[R&F] The State of Combat Units (Post Spring 2018 Patch)

[agonistes]

Now that the spring patch has boosted the 3 medieval UUs of Norway, Georgia, and Japan, I thought it might be time to finally make a post I've been thinking about. A lot of discussion on the same units occurred before the full patch notes dropped; I'm feeling lucky! I can't lose!

For starters, it's good to be quantitative in a topic full of numbers. Let me make some remarks on unit lines in general. It appears to me that the game was originally designed on the following principles:

• Unit strength, within a class, increases by 10 per era
• Unit classes have semi-persistent characteristics to shape a contemporary battlefield

The first is not necessarily intuitive unless you actually start charting out unit strengths. The second becomes apparent once you've charted. I'm primarily going to focus on things relating to unit strength and not movement/ZoC, an entirely separate topic.

Down the rabbit hole we go!

First, let us look at the unit classes themselves and see if we can ferret out that +10 strength per era.

View attachment 495222
And the raw data for the graphs:

View attachment 495226

Now, before you kids get uppity about me tossing out colorful shapes all willy-nilly, let me explain:
The Y axis in every graph is combat strength. The blue shape in the backgrounds is the trend line for the unit class. It's a line sloped at 10 strength per era. The axis is spaced by era, the units themselves are named. I consider the atomic and information era to be the same because no unit has an atomic and information era representation (other than maybe air units?)
I included a few unique units because people often suggest filling in gaps in the unit tree in certain spots. Unique units all have the same characteristic: they have the template of a base unit, plus special attributes. So from this, "Khevsur" is really a "Longswordsman" (to borrow from Civ5) with a hills bonus. Redcoats and Gardes Imperiale are really "Rifleman" units with continent based bonuses. Domrey=Trebuchet, Rough Rider= 'Cuirasser', Malon="Lancer."

As can be seen, the 10 strength per era rule is almost perfectly followed. The two types of deviations:
Ancient era units and the "post industrial shift."

Ancient Era units: there's 3 units that seem to buck the trend without bucking the trend. To me, that's the slinger & warrior, as well as the archer. The slinger and warrior are available to everyone, turn 1. They are almost "proto-ancient" units, and they seem to share the attribute of -5 combat strength from a 'regular' ancient era unit. Archers, to prevent from being either totally useless or completely OP, sort of straddle the ancient and classical eras. For this reason, they sit right between that 20 and 30 ranged strength that the trend line suggests.

The post industrial shift refers to, essentially, artillery becoming dual field/siege units, and mounted forces becoming armored (tanks.) As I'll touch on later, Heavy Cav goes from being essentially +3 strength over contemporary footmen to becoming armored beasts with a +10 strength advantage, although mech inf. close this gap a little. Melee is pretty consistent through the ages, though.

Now that I think I've established the +10/era relationship, let's look at all these units in aggregate and see if we can't divine some class-specific characteristics.

View attachment 495228

What a mess. Do you like tables? I like tables- let's look at a table of the raw strengths and a table of deviations from a trend line!

View attachment 495229

Now that's a little more enlightening.
What conclusions can we draw? Well, the average deviation is -0.5. That tells me this trend line- the "contemporary unit" - is a pretty snug fit.

• Melee: these boys seem to fit almost perfectly. They are the standard unit of civ6, so this isn't surprising. My note about warriors/slingers is why i think they are at -5. Swords were 35 strength on release (they never changed the legion or Ngao with that patch - hence Ngao is stuck at 35.) In the late game, I think they were intended to slip a bit so tanks and other units could be viable against all infantry armies.
• Anticav: These guys really get the short end of the stick. Not only are pikes terrible, but AT units stink as well- their bonus only matches them to armored units, it doesn't give them a strength advantage!
• HeavyCav: early on they have +3 strength as a sort of "top dog" perk. Which is fine- historically these units did trample everyone underfoot. Later they get bumped up when other units - melee, anticav, and ranged- fall behind, making them incredibly dominant for their production cost.
• LightCav: I'm not sure why this class exists at all, but they go from having one unit in the first part of the game (Horseman) that is just incredibly strong, to being about -3. I guess as "light" cav intended for raiding, they can withdraw from harm, so that's not so bad.
• Ranged: if we recall my point earlier about archers, it looks like ranged units all have -5 strength vs their contemporaries. Except machine guns, which are the red headed step child no one wants to fix, it seems. They are mostly obsoleted by air units and artillery late game, though. Ranged units all universally feature a melee strength 10 points below their ranged strength. This means they take 50% more damage from melee attacks.
• Bombard: Bombard units fit well early game, then become doom engines at the end. I think this is intended to give them a use case over bombers, and keep late game warfare form being stagnant. Note that bombard units feature -12 melee strength vs their bombard strength, with artillery and rockets having -20. This corresponds to taking 62% and 125% more damage from melee attacks, FYI.

Okay, so, that's how unit strengths stack up. But these units also cost production, which certainly comes into play. Let's dig into that now.

I'm repeating what I did in this post . Read it to understand methodology. The gist is that given strength & cost, two units can be compared to determine how efficient an upgraded unit is over its precursor. The important point about strength is that in combat, +X strength means both +Y damage dealt and 1/Y less damage received. So strength confers advantages on two sides of the coin- hence a unit that had +17 strength does double damage and takes half, resulting in 4x the combat effectiveness. "+17 strength, you say? That's what an Army formation gets, but it only costs 3 units for the power of 4?!" Exactly- that's why Zulu is OP and military academies are extremely powerful production structures.

