Umm, Jaguar warriors?`This has to be a bug right?

[robcheng]

But I think you do have a point. Jaguars are LIFE-SAVING without iron, but disappointing WITH iron. I think the Aztecs need to be able to build the regular swordsman as well, in these cases.

Actually, jags are only LIFE-SAVING if you lack iron, copper, AND horses.

If you have only horses, jags are nice as they can help you fend off enemy spears, but they're not critical (in SP, early horse rushes can often catch the AI off-guard anyway)

If you have copper, jags are marginal since axes will often be more useful (and more cost effective) than jags.

 

[Mujadaddy]

2nd game. Aztecs vs Rome. I get mining,Bronze working, iron working, build one warrior and a settler. IW came 3 or so turns before my settler finished, I immediately go for a jag after the settler finished.

I declare war on caesar, walk in with my first jag and find his first expansion city. Well, I think, perhaps I should wait but one swordsman should be able to pretty easilly handle 1 archer in a city with no culture bonus.

Nope, oops it was a jag not a swordsman. Jag dies.

My second 2 jags come quickly behind him and take the city. Now I've got the ai bottled up on a peninsula and I'm sending jags in. I fortify one of the two outside his city while the other one defends (he has 3 archers in rome so I'm not going to try to assault with just what I have so far).

I wait a bit, and now have 5 jags vs his 4 archers. Unfortunately rome is size 8 now.

I assault. 4 jags go down to his 2 archers...

So I wait to build more units and start the road to cats.

Right now (eh 400 bc or so)I've got maybe 6 or 7 jags, am just starting to get out cats, and will almost certainly take the city but will do it much much later than I did as rome.

What was all this about then?

Question 1: Did Rome have Iron Working yet?
Question 2: You HAD 5 jaguars, right? Did you pillage up the place?

Commentary 1: With Praetorians, you would have had different results, obviously. NOT necessarily with Swordsmen, and you wouldn't have FIVE swordsmen.
Commentary 2: IMO, your City Assault Tactics need work. Praetorians, from your earlier example, take the tactics right out, as they are Uber. Pillage the city's resources. Starve his commerce---no production and NO routes to Iron... SPREAD OUT --- Give the AI an excuse to attack YOU....the AI will jump at single units out in the open, and then that unit has battle damage (assuming it p0n3s the Jaguar--if the Jag wins, even better!)... I'm not trying to talk down to you, btw...but when it comes to Civ4, we are all learning.

Also, Jaguars are 5.5 out of the box, aren't they? (Combat I = +10%) That doesn't hurt... Jaguars are the "nega-Praetorian" as has been alluded to... Their rush has to be faster, bigger, and smarter.

Back to Combat Tactics---Impatience is Strategic Death.

 

[Dracleath]

Question 1: Did Rome have Iron Working yet?
Question 2: You HAD 5 jaguars, right? Did you pillage up the place?

Commentary 1: With Praetorians, you would have had different results, obviously. NOT necessarily with Swordsmen, and you wouldn't have FIVE swordsmen.
Commentary 2: IMO, your City Assault Tactics need work. Praetorians, from your earlier example, take the tactics right out, as they are Uber. Pillage the city's resources. Starve his commerce---no production and NO routes to Iron... SPREAD OUT --- Give the AI an excuse to attack YOU....the AI will jump at single units out in the open, and then that unit has battle damage (assuming it p0n3s the Jaguar--if the Jag wins, even better!)... I'm not trying to talk down to you, btw...but when it comes to Civ4, we are all learning.

Also, Jaguars are 5.5 out of the box, aren't they? (Combat I = +10%) That doesn't hurt... Jaguars are the "nega-Praetorian" as has been alluded to... Their rush has to be faster, bigger, and smarter.

Back to Combat Tactics---Impatience is Strategic Death.

Well, seeing as the ai had no resources on it's little peninusula and I had him bottled up in is starting city with no other cities, somehow I doubt cutting off his roads would have really helped that much .


The ai was winning >50% with archers. Just basic archers defending his city.

Nice try though.

 

[Alphidius]

The fact that the Jag is a resouceless unit is huge. Iron is a relatively scarce resource on the map. Not only do you not need iron to build Jags, you don't even have to spend 4-5 turns hooking up a source you might have anyway. Rush for Iron Working right at the start of the game, and go kick some butt. If you don't believe me, you haven't faced a human opponent in MP who's using the Aztecs.

Montezuma is Aggressive, so all Jags start with Combat I already. With a barracks in your city, you can grab a second promotion and take the very-useful Cover or Melee promotions as well. These make a very big deal! The Jag had 6 strength at one point in time in testing, but it was so monstrously overpowered that we pushed it back to 5 strength, where it's pretty nicely balanced. Please keep in mind that the developers are not idiots, we did run some tests on this, and determined that this was the best outcome. Of course, you are also free to disagree.

Exactly my point of view!!
Nuff said, Sullla has spoken!!

