[GS] Valuing Units & Buildings

[Boris Gudenuf]

Unit Changes based on the Historical Evidence:

I don't think the early Spearmen, with small hide or wicker/reed shields and flint/copper-tipped spears, were any match for the later Iron-weaponed and bronze-armored, heavy wooden-shielded Spearmen of the late Ancient/early Classical Era. I would argue that possibly Akkad or some other early Mesopotamian Civ could get a Spearman type as a very early UU, but that's all.

BUT to reflect the cheapness of Spearman Units, when they do show up, they have a 0 Maintenance in Gold, just like the Warrior and Slinger.

Swordsmen, on the other hand, would have a Maintenance Cost of 1 Gold/turn, as now, as would Archers to keep everyone honest in 'upgrading' their primitive missile weaponry from 'Slingers'.

Heavy Chariots would require both 2 Gold per Turn And 1 Horse per Turn as Maintenance: you will need a relatively large, prosperous Ancient Kingdom (like Imperial Egypt, China, or War-Focused Assyria) to afford a fleet of Heavy Chariots or their equivalent.
BUT "Pastoral" Civs, like Scythia, Mongols, (or Huns, Comanches, Cimmerians, et al if we ever get any of them) have the Gold Maintenance for Heavy Cavalry cut in half - still need the Horses, though.

Light Cavalry would have the same +2 Gold Maintenance, but no Horse requirement for Maintenance. Ideally, anybody with horses should be fielding a lot more Light than Heavy cavalry of any type. Pastoral Civs would get the Maintenance Cost Cut for Light Cav, as well.

Now, to reflect the fact that troops with special skills means that they have to kept under arms and practicing those skills to keep them, IF you promote any Melee, Ranged, or Anti-Civ Unit they also then have a +1 Gold/turn Maintenance Cost. Cheap Warriors/Spearmen/Slingers are 'Sword Fodder" but a large army of Expert Swordsmen will cost you to maintain.

Making Heavy/Light Cav also get the +1 Gold to Promote Maintenance Cost I am still not sure on: that makes a promoted Mounted Unit even in the Ancient Era cost 3 Gold per Turn, which is steep - on the other hand, unless you are surrounded by herds of horse, like a pastoral Civ, they were expensive and usually available only in small numbers: Alexander had only 4000 Heavy Cavalry (Herairoi and the Thessalians) and less than 2000 Light cavalry out of a main army of over 40,000 until he had access to the assets and resources of the entire Persian Empire. . .

Recon Class are a Special Case, because they represent fewer men/unit: I suggest that they keep their current low to zero Maintenance Costs because you are simply not maintaining the masses of men and weapons required for a 'regular' Combat Unit.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Class additions:
Trebuchet (a base unit domrey)
Rifleman (base unit redcoat/garde Imp.) Now in the industrial we might want to make cuirs just 65, so they are fast rifles essentially. 70str might be too much.
Late game ranged unit (the civ5 bazooka upgrade for machine guns, pretty much. 75 is too weak in the info era. Make MG a 70/60 late modern unit and 'bazooka' or mortar a 80/70. )

The Counterweight or Counterpoise Trebuchet shows up in the middle of the Medieval Era: possible first mention in Byzantium about 1097 CE, definitely in use in western Europe and the Crusader armies during the 12th century CE. The problem is, although it makes a stunning graphic, the new 'Siege Engine' had no dramatic effect: castles, fortified cities and their like remained largely immune to assault and had to be starved out or the walls collapsed by mining (and counter-mining) until 1375 CE- first use of a Bombard against city walls (France). That means, at best, the Trebuchet lasts less than 200 years before becoming obsolete in the face of a vastly superior wall-breaker: the 'Great Gonnes' and their gunpowder propellant.
Instead, since the first 'hand guns' aren't mentioned until some 35 - 40 years after the first Bombard is used, I suggest Bombard be moved from Metal Casting to Gunpowder Tech, so it drops in earlier and alleviates any need for an 'in between' Siege Unit.

IF by 'Rifleman' you mean the black-powder Rifleman, while it's a "Civ-Standard" it's not especially relevant historically. The rifled musket and breechloading black-powder rifle were adopted in quantity by about 1850 (The Dreyse Needle Gun was officially adopted by the Prussian Army in 1841, but it wasn't issued to regular infantry units until 1848: British and American rifled musket muzzle-loaders weren't issued until the early 1850s) and it was made obsolete by smokeless powder by 1890 (French Lebel bolt action rifle, the same one they used in WWI, was adopted in 1889). That means as a weapon and Unit, it lasted about 40 years.
By contrast, the smooth-bore flintlock musket, the 'Fusil' with socket bayonet was virtually the universal European infantry weapon from 1700 to 1820, and by adding percussion caps, they were still in use at the beginning of the US Cvil War in 1861 and the Russian Army during the Crimean War 1855-57. That's about 150 years, and Very Important Years, too - it was the weapon of the Redcoat and Garde Imperiale, and of the French and Indian/7 Year's War, the American Revolution, the Napoleonic (World) War, Conquest of India, Liberation of South America - it is criminal that the game has ignored this unit for so long.
Suggestion:
Fusilier (Melee Class)
Starts with +10 against Mounted (bayonets, square formations)
Melee Strength: 65
Move 2
Available at Tech: Military Science
(Cavalry and its replacements should move to Tech: Rifling, since they seem to represent the mid-late 19th century mounted troops with rifled carbines: historically, almost 150 years after the Fusil was adopted.

 

[Sostratus]

Next: how to translate this into Game Changes for Units.

One massive in game issue in terms of early combat (which is one of the most important parts!) is the fact that the spearman is an ancient era unit that must serve in the classical.
As I have written before, while having every-other-era upgrade trees is nominally fine, the problem is that the upgrade tree is not infinite. It has a discrete starting point, and the fact that games start at zero instead of in media res generates balance issues. namely:
1) Spears, a unit you have to unlock and train, lose to warriors, whom you start with. While this same relationship holds with musket/P&S, infantry/AT crew, etc, the fact that the game starts in the ancient era causes building spears to be a losing strategy, since no starts with mounted units either, so there's no use case for a spear rush.
2) Spears can only beat heavy chariots. They fare poorly against horsemen.
3) lack of spears being built early or surviving means nothing to turn into pikes; thus, knights and coursers can run rampant. Again, this stems from the starting condition of only warriors.

In the "Class methodology" OP, one thing I forgot to mention is that the particular unit dynamics on any actual battlefield for a given era is dictated by upgrade timing. Because some classes counter others, it's very important to consider what happens when the counter upgrades the era after the countered does. (It means fighting something at +20, which is nigh impossible.)
I hate stooping to this band-aid solution, but what could be done is pick a classical tech or civic from the second row (math, engineering, military tactics, defensive tactics) and have it give spears a metallurgy/tactics/formation upgrade. (+7 to +10.) Yes, yes, I know it should really be at iron working, but that is literally the tech after bronze working. That way spears (at 32-35) would be able to be generally useful, and be vulnerable to the elite swordsmen on the prowl but not get exterminated by them.

The Counterweight or Counterpoise Trebuchet shows up in the middle of the Medieval Era:

Well, yes. But, if you want the masses to get on board, including trebuchets is how you do it. (Plus i hate that we have medieval walls but no medieval siege unit to up the rock throwing ante.) Plus they look cool and having khmer be able to upgrade catapults into domreys would be sweet. And you could make the domrey generally have more of a use. It's a big elephant with a siege weapon. Obviously the rule of cool must be considered.

