Weird thing just happened with a resource

[RobS]

A somewhat weird thing just happened in my game. I don't think it's a bug or anything like that, it's just a little strange how the game handles this situation:

I'm playing the Netherlands, whose special unit is the Swiss Mercenary, rated 1.4.1 and requiring Iron. I had no Iron, so I was importing it in order to build them. I eventually lost my Iron trade.

After Gunpowder, I starting replacing the Swiss Mercenaries with Musketmen, which are rated better at 2.4.1 and don't require Iron, but require Saltpeter, which I had. Also, their description page says they upgrade to Swiss Mercenary, which is something I never noticed before and obviously can only happen if you're playing the Netherlands. Kind of weird.

All of a sudden, I noticed that my cities are no longer allowed to build Musketmen, but are allowed to build Swiss Mercenaries! I had not lost my Saltpeter.

???

What had happened was that Iron was discovered within my borders, which allowed Swiss Mercenaries to again be built, but disallowed Musketmen. I at first didn't notice the iron because it appeared underneath a stack of units.

This is somewhat weird, since Swiss Mercenaries are earlier units than Musketmen and have lower ratings (1.4.1 versus 2.4.1) (although the Swiss Mercenary is a special unit, so there's that). Also, as an aside, my Swiss Mercenaries have not yet triggered a Golden Age, so they are still useful for that.

Just kind of a weird situation, and I'm sure the players who play on the higher levels are well aware of these kinds of things, although it is somewhat rare to have a strategic resource appear during the game, I think.

Finally, the "solution" to this "problem" was for me to simply pillage the road improvement on the Iron square so that I am again allowed to build Musketmen.

20+ years of playing this and surprises still happen, occasionally.

 

[justanick]

although it is somewhat rare to have a strategic resource appear during the game, I think.

It is as rare as having a resource disappear. Resource donnot truely disappear, they just reappear at a different (viable) place.

 

[WeirdoJoker]

I've had a resource become exhausted and discovered in the same square on the same interturn. That is weird. But yeah, once in a great while I have a strategic resource become exhausted, which is really annoying.

 

[tjs282]

Finally, the "solution" to this "problem" was for me to simply pillage the road improvement on the Iron square so that I am again allowed to build Musketmen.

But why would you want to build a unit that costs twice as much, but doesn't defend any more effectively (both D=4)? That one extra attack-point on a Musket isn't worth the extra 30 shields, IM(H)O -- and unhooking your Iron also means your best attackers will be Horses/LBMs instead of Knights/MedInfs.

The only "benefit" of building Muskets over SMercs is that the eventual upgrade cost is substantially lower. But that's not really an issue in my games, since I usually build the next level of defender -- Infs or Guerillas -- from scratch anyway, and either disband my Muskets for shields, or relegate them to guarding coastal Mountains.

(I don't usually bother with the Nationalism branch techs, so I never build Rifles)

 

[RobS]

But why would you want to build a unit that costs twice as much, but doesn't defend any more effectively (both D=4)? That one extra attack-point on a Musket isn't worth the extra 30 shields, IM(H)O -- and unhooking your Iron also means your best attackers will be Horses/LBMs instead of Knights/MedInfs.

Good point, thanks, I hadn't considered the costs. Too late now though.
As far as attackers, I was already building Cavalry.

The only "benefit" of building Muskets over SMercs is that the eventual upgrade cost is substantially lower. But that's not really an issue in my games, since I usually build the next level of defender -- Infs or Guerillas -- from scratch anyway, and either disband my Muskets for shields, or relegate them to guarding coastal Mountains.

You make another good point. I typically try to upgrade, but it usually depends on whether I have Leonardo's Workshop, which I don't in this game.

(I don't usually bother with the Nationalism branch techs, so I never build Rifles)

I typically don't either, but I've never really experimented with the wartime economy functions of the game, which you get with Nationalism. I'm not sure I'd like the prohibition against building non-military city improvements under a wartime economy. That seems like a really drastic game change to contend with, holy smoke. I'll try that route, one of these days.

In any case, I'm now faced with another conundrum. I've got about two-thirds of my cities garrisoned with Musketmen now, and the remaining one-third still with SMercs, but I will have to reconnect my Iron so I can build railroads, thereby losing the ability to build Musketmen. Another reason I should've just stuck with SMercs, I guess.

