The Barbarian Hand-Axe, and the Point Thereof

[steveg700]

I listened to the Polycast with Dennis Shirk. The new barb hand-axe came up, but the actual impetus behind it wasn't clearly stated.

Do we know why they bothered to throw this unit into the barbarian pool? Was it just to see if players would stop kvetching about Germany if they had a moderately neat unit to go convert?

Also, to those who've played Germany and converted hand-axes, are they worthwhile? What do they upgrade to?

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

They are in the Civilopedia. According to it, they upgrade to Knights.

 

[SicklyAlbatross]

Considering how early warfare between civs has been discouraged in BNW my guess is that the increased barbarian threat, the new units and increased spawn rate, is meant to be a substitute. In BNW you're not really fighting the AI for space to expand, you're mostly fighting against barbarians to gain space and safe trade routes.

 

[Matthew.]

I thought it was because barb camps now spawn units which require resources (iron/horse) and the axe replaces chariots.

As to why replace chariots, I don't know. Maybe they seemed too silly to be barb units. Maybe they already had the unit created for a scrapped Civ or project and decided to use it for at least something.

 

[PhilBowles]

Considering how early warfare between civs has been discouraged in BNW my guess is that the increased barbarian threat, the new units and increased spawn rate, is meant to be a substitute. In BNW you're not really fighting the AI for space to expand, you're mostly fighting against barbarians to gain space and safe trade routes.

We were originally told that the hand-axe was a barbarian replacement for the chariot archer, which is supported by its speed and upgrade path. However, since barbarians in BNW - unlike G&K and vanilla - can get units that need strategic resources, including horsemen, it's not at all clear why they needed to replace the chariot archer at all (indeed chariots are famously associated with barbarians, for all that said barbarians are treated as the Celtic civ in-game).

 

[Gyra Solune]

My guess is that they didn't want barbs running around with mini-Keshiks. Barbs with chariot archers would be a little bit crazy, since, well, chariot archers are pretty effective, just not in the long haul or for extended siege combat, but rather what barbs do - harassing and pillaging. Hostile entities pumping out chariots would quickly become a big problem for pretty much everybody, as they'd probably wind up outright crushing city-states and smaller cities. Being able to move in, pillage, and then attack at ranged, without a need for strategic resources would make them insane threats early game, even if you had warriors and spearmen about. Hell, if used wisely a chariot archer can easily best a spear. Main reason you don't see them espoused by actual players or AI for that matter is that they're weak in actual warfare, and upgrading into a melee unit is a touch of a sour note that makes them seem useless, unless you're the likes of the Mongols or Arabs. So instead, it's replaced with what's functionally an early-game Gatling gun, a front-line unit that can deal damage without retaliation, which is much easier to deal with than a veritable horde of ranged mounted units that cost no resources.

 

[Theruss]

The fact that they can attack without being counterattacked is the point of the unit, in my opinion. Sometimes (and especially with Honor opened) you can just have your unit heal while barb Warriors, and sometimes Horsemen, fall to your healing unit's counterattacks. With the Hand Axe barb, that's not possible.

Plus Hand Axe barbs seem a lot more durable than a Chariot Archer...

 

[FreedomFighter]

The Hand Axe totally annoying if you meet one, it's one tile range unit with 9 Str and 9 Range Str which mean it's not a weak to Melee unit and you can't counter it attack.
It can easily waste Spearman in 1vs1 combat since it get 1 free hit -_-

As Germany player, this unit is damn awesome to get one but it upgrade to Knight which is come too damn late and it promotion didn't make up with Knight since Hand Axe itself is Range unit.

 

[troublmaker]

It felt (to me) like it was about maintaining the barbarian flavour. I mean yeah they could have just gone and made barbarian chariot archers... but realistically how many barbarians were there running around in chariots?

 

[FreedomFighter]

It felt (to me) like it was about maintaining the barbarian flavour. I mean yeah they could have just gone and made barbarian chariot archers... but realistically how many barbarians were there running around in chariots?

thinking about this, if they still let barbarian use Chariot then it would be totally chaos since barbarian also got access to Horsemen.

Chariot + Horsemen going to be painful to Civ trade route.

 

[Theruss]

thinking about this, if they still let barbarian use Chariot then it would be totally chaos since barbarian also got access to Horsemen.

Chariot + Horsemen going to be painful to Civ trade route.

I had a game where I actually had quite a large island or maybe in this case, a medium continent to myself. So, I slacked at building much of a military force, and just expanded and built wonders... that was a mistake.

Barb horsemen just spawned mercilessly and pillaged everything! Don't underestimate the Barbs now.

 

[Tachii]

The Hand Axe totally annoying if you meet one, it's one tile range unit with 9 Str and 9 Range Str which mean it's not a weak to Melee unit and you can't counter it attack.
It can easily waste Spearman in 1vs1 combat since it get 1 free hit -_-

They are still completely inept against Archers though.

 

[Camikaze]

Flavour seems like a pretty good reason on its own, but the range attack is probably more appropriate for barbarians too.

 

[wigwam]

They are still completely inept against Archers though.

Yep. They're difficult to destroy with melee units (for obvious reasons), but the AI is almost incapable of using them aggressively. If you meet one with a Scout, it's very easy to just scoot around it and go on your way. If you meet one with an Archer, it's very easy to just kill it—it's hardly stronger than a Warrior.

 

[DudewiththeFood]

They might be easy to counter with Archers but playing with a mod that unlocks them for the player, you can almost forget about composite bowmen with them. 5 of these and a couple of archers/CB destroy cities well enough in a couple of turns for even a scout to walk in.And the best thing about the mod is they upgrade to crossbowmen