Unbalanced UUs?

[fortytwo]

I love playing with Rome and Russia, just two name a couple examples, because their UU has such a clear and obvious advantage and usefulness.

Does anyone else find some of the UU's a bit lacking? I think the UUs for each civ, with the exception of India, whose UU is quite nice, should have some sizable military advantage for their era. For example, the Panzer, besides being a late-game UU, which has it's own disadvantage, it is kind of "meh" compared to the tank, especially if your opponent doesn't have them yet!

I'll take the ~40% stregnth bonus the Praetorian has over the swordman instead of the 1-2 first strikes that come as a UU bonus for other Civs. Is it just me?

 

[Samson]

I really think rome is overpowered, with the preat and the organised trait. The thing about the preat is that the UU comes so early. In this vital stage of the game you can easily kill archers, and the AI still pumps them out. They are still usefull against longbow men, so have a massive window of oportunity.

I do not think the cossak is game changing in the same way, as it come so late and is not a long way short of infantry which mostly obsoletes them.

 

[Diceclock]

Redcoats are overpowered. Grenadiers, which are suppose to counter Riflemen (Redcoat is a UU Riflemen), don't counter Redcoats. Calvary, which can at least give a Rifleman a challenge, can't touch a Redcoat. You can use them for 400+ years if you get them early, with only Infantry finally barely outclassing them. A promoted Redcoat can easily kill an unpromoted Infantry as well.

Riflemen = 14

Grenadier = 18 vs. Riflemen & Redcoats (12 + 50% vs. Riflemen)

Redcoat = 20 (16 + 25% vs. Gunpowder & Mounted)

Promoted Redcoat = 27 (16 + 25% vs. Gunpowder (natural), + 10% Str, +25% vs. Gunpowder (promotion))

Unpromoted Infantry = 25 (20 + 25% vs. Gunpowder (natural))


Combine that with Elizabeth, Mining & Fishing, 100% Pop Growth, Financial, and you've got a hell of a Civ.


Chinese Cho-ko-Nu are overpowered if used correctly. STR 9 vs Melee, 2 FSs, Collateral Dammage. They're cheap, as good as a Longbow defending, as good as Seige attacking. Send a Stack at a city, and watch the Collateral Dammage add up.

Chinese start with Mining & Agriculture, and their leaders have great traits (Both Financial)

 

[scooter]

Ya I agree that the chinese cho ko nu can be very good if you use them right. they're part of the reason that qin is my favorite leader to play with currently. the financial/industrious IMO is tough to beat.

 

[fortytwo]

I see the UUs as a very underutalized aspect of the game. A greater separation can exist between them and the unit they replace without neccacarily giving that civ too much of an advantage. Why not have a UU that costs 2-3x as many hammers, with 2x as much stregnth, but that would make them that much more important to keep alive. Such as giving the Greeks a Baliste? Or a UU that costs 2-3x less hammer but has very little stregnth?

I think if UUs are going to have a primarily defensive bonus, it should be massive, moreso than the Skirmisher, and preferably something like terrain bonus, not city.

Usefullness has a lot to do with Era as well. The Cossak, for example, arrives at a time in the game when war is likely, and makes mince-meat of Cavalry, not to mention canons. Panzer, Marine, not so.

If I could remake the game, I would place all the UUs between the Ancient and Industrial age (and give them sizable differences in bonus and in hammer cost). Bonus for UUs need not overlap, they just need to inspire you to strategize a war based on their advantages, and for their advantages be worth utalizing the unit offesively.

Good bonus:

- Stregnth, signficant that is. (Praetorian)
- Bonus Move/Ignore terrrain movement costs (Musketmen, Keshik)
- Collatoral Damage (Cho-Ko-Nu only?!)
- +% vs. gunpowder (Redcoat only?!)
- +% vs. melee (Samauri, Cho-Ku-No, Conquistador)
- =% vs. Archer (Quecha, Immortal)
- 2 first strikes (Samauri, Conquistador)

not so good:

- Can Withdraw
- Immune to first strike
- +% City Attack
- +% City defense

 

[Lance of Llanwy]

Praetorians and Redcoats are quite overpowered. Praetorians are only just countered by axeman, and the Roman player can easily keep properly promoted axemen and horse archers of their own in reserve to help deal with axemen. They're also perfectly usable until gunpowder, giving them a ridiculous window of usefulness. Compare that to....say...the Musketeer.