Fusilier (Melee Class)
Starts with +10 against Mounted (bayonets, square formations)
Melee Strength: 65
Move 2

This is basically want the industrial needs, i think I highlighted it in previous threads exactly (just used the name Rifleman.)
You probably know how badly I'd love to just have pike&shot and muskets both go into the rifleman/fusilier unit and deal with antitank duties separately. As a firearms guy myself I know Rifleman isn't quite the correct term, but it's been in so many civ games at this point, people recognize it. I'm more concerned about having the combat feel right - and it feels so weird not having a unit there! I mean muskets already represent this wacky arquebusier but sometimes also minutemen several centuries, and rifles have been 1800-just before ww2 (or ww1 in civ5, with the great war units.) Besides, the game models can have flashy uniforms with silly hats!
But it's easier to stick to updating a few tables than messing with promotion mechanics.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

One massive in game issue in terms of early combat (which is one of the most important parts!) is the fact that the spearman is an ancient era unit that must serve in the classical.
As I have written before, while having every-other-era upgrade trees is nominally fine, the problem is that the upgrade tree is not infinite. It has a discrete starting point, and the fact that games start at zero instead of in media res generates balance issues. namely:
1) Spears, a unit you have to unlock and train, lose to warriors, whom you start with. While this same relationship holds with musket/P&S, infantry/AT crew, etc, the fact that the game starts in the ancient era causes building spears to be a losing strategy, since no starts with mounted units either, so there's no use case for a spear rush.
2) Spears can only beat heavy chariots. They fare poorly against horsemen.
3) lack of spears being built early or surviving means nothing to turn into pikes; thus, knights and coursers can run rampant. Again, this stems from the starting condition of only warriors.

In the "Class methodology" OP, one thing I forgot to mention is that the particular unit dynamics on any actual battlefield for a given era is dictated by upgrade timing. Because some classes counter others, it's very important to consider what happens when the counter upgrades the era after the countered does. (It means fighting something at +20, which is nigh impossible.)
I hate stooping to this band-aid solution, but what could be done is pick a classical tech or civic from the second row (math, engineering, military tactics, defensive tactics) and have it give spears a metallurgy/tactics/formation upgrade. (+7 to +10.) Yes, yes, I know it should really be at iron working, but that is literally the tech after bronze working. That way spears (at 32-35) would be able to be generally useful, and be vulnerable to the elite swordsmen on the prowl but not get exterminated by them.

Okay, let's get Radical. Specifically, let's take a wretchedly Underutilized Mechanic they introduced with GS and really use it: the Tech Promotion system they use for the GDR.

I'd really like to expand this through the entire game's units, but I'm still working on all the details before I spring it on The CivFanatics World.

Specifically for Spearmen, though, how about this:

Spearman - Starting Unit: Anti-Cav Class
Melee Strength: 20
Production: 40 Gold

Tech Promotion: Solid Shield/Body Armor
Available at Tech: Bronze Working
Provides + 5 Combat Strength against All Units (Ranged or Melee)

Tech Promotion: Iron Spears
Available at Tech: Iron Working
Provides + 3 Melee Combat Strength.

Well, yes. But, if you want the masses to get on board, including trebuchets is how you do it. (Plus i hate that we have medieval walls but no medieval siege unit to up the rock throwing ante.) Plus they look cool and having khmer be able to upgrade catapults into domreys would be sweet. And you could make the domrey generally have more of a use. It's a big elephant with a siege weapon. Obviously the rule of cool must be considered.

Building on radical, we could have the Catapult get a Tech Upgrade of Counterpoise at, say, Military Engineering or Castles which turns the unit into a Trebuchet Graphic with increased factors against Ancient/Medieval Walls (but NOT Renaissance Walls, which will require Bombards to blow through). I agree, the Trebuchet graphics are really hard to pass up, especially the prospect of tossing horse carcasses over the wall to start a Plague in the city . . .

This is basically want the industrial needs, i think I highlighted it in previous threads exactly (just used the name Rifleman.)
You probably know how badly I'd love to just have pike&shot and muskets both go into the rifleman/fusilier unit and deal with antitank duties separately. As a firearms guy myself I know Rifleman isn't quite the correct term, but it's been in so many civ games at this point, people recognize it. I'm more concerned about having the combat feel right - and it feels so weird not having a unit there! I mean muskets already represent this wacky arquebusier but sometimes also minutemen several centuries, and rifles have been 1800-just before ww2 (or ww1 in civ5, with the great war units.) Besides, the game models can have flashy uniforms with silly hats!
But it's easier to stick to updating a few tables than messing with promotion mechanics.

Right now, in My Perfect Civ Game, I'd like to see both Melee and Anti-Cav Classes Disappear in the (late) Renaissance Era when the units would all become Firepower Class, starring with the Pike and Shot, which would combine the Anti-Cav bonus against Mounted with a high Melee Factor from the early muskets and arquebuses. Musketman would disappear, since the separate gunpowder units only existed for a few years. The Pike and Shot would Upgrade to Fusilier, which could be Tech Promoted in the late Industrial Era with Rifled Barrels to a Riflemen, and then in the early Modern Era with Smokeless Powder to a WWI-style Rifleman who exchanges his 'colorful' uniform for khaki, drab or field gray.
The Infantry of the Modern Era would be another Firepower Unit, with Tech Upgrades of Heavy Infantry Weapons and Light Antitank Weapons taking the place of the separate Machine-gun and AT Crew Units.
Mechanized Infantry would have an Antitank Missiles Tech Upgrade to replace the Modern AT Unit.
Other Atomic/Information Era Tech Upgrades for either recon or Firepower infantry would be things like Composite Body Armor and Personal Drones.

Firepower Promotions might be:
Name: Form Square
Description: +10 Combat Strength defending versus Cavalry Units
Requirement(s): None

Name: Platoon Fire
Description: +7 Combat Strength
Requirement(s): None

Name: Follow Me
Description: Flanking Bonuses Doubled when attacking
Requirement(s): Platoon Fire

Name: Die Hard
Description: Defends at Full Combat Strength until destroyed.
Requirement(s): Form Square

Name: Open Order
Description: +10 Combat Factor when attacked by Ranged, Air or Naval units
Requirement(s): Die Hard, Follow Me

Name: Ranger Training
Description: Can scale Cliffs, No penalty to movement through Forest or Marsh tiles
Requirement(s): Follow Me, Die Hard

Name: Infantry Attacks
Description: +1 additional attack if Movement allows, can move after attacking
Requirement(s): Open Order, Ranger Training

I'll leave the potential changes to Ranged and Siege in the Mid-Late Game for another Post . . .

 

[acluewithout]

So, thinking about Spears etc. What if we did just three things. First, get rid of Melee unit's +10 v Anti-Cav. Melee would instead just be a bit stronger than the average military unit for their Era and would continue to have their awesome promotion tree. Then, second, make the starting Warrior unit basically an Anti-Cav unit. Then, third, get rid of the concept of Anti-Cav - and make this unit line "Malitia" (with Melee representing a professional Army).

It would look a bit like this:

Warrior. Starting unit. These guys don't get a bonus v Cav. They just hit stuff, are fairly cheap, and find Cav, ranged and later Era units scary.

Spearmen. Upgrade to your Warriors. These guys are stronger, but they also now get a bonus v Cav. Hoorah! I'd basically set their power level as if they were a classical unit.

Swords. Okay, these are now your first Melee unit. Spears could now basically be power benchmarked as a Classical unit. So, Swords now wouldn't chew these guys up because Spears are stronger and Melee isn't getting a +10 v Spears, but Swords would still just be flat out stronger because Melee are always slightly stronger than the Era average and have better promotions.

Later Anti-Cav (Militia) and Melee. The Malitia line could now have a more variable bonus - maybe it's +10 Cav for some units, but later in it could be +10 v tanks or they could gain AA bonuses. Militia would always be a bit weaker each era, but are cheaper and their bonuses will always give them a bit of a niche. You could also have techs which improve their flanking or fortification. Melee units would just keep trucking after swords - they are always slightly stronger than the average unit, have better promotions, and later get an extra movement point (but now always require a resource because you can't upgrade them from warriors).

