Unit Strengths by Era

[Raion]

I think I will scrap that all and try multiplying factors of 1, 1.25, 1.5, and 1.75 perhaps, on that order for the different units of different eras.
Thus units in the modern age would have a defense of 11 or 12 instead of 8 or attack of 13 or 14 or something like that.
Maybe 1, 1, 1.25, and 1.5 for multiplying factor of units in the different eras.

[Thrawn05]

I have no beef with any Ancient and Medieval units (keep the units as they are in these eras IMHO).

However, there are two units I do have a problem with.

Industrial
Marine: I just think that these guys are a little weak, considering I could just boat over 8 tanks or even modern armors, since they're about the same price to make. I would make them 11.9.1 .

Modern
Stealth Fighter: When I look at the stats for Stealth Fighter (SF) and Stealth Bomber (SB), I find that the SB is far better at its job, and no real reason to even build the SF.

[vmxa1]

As marines are configured now, they are not worth making and I never do. Stealth unit, I do not make either.

[TacticalGrace]

Originally posted by Dan Baker



Historically, Ironclads were not that sea-worthy. I think they should be available, but not able to saftly travel ocean squares, and slow as dirt. That would even things out.

Presumably you are talking about the Monitor-class ironclads.

Taking a less american-centric view, consider the HMS Warrior. This was an iron-clad frigate which came into service in 1861. It was considerably faster than the ships-of-the-lines that she obsoleted.

Quote from http://www.wtj.com/articles/warrior/

"Her ability to sail in the open ocean at speeds up to 14 knots was incomparable to the Union and Confederate ironclads built during the American Civil War. "

[Arrian]

TacticalGrace - A fair point, and one someone was sure to bring up. I think the reason most people connect the Civ III ironclads with the U.S. Civil War variants is that the Civ III unit icon looks like the monitor, not the Warrior. *shrug*

-Arrian

[Willem]

Originally posted by pcasey
Archers ... if you want to rush, use horsesmen. Too slow and too vulnerable.

Longbowmen ... I have to escort them with a pikemen anyway, so why not just make a knight that'll move twice as fast, cost the same as the two unit stack and have retreat options?

Archers and Longbowmen can be given Bombard ability, range 0. That gives them a "free shot" and more of a role as defensive support.

[=DrJambo=]

Right from finally reading all this here are my thoughts on units...

1. Musketmen should be 3/4/1 and Musketeers 3/5/1.

2. Cavalry should be 6/3/2 and Cossacks 6/3/3, similar to CHinese Riders and Knights.

3. All ships past Galley should have their movement increased by 1, possibly 2 points. They are too slow!

4. Frigates should by 3/2 with bombard 3 (MOW upgraded proportionately), and Privateers 3/1 to make them useful compared to the quickly appearing Ironclad. Caravels are better at 2/1 as opposed to 1/2. Allowing Frigates to carry 1 unit similar to their Civ2 counterparts would also be advantageous.

5. AEGIS should be able to carry 2 Cruise missiles to make them a worthy addition as well as doing better against aircraft bombing. Possibly having them arriving with Rocketry would also be better. Aircraft should have a chance of completely destroying ships.

6. Destroyers and Transports would be better with Steel with Submarines arriving with Combustion.

7. F15 needs reworking as increasing bombard ability is a pointless advantage especially for the AI which uses them for Air Defence only. All Fighters could do with better bombardment ability, especially Jet Fighters. SHould be an option to route-out defending fighters with fighters, so as to aid the bombers. Possibly an increase in defence of 2 for both Fighters and Jet Fighters would help here. Remember Battle of Britain? Jet and Stealth Fighters should have Radar for their recon ability to be effective (all Fighters' only real active ability is recon atm).

8. Bombard ability. All metal ships, Fighters, Bombers and Land artillery should have their bombard value increased by 1. Just to make them more valuable in wars and wars less boring once the opposition navy or air force is destroyed. These guys should be able to tear into cities and improvements in far less time than they do. Can take 5+ years to have an impact with bombarding units in the modern era...DAFT.

9. AI should use Land artillery OFFENSIVELY!

10. Cruise missiles should have range 4 and rate of fire 4 and be loadable onto Nuclear Subs and AEGIS.

11. Helicopter and Stealth Fighter should have a recon range of 8, and possibly allow helicopters to airdrop two units. Stealth Fighter could do with Radar to make recon worthwhile. Not sure as to purpose of SF?!

12. Settlers and Workers should be airliftable.

13. Marines should be 9/6/1 and Paratroopers 7/8/1 with airdrop range of 8.

14. Explorers should arrive with Map Making, arriving with Navigation is pointless as map is already explored.

15. Would be nice to see the AI use Privateers.

16. ZOC could and should be more damaging, esp when defending on a fortress.

17. Should Metal ships have Blitz ability?

18. Should space ship take longer to build?!

My thoughts so far...

[Tincho]

Sorry if someone said this before, I dont wanna read trough the whole six pages of posts.