 

[zeeter]

How often do we start a military buildup before having Iron Working? I never do. Not because of the Iron, just because I'm too busy building cities and protecting my settlers from Barbs with Archers. When I'm ready to settle down and start building military I'm usually just founding iron. So to me, the Jaguar is kinda useless unless there's no iron around. I'm not going to choose my civ, though, based on the possibility that there might not be iron nearby.

 

[narmox]

I do pretty often. I build spears and archers and some chariots and horse archers, they come VERY useful in early wars, and I do fight early wars before Iron Working (not always by choice either!).

I read one good tip that appeared while I was starting a game - don't always promote units immediately, wait to see what you're up against. That way if you have a jag with 2 promotions and you go up to a city and find it full of archers, add some Cover promotions, while if you see it's defended by spearmen add some Shock promotions, etc.

Sometimes that comes in handy

 

[rube203]

One option of making the Jaguar a better unit that I haven't read yet is to make it available earlier. It seems weird to me that you would need to discover Iron Working to build a unit that is good, only because it requires no iron to build... A secondary mod if this isn't good enough would be to have the option to build swordsmen when you do get Iron Working later.

 

[Alphidius]

One option of making the Jaguar a better unit that I haven't read yet is to make it available earlier. It seems weird to me that you would need to discover Iron Working to build a unit that is good, only because it requires no iron to build... A secondary mod if this isn't good enough would be to have the option to build swordsmen when you do get Iron Working later.

I agree on that. Jaguar should come before Iron Working

 

[Arkanin]

You assume that an small advantage in a situation that constitutes a very small percentage of games is equivalent to a large disadvantage in every other game that you play. I disagree.

The man has a point. Personally, I'd give jaguars 6 strength instead of 5 and call it a day. At any rate, they deserve something. Anyway, the fact that Sulla is a very experienced player doesn't make everything Sulla says right. I'll go out on a massive limb and disagree on this one.

 

[dh_epic]

I waited until after my first wave to build barracks. If this is a mistake so be it but if I'd waited that would have given my opponent 8-10 more turns and he'd probably have reinforced his second city by then.

This IS a mistake.

Any amount of reinforcement that someone can do to their second city is moot if it's their second city, with very little culture. Without any cultural defence, your jags will be in a playground, especially with a city raider promotion.

And if you take this city, you don't even have to hook it up to your main empire to be able to produce more jaguars to finish the job. You don't need iron. That's huge.


Strategy point #2:
Consider upgrading your first jaguar or two with the woodsman promotion, and hope to encounter an animal along the way. With woodsman 2, they can move VERY quickly through forests towards the enemy, and apply the choke. Applying the choke can make it easier for when you produce enough backup.

Which brings me to my next point.

Strategy point #3:
If you don't have enough troops to safely take down their city, you need to choke their city so they're unlikely to produce anything of value. Steal their workers, pillage improved tiles, and try to sit on the most valuable tiles.

The fact that Rome reached population 8 is an indication that you have yet to master an early game rush -- no matter how much success you've had with praets.

 

[Alphidius]

Ok to each his or her own like I said.

Those who wish edit the unit stats, open up the CIV4UnitInfos.xml file and search under Jaguar. Within the tabs <UnitInfo> & </UnitInfo>, are all the Jaguar Warrior stats. Look under <iCombat> to change their strength.

Please BACKUP before doing any changes, period. And this may not work under MP, so DO IT AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!

For me I'll give them <iFirstStrikes>1</iFirstStrikes>
Jaguar Warriors, charge!!!!!!!

 

[Dracleath]

This IS a mistake.

Any amount of reinforcement that someone can do to their second city is moot if it's their second city, with very little culture. Without any cultural defence, your jags will be in a playground, especially with a city raider promotion.

And if you take this city, you don't even have to hook it up to your main empire to be able to produce more jaguars to finish the job. You don't need iron. That's huge.


Strategy point #2:
Consider upgrading your first jaguar or two with the woodsman promotion, and hope to encounter an animal along the way. With woodsman 2, they can move VERY quickly through forests towards the enemy, and apply the choke. Applying the choke can make it easier for when you produce enough backup.

Which brings me to my next point.

Strategy point #3:
If you don't have enough troops to safely take down their city, you need to choke their city so they're unlikely to produce anything of value. Steal their workers, pillage improved tiles, and try to sit on the most valuable tiles.

The fact that Rome reached population 8 is an indication that you have yet to master an early game rush -- no matter how much success you've had with praets.

Yeah I did all of that, parked jags outside the city, etc.

The point isn't that I wasn't successful. I was. I crippled rome early, took their second city, limited them to one city, stopped them from expanding, and was sitting outside their walls ready to storm the city when I got catapultps.


The problem is that none of this is stuff that that's remarkable enough to constitute requiring a penalty to the aztecs. Being able to cripple a civ and knock them out by 1AD isn't a unique ability for aztecs and isn't bent upon having jag warriors or anything else, it's the exact same standard of play I end up having with any aggressive civ I play when starting next to someone.

