The ranged units funnel

[Silverwave]

So, at Ancient era, we got those land ranged units :

Archer, Catapult, Chariot archer (3)

Medieval :

Crossbowman, Trebuchet, (Camel archers for Arabs) (2, 3 for Arabs)

Renaissance :

Cannon (1)

Modern :

Artillery (1)

Some special ranged units : Fighter, Bomber, Atomic bomb/Nuclear missile (works differently than other ranged land units).


So basically, as you upgrades your ranged units, you get less and less of them.
Also, Crossbowman upgrades to gunpowder units, which aren't ranged) so at Renaissance you only keep your siege weapons as ranged units.

It kinda make sense that all gunpowder units have no ranged attacks (otherwise every renaissance and modern units would be ranged... that would have been bad) but it's kinda sad that there's less and less ranged units. Note that at modern era you gain aircrafts that you can use as some kind of ranged units, but it still means that the renaissance era kinda lacks ranged units.

So basically, I guess we'll want to keep our crossbowmen un-upgraded and only upgrade our melee units into gunpowder units so we can keep on range-attack ennemy lines? (unless the penalty to attack higher era units is too much).

 

[Abremms]

i suppose that all depends on what/how/if promotions for a ranged unit (crossbowman) translates to a melee unit (rifleman).

your certainly right that the number and variety of ranged units decreases through the ages, but i'm not sure it matters. i would be willing to be that any promotions a crossbowman will still be useful to whatever the gunpowder upgrade is. for the most part, upgrades seem fairly general, mostly upgrading combat strength for the various terrains and the like.

 

[Silverwave]

Well, if it has no mistakes :

From the Strategy guide :

Crossbowman uprgrade path as follows:

Crossbowman---Rifleman---Infantry---Mechanized Infantry

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9607000&postcount=246


So I guess it really means all promotions goes to waste? Seems bad!

 

[Abremms]

i seriously doubt that crossbowman promotions are wasted... where are you getting that info, or are you just jumping to conclusions? i'm not arguing the upgrade path, its the same as civ4 (more or less), but i don't see those xbow promo's going to waste simply because it turns into a melee unit.

 

[paradigmx]

I know you kind of stated this, but in modern times your Aircraft would be the closest approximation of Ranged weapons, save for Artillery. Keep in mind you will still have Naval units which have range, current Naval Artillery can strike 20+ miles from the shore, so I would assume that having a navy, even for land battles, would be a definite benefit.

I also doubt that Artillery will be the only ranged modern land unit, the Anti-tank gun is probably ranged as well.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

i seriously doubt that crossbowman promotions are wasted... where are you getting that info, or are you just jumping to conclusions? i'm not arguing the upgrade path, its the same as civ4 (more or less), but i don't see those xbow promo's going to waste simply because it turns into a melee unit.

Well a number of those promotions (for xbows) are specifically for ranged bombardment.

 

[Abremms]

Well a number of those promotions (for xbows) are specifically for ranged bombardment.

right, that doesn;t mean that you should leave them unpromoted though. there are lots of general promotions that you can take that are equally useful. besides, a lot of your crossbowmen will be upgraded archers.

i just don't like the idea of not promoting a unit for immediate bonuses simply because it might someday be promoted to a unit that doesn't make use of that promotion. especially if your in a situation where your units are gaining XP (i.e. at war). just doesn't seem wise to me unless you know for a fact that the unit is going to be upgraded very soon.

 

[Silverwave]

Well, if those no-longer usefull promotions could be converted into xp to get other promotions, that would be great. But loosing ranged attack specific promotions AND loosing ability to shoot from afar would just be wrong. Well, it's not like I can do anything about it, I'll just swallow up what ever dev's decided

 

[Jaybe]

You'll just have to give ranged promos to a crossbow exclusively for discovering what happens during its transformation to rifle.

No, we DON'T have to know everything beforehand!
The more mystery that remains, the more fulfilling (FUN!!) the game will be.

 

[Pragmatic]

Sounds like we'll see a ranged (modern infantry) unit in an early mod. "Sniper" sounds good to me.

 

[Ahriman]

Mortars make more sense than snipers I think.

 

[kurtkage]

Also don't forget MLRS multiple launch rocket system that artillery upgrade to later.

And yea I would argue that bombers, fighters, cruise missles, Modern naval units(compared to earlier navy they get pretty strong and have better range) to compensate for not as many land ranged units.

 

[Terrance888]

They can have a Crossbow upgrade for Renaissance.

Modern Air power makes up for lack of ranged.

 

[Pragmatic]

Mortars make more sense than snipers I think.

Good point!

 

[Alki]

Yeah but an infantry platoon comes with mortar support. It should already be built into the unit.

 

[Auncien]

Don't forget naval stuff in all eras and the MRLS and air units in the modern era.

 

[bernlin2000]

Well it makes sense though that there aren't many ranged by the modern era: infantry obviously can't shoot incredible distances (although maybe a sniper unit could, that'd be cool ) We'll still have ships in the end, which will be especially important at that point. I wouldn't see any reason to keep old crossbowman any longer then early industrial era: artillery will function very well I'm sure for ranged (I think it's a 3 unit distance for them). There's nothing particularly weaker about them then archer units: they both have great ranged attack and a weak melee attack. Remember that all units can now move at least 2 tiles per turn, so mobility won't be a big issue either.

 

[bernlin2000]

Sounds like we'll see a ranged (modern infantry) unit in an early mod. "Sniper" sounds good to me.

Bah, I thought it was my idea first

 

[Tomice]

That's why I was surprised to hear that cannons have a set-up time. If they hadn't, all early ranged uits could upgrade to cannons. Set-up time would basically be a weakness of early siege units.

The renaissance had a very clear distinction between inf/cav/art, I admit, with no real historic counterpart to archers. But this seems like one of the few occasions were they should have left realism aside.

Empire:TW had tons of units in that era, which could have been taken as example. E.G. the distinction between line infantry (muskets) and rangers/skirmishers (rifles).

 

[Iceciro]

Yeah, this was one of my first thoughts too, but either a mod will come out to fix it, or I will make one. See if I can't set it up so infantry with these promotions can do indirect fire, and base infantry can pick said promotions as they level up? Dunno. I WANT CIV V NOW