I believe the reason some units dont get obsolete if because they don´t need any resources

I mean, you need oil and i think rubber to build a battleship, so if when you get mass production you could no longer build frigates, where you lacking any of the resources above mentioned, you could build no ships! (the same goes for galleons/transports)

Maybe it could be made for the build queue to check wether you have the apropiate resources, and then decide to allow you to build either frigates/galleons or battleships/transports

[player1]

Originally posted by Tincho
Sorry if someone said this before, I dont wanna read trough the whole six pages of posts.

I believe the reason some units dont get obsolete if because they don´t need any resources

I mean, you need oil and i think rubber to build a battleship, so if when you get mass production you could no longer build frigates, where you lacking any of the resources above mentioned, you could build no ships! (the same goes for galleons/transports)

Maybe it could be made for the build queue to check wether you have the apropiate resources, and then decide to allow you to build either frigates/galleons or battleships/transports

No, no, no!

If you have Computer, some cities (with appropriate resources) can build Mech. Inf. On the other hand, newly founded city without resourses can build Riflemen (althougt it is "obsolete" with Infantry).

Check yourself.
For, ex. if you make Frigates & Ironclads upgradeable to Destoyers.
After you lose oil you could buil those units again.

[Augusto I]

It was said here that retreating ability is the diminating factor. I disagree. I've playe every dificulty level, and I can tell you that from Regeant to Deity the swordman is far better than horseman. In Chieftain and Warlord, 2 attack against 2 defense is quite easy to win; in the others, you need 3 to 1 to win (more or less), while one 3 against 2 may be enough. Besides, against Impis, mech inf, other mobile units and units with only one hitpoint left, retreat doesn't exist. The advantage of a horsman compared to an archer is mobility, wich increase its efficiency when attacking (you can find it in the handbook). Something like 2+ against 2.
Appart from that:
Useless units: marines (you have at least tanks and infantry, and about its special ability, who wants to attack 8 against 10 from the sea, or land, or whatever?). Also Samurai and Elephant (I can accept the no-resource part as an advantage, but it doesn't compare with mounted warriors, hoplite, immortals)

One thing that I consider a sorious BUG even when it was intentionally made: Cavalry moves 3 and tank only 2. It's just a concept mistake. The whole thing of the tanks was the mobile warfare, there resided all their power. In WW2, the armies that didn't use the tanks in this way were anihilated. So how can a mechanized army be less mobile than a horse-powered one? Is unbelievable. If you want to keep speed 3 a special ability of the panzer, it's OK, but make the cavalry 6-4-2. I don't agree about cavalry being overpowered. A combination of musketmen and cannons can perfectly well defend a city against Cavalries (I've done it), and 5-2-2 would make it too weak. And think about riflemen against cavalry: you can win a 6 vs 6 without bombard, imagine a 5 vs 6. The path from cavalry to riflemen might be long (actually, it depends of the order in wich you research. You may even discover Nationalism before Military tradition), but the path between riflemen and tanks is long too (and here it doesn't depend so much of the order)

About the most powerfull unit, it could be the Army. Because, if it is not made out of obsolete units, the computer fears attacking it, so an army of cavalries can stand beside a city full of cavalries and infantries as long as he wants. And, for retreating fans, an army almost gives it to any unit you load into it as long as the last unit of the army wins.

At industrial age you can homogenize all your army by building only infantry. With the same attack than a cavalry (but remember, without the mobility factor) it is the perfect companion to artillery. Infantry will protect it and give the final punch, and therefore secure your gains with its defense strenght (any comparison with WW1...). Besides, cavalry is not upgradeable to tank, so you will have to build more units after Motorized Transportation anyway, so there's no use to storing cavalries. It is true that this combo won't let you advance fast, but neither does a cavalry that runs far to get killed by other cavalries. In addition, since the use of rifleman by AI forces you to bring cannons, artillery, or whatever you have (or build a really HUGE army of cavalries, but this posibility disappears when infantry comes to life), your avance will be slow anyway, no matter if Cavalry has a movement of 414234, it has to wait for the artillery to come.

[barefootbadass]

Originally posted by Thrawn05

Industrial
Marine: I just think that these guys are a little weak, considering I could just boat over 8 tanks or even modern armors, since they're about the same price to make. I would make them 11.9.1 .

Marines speed up your invasion but you only need about one transport of them(assuming the ai doesn't have too many defenders) for the coastal city. Their sole value is in providing an assault from a transport to establish a beachhead. You MUST provide very heavy bombardment or they will get slaughtered, but if you are in democracy and need to get in and out of a war quickly, or need to deny some aluminum from the civ so you don't lose the space race, they are invaluable.

[Qilue]

I've used marines in my last few games and while their Att is a little low, they do the job damn well.

Invading from the sea, I've discovered two problems. If you land a small force so as not to 'show your hand', they get exterminated on the beach. If you land an overwhelming forse, the AI just boosts the defences in the closest city. In either case, you will take heavy losses among your main land army.

