Things that bug me about Civ 4 warfare.

[Troymk1]

1) Mounted types are often immune to First strike.
Exactly wrong. Missile troops in this game up to Modern infantry are exactly the sorts of troops mounted forces feared. Even heavily armoured Knights would go down to concentrated volleys of Missiles. In the Ancient & Medieval world the way to take out Archers was to walk up to them with shielded infantry in disciplined ranks. (eg Hoplites vs Persians, men-at-arms vs English longbows)

As a sidebar the Horsearcher unit should get immunity to First-strike as they are skirmishing, not charging mounted.

2) Longbows are Universal.
Should be an English unique unit. Enough said.

3) Mongol Keshiks are based on the wrong unit. They are a Medieval empire not an ancient one. Should be based upon Knight, with the same special abilities. If this was the best unique unit in the game I would not bat an eyelid. They won so many battles on the back of the excellent training & tactics of these men.

4) Macemen? No army ever used these as an exclusive weapon. I'm guessing this represents well armed/armoured medieval infantry. English and German Knights would often fight disounted for example.

5) Spanish Unique unit should be the Tercio...these Halberdiers/pikemen/musketmen dominated European warfare for generations.

6) Machineguns. ??? These should murder Riflemen, Grenadiers and Cavalry. They are the symbol of millions dead in the First World War, (and probably almost as many in the second) You should fear these greatly. In the game at the moment, they are auxillary defensive troops.

7) AT weapons. Amazingly the tech tree allows these troops to be built before you get tanks most games. True AT weapons didn't show up until well into WW2 unless you count Rommel's discovery that really big AA guns can destroy tanks!

8) No Logistics. There is no reason to keep a line of supply in this game. Leads to the stacks of Death phenomena. By Napoleonic times even though you fought set piece battles you still needed to maintain a line of supply (and this would force the battles at times) By World War 1 the lines were solidified. Troops out of supply at the end of a turn should take damage perhaps, with the option to airlift in supplies perhaps.

Anyways, Rant Mode off. Any comments or other points of contention?

 

[Stylesrj]

The AT gun is made before tanks for balance reasons. You don't want some guy to have built tanks and have no way to defend because you need to research tanks to get AT guns...
Just like essentially, you don't need Flight to have Rocketry and you don't need to research Flight to have soldiers that can shoot down planes.
It's all for balance reasons, like I said before

 

[Bayazid I]

1) Mounted types are often immune to First strike.
Exactly wrong. Missile troops in this game up to Modern infantry are exactly the sorts of troops mounted forces feared. Even heavily armoured Knights would go down to concentrated volleys of Missiles. In the Ancient & Medieval world the way to take out Archers was to walk up to them with shielded infantry in disciplined ranks. (eg Hoplites vs Persians, men-at-arms vs English longbows)

So what do you propose Mounted Troops should be effective against? It was always my thought the immunity to first strike came from the speed of the Mounted troops, i.e, not nearly as many volleys can be fired before the horse arrives at its weakly armored target. This is where the real advantage is anyway, the fear arising from a gigantic horse galloping towards you when all you posses is perhaps cotton "armor" and a short sword or perhaps even only a dagger to defend yourself from close range attacks.
I always thought this was the origin of the horse beats archer, archer beats spear, spear beats horse triangle... is this not the case?

Just being the devil's advocate a bit of course, I completely agree with you on points 2, 3, and 6.

 

[Goodgimp]

Machine Guns do murder rifles/grens/cavalry I wouldn't mind bumping up their strength a bit, but I like them a lot as-is, and they're available early in the tech tree. Throw some Drill onto them and not even siege weaponry is going to root them out of a city.

Supply lines would be great, but would be a better fit for a wargame. While you can warmonger in civ, it's always been more of a wider strategic game rather than a wargame (in my opinion).

 

[johnny5000]

1. I also thought that the way archers was countered was by rushing cavalry at them, reducing the number of volleys they could launch.

2. Agreed. The English longbow did more for English warfare than the redcoat.

6. The only problem I see here is if the strength of the machine gun was bumped up, it could throw the game balance way off. That said, it should be represented in-game as an extremely powerful defensive weapon. Maybe if they were given a big boost against infantry troops, but a penalty vs armor or something.

