The future of swordsmen

[Aldhissla]

EDIT:

Haha, MadDjinn just mentioned this on the stream and showed it: Iron unlocks at Bronze Working, which means you can plan ahead, and Iron Working now needs less beakers to make it more fair so Pikemen are actually between Swordsmen and Longswordsmen rather than fighting against weaker Swordsmen.

Since this is going to change things quite a bit, it should be taken into account when discussing Swordsmen in BNW.




Swordsmen have been a very dominant unit in Civ5 vanilla. You could get them early and in good numbers. In G&K they have been rightfully made harder to obtain. Due to the changes in city combat and unit HP, however, Swordsmen have also become a less desireable unit. You only use melee units as meat shields anymore until the later stages of the game. Therefore an 'elite' melee unit hast to have a certain impact, which the Swordsman doesn't.

Swordsmen are placed right between the Spearman and the Pikeman in the tech tree and are competing with them for usefulness. Because the role of melee units is to absorb hits and conquer cities the best course of action is usually to avoid building them. After researching Iron Working you will first have to obtain iron before you can build the unit. By the time you march your Swordsmen to your opponent borders it is entirely possible for him to already have Pikemen.

But it gets worse: Iron Working, the technology required to build Swordsmen, is also used to uncover iron. This means that when you spend those valuable early game beakers on Iron Working you don't even know whether it will pay out. You might just waste your time completely. Given that there are two perfectly useful units in the Composite Bowman and the Pikeman in another tech path there is absolutely no reason to take this risk.

By now we already know many details of the changes in BNW, but a rebalancing of Swordsmen or Iron Working has not been mentioned anywhere. Early glimpses of the tech tree appear to support this notion. The new trade mechanics will make it slightly harder to maintain a large army early on, but I'm not convinced this will make Swordsmen any more useful.


What do you think will happen to this unit in BNW and should steps be taken to make it more useful?

 

[Tinker]

Haha, MadDjinn just mentioned this on the stream and showed it: Iron unlocks at Bronze Working, which means you can plan ahead, and Iron Working now needs less beakers to make it more fair so Pikemen are actually between Swordsmen and Longswordsmen rather than fighting against weaker Swordsmen.

 

[Aldhissla]

Haha, MadDjinn just mentioned this on the stream and showed it: Iron unlocks at Bronze Working, which means you can plan ahead, and Iron Working now needs less beakers to make it more fair so Pikemen are actually between Swordsmen and Longswordsmen rather than fighting against weaker Swordsmen.

Great, that was exactly what I had hoped would change! Well the OP is outdated already, so feel free to discuss the impact of the new Swordsmen I suppose?

 

[PhilBowles]

Fantastic - it was always conceptually bizarre (and a break with older Civ games) that iron couldn't be found until you already knew how to work it! It was also the only strategic resource in the game that wasn't unlocked earlier than the tech(s) needed to use it.

 

[codepoet]

Haha, MadDjinn just mentioned this on the stream and showed it: Iron unlocks at Bronze Working, which means you can plan ahead, and Iron Working now needs less beakers to make it more fair so Pikemen are actually between Swordsmen and Longswordsmen rather than fighting against weaker Swordsmen.

Nice! That actually buffs Rome and Celts then a bit too

 

[Lieu]

I never really 'got' the swordsman hate in G&K. As far as my experience and analysis they are a perfectly good unit per se. Swordsmen are a nice timing for their strength - much earlier than pikes albeit on a different path. The problem was always the iron. It doesn't matter much if a warrior-to-swords upgrade timing is suitable for your strategy when it's so uncertain you'll be able to secure iron. Even just a small 10% failure risk is a nasty feeling to know so I understand why we don't like making swordsman plays. Revealing iron at bronzeworking gives us vital information so we can make an informed decision about the play without making the play itself any stronger. I've longed for such a balance change so hearing this from MadDjinn really makes me happy

Also to a certain extent ranged units being arguably too important has an effect on early melee importance as I'm sure no one here needs reminding. In my view, cities stagnate combat more, creating an over-importance on the transition to artillery. That's only from my deity/immortal perspective though - I certainly can't speak for the range of experiences here(who can?).

But as far as strengths go, the whole warrior-spear-sword 8-11-14 strength thing is a pretty big deal in the combat formula(because of damage trades). 8 to 11 is 37.5%, 11 to 14 is ~27%. The short answer is that happens to equate to (roughly) x2 of that in "tactical military value" (generally). So a spearman is worth ~1.75 warriors and a swordsman is worth ~1.55 spearmen. You'd be surprised at how well this heuristic works out. For the hammer cost they concentrate more value per hammer so never underestimate upgrades(I don't think people do though ).

So I encourage people to go out and embrace swordsmen!

 

[crawf0rd]

Nice! That actually buffs Rome and Celts then a bit too

Unfortunately the Pictish Warrior is a spearman replacement.

 

[Matthew.]

I never really 'got' the swordsman hate in G&K.

What difficulty do you play on?

I think Swords are OK as far as strength is concerned; my main complaint has always been the effort needed to get them and the pay-off or reward for doing so is terrible. You gamble on having iron near and Civil Services is way more important than a detour off to iron-working. You actually hurt yourself by taking the time to go to swords when you can just get Civil Service which 1.) gives you pikes, 2.) bonus food, and 3.) is on the way to Education.

And really, it just is the sword/long that is an issue. By the time muskets come around you have Education and a decent empire, so investing time and beakers into the warrior line is much less of an issue. Not to mention that while CB's are better than Swords, the power difference between rifles and Gatlings is much less.

Anywho, glad to hear the changes mentioned. Obviously I will need to try it out myself, but from what I read, those changes will probably be enough to make the investment into Swords much less of a punishment than it currently is.

