Why can't Gunpowder units take City Raider promotions?

[Wodan]

^^^ Siege gets damaged or destroyed to quickly in any big war that I never have enough of them to do that to several cities in a row unless I preserve them by taking more risks with my other units. If I have enough to reduce the city defenses to 0 in one turn, and still pound the defenders, well siege just doesn't last long until you are attacking middle game defenders with arty.

Spies.

 

[Cutlass]

I do both. I still always run short of siege if it's a long war. Sometimes it's better to toss a weaker attacker at the strongest defender to wear it down than it is to use up all the siege.

 

[huayna_capac]

interestingly enough, when muskets started coming up, for a certain transition period, one could get paid much better as a soldier if one could operate a bow: further reach, better accuracy, better firing rate, more damage, etc.

muskets were used because having an army of musketeers requires much less training. The resulting armies were not necessarily better than an army of bowmen or macemen.
But instead of training your soldiers for years on how to effectively use a bow, you could simply recruit and "train" your soldiers in a matter of months.

The training ( also, later, of early riflemen ) consisted of a lot more drill and discipline than of actually shooting - it was more important not to break ranks than to shoot well as the guns were inaccurate anyway and whoever got closer to the enemy when shooting had the advantage.

In conclusion, I think making the musketmen only slightly stronger is absolutely fine.
CR is probably meant to negate city bonusses, which musketmen are not up against - but, if you do bombard, it is true that macemen are better attacking a city.

In close combat ( as conquering a city tends to be ) this may be justified. But I think that has been discussed sufficiently already

 

[Cardiac Kids]

I do both. I still always run short of siege if it's a long war. Sometimes it's better to toss a weaker attacker at the strongest defender to wear it down than it is to use up all the siege.

totally agreed

 

[Narnia]

well, that was exactly my point. The musket is nice if I would wanna defend, but for attacking, the mace is scarier. With armor, a longbow wouldnt be as usefull as it is against a musketman shooting at you, while hes standing in the field. The macemen running at ya, with armor, and no possible way to cover, would be worse imo.

Actully, if memory serves, the english longbow had more range than any gun for many years (as in decades if not longer). What I don't understand is why didn't the generals just hire a few hundred archers as snipers, they wouldn't need armor sense they will just stay out of the enemy's range and they can just shoot the enemy while staying out of their enemy's range until they win . This would have been much better than having their armies march up to each other, line up and shoot at each other (which they did for many years), only getting massive deaths on both sides.

 

[Narnia]

well, that was exactly my point. The musket is nice if I would wanna defend, but for attacking, the mace is scarier. With armor, a longbow wouldnt be as usefull as it is against a musketman shooting at you, while hes standing in the field. The macemen running at ya, with armor, and no possible way to cover, would be worse imo.

actully the macemen wouldn't be wearing much armor either. The scotts (I think, I may be wrong) figured out that they could beat the english's (once again I may be wrong with my nationalities) numerical, economic, and weapon advantages by walking up to them, hiding behind shields and waiting for the english soldiers to fire, then runing up and massacring the english soldiers with swords, axes, etc while the brits were reloading. This was during the later musket/early rifles years.

 

[Narnia]

I do both. I still always run short of siege if it's a long war. Sometimes it's better to toss a weaker attacker at the strongest defender to wear it down than it is to use up all the siege.

I often have several cities producing almost nothing but siege for the entire game.
PS: I like your "All that is requried for evil to succeed is if good men do nothing" quote

 

[revengeofmakno]

Actully, if memory serves, the english longbow had more range than any gun for many years (as in decades if not longer). What I don't understand is why didn't the generals just hire a few hundred archers as snipers, they wouldn't need armor sense they will just stay out of the enemy's range and they can just shoot the enemy while staying out of their enemy's range until they win . This would have been much better than having their armies march up to each other, line up and shoot at each other (which they did for many years), only getting massive deaths on both sides.

They didn't do it because it wasn't an effective idea for a battlefield. A longbow was never a good "sniping" or skirmishing weapon. At long range, you won't hit individual targets that can move. Try it sometime or try asking a well trained archer with a modern bow (much easier to handle than a longbow) to hit a person sized target that can move at long range. If you are in rougher terrain, (the rougher, the better) you can start to get away with coming to shorter range to some extent but it is still risky behaviour.

Until the breech loader came around, skirmishers on foot were always very vulnerable to cavalry and even to other light infantry and could be run down or driven off quickly. The longbow itself was most effective when behind some kind of fortification, planted stakes if necessary, that allowed for a calm, steady shooting stance. Secure flanks were also vital. Also, like any missile weapon, it was best when shooting at a massed target.

The skirmishers of the early gunpowder period tended to be dragoons who began as essentially mounted musketeers that would dismount to fire, preferably from some cover such as woods, behind fences, ditches, etc. When seriously threatened, they rode away. The previous form of optimal skirmisher was, of course, the horse archer. The horse archer lingered on for quite a while but gunpowder was also the writing on the wall for them.

 

[Jarlaxe Baenre]

interestingly enough, when muskets started coming up, for a certain transition period, one could get paid much better as a soldier if one could operate a bow: further reach, better accuracy, better firing rate, more damage, etc.

muskets were used because having an army of musketeers requires much less training. The resulting armies were not necessarily better than an army of bowmen or macemen.
But instead of training your soldiers for years on how to effectively use a bow, you could simply recruit and "train" your soldiers in a matter of months.

The training ( also, later, of early riflemen ) consisted of a lot more drill and discipline than of actually shooting - it was more important not to break ranks than to shoot well as the guns were inaccurate anyway and whoever got closer to the enemy when shooting had the advantage.

In conclusion, I think making the musketmen only slightly stronger is absolutely fine.
CR is probably meant to negate city bonusses, which musketmen are not up against - but, if you do bombard, it is true that macemen are better attacking a city.

In close combat ( as conquering a city tends to be ) this may be justified. But I think that has been discussed sufficiently already

It was discussed sufficiently. Last year.

 

[Tristan_C]

It was discussed sufficiently. Last year.

I love these threads where some necromancer comes along, and a long-buried debate picks right back up like it never paused.

It all makes sense for game balance. Gunpowders have high base and no counters among pre-existing technology. Helps in a small way to keep tech-leads from being overpowering. It also keeps city defense in tech parity rifles & infantry manageable, though. Mace-versus-longbow is usually a smackdown on the maceman... but rifle-versus-rifle...

 

[G-Max]

I actually address this issue in the Earth29civs mod that I'm making. Macemen upgrade exclusively to Grenadiers, never to muskets or riflemen, and Grenadiers can be given City Raider but not City Garrison because they're in a combat class separate from other gunpowder units.