I can do the exact same thing I did with japanese, mongolians, greeks, romans, etc. Jaguar warriors didn't help at all. The sole modification the strategy needs is waiting until IW to drop your second city and building a worker at some point. If you've got Iron or copper you're better off than the aztecs are. If you've got horses, which you can tell on turn one of the game, you shouldn't have been doing an IW rush in the first place, you should've dropped the city by the horses in the first place and grabbed hunting/archery/thewheel/horseback riding as your initial techs, built horsebowmen, and ran interdiction with those which are much better at doing the kind of resource denial techniques you describe than jaguars anyway and are competant city raiders once you get catapults (and can sustain you militarilly for the 20 or 25 turn delay until you get down ironworking anyway).

If none of the above are true then jags are great. But I've never had a game where I didn't have iron, copper, OR horses. I'm not choosing a civ based on that and I don't think not requiring one of those resources is an adequate justification for slapping a penalty onto a civilization that lasts well into the middle ages.

 

[Rowain deWolf]

Besides the fact that I completly trust Sullla when he says a Str 6 Jag has been proven to be overpowered I can only talk about my experiences.

a) Archipelago map/Prince-dif. I (Lizzie) start together with Roosevelt on a small Island. When i discovered how small the Island was I didn't bother to build settlers but went the mining line and build a Rax. Got lucky as i had Iron under my Capital. Teddy had nothing so I easily wiped him and got his 3 cities. Had it been Monty instead of Teddy I would have been toast.

b) Continental map/Prince Started next to Ghandi who to his misfortune lacked Iron/Copper and got squashed. Lizzie (started between Lizzie and Ghandi) is trying to get some Iron connected but thats a thing I don't plan to let happen . Again if any of those 2 would have access to a resourcefree Str 5 Unit it would be a different story.

So 2 out of 5 games that have developed far enough I could bring the hurt down on an AI simple because the AI could not field any good Units.

So I can imagine that having a Str5 Unit without bothering about resources is a nice and good benefit.

War Elephant
8 strength
availible at construction (comparatively iron working is 3 techs in, construction 4)

That's BS: IW needs Mining(Starter), BW and the third tech is already IW;
Construction needs Mathe, Writing, Masonry, Animal Husbandry and 2 startr Techs(Mining, Agri for example) So Constr is just the 5th tech you can discover while IW is the second one. Besides the Way to IW is alot cheaper than the way to Construction.

 

[Dracleath]

How do you know you'd have been in trouble in either of those cases?

I'm assuming in both those games you had access to iron. In either case then the same result would have happened.

If your capital is on an iron square especially you'd have mopped him up.

Try it, go start a duel game vs montezuma AI on pangea, rush to swordsmen, see how much his jags help him if he's even got more than one out.

Jags are especially not useful to the ai because it doesn't know how to use them, ex. in my first game a human player would have skipped archery and had 3 or 4 jags defending rather than archers, the AI just doesn't know how to use them that way.

So what ends up happening is that the AI blows the opportunity when jags are useful (I've never seen an AI, montezuma or otherwise, do a real attack in the early stages of the game, the closest was an egyptian stack appearing on my doorstep with war chariots and swordsmen in 500 bc in another game, it was a decent attack but by that time I had 3 archers per city and walls up so it wasn't too much of a real threat) and then suffers until it gets macemen, just like any human player that isn't planning to just jag rush 4tw.

 

[warpstorm]

One thing to consider is that the UUs were balanced not against the AI, but rather against human MP players. There are a lot of MP players that love the early rush.

 

[Junuxx]

everyone is forgetting one thing about the Jaguar.

They are the coolest looking unit in the game.

It is worth giving up the 1 attack rating, just because they look badass.

Exactly!
Man, have you seen this spinning attack

 

[Dracleath]

What if the Jaguar warrior were left as they are but moved to another technology that was about as hard to get but in a seperate tech path, I'm thinking possibly priesthood here, and the swordsman was added back to their unit list? Would anyone have any real objection to this (assuming of course that the specific technology is open for discussion)? Because I think this would be a much better solution.

 

[Astax]

But I've noticed that resources are quite abundant in Civ4 and I didn't have a resource problem yet. So I don't know if the "no iron required" thing would really be that much of an advantage.

Dude try playing on tiny! I played multi yesterday agianst this guy using my religion start and I had no frikin horses on my continent! Add to it my iron was in some desert tile on the other side of the continent and there was no COPPER! I wish I had aztec then, but sadly that's not the civ I use for the strat No Iron requirement is pretty cool. Plus defense bonus means you dont have to bring archers with you if you are comming at him from woods.

Oh yeah I still won even thou I had no resources

 

[Astax]

What if the Jaguar warrior were left as they are but moved to another technology that was about as hard to get but in a seperate tech path, I'm thinking possibly priesthood here, and the swordsman was added back to their unit list? Would anyone have any real objection to this (assuming of course that the specific technology is open for discussion)? Because I think this would be a much better solution.

Problem is all UU are replacements of existing unit and they always have to be same type as the unit they replace.

 

[Astax]

Actually mayeb they could make em replacement for Axeman, that would actually make sense :/