Anyways, let's go back into the land unit lines:

View attachment 495231

All unique units are compared to their predecessor, but in all cases except the khevsur, the next base unit is compared to the earlier base unit. E.g, tanks are compared to knights and not rough riders. I compare muskets to khevsurs because the recent patch.
A few other points:

• Before the patch, the khevsur was at 0.69 efficiency. It was literally worse than building swordsmen. This was the only case in the game of an efficiency of less than one. They are now worth building, although they aren't brutally better than swords are- perhaps fair for most civs not having medieval melee.
• Samurai now stand at 1.47 efficiency compared to swords. They are basically less mobile knights that upgrade on the melee line.
• If pikeman were buffed to 45 strength and 180 cost, getting a similar treatment to what the other Military Tactics units got, then they would have a 1.79 efficiency score. IE, they wouldn't totally suck.
• Crossbows might also need a cost reduction, although the power of ranged suggests they are okay.

For those who are wondering, if buffed pikes would make knights to vulnerable, consider this: Pikes would be as effective against knights as muskets are. Given that you need to grab a leaf tech, I think that's fair. Knights still would hit melee, ranged, and bombard units incredibly hard. Knights need a counter that actually counters them properly- instead of forcing those without iron to wall up and watch the crossbow bolts ping off their chivalrous armor.

~~~~~~
Wow, what a long winded post. Please, share what insights you glean, things that just seem off playing through the game that may have a basis in the data presented here, or anything else that comes to mind!

One of the most well-written posts I've ever seen here. And informative on useful information as a bonus! Well done, sir, well done. And thanks.

 

[pindicator]

Hey, I wanted to thank you for writing this up! What are your thoughts about unit costs rising faster than district costs over the course of the game?

 

[eternalblue]

Nice post, very detailed. But I will like to see not just improvements in the combat system, and to see again some of the missing units. Where are the trebuchets? a very cool medieval era unit that gives you the feel of siege, and the later game units: Marines, Navy Seals, Paratroopers, Infantry. In this aspect CIV V was so much fun, not just buecause had much more units, but the animations were much better giving it a realistic touch in some way. I personaly enjoyed much more watching in the field 10 or 12 units instead or 1 or 3 (and mobile "clash of clans" type). The combat is improved in CIV VI in some way, but drops the ball so hard in units models: art style, variery, animations, sounds that are so much better in CIV V in my opinion combined when you at war with the specific music. This part makes CIV V for me unique, and the map to explore too, but of course the city management system parts are better in CIV IV and civ VI (tho I don't like the "state of emergency" implemented in the actual game, because it's a pretext to "unite the civs" for not having an actual world congress).

 

[Sostratus]

What are your thoughts about unit costs rising faster than district costs over the course of the game?

Do I spot a budding Civ Economist?! #GreatMerchant
At first, I thought "hmm, units get really really expensive over the course of the game. This must be why unit upgrades are invariably "efficient" - units themselves need to be worth building, and we can't have limp noodles running around at the end." But, when I realized there was a +10 strength / era factor involved with units, I started to think these systems (unit strength, cost growth) may be separate.

There are three kinds of "production costs" that scale through the game: units, districts, and harvest yields. It urns out that the last two actually scale with the same formula:
Cost/Yield = BaseCost*(1+9(max (techprogress,civicprogress))).
Techprogress & Civicprogress are how far through the tech or civic tree you are by number of techs; 100*techs researched/67 or 100*civics researched/50. (Correct me if the number of techs has changed if R&F.)
The result of this formula is that district cost or harvest yield starts at a base value on turn one, and grows up to 10x throughout the game (if you finish either tree, it's Base*(1+9*1) = Base*10.)

Chops basically have a fixed relation to districts throughout the game (but not to city production!) The main complaint people have had is that this 10x scaling is too aggressive given how player production scales. Anyways, look at 2 unit lines which have an ancient and information era unit: Anti-Cav and Heavy Cav.
Ancient Era
AntiCav: 65
HeavyCav: 65
Info Era
AntiCav: 580
HeavyCav: 680
It's not quite perfect because we have some techs by the time we unlock those ancient units, and the information era units don't come at future tech, but there's a loose 10x growth factor. Do you know what time it is? That's right- deploy the graph!

Raw Data:

What I did here was plot the costs of units by their class over time (columns) against two kinds of fit: an exponential one that increases by the same factor every era, and a linear one that goes up the same amount every era. Both fits are set to go up 10x from ancient to information. One thing about reading this: A column from a given era should be compared to the black marker on the linear trend and the midpoint on the exp trend. (The point on the exp. trend that's directly above the center of the x axis label.) I'm not an excel chart wizard so I'm not sure the best way to make it perfect in a reasonable time frame.

Anyways, what I find interesting is that even though unit strength increases exponentially (+10 strength difference means 50% more damage dealt, so unit strength is compounding every era), unit cost is growing more linearly than that. As many statisticians attempt, now might be a good time to look at the change in unit costs and see if we can divine anything from those.

Raw Data:

Units that have upgrades two eras part have the difference halved to give the per era change. The only trend I can see is that early melee units have a sort of exponential cost rise, but then just do whatever they want. The best I can come away with is that they just picked numbers for cost that loosely line up with the location in the tech tree (all buildings have costs strictly defined not by usefulness, but by which level of the tech trees they unlock in, and have never been re-balanced afaik.)

This brings me back to a point I made earlier: a player's city production isn't increasing as fast as these costs are. I don't have good data for this, but a 3 pop ancient era city that outputs a respectable 6 hammers in the ancient era has to be slamming down 60 in the information- Do you see your small cities pulling 10-20 production per citizen in the late game? Because I sure don't.