7. Maybe if there were some game mechanism that only allowed anti-tank weapons to be built after tanks started to be built. Or AA weapons after flight. It always bothers me a little when the counter to a weapon is allowed before the weapon is invented in-game.
Same thing with the UN banning nuclear weapons before the Manhattan project is completed. How would they know what they're banning?

 

[Evil Twin]

Same thing with the UN banning nuclear weapons before the Manhattan project is completed. How would they know what they're banning?

It turns out the entire UN council are fans of H.G. Wells.

 

[SlipperyJim]

Machine Guns do murder rifles/grens/cavalry I wouldn't mind bumping up their strength a bit, but I like them a lot as-is, and they're available early in the tech tree. Throw some Drill onto them and not even siege weaponry is going to root them out of a city.

Yes, Machine Guns are killer defenders against all of the above. Add a few Drill promotions, and they get even better. And against medieval troops? Fuggedaboutit.... One fortified Machine Gun with a few Drill promotions can slaughter an endless supply of Maces and Knights.

Machine Guns don't need to be upgraded. They're pretty terrifying as-is.

 

[Ethric]

I have no real opinion on 1-7, they seem allright to me. As for point 8, it has to an extent annoyed me too, but the monetary cost of having units outside your cultural borders would seem to be meant as an abstraction of the supply lines needed. The cost of them, anyway. I assume the thought is that going into further detail on the issue would be fiddly and add little in the way of gameplay.

The logistics-thing is mostly annoying in the begining, where you starting warrior or scout can just wander away to the end of the world as long as there's land. In those early times, there isn't really much for the unit cost in foreign lands to be an abstraction of (and you need several for it to go above 0 anyway). It might have been a good idea if you couldn't go to far away from your borders early on, with a tech or two expanding how far you could go. Last tech ought to free you completely, and this should come fairly early, perhaps optics + one more tech, to allow caravles to circumvent. While also keeping the cost in monies for tropps abroad of course.

 

[Say_my_name]

Yes, Machine Guns are killer defenders against all of the above. Add a few Drill promotions, and they get even better. And against medieval troops? Fuggedaboutit.... One fortified Machine Gun with a few Drill promotions can slaughter an endless supply of Maces and Knights.

Machine Guns don't need to be upgraded. They're pretty terrifying as-is.

Yep. Every Gunpowder unit, except for the late ones (Mech Inf. and Marines) gets murdered by the the machinguns +50% against gunpowder units, and everything else up to Artillery and Tanks doesn't have enough strength to scratch them.

 

[Rusty Edge]

You make some great points, most of which have been mentioned or discused here before. I think the spanish UU suggestion is original .

I think supply logistics aren't included in the game because they fall in the category of increased programming and playing complexity with decreased fun for most people.


I'm fine with the anti- tank units being available to civs without tanks.
It takes an internal combustion engine to power a tank, but you don't need to know how to make one to stop a tank.
Soldiers, armies, and nations adapt existing technology and tactics to survive as the need arrises.

Tanks are self-propelled bunkers of sorts. Usually some kind of artillery is used against them, but explosives , incindieries and spades can all be employed by dedicated anti-tank forces.

 

[Soneji]

I don't upgrade MG either, they slaughter most up till tanks.

And if it gets to that stage, whats the point?

 

[Lurking Liu]

Ironically Cavalry is a good counter to Machine Guns... They're not Gunpowder units (Mounted), and their strength is only slightly less (15 vs 18). Give them Flanking II to make them immune to First Strikes and then all of a sudden two Cavalry can get your attack on the move again...

 

[Troymk1]

Let me answer each in turn.

1) The increased size of the target (mounted troops) more than negates their extra speed. Best defence against Missiles is a Shield, and you simply cannot shield a Horse. Cataphracts (Sassanids, Romans, Byzantines, Tibetans and some Chinese Dynasties) used massive frontal armour to walk up to enemy foot and kill them. But were clumsy and prone to countermeasures.

Most Mounted actually were a missile type. Ie they stood off their target and harrassed them with either skirmish or volley fire and the foot simply cannot get at them due to lack of speed. Some would charge in if the foot showed they were breaking up...Early Germanic types, Mongols, Arabs.

