Tanks Obsolete?

[UWHabs]

Currenet system is *awful* for balance reasons.

Many techs that enable new resource type akso obsolete previous unit that does not need new resouce.

Thus getting muskets or iconclads, or even advanced flight, is 50:50% gamble will you get better units or lose access to current units.

If you are unlucky your military will become wore then before tech is researched.

If anything this hurts AI a lot more then player.

Yeah, I think the system wouldn't be nearly as bad if you always had time to plan. So if there was one tech that revealed coal, and another that gave ironclads, you could at least see that you had no coal before going the ironclad route. Maybe if coal and niter were revealed together - then you can decide after that if you want to pursue the ironclad route, or the musket route depending on what happened to be near you. As it stands now, if you choose wrong, you can be kind of screwed.

 

[xDaunt]

I think the bigger point that you're missing is that tanks just suck, period. There's no reason to build anything other than infantry and mechanized infantry in the late game to go along with whatever you're using to take down city defenses.

 

[gunnergoz]

I think the bigger point that you're missing is that tanks just suck, period. There's no reason to build anything other than infantry and mechanized infantry in the late game to go along with whatever you're using to take down city defenses.

Tanks ignore zones of control and so are better for penetrations and flanking, so they have their value.

 

[callan]

I guess that is because US tanks use depleted uranium for the SABOTs and part of the armor layers.
But there are other competitive modern tanks that don't need any depleted uranium at all, for example the german Leopard 2.
So, uranium as necessary resource for modern tanks surely doesn't make sense

To be fair, the Leopard 2's main gun (120mm L/44) is capable of firing the American M829A2, which is a DU round and a supply of which are kept on hand at Rammstein (under a NATO arms-sharing agreement) for use by the German army should they be forced to face off against the new Soviet T14 (or equivalent) for which the current Tungsten rounds are deemed to be inadequate for a one-hit kill. Rheinmetall are addressing this with a new 130mm barrel which will be capable of firing an upgraded Tungsten-Core round with the ability to defeat the new generation of Eastern-Bloc armour. Testing on this gun only began this year though, so it's a while away yet.

In the game I feel the issue is not so much that you need Uranium to build Modern Armor but that the obsolescence mechanic is needlessly harsh.

 

[xDaunt]

Tanks ignore zones of control and so are better for penetrations and flanking, so they have their value.

Yeah, but that value is marginal at best. In practice, you're going to be advancing WW1 style with a massed unit line supported by artillery/ranged units (and the AI does the same). Because of how city defenses work, there's no value to sneaking in some tanks behind enemy lines. They aren't going to be able to take a city anyway unless you're fighting someone multiple eras behind you tech-wise. You have to simply obliterate the enemy units in front of you, then march forward and blow up the city defenses with artillery before you attack with your main troops. Rapid movement isn't really a thing in Civilization 6 combat.

And the tradeoffs for using tanks are significant. First, you're forced to deviate from the otherwise-desirable Satellites beeline. Second, tanks are vulnerable to AT crews, whereas infantry are not (and can be upgraded to eat AT crews).

Honestly, the only real benefit to using tanks is the 100% production bonus that you get from the lightning warfare policy if you go fascism. In contrast, you can only get a 50% bonus for infantry. Otherwise, infantry/mech infantry are just better.

 

[MRM]

Yeah, it still feels like you should be able to build the best one in the line that you have access to. Especially since in many cases, the resource comes at the exact same time as the unit, it means you're locked out. So say you get gunpowder, and have Niter in your territory, but not connected. It means that until you get a builder there, you can't build swordsmen or musketmen. If at least the resource always came first, then you at least always have a chance to research that and get it hooked up before using it.

I agree to resource always comes first should, it would also make logical more sense. If you think about it - how can you develop iron swords ( for your swordsmen ) without having iron first? How can you develop planes that depend on aluminum without having aluminum first? And so on. First you have to found the resource, then your people can figure out what they can do with it. At least to me that would make more sense.

It was ridiculous in one of my games. I build an biplane, but building was canceled when I discovered advanced flight. From now on I needed aluminum for building planes but .... there was no aluminum on the map - nowhere. How can scientist develop something that is based on a resource that don't exists?