The Redcoat, quite simply, doesn't have a counter. Add in the fact that you can promote all your older units(especially those city raiders) and they're monstrously overpowered, as they have a sizable advantage over the two principle gunpowder units of the age, with their own gunpowder bonus and the rifleman's base cav bonus. And they can get pinch and formation to greaten their advantage over their contemporaries. Cannons, with their comparatively pitiful strength and late arrival, don't help them out much.

Cossacks are also overpowered, though not nearly as much as the other two. Their base strength bonus is simply huge, considering that cav is already the most powerful unit(in raw strength) in the era already, and that you can get them very quickly, especially with Catherine. In fact, if you cottage-spammed well enough, you could conceivably get Cossacks while your opponent is still in the Medieval age.....or just getting Musketmen. If you don't win through conquest or domination at that point, the achievement of space race or diplo victory is, at that point, a foregone conclusion.

In conclusion, they need some nerfing, but, being unaware of the exact mechanics of the battle system, I'm not entirely sure how to go about it. My suggestion for each of them would be to lop off 1 power, leaving Praetorians with 7 strength(which is probably still enough to eat archers for breakfast and even stand up to the occassional axeman. Take off the 5 extra hammers of course), 15 strength for the redcoat(making grenadiers a more feasible, if shaky, counter), and 17 strength(see the redcoat, except for riflemen)....

 

[fortytwo]

See, I would rather keep it how it is and give the other Civs an equally robust UU, at a different era. A UU should correlate to the Era that a given Civ is most dominant. Every Civ deserves their own era, or partial-era, before Modern.

 

[Solo4114]

Yeah, I'd rather have the overpowered units than nerf them to uselessness or impracticability.

Remeber, UUs REPLACE existing units, they don't supplement them. So, jacking up the cost for UUs actually hurts the civilization that has them for that era, since they're the only unit that civ has in that area. For example, if you made Phalanxes 2x as expensive as spearmen or something, how is Greece supposed to defend vs. mounted troops? In an age when Egypt, Persia, and Mongolia have pretty powerful mobile units, you need a counterbalance.

Plus, merely having access to the unit doesn't mean you're guaranteed to win. There's still the issue of units being worn down by numbers.

For example, I took some level 2 redcoats into battle against barbarians last night. I actually managed to lose one (he was already weakened and had a 60% chance of victory) in the process. They're strong, but not invincible.

EVERYTHING has a counter in this game and even a spearman CAN beat a tank (still) under the right circumstances.

Because it's all still just a numbers game, (IE: unit strength = unit health), weakened units CAN eventually be killed by considerably weaker units. And you almost always take damage when attacking unless there's a ridiculous tech disparity and you have terrain advantages to the enemy's disadvantages.

If the English are attacking you with their overpowered redcoats, you can work around this by either suing for peace and tech rushing to get machineguns for city defense (or something similar), or you can build hordes of weaker units quickly to try to wear the English down. Spam longbows in your cities to the point where, for example, an English force of 5 redcoats wouldn't be able to take your city of 15 archers or longbowmen or whathaveyou.

Likewise, combat isn't the sole solution here. Take Mansa Musa for example. That bastard ALWAYS is a thorn in my side if he isn't eliminated or seriously contained early on. His UU, while strong initially, is quickly outmatched or countered. And yet, due to his civ traits, he can be a powerful enemy even late in the game.


Something else to consider is that the strength of the nation's UU may be matched against the leader's traits. Elizabeth is financial, but she's also philosophical. You may not have a GP farm to take advantage of that until later on in the game. Likewise, your terrain my not be able to support widespread cottage spam


Now, all that said, I do think that the advantages offered by the UUs and traits -- COMBINED -- should balance out across civs. There shouldn't be clearly superior civs. All civs should be capable of winning, given the right playstyle. I mean, consider how much you adjust your playstyle when you play as Louis instead of Napoleon, ya know? Two totally different types of victories and different approaches to gameplay.

So, while a civ might have a weak UU, their leader traits may be incredibly strong when applied to a given strategy.

