Late renaissance military questions

[couerdelion]

Two questions on late-renaissance strategy (although I’ll admit this is based on a cursory glance at the units and techs

1) If you are aiming at military techs and have no naval considerations to worry about, why would you go for steel when artillery follows directly from rifling, seems to be cheaper, has more powerful units and have no resource requirements?
2) Quite apart from gunpowder arriving late, is there any real point to musketmen? In a head to head battle they might have a small advantage over most units but there seems to be no fundamental tech shift. Perhaps the point is that they are a better all round unit but have few key advantages (eg maceman with city attack promos)
3) Can anyone explain to me how Washington keeps on finding strange new techs that I haven’t? The last example was when he discovered Replaceable Parts and I am sure that he still needed Nationalism.

General comments

I am noticing some minor problems I have with the late-middle game techs. Gunpowder, for one, seems to be very out-of-sync with other comments. There seems to be long sections of the game where military tech stays where it is while you have to spend time working out how to make paper or spend time contemplating how the world operates (liberalism, nationalism, economics, chemistry). One result of this is that catapults stay in the game well into the renaissance period when they should be obsolete by the beginning. I would be interested to know what it is that my frigates are carry since I still can’t build cannon : catapults would make more of a mess to my own sails that they would to an enemy fishing boat.

[uberfish]

1) because artillery's prereqs are rifling, physics and... steel

2) I never make muskets because they lose to knights and city raider macemen are better on offence. Worse, you can't promote anything to them. Underpowered unit for sure.

3) replacable parts doesn't require nationalism.

I actually like the military tech stagnation periods in the game, they're realistic and mean that in that timeframe you can actually fight a war without constantly worrying about your troops being about to become outdated. The lack of a medieval siege unit to replace the catapult is weird I agree, I very often run around with rather silly and ahistorical grenadier/catapult based stacks.

[Arrian]

1) what uberfish said, plus the fact that steel enables the ironworks and leads to other juicy things (steam power, railroad).

2) I'm not a fan of muskets, but the idea is that they are the rirst unit for which there is no specific counter (prior). Macemen, for instance, have the 50% bonus vs. melee. Ok, but muskets are 9str and are not melee. Various promotions will have no effect on muskets (shock, cover, etc). I see them as a decent option for stack defender. Get a combat1+medic musket in the stack, and it has some value.

Overall, though, it's not much of a unit.

-Arrian

[couerdelion]

Bugs?

All this means is that my tech tree (Civilopedia and poster) are useless. In fact, my chart shows two “Replaceable Parts” investment with the cheaper latter investment requiring the more expensive former. Artillery is definitely after Rifling with Steel nowhere near it on the tech chart.

Is there anywhere where I can get the correct chart?

Also, are we talking about a known game bug that has been patched up? The game has played a few tricks on me at times although the biggest bug was the time that a barbarian archer somehow managed to kill the lone warrior defending Delhi and it’s pyramids

[ben_sphynx]

ON the tech tree poster, there is a small misprint.

There are two techs labled as Replaceable Parts.

The one that costs 2000 should actually be Constitution; the one that costs 1600 is actually Replaceable parts.

[Arrian]

The chart is outdated anyway, because the 1.52 patch increased the cost of a bunch of techs in the mid-to-late game.

The tech tree in the game, however, should display properly (including the prereq).

-Arrian

[Willem]

Re: Bugs?

Originally posted by couerdelion
All this means is that my tech tree (Civilopedia and poster) are useless. In fact, my chart shows two “Replaceable Parts” investment with the cheaper latter investment requiring the more expensive former. Artillery is definitely after Rifling with Steel nowhere near it on the tech chart.

Not all the required techs are shown on the tech tree. You have to look at each tech itself to see the prereqs.

[MasterDave]

I rarely build musketmen, preferring to learn chemistry right after gunpowder and then building and upgrading to grenadiers. The exception is the French UU, the musketeer, which has 2 movement points and becomes an excellent and tough pillager (gets defensive bonuses from terrain unlike knights) until you get cavalry.

I think catapults are around way too long as well, although in the late ren. period I only use them to knock down cultural defense rather than trying to attack muskets or grenadiers with them. I would like to either see the cannon appear sooner in the tech tree, or see some sort of intermediate bombard unit such as a trebuchet (8str or so ) appear in the early ren. period.

