other things) allows cavalry to upgrade to tanks.

Which mod is this?

 

[deckoff]

Or ... maybe if upgrading a unit makes them lose half their XP (and levels)?
It's not like handing a pikeman a rifle means they know how to use it.

Logical and well-proposed...

bout tanks:
Tanks should have huge bonus vs infantry/mounted/artillery units - +50% probably. This will be historically correct and will enrich the gameplay probably...
To be honest Mech infantry is more or less infantry in a vehicle... should suffer from tank all day long...
The problem is that half the game is bombarding a city, and the attacking it with a unit... no open field battles...

 

[The Great Apple]

I've found tanks to be fairly pointless compared to Mech Inf. I usually end up with one or two being gifted to me from city states, but I don't tend to build them myself. I guess one redeeming feature is that they upgrade to Modern Armour whereas Mech Inf are a dead end.

 

[KingMackem]

I've never built one before. They don't sound very good do they? But last night I set a city to build one to see what the crack is... it should be ready in this eve's session. To be honest, I'm looking forward to giving it a whirl. I'm already in a war so it'll go straight to the front line. Wish it luck!

 

[Stallogarro]

I can't help but think the other way here... How often does the AI build tanks? Anyone come over a leader who is really fond of them? Often it is hard to see the strengths of a unit unless you are on the receiving end...

 

[Gus_Smedstad]

Often it is hard to see the strengths of a unit unless you are on the receiving end...

I can't agree with that. The AI doesn't use horseman very well, and is even worse with ranged units. You'll never understand the power of the Keshik if you only see the AI use it.

 

[KingMackem]

Built and used my first tank last night... not impressed. They're a mere shadow of their former self. Think I'll be sticking with Mech. Inf. in future.

 

[Nunya]

I can't help but think the other way here... How often does the AI build tanks? Anyone come over a leader who is really fond of them? Often it is hard to see the strengths of a unit unless you are on the receiving end...

I don't think I've ever seen the AI build any tanks. Of course this is in part due to how early most of my games are over (one way or the other). I rareely get to the Modern Era and even if I do, the AI doesn't.

 

[Callonia]

Well.. the tanks.. haven't used them yet. But Panzers yeah, they're five movement tanks XD

panzers is great for battling in the fields and they're always stronger than mech infantry. 10 str more.

I did have a fairly unique situation few months ago where it was me germany fending off hiawatha of rage attacking me continously with rocket artillery / mech infantry spam.

I used the panzers to constantly blast the rocket artilerries to death while his mech infantries attacked my panzers. I was constantly losing two cities repeatedly just north of my capitol but he couldn't take my capitol cuz of defence surrounding it plus with constant stream of high movement panzers running around and blasting his rocket artilleries.

I was able to force the AI into a stalemate the one I would lose very slowly but surely lose due to the out production factor. he was a runaway.

Panzers bought enough time for GDRs to lumber into the action and break the annoying stalemate and kill hiawatha.

I won't say that tanks suck, cuz they do have their purpose and job.

They're great for battling in the field compared to mech infantry. But for defending you definitely want mech infantry for the job cuz they can fortify. Tanks/Panzers is attackers while mech infantry is all arounder.

 

[Paeanblack]

They didn't. They might share some similar strategic roles (policing, mobility) but I'm not sure if it's fair to compare tactics of pre-modern wars to those of modern wars as they are quite different. In fact, I would argue this backwards: All upgrade paths should end somewhere. Longswordsmen and Crossbowmen shouldn't upgrade to rifles and Infantry shouldn't upgrade to Mech Inf.

I think this change might be well worth investigating because it resolves, or helps resolve, a couple of problems in one go (production is expensive compared to upgrades, upgraded veteran units are way stronger than anything your enemy could muster, you never build musketmen, etc.)

Of course, people will rage that they can't keep their level 25 units around anymore.

I wholeheartedly agree with this. In Civ 5, as it currently stands, removing upgrades entirely would be a net improvement to the game. Admittedly, it can be fun to wipe out legions of AI troops with a handful of upgraded super-veterans, but I think a combat challenge would be more entertaining.

Another way to go would be to rearrange the upgrade paths and cut them off here and there.

Warrior->Spearman->Pikeman
Swordsman->Longswordsman
Scout->Archer->Crossbowman
Musketman->Rifleman->Infantry
Chariot Archer->Knight->Cavalry
Lancer->Anti-Tank Gun->Gunship
Tank->Modern Armor
Catapult->Cannon
Trebuchet->Artillery

This setup isolates Horseman and Mech Inf. instead of the weaker Muskets and Lancers. It also guarantees that warriors can be upgraded without iron. Melee upgrade chains get sliced off pre-Renaissance and pre-Modern, but the cavalry upgrade chains bridge the shifts in tech.

 

[pi-r8]

I wholeheartedly agree with this. In Civ 5, as it currently stands, removing upgrades entirely would be a net improvement to the game. Admittedly, it can be fun to wipe out legions of AI troops with a handful of upgraded super-veterans, but I think a combat challenge would be more entertaining.

I'm considering making a mod that would remove unit upgrades and city state bonuses, heavily increase the cost of rush buy, and prune the tech tree. Maybe if we remove enough of the more broken aspects of this game we can balance it.

 

[Guardian_PL]

I wholeheartedly agree with this. In Civ 5, as it currently stands, removing upgrades entirely would be a net improvement to the game. Admittedly, it can be fun to wipe out legions of AI troops with a handful of upgraded super-veterans, but I think a combat challenge would be more entertaining.

Another way to go would be to rearrange the upgrade paths and cut them off here and there.

