unit-promotion balance thread

[Lord Tirian]

I'm not entirely sure how much this hole needs to be plugged. While I often feel like I need something after the Frigate, I rarely feel a big need for an intermediate unit between crossbows and gatlings.

If we put something in between, I agree with getting the grenadier, though. It might not be an intuitive upgrade, but it fits thematically and is memorable.

 

[Nutty]

There have been other threads that request units to precede the Gatling gun. The crossbow does get weak toward the end of its life, but it still has 2 range, which still makes it a somewhat effective city defender.

Didn't someone make an unit that was basically the earliest incarnation of machine guns and put it between crossbow and gattling? I forgot what it was.

I think you mean the Volley gun (which already has a unit model plus see this thread for icons (post #4), and a teamcolor texture replacement that I made (post #5). The Volley gun was an early anti-personnel weapon [that seems a clear upgrade to Gatling gun] (in fact, the Korean Hwach'a should probably be a unique volley gun, since it's used in the same way (rather than it making the odd upgrade to a Cannon, since it's a Trebuchet replacement).

...

Early riflemen (i.e., Napoleonic era) were originally snipers/special forces, since rifles were slow to reload without quite a bit of training, and the rifles themselves were expensive. Napoleon himself didn't use rifles for these reasons. A sniper unit line would be interesting, perhaps extending 2-hex ranged units into the modern era, but from a gameplay perspective, it's probably not necessary.

Note if we wanted an Arquebusier, you can steal the pertinent model that makes up one-half of the Spanish Tercio. Or, at least we have a model of the arquebus that we can give to another unit.

 

[Gazebo]

Snazzy. I like it.
G

 

[mystikx21]

@nutty, CEP just moved the names around for the infantry line. I don't think that required any new art to represent the same units. I'd not be opposed if the artwork is more fitting at all though. Purely cosmetic changes like that are usually to the good.

Volley gun could be an acceptable unit if the grenadier is a no go. The main purpose was to fire a burst of gunfire simultaneously and I'd consider that an upgrade as a defensive weapon over a crossbow. I was trying to think of an early MG rather than just a multi-barrel weapon.

 

[Stalker0]

I really don't want to add a new unit because "the upgrades seem funky". Now that we have the ability to fork upgrades to different units, can we simply fix the problem that way?

 

[Wodhann]

Volley gun is what I meant. I personally much preffer it over grenadier.

 

[Nutty]

I really don't want to add a new unit because "the upgrades seem funky".

The complaint, as I understand it, was more largely based on the fact that you have quite a long wait between crossbow and gatling.

 

[Stalker0]

The complaint, as I understand it, was more largely based on the fact that you have quite a long wait between crossbow and gatling.

Rereading all of the posts of the thread...the complaint is more around the upgrades. Several people commented that they don't really feel a gap between xbox and GG like they do the frigate and battleship, and I will add myself to that list as well.

I personally don't think its a strong enough argument for a new unit myself.

 

[Lukeroge]

@nutty, CEP just moved the names around for the infantry line. I don't think that required any new art to represent the same units. I'd not be opposed if the artwork is more fitting at all though. Purely cosmetic changes like that are usually to the good.

Volley gun could be an acceptable unit if the grenadier is a no go. The main purpose was to fire a burst of gunfire simultaneously and I'd consider that an upgrade as a defensive weapon over a crossbow. I was trying to think of an early MG rather than just a multi-barrel weapon.

You mention CEP making some changes to the infantary line, mind linking to them or listing them in here?

But really, I'm okay with the grenadier. Theres some slight weirdness with the realism, but it's a cool unit and it'll fit fine in that spot!

 

[mystikx21]

CEP changes were linked here. , which was linked to in the initial post. There are some numerical changes for unit strengths and costs too (including for non-infantry units) and changes to the promotions given by default to units or unit classes.

But for the things I've been talking about recently there it was cosmetic to get rid of the silly name (GWI) and bring in something recognizable as an early gunpowder unit (arquebusier) as a name, and move things up one (so musket became arque, riflemen became musket, GWI became riflemen, infantry stayed infantry).

