The Lancer Problem

[Vandal Thorne]

AT Gun placement is not an issue that fusses me. I like the idea of using the bazooka as AT Gun upgrade with no change to where either falls in the tech tree; push the helicopter gunship to a later tech and introduce a mortar unit for the machinegun to upgrade to followed by an IFV unit for the mortar to upgrade to. I think this would be best.

 

[VicRatlhead5199]

The only problem with the lancer is that it lasts without a str upgrade long after almost every other unit is almost double its strength. It's good against any knight unit (other than Stampy) and is even decent against cavalry (because of cavalry's penalty v. mounted) and has str equal to musketmen so it fills its combined role as Renaissance mounted/anticavalry pretty well. After the last cavalry disappears from the field the only thing a lancer can attack without it being a suicide mission is artillery.

This means it sits around anywhere from 15-30 turns(depending on your tech path and your enemy's tech path) a completely impotent unit sucking up maintenance. I don't care anything whatsoever about historical accuracy (if I did, playing CiV as long as I have would have given me an aneurism quite a while ago) I care about gameplay. This problem could be made a lot less irritating by simply adding an upgrade in the modern era. An airship/zeppelin at flight, some kind of truck mounted heavy caliber gun at combustion, really anything that could logically counter the landship. Roles or whatever else aside, I'd just like a useful unit in that era that can survive attacking something, anything at all.

That's all it would take to make me happy with 5. Maybe in 6 they could hash out more defined unit paths like Kasper was talking about. I'd just be happy with the simple fix of adding a unit between metallurgy and combined arms. That's just waaaaaay to far apart and I can't believe nothing was done about it in BNW. Instead they wasted time and resources on that shameless plug, the XCOM, which will rarely ever even be used because of how late it comes.

 

[GoStu]

The only problem with the lancer is that it lasts without a str upgrade long after almost every other unit is almost double its strength. It's good against any knight unit (other than Stampy) and is even decent against cavalry (because of cavalry's penalty v. mounted) and has str equal to musketmen so it fills its combined role as Renaissance mounted/anticavalry pretty well. After the last cavalry disappears from the field the only thing a lancer can attack without it being a suicide mission is artillery.

This means it sits around anywhere from 15-30 turns(depending on your tech path and your enemy's tech path) a completely impotent unit sucking up maintenance. I don't care anything whatsoever about historical accuracy (if I did, playing CiV as long as I have would have given me an aneurism quite a while ago) I care about gameplay. This problem could be made a lot less irritating by simply adding an upgrade in the modern era. An airship/zeppelin at flight, some kind of truck mounted heavy caliber gun at combustion, really anything that could logically counter the landship. Roles or whatever else aside, I'd just like a useful unit in that era that can survive attacking something, anything at all.

That's all it would take to make me happy with 5. Maybe in 6 they could hash out more defined unit paths like Kasper was talking about. I'd just be happy with the simple fix of adding a unit between metallurgy and combined arms. That's just waaaaaay to far apart and I can't believe nothing was done about it in BNW. Instead they wasted time and resources on that shameless plug, the XCOM, which will rarely ever even be used because of how late it comes.

I'm with you, Vic. The elephant in the room is that the Lancer appears rather late and off the beaten tech path for what it's supposed to do, and then lingers on being absolutely worthless for a LONG FREAKING TIME.

The Lancer as it stands can go toe-to-toe with Cavalry ONLY because of the Formation 1 Promotion. I'd dispute the Lancer's effectiveness in actually 'countering' Cavalry as it hogs the same Horse resource and is of very roughly equal strength. I'd almost rather disband the Lancer and build a Cavalry with that Horse, because then I have a unit on a better upgrade path. The Lancer is pretty much useless to me between Military Science and the time I get Tanks. Not Landships, TANKS.

A quick fix for the problem would be to add some intermediate unit, like an anti-tank rifle of WW1. Make it a Ranged unit with a bonus against both mounted units and armored units and you have something better than the poor Lancer. Then turn the Anti-Tank Gun into a Ranged unit to match. Sadly, this would break the nice continuity of promotions, but the Helicopter has weird promotions, so this wouldn't be the absolute worst thing that could happen.

Root of the problem in my books is that the Spearmen and Pikemen are just too damn useful for other purposes than 'anti-cavalry'. As touched on earlier, they're used mostly as replacement infantry for two reasons:

1) You have no Iron
2) You'd rather tech to Civil Service than Steel.