You'd maybe want to play around with Anti-cav promotions a little. You could also have techs which improve their flanking or fortification for Anti-Cav, or have them get bonuses when in Forts or Districts to make up for the fact every Era they're slightly weaker.

What do you think?

Also. What do you guys think generally of the @Deliverator Steel and Thunder Mod?

I'd never really go on board with it before, but looking at it again in light of the discussions here and I think it actually is pretty spot on - particularly the upgrades to ranged and splitting ranged into regular and automatic weapons.

I'm not sure the game needs Longswords, but not a big deal.

I do think a really key question is "what is the point of Anti-Cav". I'd previously thought they should just be cheaper but slightly weaker Melee units but now I think maybe that's the whole problem.

I think they'd work much better with no negative v Melee, but always having slightly lower than average combat strength but instead having one or two bonuses that sort of change over the course of the game - so initially, it would be the current +10 v Cav, but that bonus might change later in the game (eg +10 v tanks and AA).

I really like the idea of techs buffing Anti-Cav or at least particular units. eg Maybe unlocking Nationalism buffs Pike & Shot.

That way, you'd always have this dynamic where Anti-Cav are cheaper and slightly weaker than Melee, but in each Era they can punch above their weight in certain situations or if you have certain techs.

 

[acluewithout]

Sorry for the double post.

What about something like this...?

Units and Combat

• Anti-Cav. Spearmen and other Anti-Cav are cheaper; Spearmen have zero Maintenance Cost and all other Anti-Cav have -1 Maintenance compared to other units of the same Era and combat strength generally brought in line with Era average CS for units.
  • Bonuses. Anti-cav no longer get a flat +10 v Cav and Melee don't get a flat +10 v Anti-Cav.
  • Warrior. Gains no bonus against Spearmen etc.
  • Spearmen, Pikemen and Pike & Shot. Gain +10 v Cav (up to Modern Era) and +5 when defending. Swords gain +10 v Spearmen only. All gun powder units (eg Muskets and Pike & Shot onwards) get +10 against all non-gunpowder units.
  • AT Crew and MAT Crew. These units gain +10 v Tanks and GDR, and gain their own AA rating.
  • Helicopters. These gain +10 v Tanks and GDR.
  • Hoplite. Additionally gains no penalties from being injured (like Samurai).
• Resources. Overall, more units require Iron, less require Niter or Oil.
  • Muskets and Cuirassier continue to require Niter.
  • Frigates and Bombards, Artillery now require Iron, not Niter or Oil.
  • Cavalry require Horses, not Niter.
  • Infantry have no resource requirement to build, but still use 1 Oil per turn (so, you can build themwithout Oil but they're weaker).
  • Tanks require 20 Iron (representing Steel) and require 1 Oil per turn.
  • Nuclear Submarines required 5 Uranium to build but have no maintenance requirement. OtherSubmarines do not require any resources.
  • Aircraft (including Helicopters) require 20 Aluminium to Build but have no maintenance requirements.
  • AI receives +2 Resource Discount at Emperor and Immortal, and +5 at Deity.
• Light Cavalry. -17 CS vs Cities.
• Heavy Cavalry. Heavy Cav do not benefit from +% Production Cards and always have +1 Maintenance compared to other units of the same Era.
  
• Siege Units. +10 Defence vs Ranged if unit has not moved this turn.
• [New] Military Policy Card, “Nitary". Armories and Factories each provide +1 Niter per turn. Unlocks at Nationalism.
• Professional Army Policy Card. No longer discounts Gold Upgrade costs. Instead, all Naval and Land Melee and Anti-Cav units gain +20% XP.

If it's not outside of the scope here, I'd also suggest adding Trebuchet, and maybe splitting modern ranged into Mortar etc which would still be ranged 2, and Auto-Fire (machine gun, gattling gun) that's range 1 but ZOC and strong defence.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Sorry for the double post.

What about something like this...?

Units and Combat

• Anti-Cav. Spearmen and other Anti-Cav are cheaper; Spearmen have zero Maintenance Cost and all other Anti-Cav have -1 Maintenance compared to other units of the same Era and combat strength generally brought in line with Era average CS for units.
  • Bonuses. Anti-cav no longer get a flat +10 v Cav and Melee don't get a flat +10 v Anti-Cav.
  • Warrior. Gains no bonus against Spearmen etc.
  • Spearmen, Pikemen and Pike & Shot. Gain +10 v Cav (up to Modern Era) and +5 when defending. Swords gain +10 v Spearmen only. All gun powder units (eg Muskets and Pike & Shot onwards) get +10 against all non-gunpowder units.
  • AT Crew and MAT Crew. These units gain +10 v Tanks and GDR, and gain their own AA rating.
  • Helicopters. These gain +10 v Tanks and GDR.
  • Hoplite. Additionally gains no penalties from being injured (like Samurai).
• Resources. Overall, more units require Iron, less require Niter or Oil.
  • Muskets and Cuirassier continue to require Niter.
  • Frigates and Bombards, Artillery now require Iron, not Niter or Oil.
  • Cavalry require Horses, not Niter.
  • Infantry have no resource requirement to build, but still use 1 Oil per turn (so, you can build themwithout Oil but they're weaker).
  • Tanks require 20 Iron (representing Steel) and require 1 Oil per turn.
  • Nuclear Submarines required 5 Uranium to build but have no maintenance requirement. OtherSubmarines do not require any resources.
  • Aircraft (including Helicopters) require 20 Aluminium to Build but have no maintenance requirements.
  • AI receives +2 Resource Discount at Emperor and Immortal, and +5 at Deity.
• Light Cavalry. -17 CS vs Cities.
• Heavy Cavalry. Heavy Cav do not benefit from +% Production Cards and always have +1 Maintenance compared to other units of the same Era.
  
• Siege Units. +10 Defence vs Ranged if unit has not moved this turn.
• [New] Military Policy Card, “Nitary". Armories and Factories each provide +1 Niter per turn. Unlocks at Nationalism.
• Professional Army Policy Card. No longer discounts Gold Upgrade costs. Instead, all Naval and Land Melee and Anti-Cav units gain +20% XP.

I like most of this, with a few (hopefully minor) exceptions:

I think any further 'Buff' to the Hoplite should be for the Spartan Hoplites (Gorgo Leader Bonus?) only - they were the "Professionals" among the Greeks. It would be easy to differentiate Spartan Hoplites: they Always wore a blood-red cloak and had a bright red "Lambda" on their shields - wouldn't have to change the basic Unit Graphic at all.

Spearmen, Pikemen, Pike & Shot Bonus versus mounted would, obviously, be against animal-mounted only, would not be valid against Helicopters or tanks, modern armor. Not sure how that could be worded/coded to make sure it was obvious to all.

Since Cavalry is, technically, a Light Cavalry Unit, it would/should be the first of those to require Horses. I'm okay with that, because by the Industrial Era a great deal of effort and resources were going into breeding 'thoroughbred'-type horses for the Cavalry.

Biplanes should not require Aluminum: only a small percentage of them used aluminum, and most of those just before the monoplane replaced them. Bombers and Jet Bombers should have an Oil Maintenance Requirement, to help indicate that the fleets of heavy bombers hey represent have been pretty rare: only the USA and UK in WWII managed to form them, and only the UK, USA and USSR since then: they are Resource Hogs, rather like aircraft carriers.

Really like your solution to the 'Nitarie' and the Professional Army: simple and I think you nailed the necessary in-game results. The disallowing Heavy Cavalry to get Production Bonuses is good, too: the answer to overpowered Heavy Cavalry is to show their real cost to both form them and maintain them.