It's offset by units getting better, but the corps and army systems suggests we ought to have much better unit production in the end than the beginning. This is only true because our cities are getting bigger, not better - and it's the same reason players hate putting down a city in a great spot late game and seeing 80 turns to build a harbor. This was a totally different story on release when we could stack IZs, which the production was balanced around- now we have no industrial production explosion, but still have exploding unit/building/district costs.

Lastly, let me mention the government system. We have policy cards to boost every kind of victory/yield. The district cards make districts more powerful, while unit cards (which are for conquest victory) let you produce units faster. IMO, a lot could be done for the game if they had cards to let you build certain districts faster, similar to encampments' Veterancy. Example: Rationalism gives +50% science from buildings in campuses with over 3 science, and grants +50% production towards all campuses and campus buildings.

TL;DR Here's what I think of unit cost scaling vs district cost scaling: like my graphs, it's a mess. Units feel better than districts from a game play perspective, and maybe they should make one more like the other.

 

[NoonePerson]

Interesting. So is the idea that the Counter Calvary line is weak in terms of cost-effectiveness compared to the stronger, more powerful Heavy Calvary line? Specifically in the Medieval Era?

I'm not sure how to feel about that. In Civ IV, Medieval warfare was a slog due to garrison improvements and relative strength of pikes + xbows. Would they benefit from being cheaper in Civ VI?

Units that have upgrades two eras part have the difference halved to give the per era change. The only trend I can see is that early melee units have a sort of exponential cost rise, but then just do whatever they want. The best I can come away with is that they just picked numbers for cost that loosely line up with the location in the tech tree (all buildings have costs strictly defined not by usefulness, but by which level of the tech trees they unlock in, and have never been re-balanced afaik.)

Oh dear christ, that better not have been a development time-save implementation. That's a terrible way to balance units if the values and properties of them are asymmetrical and different era by era.

 

[UWHabs]

Do I spot a budding Civ Economist?! #GreatMerchant
At first, I thought "hmm, units get really really expensive over the course of the game. This must be why unit upgrades are invariably "efficient" - units themselves need to be worth building, and we can't have limp noodles running around at the end." But, when I realized there was a +10 strength / era factor involved with units, I started to think these systems (unit strength, cost growth) may be separate.

There are three kinds of "production costs" that scale through the game: units, districts, and harvest yields. It urns out that the last two actually scale with the same formula:
Cost/Yield = BaseCost*(1+9(max (techprogress,civicprogress))).
Techprogress & Civicprogress are how far through the tech or civic tree you are by number of techs; 100*techs researched/67 or 100*civics researched/50. (Correct me if the number of techs has changed if R&F.)
The result of this formula is that district cost or harvest yield starts at a base value on turn one, and grows up to 10x throughout the game (if you finish either tree, it's Base*(1+9*1) = Base*10.)

Chops basically have a fixed relation to districts throughout the game (but not to city production!) The main complaint people have had is that this 10x scaling is too aggressive given how player production scales. Anyways, look at 2 unit lines which have an ancient and information era unit: Anti-Cav and Heavy Cav.
Ancient Era
AntiCav: 65
HeavyCav: 65
Info Era
AntiCav: 580
HeavyCav: 680
It's not quite perfect because we have some techs by the time we unlock those ancient units, and the information era units don't come at future tech, but there's a loose 10x growth factor. Do you know what time it is? That's right- deploy the graph!

View attachment 495363

Raw Data:
View attachment 495361

What I did here was plot the costs of units by their class over time (columns) against two kinds of fit: an exponential one that increases by the same factor every era, and a linear one that goes up the same amount every era. Both fits are set to go up 10x from ancient to information. One thing about reading this: A column from a given era should be compared to the black marker on the linear trend and the midpoint on the exp trend. (The point on the exp. trend that's directly above the center of the x axis label.) I'm not an excel chart wizard so I'm not sure the best way to make it perfect in a reasonable time frame.

Anyways, what I find interesting is that even though unit strength increases exponentially (+10 strength difference means 50% more damage dealt, so unit strength is compounding every era), unit cost is growing more linearly than that. As many statisticians attempt, now might be a good time to look at the change in unit costs and see if we can divine anything from those.

View attachment 495364

Raw Data:
View attachment 495365

Units that have upgrades two eras part have the difference halved to give the per era change. The only trend I can see is that early melee units have a sort of exponential cost rise, but then just do whatever they want. The best I can come away with is that they just picked numbers for cost that loosely line up with the location in the tech tree (all buildings have costs strictly defined not by usefulness, but by which level of the tech trees they unlock in, and have never been re-balanced afaik.)

This brings me back to a point I made earlier: a player's city production isn't increasing as fast as these costs are. I don't have good data for this, but a 3 pop ancient era city that outputs a respectable 6 hammers in the ancient era has to be slamming down 60 in the information- Do you see your small cities pulling 10-20 production per citizen in the late game? Because I sure don't.
It's offset by units getting better, but the corps and army systems suggests we ought to have much better unit production in the end than the beginning. This is only true because our cities are getting bigger, not better - and it's the same reason players hate putting down a city in a great spot late game and seeing 80 turns to build a harbor. This was a totally different story on release when we could stack IZs, which the production was balanced around- now we have no industrial production explosion, but still have exploding unit/building/district costs.