 

[VicRatlhead5199]

The Lancer as it stands can go toe-to-toe with Cavalry ONLY because of the Formation 1 Promotion.

Cavalry does have a 33% penalty vs. mounted that often gets overlooked. I assume the game designers did that to make it so lancers can counter cavalry. Formation puts an unpromoted lancer at 33.25 vs. the cavalry's 22.78 so it does do a decent job at countering Cavalry (something to remember if you're facing Russia, Austria, Morocco or the Shoshone in the industrial because they're a good cheap way to counter their UUs). I think they did a good job at making the lancer worthwhile in Vanilla but then they added the Great War units in G&K giving Cavalry an upgrade but totally ignoring the lancer.

If pikes upgraded to lancers in Vanilla there wouldn't have been as much of a problem with the upgrade path because cavalry and lancers both got upgrades at combined arms. That meant lancers always had at least one purpose until their upgrade. The way it is now they are completely useless for quite a while.

 

[kaspergm]

Cavalry does have a 33% penalty vs. mounted that often gets overlooked.

No it doesn't? The list of promotions/abilities that Cavalry has are the following:

		<Row>
			<UnitType>UNIT_CAVALRY</UnitType>
			<PromotionType>PROMOTION_NO_DEFENSIVE_BONUSES</PromotionType>
		</Row>
		<Row>
			<UnitType>UNIT_CAVALRY</UnitType>
			<PromotionType>PROMOTION_CAN_MOVE_AFTER_ATTACKING</PromotionType>
		</Row>
		<Row>
			<UnitType>UNIT_CAVALRY</UnitType>
			<PromotionType>PROMOTION_CITY_PENALTY</PromotionType>
		</Row>

 

[VicRatlhead5199]

No it doesn't? The list of promotions/abilities that Cavalry has are the following:

		<Row>
			<UnitType>UNIT_CAVALRY</UnitType>
			<PromotionType>PROMOTION_NO_DEFENSIVE_BONUSES</PromotionType>
		</Row>
		<Row>
			<UnitType>UNIT_CAVALRY</UnitType>
			<PromotionType>PROMOTION_CAN_MOVE_AFTER_ATTACKING</PromotionType>
		</Row>
		<Row>
			<UnitType>UNIT_CAVALRY</UnitType>
			<PromotionType>PROMOTION_CITY_PENALTY</PromotionType>
		</Row>

OMG, I just checked it and you're right. Looks like it was removed in BNW. I went back to the original Vanilla files and it's still there. Just to show I'm not crazy.

-<Row>

<UnitType>UNIT_CAVALRY</UnitType>

<PromotionType>PROMOTION_MOUNTED_PENALTY</PromotionType>

</Row>


-<Row>

<UnitType>UNIT_CAVALRY</UnitType>

<PromotionType>PROMOTION_NO_DEFENSIVE_BONUSES</PromotionType>

</Row>


-<Row>

<UnitType>UNIT_CAVALRY</UnitType>

<PromotionType>PROMOTION_CAN_MOVE_AFTER_ATTACKING</PromotionType>

</Row>


-<Row>

<UnitType>UNIT_CAVALRY</UnitType>

<PromotionType>PROMOTION_CITY_PENALTY</PromotionType>

</Row>

Why on earth they removed it is beyond me. That just makes lancers even worse than they were in G&K. I know it was there in G&K too because I was using it for a mod and remember wondering what unit had the promotion and looked it up. You can see what their original intent was with the lancer but that got crapped on when they got new people working on the project. Do you think it was an oversight that it was left out of the BNW code? I think that pretty much makes lancers useless at the first tier of the Industrial. That means they're worthless way longer than my original estimate of 15-30 turns. I'd say it's closer to 50+ turns now.

Sad that the already pretty crappy lancer unit got nerfed indirectly in the same expansion that added yet another lancer UU.

I was irritated about the lancer in G&K but BNW just made it stupid. I know a lot of people like this expansion but I kind of think it left a lot to be desired. I'm not ready to disable it because I do like the new culture system and trade but it threw a lot of things out of balance. The lancer and the policy trees just to name a couple.

 

[kaspergm]

Interesting. It DOES at least sort of explain Lancers, because I have always been thinking that the person who designed the Lancer and gave him strengths and promotions so that he STILL was weaker than Cavalry must have been very incompetent.

It's hard to say why they removed it, it might have been to make the upgrade from Knight to Cavalry more attractive so that your Cavalry doesn't suffer a penalty against a civ who hasn't researched Military Science - because I don't think Horseman or Knight has this penalty, right? But they should definitely have upped the Lancer bonus in the same shot, if they actually intended this unit to be anti-cavalry.

