Unit Strengths by Era

[Geekinstein]

Trebuchets! Man, there should be an immobile siege unit you can make outside of a city! I hope we can do that stuff in PTW!

Yeah, I like that! Can only be built in forest squares? How about a forest square within distance two? three?

[King of Rasslin]

Nuclear mutants would be really cool. I think a nuclear war should have more drastic worldwide effects. It is relatively a minor event considering the shield cost of a nuke. It should be like the Alpha Centauri planet buster nukes

[Gen.Dragolen]

Unit Abilities

Blake,

I like your idea that units can only heal in the field up to 1 hp short of full strength. It was a nuisance in SMAC/X and would make it alot more interesting if you needed to constantly send cavalry back to the stables to rest up.

And yes, Geekinstein they would be nice. Something intermediate between the useless catapults and marginally usefull cannons.

I would love it if all units that attacked a stack/village with a catapult/cannon would have to pass a pot shot instead of just the first unit, no matter how many cats/cannons you have fortified there. In modern terms it's called Final Protective Fire: you have the ground in front of a prepared position measured out so you can call artillery down almost up to the edge of your own trenches.


D.

[Theseus]

But effective ranged fire depends on multiple batteries... the way the game works now.

What would be REALLY cool would be radar-guided counterbattery to defend against arty attacks. It's actually sort of needed, as there is no defense against a stack of 30 Arty... not a problem now, but it will be come MP.

[Arrian]

Theseus,

Good point about counterbatteries. I played around with the CivII editor a while back, trying to create an effective counter to the Howitzer. Of course, the way the game worked, that same unit could blow any plane out of the sky, destroy most ships, and kill Howitzers. Hmm, didn't really solve any balance issues there, did I?



-Arrian

[Theseus]

You made Howitzers able to target planes?! Cool.

[Arrian]

CivII Theseus, CivII. Aircraft attacks in CivII functioned the way all other attacks did: the figher or bomber either destroyed the ground target or got destroyed. Accordingly, a strong defensive unit such as Mech Infantry or my "counterbattery" tended to shoot down Bombers.

-Arrian

[Theseus]

I knew it was Civ2... I thought you meant you gave Howitzers the ability to ATTACK Bombers, not just a "counterbattery" defense.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Heres a disspasionate plea to make the Paratrooper better.

After a paradrop, the paratrooper can no longer move. This renders it totally useless. Any AI or human will quickly concentrate all of its tanks on them and kill them before they can do anything. If the Paras could move/attack/pillage after they paradrop, they could capture towns, pillage roads, and wreck havoc.Why would I want to use them if I can use a chopper and a marine (which is stronger on attack) to do the same thing.

So essentially what I am asking is to make a paratrooper be able to move/attack/pillage on the turn that it paradrops. I dont mind if they get slaughtered after that.

[publius]

paras/choppers

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
Heres a disspasionate plea to make the Paratrooper better.

After a paradrop, the paratrooper can no longer move. This renders it totally useless. Any AI or human will quickly concentrate all of its tanks on them and kill them before they can do anything. If the Paras could move/attack/pillage after they paradrop, they could capture towns, pillage roads, and wreck havoc.Why would I want to use them if I can use a chopper and a marine (which is stronger on attack) to do the same thing.

So essentially what I am asking is to make a paratrooper be able to move/attack/pillage on the turn that it paradrops. I dont mind if they get slaughtered after that.

agreed. this ability would make it analogous to the marine, which is as it should be.

to me the main change needed is an attack chopper unit. ideally it would work like other air units but it would have an attack rather than a bombard ability, so that it could be destroyed by defenders. at the same time, it would have the ability to kill ground units. the range would be short, maybe 4? the attack would be weaker than modern armor, but still fairly high. the defense would be low, so that patrolling planes could destroy it easily.

this would give us additional tactical options in the modern age and make air power more important. it would provide a good use for the airstrips that will be in PTW. to me it's almost like firaxis looked ot the gulf war for their model of modern warfare... modern armor dominates in certain terrains, but in other places the MO should be helicopter warfare. certainly it was that way in vietnam. btw this mod would also make carriers more powerful.

[joseph1944]

Originally posted by Sirian

Also, why are Stealth Fighters nothing more than cheap/weak versions of stealth bombers? Why can't they FIGHT? They ought to be able to execute anti-air-superiority missions, to clear out enemy fighters so the bombers can go in. That's what they are there for in real life: to fight more than to bomb, although they can bomb, too, with a JDAM, for instance. If they weren't meant to kill enemy aircraft, they'd be called bombers, wouldn't they?
- Sirian

The F-117 is an Ground Attack Fighter, not for Air to Air.
The new F-22 will be Air to Air.

[HAND]

The only unit i think is overpowered is probably the Immortal. My Legions have been decimated by these blitters! The only defence is attack, which isn't ideal in some cases.
Cavalry I think is fine. Musketmen are still able to fend them off whilst fortified on good terrain, forts and towns. Pikemen can still survive whilst fortified in town against cavalry. Cavalry has quite a small window for being dominant on the battlefield, with Nationalism a few turns away, Rifleman literally stops them in there tracks.

[King of Rasslin]

Naw, the immortal can't retreat. Mounted warriors are stronger, but IMO none of the UU's are too powerful. Not even the rider or the hoplite.

[Thrawn05]

I'm starting to feel that the Calvery unit is a little weak. I tend to lose a lot of them to pikemen and musketmen.

But then, some of my leftover knights seems to find riflemen easy pickings.

[Gen.Dragolen]

New Uses for Old Units

Thawn05,

I have had some similarly interesting results using swordsmen on knights.

My longbowmen never once succeeded in killing a knight during a protacted conflict with one of my northern neighbours. So much for superior English strategy and weapons at Agincourt and Crecy... Meanwhile, my veteran and elite swordsmen made a meal out of the equine tin cans. Granted, I was covering them with Musketmen while they were in open ground, they never once failed to kill a knight in about 30 battles vs 10 losses with Longbowmen.

The swordsmen did almost as well against cavalry, and I noticed that combat against units of equal offensive vs defensive strengths, combat was about 70/30 win to loss. Much stronger units, like longbowmen versus other longbowmen, or spearmen, and the longbowmen would die almost every time, and without inflicting a single point of damage. Just try and tell me the combat system in this game isn't a little screwwed up!

The results of this was my armies were able to hold off a superior foe and inflict enormous casualties, and each regiment that was destroyed had accounted for at least one more expensive unit. I may just beat them yet, as now I have a small tech lead and am bringing Infantry and Artillery to bear on the target of the latest AI civ feeding frenzy. All thanks to the lowly swordsman...


D.