Vokarya's Workshop: Units

[Rezca]

Most fun in in the ancient era...
least fun in the modern era with 40+ cities.

I actually find it fun even in the later portions of the game. Gives me something to do when not at war, and my enjoyment in building and creating is fulfilled. What I don't find fun however is managing all those aircraft missions once war is declared

 

[Vokarya]

I spent some time ripping out Aristocracy and Cavalry Tactics from the tech tree and I noticed something regarding the Conquistador. With Cuirassier moving up to Flintlock, that drags Conquistador along with it. I don't think this is good for player expectations. By the time the player hits Navigation/Colonialism, lifts the movement range limit, and can sail to other continents, I think there is a reasonable expectation of being able to train up Conquistadors and go conquering, but that wouldn't be possible.

I know one proposal has been to make Conquistador an Adventurer replacement, but I have a better idea. I think Conquistador should be a Dragoon replacement. Dragoons will be available at Matchlock, which is almost exactly where you would expect them to be. Dragoons are also one of the most powerful units available at that point on the tech tree; only Elephant Bombardier is even as strong. If necessary, we can hack Dragoon down to 16 strength.

For Unique Unit abilities, the base Conquistador is a Cuirassier with:

• +50% vs. Melee
• Does not have Doesn't Receive Defensive Bonuses

Dragoon already has both of these abilities. All gunpowder cavalry gets +50% vs. Melee, and Dragoon is 25.5 strength (base 17, +50% vs. Melee) against Heavy Pikeman's 13.5 (base 9, +50% vs. mounted) is already pretty overwhelming. So instead, I think these two abilities would be better:

• Ignores Terrain Movement Costs
• Does not have -25% City Attack

This makes Conquistadors a very flexible unit, capable of handling attack, defense, or scouting duties. About the only thing it couldn't handle is attacking a fortified city without siege backup.

 

[Vokarya]

Here is a question I have. Crossbowman requires Iron in BTS. It does not in AND. I'm wondering if that requirement should be restored. It was removed in RoM 0.9.3.

From a purely gamist perspective, I think the purpose of strategic resources is to encourage exploration and trade as a check to offensive military action. Without resources, you can continue to build defensive units (like Archer and Longbowman) but not offensive units like cavalry or heavy melee. Thematically, putting Iron back on Crossbowman reinforces the "Iron Age" transition in the Medieval Era; the heavy units start out requiring Obsidian OR Copper OR Iron, then shifting to Copper OR Iron, and then dropping the Copper option to making Iron mandatory, such as Swordsman and Knight. Less-powerful units like the Maceman could stay at the Copper/Iron threshold.

Is Crossbowman enough of a "power unit" to need this check?

 

[<Nexus>]

Is Crossbowman enough of a "power unit" to need this check?

I don't think it's necessary.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

I'm not sure either, I've always thought to crossbowmen as defensive units.

 

[Vokarya]

I'm not sure either, I've always thought to crossbowmen as defensive units.

I think Crossbows are more of a "counter" unit like Macemen or Pikemen. They have resource requirements, so why shouldn't Crossbowmen as well? Longbowmen fill the "defensive core with no requirements" niche already, and I don't think we need two of those.

 

[Pepo]

I don't really think it will change much if you make then require iron, longbowmen can be used perfectly for defense.
However what I think is needed is some better balance to medieval and ancient warfare; specifically: 1) instead of adding extra strength to archers, make a new strength 5 composite bowmen for the classical period. The problem is that updating strengths doesn't mean updating the cost, so archers end up being the most cost effective unit .2) spearmen line of units are too weak. I can see why it was decided to change from 100% to 50% against mounted, but right now cavalry will stomp them in the open thanks to the 25% on attack in open fields. Also more for historical reasons I would switch places between the pikemen and the heavy spearmen and give the pikemen some anti-melee bonuses, and make it an early Renaissance unit, to simulated the pike&shot of the 16th-17th century.3)UU have some weird balance between then, some being always superior than others, although it may be due to the extra civs module

Also completely unrelated, but could the fast battleship upgrade to the littoral combat ship? Currently it needs to wait a lot until fusion battleship

 

[Vokarya]

Personally, "Composite Bowman" is a unit name that I won't stand for -- it's just too clunky and I hate clunky names. I am strongly considering increasing the cost of Archers even further, from 30 to 40. (For reference, Spearmen cost 35 and Chariots cost 40. Archers used to be 25.) This will make Archers more of an elite unit in the early game, then dropping to army bulk in the Classical Era once Axemen and various flavors of Swordsmen are available.

 

[Vokarya]

I came up with a bit of a scheme to rationalize the strategic resource requirements on pre-gunpowder units. I think the best offensive/counter units of an era should require increasingly advanced resources, like this:

• "Stone Age": Obsidian OR Copper OR Iron OR any other strategic resource is required. This corresponds to the Ancient Era. Since Ancient Era trade is difficult, I don't think more than one resource should be necessary.
  
