That stack of doom ...

[couerdelion]

I can’t even figure out what the grenadiers are supposed to represent. This idea of lobbing some missile that would explode might perhaps work in some circumstances (a city assault maybe) but I rather suspect that on the battlefield, these sorts of troops would be slaughtered by massed infantry.

Perhaps they represent massed infantry who would typically carry a musket and bayonet and would stay in tight formation. Very unlike their animation which makes them look like some sort of 18th century version of the ancient slinger or javelin thrower.

I think it would be a shame to have any intimidate weapon between the catapult and the cannon that also produces collateral damage. Maybe have an early cannon with gunpowder useful for sieges but with no offensive capabilities. With an extra-strength catapult, the military side of the game would become too simple and wars would become a simple question of relative production.

[Generaldoktor]

Originally posted by couerdelion
I can’t even figure out what the grenadiers are supposed to represent. This idea of lobbing some missile that would explode might perhaps work in some circumstances (a city assault maybe) but I rather suspect that on the battlefield, these sorts of troops would be slaughtered by massed infantry.

Perhaps they represent massed infantry who would typically carry a musket and bayonet and would stay in tight formation. Very unlike their animation which makes them look like some sort of 18th century version of the ancient slinger or javelin thrower.

I think it would be a shame to have any intimidate weapon between the catapult and the cannon that also produces collateral damage. Maybe have an early cannon with gunpowder useful for sieges but with no offensive capabilities. With an extra-strength catapult, the military side of the game would become too simple and wars would become a simple question of relative production.

I Googled "grenadiers" and found a song about the British, a rather specific reference to the French during the Seven Years War and this reference from the so-called "Readers Companion to Military History," which is rather painfully short: What I get from all three is that these were hand-bomb (proto-grenade) throwing troops, most useful in sieges, whose use disappeared as firearms got better, about the mid-18th century. The title was used as an honorific for "picked" infantry after that for several armies, right through the 20th century. The French article said they had a sabre, the bombs and no firearms. I would swear though that the Civ animation (if you have these enabled,) when they are in battle, has them using firearms first, then throwing the bombs. It seems too much to give them collateral damage promotions, I think they can get City Raider already anyway. Why they would be more effective against riflemen I haven't a clue, unless its a game device to hinder large groups of rifles.

By the way, treb fans, in his last paragraph above, Coeur restates his argument from an earlier post against including trebuchets or further intermediate sinew-siege weapons, which I concur with.

[Shaka II]

Originally posted by Generaldoktor

I think you are anthropomorphizing a bit much. Perhaps you should take a little time away from the game.

Playing marathon can do that to a person.

Originally posted by couerdelion

I can’t even figure out what the grenadiers are supposed to represent. This idea of lobbing some missile that would explode might perhaps work in some circumstances (a city assault maybe) but I rather suspect that on the battlefield, these sorts of troops would be slaughtered by massed infantry.

Perhaps they represent massed infantry who would typically carry a musket and bayonet and would stay in tight formation. Very unlike their animation which makes them look like some sort of 18th century version of the ancient slinger or javelin thrower.

A description of grenadiers in the era of Louis XIV:

A Grenadier (french for "Grenademan") was originally a specialized assault trooper for siege operations, first established as a distinct role in the early 17th century. Grenadiers were soldiers who would throw grenades and storm breaches, leading the forefront of such a breakthrough.

The earliest references to these grenade-throwing soldiers are from Austria and Spain. References also appear in England during the English Civil War. However, it was King Louis XIV of France who made the Grenadier an official type of soldier and company during his army reforms late in the 17th century. According to Rene Chartrand, Lt. Col. Jean Martinet introduced the idea of having men detailed to throw grenades in the Régiment du Roi in 1667.

The first grenades were small spheres filled with gunpowder fused with a length of slow-match. The grenadiers had to be tall and strong enough to hurl the heavy objects far enough not to harm themselves or their comrades, and disciplined enough to stand at the forefront of the fight, light the fuse, wait, and throw at the appropriate moment to minimize the opportunity for the enemy to throw the grenade back. Over time, such regiments came to be regarded as elite.

Wide hats with broad brims were discarded and replaced with caps. This was originally to allow the grenadier to sling his longarm or musket over his back with greater ease while throwing grenades (initially, only these unique troops were provided with slings). By 1700, several regiments had adopted a cap in the shape of bishop's mitre, usually decorated with the unit's insignia. In addition to grenades, they were equipped with contemporary longarms. The uniform included a belt tube that held the match for lighting the fuse; this feature was retained in several later grenadier uniforms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenadier_%28assault_trooper%29

Originally posted by couerdelion

I think it would be a shame to have any intimidate weapon between the catapult and the cannon that also produces collateral damage. Maybe have an early cannon with gunpowder useful for sieges but with no offensive capabilities. With an extra-strength catapult, the military side of the game would become too simple and wars would become a simple question of relative production.