The exception to this is Western knights who sought to contact the enemy by charge. Their prey is actually the opponents mounted. They consistently destroyed/routed larger forces of Arab, Turk, and even Mongol Horse. Against foot they could sweep away the disorganized militia of their time but against veteran and disciplined troops were rather useless. (eg 100 years war) The better Knights belonged to Serbia, and France. Other nations often dismounted theirs to not only protect them but also to provide excellent heavy infantry.

As a sidenote. Mounted were excellent at turning a defeat into a disaster. They would pursue you until there was no-one left to kill. This happened right up to Napoleonic times.

2) I don't think balance is addressed by having the answer available before the tech. Perhaps we need a gradient of AT guns. Earlier forms would not be too effective (same as AA until SAMS)

3) I don't think machine guns are implemted properly, yes they are good. But can be taken out by a wave attack (Which is counter-intuitive). Perhaps they should do collateral damage!! Infantry should get a Bonus against them. The men finally learn to spread out

 

[Goodgimp]

Collateral damage from a defensive position like a machinegunner doesn't make sense. Who's to say what units you choose to send in? If I'm only planning on committing 3 units to the attack, why would they damage all the units in the stack?

Yes, machineguns fall to wave attacks, but really... that's game mechanics. Of course vast numbers of troops are going to have a better chance of overwhelming the position than small numbers. Pretend that the machine gunner is low on ammo on that point, or the guns have overheated

 

[Zhahz]

It's a game, not a history sim. If you keep that in mind, things like longbowmen only every being English, don't bother you at all. Even the seemingly illogical won't bother you (like units being balanced for gameplay as rock/paper/scissors instead of mirroring a reality the game doesn't portray).

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

here are my thoughts.

1) They have I have always understood it is the "best" way to take out archers was to outflank the other army and hit the archers from the side or from behind with the fastest most mobile troops you had--calvary.

And that what stopped calvary the "best" was heavy pole arm troops.

And the game reflects this nicely. It also works nicely in the "rock paper scissors" concept of the game. Each unit has a weakness and a strength. So in gameplay terms I think it works very well.

2) Sometimes what units are named bugs me. Like I think hoplite is better name for Greek UU than phalanx. But it doesnt bother me too much since the unit now works like I "feel" a hoplite should so I just think of them as hoplites and I'm happy.

So if thinking of them as longbows bugs you just think "advanced archer" or some other name that fits better.

3) What I understand is Keshiks were very fast light calvary archery units--argued by many the best of that type ever. That's how the game represents em as 1 of the best horser archers units in the game. Maybe the time period
is a little off but it still works in gameplay I think.

4)As with the longbows just think "heavy infantry"

5)I think probably every civ in the game has more than one "type" of unit that someone could argue as being a nice unit to represent that Civ's UU. And as for why they chose Conquistador over Tercio. My guess as to the reason can be explained by just going out and asking first 20 people you meet "what is a tercio?" and then "what is a conquistador?" Maybe that's the wrong reason for choosing a UU but I can see why firaxis would prefer using concepts the average person on the street would recognize more.

6) if any of those units attacked a fortified machine gun unit they *would* get slaughtered so I dont see why you think something is wrong on that point.

7)AT units were introduced as a game balance to prevent players from beelining to tanks and then dominating completely with JUST tanks and to help civs without access to oil from being overrun with JUST tanks. So in interest of gameplay over historical accuracy AT units are available a lil sooner than tanks are.

This specific decison doesnt bother me. And in general I STRONGLY agree with the principle that gameplay should have priority over historical "accuracy" if the two come into conflict.

8)"logistics" ARE taken into account in Civ4. In the terms of unit supply costs, unit maintence, city maintence and war weariness. But they chose to empasize it on a strategic level more than tactical.

Before going to war if you dont plan ahead and make sure your Civ has the industry, economy and society,to build and afford a big enough invasion force, afford to keep them in the field, and afford any cities you capture and handle war weariness you will be in trouble. So "logistics" is a consideration on that level.

It true that it not covered very much on tactictal level of having to maintain a specific supply line for a specific group of units. But I dont think thats very bad. I think probably the number 1 complaint of most players in general is that war can be long and tedious and drawn out as it is.