 

[VicRatlhead5199]

Probably true, a highly promoted Knight could beat an unpromoted cavalry when it had the penalty so that could explain why it was removed. It really does mess up the lancer though. You get it in the late Renaissance but the Renaissance is the only era it's useful now.

It still irritates me to no end that they added the bazooka and XCOM but left this unit's upgrade path so weird. Neither of those two units have that much impact on the game but adding an earlier upgrade for the lancer would have been a huge improvement.

 

[GoStu]

How about this set of fixes?

- Increase Lancer strength to 28 from 25
- Lancer upgrades to Landship
- New Unit: Antitank Rifle. Range 2, range strength 40, 75% attack bonus against Tanks, defensive strength 30. Upgrades to Antitank Gun
- Antitank Gun is now a Ranged unit, range 2, same strengths as before.
- Attack Helicopter now a Ranged unit, Range 1.

Antitank units are now more highly specialized and won't constitute the core of anyone's force: they can be a supporting force for quite a while though. Tanks become more of a 'core' unit, and now actually need their counters more. Lancer becomes more effective at its job at not as horribly obsolete. Unique Lancer replacements pass their promotions on better. Antitank units get a more consistent upgrade path.

I nicked the increased combat strength for Lancers off the winged hussar. They don't obsolete as horribly as they can outfight muskets and cavalry better, while being less weak to Gatlings and Riflemen

 

[VicRatlhead5199]

28 is a good number, would that put the Winged Hussar at 30?

With formation that would put it just over 37 vs cavalry's 34. We also know from using the WH that 28 is a pretty solid str in the industrial. It'd go back to being useful in the industrial again, that'd be nice.

I'd be happy with an upgrade in the modern era. Something around 45 or 50 str. 45 if it can fortify and use terrain defensive bonuses. 50 if it can't. Then give it a vs. armor promotion to counter landships.

I'd consider it problem solved if they just did those two things. I'm a little leery about the idea of adding a ranged upgrade to what was a melee line. That'd just open a whole new can of worms for people to complain about. I do admit going melee to ranged would be better than going ranged to melee. At least your melee promotions would still be useful on defense but I'm sure there would be a lot of pissing and moaning about it anyway.

 

[Vitruvius]

(First of all, a str buff to 28 will put it too high over contemporary muskets. Tampering with minor tweeks here and there may fix one problem but introduces another.) So here is my analysis of the situation:

The lancer problem:
1. The upgrade to AT is inappropriate.
2. The upgrade from pike is inappropriate
3. (Minor issue) it is actually weaker than the unit its meant to counter.

The solution:

1. Pikeman upgrades to muskets (or rifles if you prefer). Knights to lancers.
Concern: it breaks the anti-mobile to anti-mobile chain.
Rebuttal: Lancers are the only mobile unit of the Renaissance. I am fine with it being a hybrid mobile cum anti mobile unit of the Renaissance. On the other hand, upgrading from a 2 move unit to a 4 move unit results in a much bigger change of role.

2. Upgrade lancers to cavalry.
Concern: That makes lancers short-lived.
Rebuttal: The game already has a short lived unit: longswords. Besides the current knight is too long-lived You can choose to upgrade to cavalry or choose to stay lancers and save money. Lancers are good for awhile anyway. We can make lancers completely obsolete only at tanks. In addition, civ wikia says lancers are replaced by cavalry historically.

3. AT guns start fresh in the modern era. Nothing upgrades to it.
Concern: I don't forsee any as of yet.
Explanation: Many units starting modern era cannot be upgraded from previous units. Subs, paratroopers, AA guns to name a few. AT guns can be built as a situational and cheap unit to counter a mobile heavy opponent. Right now, lancer upgrade to AT guns is imbalanced. AT guns and later helicopters should not be allowed to inherit the move after attack promotion.

 

[VicRatlhead5199]

What about replacing their 33% formation promotion with the 50% vs. mounted promotion instead of the strength buff? That'd put them back up to being able to counter Cavalry's 34 with their 37.5 str and wouldn't overpower the musketmen. Then they'd be useful in the industrial but would still need a modern era upgrade.

I'm not a big fan of assimilating pikes and lancers into the infantry and mounted lines. Having a separate line adds a little more variety that would be lost with that solution. The pikes becoming mobile lancers really isn't a bad thing. Only a few techs later ranged units become front line units with gatling guns. Pulling pikes out of that "2 move, front line" group actually relieves a little of that overcrowding. I'd rather just fix the upgrade path by adding a modern era unit upgrade so it doesn't have that long period of impotence.