Why shouldn't siege unit strength track the strength of other units? If the unit attack strength goes from 6 to 12, why should the unit siege strength stay at 5? Also, if engineering allows a castle (50% defense), why shouldn't it allow stronger siege units? Civ uses a ratiometric system of strengths along with the concept that each unit has a counter. The counter for a castle or a city with a large cultural defense is siege weaponry. Siege weapons were also used to defend castles, to hurl projectiles at the attacking Stacks of Doom.

[Generaldoktor]

Yeah, that's a pretty good reference on the grenadier subject, better than mine. Wikipedia is reportedly edited in my hometown of St. Petersburg, FL and has been criticized as an amateur effort prone to error, which is why I don't use it much, but I doubt if they got anything wrong here. In any case, grenadiers as an antidote to riflemen appears to be a pure game device; in history, the opposite was generally true. (Follow the link and read the whole article, beyond Shaka's quote; its interesting. )

On the trebuchet debate, I've already talked about my aversion to pure math analysis alone in deciding what is best in this game, but hopefully the expansion beta testers will determine whether it badly affects play balance, or have already done so. My gut feeling is to agree with Blake and Coeurdelion that these big wood puppies will get mass-produced by AI and just stomp all over everything, but if they're in, they're in and if they end up being not, there's always mods for those who want them.

[Shaka II]

I think it's partly a game play issue, the rock, paper, scissors thing. The counter for cavalry is the rifleman, the counter for the rifleman is the grenadier, and so on. Historically, with the advance of rifling technology, such as during Napoleon's time, the grenadiers became sort of just elite infantry, while retaining the name Grenadiers, so in some way, you could say that they evolved to be a rifling counter. They became elite infantry.

Regarding a potential trebuchet unbalance, you haven't presented a case for it. When the engineering advance comes, units and cities have enough strength to counter a stronger a stronger siege unit. BTW, I 've never built a castle. Why? Probably because there are no trebuchets to worry about.

Regarding Wikipedia, the Journal Nature did a study of Wiki entries and found them to be on par with the Encyclopedia Bitannica. Granted, due to it's open source nature, there's bound to be some accuracy or control issues. But it's online and it's free.

The free online resource Wikipedia is about as accurate on science as the Encyclopedia Britannica, a study shows.

The British journal Nature examined a range of scientific entries on both works of reference and found few differences in accuracy.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4530930.stm

[Generaldoktor]

Well as I said, regarding Wikipedia, I think we can trust them on grenadiers. I do use Wikipedia sometimes, to point me in the right direction where I can then get other backup for validation, (not really necessary here, the information given is believable,) or when I'm in a hurry to research just to keep a discussion flowing, which is logical here for a message board. I personally wouldn't use them for a historical treatise to be submitted to authorities. I did get somebody angry on another thread about jungles, trying to defend the "disease" rules and it turned out they were something of an authority on tropical diseases. But I wasn't even using Wikipedia, just the top of my head.

Regarding game grenadiers, I wish they had styled them some way as "elite" infantry, rather than going the "bomb-throwing" route, as a counter to riflemen; it's clearly inaccurate, after about 1760, anyway. But then, you can't really try too hard to make Civ "realistic" anyway.

Trebuchets, Part 11 or is it 19? I'm going to drop out of this, Blake and Coeurdelion can push the argument, since they originally posited it. If the trebs show up in an expansion, then we'll know if they were too much.

Edit after post: Eureka! Call the anti-rifle unit "Sharpshooters" and give them a higher value, introducing them with rifling. They would be more expensive to build, of course. That was the real, non-artillery counter to massed riflemen, beginning with the Crimean/American Civil War period, right? Grenadiers could stay in the game, under that name and with Chemistry, but they would lose their anti-rifle bonus and be essentially "early riflemen."

[Shaka II]

I'm sure it would be play tested thoroughly. I would have to excuse myself in case of bias (heh). I think a safe strength level is 7 with a cost of ~55 hammers. I doubt that would be unbalancing. A strength of 8, cost of ~65 hammers would have to be more carefully accessed. I think if a unit is added, it has to be appreciably different in strength from the catapult, otherwise there's no point, but quite a bit lower in strength than the cannon. 7 or 8 is that in between level.

Regarding the grenadier, maybe his uniform should change when riflemen start to appear on the scene, and he should change from throwing grenades to shooting rifles, but with better precision and strength than normal riflemen to mark his elite status.

[Generaldoktor]

Yeah, good ideas. While you were writing that, I was editing my post to posit the new anti-rifle unit, "Sharpshooter" (avatar maybe brown suit, real long gun, slouch hat,) which I also think is a real good idea, if I say so myself!

[Shaka II]

Maybe it's not too late to submit concept art.