The reasoning behind this I think is for two main reasons. They did it this way I think to a prevent people from taking entire 10 plus city empires in one single turn like you could in civ2. And to encourage people to use multiple types of units instead of just making one single stack of doom of just one type of unit as you could in Civ3.

And aslo because maybe they thought if your are going to attack a huge rival civ the war SHOULD last more than one or two turns.

To do that they had to strike a balance of slwoing down combat enough to encourage what they wanted but NOT make it so slow it would become a tedious unfun nightmare. Now lots of people already feel that it is slowed down too much already. So slowing it down even more with supply lines wouldnt be the most popular move they could make. Maybe a few "purists" might be happier but I bet a much larger number of people would complain.

As for argument that this would end stack of doom players. You dont really understand mindset of people who like stacks of doom. If their mindset is "biger the stack the better". Then they wouldnt go "oh now I need supply lines so I will take a few units off my stack to protect the lines" most likely the thinkiing will be "ok I need stacks of doom to attack and others to defend the supply lines" So supply lines could just as likely result in MORE stacks of doom instead of less.

Kaytie

 

[GenocideBringer]

1) Mounted types are often immune to First strike.
Exactly wrong. Missile troops in this game up to Modern infantry are exactly the sorts of troops mounted forces feared. Even heavily armoured Knights would go down to concentrated volleys of Missiles. In the Ancient & Medieval world the way to take out Archers was to walk up to them with shielded infantry in disciplined ranks. (eg Hoplites vs Persians, men-at-arms vs English longbows)

Most cavalry either skirmish (horse archers) or are heavily armored (knights) and could withstand most missile punishment. That, and they're fast, so the archers can't really get off any volleys by the time they've been reached

.
2) Longbows are Universal.
Should be an English unique unit. Enough said.

probably, but there needs to be some type of advanced bowman.

4) Macemen? No army ever used these as an exclusive weapon. I'm guessing this represents well armed/armoured medieval infantry. English and German Knights would often fight disounted for example.

Same with Axemen. I don't know, perhaps they just didn't want to call them "Ancient Infantry" and "Medieval Infantry".

6) Machineguns. ??? These should murder Riflemen, Grenadiers and Cavalry. They are the symbol of millions dead in the First World War, (and probably almost as many in the second) You should fear these greatly. In the game at the moment, they are auxillary defensive troops.

In World War 1, they were ONE of the many reasons that defenses were extremely strong (the other being the lack of good artillery and other things). In World War 2, they were mobile support troops for the riflemen.

So no, they aren't omgwtfriflepwningmachines.

7) AT weapons. Amazingly the tech tree allows these troops to be built before you get tanks most games. True AT weapons didn't show up until well into WW2 unless you count Rommel's discovery that really big AA guns can destroy tanks!

Not true. There were some pretty early AT weapons out there; you make it seem like things like the bazooka were the first. Ever heard of AT grenades or AT rifles?

8) No Logistics. There is no reason to keep a line of supply in this game. Leads to the stacks of Death phenomena. By Napoleonic times even though you fought set piece battles you still needed to maintain a line of supply (and this would force the battles at times) By World War 1 the lines were solidified. Troops out of supply at the end of a turn should take damage perhaps, with the option to airlift in supplies perhaps.

Could possibly agree with this.

 

[Troymk1]

Most cavalry either skirmish (horse archers) or are heavily armored (knights) and could withstand most missile punishment. That, and they're fast, so the archers can't really get off any volleys by the time they've been reached
probably, but there needs to be some type of advanced bowman.

Why? Historically the Bow was usually a Low class weapon. I can name on one hand the times that Bowmen were considered elite. As for your premise above. Read some history. Mounted aren't too good vs volley fire, they would use mobility to get away and pick on something else.

Same with Axemen. I don't know, perhaps they just didn't want to call them "Ancient Infantry" and "Medieval Infantry".

Somewhat agreed. There was a leap in the early iron age where sword & javelin armed infantry started dominating the chariot dominated battlefield. (Sea Peoples etc) Funnily enough, the game gets this in exact reverse with chariots as early Axe killers.

In World War 1, they were ONE of the many reasons that defenses were extremely strong (the other being the lack of good artillery and other things). In World War 2, they were mobile support troops for the riflemen.

