Unit Strengths by Era

[korn469]

my take on things

units that could use some more power, lower cost etc

musketeer: overpriced for what they do
rifleman: a price cut wouldn't hurt it
marine: it doesn't have the offensive power it needs
paratrooper it can only paradrop in an unoccupied city, but since air units can't kill this unit needs more offensive firepower and at least 2 movement
air units in general: should have at least 2 movement so they can rebase and attack in the same turn (give them the blitz special ability also)
fighters: needs higher bombard
jet fighters: needs higher bombard and rate of fire
radar artillary needs at least two movement!
naval units: needs higher movement for naval units especially later naval units
nukes: need to be WAY cheaper but have harsher diplomatic penalties
every unit in the game: hit points (and the corresponding rate of fire) needs to be doubled or tripled at least
explorers: explorers need to come earlier in the tech tree
also please remove onsolete units from the build queue, i beg this of you!

[Grim Legacy]

I've missed two issues in this thread so far:

1 - timepoint of golden age
2 - lack of resources

1 - The French musketeer might be less than impressive, it *does* come at a schweeeet point in time. Just at the time that your cities and infrastructure are getting off... just at the time that a small war to enter a GA would be welcome.

All the benefits of a GA couldn't fall into more fertile soil: early in the game a GA is potentially great acting as a kick-start, but much of it will be wasted on small cities and useless buildings (walls, barracks) and spilled under inefficient goverments. In the late game, a GA is just that: too late.

2 - The legionary *does* require Iron... the MW *does* require Horses... or does everybody else restart the game when they can't build their UU?

[Matthevv]

Something that must be fixed is the coastal defence improvement. These (post patch) in practice do nothing. I've just had mine blown up by a mob of ironclads. I've got battleships and artillery, so my coastal defences ought to be able to deal with any number of ironclads (by blowing them out of the water before they get close enough to even fire). The reason why they do nothing is because they only fire if a ship moves from one adjacent square to another, which they never do, so the coastal defences never fire.

On the subject of unit balance, the battleships now seem underpowered, considering their cost and need for resources and technology, relative to ironclads. Their defence needs to be increased and they should have multiple attacks, so that they can take on a fleet of ironclads. Currently it is probably better to keep pumping out mobs of ironclads even when you have the technology for battleships or destroyers, as the battleship can only kill one in a turn, and the ironclads have a fair chance of sinking it. Battleships also ought to have some better protection against bombers. I see that these can often knock as many spots off a battleship as they can an ironclad. Battleships were packed with AA guns, were much bigger and had much thicker armour, so they ought to be much more difficult to bomb successfully.

An alternative to increasing the strength of battleships would be to increase the build cost of ironclads, or preferably their maintenance cost, and to reduce the speed of ironclads to 3. The management of the huge fleet needed to compete against the AI Civs huge numbers of vessels currently detracts from the enjoyment of the game. Also the game would run a lot quicker if there were fewer ships for the AI to move pointlessly around in circles every turn.

The chance of destroying improvements from off-shore bombardment ought to be much smaller. The ships would have no way of targetting effectively, as the land is higher than the sea, they wouldn't know where their shells are landing. Also, in earlier times, the cannons on the ships wouldn't get much past the beach. Anything less than a destroyer ought to have very limited results. This is currently one of the most irritating parts of the game - having the AI with its monstrous fleet of ancient vessels completely wiping out all the improvements along my shoreline before my battleships can get round to killing them (at only one per turn). And it certainly isn't a fun strategy game building my own huge fleet and moving each one individually to bombard the other Civs improvements. Perhaps there could be some kind of coastal fortification I could build with workers? Bombers could actually sink ships? Ships bombardment power could be reduced according to the number of spots they have left? Possibly a coastal defence improvement that *works* and protects the *whole* of the coastline in a city's cultural radius?

[player1]

Originally posted by Matthevv
On the subject of unit balance, the battleships now seem underpowered, considering their cost and need for resources and technology, relative to ironclads. Their defence needs to be increased and they should have multiple attacks, so that they can take on a fleet of ironclads. Currently it is probably better to keep pumping out mobs of ironclads even when you have the technology for battleships or destroyers, as the battleship can only kill one in a turn, and the ironclads have a fair chance of sinking it. Battleships also ought to have some better protection against bombers. I see that these can often knock as many spots off a battleship as they can an ironclad. Battleships were packed with AA guns, were much bigger and had much thicker armour, so they ought to be much more difficult to bomb successfully.