If it's not outside of the scope here, I'd also suggest adding Trebuchet, and maybe splitting modern ranged into Mortar etc which would still be ranged 2, and Auto-Fire (machine gun, gattling gun) that's range 1 but ZOC and strong defence.

I'm still in favor of the Trebuchet being a Tech Promotion to the Catapult complete with GDR-like change in graphics to show the Promo.
And I'm going to keep arguing for a revamp of the Classes when gunpowder appears: adding the Firepower Class for Fusiliers, Infantry, Mechanized Infantry, and using Tech Promotions to add the effects of Machine-guns and Antitank Weapons to Infantry and other units.

That would result in a Unit Path something like this:
New Units are in Italics
Start:
Warrior (Melee)
Slinger (Ranged)
Spearman (Anti-Cav)
Scout (Recon)
Ancient Era:
Archer (Ranged) - Slinger Upgrade
Heavy Chariot (Heavy Cav)
Battering Ram (Support)
Galley (Naval Melee)
Barbarian Galley *(Barbarian Naval)
Classical Era:
Swordsmen (Melee) - Warrior Upgrade
Catapult (Siege)
Horseman (Light Cavalry)
Quadireme (Naval Ranged)
Medieval Era:
Pikeman (Anti-Cav) - Spearman Upgrade
Crossbowman (Ranged) - Archer Upgrade
Knight (Heavy Cav) - Heavy Chariot Upgrade
Skirmisher (Recon) - Scout Upgrade
Military Engineer (Support)
Cog **(Naval Melee)
Pirate Ballantine * (Barbarian Naval)
Renaissance Era:
Pike and Shot (Firepower) - Swordsman OR Pikeman Upgrade ***
Bombard (Siege) - Catapult Upgrade
Courser (Light Cav) - Horseman Upgrade
Caravel (Naval Melee) - Galley Upgrade
Frigate (Naval Ranged) - Quadireme Upgrade
Privateer (Naval Raider)
Industrial Era:
Fusilier (Firepower) - Pike and Shot Upgrade
Field Cannon (Ranged) - Crossbowman Upgrade
Cuirassier (Heavy Cav) - Knight Upgrade
Cavalry (Light Cav) - Courser Upgrade
Ranger (Recon) - Skirmisher Upgrade
Medic (Support)
Ironclad (Naval Melee) - Caravel Upgrade
Pirate Barque* (Barbarian Naval)
Modern Era:
Infantry (Firepower) - Fusilier Upgrade
Artillery (Siege) - Bombard Upgrade
Tank (Heavy Cav) - Cuirassier Upgrade
Balloon (Support)
Battleship (Naval Ranged) - Frigate Upgrade
Submarine (Naval Raider) - Privateer Upgrade?)
Biplane (Air Fighter)
Atomic Era:
Helicopter (Light Cav) - Cavalry Upgrade
Destroyer (Naval Melee) - Ironclad Upgrade
Aircraft Carrier (Naval Raider)
Fighter (Air Fighter) - Biplane Upgrade
Bomber (Air Bomber)
Information Era:
Mechanized Infantry (Firepower) - Infantry Upgrade
Rocket Artillery (Siege) - Artillery Upgrade
Modern Armor (Heavy Cav) - Tank Upgrade
Special Forces (Recon) - Ranger Upgrade
Long Range Drone (Support)
Missile Cruiser (Naval Ranged) - Battleship Upgrade
Nuclear Submarine (Naval Raider) - Submarine Upgrade
Jet Fighter (Air Fighter) - Fighter Upgrade
Jet Bomber (Air Bomber) - Bomber Upgrade
Notes:
* All Barbarian Naval Units are Melee, but +1 faster than their non-Barbarian counterparts in the same Era, slightly weaker in Melee Strength, but have Coastal Raiding capability.
** the Cog is, technically, not really a separate unit: It is a cargo type available in the Medieval Era which allows the units being carried to use part of their normal Melee or Ranged Factor to attack other ships. It is only available to Renaissance Era or earlier Melee, Anti-Cav, Firepower, Recon or Cavalry Units.
*** Whenever s Unit changes Class in an Upgrade, it loses 1/2 of its existing Promotions, rounded Up. It can immediately choose Promotions from the new Class Promotions equal to the number of 'old' Promotions it is still allowed.

There would be Tech Promotions to 'Upgrade' many of the units in between the availability of entirely new units in their Class, which is how I would 'sneak in' things like the Trebuchet and Rifleman and Atomic Era Motorized Infantry. The current Machine-gun, AT Crew, Modern AT and Anti-Air Gun would be Tech Promotions, not separate units.

Right now there are 56 Combat/Support Basic Units in the game. My (at the moment) proposed changes would give us 55, plus the 'semi-unit' Cog and with Tech Promos giving us the equivalent of Trebuchets, Riflemen, Motorized Infantry, and Gunship Helicopters.

I have left out the GDR completely because it is pure fantasy: the proper "Future Unit" the way military trends are going now, would be something like Enhanced Infantry with exo-skeleton, personal Drones, body armor, personal GPS, ECM and world-wide communications and remote sensors (nanobots). The graphic could easily resemble Robert Heinlein's Mobile Infantry, another indication of how incredibly good Heinlein was at predicting events and trends.

This is by no means finished. I am still thinking about reconfiguring the Support, Siege, and Ranged Class in late-game, and some 'purely title and graphic' changes to some units.

 

[acluewithout]

I left out "new" units. But. Yeah, I think I've come around to the view that Civ does need some more units. The current gaps do creats some gameplay and balance issues.

Broadly, I think we're I come out on units is:

- Anti-Cav v Melee. I think the idea of AC having a bonus v Cavalry and Melee having a bonus v AC is broadly okay (if ahistorical), but the current implementation doesn't quite work. Instead, a bit like Civ V, I think AC's bonus should change a bit across Eras so their "niche" can be tailored to what's going on generally in the game. And AC's negative should also float a bit so they're never really at risk of getting hurt by Melee from a previous Era. For example, I don't think the Warrior should get a bonus v AC, nor should Swords get a bonus v Pikes etc. but they should get a bonus v Spears.

- Gunpowder. Units that use Gunpowder should get a bonus v units that don't, to create a more satisfying "bump" in power.

- Late game units. These are just a mess. I think Steel & Thunder has some good ideas here. In particular, I think ranged should upgrade to mortars and things like that (and it could keep its 2 range), and machine guns should be a new late game unit line with one range and ZOC that murders Melee. Bonuses for all units probably need to get tweaked a little too. Some units should probably also have varying bonuses in the late game, like how Melee get a movement boost. In particular, Helicopters should maybe get a bonus v tanks, and AT and MAT should get some new bonuses.

- Balance. The units all need a general balance pass. AC should largely follow the normal unit era power trend (or be only slightly below it). Light Cav need to be weaker at taking cities (and maybe better at killing ranged). Seige need to be better at defending v ranged. AA needs to be rebalanced. And costs still need work.

- Get rid of Professional Army upgrade discount. If there's really really going to be a discount for upgrading units, it should be much harder to get than just a card.

- Resources. To many units need Niter and Oil. Not enough need Iron. Aluminum should be an upfront unit cost, not a maintenance cost.

Hopefully the next patch will tackle all this. If not, I think it can all be modded.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I left out "new" units. But. Yeah, I think I've come around to the view that Civ does need some more units. The current gaps do creats some gameplay and balance issues.

