Chariots: What if?

[Tall Stranger]

Ug. Chariots costing the same as a warrior? Not in love with that idea.

I don't think the issue is their shield cost. If anything, lowering their shield cost will just make them more expensive to upgrade (which is what most people do with chariots anyway).

If there's a problem with chariots (and I don't actually think there is) it's that there's such a small window of use for them. Unless you are going either the CB/ Mysticism research path or the Alphabet/ Writing/ Phil path, you are only a couple techs away from a significantly better unit (either swords or horsemen).

With that in mind, it seems to me that chariots can be marginally useful in certain (albeit limited) situations: they provide a multimove combat unit for those players who choose to beeline down the CB or Writing research paths. Beyond that, not particularly valuable.

player1, my recommendation would be to leave it as is. There are always going to be units or buidings that don't have much use (explorers, for example). I respect your desire to optimize/ enhance this unit, but I think you'll end up nerfing horsemen, which will force you to mess with that, which screws up knights, and so on, and so on until you're rendered as incoherent as this post

[Plotinus]

I agree that something needs to be done with chariots. It's a shame to have a unit that essentially exists only to be upgraded. It would be nice if they had some bonus that makes them still potentially useful when Horsemen come along. My suggestion would be to give them 0-range bombardment; I can imagine sending out some chariots with the horsemen to provide a bit of defensive backup.

[LzPrst]

I still think cheaper and -1hp is the way to go. chariots easily break you know, just look at ben hur
more expensive to upgrade? why? because of the shield difference? I admit I dont know how upgrade cost is calculated, but still, training your troops to get on the bleeding animal and to fight, and to not fall of, and to breed good fighting horses etc, it aint cheap!
though you might make some cash from selling the extra chariots as rickshaws...

[vulture]

Chariots do have occasional uses, although it largely depends on your starting terrain (at least for the way I use them). Sometimes 2 or 3 chariots acting as a mobile defence and able to get in to (for example) 3 cities to boost their garrison can be worth more than 4-6 warriors spread around those cities (plus they can get to the other end of your empire more quickly should you suddenly develop a need for them there). Basically, they can be an emergency filler - one chariot can effectively replace 3 warriors in some circumstances - at least until you can get a more organised defence and response sorted out. But it depends a great deal on terrain, resources and starting techs (not to mention your style of expansion), and more often than not chariots aren't any real use.

Well, other than the fact that you can build 2 or 3 of them and use them as per Aeson's suggestion for the Jaguar Warrior to cripple a neighbouring AI civ early on (although the wheeled flag might hurt their capabilities slightly).