OnmyojiOmn
Prince
- Joined
- Aug 4, 2006
- Messages
- 371
This would have been a great thread if hadn't turned into yet another Praet debate. I'm more interested in hearing about other units and eras.
What exactly IS "overpowered" or underpowered for that matter?
- Thread starter KaytieKat
- Start date
A particular unit does not need to be a game-ender in itself to be considered over powered.
It's true that if a unit is unquestionably the most powerful UU in the game it does not imply it is overpowered necessarily, but it should be easy to see that it will usually be the one that attracts the most debate for its overpoweredness.
Praetorians are IMO overpowered. Hammer for hammer axes might beat them, and yes you need to have iron, but if not having iron is the only way you can say they don't dominate then it's too skewed. What I mean is if the times Rome does not have iron are the only real time its UU is balanced negatively, then the unit is not adequately balanced. What if there was a 20strength unit that early in the game that required a resource you saw only 10% of the time? Would you argue it's balanced because most of the time you can't build it? In the games where you can't build it, you'd go for the strategy that doesn't involve it and that does not put you at a disadvantage necessarily.
Praetorians will normally be able to be built with a barracks. Since it is arguably better to use combat promotions on higher base strength units, especially if using them in the field as well as attacking cities, we can assume praets will normally have a minium strength of 8.8.
Now the praetorians go on their post-IW attackfest and obliterate most units. Even if they earn the xp very slowly while doing so just because their base strength is so damn high, that experience will quickly lead them to obtain obscene promotion advantages. Unless a praetorian stack (a small stack) is faced with nothing but axes in enemy cities, there is likely going to be many easy units to pick off. If not, the praets can just go round pillaging a players improvements (including things like horse pastures and copper mines) relatively easily.
When one learns to give careful attention to military tactics in BtS, one realises that high base strength is often the best indicator of a unit's usefulness. The loss of the 10% city attack bonus is inconsequential. In most situations a praetorian unpromoted is going to be better than a combat 3 swordsman, even when attacking cities.
I suspect if there was a swordsman UU that was simply a C3 swordsman people would be quick to notice and complain how overpowered it was. Here we have a unit (praet) which is usually more powerful but it's advantage is a little better concealed.
A nice mix of C1+shock and CR2 praetorians should be obtainable pretty quickly. I'd usually recommend sticking mostly to the combat line with praetorians because of their high base strength. It's quite common for a combat promo to perform better than a CR promo when using praetorians anyway. Consider a C2 praetorian. It has 9.6
plus 8 multiplied by any defensive bonus if it's defending.
Worst (realistic) case for full health C2 praetorian: Defending against a shock axe on open ground.
Defensive bonus: 20% - 75% = -55%. Effective strength: 5.16. This gives odds of about 66% for the attacking axe. Better than 50% for him but not exactly delightful considering that is about the best he can hope for.
Of course, the majority of the time odds that bad for the praetorian won't occur. Why? Well firstly you can mix in some C1shock praets in your bunch so that on the worst terrain for defense, attacking c1shock axes won't get better odds than about 35%. Regular c1 axes (which will be most of them since they're dieing at a fast rate) can't hope for better than 25% odds.
Once you start positioning your praets on hills or in forests (and many forests will exist this early in the game) they become almost invincible, at least in terms of battles fought at full health.
Let's suppose your enemy's only metal source is on a hill. Assuming they can connect it in time, they may have the option of putting some axes on the hill to try and defend it from you. Even if a C1 axe on the hill has 25% fortify bonus, your simple C1 praet will have 27% odds against it and the average HP for the surviving axe would be about 49HP. Of course, for every praet you lose attacking those axes, the surviving axe will be pretty much a sure win for the next praet, meaning you could only lose about 1praet per axe in worst case.
Now we take into account an AI would definitely not be smart enough to defend his copper with multiple C1 axes with full fortify bonus, and you start to see how silly it gets. Even a human player who can manage to defend his copper will have a hard time positiong his defenders. If he devotes too much to defending the copper his cities could be left wide open. Playing against a human player, playing as Rome, if you could connect iron and manage to connect horses for a few chariot builds, you can pretty much guarantee that whoever you manage to attack will be crippled enough to be out of the game for good.
The Roman Praetorian has a negative overall effect on gameplay and as such I ban the Roman civ from any MP games I host.
It's true that if a unit is unquestionably the most powerful UU in the game it does not imply it is overpowered necessarily, but it should be easy to see that it will usually be the one that attracts the most debate for its overpoweredness.