The other change was to fold the spear-pike upgrade path in with gunpowder units, upgrading to arques instead of lancers (which was weird), and leave longswords and arques available at the same time with both upgrading to muskets. The latter was primarily because the swords units have a non-upgradeable anti-city bonus for free, while the arques don't require iron and don't get that bonus but are just as strong otherwise.

 

[Lukeroge]

CEP changes were linked here. , which was linked to in the initial post. There are some numerical changes for unit strengths and costs too (including for non-infantry units) and changes to the promotions given by default to units or unit classes.

But for the things I've been talking about recently there it was cosmetic to get rid of the silly name (GWI) and bring in something recognizable as an early gunpowder unit (arquebusier) as a name, and move things up one (so musket became arque, riflemen became musket, GWI became riflemen, infantry stayed infantry).

The other change was to fold the spear-pike upgrade path in with gunpowder units, upgrading to arques instead of lancers (which was weird), and leave longswords and arques available at the same time with both upgrading to muskets. The latter was primarily because the swords units have a non-upgradeable anti-city bonus for free, while the arques don't require iron and don't get that bonus but are just as strong otherwise.

I like this stuff, yeah. GWI is kinda a silly name for a unit.

 

[mystikx21]

There are a couple others like that.

Name changes in CEP:
Musket - Arquebusier
Rifle - Musket
GWI - Rifle
Cavalry - Dragoon
Caravel - Carrack
Privateer - Galleon
Paratrooper - Airborne
Naresuans Elephant - Chang Suek
GWB - Biplane

 

[Lukeroge]

There are a couple others like that.

Name changes in CEP:
Musket - Arquebusier
Rifle - Musket
GWI - Rifle
Cavalry - Dragoon
Caravel - Carrack
Privateer - Galleon
Paratrooper - Airborne
Naresuans Elephant - Chang Suek
GWB - Biplane

Down with the great war :c

 

[Lord Tirian]

There are a couple others like that.

*snip*

Honestly, why? I feel this is starting to turn into scope creep. It's not tweaking game play to make more strategies viable and balanced (e.g. plugging the frigate->battleship hole makes beelining less valuable), it's just changing names and by re-using names, it potentially confuses people. Not all names are great, but they get the idea across.

And some changes just elude me with regard to "why": Caravel, Cavalry and Paratrooper seem perfectly fine to me, what's the issue here? Privateer has the piracy connotation that tells you "Prize Ships" - with Galleons you don't really get that.

"Great War" isn't great, but "biplane" I find even worse - nothing even indicates that this is supposed to be a bomber. And reshuffling so many names just to get rid of the GWI seems... overkill. I'd rather just rename them to "Trench Infantry" or something like that and call it a day. Less confusing for everybody.

I like Chang Suek, though, it fits with the other UU using more "native" names if possible (like Hwach'a, Impi, Chu-Ko-Nu or Panzer).

EDIT: also, I hope the post didn't come across as rude or anything. For the most part, I understand the urge to fix small niggles - and if this wasn't a "balance patch" but an "unofficial expansion" or "more realism" mod, I wouldn't mind. I'm just not sure about in the context of this project. If it was just fixing "great war", I wouldn't mind either, but that's a lot of name reshuffling.

 

[maglock]

Some thoughts on various military units:

Cities: High health, low attack, low regeneration cities makes a siege feel like an actual siege and forces the defender to have an actual army to defend against aggressors, but also gives him time to respond to an attack. Defense buildings should add very large amounts of extra hp, leading to cities that are impossible to take quickly or easily, but possible to swarm even with lower tech units if the attacker brings enough numbers.

If we look to actual historical city sieging - can we make ancient warfare more realistic.

- If a city does not have a city wall or an army guarding it - what it to stop an enemy from just walking in? Some armed peasants? No match for a professional army.
- If a city has an army, but no wall - bloody fighting or wait for city to run out of food.
- If city has a wall - nothing gets in without siege engines. MUST wait for food to run out.

So how to simulate best?

