Unit Strengths by Era

[vmxa1]

F15 is a poor UU as it comes so late in the game. In all deference to Vel, I am not fond of swordsmen as they can not be upgraded. Arch/Bowman fall into the same category, I do not build more than a few as they can not be upgraded past Longbow. Why can't a swordsmen learn to shoot? Make the upgrade a bit expensive, if it is needed to balance. The retreat is so powerful, it makes little sense to build anything else once you can make horesmen. Since they can upgrade all the way to calv, which can be used for the whole game. As Vel has already stated, build a bunch and conquer any civ in the game. You just attack and retreat until you kill the defenders. So you have a 2 1 2 unit really running over the whole game till you get knights and then it is even more frightening. The AI does not seem to even follow up when a unit retreats in bad shape unless it has extra units. I see it all the time rebuff a horse/knigh/calv and it has one HP, but no one comes out of the city to finish it off. I understand that if only one unit is in the garrison, but even then if nothing is in range, why let the attacker of free to recover? The AI is far too willing to grab a worker, even when that puts it in grave danger. Worker is next to a tank, but AI send a weak unit to grab it or a strong unit, but many defenders are at hand. I have also seen many cases where the AI will be in a multiple front war and one civ is next to it, but they send large forces way across the map to attack another civ, leaving their empire exposed. I am not sure if the latter can or even should be addressed, but the worker thing is lame, I am tlaking about late in the game when there are so many workers around, that another is of no value.

[player1]

UNIT OBSOLENCE PROBEM SHOULD BE FIXED.
I told everything to DAN - FIRAXIS, althought he didn't understand the probem (he is more marketing guy I suppose), in one of the patch threads (I think it was the list of fixes)

Also Musktmen are not worth of their money.

They should be:
-cheaper (40 or 50 shields) or
-have an attack of 3 (french guys 4)

Why Tanks & Mech. Inf. don't have The Wheel flag?

Prat. & Marines should be boosted both on attck and defense:
Parat. 7/9/1
Marines 8/8/1

Is this right or in patch Horsemen doesn't have ZOC.
If it's true, OK. It's would be starge to upgarde ZOC unit to no-ZOC unit (Knights)

How about idea of all artillery unit having ZOC?



Bombarding formula should be revised.
They should kill less pop. & builbings and injure more units.

Swordsmen look I little powerfull, but it's OK.
Longbowmen should be cheaper not Swordsmen costlier.

[vmxa1]

Swordsmen are not too powerful, they are powerful though. I think it makes sense that if you were skilled with a sword that you would chew up warriors and spearmen. Since you also have some armour. Pikemen is a closer call as they have some armour as well, but a sword can cut a spear in pieces.

[player1]

Is this some sort of preperation for great civ3 1.31f "balancer" patch?

Jeff, you sould look for some inpiration in Files forums.

P.S.
Nukes should be more destructive both physicly & diplomaticly.

[player1]

Unit obsolence should not depend from thieir upgadebility.

As it is now, only upgadeable units become obsolete when unit to upgade to can be buildt.

This gives some problems like:
-I don't what Frigates to be UPGADEABLE to Destoryers but I want to make them obsolete with destoyers. This can't be done for now.

It should depend from units. Like Frigate is obsolete after being able to build Destoryer, Battleship Or AEGIS Cr.


At also makes a lot of holes with UU. Like Persian can always build warror, Americans Fighter, French Pikemen (until Riflemen), etc...


At least swordmen can be easly fixed by making him upgadeable to Riflemen.

Coastall Fortress should have range of 2. That would make them more interesting.

[MisterMuppet]

I agree with everything that has been said about Cavalry. 6/3/3 against Pikemen or Muskets, French or otherwise, is too powerful. It is the superfast horses that tips the balance. What about making Cavalry 6/3/2 ?
In the Middle ages I don't usually attack. I attack early if my Civ has a UU for that purpose, Jaguar warriors, Mounted Warriors, etc. Or wait for Cavalry if playing Germans, French, English etc. There is too much other stuff to build in the middle ages, Universitys, Banks, Cathedrals, and lots of Wonders. That probably says more about my style of play though.

Marines and Paratroopers need attention. I never build either, infantry is available earlier and costs less. The Marine needs to be made cheaper and the Paratrooper needs his airdrop range increased.
I tried using paratroopers to disrupt my enemies supply network. I dropped one on each of his strategic resources that I could reach. They lasted about 2 turns, repeated attacks from cavalry and knights destroyed them. I ending up using bombers, they are available earlier, flight Vs advanced flight, and they can be reused.

[DaveV]

I agree with the earlier posters on the power of the retreat ability. You can stack up a bunch of fast units and take out any city with minimal losses. Counterattacks with slow units are not very effective, because the fast guys retreat instead of dying. For this reason, I think the civs with early fast units have a huge advantage, especially the Aztecs. I've played a couple tiny map games as the Aztecs, and the Jaguar warrior is just unstoppable. Even at Emperor level, I can build as many jaguars as the AIs can build archers, swordsmen, and spearmen. Then I can fight a war of attrition where the bad guys are dying and my guys are retreating and recovering. Eventually the AI runs out of units and I win.

I think a cost increase is in order for all the retreat-capable units, to reflect their greater power. As I read a while ago, the fast units must be too good a buy if that's all that people build.

[Velociryx]

Amen, DaveV.....having played the Aztec more and more now in my experimentation games, I can honestly say that nobody....Noooooobody can beat them. If there's ever MP, I'd love to see the strat that could stand up to a jag-rush....just don't think it's possible tho....

re: unit costing in light of the auto-retreat ability....I'm not sure, but I'd estimate that a 20-25% increase might do the trick.