• "Bronze Age": Copper OR Iron required. This corresponds to the Classical Era.
  
• "Iron Age": Iron is mandatory. This corresponds to the Medieval Era.

For units that are not the cutting edge of their era, they can drop back a level or two. Post-Gunpowder, the resource requirements shift. Only siege weapons and a few rare non-siege units (Cuirassiers) require metal strategic resources.

How this gets practically implemented is:

• The core defense line never requires resources. This is the Warrior - Slinger - Archer - Longbowman line.
  
• Pre-gunpowder Siege units are mostly exempt from resources. Siege Ram is the only siege unit that requires resources, and then only Copper or Iron, but all it can do is bombard city defenses.

• Spearman line: Javelineer requires no resources. Spearman requires (Obsidian or Copper or Iron), and it's an Ancient Era unit so that is what should be required. Pikeman requires (Copper or Iron), and it's a late Classical unit, and Heavy Pikeman demands Iron. So this is exactly what it should be.
• Axeman line: This line is one step looser than I'd like: Axeman is (Obsidian or Copper or Iron) and Maceman is (Copper or Iron), which are both appropriate for the previous era. But I don't think they are major offensive units compared to Swordsmen/mounted units. Axemen are definitely fighting against much stronger units when they appear.
  
• Swordsman line: This line is also where I want it to be. Light Swordsman is (Copper or Iron), while Swordsman and Heavy Swordsman require Iron. Swordsman is very late Classical and so is usable into the Medieval, so I do think making it Iron-mandatory is okay.
• Crossbowman: I do regard Crossbowman as a counter unit. It's a very good Melee counter and has a Ranged Attack as well. So I think the Iron requirement would be good here.
  
• Heavy Horse line: Chariot is the first unit in this line; because it's Ancient Era I can let it go with just Horse required. Heavy Horseman should be tightened up one notch and the Obsidian option dropped, limiting it to Copper or Iron. Knight requires Iron, which I want to keep.
  
• Light Horse line: Horseman and Horse Archer require no resources other than Horse. Rider should be allowed to come down one step, from Iron and Horse-mandatory to (Copper or Iron) plus Horse.
• Mobile Defense line: Mounted Infantry and Man-at-Arms both require (Copper or Iron) and Horse. I don't really want to relax Mounted Infantry, but I also don't see a need to tighten Man-at-Arms.
• Elephant line: This is where I have a question mark. Would it be appropriate to put a (Copper or Iron) requirement on War Elephant, possibly in exchange for +1 strength? In BTS, the War Elephant doesn't have a weaker fallback unit. AND does have a unit like this in the Elephant Rider. Also, most Classical Era units have about +1 absolute strength compared to BTS, but the War Elephant does not. It does get bonuses later on, but I feel those are just to keep pace with other units, without having to include a completely new Medieval Era elephant.

So the really changed units are Heavy Horseman (no Obsidian option), Rider (Copper is an option), Crossbowman (requires Iron), and possibly War Elephant.

 

[Vokarya]

Other thoughts:

I am thinking Arquebusiers might be overpowered for their era. I do agree that Pikemen (at least in the Heavy incarnation) should be usable on the Renaissance battlefield, but I can't see a way to do that while Arquebusiers are better even against mounted (15 Strength vs. 13.5). Maybe Arquebusiers should be only 12 Strength? This would make them still strong, especially as a Longbow upgrade, but not as strong. Once you reach Flintlock, then Musketmen, Cuirassiers, and Lancers outclass any previous unit. I can also look at seeing how spear units with +100% vs. mounted do against mounted units. I think this might make the early mounted units too weak, though.

I would prefer a better name for the Classical Era spear unit, so that the transition goes Spearman-<new name>-Pikeman rather than Spearman-Pikeman-Heavy Spearman.

I think Landsknecht should be a Heavy Pikeman replacement rather than a Pikeman replacement. This puts them in the Medieval Era where they belong, rather than the late Classical. Likewise, Vulture should probably be a different replacement. Otherwise, they don't show up in the Ancient Era where I think they best belong.

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

Military units can be balanced not just in relation to each other within the timeline, but by the accessibility of their prerequisite technology. One great thing that brings me back to BTS over Civ V is the "redundancy" of its unit trees, yet with each one's specialty giving a kind of flavour to the particular tech path you have up the tree.

I understand you want to buff out the rough bits of the big picture, but homogeneity is , to me, what killed everything good in Elder Scrolls IV. Oblivion was a beautiful mess of glitches. Skyrim - a mere sandbox of dungeon loot randomization.