[gus_smedstad]

Musketmen are Longbow replacements. Like Longbows, they can take the City Defender upgrades, and don't have any resource requirements. They get terrain benefits, so they defeat Knights if they defend anywhere but in the open. If you don't have copper or iron (it's happened to me) Muskets may be your offense unit for a while.

- Gus

[Shaka II]

Originally posted by MasterDave
I rarely build musketmen, preferring to learn chemistry right after gunpowder and then building and upgrading to grenadiers. The exception is the French UU, the musketeer, which has 2 movement points and becomes an excellent and tough pillager (gets defensive bonuses from terrain unlike knights) until you get cavalry.

I think catapults are around way too long as well, although in the late ren. period I only use them to knock down cultural defense rather than trying to attack muskets or grenadiers with them. I would like to either see the cannon appear sooner in the tech tree, or see some sort of intermediate bombard unit such as a trebuchet (8str or so ) appear in the early ren. period.

I agree. I put that in my comment to Firaxis for the expansion pack. perhaps engineering should allow the trebuchet with the cost of engineering research being increased from 900 to 1200, since it allows knights also. Don't want it too overpowering.

There's such a long time that catapults are around, while cannons have a comparitively shorter shelf life. Cannons do need steel however, so the obvious solution is to introduce an intermediate siege weapon such as the trebuchet.

On marathon, I really get to enjoy all of the units in the field without them being obsolete too soon. This was an important improvement made in V1.52.

[Arrian]

Guilds allows Knights.

I'd be careful about STR8 trebs. That's pretty strong. I might favor STR6 with increased retreat chance.

I do think some sort of intermediary unit between cats & cannon is a good idea. I just don't want it to dramatically change the balance.

-Arrian

[couerdelion]

Cannons need steel??

Well it’s true that 14th cannon were pretty useless even as siege weapons. Gradually the centuries up to the Napoleonic Era they became very important siege weapons and increasing became an important element of the battlefield which then tended to comprise four groups. Infantry was made up of tightly-packed musketmen. Riflemen made up a smaller group of skirmishers largely because the fire-rate was slower although they had greater range and accuracy. Cavalry defeated most open formations while cannon destroyed closed formations.

Where Grenadiers fit into all this is a complete loss to me.

I’m also wondering whether steel should be a pre-requisite for Railroad but it certainly should not be a requirement for cannon that were around long before modern metallurgy discovered steel and other alloys.

[El Conquistador]

Q: don't you just LOVE those Cossacks? 18 str!

[Shaka II]

Originally posted by Arrian
Guilds allows Knights.

I'd be careful about STR8 trebs. That's pretty strong. I might favor STR6 with increased retreat chance.

I do think some sort of intermediary unit between cats & cannon is a good idea. I just don't want it to dramatically change the balance.

-Arrian

Yes, it's pikemen that engineering allows. But I think engineering is the tech that allows trebuchets, right? During this time period, an engineer was part of the military to supervise the construction of siege weaponry. So, to provide an intermediate siege weapon between catapults with attack of 5 and cannon with attack of 12, a trebuchet with an attack of 7 or 8 should be about right.

Going from catapults (strength = 5) to cannon (strength = 12) is a 250% strength increase. Going from cannon to artillery (strength = 18) represents a 150% strength increase. So, there's a huge jump in siege strength between catapult and cannon. Choose an intermediate strength and cost, as well as tech cost should do the job. The geometric mean of 5 and 12 is 7.9 (round to 8), which is an appropriate strength.

Also, the guild tech allows knight (10), and engineering allows pikemen (6), so the trebuchet with strength 7-8 fits nicely.

Unit/Strength/Cost

Catapult 5 40
Trebuchet 7-8 60-70
Cannon 12 100
Artillery 18 150

Tech/Cost of Research

Construction 350
Engineering 900 (--> 1200 to allow trebuchet & pikemen)
Steel 2400

Also consider that when construction is researched allowing catapults, the prevailing units are swordsmen (6) , spearmen (4), and archers (3 with 50% city defense bonus). Cats are usually used to soften up the archer defenders who have 50% city defense bonus, making a strength of 4.5, not considering other defense bonuses. The cat with strength of 5 is slightly higher than the 4.5 archer base defense.

By the time the medieval era rolls around, the prevailing units are knight (10), pike (6), and longbowmen (6 with 25% city defense bonus). To make the medieval siege weaponry match or be slightly higher than the longbowmen base defense of 7.5, the trebuchet should have a strength of 8. The actual strength/cost/withdraw/collateral damage/tech cost is a tweak, but the basic need for a medieval siege weapon can be seen.