The UU-A-Day Countdown

The Sipahi is going to be one of the most awesome UU along with Janissary, Legion, Musketeer & the Elephants. :)
 
I think an extra range is over-powered. It'd be very difficult for melees to get to them.

What would be wierd to me is that they would have 3X the range of rifles and tanks.


I suppose if I were designing the game I would have tried for distinctions between range and indirect fire...

A crossbow or musket for example, would have range, but it would hit the 1st unit directly in front of it, unless they were on a hill. Longbows could shoot over, as the game mechanics for V currently exist.

Rifles and canons, and sailing ships would have longer range direct fire. Imperial mortars would have indirect fire.

Anyway, you get the idea. Tanks would be real bad axx's, not shorter range weapons than archers. [/Rant]
 
I'd thought of the possibility of distinguishing between indirect fire units (archers, modern artillery, catapults, etc.) and those that can't do indirect fire but do have 2-3 range (muskets, rifles, etc.) that can't bombard a unit if another unit is in the way. But that seems rather confusing and very exploitable, since with roads/railroads you could have your 25 ranged strength 25 melee strength Riflemen run and shoot repeatedly, and still be able to take on any cavalry that managed to catch up without much problem unlike actual indirect fire units.

Still, it's probably moddable.
 
wouldnt a bonus be referring to something positive and a penalty refer to something negative? i read it as they wont get any positive defensive modifiers but they will still get negative

I don't actually see a major problem with cavalry/mounted not receiving the flat-land penalty as the added manoevurability of mounted units should be able to take advantage of the open land to avoid enemy "ranged" attacks - i.e., they can overcome the lack of cover that the flat-land penalty represents.
 
Any chance we can either:
A) get likes in the OP to the initial post for each UU
B) get a mod to split each UU into its own thread

?
 
Any chance we can either:
A) get likes in the OP to the initial post for each UU
B) get a mod to split each UU into its own thread

?

I think you mean "links" instead of "likes". This is CFC not Facebook :)
 
wouldnt a bonus be referring to something positive and a penalty refer to something negative? i read it as they wont get any positive defensive modifiers but they will still get negative

Bonus doesn't necessarily mean positive.. you could have a 'negative bonus' Civ V is the first time Negative Defensive Terrain Bonuses have been intordced in the normal game, but I would see it as just saying mounted units (in general) aren't affected by terrain defense bonuses.
 

a "negative bonus" would therefore be bad. An example being the Terrain bonus of -33% Strength to defenders in open terrain. The name of the value might imply something good, but it is only good if the number is positive.

Just like if your employer gave you a bonus of -100$, it wouldn't be good, but it would act exactly like a bonus of +100$
 
You are talking about a Malus then ;) Bonus literally means "good thing" :p, while Malus is the exact oposite ( "bad thing", not "good non-thing" :D )

And do you think that civ developers would reword the phrase when the numbers work just the same (ie ignore this number in calculating strength...but only if the number is positive)

While it is possible that the 'ability' technically ignores positive modifications to defensive strength due to terrain, more likely it technically ignores all modifications to defensive strength due to terrain.

The first option is possible, but it would cause extreme problems with mounted units, and I wouldn't expect the designers to necessarily put in (bonuses or penalties) for the second option.
 
Krikk,

A bonus is a positive advantage, like +25% defensive strength in rough terrain.
A pentalty is a negative disadvantage, like -33% defensive strength in open terrain.

Thiers no such thing as a "negative bonus", this by default would be a penatly.

To give a bonus, you must do just that, give something extra for a particular action, e.g +25% defensive strength for being in a rough tile.
To give a penatly, you have to do the opposite,, you have to take something away for a particular action, e.g -33% Defensive Strength for being in an open tile.

Hopefully you understand now. A "Negative Bonus" is incorrect terminology because in the case of a "Negative Bonus" you are giving a reduction, which is not correct English, you take away this reduction, you don't add it on.
 
A malus is a hammer! Hasn't anyone else played Diablo 2...? ;)

I'm really busy today, so no time for big analysis, so I'll do the American Minuteman. Famous for their local advantage during the American Revolution, this unit gets a bonus to combat in friendly territory.

It's a Musketman that's good on defense. No brilliant generalship needed to unlock its potential here. I was at a convention all day, this UU is boring, and we might as well get it over with now.
 
lmao, yeah, that pretty much sums it up. If you were somehow perfectly fine with offense or defense before but are worried about being overrun as soon as gunpowder is invented, it's perfect for you. I suppose if you don't want any wars, it's also great for obsoleting any Longswordsmen you have and ensuring that you're entering the new era with all upgradable units (assuming LS aren't, they could very well be). I suppose it theoretically pairs with the UA in the sense that you can buy more tiles for the defensive bonus, but that's not all that special.
 