 

[Vandal Thorne]

(First of all, a str buff to 28 will put it too high over contemporary muskets. Tampering with minor tweeks here and there may fix one problem but introduces another.) So here is my analysis of the situation:

The lancer problem:
1. The upgrade to AT is inappropriate.
2. The upgrade from pike is inappropriate
3. (Minor issue) it is actually weaker than the unit its meant to counter.

The solution:

1. Pikeman upgrades to muskets (or rifles if you prefer). Knights to lancers.
Concern: it breaks the anti-mobile to anti-mobile chain.
Rebuttal: Lancers are the only mobile unit of the Renaissance. I am fine with it being a hybrid mobile cum anti mobile unit of the Renaissance. On the other hand, upgrading from a 2 move unit to a 4 move unit results in a much bigger change of role.

2. Upgrade lancers to cavalry.
Concern: That makes lancers short-lived.
Rebuttal: The game already has a short lived unit: longswords. Besides the current knight is too long-lived You can choose to upgrade to cavalry or choose to stay lancers and save money. Lancers are good for awhile anyway. We can make lancers completely obsolete only at tanks. In addition, civ wikia says lancers are replaced by cavalry historically.

3. AT guns start fresh in the modern era. Nothing upgrades to it.
Concern: I don't forsee any as of yet.
Explanation: Many units starting modern era cannot be upgraded from previous units. Subs, paratroopers, AA guns to name a few. AT guns can be built as a situational and cheap unit to counter a mobile heavy opponent. Right now, lancer upgrade to AT guns is imbalanced. AT guns and later helicopters should not be allowed to inherit the move after attack promotion.

1. I don't think that variance in movement is a good reason to change the upgrade path. The role of the units remains the same despite mobility changes and changes in resource requirements.

2. Agree that knights live too long; however, this change alters unit roles. Better solution would be adding a cuirassier unit between knights and cavalry. IMO, buffing lancer strength to 28 sounds way better than turning it into a weird anti-cavalry unit with no cavalry to fight against.

3. Again, not too fussed. AT Gun as an upgrade from lancer makes perfect sense as they are both anti-cavalry type units. Bigger oddities is the bazooka, arguably that unit would be better as a mortar with an additional upgrade to IFV.

4. Inheriting promotions...this should not be allowed. Is actually a major flaw in the game. Better would be to convert promotions into XP which can be spent on new promotions. If this route were taken it would also make sense for players to be able to upgrade any unit into any other unit (i.e., you are buying and selling units basically).

... my 2 pence of thoughts. Ultimately I hope that the game's makers will provide additional methods for players to customize their game experience without across the board changes like the ones your suggesting. That way players can play the Civ game they want instead of playing the Civ game that only a few want.

 

[kaspergm]

What about replacing their 33% formation promotion with the 50% vs. mounted promotion instead of the strength buff? That'd put them back up to being able to counter Cavalry's 34 with their 37.5 str and wouldn't overpower the musketmen. Then they'd be useful in the industrial but would still need a modern era upgrade.

While I don't like the whole set-up as things currently are now as expressed above, as a minor fix to increase the percent bonus against mounted would probably make more sense than increasing native strength, less we skew balance between the lines as Vitrucvius points out. Given that Lancer belongs to the upgrade line that, at least on paper, is the defensive line while Musketman belongs to what is supposed to be the offensive line, we probably don't want Lancers to trample Muskets. The Pikes vs. Swords problem is bad enough as it is.

 

[GoStu]

(First of all, a str buff to 28 will put it too high over contemporary muskets. Tampering with minor tweeks here and there may fix one problem but introduces another.) So here is my analysis of the situation:

The lancer problem:
1. The upgrade to AT is inappropriate.
2. The upgrade from pike is inappropriate
3. (Minor issue) it is actually weaker than the unit its meant to counter.

The solution:

1. Pikeman upgrades to muskets (or rifles if you prefer). Knights to lancers.
Concern: it breaks the anti-mobile to anti-mobile chain.
Rebuttal: Lancers are the only mobile unit of the Renaissance. I am fine with it being a hybrid mobile cum anti mobile unit of the Renaissance. On the other hand, upgrading from a 2 move unit to a 4 move unit results in a much bigger change of role.