Artillery was actually very effective in this period. Most of the guns built here will see service in WW2. Machineguns are the reason you don't have the somewhat mobile wars of the 19th century, the Age of Bismarck. Where Machineguns aren't as thick on the ground, the Eastern front, you still see movement. Machineguns (since they are represented here by a seperate unit) should be amazingly dominant on Defence, more so than they are. So you need to bombard the crap out of them to nullify them somewhat,(historical) or use Armour (historical) or a combination of the above with airpower to isolate the front (historically late 1918 and Wehrmacht early WW2)

Another answer was the groundbreaking idea of hugging cover and using grenades etc. The Germans called these Stosstruppen in WW1 so again Infantry should be good at dealing with these nasty things.

Not true. There were some pretty early AT weapons out there; you make it seem like things like the bazooka were the first. Ever heard of AT grenades or AT rifles?

Of course I have and the PIAT, the Panzerscrek and Panzerfaust. The 2 you name were actually VERY bad. I'm not really talking about infantry carried weapons actually, they should be part of the basic stregth of the Infantry unit. AT weapons should represent dedicated weapons to take out tanks 57 mm and above. The reason the Germans won so many early WW2 battles is that the Alllies never seemed to 'get' until quite late that the answer to Tanks isn't Tanks. It's well positioned AT guns.

 

[GenocideBringer]

Why? Historically the Bow was usually a Low class weapon. I can name on one hand the times that Bowmen were considered elite. As for your premise above. Read some history. Mounted aren't too good vs volley fire, they would use mobility to get away and pick on something else.

Mainly for gameplay reasons (midgame would be changed quite a bit without such a unit). Regardless, even if bows were fairly low class MOST of the time, later bowmen would still have superior technology and such. Bows became better over time.

Artillery was actually very effective in this period. Most of the guns built here will see service in WW2. Machineguns are the reason you don't have the somewhat mobile wars of the 19th century, the Age of Bismarck. Where Machineguns aren't as thick on the ground, the Eastern front, you still see movement. Machineguns (since they are represented here by a seperate unit) should be amazingly dominant on Defence, more so than they are. So you need to bombard the crap out of them to nullify them somewhat,(historical) or use Armour (historical) or a combination of the above with airpower to isolate the front (historically late 1918 and Wehrmacht early WW2)

Another answer was the groundbreaking idea of hugging cover and using grenades etc. The Germans called these Stosstruppen in WW1 so again Infantry should be good at dealing with these nasty things.

Then why was WW2 such a mobile war? If machine guns were superlolwtfriflekillingmachines, then why wasn't the war fought like World War 1? Why not just slap MGs around every corner and make it impossible to advance?

Of course I have and the PIAT, the Panzerscrek and Panzerfaust. The 2 you name were actually VERY bad. I'm not really talking about infantry carried weapons actually, they should be part of the basic stregth of the Infantry unit. AT weapons should represent dedicated weapons to take out tanks 57 mm and above. The reason the Germans won so many early WW2 battles is that the Alllies never seemed to 'get' until quite late that the answer to Tanks isn't Tanks. It's well positioned AT guns.

Well for their time, the ones I mentioned weren't bad at all. They only became bad when tanks got heavier armor.

Regardless, this is a nonissue. For gameplay reasons, mainly. AT was added so that early tanks don't suddenly roll over everything in their path like they used to. If AT came later, it might be a bit more historically accurate, but it would be a return to the tank zerg of vanilla Civ IV.

 

[Troymk1]

Genocide.

You're coming at my post from the wrong angle. I'm detailing historical reasons why some things in Civ 4 annoy me. And I would put it to you I can back them up pretty well.

I realise that to make 'me' happy, the unit types and their relationships with each other would need a total re-write. Even so I'm toying with that idea!


To answer your specifics.

I already detailed what defeated machineguns. And the main ingredient is Infantry tactics. Even to this day the squad Machinegun is so important that all the tactics I was taught in my reserve days emphasised getting that firepower to bear and protecting/supporting it. Obviously Tanks tend to trivialize them if the MGs aren't supported by some sort of AT. You would notice that when the terrain wasn't suitable for Armour that machineguns came to the fore again...