The whole thing is kind of bass-ackwards, because usually you need to gain a resource in order to build a more advanced unit - but in this case it's the other way around because it forces you to disconnect Iron in order to build Musketmen. Also, the idea of Musketmen upgrading to SMercs is weird, not sure I like that. I suppose this could be changed in the editor, if I cared enough, which I don't.

 

[tjs282]

I think it might have been set that way mainly to help the Dutch when controlled by the AI, to ensure that -- after hooking or buying Saltpeter -- they can continue to build the more cost-effective of their 2 available defenders, without diminishing their ability to build Cannon (at least in theory!) and Cavs.

 

[Herbert George]

I think that Unique Units can't become obsolete until you've triggered a golden age, could this be the issue?

 

[tjs282]

You are correct about being able to continue to build obsolete UUs until a GA has been triggered, but in this case the "defensive" upgrade-chain does in fact go

Pikeman ... --> Musket --> ... Swiss Merc ... --> Rifleman

(Dots ... are because I can't remember exactly where the Carthaginian NuMerc and French Musketeer fit in, but that's not really important here)

 

[Civinator]

I think that Unique Units can't become obsolete until you've triggered a golden age, could this be the issue?

 

[Civinator]

You are correct about being able to continue to build obsolete UUs until a GA has been triggered, but in this case the "defensive" upgrade-chain does in fact go

Pikeman ... --> Musket --> ... Swiss Merc ... --> Rifleman

(Dots ... are because I can't remember exactly where the Carthaginian NuMerc and French Musketeer fit in, but that's not really important here)

The upgrading from the musket man to the Swiss Merc. triggers the problem, that the musket man for the Dutch is excluded as long as the Dutch can build a Swiss Merc. This means, that the Dutch, as long as they have access to iron, can build only the Swiss Merc. and not a musket man until they can build the rifleman. If the Dutch haven´t started their GA when the rifleman becomes available, the Swiss Mer. still can be built.

If the Dutch have no access to iron but to saltpeter, they can build the musket man and ironically can upgrade the musket man to a Swiss Merc. (with lesser stats, but allowing to trigger a GA) when they receive access to iron.

In my eyes this is a very unlucky setting for the unique unit of the Dutch and their GA. This setting was one of the reasons, why I abolished the triggering of a GA by unique units in CCM completely (and of course in that mod changed the upgrade path for the Swiss Merc.).

 

[Quintillus]

The upgrade path where Swiss Merc is better than Musketman makes sense, especially given the straight-line upgrade-path limitation of the engine. The Swiss Merc is almost always better; for the 30 shield difference, you could also build a Swordsman with 3 attack in case you need to make a counter-attack. Or for slightly more have a Longbow/Medieval Infantry. Even if you were trying to save on unit maintenance, it's rarely cost-effective to attack with a 2-attack 60-shield unit.

So, there aren't many cases where I'd prefer a Musketman. Maybe if I have way too many shields but not much gold, and plan to upgrade to Riflemen soon for an amphibious invasion? But I'm grasping at straws to come up with that scenario.

There are other cases where I wish Civ3 supported continuing to build the older/"worse" unit, as well as the newer one, outside of the "hasn't triggered a golden age" scenario. Most often this is when I'm playing as Rome, and the 3/3/1 Legionary is cheaper than the 4/2/1 Medieval Infantry, and sometimes that extra defence and cheaper cost is worth the lower offence. At least, I'd rather have a mix of them than only be able to build Medieval Infantry and Pikemen. But there are other, more niche cases that apply as well. Knights are superior to Mounted Warriors, but Mounted Warriors are so much cheaper that sometimes I'd rather have a bunch of them against an opponent without Iron. Longbowmen are superior to Babylonian Bowmen in an iron-less situation, but it'd be nice to still have a few Bowmen as a better alternative to Spearmen for protecting those Longbows on an offensive. And so forth.

The one case where it isn't a unique unit that I often find myself wanting to build the older, worse unit is indeed Pikemen over Musketmen. At half the cost, sometimes I'd rather just have a cheap Pikeman as a stopgap solution. I need some defence now, not better defence later!

 

[Lanzelot]

Haven't played the Dutch in a while. And when I did, I probably had made sure to have iron hooked up long before discovering Gunpowder, so didn't notice any of that Musketman <--> Swiss Merc monkey business...

Can anybody describe, what exactly happens, when you "upgrade" a Musketman to a Swiss Merc? Do you get 90g added to your bank account?? And if you have Leonardo's, do you get only 45g? Or 180g??

 

[justanick]

As far as i know you get nothing. The upgrade is not meant to be used as an actual upgrade.