- Base city has a really small HP and strength equal to one unit of best melee in era. Two melee units can take it pretty easily.
- City shouldn't have ranged strength unless civ has researched archery. Even then it should be small damage to enemy unless the city has a wall built. You really should have an archer stationed in the city to do proper ranged damage.
- Wall built - now city gets a significant boost to HP and if archery researched - a decent ranged attack. This simulates archers on the walls. City will be difficult to bring down without siege. This is to simulate starving out the city.
- If enemy brings siege - its game over time. You need an army in defense out in the field or you are toast.

I'd argue ancient cities should fall in roughly 3 turns with siege engines (assuming they have walls). Enough to gather some semblance of defence but not enough time to ignore keeping defensive armies on your borders.

Edit: If you don't bring siege, expect it to take a looong time to take down a city. 20 turns+ ?? This will give a huge incentive to actually build walls on your border cities.

 

[Stalker0]

Honestly, why? I feel this is starting to turn into scope creep. It's not tweaking game play to make more strategies viable and balanced (e.g. plugging the frigate->battleship hole makes beelining less valuable), it's just changing names and by re-using names, it potentially confuses people. Not all names are great, but they get the idea across.

I think Tirian has a point. I too don't like the GW Infantry name...but it has 0 impact from a balance standpoint. And we are already going to ask people to adapt to a list of real changes to the game, why add another one to the pile that doesn't really change anything?

 

[mystikx21]

Tirian, part of the reason I put that out there was to assess whether the name changes were appreciated or unnecessary. I do not want to just port over CEP unless there's an acceptable reason to use the changes it has.

I don't know that there's an easy way around the GWI because there isn't really an intermediate term. They were basically "riflemen" until around WW2, when you started getting SMGs and other more automatic weapons anyway from around the mid 19th century. I'd rather just extend that title and move the others up with it, which means renaming the early gunpowder unit too.

Biplane I wasn't very happy with either. I'm not sure what our options are as "bomber" is already taken and "early bomber" isn't an improvement. "Tactical bomber"?

Cavalry is a generic term for horseback army units, so it isn't specific to the era. I was fine with using "Dragoon" instead as it is more reflective of the unit of that era.

Airborne partly reflects a modern use of "paratroopers" (air cavalry) and was the name used for the paratrooper divisions anyway.

The reason CEP has the Galleon/Privateer swap was the prize ship promotion was removed (it jumped on the Ottomans basically). Caravel/carrack is under a similar reasoning (the extra sight was removed). I could see a rational for maintaining those changes as is and leaving the names although I wouldn't be very excited about it. I'd rather have ships that can fight.

The main pressing concern remaining before going into individual unit balance questions or concerns is what to do with the lancer/dragoon issue anyway. That is a minor change regardless of whether it is done or not, while the lancer isn't.

The default upgrade path is a messy business that deserves to be blown up one way or another, the lancer itself isn't very unique in its role, because cavalry do most of the same things, and so on. CEP has changed that a lot all around, but I'm not sure we should be totally happy with the changes used to achieve that.

 

[Stalker0]

Switching gears ever so slightly, one of the CEP changes Mysikx mentioned was the removal of the insta heal promotion, and incorporating healing into each promotion.

I am curious what people's thoughts are on it.

Personally, I actually like the insta heal promotion. While some say it is isn't strategic, I often find myself debating whether I can save an injured unit without it (and gain that nice promotion) or do I need to bite the bullet.

Further, I know the AI isn't that great at healing, so I would assume the insta heal lets its units stay in the fight longer than they would otherwise.

 

[Seek]

- City shouldn't have ranged strength unless civ has researched archery. Even then it should be small damage to enemy unless the city has a wall built. You really should have an archer stationed in the city to do proper ranged damage.

Disagree here, the ranged attack is metaphorical (like so much else in Civ games) referencing local militias, citizens sabotaging nearby armies, etc. The ranged strength does get stronger with an actual garrison, so I think it's represented well enough.

 

[mystikx21]

^What Seek said.

I'd keep the ranged attack, but we just make it weaker without investment in walls+ and garrisons, and potentially give a way to get to range 3 later in the game and the main idea would be to make the city easier to hit without those investments, and progressively harder to take in a few shots with defences.

@Stalker, I'd still rather get rid of the insta heal. Pillaging already provides healing ability and the AI is pretty good at pillaging.