 

[<Nexus>]

All look good. Only suggestion is about Chariots: I really don't think it's a good idea to put it so late on the tech tree. In the early game you may or may not have access to Horses. This is especially a problem with UUs. A civ with a UU that is so hardly accessible is literally a civ without a UU. I don't mind regular Chariots requiring Warfare tech, but the UU replacements should only be Animal Husbandry and The Wheel to leave them some opportunity to at least appear in the game. I followed this logic in MegaPack v3.

 

[Vokarya]

All look good. Only suggestion is about Chariots: I really don't think it's a good idea to put it so late on the tech tree. In the early game you may or may not have access to Horses. This is especially a problem with UUs. A civ with a UU that is so hardly accessible is literally a civ without a UU. I don't mind regular Chariots requiring Warfare tech, but the UU replacements should only be Animal Husbandry and The Wheel to leave them some opportunity to at least appear in the game. I followed this logic in MegaPack v3.

OK. I can do that.

Warfare's placement is slightly uncomfortable, but I very much want to maintain the Stone Tools-Woodworking-Archery-Warfare chain and I don't want Archery to be a tech you can leave behind. I also don't necessarily want to encourage rush strategies in the very early game like you can do in BTS (Mining-Bronze Working-Axemen or The Wheel-Hunting-Animal Husbandry-Chariots). I think the Ancient Era should be "struggle up to settle", not "raise a horde and go conquering".

 

[Vokarya]

I went back and looked at BTS's matchups of spear-unit vs. mounted unit. With +100% vs. mounted, Spearmen have an effective Strength of 8 and Pikemen have an effective Strength of 12. The mounted units they are going up against:

• Chariot: Strength 4. Spears have a big advantage.
• Horse Archer: Strength 6. Spears are still advantaged but not as much.
  
• War Elephant: Strength 8. Spears are even, Pikes are advantaged at the 1.5 level.
• Knight: Strength 10. Pikes are slightly advantaged. (Spears are obsolete.)

To keep this trend, I think we actually should restore Spear units to +100% vs. mounted. Figure in the mounted bonus on the attack and the increased bonus for the melee units starts to seem far more important.

• Spearmen would be effective 8, vs. Chariots at 5 and Elephant Riders at 6. Not quite as one-sided here.
• Pikemen would be effective 12, vs. Horse Archers at 7, Heavy Horsemen at 8, War Elephants at about 10 (assuming equal tech progress).
• Heavy Pikemen would be effective 18, vs. Knights at 12, Noble Knights at 15, and War Elephants at 12. Heavy Pikemen could still fight evenly against Elephant Bombardiers and Dragoons.

If we couple this with dropping Arquebusiers down to Strength 13, I think actual pike-and-shot mixes, or at least a few Heavy Pikemen mixed in as stack guards, would be effective on the battlefield.

 

[Pepo]

I agree with all the proposed changes. Also while it also somewhat unrelated I would say that I believe that the elegant gunner (the last of the line) should be removed. I think that elefants should end with the bombardier elegant, not keep being the best unit for attacking until you are really industrialized

 

[Vokarya]

Elephant Cavalry isn't going anywhere. Its primary purpose is to fill out the elephant line so that it lasts as long as horse cavalry does, until they all upgrade to tanks; I do not want to support "one and done" units. By the time Elephant Cavalry does show up, it's a better horse cavalry counter than an attacker. Rifleman has a very slight strength advantage (32.5 to 32) before other factors are involved, so I would expect Riflemen to be relatively good if defending against Elephant Cavalry, but Elephant Cavalry is effective strength 48 against horse cavalry. The commonality of Riflemen at that point in the game means that the Elephants have a harder time dominating the battlefield.

 

[Vokarya]

Categorization question coming.

I have temporarily created a new unit category for Executives. The current purpose of this is to allow the new Corporations civic in the Rule category to train Executives 100% faster. You need a unit combat category for this. Executives are currently NONE in the combat category.

I am wondering if it would be too strange to lump Executives, including Guild Masters, into the Trade category, which currently only contains the Trader -> Caravan -> Freight line. The Trade category is not used for any other purpose, but I'm sure I could find one or two. I'm starting to think of some very good places to use under-used civic mechanics.

 

[<Nexus>]

I think they should be 2 separate categories. Clearer.

 

[Vokarya]

I think they should be 2 separate categories. Clearer.

Fair enough. The new category includes the Guild Masters -- is there a better name than "Executives"?

 

[Pongui]

Pre-gunpowder unit resources: For gameplay I agree with you, Vokarya.

However for accuracy Horse Archers totally depend on metal stirrups and spurs. That's how they stand up to shoot while cushioning the animal's jouncing with their knees, and still control the horse.

There's no historical basis in requiring metals for the elephant. Elephants I see as a flavour line to use when one can't build horse units. I think these should be fall-backs from the (better) horses. Perhaps balance goes too far when Isabella seriously considers shipping African Elephants not Horses to conquer the New World. Can you accept them as a novelty?