Lastly, let me mention the government system. We have policy cards to boost every kind of victory/yield. The district cards make districts more powerful, while unit cards (which are for conquest victory) let you produce units faster. IMO, a lot could be done for the game if they had cards to let you build certain districts faster, similar to encampments' Veterancy. Example: Rationalism gives +50% science from buildings in campuses with over 3 science, and grants +50% production towards all campuses and campus buildings.

TL;DR Here's what I think of unit cost scaling vs district cost scaling: like my graphs, it's a mess. Units feel better than districts from a game play perspective, and maybe they should make one more like the other.

Another excellent post.

I think a big key in terms of unit costs over the eras is the fact that while the production cost of units may increase roughly in line with district costs, the cost to upgrade a unit is always really cheap. So as long as you have some units from a previous era available, it's cheap to upgrade to the most current units. And when combined with the card to increase unit production, and some planning, it can definitely make units brutally cheap over time.

For example, in my game, I was researching for Artillery. But without Niter, I simply had a couple cities build some catapults, and then waited until I got the tech and simply paid a pretty cheap amount of gold to upgrade them each. I mean, even if I bought the catapults one turn, and then upgraded them the next, you're only spending around 650 gold for a unit that would cost you 1600 to buy outright.

It would be kind of like, for buildings, if you could buy a research lab for 300 gold if you already had a university, but if you haven't built a university before the tech for a research lab, it would cost you 1700 to buy the research lab. If you know that, you can plan for it, and it makes the later units seem dirt cheap.

 

[NoonePerson]

Another excellent post.

I think a big key in terms of unit costs over the eras is the fact that while the production cost of units may increase roughly in line with district costs, the cost to upgrade a unit is always really cheap. So as long as you have some units from a previous era available, it's cheap to upgrade to the most current units. And when combined with the card to increase unit production, and some planning, it can definitely make units brutally cheap over time.

For example, in my game, I was researching for Artillery. But without Niter, I simply had a couple cities build some catapults, and then waited until I got the tech and simply paid a pretty cheap amount of gold to upgrade them each. I mean, even if I bought the catapults one turn, and then upgraded them the next, you're only spending around 650 gold for a unit that would cost you 1600 to buy outright.

It would be kind of like, for buildings, if you could buy a research lab for 300 gold if you already had a university, but if you haven't built a university before the tech for a research lab, it would cost you 1700 to buy the research lab. If you know that, you can plan for it, and it makes the later units seem dirt cheap.

It definitely makes high gold producing civs really strong, since you can keep a lump sum of money around each major era you pass and upgrade for virtually nothing.

 

[Sostratus]

So is the idea that the Counter Calvary line is weak in terms of cost-effectiveness compared to the stronger, more powerful Heavy Calvary line? Specifically in the Medieval Era?

AntiCav has 2 primary issues: first, it's just left crippled by the gaps in the unit tree. Second, it's just straight up weaker/more costly than it should be for how single purpose it is.
Let's just think about the gaps in the unit tree: there is precisely 2 times that anticav actually truly defeats cavalry. That is in the ancient era and in the renaissance. At any other point, their strength advantage is either negative, very small, or their bonus only brings them to parity with cavalry units.

It is pike and shot, not pikes, that doom knights. Armored units come in for 20% more cost and a resource requirement, but get 4 movement and have a strength advantage against most melee units. The line's promised +10 vs mounted completely evaporates.
This is the other big issue: because melee units get +10 vs anticav, anticav units either lose to cav outright or lose to their contemporary melee units. Focusing on the early game, spears lose to warriors 1v1, and warriors are much cheaper. Swords come one tech later, beat pikeman +4, can be made by anyone who can make knights. To make matters worse, on the Classical battlefield- swords commit murder against spears, go to their homes and make off with their wives, and then steal the family goat too, for good measure. There is no place on the classical battlefield for spearmen right now. This means we don't have any reason to get pikes to upgrade into unless we are playing OP Zulu.

Do you see how abysmal the situation is?

Would they benefit from being cheaper in Civ VI?

If their defining trait was to be the cheap and resourceless infantry that beat back horsies, they only succeeded on being resourceless. Anticav aren't 'cheap' until the end of the game - by which point they are so outclassed by other choices (namely melee+artillery) that there's not much reason to build them.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
IMHO, I really really want to save the anticav line as much as we can. However, every time I look at it, the best I can come up with is this:
We remove melee's bonus to anticav. Melee get a buffed +10 zweihander instead of their tortoise promotion at tier 1. (We create some other tier 3 promotion- Probably a +7 vs districts/cities)
All melee units gain innate +10 vs ranged attacks. They are heavily armored melee units that require resources.

Anticav units: pikes get str 45, cost 160. Schiltron applies +10 defense to any melee attack, not just from melee class units. This cements their defensive role.

So basically, foot soldiers are either resource less "levied defenders" -AntiCav- more along the lines of what a player just protecting his realm would make; or resource required heavy units that are dominant on the field against combined arms foes. The tier one promotions allow veteran units to display their prowess in melee combat - but equally promoted units cancel it out.

Moderators, forgive my stray into Ideas & Suggestions territory here...
Ultimately, I think the game health would be better if we could actually have pike&shot and musket promote into rifleman/infantry (and sort out the promotions somehow) and let the "anti-tank" units come in as support units that confer strength against mounted. I might also like to see warriors be able to promote into either line...
But, that's a much more fundamental change than the simpler tweaking I think could go a long way towards having 2 viable foot soldier unit lines. It would work a lot better if we had both lines represented in the middle ages, too, though. Unit gaps- they get ya.

 