Praetorians are IMO overpowered. Hammer for hammer axes might beat them, and yes you need to have iron, but if not having iron is the only way you can say they don't dominate then it's too skewed. What I mean is if the times Rome does not have iron are the only real time its UU is balanced negatively, then the unit is not adequately balanced. What if there was a 20strength unit that early in the game that required a resource you saw only 10% of the time? Would you argue it's balanced because most of the time you can't build it? In the games where you can't build it, you'd go for the strategy that doesn't involve it and that does not put you at a disadvantage necessarily.
Praetorians will normally be able to be built with a barracks. Since it is arguably better to use combat promotions on higher base strength units, especially if using them in the field as well as attacking cities, we can assume praets will normally have a minium strength of 8.8.
Now the praetorians go on their post-IW attackfest and obliterate most units. Even if they earn the xp very slowly while doing so just because their base strength is so damn high, that experience will quickly lead them to obtain obscene promotion advantages. Unless a praetorian stack (a small stack) is faced with nothing but axes in enemy cities, there is likely going to be many easy units to pick off. If not, the praets can just go round pillaging a players improvements (including things like horse pastures and copper mines) relatively easily.
When one learns to give careful attention to military tactics in BtS, one realises that high base strength is often the best indicator of a unit's usefulness. The loss of the 10% city attack bonus is inconsequential. In most situations a praetorian unpromoted is going to be better than a combat 3 swordsman, even when attacking cities.
I suspect if there was a swordsman UU that was simply a C3 swordsman people would be quick to notice and complain how overpowered it was. Here we have a unit (praet) which is usually more powerful but it's advantage is a little better concealed.
A nice mix of C1+shock and CR2 praetorians should be obtainable pretty quickly. I'd usually recommend sticking mostly to the combat line with praetorians because of their high base strength. It's quite common for a combat promo to perform better than a CR promo when using praetorians anyway. Consider a C2 praetorian. It has 9.6
plus 8 multiplied by any defensive bonus if it's defending.Worst (realistic) case for full health C2 praetorian: Defending against a shock axe on open ground.
Defensive bonus: 20% - 75% = -55%. Effective strength: 5.16. This gives odds of about 66% for the attacking axe. Better than 50% for him but not exactly delightful considering that is about the best he can hope for.
Of course, the majority of the time odds that bad for the praetorian won't occur. Why? Well firstly you can mix in some C1shock praets in your bunch so that on the worst terrain for defense, attacking c1shock axes won't get better odds than about 35%. Regular c1 axes (which will be most of them since they're dieing at a fast rate) can't hope for better than 25% odds.
Once you start positioning your praets on hills or in forests (and many forests will exist this early in the game) they become almost invincible, at least in terms of battles fought at full health.
Let's suppose your enemy's only metal source is on a hill. Assuming they can connect it in time, they may have the option of putting some axes on the hill to try and defend it from you. Even if a C1 axe on the hill has 25% fortify bonus, your simple C1 praet will have 27% odds against it and the average HP for the surviving axe would be about 49HP. Of course, for every praet you lose attacking those axes, the surviving axe will be pretty much a sure win for the next praet, meaning you could only lose about 1praet per axe in worst case.
Now we take into account an AI would definitely not be smart enough to defend his copper with multiple C1 axes with full fortify bonus, and you start to see how silly it gets. Even a human player who can manage to defend his copper will have a hard time positiong his defenders. If he devotes too much to defending the copper his cities could be left wide open. Playing against a human player, playing as Rome, if you could connect iron and manage to connect horses for a few chariot builds, you can pretty much guarantee that whoever you manage to attack will be crippled enough to be out of the game for good.
The Roman Praetorian has a negative overall effect on gameplay and as such I ban the Roman civ from any MP games I host.
phungus420
Deity
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2003
- Messages
- 6,296
Well only the Paet is rediculously overpowered. The only other UUs that have similar complaints against them are the Keshik, Immortal and Quecha. The issue with the Quecha is more related to AI retardation then the unit itself, and with the Immortal and Keshik you wol't find the same agreement on them being OP, as they may be OP, but they aren't retardedly OP like the Praet (you don't see people commonly banning Mongolia or Persia in MP, or commenting about refusing to play them because playing as those civs doesn't feel or act like a cheat, which Rome does; most players can play up a difficulty level with Rome, because of the grotesquely OP Praet).
Hi
The problem is, with the Praet, the strategy, or gameply style is the same under most circumstances:
you have iron?
you have a neighbor?
you have an economy that can support a little expansion?
then mass build praets and tear them all a new one.