Broadly, I think we're I come out on units is:

- Anti-Cav v Melee. I think the idea of AC having a bonus v Cavalry and Melee having a bonus v AC is broadly okay (if ahistorical), but the current implementation doesn't quite work. Instead, a bit like Civ V, I think AC's bonus should change a bit across Eras so their "niche" can be tailored to what's going on generally in the game. And AC's negative should also float a bit so they're never really at risk of getting hurt by Melee from a previous Era. For example, I don't think the Warrior should get a bonus v AC, nor should Swords get a bonus v Pikes etc. but they should get a bonus v Spears.

I've always thought that the 'proper' bonus of Melee versus AC was that Swordsmen get a bonus, but only if the AC are in woods, rainforests, marsh or hills - any terrain that breaks up the formation they need to be effective. I agree, Warriors should get less of a bonus or no bonus at all. Then revise the AC Promotions so that one removes the malus in the rough terrain (as the Scots Schiltrons and Swiss Pikes didn't seem to have any problem with rough terrain at all)

- Gunpowder. Units that use Gunpowder should get a bonus v units that don't, to create a more satisfying "bump" in power.

Instead of a general Factor boost to gunpowder units, my solution (because, frankly, I loved the mechanic in Civ V even though it was completely inappropriate for Impis) would be to give all 'Gunpowder' (what I call Firepower Infantry) Units a Ranged Attack Before Melee to represent their Firepower: something new on the battlefield.

- Late game units. These are just a mess. I think Steel & Thunder has some good ideas here. In particular, I think ranged should upgrade to mortars and things like that (and it could keep its 2 range), and machine guns should be a new late game unit line with one range and ZOC that murders Melee. Bonuses for all units probably need to get tweaked a little too. Some units should probably also have varying bonuses in the late game, like how Melee get a movement boost. In particular, Helicopters should maybe get a bonus v tanks, and AT and MAT should get some new bonuses.

I am totally against the game's inane idea that Mortars and Machine-guns are separate units, At Civ scale, they just aren't, unless you are assuming a Unit is less than 500 men in the Modern Era. I can just barely accept that an archer can shoot from one side of a city to the other, but I will not accept that a modern infantry unit has nothing but rifles: that hasn't been true since 1914.
As stated already, I would provide a Tech Promotion which also is expensive and with expensive Maintenance, that allows you to create Motorized Infantry out of the Modern Era Infantry, with speed equal to Tanks - you probably couldn't afford to Promote all your infantry, but you could create some units to support your tanks in a rapid advance.

- Balance. The units all need a general balance pass. AC should largely follow the normal unit era power trend (or be only slightly below it). Light Cav need to be weaker at taking cities (and maybe better at killing ranged). Seige need to be better at defending v ranged. AA needs to be rebalanced. And costs still need work.

- Get rid of Professional Army upgrade discount. If there's really really going to be a discount for upgrading units, it should be much harder to get than just a card.

- Resources. To many units need Niter and Oil. Not enough need Iron. Aluminum should be an upfront unit cost, not a maintenance cost.

Hopefully the next patch will tackle all this. If not, I think it can all be modded.

Light Cavalry throughout history has been for scouting, chasing down fleeing infantry, messing with civilians, and stealing anything not nailed down, including their own army's baggage if they can get away with it. Very rarely someone like Frederick II of Prussia managed to turn his light cavalry Hussars and Dragoons into Battle Cavalry willing and able to charge and break enemy units, but is wasn't natural for them (it took him about 15 years and a Great General name of Zieten to accomplish it). So, in game they should probably get a general Bonus against damaged Units, great Flanking Bonuses, but mediocre basic factors: my 'feeling' is that Horsemen and Coursers are both overpowered, but haven't sat down to figure out what the factors 'should' be.

I'd like to see Professional Army have a different effect entirely: a Professional Army means they are full time soldiers, doing nothing but train and train to maintain top proficiency with their weapons. That's expensive. I'd allow it in a Card, but it would allow you not a cheap Upgrade, but quicker Promotions in exchange for higher (doubled would not be too much) Maintenance Costs.

Resources are a mess. As usual in Civ VI, great idea in concept botched in execution. I understand why they wanted Niter as a Resource to put a cost on some units, but it's Artificial: most Niter/Saltpetre was manufactured, and that option, at least, should be in the game.
Oil was THE limiting factor in 20th century military (Modern/Atomic Era). Quite simply, all aircraft, all ships (after 1918) and all the mobile ground units - tanks, artillery, motorized infantry - required it. IF they ever wanted to recreate World War Two as a Scenario, it would have to include the fact that neither Germany nor Japan had any oil resources in their home territory and were utterly crippled as a result (my favorite example: the Japanese recruited and trained 9000 Kamikaze pilots, but only had enough fuel for 3000 of them to fly: as a result, the kamikazes actually had a lower casualty rate than Japanese Battleship and Aircraft Carrier crewmen did!)

 

[acluewithout]

I'm maybe more willing to compromise historical accuracy for gameplay, although agree often history does suggest the right gameplay approach.

Separate ranged don't make sense historically or conceptually but gameplay wise they work.

The way civ combat is designed, ranged are actually more like a support unit. They either augment the combat power of Melee etc units (by shooting over their head) or reinforce defence. Normal ranged specialise on killing units (although their incendiaries promotions really screw with that); and Seige concentrate on taking cities and Naval. So, we're basically stuck with ranged shooting two tiles... if anything, I think there's a good argument for Slingers getting a range of 2 but maybe then being even weaker.

Upgrading to two tile machine guns really stretches credibility for me (I guess we each have our own breaking points), so to me ranged need to upgrade into something like mortars.

But there is a tactical gameplay gap - which Vanilla's machine gun actually filled - of a one ranged ranged unit that can hold defensive positions or defend. I think a new unit line starting with a retooled machine gun unit would cover that - but agree dedicated machine gun armies aren't historically accurate.

I wouldn't give gun powder units a free defensive attack, although it is a cool idea. I just think it would add a lot of complexity but for little gain gameplay wise. I think a flat boost for Gunpowder units v non-gun powder units has enough flavour, and like I said would provide a really fun power spike in about the Renaissance era.

Resources are a total fudge. Niter was never a thing historically, but Melee and Heavy Cav need a strategic resource so it's Niter. Likewise, Infantry need oil late game because (again) Melee and HC need a strategic resource. The key problem in terms of gameplay is: too many other things need Niter and Oil, so it all gets too restrictive particularly for Navies; Infantry and Tanks are poorly balanced so there's no reason to build Infantry if both need oil; Light Cab works best as the Resource "lite" unit - which is now broken because they need Niter and Aluminum; and resource requirements for planes are too harsh.

God. Units really are a mess. The core dynamic is okay ie Melee v AC v Light Cav; Ranged and Seige to support; HC are Melee + LC but more expensive and need resources; Melee and HC take cities but need resources; LC pillage and kill support but need (less) resource; AC defend and are cheap / no resources. But AC and how it interacts with Melee is not right; the whole thing goes wobbly in the late game; and resources have really messed stuff up.

If we get a Third XP, I hope they really take a look at units instead of just adding more into existing gaps and just tweaking numbers here and there.

 

[Sostratus]

Anti-Cav v Melee. I think the idea of AC having a bonus v Cavalry and Melee having a bonus v AC is broadly okay (if ahistorical), but the current implementation doesn't quite work. Instead, a bit like Civ V, I think AC's bonus should change a bit across Eras so their "niche" can be tailored to what's going on generally in the game. And AC's negative should also float a bit so they're never really at risk of getting hurt by Melee from a previous Era. For example, I don't think the Warrior should get a bonus v AC, nor should Swords get a bonus v Pikes etc. but they should get a bonus v Spears.

The core of how to handle having 2 infantry unit lines is a little tricky. In civ5 their theory was the melee was supposed to be stronger than anticav generally, but without the targeted bonus. The problem with making melee just "stronger infantry units" instead of a vs-AC bonus is that melee then ends up as slower heavy cav. Whereas with the AC bonus it has the role of being the best option to beat back anticav on the field.