[NoonePerson]

View attachment 495643

Oh dear god. This is made so much worse with the 1upt function which presents more chances of their flanks being exposed.

So you couldn't even use them for their intended purpose protected by a large stack longer than one turn because chances are the opponent will target the counter units with strong melee units.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Like so many other things in the game, the 'Anti-Cav' line is turned into a Joke by the fact that in the game the units do not have their correct Historical Characteristics. Getting those basic facts wrong throws all the relationships between units off, and results in the abomination of a Unit/Promotion/Upgrade system we have now. Let's enumerate:
1. Spears and pikes are NOT 'Anti-Cav'. They are infantry that requires less 'production' (lots of carefully-forged armor and swords blades) and 'maintenance' (training, which means men have to be kept away from useful work for long periods of time - it is no accident that Roman Heavy Swordsmen/Legionaries were enlisted for 20 - 25 years!) than the other infantry close-combat units ('melee'). But, to keep things Linear, let's call them 'Anti-Cav' instead of 'All the Spear/Pike Points in the World Are Coming At You - Get Out Of The Way Or DIE!' Units.
2. Spear/Pike units are NOT 'Defensive': the Greek Phalanx of spearmen charged, sometimes at a run as at Marathon, while Phillip and Alexander's Pezhetairoi (pikemen), the Swiss pikes of the late Middle Ages, and the Swedish Pike & Shot of the very late Renaissance all charged every chance they got. The Swiss even charged knights, and massacred them because their well-drilled units on foot could move faster, as a unit on the battlefield, than the motley collection of aristocrats arguing over who deserved to be in front.
3. The Historical Characteristics of Spear/Pike (and later, antitank units) are these:
*They are relatively Cheap to produce and maintain compared to both Cavalry and Melee units of the same eras.
*They are relatively easy to combine with other 'classes' of units: the Roman Legion started out as a combined sword/spear force, and after running into Alan and Avar heavy cavalry in the first century CE, they added 'lanciarii' (spearmen, or more accurately, 'half-pikes' because they seem to have been 10 - 12 foot long 'spears' used with both hands) back into the Legions of swordsmen. Alexander when he died was planning a 'phalanx' that would have combined archers and pikes in the same unit. Swiss pikes and their copycat opponent Landsknechts both had 2-handed swordsmen or 'double-pay men' in the same formations with pikemen. And, of course, both crossbows and early hand guns (arquebuses, then muskets) were combined with pikes in the first 'Pike and Shot' formations.

So, I agree with most of Sostratus' suggestions, except that to truly address the Problem we cannot address 'Anti-Cav' Units alone: Melee and Mounted have to be modified to address their characteristics, too, so that their current OP situation gets changed to reflect both their Strengths and their very important Weaknesses.

Here's my 'Quick and Dirty' (and, as always, Tentative as in Needs Play-Testing to Get The Numbers Right) set of Changes:

1. ALL the Anti-Cav units should be both cheaper to produce and cheaper to Maintain. So, I would (until tested) keep Spearmen as they are, but for Pikemen, increase Combat Factor to 45, drop the Production Cost to about 150, drop the Maintenance Cost to 2, and Increase the Maintenance Cost of ALL mounted (light and heavy) units by 1 per turn each. At the other end of the Anti-Cav line, the Production Costs of 'AT Crew' and 'Modern AT' should realistically be about Half that of the Tank/Modern Armor units, and their Maintenance Costs should probably be about 3 and 5 instead of the current 4 and 8 per turn.
2. In the Anti-Cav Promotions, change the first two as follows:
Echelon becomes Shield Wall - now gives +7 Defensive Strength versus Ranged or Mounted
Thrust becomes Drill - and now gives +10 Combat Strength against Melee or Mounted.
(The rest of the Promotions need changing, but for other reasons, so we'll stop here)

This means that the 'Anti-Cav' should become a legitimate alternative to melee and mounted units, especially if you are trying to field a large army on a limited economy or with limited Strategic Resources. As historically, the point is that 'Promoted' - that is, organized and trained - spear/pike units can hold their own against almost anyone all else (terrain, weather, leadership, numbers) being equal.

 

[Sostratus]

So, I agree with most of Sostratus' suggestions, except that to truly address the Problem we cannot address 'Anti-Cav' Units alone: Melee and Mounted have to be modified to address their characteristics, too, so that their current OP situation gets changed to reflect both their Strengths and their very important Weaknesses.

I always enjoy your historian's perspective, Boris- obviously a fairly hefty overhaul is needed, but unless they do a comprehensive balance pass with the second expansion (on the level of what they did between Civ5 vanilla and G&K) I think we are stuck with incremental improvements. I am surprised they aren't more willing to do broader balance tweaks, though.

As historically, the point is that 'Promoted' - that is, organized and trained - spear/pike units can hold their own against almost anyone all else

Someone who agrees! What's the point of having promoted units if they're losing to units fresh out the barracks?! That's why I would really like having melee and anticav tier 1 promotions making them better at fighting each other- separates the men from the boys!

Maybe once I have a better understanding of upgrade costs (I've never looked into it) I can try to put together some info linking them to a player's gold economy- a daunting task, though. My gut says players make too much money just having built CHs; that the current maintenance regime is pretty much irrelevant for medium+ sized empires. I really liked that change about BNW- getting gold for most of the game was hard, fielding an army really could bankrupt you with their maintenance costs. I don't want to stifle warmongers, but I think that Civ6 should ultimately have a "guns vs butter" angle for empire management. Such is the price of peace!

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I always enjoy your historian's perspective, Boris- obviously a fairly hefty overhaul is needed, but unless they do a comprehensive balance pass with the second expansion (on the level of what they did between Civ5 vanilla and G&K) I think we are stuck with incremental improvements. I am surprised they aren't more willing to do broader balance tweaks, though.