It doesn't matter who, the lay of the land, or even the diplomatic situation [the power of the praet can mean you don't even fear a dogpile as the 2 praets+1 warrior on a hill example demonstrates]. This isn't strategy, or gameplay style, this is formulaic. Which to me says the praet is overpowered.
if the game designers took this approach, then civ would never have any semblance of balance. By voluntarily choosing not to play a certain style because it's cheese, you are acknowledging that using that style is too easy. Thus, in your hands, it's overpowered. You should be moving up in difficulty level, or it shouldn't be in the game, it's that simple. Yes, there are multitudes of playstyles, victory conditions and approaches to a game, but the choice of one or another should dictate the game not the fact "Rome now has iron, time to wipe a few civs off the map". That's not strategy as I've said, that's habit. That's formulaic. It's why they've nerfed common strategies and gambits from previous versions of civ 4. The CS slingshot of the original, the Cavalry rush of Warlords, these strategies were deemed too powerful and bordered on 'exploitive' and were effectively taken out of the game.
While I agree with you that strengths and weaknesses of civs and leaderheads should be coupled with preferences in playstyle, I disagree with the level in which it's done in the case of Rome. If the Praet is to be used as a unit of military dominance, fine, that's all well and good. But given the fact that the only real thing that can stop you is overexpanding, it doesn't leave much in your playstyle that needs tweaking during their period of dominance. Even in their peak in history, Rome was massacred by the Parthians, nor could they do anything to solve Hannibal. But in Civ, there is little chance of someone routing massed praets before the medieval era.
But as I've said in previous posts, overpowered comes from the player's use of them, not the AI. If Augustus or Julius decided to build a SoD of Praets whenever they got iron and decided to go on a romp, it'd probably change a lot of minds. But the AI isn't designed to think and act like we do, so they often don't take advantage of the opportunites we see in the game itself.
§L¥ Gµ¥
r_rolo1
King of myself
And preats were already nerfed down twice....
True. That is why I recommend people to have a isolated start with the Romans to apreciate the leader§L¥ Gµ¥;8275752 said:
( infact my first game with the Romans was a acidental isolated start 
) That or not have iron in a 20 tile radius 
I agree. The fact is that units far less dominating and strategies far less gamebreaking than the preat bloodfest were dutifully nerfed to the level of being a competitive option since vanilla 1.00. Never understood why they didn't simply changed the unit strenght to 7, for a example....§L¥ Gµ¥;8275752 said:
And Teotburg. And the rout of the Felix Arabia invasion force...§L¥ Gµ¥;8275752 said:
Of course this is no reason by it self to complain, because even preats in game will lose sometimes. But the sheer % of the strenght diferential is huge: having a swordsman UU with 8 str is pretty much like having a str 16 conquistador, a str 12 musketeer, a 32 str navy seal or 36 str Panzer .... as Piece of Mind pointed , this makes that it is impossible to stop them unless in very specific conditions in a 1:1 fight
This is a very interesting point, because in the Pitboss games I play, I never saw the romans being as dominating as that and in fact they tend to be in the lower side of the food chain. This is probably because everyone assumes that a Roman will try to make a preat move and either the roman is gangbanged before it can make a sizable force of preats or he is diplomatically directed against someone while the others sharpen their knifes behind his backs§L¥ Gµ¥;8275752 said:
But yes, in SP the power diferential and the fact that the AI will not either prepare for the preat invasion or make that kind of aliances that would make suicidal to attack a certain foe that soon makes the preat a very unbalanced unit to useWrong, they never even came close.
There have been thirty empires larger than thiers, and the largest ever, the British Empire, was more than six times bigger. And that was still only a quarter of the globe.
Based on size the Roman empire was pretty pathetic, and in any case, historical accuracy is not as important as fairness - the Praetorian gives an unfair advantage that no other civ gets.
The praets are insane with their 33.3% base strength increase. They change the way I play. No need for siege until the enemies have longbows. Instead of bee-lining to Construction I can focus on economic techs like currency and CoL and expand like crazy.
I'm curious... what would people think of a horse archer UU with the same base strength bonus (33.3%) as the praets... that would bring it on par with it's only contemporary counter-unit (spears). Let's say it costs 60h. Overpowered or not?
Or how about an 11-strength maceman without the melee bonus?
Edited: A couple of corrections.
I'm curious... what would people think of a horse archer UU with the same base strength bonus (33.3%) as the praets... that would bring it on par with it's only contemporary counter-unit (spears). Let's say it costs 60h. Overpowered or not?
Or how about an 11-strength maceman without the melee bonus?
Edited: A couple of corrections.
Better yet, 43 strength Mechanised Infantry or 53 strength battleships and tanks.