2. Upgrade lancers to cavalry.
Concern: That makes lancers short-lived.
Rebuttal: The game already has a short lived unit: longswords. Besides the current knight is too long-lived You can choose to upgrade to cavalry or choose to stay lancers and save money. Lancers are good for awhile anyway. We can make lancers completely obsolete only at tanks. In addition, civ wikia says lancers are replaced by cavalry historically.

3. AT guns start fresh in the modern era. Nothing upgrades to it.
Concern: I don't forsee any as of yet.
Explanation: Many units starting modern era cannot be upgraded from previous units. Subs, paratroopers, AA guns to name a few. AT guns can be built as a situational and cheap unit to counter a mobile heavy opponent. Right now, lancer upgrade to AT guns is imbalanced. AT guns and later helicopters should not be allowed to inherit the move after attack promotion.

I disagree that 28 is too powerful. The Lancer is from a later tech and requires a Strategic Resource, it can be allowed to be stronger than the Musket. The Winged Hussar is strength 28 and it's not overpowering, but the WH would remain unique for its charge and synergy with Ducal Stables. With 28 strength, the Lancer can fight Muskets and Cavalry with a slight advantage, stomp out Crossbows and Knights, fight Rifles and Gatlings at a disadvantage, and can raid Artillery or Cannons. In short, it'd fit better into its late renaissance position: better than Medieval units, a bit weaker than Industrial.

28 is a good number, would that put the Winged Hussar at 30?

With formation that would put it just over 37 vs cavalry's 34. We also know from using the WH that 28 is a pretty solid str in the industrial. It'd go back to being useful in the industrial again, that'd be nice.

I'd be happy with an upgrade in the modern era. Something around 45 or 50 str. 45 if it can fortify and use terrain defensive bonuses. 50 if it can't. Then give it a vs. armor promotion to counter landships.

I'd consider it problem solved if they just did those two things. I'm a little leery about the idea of adding a ranged upgrade to what was a melee line. That'd just open a whole new can of worms for people to complain about. I do admit going melee to ranged would be better than going ranged to melee. At least your melee promotions would still be useful on defense but I'm sure there would be a lot of pissing and moaning about it anyway.

I think you overlooked where I said Lancers upgrade to Landships. To me the Antitank units would be special-purpose units newly built during that time. They'd have an upgrade path from Ranged to Ranged, and to me it would fit the existing units better. An antitank gun more closely resembles an artillery piece, except that they fired solid-shot and at higher muzzle velocities. It annoys the hell out of me when I see them walking up to things to attack...

1. I don't think that variance in movement is a good reason to change the upgrade path. The role of the units remains the same despite mobility changes and changes in resource requirements.

2. Agree that knights live too long; however, this change alters unit roles. Better solution would be adding a cuirassier unit between knights and cavalry. IMO, buffing lancer strength to 28 sounds way better than turning it into a weird anti-cavalry unit with no cavalry to fight against.

3. Again, not too fussed. AT Gun as an upgrade from lancer makes perfect sense as they are both anti-cavalry type units. Bigger oddities is the bazooka, arguably that unit would be better as a mortar with an additional upgrade to IFV.

4. Inheriting promotions...this should not be allowed. Is actually a major flaw in the game. Better would be to convert promotions into XP which can be spent on new promotions. If this route were taken it would also make sense for players to be able to upgrade any unit into any other unit (i.e., you are buying and selling units basically).

... my 2 pence of thoughts. Ultimately I hope that the game's makers will provide additional methods for players to customize their game experience without across the board changes like the ones your suggesting. That way players can play the Civ game they want instead of playing the Civ game that only a few want.

I like your point 4: it'd be an interesting way of getting around all the little hiccups that show up around unique units like Camel Archers, Keshiks, Hand-Axes, etc.

 

[VicRatlhead5199]

I think you overlooked where I said Lancers upgrade to Landships. To me the Antitank units would be special-purpose units newly built during that time. They'd have an upgrade path from Ranged to Ranged, and to me it would fit the existing units better. An antitank gun more closely resembles an artillery piece, except that they fired solid-shot and at higher muzzle velocities. It annoys the hell out of me when I see them walking up to things to attack...

Yep, you're right I did miss that. Actually that solution would work for my play style since I like combining tanks, artillery and planes in the late game, I usually stop building infantry altogether. I generally don't build many mounted units early on so that would give me some promoted landships right away. Might not make everyone happy, I'm still not a fan of assimilating into other upgrade lines but like I said it'd really compliment my normal strategy and it's at least a little later