An alternative to increasing the strength of battleships would be to increase the build cost of ironclads, or preferably their maintenance cost, and to reduce the speed of ironclads to 3. The management of the huge fleet needed to compete against the AI Civs huge numbers of vessels currently detracts from the enjoyment of the game. Also the game would run a lot quicker if there were fewer ships for the AI to move pointlessly around in circles every turn.

The chance of destroying improvements from off-shore bombardment ought to be much smaller. The ships would have no way of targetting effectively, as the land is higher than the sea, they wouldn't know where their shells are landing. Also, in earlier times, the cannons on the ships wouldn't get much past the beach. Anything less than a destroyer ought to have very limited results. This is currently one of the most irritating parts of the game - having the AI with its monstrous fleet of ancient vessels completely wiping out all the improvements along my shoreline before my battleships can get round to killing them (at only one per turn). And it certainly isn't a fun strategy game building my own huge fleet and moving each one individually to bombard the other Civs fortifications. Perhaps there could be some kind of coastal fortification I could build with workers? Bombers could actually sink ships? Ships bombardment power could be reduced according to the number of spots they have left? Possibly a coastal defence improvement that *works* and protects the *whole* of the coastline in a city's cultural radius?

Has anybody noticed that with patch is lot harder to destoy improvments & kill pop.

Why?

Because pop & building defense in editor are raised to 8 (from 4)
Good job Firaxis.
But, why is that undocumented?

Destoyers are MUCH better unit againt Ironclads (because of lower cost), not Battleships.

The WAY game IS DESIGNED Battleship main role is to BOMBARD cities, not to kill pesky Ironclads (bercause thery are just to much costly to lose).

At lest IMO.

[Jaffa Tamarin]

Re: Outposts

Originally posted by DaBear
With outposts being swallowed by the boarders of culture there dosn't seam to be a big requirment to use them over a settler. Never seen an AI build one.

I assume by outposts you mean colonies?

The AI does use colonies. Not very often, but I have seen it. And there is one case where a colony can be the only way to gain access to a resource -- for a resource that appears in the middle of an extensive mountain range, where settling is either impossible, or completely not worthwhile.

--
Jaffa

[Matthevv]

I hope that isn't really a "design" decision. Battleships were for fighting other ships, they were rarely used to attack land. I built them because I like to have as few units as possible (low boredom threshold). I've been building some subs recently to try and clear out the ironclad infestation. I'm not sure how effective this will be, but I thought they would also be useful against the enemy battleships (which have currently gone out to sea to hide where my bombers can't see them - leaving the ironclads to do the bombardment of improvements!) If the game were properly balanced, the battleship ought to be more effective than other ships relative to its build cost, as it requires additional technology and resources. There is otherwise no benefit from developing technology or obtaining scarce resources at all.

I've got a plan - my battleship will be in the port, then it will steam out, have its one attack at one of the ironclads, hopefully killing it, and steam back in, so they can't mob it.

[player1]

As for now.
Destoyers are MOST effective naval unit.
With cost of 120, and 12/8/5 rating, plus decent (but low range) bombard

Still, after them, most effective is Ironclad.

Then goes Battleship, and at the end AEGSIS Cr. (their only good use is LONG VISION & Submarine hunting, but NOT naval combat)

So main force should be Destoyers, and other units like AEGSIS Cr., Battleship & Subms are support units.

At least until Firaxis cheanges the rules (maybe?).

[sophist]

Originally posted by halley
What about:

City walls give +50% to def vs. movement 2+ units, in addition to current bonuses

Cities with 7+ pop give +50% to def vs. movement 2+ units, in addition to current bonuses

Cities with 12+ pop give +100% def vs. movement 2+ units, in addition to current bonuses

I'm not a history expert, but I don't think Cavalry were used to assault cities. Their speed and maneuvrability would be severely limited if they had to fight in narrow city streets. Cavalry should be used for attacking units in the open, where their mobility gives them the advantage.

Also, artillery units need a boost. Right now, they are too weak.

I liked the way SMAC did it, with infantry having an advantage against cities and fast units having an advantage in open ground. That is both 1) realistic and 2) balanced re: gameplay. The problem with implementing that sort of approach is that there is no such balance in civ3 games because there are no good infantry attack units after swordsmen/immortals. After that, every infantry unit has higher defense than attack, so it's clear that Firaxis wants everyone to be attacking with mobile units once knights come around. I think that on large maps, that's just fine. You may have 3-move cavalry and tanks, but when they cannot use the enemy roads/rail system, the rate of expansion can be slowed because there are many cities not within reach of your borders. With smaller maps and the resulting smaller empires, the expansion is not slowed down as much, thereby making it easy to waste the AI.