Hi
If not a game ender, then what IS the cut off for being overpowered? I mean all the hyperbole used sure makes it SOUND as if just having prats means game is automatically won.
They even say just by themselves they move you up at least a whole level which is implying that if you are struggling on to win on noble but are able to win some of the time. Without ANY other adjustment to your game your suddenly a solid prince player.
I think that is an over exageration because logically if it means you are THAT much improved by them that you can move up a whole level then on your current level it IS insatnt win for very close to one. But even if its not. Why EXACTLY is it so overpowering when there are literally dozens of other civs to choose that wouldnt make the game THAT much easier. And more than a couple that actually would make it MUCH harder? You have many choices to adjust the challenge within whatever difficulty you play. And if a particular civ or civs is PAST whatever criteria you have as the cutoff for "overpowered"
Like I said from what I see from prats they DONT let you do anything THAT far beyond what you COULDNT accomplish without them. For some it means a less frustrating game or a chance to try different strategys WITHOUT the radical step of just dropping a level. I mean reaslly the whole if you want the game that much easier just drop a level is rather lame and no more valdid than someone saying IF you think prats make the game THAT much easier just move up a level.
The game has enough subtlities where moving down a level is TOO easy while moving up a level is still TOO hard so adjustments WITHIN a difficulty by a choice of a civ or a leader or a map or whatever are what many players use and Rome is usually a very handy choice to make it easier.
Again what exactly IS wrong with that?
Kaytie
Hi
Yet I couldnt even list 5 of those "30" if you put a gun to my head. And I bet neither would most average people just polled on the street. And like I said before even those empires that were bigger or "greater" than rome that is how they are described "sush and such had x times more land then Rome" "Such and such conquered x more people than Rome.
For whatever reason, Rome is THE empire in the mind of most people and the yardstick by which other empires are measured by. You can argure why Rome shouldnt be, but that doesnt change the fact that it is. And I have no problem with that being represented in the game.
As for "unfairness" like I have asked before--unfair to who?
Kaytie
Hi
Good point. I'll talk about a different unit that also seems to get a bad wrap. (same era though, sorry)
While Prats get picked as "overpowered" Jaguars get picked as "underpowered". I am not exactly sure why. They are cheaper than the unit they replace, resourceless and counting the leaders agressive trait come with two free promos right out of the box b4 xp from things like barracks, civics etc are factored in.
True just as Prats make citybusting easier than the average sword unit, Jags have a little tuffer time at city busting. Although not THAT tuff a time at least nowhere near a dropoff as Prats are an increase. And while they have some short comings in city busting if used to their strngth they can be VERY superior at choking, stealling workers, pillaging, moving through enemy territory for deep strikes. Honestly they can be LOTS of fun once you get it out of you mind that no they arent going to be sacking cities as easy as a normal sword.
So why are they "underpowered"? I agree in many ways they may be the LEAST powerful UU's but just like being the MOST powerful doesnt mean overpowerd. Least powerful doesnt mean "underpowered"
Kaytie
deanej
Deity
I doubt Rome is the empire in the mind of most people outside of the western world. East Asian people probably use the Han Empire in this role, Arabs would probably use Arabia, Iranians would probably use Persia, Turks would probably use the Ottoman Empire, etc.
And it's not the fact that prats are the most powerful UU, it's the fact that the they are the most powerful by the amount they are. I don't think other UUs (except the Quecha) even come close.
And it's not the fact that prats are the most powerful UU, it's the fact that the they are the most powerful by the amount they are. I don't think other UUs (except the Quecha) even come close.
Hi
Yes its a western centric viewpoint. But its a western game.
But anyways what IS the amount thats the cutoff from being merely the most powerful to being overpowered?
Kaytie
deanej
Deity
No matter which side of the gameplay vs. realism debate you lay on, the current situation does not make sense. From a gameplay perspective, you have the fact that one civ should not be much easier than the others. From a realism perspective, you have my last post in this thread.
As for an exact amount, an exact numeric amount is impossible as the many different types of bonuses UUs can get make it difficult to put into raw numbers. But what is certain is that your standard of overpowered is set way too high. Nothing could possibly be considered overpowered with it.
As for an exact amount, an exact numeric amount is impossible as the many different types of bonuses UUs can get make it difficult to put into raw numbers. But what is certain is that your standard of overpowered is set way too high. Nothing could possibly be considered overpowered with it.
KaytieKat,
To get a feel for overpowered the praet is, I suggest you try playing an FFA multiplayer game and ask that every other player play as Rome. You will see how annyoing praets are.
