Marshall Thomas
King
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- Dec 11, 2005
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- 700
Are there any units which can be upgraded to musketmen? Thanks in advance
Upgrade to Musketmen?
- Thread starter Marshall Thomas
- Start date
Öjevind Lång
Deity
- Joined
- Aug 22, 2005
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- 2,371
The Lancer can't be upgraded either. I wonder if that is by oversight or for some kind of balancing considerations.
THE_COW_IS_OK
Chieftain
- Joined
- Aug 29, 2002
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- 89
Musket seems like a weak unit.
I usually don't vest into units that can't get upgraded since promotions are key to win battles.
I usually don't vest into units that can't get upgraded since promotions are key to win battles.
This is exactly the point.
It is a stupid action to build units that can't be upgraded and basically it never happen you need them in a mandatory way so they are totally useless.
The AI builds them , I am not surprised of that , knowing the AI " smartness "
Muskets are weaker than Longswordsmen. The only reason they are even in the game is because they are supposed to be a cheaper alternative to medieval units that doesn't require resources. Ultimately though they are pointless because Riflemen are only two techs away on the poorly designed tech tree
Once again showing the imbalance of UU's of the US and French Muskets. This was also an issue in cIV. If the tech tree in ciV could manage a little more breathing room for units like the muskets and the ironclad they would definatly gain more importance ingame. The science rates in late game needs adjustment as well since it is all too easy to shoot from Infy to Mechs. In many ways this is why I enjoy the early-mid game the most since there seems to be better overall balance.
Polish
Warlord
I don't use them either, but the AI seems to love them. I guess if you were playing on an iron poor continent or could not get access to enough iron then you might be very happy to survive long enough to build muskets.
I'm disappointed they aren't useful in the game because "shot and pike" tactics were an important part of European warfare. It was far cheaper to field an army of pikemen and muskets than an equal number of knights, but they could still present a series threat to their mounted enemies.
The only reason they aren't dominant is because players don't want to use them. They prefer Riflemen, bias their decisions to upgrade to Riflemen, and then never use Musketmen, and then decide it's not worth it. This was also the case in Civ IV.
Musketmen are hammer-cheap and they come two turns earlier than Rifling. This means that Musketmen are affordable on early game economies, do not require Iron, can be beelined very quickly, and are very, very effective against early game units.
They also last quite a while if, instead of teching to Rifles, you make a quick tech to upgrade your Trebuchets into Cannon. There is something to be said about making Riflemen and brute-forcing everything, but Musketmen are absolutely useful, and especially the US and French ones. You can get them online shockingly early, if you made an effort to actually get them.
Musketmen are hammer-cheap and they come two turns earlier than Rifling. This means that Musketmen are affordable on early game economies, do not require Iron, can be beelined very quickly, and are very, very effective against early game units.
They also last quite a while if, instead of teching to Rifles, you make a quick tech to upgrade your Trebuchets into Cannon. There is something to be said about making Riflemen and brute-forcing everything, but Musketmen are absolutely useful, and especially the US and French ones. You can get them online shockingly early, if you made an effort to actually get them.
This, and balance issues, and the fact that Pikes spend a lot of the game pretty much useless, are all part of why I'm a firm believer in pikes being upgradeable to muskets. Obviously you wouldn't want to upgrade longswordsmen to muskets, and because upgrades are entirely linear in CiV you can't go swordsman-musket, but having to wait until rifling to upgrade pikes and then going from 10 strength to 25 is crazy. You do have to give up a little bit in terms of strength against cavalry, although having an extra 60% base strength for your modifiers to multiply out makes that pretty much a moot point most of the time.
-1 for mentioning Minutemen and Musketeers and neglecting Janissaries.
Sorry, not beelining to riflemen first just doesn't pass my common sense test. Decent argument but since my games are typically FFA war games at this point than riflemen is for me the easy choice to make. If I was going with a defensive strategy (Gandhi) than maybe cannon would make more sense but since defensive buildings are way underpowered this is kind of a stretch. You should'nt have to be asked to not do something to make the game work better. I'm already too busy controlling myself with trying not to manipulate the broken diplomacy for trade or abusing Maritime cs's. Now your asking me not to take advantage of the flaws in the tech tree?