 

[King_Course]

Problem was never swordsmen, or well okay it was Iron to a degree. But the problem was that Firaxis used pikemen to try and fix an AI that couldn't play. And by doing that and having AI spam pikemen they took out Ironmen and horses, and basically made a part of the game uninteresting.

 

[turingmachine]

So, wait, Bronze Working reveals Iron? Ugh! (conceptually, not in terms of gameplay). Just shows you they really didn't know what they were doing when they decided to not include Bronze as a strategic resource.

 

[Petiscator]

Russia got tastier with the Iron reveal at Bronze Working. I like playing Russia. I liked that.

Now it is a tech that unlocks your UB and gives you some bonuses from the UA. Cool!

 

[Louis XXIV]

So, wait, Bronze Working reveals Iron? Ugh! (conceptually, not in terms of gameplay). Just shows you they really didn't know what they were doing when they decided to not include Bronze as a strategic resource.

Bronze isn't one thing. It's copper (which is relatively common) and tin. Tin would make more sense as a resource.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Bronze isn't one thing. It's copper (which is relatively common) and tin. Tin would make more sense as a resource.

'Way more sense: there is evidence for the 'bronze age' civilizations doing serious long-range trading for tin. The game could be far more interesting in the early eras by giving more reason to want Bronze and a little more effort required to get it - Tin as a rare resource, actually rarer than iron, which in the relative small quantities needed for ancient weaponry, is not rare at all.

Ain't going to happen, of course: just another example of Civ not bothering to go for historical accuracy even when it could make a better game...

 

[AriochIV]

Ain't going to happen, of course: just another example of Civ not bothering to go for historical accuracy even when it could make a better game...

Except that it wouldn't make it a better game. In Civ IV when early units required Copper, that was pretty much useless for the same reason Swordsmen are useless in G&K: by the time you find and exploit the Copper, you've already researched Iron Working. And if you don't have either Copper or Iron nearby, you might as well shoot yourself in the head, because there was no fallback unit (except Warriors, which were useless in Civ IV). In Civ V, there are fallback units that don't require resources; only the "elite" units require resources. Having Bronze-age units require copper (or tin) as a resource may be more realistic, but it puts you right back in the same bad place that the early Civ IV game was.

Now I agree that G&K made the resourceless units too good, to the point where you can mostly ignore the resource-requiring units. Hopefully the aforementioned changes will help ameliorate that, but the ever since the change that made siege weapons resourceless, strategic resources have been a hollow system.

 

[turingmachine]

Except that it wouldn't make it a better game. In Civ IV when early units required Copper, that was pretty much useless for the same reason Swordsmen are useless in G&K: by the time you find and exploit the Copper, you've already researched Iron Working. And if you don't have either Copper or Iron nearby, you might as well shoot yourself in the head, because there was no fallback unit (except Warriors, which were useless in Civ IV). In Civ V, there are fallback units that don't require resources; only the "elite" units require resources. Having Bronze-age units require copper (or tin) as a resource may be more realistic, but it puts you right back in the same bad place that the early Civ IV game was.

Not really, as some of the advanced units in IV (Maceman) could use either Bronze of Iron. Also "time you find and exploit the Copper, you've already researched Iron Working" was not the case if you were playing above Standard speed such as on Epic, and even on Standard speed was less of a problem as there were still uses for Bronze if you couldn't find Iron. Bronze was far from useless in IV and helped mitigate games where you didn't have Iron (and since there were two resources you were also less likely to have neither of them than you are to have no Iron in V). Also, IV kept the entire defensive line resource free, meaning you didn't have to shoot yourself in the head. You could still play a defensive game until the advent of gunpowder if you had neither and were capable of defending against civs that had them. Finally, the Axeman rush only needed Bronze.

Seriously, did you even play IV?

 

[Stellarnight]

Wow this is a really nice change. Shows that Ed Beach and gang do read the stuff here. Which brings me to another question. I remember the tech tree that zacminor showed us had iron at iron working which opens up a new can of worms. What other stuff were changed in the tech tree since zacminor's version?

Japan and Rome is happy at this change!

 

[Zenstrive]

Swordsmen lead to mechanical infantries. I like mechanical infantries

 

[seancolorado]

Wow this is a really nice change. Shows that Ed Beach and gang do read the stuff here. Which brings me to another question. I remember the tech tree that zacminor showed us had iron at iron working which opens up a new can of worms. What other stuff were changed in the tech tree since zacminor's version?

Japan and Rome is happy at this change!

Japan for sure, but mostly it's the Swordsman replacements who are happiest:

Mohawk Warrior - But doesn't require iron so not affected

Legion - So so happy the devs made this change. Rome just got a whole lot better for me. The Legion is one of my favorite units. I actually didn't mind the hit-or-miss variable with other civs, but it was a huge turn off to the experience with Rome and the Legions

Kris Swordsman - If it was frustrating with Rome, could you imagine how much more so with the KS if you are playing on a land-heavy map? But I'm still in the dark about how I will utilize them best. Likely varies on a game-to-game situation but I wonder if there will ever be a situation where you get a string of promotions that changes your strategy entirely

Samurai - They can at least wait until the Steel tech, so not nearly as pressing

Berserker - Same as Samurai

 

[The_CatSnack]

Wow, what a great change for the swordsmen! I never really had a problem with them in G&K, but Iron Working was often a major let down when the overly expensive research for it was done.. Much more Viable now!

 

[AriochIV]

Seriously, did you even play IV?

Yes, I evidently played on a higher difficulty setting than you did, on which armies composed entirely of archery units can't do very much... and on the Epic speed at which I usually played, that's an awful long wait for either someone to come kill you or to reach Gunpowder.

There's really no need to be insulting.