Unit Upgrade Paths

[Thunderbrd]

Wanted to open this for discussions on Unit Upgrade Path matters.

I'm not happy with a few of them... Grenadiers have been relegated to a backwater place making most pre-gunpowder troops forced through the rifle path when I used to keep them balanced between riflemen and grenadiers.

The Machine Gun path is just... huh.... confusing. The first on that path are quite strong city attackers and it leads to units that can only defend???

I'll get more specific on suggested edits here as I go.

Anyone else have any points on this topic?

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

I have commented on the latest removal of clear upgrade paths. every unit seems to be able o upgrade to every other class of unit, as if they don't require different training and even shape of human.

 

[Hydromancerx]

The Machine Gun path is just... huh.... confusing. The first on that path are quite strong city attackers and it leads to units that can only defend???

Personally I think the Machine gun should not upgrade into infantry units. Its upgrades make sense from siege units up to the gatling gun but after that it gets weird.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Well... I again turn to RL... Machine guns were functionally replaced by 60 gunners, a heavy duty, slow moving form of infantry... CAN attack but are best at defense, particularly against mobile units such as jeeps and such. Maybe we need to just keep moving through the chain in logical progressions from machine guns all the way through and give them a whole 'type' that differs from siege or gunpowder alone?!?

 

[Hydromancerx]

Well the current progression from gun powder to machine gun is ...

Bombard -> Organ Gun (Multi-Barreled Cannons) -> Gatling Gun -> Machine Gun

 

[little_cyclone]

Well... I again turn to RL... Machine guns were functionally replaced by 60 gunners, a heavy duty, slow moving form of infantry... CAN attack but are best at defense, particularly against mobile units such as jeeps and such. Maybe we need to just keep moving through the chain in logical progressions from machine guns all the way through and give them a whole 'type' that differs from siege or gunpowder alone?!?

I was thinking the exact same thing the other day My next question is, would we keep this unit type as a standalone "support gunner" & keep evolving it on into the future (gatling lasers, et al) or would it gradually fold into mechanized infantry like most of the other gunpowder units?

 

[Thunderbrd]

I think the answer should be the latter Cy. Keep progressing it all the way through. Currently Mech infantry, during its era, is pretty much the only city and stack defense unit... that's just too monochromatic for my tastes... always has been.

 

[little_cyclone]

I think the answer should be the latter Cy. Keep progressing it all the way through. Currently Mech infantry, during its era, is pretty much the only city and stack defense unit... that's just too monochromatic for my tastes... always has been.

You mean the former then And I agree, having everything upgrade into Mech Inf is too much of a unit/tech bottleneck..

 

[Thunderbrd]

op.. you are correct... yes... the former Now we need to invent the unit that will stand next along side our mech infantries as a support defender! We also need to define the need - what does it tackle better than the mech infantry and why?

Currently, looking at the machinegunner, the purpose has always been to make it extremely difficult for gunpowder and horse to approach as well as being highly resistant to collateral. In earlier, pre-mod games, I've held a city against over 100 troops with maybe 10 machinegunners. That said, when tanks are introduced gunners get bowled over and we're back to the infantry being all that can possibly stand against them. And Gunships come in to take out the tanks.

So is the new gunner primarily anti-gunship as well as mech infantry? Still not great against the tanks but that's the job of the gunships and the mech infantry?

Hmm... thoughts?

 

[little_cyclone]

It should def'ly have some defense against helo's... Point a several thousand RPM gun at something like that and you're bound to have an effect Tho, obviously not as much of an effect as actual dedicated AA units.. Beyond that, keep making it strong against Gunpowder units?

 

[Thunderbrd]

Agreed!