Unit (esp Swords) Industry Cost

[Taefin]

I just had an interesting (though probably pretty typical) start with Babylon, viewing swords as the unit to target rather than their EU. (Then beelined imperial power for a switch to Rome.) To me it felt jarring that in 5-8 turns I can get a better unit that also costs less industry (90 for swords, 120 for the EU).

Of all units, swords seem like they break the paradigm of balancing research and production (lest you end up with only advanced units that take 6+ turns to build). I would suggest their industry cost increase to something like 140 (or even 180). Then let cultures like Celts and maybe Aksumites retain a cheap sword EU (maybe give the Aksumites a greater maintenance cost). This would be consistent with the visuals that the standard swordsman has much more production intensive equipment than a warrior or archer.

Other than that, most unit industry cost seems pretty spot on to me. What do others think?

 

[fortydayweekend]

They're definitely the easy first pick for Classical tech if you're fighting or expecting to, and cheap to upgrade from warriors too.

They do need iron which you don't always have but yep 90 industry does seem cheap compared to Spearman (90 industry) and horsemen (180) - I think you're right, somewhere in the middle around 140 would make more sense.

Maybe swapping Conquest for Standing Army would be interesting too, delaying swords and opening up horsemen as a first upgrade option instead.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

They're definitely the easy first pick for Classical tech if you're fighting or expecting to, and cheap to upgrade from warriors too.

They do need iron which you don't always have but yep 90 industry does seem cheap compared to Spearman (90 industry) and horsemen (180) - I think you're right, somewhere in the middle around 140 would make more sense.

Maybe swapping Conquest for Standing Army would be interesting too, delaying swords and opening up horsemen as a first upgrade option instead.

Problem is that the wrought iron/low carbon steel sword appeared right at the beginning of the Classical Era IRL, so Swordsmen actually appear at about the right time in the game.

The problem with them in game is that, compared to Spearmen especially, Swordsmen were much, much more expensive to maintain. Spearmen in most cases were 'conscripts' - call up a bunch of peasants, require them to bring spears or issue them some, keep the pointy ends towards the enemy, stand close together, you're done. Swordsmen have to actually practice with their weapons - a lot - or they are pretty worthless. That means somebody has to feed and pay them so they have time to play with swords instead of earning a living, and for Ancient through Early Modern governments, that got expensive fast. Rome was the only state that managed to have a large army of Swordsmen - the Legions - and in the end, paying for 500,000 professional soldiers practically bankrupted a state of 50,000,000 people or more.

The way to balance Swordsmen then, is to both increase the basic production cost to reflect the high-temperature furnaces required to work Iron compared to copper or bronze, and to increase the Maintenance Cost dramatically: right now I think it's 5 Money per turn, it should probably be at least 8 or 10, since the Greek Hoplite is 8 now and except for Spartans, they were all Amateurs that provided their own armor and weapons and never got paid at all!

 

[Taefin]

Yes please!