With marines, you can attack from the transport and capture the city almost intact (the AI does sell off improvements if it thinks it will lose the city), then bring the main army in on the transports, unload and they are ready to move and attack on the same turn. Granted, you do suffer losses among the marines, but it's almost a supprise attack and you don't have to delay the invasion while your main army repairs after capturing the city.

Before:

[Qilue]

In these two examples, the two cities were captured by marines straight off the transport allowing me to land, tanks, infantry and artillery. Two other cities were razed the following turn eliminating any possibility of culture flip. Tokugawa sued for peace the turn after that.

After :

[Unregistered]

Interesting discussion on this thread.

I don't have too much of a problem w/ things as they stand today. My complaints relate more to game mechanics & what I perceive as missing features, not actual problems w/ the 'strengths' of units. But, fwiw I have some observations.

I don't think marines are as bad as some are making them out to be. Having trialed out a couple of invasions of cities using them they seem to work out about right. After softening up a city w/ bombers & battleships they were able to successfully defeat the two mech infantries that were guarding the city and take it. Three of them died in the process. They are a task specific unit, designed to do one thing well in the game. (Given the abstraction that has been carried out in the rest of the unit design you could make the case that they shouldn't even be in the game.) They seem to do that thing - amphibious assault - in a pretty realistic manner. Marines (paratroopers too for that matter) are built around the combined arms concept. If you don't bombard the target first and don't have any follow on forces to offload into the newly captured city, your invasion will fail, as it rightly should. (I originally thought the Marine def value was too low, & you can make a case for that, but if you look at them as pure amphibious assault troops then the lower def value forces you to provide those follow on forces with their higher def ratings) Having said all that, what would be nice is if Marines actually had two sets of off/def numbers. One set to use while actually executing an amphibious invasion, and a different set to use when conducting normal ground operations. This would map a little better to reality, but the game engine would have to be reworked fairly significantly to make this happen. And since this is the only unit that I can think of off the top of my head that you might want to do this with (ok, maybe w/ paratroopers too on the turn after they land to model the disorganization they experience after drop) it probably isn't worth trying to implement.

Paratroopers are also task specific. Their job is to drop in ahead of an advancing force to secure critical areas like crossroads and bridges to ensure that the enemy doesn't blow them up or set up ambushes in the (ideally) 4 to 8 hours it will take the main advance to reach them. They aren't meant to land in an area and hold it for days, only hours. And because they have no heavy guns or tanks, they're not really an offensive unit. Their forte is surprise & defense. I haven't yet had a chance to try them out in the game as I have marines, but I think that I'll have a chance to find out soon. The ai seems to build them for the wrong reasons, as I have rarely seen it actually conduct drop operations, rather it uses them as assault troops when it has the capability to build tanks & mech infantry. That should be addressed imo.

The only real gripe I have about unit values are nuclear subs & aircraft carriers movement rates. Whoever decided to make them slower than battleships doesn't understand the concept of fast attack carriers or modern attack/boomer sub transit times. Although I can accept the value for the carriers because they travel as part of a group & must conduct air operations, which does have an impact on speed of travel. Subs on the other hand... In general, modern naval units should probably be a little faster. And destroyers should be able to 'see' subs, at least after they fire, but since subs seem a little underpowered as far as offense goes, perhaps this balances out. So far the current level of abstraction for the naval units hasn't been too bothersome for me. Part of me wants more detail & realism, but another part of me appreciates the fact that the current level of abstraction will let me start & finish the game in the same year because I don't have to move the tens of thousands of units that would be demanded by modeling reality too closely.


Another gripe I have. There isn't an army field manual in the world that teaches its officers that it's ok to attack a prepared enemy unit (company, regiment, whatever) with another unit of the same size. Not any one that I've ever read or heard about anyway. Except maybe for the Palestinian Army field manual. Minimum would be a strike force three times the size of the target unit. That's minimum. More than that is strongly recommended. With all the artillery & air force bombardment that money can buy to soften the target before assaulting. Civ is already too forgiving in this area imo, but since it's not supposed to be a combat sim I can overlook that.

General - "Field Marshall, our tank company has been defeated by that company of spearmen in the hills!"

FM - "Well, soften them up with more artillery & bombers and then send one of the other tank companies against them!"

G - "Uh, well, I didn't bother to bring any more tank companies or artillery or bombers sir, after all, it's only one company of spearmen & our tanks are so much more *****in' than spearmen that I figured one company would be more than enough."



And, I have to add, I've never lost a tank to spearmen in the game anyway. But I do hear that it happens.

There are other gripes I have about combat, like modern ground units should be able to fire back at planes & why doesn't the ai use its artillery better (among other things), but that's not the topic of the thread. & I've gone pretty far off topic anyway.

Enuff 4 now,

[Willem]

Maybe it's becuase I'm playing an Expansionist civ, but I think Chariots are useless in the game. Before I can even start building one, I've already picked up Horseback Riding.