TOW Infantry

[monkeyman]

Originally posted by joncnunn
Elais, changes in TOW for the base game are virtually mute.

I heard from multi-player groups that it's rare for such games to get into the Industrial era.

And in my single player games, they tend to either be lost in Ancient Era / early Middle ages or else won in late Middle ages / early Industrial.

Also, the AI in calculating military strength cares much more about the offensive factor than the defensive calculator.

C3C has a modern era?

I've also yet to build tanks in C3C I've only played about 10 games of it, but it seems much easier than PTW...

--mm

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Elias
I modded the TOW so it only has 10 on defence so the people with resources still keep the advantage.

As Alexman has already pointed out, Mech Inf are better defenders than TOW. And I need not tell you that MA are incomparably better than TOW on offense.

If you've got the relevant resources, TOW don't have much use beyond helidropping and as upgrade for Guerilla.

Could somone explains the bombard when attacking thing though how much bombard do you get to keep when playing def it never seems like its enough to do much.

It's a normal bombardment attack with the bombard strength of the unit stacked with the defender against the defense of the attacker. TOW has a bombard strength of 6, so against Tanks or MA, the chance of getting a hit aren't that great.

It's never more than one "round", no matter the firing units RoF.

[Goethe80]

Well, to be fair, the TOW upgrade makes the warrior/archer basic units far more useful in the long term. Especially vs. the horseman to calvary setup, which is of quite limited use in the modern era (I wonder what exactly I'm supposed to do with a 6/3/3 unit when I'm up against MA and MI).

Personally, I would like to see some form of upgrade for the calvary. While I understand the balance issues for not letting calvary becoming MA, some kind of vaguely useful upgrade would be good. Perhaps a weaker 3 move unit for use in harassing, pillaging and capturing workers while still having a half decent chance vs. 2nd-tier units like infantry and TOW would be interesting.

[Plotinus]

Upgrade for the calvary? Is that Mel Gibson's next film...?

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by Goethe80
Personally, I would like to see some form of upgrade for the calvary. While I understand the balance issues for not letting calvary becoming MA, some kind of vaguely useful upgrade would be good. Perhaps a weaker 3 move unit for use in harassing, pillaging and capturing workers while still having a half decent chance vs. 2nd-tier units like infantry and TOW would be interesting.

The idea is to put SOME breaks in the upgrade chain so that you can't simply keep upgrading units into better and better ones (which the human is much better at doing efficiently and at critical points in time than the AI is).

With enough Artillery and Bombers, even Cavalry can do quite well against Infantry. And the fact that they can move 3 tiles gives them the mobility and pillaging advantage in the game until Modern Armor arrive.

[Last Conformist]

Thanks to the AI's scatterbrained approach to bombardment, I find the Cav/Inf/Arty era one of the easiest to make conquests in.

[Elias]

Wait a minnuet are you guys saying you rarely get into the modern era??? Thats when I conquer the world Its the only time I can build up enough troops. I Think cavalary should upgrade to somthing too its really annoying having to rebuild your entire offense. Well then agin at least we have upgrades rember CTP

[DrSpike]

Well if you plan a late game offensive you can concentrate on bombard units and maybe some defenders. Most of the time the cavalry window is the one to hit if you want to finish early though.

[Goethe80]

Well, like I mentioned, I understand the balance issues limiting the horseman-calvalry upgrade path. But the strange thing is that right now, the only obsolete land unit is the calvalry. Even your warrior/swordsman/archers get to become TOW (heh, the point of this entire thread i'd think)!

Originally posted by Trip

The idea is to put SOME breaks in the upgrade chain so that you can't simply keep upgrading units into better and better ones (which the human is much better at doing efficiently and at critical points in time than the AI is).

With enough Artillery and Bombers, even Cavalry can do quite well against Infantry. And the fact that they can move 3 tiles gives them the mobility and pillaging advantage in the game until Modern Armor arrive.

[Jon Shafer]

And like I said, Cavalry can still have useful application until Modern Armor come on the scene. Up to that point they're the only 3-move combat units and are very good at snatching up undefended Workers and Settlers, pillaging strategic roads and taking advantage of front breakthroughs (more important against humans).

[Solomwi]

Originally posted by Goethe80
(I wonder what exactly I'm supposed to do with a 6/3/3 unit when I'm up against MA and MI).

Cram 'em into armies and make them 8/4/4 blitz units (if I'm clear on the army/pentagon bonus), then use them to pick off any infantry or below units, especially damaged, in order to save your limited MA attacks each turn for the MI's and tougher infantry units.