Cho-Ko-Nu:
This unit is rather interesting. Since I'm not sure how the combat works, I don't know how effective it will be. Is attacking twice with 10 strength the same as attacking once with 20 strength? Are ranged attacks weaker than melee attacks? Does using a ranged attack count as using a move? The way I see it, they could either be an amazing defensive unit, or a superpower attacking/seige unit like they were in Civ4.

Sipahi:
I don't know about the exact effects that the wording of the Sipahi's description means in terms of its defensive capabilities, but this unit is kinda weird to me. I'm not sure why everyone thinks it's so great. The main draw is it's additional movement point, but I don't really have a good concept in how much that would help in flanking maneuvers. The pillaging effect doesn't sound that attractive. I war to take cities, not to horse around and pillage stuff, pun not intended. And if you're dealing with pillaging the improvements of cities you won't be able to take, then you're going pretty deep into enemy territory where one pikeman could probably kill you. Of course, this could be a very annoying unit to play against if it slips past your line and starts mad pillaging all your hard earned improvements. My guess is that the AI will definitely make use of the pillaging ability.

Minuteman:
I guess if you insist, this unit isn't all that interesting. I'd say it's pretty useless unless you're in multiplayer. The way I see it, if the AI is invading you and you're struggling to the point where you need to rely on the bonus of a UU to fight them off, you've lost the game already. That, and they probably won't be too useful for the AI because with a slight tech lead, you could easily bring out Riflemen against them and tear right through their defense.
 
I'm a little ambivalent on the Minuteman. We all saw how loathed Protective became as a trait in CIV since if you're on the defensive (i.e. your cities are being bombarded, which was the main strength of Protective) you're losing. Or at least not winning as much as you should be. :lol:

An defense oriented ability like Protective may be limited, but at least you can plan around having it. A defense oriented UU like the Minuteman (or at least a home-turf-oriented) is something that not only will be of very limited value in terms of leveraging the advantage, but also in terms of length of that advantage. You can't plan on having beefed-up defenses like you can with Protective, since you'll only have them from Gunpowder to Rifling (which, incidentally, are separated by one tech).

HOWEVER (and this is a big however), this may end up having a perfect synergy with America's SA. If Manifest Destiny actually has a marked impact on America's land-grab potential, which would likely result in having some decent holdings by cutting off adversaries' settlers, there's a chance that Minutemen could be instrumental as a holding measure in the perilous mid-game period of "I spent a ton of opportunity to grab this land and now I can't do anything until my cities get better." Of course, expansion doesn't seem to be as huge of an economic drain as it was in CIV, but it does seem like they're still keeping in some penalties for rampant land grabs to keep smaller empires from being totally nonviable. Being able to cheaply hold on to your territory when the neighbors get jealous of your vast holdings is probably exactly what the devs had in mind here. And depending on a few variables (how big is the bonus, how large will Renaissance America be, will the penalties for that expansion necessitate a holdout against other civs, etc.), they may be absolutely perfect for that role.


[edit]Come to think of it, the Protective trait and other defensive specials remind me of complaints a lot of Priests had in Burning Crusade-era arena: our best PvP ability requires us to die first. :lol:
 
Minutemen aren't that bad. Yes, it has limited leverage, but if you can either attack or pillage like in CIV, than it's unlikely that you'll lose a lot of industry by fighting on the edge of your terrain. So, if you have someone fighting you, you let them come into your territory and beat their army with Minutemen. Then, you push them back into their territory and defeat them.

Then there's the other thing about CiV-- if you take a city, its tiles all become yours. Meaning you can grab a border city while at war, and suddenly the opponent is fighting at a huge disadvantage compared to you. The Minutemen will require a capable general, but they can be leveraged.
 
The problem is that they can be leveraged the most while you are losing the war. This means that they might stop you from losing a city, or make you lose a lot fewer cities, but will be very little help in making you gain cities. Thus, they are hard to leverage as they being in a position to do so generally requires you to be losing a defensive war. For the AI this is a great UU as it might dissuade the player from attacking them for an age or two, but for the human it hard to actively benefit from it by persuing a particularly strategy.

Thus, I rank it as one of the worst UUs.
 
Well, it also depends on what constitutes "Friendly Territory"

Will the tiles that come with a conquered city constitute "Freindly Territory" if so...then the minuteman could be perfect...once you actualy take an eemy city, it becomes harder for them to take it back... good for beach head reinforcement.
 
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