 

[Diceclock]

The real problem is that when the unit is so overpowered that not only doesn't it lose, it doesn't take much damage when it wins. The sweet spot is 1.8 (based off the infamous STR thread). If your 1.8 stronger, you'll probably win.

The problem is when your +4 Stronger, not only do you win, but you take very little damage quite often. So while a slightly bonused Longbowman can kill a half-dead Redcoat easily, it may take 5 dead Longbowmen before that Redcoat becomes half-dead.

 

[Solo4114]

Yeah, I know what you mean. One of the real problems with the game is that they got rid of armies as a concept. Even in Civ3, armies didn't really operate the way I'd like them to (they were usually just one unit attacks, then the other unit, then the other, until either you or the enemy were destroyed).

To my way of thinking, units grouped as an army should attack in unison. This makes the notion of a single regiment of archers being easily killed by a single regiment of riflemen make more sense, whereas 1500 screaming warriors WILL overwhelm and kill the 300 riflemen (See, Battle of Little Bighorn -- which actually wasn't just warriors, since a lot of the Native Americans were fielding Henry repeating rifles vs. the cavalry's breech-loading single-shot carbines).

As it stands, it's kind of hard to swallow that the single archer unit damages the single rifleman unit (or pick your unabalnced conflict) all that much, and since combat right now is just single units vs. single units....well, you get the picture.

I'd rather see units attack en mass in a way that combined arms gave combined bonuses -- which would further incentivize differentiation in your stacks. Your army of 5 praetorians could therefore be more vulnerable to, say, Alex's army of 2 phalanxes, 1 archer, and 2 horse archers, instead of it being praetorian vs. phalanx.

To some extent, the game already does this in terms of often picking the best defensive unit vs. the attacking unit. If you're about to attack a city with a pikeman and a crossbowman, and you've got both a knight and a maceman, watch what happens in the city when you select either the knight or the crossbowman -- the defending unit switches. That's good, but not good enough for my tastes.

 

[gunkulator]

The only counter to Redcoats is sacreficial Cannons to knock down their strength. By the time they are available, you should have Cannons, your military cities should have Barracks and you should have a decent amount of culture in your cities. So out in the open, start with Cannons and then finish with Cavalry. For cities, Rifles with Combat I, fortified in a 60% culture city defend with a strength of 14 (10% + 25% + 60%) = 27.3.

With Praetorians, I often don't even have Catapults yet when Caesar comes a knocking, let along barracks or high culture in cities.

 

[DerFritz]

Does anybody know what the rationale behind the English super-Redcoat is, anyway? IIRC the British Army was never all that special -- certainly the "redocats" were outclassed during their time by the Napoleonic French or the Prussian armies (c.f. Waterloo), to say nothing of that time they got spanked by a bunch of colonial militias The English UU ought to be the Privateer (replaces Caravel, +1 speed and can pillage w/o starting a war) or the Ship of the Line (replaces Frigate, +2 strength), thus representing the successful English stragegy of wrecking the enemy's trade and ruining their economy, then bribing somebody else to attack with their riflemen.

 

[The Tyrant]

Unbalanced UUs? Check my sig.

 

[DSChapin]

I feel like the designers didn't quite realize how much base combat strength trumps other bonuses. As I've said in another thread, STR 8 is vastly more powerful than STR 4 with a +100% vs. everything.

Because of the importance of base strength, the best UUs are the ones that dramatically increase it: Pretorians (6->8), Cossacks (15->18), and Redcoats (14->16). Skirmisher (3->4) is also nice, but only has a small window where it can be used on offense.

War Chariots would be good, except that Chariots in general are hard to conquer with. Phalanx is a powerful defense, but rarely an attack unit.

 

[Solo4114]

Does anybody know what the rationale behind the English super-Redcoat is, anyway? IIRC the British Army was never all that special -- certainly the "redocats" were outclassed during their time by the Napoleonic French or the Prussian armies (c.f. Waterloo), to say nothing of that time they got spanked by a bunch of colonial militias The English UU ought to be the Privateer (replaces Caravel, +1 speed and can pillage w/o starting a war) or the Ship of the Line (replaces Frigate, +2 strength), thus representing the successful English stragegy of wrecking the enemy's trade and ruining their economy, then bribing somebody else to attack with their riflemen.