 

[gunnergoz]

Yeah, but that value is marginal at best. In practice, you're going to be advancing WW1 style with a massed unit line supported by artillery/ranged units (and the AI does the same). Because of how city defenses work, there's no value to sneaking in some tanks behind enemy lines. They aren't going to be able to take a city anyway unless you're fighting someone multiple eras behind you tech-wise. You have to simply obliterate the enemy units in front of you, then march forward and blow up the city defenses with artillery before you attack with your main troops. Rapid movement isn't really a thing in Civilization 6 combat.

And the tradeoffs for using tanks are significant. First, you're forced to deviate from the otherwise-desirable Satellites beeline. Second, tanks are vulnerable to AT crews, whereas infantry are not (and can be upgraded to eat AT crews).

Honestly, the only real benefit to using tanks is the 100% production bonus that you get from the lightning warfare policy if you go fascism. In contrast, you can only get a 50% bonus for infantry. Otherwise, infantry/mech infantry are just better.

Perhaps that's how you play to win, I play differently. And I play with history in mind so an absence of tanks would offend my sense of groggy propriety.

 

[Panixs]

I guess that is because US tanks use depleted uranium for the SABOTs and part of the armor layers.
But there are other competitive modern tanks that don't need any depleted uranium at all, for example the german Leopard 2.
So, uranium as necessary resource for modern tanks surely doesn't make sense

Ironicly the Germans are looking to design a new tank (leopard3 creative naming ) because the leopard2's tugnsten shells wont be able to take out the new russian tanks and so they need something that will use depleted urainium shells.

https://sputniknews.com/military/201509151027023987-russia-armata-leopard-tank-depleted-uranium/

 

[GhostSalsa]

Yeah, I think the system wouldn't be nearly as bad if you always had time to plan. So if there was one tech that revealed coal, and another that gave ironclads, you could at least see that you had no coal before going the ironclad route. Maybe if coal and niter were revealed together - then you can decide after that if you want to pursue the ironclad route, or the musket route depending on what happened to be near you. As it stands now, if you choose wrong, you can be kind of screwed.

It's nonsense that researching any techs can make your military weaker, it shouldn't be in the game.

Also they need to scrap resource requirements for melee units, it's nonsense because even when the AI and city states were given the crutch of really strong melee units without resource needs after Classical, ranged units could still tear melee apart - so, more crutches for melee were needed, not more limits.

In V forum we had discussion after discussion after discussion of the problems with unit and warfare balance, and instead of remembering all those problems and trying to solve any of them, VI just went and introduced more problems on top of the old ones.

It's nonsense.

 

[bladex]

build knights than just upgrade them to tanks later only need 1 oil.

 

[player1 fanatic]

Knight to Tanks upgrade is example where new upgrade rules hurt the least.
If you get tech for tanks and no way to get oil you will lose access to knight. But at point of game they are already so outdated that it does not matter.

Although... Do Cossaks upgrade to tanks?
For Russian that upgrade can still be damaging if no oil is found, since those are still useful troops if tanks are missing

 

[Timally]

Knight to Tanks upgrade is example where new upgrade rules hurt the least.
If you get tech for tanks and no way to get oil you will lose access to knight. But at point of game they are already so outdated that it does not matter.

Although... Do Cossaks upgrade to tanks?
For Russian that upgrade can still be damaging if no oil is found, since those are still useful troops if tanks are missing

If you've no oil, there's a great person gives you an oil, and a card that lets you build anything with one resource

 

[skyclad]

I agree tanks are not very useful right now. The problem is they are basically same strenght as infantry! But with some different abilities like ignore zoc. Instead a tank should be at least three times as expensive as infantry and significantly more powerful! Now there is basically no difference in power so why bother?