I can kind of understand the Designer's point, that if everyone is complaining about numerous Balance Issues, then overall it must be balanced because no one is happy, right? On the other hand, the wretched Imbalance between Anti-Cav and Cavalry, and Cavalry and Everything Else, have been present from the first release of the game, are obviously related issues, but haven't been addressed at all effectively.

Of course, once they start addressing Balance Issues, they'll also have to look at a host of other Mediocre Elements in the game, like Diplomacy, Emergencies, Trade, Unit Progression, The Entire Late Game Lameness, Tech Bee-Lining due to Lame Tech Tree, - and that's just for starters.

Civ VI has a lot of really great ideas in it, but the majority of the Great Ideas were not implemented well, and the poor implementation was never caught because the game appears to have been play tested only by the first customers to buy the game, not any Beta Test group. Since I was involved with Simulations Publications back in the 1970s, who virtually invented the Design-Blind Playtest-Redesign sequence of Game Design, this aspect of practically fraudulent game design and retailing particularly burns...

Someone who agrees! What's the point of having promoted units if they're losing to units fresh out the barracks?! That's why I would really like having melee and anticav tier 1 promotions making them better at fighting each other- separates the men from the boys!

Maybe once I have a better understanding of upgrade costs (I've never looked into it) I can try to put together some info linking them to a player's gold economy- a daunting task, though. My gut says players make too much money just having built CHs; that the current maintenance regime is pretty much irrelevant for medium+ sized empires. I really liked that change about BNW- getting gold for most of the game was hard, fielding an army really could bankrupt you with their maintenance costs. I don't want to stifle warmongers, but I think that Civ6 should ultimately have a "guns vs butter" angle for empire management. Such is the price of peace!

Upgrade Costs, like everything else, should be studied from two directions: on the one hand, what is best from a game playing standpoint, which I agree appears to require some Upward Tweaking of the total costs, but also what the Historical Reality was of 'Upgrading' units, which might give a clue as to the direction to take.

This is my approach to all aspects of gaming: trying to come up wth a playable design or redesign without knowing all the details of the original historical model almost always results in Unanticipated Consequences that leave as many or more problems in the game as they 'solve'.

So, I would first look at the fact that Upgrade Costs, if they reflect Actual Historical Cost of 'upgrading', they are going to vary dramatically.

Just for example, exchanging a spear for a pike is not that difficult: Phillip's Macedonian infantry did it in just a few years, and within a single generation (in game terms, about 2 Classical Era Turns!) they were running over everything in sight under his son Alexander - having been, again in Game Terms, both Upgraded and Promoted at least once.

In contrast, Upgrade a Galley to a Caravel and, essentially, you are building an entirely new ship: no galley hull has the structure and strength to mount high masts and the weight and stress of sails to make a Caravel. The only 'cost' you save in this Upgrade is having to recruit an entire new class of crew, because presumably the galley crew at least knows the Sea. But overall, the Upgrade and Production Cost of a Caravel are going to be very, very similar.
Make an accurate list of 'historical costs' of Upgrades in the game, and a great many 'Upgrades' are really Building A Whole New Unit. What you are really getting in many Upgrades are any Promotions won by the original unit, and this is legitimate: it's why Armies trace 'lineage and honors' back for generations, to encourage new soldiers to embrace the expertise embodied in the unit's reputation.

BUT that is a far cry from the current model of Upgrade, in which magically all the swords in a Melee Unit become semi-automatic rifles and all the expertise of the swordsmen automatically transfers to an utterly new set of weapons and tactics and battlefield conditions.

 

[Turrdy]

How does upgrading (in contrary to hardbuilding, i.e. paying gold to convert a swordsman into a musketman) impact on your calculations? Especially after your second long post with the Change in Unit Cost Plot I sense a potential there...

Like is there a case where building e.g. swordsmen and then upgrading them to musketmen more efficient than building musketmen from the get-go? Or vice versa?

Or are upgrading (gold) cost completely coherent with production cost difference?

And what impact have the policy cards (+50% Production on units vs. 50% discount on upgrade)?

Sorry, I didn't read all the posts, so if these questions were already answered, just link the post where I can read them Thanks!

 

[Shorlin]

The saddest thing about anti-cav is that all cavalry ignore their zone of control. I can't even protect my archers with a spearmen against horses

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

The saddest thing about anti-cav is that all cavalry ignore their zone of control. I can't even protect my archers with a spearmen against horses

In the absence of barding, Archers didn't really need much protection from horses historically. Disciplined bowmen could decimate a cavalry charge if the horses weren't armoured. Even when armoured, this was a problem. English archers in the 100 years war used to plant stakes in front of them to further disrupt a knight charge, but that was probably mostly psychological to help the archer stay steady and maintain fire as the knights charged. French knights eventually learned to dismount and advance towards the archers on foot, as their horses couldn't survive the advance.

Civ 6 treats Archers and Crossbowmen as much more of an offensive units than the defensive units they more usually were. Archers advancing on you was an invitation to counter attack them before the archers could form up. The historical problem with archers wasn't defending against them, but rather how to advance on them or past them. The solution was typically massed men shoulder to shoulder on foot carrying shields. Whether those men were carrying swords, spears, or rolling pins in their other hand wasn't really relevant. Riding a horse towards them just gave them an easier target to hit.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

In the absence of barding, Archers didn't really need much protection from horses historically. Disciplined bowmen could decimate a cavalry charge if the horses weren't armoured. Even when armoured, this was a problem. English archers in the 100 years war used to plant stakes in front of them to further disrupt a knight charge, but that was probably mostly psychological to help the archer stay steady and maintain fire as the knights charged. French knights eventually learned to dismount and advance towards the archers on foot, as their horses couldn't survive the advance.