Speaking of which, there's another side to combat strength which is field combat vs siege combat. Heavy cav is the ideal unit to represent something that can crush enemies on the field, but perhaps isn't necessarily superior at sieging (a fact which gets lost when this is just represented as raw combat power) and it is a trap one doesn't want melee to fall into. You can also run into problems with the every other era setup. Pikes countering swords would make melee builds fairly unviable if pikes were properly priced; it would just invert the problem of swords being dominant over pikes. (If pikes had 45 and swords 35 str, and pikes were only like 125prod like impi are, then the existing +10vs AC would be totally fine. You're basically getting an effective advantage for using iron (which you could be putting into knights and other units.)

A personal aside, I see melee and light cav as fulfilling the same "tough backbone" slot in different civs' armies. (Imagine how the mongols vs rome would start building a military.) In a few posts back i suggested some loose outlines for the unit classes, and without highlighting it explicitly made them somewhat similar: both have standard strength, cost resources, and have a combat advantage against someone. Melee beats down Anticav/'Militia' while LC beats down ranged and siege units. Fill in the rest with the resourceless troopers. Right now LC are just crappy HC, but with the way upgrade timings and stables work, its not that strange for me to build horsemen then knights when i want a very mounted army.
I can guarantee that the last thing we want is to have things devolve into heavy cav+ranged spam meta. (Ranged picks off AC while HC murders everyone else. The best counter to ranged currently is Heavy cav, creating a mirror situation.) I also desperately want to avoid civ5's ranged spam+1 melee unit to take cities meta, which I'm glad they started to address in civ6 by making ranged units more frail.

always have +1 Maintenance compared to other units of the same Era.

Be careful with this. +/-1 maintenance becomes increasingly less prominent. While one should definitely stick to integers, basing it on some +% factor (like +50% or double) will keep it from going stale in the late game. After all, you're increasing production cost by +% factors.

 

[acluewithout]

@Sostratus I think the rock-scissor-paper mechanics work best when your rock, scissor and paper each have a different "job" rather than just different "abilities".

What I mean is this. Currently, in principle, Melee are good a taking cities and are weak v LC. LC are good at pillaging and exploring but weak v AC. And AC are good a defence but weak v Melee.

Let's say my strategy is to capture cities (Dom). My opponent is going for a Diplomatic Victory (so, militarily, wants to be peaceful and defend).

I want to capture one of his cities. In principle I don't really just choose between Melee (and HC), LC or AC. I choose Melee because they're better at what I want to do. If I'm more about Pillaging, then I could chose LC. But I choose Melee because I want to be aggressive and capture cities.

Each unit having a unique job makes decisions more interesting. Now when I build Melee, I'm not just having a preference on what unit I want. I'm having to commit to a strategy.

My opponent also now has a interesting strategic choice.

He could build LC. That's the obvious counter (strong v Melee). But at the end of the day, that gives him a whole lot Pillaging units. And that might not fit with his overall strategy - so he either changes strategy to make use of the LC units, or builds a long term sub-optimal unit to solve a short term problem.

He could build Melee. Not the optimal counter, but if his long term strategy is to capture cities himself then this is a long term better use of resources. But that's not his strategy.

He could (and does) build AC. They're weak against Melee ... but good on Defence. Indeed, their weakness v Melee (in principle) should be offset by their strength on defence. And of course those units are more consistent with his overall strategy - but he equally can't now pivot to being the agressor. And it's a dangerous move - AC don't get a -10 v Melee when Fortified in a city or Encampment, but move into the open an they're toast v Melee.

Anyway. It doesn't quite work like that in practicd, because of balance issues. AC actually end up bad at even their core role, Melee are good attack and denfece and Horses etc are good at everything.

Two things that would help. One: give LC a -ive v Cities (maybe with a bonus v ranged).

Two: make when AC get defensive bonuses and when they are weak v Melee fluctuate a bit between Eras. So, not a flat -10 v all Melee. Instead, maybe Spears get no negative v warriors, but -10 v all other Melee; maybe Piles get a +5 when Fortified. Making the AC bonuses fluctuate would let Melee and LC have more consistent bonuses between Eras by having the AC's bonuses sort of fine tune how the whole rock-scissor-paper thing works each Era (eg as opposed to having all the units in a state of flux each turn).

I really don't mind HC being good at Seige, given they are basically Melee + LC. They just need to have an appropriate cost burden v other units, which currently they don't.

 

[Sostratus]

Two: make when AC get defensive bonuses

I envision a defender being able to pump out AC+Ranged combo, whereas attackers need resource units, rather than simple numbers, to properly cut through them and get to the cities.

Based on the other posts in this thread, there's a implicit "field effectiveness" hierarchy of fighting on an open plain:
1. Heavy Cav: the kings. Tough and fast and beats back all challengers man for man. Expensive (always need 'fuel'+highest prod,) but difficult to resist when massed. They can easily beat down LC, Melee, Ranged units, and can put a dent in limited AC.
2. LC & Melee: the intermediate soldiers. They have some combat advantage (either tough or fast +counter something directly) and need resources to build. They are very effective at taking out threats to the HC.
3. Anticav and ranged. AC exist to both be fodder against elite troops, hold the line, and be the one "mack the turtle" class that can threaten HC (through combat bonus+economics, not necessarily just pure combat power like #2s can beat #3s.) Ranged are more support because while very useful, you don't want to use them alone, or the heavy hitters will shred them. These guys don't need resources.

And then for replacing all the +50% prod policy cards you could mirror that a bit with
1.) More effective in combat, never cheaper. Possibly even adding more maintenance.
2.) Slightly more effective in combat, less resource usage (but not prod cost)
3.) cheaper prod cost, and better on defense

I really don't mind HC being good at Seige,

Sadly they are so good now that you don't need siege weapons. I think the economic cost of war for aggressors should be the need to construct siege weapons in addition to the regular army, in order to take cities efficiently.
So you sort of set up HC as "they will clear the field of any foes" but they aren't literally the ultimate unit. (Otherwise anyone who masses enough HC will be able to kill the enemy army and take all their cities immediately with a mono build. Mono build is bad.) Although perhaps a sieging penalty could be reduced or disappear once tanks come on the scene, because Tanks. You can bet facing down massed tanks is a horrifying prospect for boots on the ground, it doesn't matter how high you stack those 'urban defenses' sandbags. At the very least, i don't think Mounted units should be able to fortify or get regular terrain defense bonuses. (This would be a key delineation between melee and LC: melee is a much player in rough terrain and can dig in, while LC is fast.)

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The core of how to handle having 2 infantry unit lines is a little tricky. In civ5 their theory was the melee was supposed to be stronger than anticav generally, but without the targeted bonus. The problem with making melee just "stronger infantry units" instead of a vs-AC bonus is that melee then ends up as slower heavy cav. Whereas with the AC bonus it has the role of being the best option to beat back anticav on the field.

I think Firaxis/Design Group's intention was that Heavy Cavalry would have the best combination of Combat Factor and Movement, AC would be a defensive counter to them, Melee would be the counter to AC. Light Cavalry would be the 'answer' to Ranged and Siege. It didn't and doesn't work that way, but I suspect that was their intention.
To make it work as intended, first the factors and bonuses have to 'balance' for the units' intended purposes, and then the units themselves have to be balanced for their over-all usefulness versus their costs and maintenance costs, in both Resources and Gold.