 

[Zantetsuken]

It mostly sucks during the later game, I've gotten to a point where I don't want to upgrade to advanced flight because I am afraid I will lose building access to still perfectly good Biplanes because I don't have Aluminum anywhere nearby. (I haven't been super lucky in strategic resources this game, only had horses even remotely close.. Only one oil I found on an entire huge pangea map, across the entire continent, thankfully I got lucky and got the +1 Oil Merchant) it seems silly that advancing in the tech line can actually hurt you a lot more than it can help you, at least they give you Iron before you need it (though it still sucks losing out on swordsman even if you know its going to happen a bit sooner), it sucks later when you are taking a gamble on losing a perfectly good unit, my biplanes are still doing their job, but I just want to seal the deal with Bombers and Fighters and such

 

[MooFreaky]

I assume it is designed this way to stop an exploit. The idea that you can just build a bunch of much cheaper older units, then grab the <insert resource here> and instantly upgrade them all and ROFLstomp your way through the AI.

Is it a good decision? I can see the pros of it, but I still feel the cons are too severe. If you are going to do that kind of exploit, you are going to be ready for the tech upgrade anyway and have lots of the older units ready to upgrade. Plus, this kind of hard fix to it ruins it for the masses who wouldn't use such an exploit.

But maybe it is a genuine oversight.

 

[MRM]

I assume it is designed this way to stop an exploit. The idea that you can just build a bunch of much cheaper older units, then grab the <insert resource here> and instantly upgrade them all and ROFLstomp your way through the AI.

Is it a good decision? I can see the pros of it, but I still feel the cons are too severe. If you are going to do that kind of exploit, you are going to be ready for the tech upgrade anyway and have lots of the older units ready to upgrade. Plus, this kind of hard fix to it ruins it for the masses who wouldn't use such an exploit.

But maybe it is a genuine oversight.

Maybe - but if they want to prevent an mass upgrade exploit, why not making it this way

- you can only upgrade at encampments, encampments must have certain buildings ( depending on era ), you can only upgrade one unit per turn and per encampments plus only upgrade to the next iteration per turn . That would sudden mass upgrade more difficult/slower without artificially making tech progress a punishment. btw is upgrading limited by the amount of money you have anyway

 

[bladex]

Knight to Tanks upgrade is example where new upgrade rules hurt the least.
If you get tech for tanks and no way to get oil you will lose access to knight

than stockpile them build lots of knights and just leave them around until it's time to upgrade.

 

[@bolesting@]

Just remove from Steam\steamapps\common\Sid Meier's Civilization VI\Base\Assets\Gameplay\Data - open file "units" with notepad and remove this line - <Row Unit="UNIT_TANK" UpgradeUnit="UNIT_MODERN_ARMOR"/> - and then save. You will have both tank and modern armor to create.

PS back up original file if something goes wrong

 

[Gicusan]

I'm sure this has been raised but how annoying is this!

I'm going along beating the AI with infantry due to a severe lack of oil on the map. Finally get two oil and decide it's time to spam tanks and wipe them out. The thing is that I've researched the modern armour tech by now and tanks are obsolete and no longer appear on the build list, only modern armour. Problem is I don't have any uranium to build em or even researched the tech for uranium. WTF? Am I missing something or is this an unforgivable oversight?

You are doing something wrong if you care about infantry/tanks at that point in the game. Enemies and cities are taken by artillery+balloons (3 range) and other ranged units. Other than that you just need some front liners who only have 2 jobs: defence and capturing cities. A few cavalry/tanks/rangers for fast moving to block something, snipe a ranged unit or capture a worker is only a bonus.

Being reliant on close combat means you wont get max rank experience troops as they will be thrown in and die more often than ranged.

 

[GhostSalsa]

I assume it is designed this way to stop an exploit. The idea that you can just build a bunch of much cheaper older units, then grab the <insert resource here> and instantly upgrade them all and ROFLstomp your way through the AI.

They only needed to add an upgrade charge for those units built after later tech unlock, but not yet "obsolete."

Or the game should just have trashy militia equivalents for everything, which have a model like the new unit but strength like the last obsolete unit, with pricey upgrade, like how Landsch. worked in BNW - I just pretended they were some scrappy mercenaries with home arms, not literal Atomic Era pikemen

There's so many solutions for this besides "break it for the human and the AI just to stop an exploit to the unneeded VI unit upgrade change."