Musketmen are a terrible unit.
Not only are they slow and stuck in place after they attack, not only do they not upgrade from anything, not only do they have zero special abilities, they're even weaker than the units that come before them! And you can upgrade directly from crossbowmen or pikemen or longswords to rifles! Why would you ever build a musketman?
Not only are they slow and stuck in place after they attack, not only do they not upgrade from anything, not only do they have zero special abilities, they're even weaker than the units that come before them! And you can upgrade directly from crossbowmen or pikemen or longswords to rifles! Why would you ever build a musketman?
Bandit17:
If you're planning on massacring lots of AI units, then Cannon will kill units on the attack surer than Riflemen, and with less chance of counterattack. The way defensive buildings are underpowered means that you can get Musketmen online faster than you can get Riflemen online, and attack faster.
There is no reason you can't then tech up to Riflemen if you so choose, but not using Musketmen because you're bulbing straight past them is the reason why you're not finding them useful. They aren't useful because you're not using them.
For similar reasons, Longswordsmen could be argued to also have a short shelf life, but they are also very good if you get them early and actually try to leverage their strengths.
If you're planning on massacring lots of AI units, then Cannon will kill units on the attack surer than Riflemen, and with less chance of counterattack. The way defensive buildings are underpowered means that you can get Musketmen online faster than you can get Riflemen online, and attack faster.
There is no reason you can't then tech up to Riflemen if you so choose, but not using Musketmen because you're bulbing straight past them is the reason why you're not finding them useful. They aren't useful because you're not using them.
For similar reasons, Longswordsmen could be argued to also have a short shelf life, but they are also very good if you get them early and actually try to leverage their strengths.
They're cheaper than Longswordsmen, so if you don't have Iron, beelining Musketmen is a very sound choice for an early offensive. In fact, Musketeers are stronger than Longswordsmen, so you should never really build Longswordsmen as France. It doesn't even make that much sense to upgrade lesser units if you have Armory, since the Musketeers are just that strong.
I believe that you haven't actually tried using Musketmen. They're quite decent, and very, very good for some applications (like most units, in fact). The Janissaries are just really good units in general, while Musketeers and Minutemen (once they're fixed) are better than normal.
Ballista don't upgrade from anything and have zero special abilities. Useless?
Warriors don't upgrade from anything and have zero special abilities. Useless?
Hoplites don't upgrade from anything and have zero special abilities. Useless?
If you plan your game around the same kind of war over and over and over and over again, game after game after game, then Civ V will seem like it's always the same game, and you won't see the use out of 3/4 the units in the game.
That's your call, of course. If you don't want to play with more than half the game you purchased, feel free to do so.
Is there anything wrong with playing on Prince? If you prefer higher difficulty settings, are you closer to the "Godlike PC-gaming race?"
Nothing bad I've ever read about Musketmen relates to actual shortcomings when actually using the units. They are all related to how people are bypassing the unit to get to Riflemen.
Well, it stands to reason, that if you never use the unit, then you won't actually see it in action. That is not a shortcoming of the unit - that is a play style of the player. Some players prefer to war early and then just upgrade units up the line, pretty much all the time, every game. If you always play this way, you won't much see the point of units like, say, the Catapult.
Nothing bad I've ever read about Musketmen relates to actual shortcomings when actually using the units. They are all related to how people are bypassing the unit to get to Riflemen.
Well, it stands to reason, that if you never use the unit, then you won't actually see it in action. That is not a shortcoming of the unit - that is a play style of the player. Some players prefer to war early and then just upgrade units up the line, pretty much all the time, every game. If you always play this way, you won't much see the point of units like, say, the Catapult.
Nothing wrong with that. It's just that with the weak AI, playing on prince is so easy that you don't really need to bother thinking about strategy. Just do anything and win.
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