That means, sticking momentarily to the first half of the game or so, that the following relationships should/could apply:
By Unit:
Warrior matches Spearman (barely!)
Swordsman beats Spearman OR Horseman
Spearman beats Heavy Chariot OR Horseman
Horseman beats Slinger, Archer, OR Catapult
Knight beats Swordsmen OR Spearmen
Courser beats Crossbowmen, beats Spearmen with Flanking Bonus or other 'bonus'
Courser is marginal against Swordsmen without Flanking Bonus
Pikemen beat Knight OR Courser
Musketman beat Pikemen, Swordsmen, Crossbowmen, Archers
Knights OR Coursers marginally beat Musketmen, but it's not a sure thing.
Pike and Shot beat Knights, Coursers, Musketmen, Swordsmen, Crossbowmen, and Cuirassiers
Cuirassiers beat anybody except Pike and Shot, but are marginal against Pikemen without Bonuses
Catapults, Battering Rams, Siege Towers are effective against Ancient Walls
Catapults and Siege Towers are effective against Medieval Walls
ONLY Bombards and Military Engineers are effective against Renaissance Walls.

By Class:
Light Cavalry have extra Flanking Bonus and bonus factor against Damaged Units
Light Cavalry has a severe Malus/Factor Reduction against Fortifications/City defenses.
Light Cavalry has a higher Maintenance Cost than any Melee Unit until Gunpowder
Siege if "Fortified" has a Bonus versus Ranged
Siege and Heavy Cavalry have highest Maintenance Costs of any Class
Swordsmen, Heavy Cavalry, Musketmen, require Resources to Build
Spearmen, Warriors, Slingers, Scouts have no Maintenance Costs in Gold
Anti-Cav do not cost Resources to build or maintain.
Heavy Cav cost Horses to Build and Maintain

All this is assuming something like the current General Bonuses for Melee versus AC and AC versus Cav still apply.

Speaking of which, there's another side to combat strength which is field combat vs siege combat. Heavy cav is the ideal unit to represent something that can crush enemies on the field, but perhaps isn't necessarily superior at sieging (a fact which gets lost when this is just represented as raw combat power) and it is a trap one doesn't want melee to fall into. You can also run into problems with the every other era setup. Pikes countering swords would make melee builds fairly unviable if pikes were properly priced; it would just invert the problem of swords being dominant over pikes. (If pikes had 45 and swords 35 str, and pikes were only like 125prod like impi are, then the existing +10vs AC would be totally fine. You're basically getting an effective advantage for using iron (which you could be putting into knights and other units.)

There's no historical evidence that AC, Heavy Cav or Melee were any of them particularly better or worse at attacking/besieging cities. Specifically, Alexander of Macedon used Pezhetairoi (AC), Hypaspists (Melee) and dismounted Hetairoi (Horsemen, but the functional equivalent of Heavy Cav) interchangeably to go over the walls, and he was one of the most successful takers of cities in the Ancient/Classical world. What does make a difference is that it should cost a lot more to maintain any type of Mounted than the other troops, so they should rarely be available in quantity to 'storm the walls'.

A personal aside, I see melee and light cav as fulfilling the same "tough backbone" slot in different civs' armies. (Imagine how the mongols vs rome would start building a military.) In a few posts back i suggested some loose outlines for the unit classes, and without highlighting it explicitly made them somewhat similar: both have standard strength, cost resources, and have a combat advantage against someone. Melee beats down Anticav/'Militia' while LC beats down ranged and siege units. Fill in the rest with the resourceless troopers. Right now LC are just crappy HC, but with the way upgrade timings and stables work, its not that strange for me to build horsemen then knights when i want a very mounted army.
I can guarantee that the last thing we want is to have things devolve into heavy cav+ranged spam meta. (Ranged picks off AC while HC murders everyone else. The best counter to ranged currently is Heavy cav, creating a mirror situation.) I also desperately want to avoid civ5's ranged spam+1 melee unit to take cities meta, which I'm glad they started to address in civ6 by making ranged units more frail.

Having studied a lot of Classical, renaissance and early Industrial Era battles and armies, my view of what the 'Classes' should be is a little different:
Melee are the 'versatile' troops: able to operate in all terrains and conditions better than 'militia' spear-carriers, but requiring constant training and maintenance, and so more expensive unless you can convince a bunch of young men to train themselves and show up with their own swords and armor ("Heroic Warriors", Clansmen, "Aristocrats" and other crazies).
Light Cavalry are simply not Battle Troops. Unless the opponent has his back to them, they get chopped or speared down if they get to close to any 'close order' infantry (Melee, AC). On the other hand, they can ride down any 'open order' troops on foot (Ranged, Recon, Siege) or troops already beaten ('damaged' Units). And, of course, they are natural Bandits/Pillagers/Raiders. They are also cheap to acquire and maintain, because any old horse will do to carry them and they, by design, do not use any elaborate armor or weapons.

So, I would prefer to have Light Cavalry with no resource requirement, but a relatively high Build and Maintenance Cost in Gold - probably higher than anyone else other than Siege and Heavy Cavalry, whale Melee would have (after the starting Warrior) higher Build and Maintenance costs than any other non-mounted except Recon and would have a Resource Cost to Build as well.

Siege would have very high Build and Maintenance Costs, but no Resource Cost until Bombard, but also would have (Catapults, Bombards) a severe Malus against anything except Fortifications, Districts, Walls - nice, non-moving targets.

Heavy Cavalry would be the Mounted Class with high Maintenance and Build Costs in both Gold and Resources (Horses to build Heavy Chariots and Maintain Chariots, Knights and Cuirassiers, Iron to Build Knights and Cuirassiers - if Cuirassiers are using Niter, then they are no better than (Light) Cavalry!)

Be careful with this. +/-1 maintenance becomes increasingly less prominent. While one should definitely stick to integers, basing it on some +% factor (like +50% or double) will keep it from going stale in the late game. After all, you're increasing production cost by +% factors.

I think increasing Maintenance Costs will have to be by Unit Type rather than Class, simply because of the changes by Era. On the other hand, they have added so many variations within the Eras to Build Costs by Class/Unit than varying the Maintenance Costs shouldn't be that big a deal!

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I envision a defender being able to pump out AC+Ranged combo, whereas attackers need resource units, rather than simple numbers, to properly cut through them and get to the cities.

Perfectly stated, sir! Low Build and Maintenance Costs should mean that the defender can almost always match you for Ranged/AC on the defense: to 'bust through' you should need something better, and to get through the walls you should need the Siege/Support "Special Units" that cost a bundle and have no effective use other than against the fortifications.

Based on the other posts in this thread, there's a implicit "field effectiveness" hierarchy of fighting on an open plain:
1. Heavy Cav: the kings. Tough and fast and beats back all challengers man for man. Expensive (always need 'fuel'+highest prod,) but difficult to resist when massed. They can easily beat down LC, Melee, Ranged units, and can put a dent in limited AC.
2. LC & Melee: the intermediate soldiers. They have some combat advantage (either tough or fast +counter something directly) and need resources to build. They are very effective at taking out threats to the HC.
3. Anticav and ranged. AC exist to both be fodder against elite troops, hold the line, and be the one "mack the turtle" class that can threaten HC (through combat bonus+economics, not necessarily just pure combat power like #2s can beat #3s.) Ranged are more support because while very useful, you don't want to use them alone, or the heavy hitters will shred them. These guys don't need resources.

And then for replacing all the +50% prod policy cards you could mirror that a bit with
1.) More effective in combat, never cheaper. Possibly even adding more maintenance.
2.) Slightly more effective in combat, less resource usage (but not prod cost)
3.) cheaper prod cost, and better on defense

I still hold out for Light Cav requiring no resources. IF for game play/game balance reasons they must be given a Resource Cost, then, for instance, they should cost only 5 - 10 Horses per unit where an equivalent Heavy Cav costs 20, and their Gold Build and Maintenance Costs should be much lower than for any Heavy Cav and probably no more than for the equivalent Melee units. After all, while the Horseman needs horses of some kind, he generally isn't using the expensive swords and body armor the Swordsman requires, and with his access to 'loot' (Pillaging) he doesn't have to be paid as much man for man.