The true measure of whether mobile units are unbalancing is to see how games between two good human players pan out, or to see how games work with an AI that knows how to use them. Right now it's hard to tell if they're truly unbalanced because none of us has played an opponent who knows how to use them.

Adding to the list of suggestions for quick fixes... mod the game so that mobile units have an n% disadvantage when attacking cities (say 25%) with infantry units having a corresponding advantage in attacking cities. Then for every advance that creates a new mobile unit (horseback riding, chivalry, military tradition, etc), add a new unit with similar stats, but only one move. Actually, scratch that. With ancient era attacks, you should be using swordsmen in conjunction. With medieval era attacks, you should be using longbowmen (which seem to be nearly useless at this point). But once the cavalry come around, there's nothing that corresponds. Perhaps with Metallurgy, there should be some 5/3/1 ADM unit that would fit this. Then a corresponding unit for Tanks as well. Not sure whether Modern Armor would have this requirement, but maybe one for them too. Names for these units don't really come to mind, though. The way I envision it, the standard battlegroup, when playing the "right" way, would have three sets of units: artillery (ancient artillery needs to be beefed up just a tad, btw), attack infantry, and mobile units. Quite possibly there would also be a fourth group of defense units. The artillery would soften the enemy city, the attack infantry would, well, attack it, and the mobile units would protect the flanks, as those units would be vulnerable in the open to enemy mobile units. Clearly there's a lot of tweaking necessary, but I think the basic idea is sound. It worked pretty well in SMAC.

[vmxa1]

Tanks can be airlifted, I have used that feature. Why should they not be? C137 carry many tanks.

[pcasey]

The VC-137 is the military version of the Boeing 707, its not a heavy cargo aircraft. It doesn't carry tanks, but it did carry the President (old versions if Air Force 1 were based on the VC-137). It has entirely been phased out of active service.

The military's current heavy lift aircraft are:

C 130 Hercules Payload 42,000 pounds
C 141 Starlifter Payload 68,725 pounds
C 5 Galaxy Payload 270,000 pounds
C 17 Globemaster Payload 170,900

Weight of an M1A1 Tank : 69.5 Tons or 139,000 pounds.

Its technically airmobile on the C5 of C 17, but it might introduce problems with weight distribution e.g. a tank is a smaller, denser load than either was designed to carry and might buckle the flooring and/or make the plane awkward in flight.

[dconner]

Naval Issues

First of all, this is a great thread - quite a relief from the usual "I hate Firaxis" posts in most other threads. I've already gotten several new ideas for future games - particularly the formation of a "Marine Expeditionary Force" to add to my current naval task forces.

This is one of the most fun aspects of CivIII for me - the AI is actually pretty competent at handling naval and air combat now, so you actually do have to use some intelligence in deploying your own naval assets. (My jaw literally dropped the first time I saw the AI launching an honest-to-god well-supported amphibious invasion!) In my last game, I wound up with coastal defense forces and two offensive fleets equivalent to the "Atlantic Fleet" and "Pacific Fleet" with 3 aircraft carriers each and several battleships.

Good stuff - carriers seem far more useful than they've ever been in previous Civ games. And the relatively low carrying capacity makes it worth building them in quantity (aesthetically satisfying.)

Bad stuff - the naval units aren't sufficiently differentiated. There's little to none of the welcome "combined arms" aspect that now is so important to Civ3 land warfare. Basically, aside from cost (which is important, of course), unless I'm missing some nuance, there's never any reason to prefer anything over a Battleship. Certainly true of the Destroyer and previous units, and apparently true of the AEGIS Cruiser too, though I've never had a game last long enough that I could build one before my spaceship was completed (this is in itself a problem.)

In particular, I think smaller ships should be able to do something that Battleships can't - faster movement, the traditional anti-submarine role, or something. Some sort of anti-aircraft specialized sea unit would be nice, too (this might be an AEGIS cruiser, available with an earlier tech.)


Though the increased move would make another change even more welcome - the much-requested "group units" command. The lack is especially annoying with naval units. I'm trying to keep my Battleships and Destroyers stacked with the slower Carriers, and it's more a pain in the ass than it should be. I absentmindedly move the escort ships one space too far, leaving the carriers more vulnerable than I'd like.

[SofaKing]

On Retreat:
It is powerful. However, rather than changing the rules for retreat, why not make changes to the strategice resource of horses. Either make fewer of them, or make them much more volatile in terms or appearance/exhaustion. Aside from making them more dificult to come by, it would also make unit requiring no resources (long bowman) a valid alternative. As for the Aztec Jaguar, it should be as expensive as a chariot, but without requiring the horse. That would parralel it with the knight/India's Elephant.