That wouldn't be proof that they are overpowered but it would be a bit more evidence.
It appears you just disagree on the extent something has to be more powerful to be considered overpowered. IMO if something is powerful enough to allow you to play a higher difficulty level then that's almost automatic overpowered, and the praetorian would come close to doing that.
When I said it's not a game ender before, what I meant is that it won't end the game for you right away but it gives you a signficant advantage near the start of the game in probably more than 50% of games. That significant advantage still needs to be converted to a win, and will be difficult if you're playing several levels above your difficulty.
The praetorian's base strength is just too high. In my mod I've tweaked it back to 7 but also reduced its cost to 40
. A lot fewer people would go so far as calling that unit overpowered.
Maybe a good measure would be to say that most UUs are equivalent to the units they replace except they get an extra promotion or a bonus that's equivalent to about an extra promotion. Some units like the navy SEAL get an extra 1-2 first strikes on top of their added promotion, probably because the unit is introduced so late in the game. But Praetorians as they are are pretty much better than Combat 3 Swordsmen. A bonus like that is just far more than what any other UU gets, and so they get focused on by the overpowered-police.
To get a feel for overpowered the praet is, I suggest you try playing an FFA multiplayer game and ask that every other player play as Rome. You will see how annyoing praets are.
That wouldn't be proof that they are overpowered but it would be a bit more evidence.
It appears you just disagree on the extent something has to be more powerful to be considered overpowered. IMO if something is powerful enough to allow you to play a higher difficulty level then that's almost automatic overpowered, and the praetorian would come close to doing that.
When I said it's not a game ender before, what I meant is that it won't end the game for you right away but it gives you a signficant advantage near the start of the game in probably more than 50% of games. That significant advantage still needs to be converted to a win, and will be difficult if you're playing several levels above your difficulty.
The praetorian's base strength is just too high. In my mod I've tweaked it back to 7
but also reduced its cost to 40. A lot fewer people would go so far as calling that unit overpowered.Maybe a good measure would be to say that most UUs are equivalent to the units they replace except they get an extra promotion or a bonus that's equivalent to about an extra promotion. Some units like the navy SEAL get an extra 1-2 first strikes on top of their added promotion, probably because the unit is introduced so late in the game. But Praetorians as they are are pretty much better than Combat 3 Swordsmen. A bonus like that is just far more than what any other UU gets, and so they get focused on by the overpowered-police.
The Romans were just about the 3rd Largest Empire in the World during their Era:
#1 Achaemenid Empire - 8.08 million km2 (500 BC)[2][3][4]
#2 Han Dynasty, China - 6.5 million km2 (AD 100)[5]
#3 Alexander's Macedonian Empire - 5.2 million km2 (323 BC)[6][7]
#4 Roman Empire - 5.0 million km2 (AD 117)[6][7][8]
The fact that England was 33.6 Km2 plus at a much much later date has no relevance on the strength of the Roman Empire during their hay day when compared to others in their own time frame.
No, they were 4th, not just about 3rd.
By your logic the Greeks and Chinese should get the most powerful UUs.
Please stop saying 'hi' in every post, there's no need.
Unfair to everyone not playing as Rome in any game where they're present, duh.
Please stop signing every post, the forum already attaches your username to them. Also, try to quote everyone you want to reply to in one post rather than posting two or three times at once.
...
first you argue for historical realism over gameplay, then you argue that realism is less important than popular perception. I think you just like overpowered praets because they make things easy.
The amount is up to each individual, but common concensus would be that if one unit stands out as giving more than twice the benefit of a normal UU then there's no way to argue it's not oerpowered.
Or perhaps that means you know nothing about history.
And that is not how they're described, the only reason I said the British Empire was 6 times bigger is because I was comparing it to Rome for the purpose of this thread.
You have your facts wrong. There is no yardstick for empire size, and most are measures in area, not 'percentage of area of Rome'.
You seem to be saying that you have no problem with Rome having an unfair advantage, so you seem to be admitting that the Praetorian is overpowered.
You might be happy with that, but 99% of gamers would prefer that their game was balanced than that it lived up to incorrect popular perceptions of how large an ancient empire was.
And a I said, the British was more famous and far larger anyway.
I'm starting to think that you're trolling so I'm not going to reply to you any further, I have better things to do than get into an argument.
Also this.
They give a vastly disproportionate advantage.
If the average power boost to your empire from your UU is 5% then praets probably give more like 25%, since they allow easy combat with almost no losses, in turn leading to highly promoted units that are extremely cheap throughout the game and giving you loads of land and cities. They unbalance the whole game.
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