Results of a test I ran last evening:

2 Attack Forces, each hitting a size two town (guarded by two spearmen each)

AttackForce 1 - 6 Swordsmen (all vet)

AttackForce 2 - 6 Horsies (all vet)

Results:
AttackForce1 - Lost two swordsmen, town captured. 1 unit promoted to elite

AttackForce2 - Lost no units, town captured, 1 unit promoted to elite.

Now, it's true that ALL my units were banged up after the fight with the horsemen, but pop-rush a barracks in the newly captured town, and they're ready to do a repeat performance.

Costs:
*Assumes that I will want to keep my strike force at a constant size (6).

AttackForce 1: 6*30 (swordsmen) = 180 + 60 (replace two dead swordsmen) = 240 shields

AttackForce 2: 6*30 (horsemen) = 180 (no losses).

Multiply that out over your entire army, and over the course of the entire game, and hold your jaw as you realize the sheer mineral savings that come with building an all mounted force as the rules stand now.

Solutions:
1) Increase the cost of fast units across the board to reflect their increased survivability

or

2) Decrease the % chance of a unit withdrawing from combat (make it something other than automatic)

Thoughts?
-=Vel=-

[DaveV]

Originally posted by Velociryx
re: unit costing in light of the auto-retreat ability....I'm not sure, but I'd estimate that a 20-25% increase might do the trick.

I was thinking more along the lines of 50% extra. In your example, having 6 horses at the front lines is enormously more valuable than having 4 swordsmen at the front and two more being built in the rear somewhere.

A cost increase doesn't work as well for some of the early UUs, though (I don't think you can make the jaguar cost 20 shields). My tweak for the Aztecs would be to change them from Militaristic and Religious to Militaristic and Expansionist. The Expansionist trait is of zero value to the Aztecs, and the lack of cheap temples would make them vulnerable to cultural counterattack.

[DaveV]

Oops: double post.

[Matthevv]

I agree with the earlier posts about the value of musketmen. These need to be made cheaper (my preferred solution) or given more points, maybe 5 defence.

In this musket era, there is no infantry attack unit. Civ2 allowed musketmen to attack and defend. So maybe the musketman could be a 4/4 unit. Or have another unit, maybe Grenadiers or something, that is an attacker.

Speaking as a Babylonian, I find those bowmen a bit weedy. I got into a nasty scrap with Persians rushing me with loads of attack 4 immortals. Then I found some of those Japanese Samurai wandering around with two moves and attack and defence 4! My cavalry dealt with them later though!

As people have said, horses are very powerful in this game. Not only do they have more moves and retreat ability, but on roads they can travel a long way, which makes them very useful for defence as well. Perhaps knights and cavalry need their attack values pegging back to equal the defence values of the infantry units from the same era. Alternatively they could be made more expensive to build and support.

And just get rid of the stupid upgrading chore. Its not surprising the AI can't handle upgrading as its such a fiddly business.
Just upgrade all the troops automatically once you have the necessary technology and resources (maybe only if they are in your borders). I am bored of having to move all my units one by one to a city with a barracks to upgrade them and then the same all over again a few moves later, and so on ad nauseam. Or at least allow upgrading anywhere and make all obsolete units self-disband 10 turns after they become obsolete.

As a general point, making all the units more expensive to build and maintain would be good, as there currently seem to be far too many of them wandering about. Or make them stackable.

Deviating a bit off topic, cannons should be the thing you get with gunpowder, not muskets! Cannons were in common use long before muskets were widespread. Switch muskets to metallurgy.

[Velociryx]

Imp2-style auto-upgrades when new units become available is a good thing, IMO....if you don't have the cash to do it when the tech becomes available, you lose the units. Would build in some real strategy to climbing the tech tree, in that you wouldn't want to get to Chivalry until you KNEW you could afford it.....very cool stuff, that...

EDIT: In the same vein, I strongly *disagree* with any notions re: allowing offensive units to upgrade all the way to the modern era. There's a very definite (and delicate) balance kept by requiring the attacker to scrap and rebuild because of obsolesence every age....I like that aspect....sets up a timetable for the attacker. Use 'em or lose 'em.

-=Vel=-

[player1]

What about lowering offense of Cavarly (5), and raising offense of Mustetmen (3)?

As I see in ancient are Horsemen unuits are well balanced compared to Swordsmen. Than Knights prevailed wich is historicaly correct (they are expensive anyway), but after the Fire-Arms, Cavarly never prevailed completely.

Althoug there is one problem. How to make AI consider one unit both offensive & defensive (like modified 3/4 Mustketmen).

In editor is strongly non-recomanded to put two FLAGS on AI use of units.

[player1]

Having Cavalry movement of 2 in not a good idea.
It would unbalance the Chinese Rider.

[MarshalN]

I think the best way to solve the retreat problem is just making it random, maybe 50% of the time or something like that. That way you definitely can still retreat, but not all the time, which I think is the big problem -- the certainty that you can keep everybody without killing any of them.

I believe that would be a much better solution than moving one unit to attack 3 and the other to 5 etc.etc.etc, because changing some units' strength and not changing others can easily unbalance the game as well with a chain effect.

I agree that there should be some limitation on how long you can keep a unit given the techs available.... it just doesn't make any sense whatsoever that a civ will have ancient 4000 BC warriors in 1950 AD. I think somewhere along the way, a force-upgrade-or-disband option should be put into the game.

And like someone said.... frigates (or any wooden man-of-war pre-explosives era) should NOT be able to take out a submarine. They just can't -- roundshots don't damage anything when it hits the water, and the sub would be very stupid to surface when trying to hit a surface ship with absolutely no capability to attack or defend against something that is under the water. It just doesn't make sense -- much worse than the "my tank got killed by a spearman".