The British waged a pretty succesful war against the French in Wellington's Peninsular campaign. Granted, much of that was due to Napoleon being busy elsewhere, but the Brits still did a damn fine job. Their approach to warfare at the time was to counter Napoleon's columns of troops with rapid, massed fire designe to wither, stop, and ultimately turn a French column in its tracks.

I think, however, that the bonuses the Redcoats receive are a bit inaccurate. I'd remove the bonus vs. other unit types and simply give them a STR of maybe 15 (instead of 14) and Drill I and/or II promotions to illustrate that the Brits could fire volley fire a LOT faster than their contemporaries.

 

[cabert]

Does anybody know what the rationale behind the English super-Redcoat is, anyway? IIRC the British Army was never all that special -- certainly the "redocats" were outclassed during their time by the Napoleonic French or the Prussian armies (c.f. Waterloo), to say nothing of that time they got spanked by a bunch of colonial militias The English UU ought to be the Privateer (replaces Caravel, +1 speed and can pillage w/o starting a war) or the Ship of the Line (replaces Frigate, +2 strength), thus representing the successful English stragegy of wrecking the enemy's trade and ruining their economy, then bribing somebody else to attack with their riflemen.

I agree 100%. The british always had a better navy, so ship of the line would be good. Much more accurate than redcoats, which were cannon fodder for Napoleon.

 

[shivute]

Cannon fodder for Napoleon!


I think not. Learn your history.

The Iberian peninsular and Waterloo spring to mind.

The main problem with the British army during Napoleonic times was Leadership. The buying of commisions was still in place which resulted in useless commanders with limited interest and ability.

Quantity of troops was also a problem but to class the British army as cannon fodder is simply ridiculous.

 

[Solo4114]

Amen to that. Try selling that "canon fodder" line to the French troops at Talavera.

But the Thin Red Line was absolutely a match for The Little Corporal's columns.

 

[ownedbyakorat]

The phalanx is the worst UU possible, I think. A counter unit to cavalry at a time when cavalry is weak, and it gets owned by axemen, which everybody gets early and makes en masse. The benefit over a spearman is so minimal that I don't see what they were thinking when they created that unit. If it had the same bonus against melee that the axeman does then it would be a viable, usable unit, but otherwise it just makes Alexander - who already has weak traits - the weakest leader of all.

 

[Zombie69]

I feel like the designers didn't quite realize how much base combat strength trumps other bonuses. As I've said in another thread, STR 8 is vastly more powerful than STR 4 with a +100% vs. everything.

I would say it's slightly less powerful, not vastly so. Here are some easy comparisons :

Str 8 attacks Str 4 + 100% -> 8 vs 8 -> 50% odds
Str 4 + 100% attacks Str 8 -> 4 vs 8 / (1 + 1) -> 4 vs 4 -> 50% odds

Str 8 attacks Str 8 + 25% -> 8 vs 10 -> 1.25 ratio for defender
Str 8 + 25% attacks Str 8 -> 10 vs 8 -> 1.25 ratio for attacker

Str 8 attacks Str 4 + 125% -> 8 vs 9 -> 1.125 ratio for defender
Str 4 + 125% attacks Str 8 -> 4 vs 8 / (1 + 1.25) -> 4 vs 3.556 -> 1.125 ratio for attacker

Str 8 + 25% attacks Str 4 + 100% -> 8 vs 4 * (1 + 0.75) -> 8 vs 7 -> 1.143 ratio for attacker
Str 4 + 100% attacks Str 8 + 25% -> 4 vs 8 / (1 + 0.75) -> 4 vs 4.571 -> 1.143 ratio for defender

So you see, because we have 4 + 100% instead of 8 on one of the units, any extra bonus on either side is diminished. If the little guy had a 25% bonus, it drops to 12.5%. However, if the big guy had a 25% bonus, it also drops to 14.3%, i.e. almost as much. This is independant of who is attacking and dependant only on who has the biggest bonus.

The only aspect where the little guy really loses out is combat promotions, because they're always added to the strength of the unit that has it, rather than being applied to the defender like all other bonuses. But if your unit with 4 + 100% doesn't select combat promotions and picks other things instead, then there's no harm!