Units needing a change:
Musketeer - While the extra attack is worthless, it does make sense. I think an easy fix would be to make it cheaper than regular musketeer, perhaps 50 shields.
Explorer - I can't even imagin why someone would use one.
Paratrooper - too expensive for a niche unit. It has the same requirements and cost as a tank. The ability to paradrop is not commensurate. I think this unit should cost 80 shields.
Helicopters - How things have changed from SMAC. This needs to have a much greater range to make it useful.

[barefootbadass]

Re: my take on things

Originally posted by korn469
units that could use some more power, lower cost etc

musketeer: overpriced for what they do
rifleman: a price cut wouldn't hurt it
marine: it doesn't have the offensive power it needs
paratrooper it can only paradrop in an unoccupied city, but since air units can't kill this unit needs more offensive firepower and at least 2 movement
air units in general: should have at least 2 movement so they can rebase and attack in the same turn (give them the blitz special ability also)
fighters: needs higher bombard
jet fighters: needs higher bombard and rate of fire
radar artillary needs at least two movement!
naval units: needs higher movement for naval units especially later naval units
nukes: need to be WAY cheaper but have harsher diplomatic penalties
every unit in the game: hit points (and the corresponding rate of fire) needs to be doubled or tripled at least
explorers: explorers need to come earlier in the tech tree
also please remove onsolete units from the build queue, i beg this of you!

The marine is fine, used for insertions by sea or helicopter(in which case you should have air power support so the attack doesn't need to be that high. Paratrooper is a defensive(disruptive) unit, needs no change. Air needs little change if air superiority is now working. Radar artillery needs no change(rails and concept). Naval movement is fine, given ranges of everything else, particularly bombers(from a balance standpoint, not realism).

HP can easily be increased with a mod, but unless you change the animations for battle they will take a long time. Also obsolete units and explorers could be affected in the editor. Although the obsolete units thing definitely should be fixed in the normal game, its aggravating.

[player1]

Re: Re: my take on things

Originally posted by barefootbadass

HP can easily be increased with a mod, but unless you change the animations for battle they will take a long time. Also obsolete units and explorers could be affected in the editor. Although the obsolete units thing definitely should be fixed in the normal game, its aggravating.

The main problem with obsolete units is that only UPGRADEABLE units become OBSOLETE.
That way, Swordsmen never become obsolete, because it is not upgradeable. Same for Frigates & Ironclads.
Also because units can't be UPGRADED TO Un. Units, there are additional holes. Like Persians can build Warriors forever, American can build Fighters forever. French can build Pikemen after getting Musketeers, etc.

So quick solution (for MOD-makers):
Make all units upgadeable to UU. Make Swordsmen obsolete with Riflemen,
and Frigates & Ironclads with Destoryers.



But REAL SOLUTION would be:

Units UPGRADEBILITY should depend from units the civ is CAPABLE TO BUILD.
Like:
-I can build Destoyers, so Frigates & Ironclads are obsolete
-I can build F-15, so Fighters are obsolete, etc.

Anyway every unit should have obsolence flags:
Like:
-Warrior will have Swordsmen flag
-Knight will gave Cavalry flag
-Ironclad will have Destoyer flag
-Tank will Modern Tank flag
-Cavalry will have Modern Tank flag (not ordinary Tank, since Cavalry is FASTER)

They could also have several such flags per unit, just in case.

This system would be interesting since you could for examle have
non-upgadeable unit, wich would still become obsolete after some time.

Excellent for Firgates & Ironclads, since it is unrealistic to be able to upgade those.
Similar for Cavlary (non-upgadeable but obsolete with Modern Tank)

It will also solve UU holes. You still won't be able to upgade to UU, but after getting UU, old units will become obsolete.



P.S.

Something off this topic, regarding my retreat idea (no retreat on City Walls and big cities).

If Firaxis indends to use it, it should be aware of several things.
They need to make AI build City Walls more often, since they'll be stonger against 2 mov units. And also, they need to force AI to use Artillery offensively, since Cavalry rush won't be so good option anymore.

[Nic]

Re: my take on things

Originally posted by korn469

musketeer: overpriced for what they do
[

I couldn't agree more. Overpriced for their historical role and overpriced for game balance.

I would go for a cost of 40 for musket troops, although I might be persuaded that 50 is reasonable. Having musketeers cost the same as cavalry seems almost perverse.

--
Nic