Warrior->Spearman->Pikeman
Swordsman->Longswordsman
Scout->Archer->Crossbowman
Musketman->Rifleman->Infantry
Chariot Archer->Knight->Cavalry
Lancer->Anti-Tank Gun->Gunship
Tank->Modern Armor
Catapult->Cannon
Trebuchet->Artillery

This setup isolates Horseman and Mech Inf. instead of the weaker Muskets and Lancers. It also guarantees that warriors can be upgraded without iron. Melee upgrade chains get sliced off pre-Renaissance and pre-Modern, but the cavalry upgrade chains bridge the shifts in tech.

I like that setup, it woud indeed solve a lot of balance issues imo.

 

[alpaca]

I'm considering making a mod that would remove unit upgrades and city state bonuses, heavily increase the cost of rush buy, and prune the tech tree. Maybe if we remove enough of the more broken aspects of this game we can balance it.

Well I've been thinking about making a mod, too (as you know from PMs), but decided I should probably try the existing balance mods first, which I haven't got around to yet due to the large cities challenge.

I think some upgrades are fine, but you probably shouldn't be able to get more than one or max 2 upgrades for a unit. One upgrade looks like the sweet spot as it allows you to have a couple of veteran units that are still competitive for a while to matter. If you remove upgrades altogether, I think you'll have a very hard time to get any upgraded units.

Paeanblack's setup looks quite good already, I would do a few small changes:

Warriors -> Spears -> Pikes
Archers -> Crossbows
Swords -> Longswords
Muskets -> Rifles
Knights -> Cav
Horsemen -> None
Inf -> Mech Inf
Tanks -> Modern Armor
Chariot Archers -> Lancers
AT -> Gunships
Catapult -> Treb (allowing Trebs into artillery will often lead to experienced arty)
Cannon -> Artillery

The only problems I have with this list are no upgrades for horsemen (which is an issue if they're nerfed) and Chariot Archers because their promotions will be useless on upgrade. Maybe the ranged promotions should be replaced by ones that boosts both ranged and melee, a kind of super-shock but the ranged part is useless after upgrade. An alternative for the horsemen would be to go Horsemen->Knights and Chariots->Cav and Lancers->Gunships instead.

 

[Nunya]

One thing that should be considered though is the impact on the usefulness of various unique units. Many UUs powers come from promotions that they carry over to their upgraded counterparts. For example the Janissary special ability is one of the few things that the Ottomans have going for themselves.

 

[pi-r8]

The only problems I have with this list are no upgrades for horsemen (which is an issue if they're nerfed) and Chariot Archers because their promotions will be useless on upgrade. Maybe the ranged promotions should be replaced by ones that boosts both ranged and melee, a kind of super-shock but the ranged part is useless after upgrade. An alternative for the horsemen would be to go Horsemen->Knights and Chariots->Cav and Lancers->Gunships instead.

I don't really know anything about modding- I tried once, but I was pretty intimidated by the complexity of the modding tools. Do you know if it's even possible to mod the way units upgrade? I know there's plenty of rebalancing mods out there, but none that I've seen do anything with unit upgrades, which IMO is a really big issue. One simple option, if they can't be modded, is to just make upgrades really really expensive, like 2 or 3 times the cost of buying a new unit.
To get around the issue of obsolete promotions, maybe you could change it so that new units lose their promotions but keep the experience? I like the idea of chariot archers upgrading into lancers.

 

[anti_strunt]

I don't see why that would be ridiculous at all. I know the British Army has kept its regimental system for hundreds of years and just upgraded troop equipment. Each regiment works hard to maintain its own standards.

What is ridiculous is that you only need 10 units to conquer an enemy, never lose those 10 good units during an entire war, and don't need to back garrison your captured cities with new troops.

I don't know about that. Keeping centuries old traditions alive is one thing, but how does fighting Napoleonic Cuirassiers make the same regiment (with none of the original member alive) more adept at fighting Panzers two hundred years later? Battle experience doesn't just flow unhindered from generation to generation; how elite is the modern Mongolian army?

Here is an idea, too complex to implement perhaps: Maintenance costs increase with experience, say +50% per level, so a level 3 unit costs 200% of a normal unit etc. Then there'd be more reason to build Barracks to quickly pump out experienced troops and disband them once the war is over. Extremely elite troops would also become extremely expensive...

 

[alpaca]

I don't really know anything about modding- I tried once, but I was pretty intimidated by the complexity of the modding tools. Do you know if it's even possible to mod the way units upgrade? I know there's plenty of rebalancing mods out there, but none that I've seen do anything with unit upgrades, which IMO is a really big issue. One simple option, if they can't be modded, is to just make upgrades really really expensive, like 2 or 3 times the cost of buying a new unit.
To get around the issue of obsolete promotions, maybe you could change it so that new units lose their promotions but keep the experience? I like the idea of chariot archers upgrading into lancers.

Sure thing, it's quite easy. In units.xml there's a <Unit_ClassUpgrades> tag that lists all this stuff and just has to be updated in the mod.

I actually read in the details of one of Thalassicus' mods that units keep their proper promotions (the inofficial patch maybe, I don't remember) so there's probably some lua code that could be borrowed from him. I will probably give it a look.

If you want to do some things yourself, I would check out Kael's Modder's Guide. It's quite useful to start you off with the tools and such.

 

[Wulf38]

I usually win the game with knights or riflemen, infantry at the latest. I've yet to even build a unit more advanced than infantry.

 

[Guardian_PL]

I usually win the game with knights or riflemen, infantry at the latest. I've yet to even build a unit more advanced than infantry.

Nah, sometimes I'm too lazy to conquer other landmasses so I click away to culture or diplo, if so I mass upgrade troops to Mech Inf in the meantime xPPP