Civ 6 treats Archers and Crossbowmen as much more of an offensive units than the defensive units they more usually were. Archers advancing on you was an invitation to counter attack them before the archers could form up. The historical problem with archers wasn't defending against them, but rather how to advance on them or past them. The solution was typically massed men shoulder to shoulder on foot carrying shields. Whether those men were carrying swords, spears, or rolling pins in their other hand wasn't really relevant. Riding a horse towards them just gave them an easier target to hit.

Again, if you get the history right, you can get the game right. This, unfortunately, is one of the Great Myths of history: the heat-seeking, terminally-guided, shaped-charge instantly fatal arrow. It wasn't.

First, note that in every one of the battles that the English long bowmen 'won': Crecy, Poitiers, Agincourt - they had dismounted knights or mounted knights or/and barriers of stakes to keep the enemy off the archers. Archers without anything between them and charging horsemen became Hamburger Helper. How do we know that? Because in almost 400 years those three battles mentioned are just about the ONLY TIMES bowmen 'won' against charging cavalry of any kind. To add insult to injury, English longbowmen in the service of Burgundy were charged and massacred by Swiss pikemen on foot at Morgarten when the archers didn't have time to set up with a barrier between them and their foes.

Aside from the evidence of historical Medieval Warfare, do the math. The direct fire range of any human-powered bow is less than 100 yards - anything beyond that, and you are aiming high and dropping the arrow onto the target, which means the force of the arrow is simply that of gravity - all the 'pull' of your bow disappears when the arrow hits the top of its arc. A falling arrow will kill a man if it hits him in, say, the eye - which is why French knights were very soon taught not to look up when arrows were falling - but otherwise, it isn't likely to even pierce leather, let alone metal armor. Hitting the back of a horse, it will possibly wound him, but it will have to be a very, very lucky shot to do serious damage.
In direct fire, the horse at a run will cover the distance to the archer in about 7 - 8 seconds: the archer has time for one arrow, and it better count because his brand new ghost will be firing the second one.

There is a reason that archers were not considered important to Greek and Roman warfare: infantry in armor with big shields like Hoplites or Legionaries could charge right through the 'zone of fire' of a bow and get to the archers with mayhem in mind before the archers could do serious damage. Archers were only dangerous when something kept you from getting at them: a wall they were on top of, or some melee troops of their own to take the enemy charge before it got to them. The most dangerous archers of all were the ones on horses, because unless you were on a faster horse, you could not get to them while they could shoot until they ran out of arrows and then ride off to get more.

Civ VI does a lot better than Civ V in its depiction of archers on foot because melee units seem to be programmed to charge archers in Civ VI instead of standing around, so it is a lot more dangerous for a lone archer to try and take on melee/anti-cav troops in the open. Then, however, Civ VI downgrades horse archers which turns the historical dynamic on its head.
BUT it is entirely accurate for an Archer and a Spearman or Swordsman to be able to 'mop the floor' with Spearmen or Swordsmen who have no archery support: it's why a large percentage of the Roman Auxiliaries listed in the Notitia Dignatorum of the late Empire are called 'Saggitarii' - archers - because they made a good supplement to the heavy melee Legions.

All that said, I think the factors of the Archer are about right. IF I were making changes, it would be to reduce the Combat (non-ranged) Factor of the Crossbowman to about 20 - below that of Spearmen, because think about it: on one side, a guy in a leather coat with a long knife and a wooden crossbow he can swing like a clumsy club and on the other side a guy with a big shield and a 8 - 9 foot long metal-tipped spear. If that was a newly-legal Sports Bet, I wouldn't even give the crossbowman benefit of a point spread: he's toast.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Again, if you get the history right, you can get the game right. This, unfortunately, is one of the Great Myths of history: the heat-seeking, terminally-guided, shaped-charge instantly fatal arrow. It wasn't.

First, note that in every one of the battles that the English long bowmen 'won': Crecy, Poitiers, Agincourt - they had dismounted knights or mounted knights or/and barriers of stakes to keep the enemy off the archers. Archers without anything between them and charging horsemen became Hamburger Helper. How do we know that? Because in almost 400 years those three battles mentioned are just about the ONLY TIMES bowmen 'won' against charging cavalry of any kind. To add insult to injury, English longbowmen in the service of Burgundy were charged and massacred by Swiss pikemen on foot at Morgarten when the archers didn't have time to set up with a barrier between them and their foes.

Aside from the evidence of historical Medieval Warfare, do the math. The direct fire range of any human-powered bow is less than 100 yards - anything beyond that, and you are aiming high and dropping the arrow onto the target, which means the force of the arrow is simply that of gravity - all the 'pull' of your bow disappears when the arrow hits the top of its arc. A falling arrow will kill a man if it hits him in, say, the eye - which is why French knights were very soon taught not to look up when arrows were falling - but otherwise, it isn't likely to even pierce leather, let alone metal armor. Hitting the back of a horse, it will possibly wound him, but it will have to be a very, very lucky shot to do serious damage.
In direct fire, the horse at a run will cover the distance to the archer in about 7 - 8 seconds: the archer has time for one arrow, and it better count because his brand new ghost will be firing the second one.

There is a reason that archers were not considered important to Greek and Roman warfare: infantry in armor with big shields like Hoplites or Legionaries could charge right through the 'zone of fire' of a bow and get to the archers with mayhem in mind before the archers could do serious damage. Archers were only dangerous when something kept you from getting at them: a wall they were on top of, or some melee troops of their own to take the enemy charge before it got to them. The most dangerous archers of all were the ones on horses, because unless you were on a faster horse, you could not get to them while they could shoot until they ran out of arrows and then ride off to get more.