Ranged should be useful only in combination. The 'lone ranged' unit wandering the map should be basically, a kamikaze: meat for any other type of unit that catches him. I would even go so far as to drop the Ranged Melee (defense) Factors by enough points to make this explicit: if you aren't sitting on a wooded hill behind a river or marsh or in a Fort, your Ranged Unit should be pretty much 1 Shot Maximum And Then Run For Your Life against anything 'bigger' than a Scout.

The only thing that should make units cheaper to Build or Maintain before the Industrial Era should be major Civic/Social Changes: a Pastoral Civ will pump out Light Cavalry because every adult in the Civ, practically, is a Rider. A Civ with multiple seaports and sea trade routes will have ready source of the multitudes of trained seamen required for a Navy of any kind. A Civ that places a great emphasis on military/combat prowess will have a certain percentage of the population self-trained as good warriors - ready made 'recruits' for any kind of combat unit.
None of this is really the sort of thing you can 'adopt' at will: it takes generations.

Sadly they are so good now that you don't need siege weapons. I think the economic cost of war for aggressors should be the need to construct siege weapons in addition to the regular army, in order to take cities efficiently.
So you sort of set up HC as "they will clear the field of any foes" but they aren't literally the ultimate unit. (Otherwise anyone who masses enough HC will be able to kill the enemy army and take all their cities immediately with a mono build. Mono build is bad.) Although perhaps a sieging penalty could be reduced or disappear once tanks come on the scene, because Tanks. You can bet facing down massed tanks is a horrifying prospect for boots on the ground, it doesn't matter how high you stack those 'urban defenses' sandbags. At the very least, i don't think Mounted units should be able to fortify or get regular terrain defense bonuses. (This would be a key delineation between melee and LC: melee is a much player in rough terrain and can dig in, while LC is fast.)

Unfortunately, the nature of the Urban Warfare battlefield is that there are no Massed Tanks: 24th Panzer Division cleared a large part of central Stalingrad in the initial German attacks on the city: BUT the 1942 German Panzer Division only had 2 tank battalions and 4 infantry battalions plus its own reconnaissance and engineer assets: tanks by themselves are strictly Targets in an urban environment. I once got a lecture on this from a Hungarian veteran of the 1956 Uprising. Soviet tanks trying to 'rush' into Budapesht were, basically, massacred until they managed a proper combined arms attack with lots of infantry protecting the tanks.

When any Heavy Cavalry attacks a city, they have to get off their horses and they certainly cannot make any massed charges down the city streets (see Kamikaze effect under Ranged Unit comments above) so they should have a severe Malus when attacking cities - not as bad as Light Cavalry, whose major advantage is their mobility on horseback which is utterly lost in city fighting, but, basically, reducing the Heavy Cav to Less Than Melee (because they are not only on foot, but there are generally fewer of them than in the 'infantry' units).

Also remember, while Temujin's Mongol Army had both Light (horse-archer) and Heavy Cavalry, it took cities using a very efficient Siege Train of Chinese engineers and equipment: traction and later counterpoise trebuchets, flamethrowers, and all the other 'modern' Siege Units of the time.

Mounted Units should not get Terrain Bonuses or Fortification Bonuses until Cavalry: the Industrial Era Cavalry are the folks using rifled carbines who, in fact, usually dismount to fight and so can 'dig in' if they have to: Cuirassiers are still too much in love with being a horseman and will keep trying to charge or countercharge. Tanks, of course, can make very effective use of terrain, and Modern Armor modifies the terrain to make better use of it (every modern tank unit includes tanks with 'dozer blades mounted on front or works closely with Engineer Units to create berms, obstacles, and other 'useful' terrain features)

 

[acluewithout]

@Sostratus I could definitely be persuaded on the topic of HC v Cities. I also really like the idea of Tanks being the only HC with a bonus v Cities "because tanks".

I think there's also something to be said for a few more unit abilities to be locked behind techs and civics - not just flanking and embarking. You could maybe work it too so only the core units get these sorts of bonuses (M, AC and LC), with ranged, Seige and HC sort of more dependent on their inherent bonuses.

While we're on this topic. Are there any specific promotions that need a rework? I think Ranged's incendiaries promotion needs to go, and AC should lose their movement promotion and get a second tier defence v ranged promotion instead. I think their first two promotions should maybe also focus on terrain (they wouldn't need the one that gives them a bonus v Melee anymore assuming they wouldn't always have a flat negative v Melee ).

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

@Sostratus I could definitely be persuaded on the topic of HC v Cities. I also really like the idea of Tanks being the only HC with a bonus v Cities "because tanks".

I think there's also something to be said for a few more unit abilities to be locked behind techs and civics - not just flanking and embarking. You could maybe work it too so only the core units get these sorts of bonuses (M, AC and LC), with ranged, Seige and HC sort of more dependent on their inherent bonuses.

While we're on this topic. Are there any specific promotions that need a rework? I think Ranged's incendiaries promotion needs to go, and AC should lose their movement promotion and get a second tier defence v ranged promotion instead. I think their first two promotions should maybe also focus on terrain (they wouldn't need the one that gives them a bonus v Melee anymore assuming they wouldn't always have a flat negative v Melee ).

Assuming we want Light Cav to be for Anti-Ranged and Siege, Pillaging, and chasing down the survivors, then they should get the current HC's Rout (+5 Combat Strength against Damaged Units), and LC's Caparison (+5 Combat Strength versus Ant-Civ) should be an HC Promotion.
LC's Promotions would, then, possibly look like this:
Rout
Depradation (requires Rout)
Pursuit (requires Depradation)
Coursers
Double Envelopment (requires Coursers)
Spiking the Guns (requires Double Envelopment)
Escort Mobility (requires Pursuit and Siking the Guns)

That way, you can choose whether to have Light Cav that can attack the enemy Ranged and Siege units and outflank him, or Light Cav that can finish off damaged units and Pillage - "specializing" your Light Cavalry units to some extent

Using the same Logic, HC Promotions would be:
Charge
Marauding (requires Charge)
Caparison (requires Marauding)
Barding
Reactive Armor (requires Barding)
Armor Piercing (requires Reactive Armor)
Breakthrough (requires Caparison and Armor Piercing)
So again, "specializing" your Heavy Cav against Districts, fortified defenders and Anti-Civ or against enemy Ranged and HC units "in the field".

Melee should not need any Bonus versus Anti-Cav, it should be part of the Class characteristics, so Zweihander (a weapon used by Pike formations, so it's inaccurate for a Melee unit anyway) can go, and be replaced by an extra Flanking Bonus, because these units should be more flexible than the heavy AC or HC formations:
Flank March - x2 Flanking Bonus

Giving Melee Promotions of:
Battlecry
Flank March (requires Battlecry)
Urban Warfare (requires Flank March)
Tortoise
Amphibious (requires Tortoise)
Commando (requires Amphibious)
Elite Guard (requires Urban Warfare and Commando)
Again, you can have 'Special Forces'- like Melee units or Battlefield combat units.

I'd also like to rename most of the Promotions, but that has no effect on game play . . .

 

[acluewithout]

@Boris Gudenuf Love it.

I think this all very modable too. Even some of the extra units, because I can just borrow from Steel and Thunder.

Wish me luck!

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

@Boris Gudenuf Love it.

I think this all very modable too. Even some of the extra units, because I can just borrow from Steel and Thunder.

Wish me luck!

Luck!

But make sure you check @Sostratus' suggestions on factors and the relationships (now frequently broken) between factors and capabilities for the units. No sense having to make two Mods when one can include all.

 

[acluewithout]

I'll do my best!