Civ VI does a lot better than Civ V in its depiction of archers on foot because melee units seem to be programmed to charge archers in Civ VI instead of standing around, so it is a lot more dangerous for a lone archer to try and take on melee/anti-cav troops in the open. Then, however, Civ VI downgrades horse archers which turns the historical dynamic on its head.
BUT it is entirely accurate for an Archer and a Spearman or Swordsman to be able to 'mop the floor' with Spearmen or Swordsmen who have no archery support: it's why a large percentage of the Roman Auxiliaries listed in the Notitia Dignatorum of the late Empire are called 'Saggitarii' - archers - because they made a good supplement to the heavy melee Legions.

All that said, I think the factors of the Archer are about right. IF I were making changes, it would be to reduce the Combat (non-ranged) Factor of the Crossbowman to about 20 - below that of Spearmen, because think about it: on one side, a guy in a leather coat with a long knife and a wooden crossbow he can swing like a clumsy club and on the other side a guy with a big shield and a 8 - 9 foot long metal-tipped spear. If that was a newly-legal Sports Bet, I wouldn't even give the crossbowman benefit of a point spread: he's toast.

You make a lot of good points in here. Most bow armed foot soldiers were either skirmishers or garrison troops. The skirmishing archers on horseback were much more dangerous than those on foot, who were primarily a nuisance factor and harasser than a danger to disciplined, close rank troops.

I've always viewed the Archer unit in Civ as the exception to the historical rule: the trained, disciplined troop of soldiers who can stand their own on the battlefield, such as the English or Indian bowmen, or Italian mercenary crossbowmen. Because that's how they're depicted in the game. The conditions that gave rise to those types of troops in real life were, of course, very rare.

It's a bit like how the Swordsmen are really a generalization of the exception to the rule, based primarily on the Roman Legion. Most foot soldiers were some variation of spear carriers, because those troops are a lot easier to prepare for action in the field. Men whose primary equipment is shield + blade pretty much need to be professionals. You can find examples of these types of troops on the battlefield, and they do tend to fair very well against spear armed troops, but they stand out because they were unusual.

Finally, you're quite right about the mixed arms element of combat even at a very low level. I just assume that Swordsmen include slinger & archer skirmishers as part of their units, and Archers and Crossbowmen include retainers with spears as part of their units, and that what is depicted at the scale of Civ is the primary weapon used by the troop.

 

[Ferocitus]

The major problem for me (in this otherwise excellent thread) is the assumption
by some people that units, e.g. archers, are idealised versions of a real
collection of men armed with bows and arrows.

The thought of archers occupying a region and shooting arrows at an opponent
for 20+ years just doesn't work for me.

I prefer to think of the pressure of the technology of archery applied to
a particular region of the map. That also includes enhancements gained via
other means, civ-specific characteristics for (in this example) archery, and
pressure via many other means and methods applied to that region and surrounds.

I do like the quick 'n' dirty comparisons of costs and approximate benefits,
but some things don't scale quite so readily. Some factors become more
important on different types and sizes of maps, and the game pace. Movement on
ludicrous size (200 x 100) maps is more important than it is on smaller ones.

 

[Shorlin]

The major problem for me (in this otherwise excellent thread) is the assumption
by some people that units, e.g. archers, are idealised versions of a real
collection of men armed with bows and arrows.

The thought of archers occupying a region and shooting arrows at an opponent
for 20+ years just doesn't work for me.

I prefer to think of the pressure of the technology of archery applied to
a particular region of the map. That also includes enhancements gained via
other means, civ-specific characteristics for (in this example) archery, and
pressure via many other means and methods applied to that region and surrounds.

With the introduction of 1upt, Civ is a tactical combat game (tries to be) as much as it is an empire building strategy game. For the tactical layer to be fun and meaningful I think its necessary to try and represent units as their real life counterparts.

 

[AlannaT]

With the introduction of 1upt, Civ is a tactical combat game (tries to be) as much as it is an empire building strategy game. For the tactical layer to be fun and meaningful I think its necessary to try and represent units as their real life counterparts.

For me units don't need to be very historically correct. I am fine with generic units being an amalgam of several historic inspirations. Nonetheless I would appreciate balance changes but those should evolve around the tactical / game side of things. If a combat system features several unit types and a rock - paper - scissors approach, it needs to implement those correctly. If melee crushes anti-cav but anti-cav struggles against cavallery there is something wrong.

The solutions to this inbalance can be historically inspired (like making anti-cav significantly cheaper) but they might as well be adjustments without historical considerations (like increasing base strength). The main concern for me is if those changes achieve their goal. And I think the goal should be that all unit types are equally viable uses of production in general(!) and that a unit type is only worth more in specific situations. It is okay if some units are better at attacking cities than others or if some units are better at pillaging. But every unit type should at least have one area where it is better than every one else. And if a unit has significant advantages (knights with high strength and high mobility) there should be some drawbacks (like high maintenance or no defensive terrain bonuses).

The numbers in this thread show that anti-cav falls short from just about every point of view. It is crushed by melee. It is mediocre against cavallery. Melee is equal or better at defending against ranged. It is not cheap. ...

When you look at the promotions for anti-cav it suggests that they are supposed to be defensive and supportive units that either excel against cavallery or can hold their ground against melee and strengthen nearby units. Judging from my attempts that's just not working (with maybe the exception of Pike & Shot) and the numbers here show me why.