Unit Strengths by Era

[Admiral PJ]

I think normal tanks (ind.era) may be too powerful , though i would make them have higher movement than the cavalry(cavalry should be better for all terrain travel - legs are a good solution to rough terrain)
Edit: the tanks attack should be reduced and it should be given a short bombard attack(bombard is vital)
How about light tanks too, which are faster but weaker in attack/def, they could outrun and retreat from the heavy tanks though if they're well trained.

I think more units are needed later, to make it more realistic.. if you think of the different types of millitary vehicles developed in the cold war you see as we 'progress' there is a bigger variety. More industrial and modern units are needed - to make a more variable faster attack force, but for game balance sake they shouldn't be overpowerful.

Maybe there should be more gradual shifts in unit development.. bring back Dragoons! (make them fast and light) and once swordmen have become outdated , they must be removed and replaced with something sensible for the modern eras ( dosen't matter if its got crappy gfx as long as its suitable for modern era ie a militiaman) swords should go out of date with riflemen, when guns are effective enough.

Excellent game! lets hope they can make it even better.

[XOR]

Originally posted by MagnusMarcus
First things first....
This game is the greatest. I think the developers did an outstanding job with this game. All the nay-sayers can go code a game themselves. With that out of the way there is one thing that disturbed me.... I had, in a recent game, 16 brave marines preparing to spearhead an assault on another continent. Basically I planned on bombing a city and then assaulting with the marines from the sea. And then following up with 4 transports of tanks which could then unload from the city I had just taken and continue to move and assault the enemy. Through careful planning I also had available two "Armys". I thought it would be excellent to put together two armys of marines to minimize casualties. Imagine my dismay when I went to assault the enemy and found out that the Marine "Armys" had forgotten how to attack from the sea! The rest of the marines were able to secure the city but now I was left with two army's of marines which were tactically ineffective. So I guess my question is.....
Q.) Will there ever be a patch to allow Marine "Armys" to remember how to attack from the sea like all the other Brave Marines. Or are Marine Armies basically containers to house all the marines deemed cowards and failures?

Happenned to me as well. I built 4 armies of Marines that time. Except I had no brave marines, I loaded tanks in the remaining space.

This thread about Paratroopers being totally useless. I, BTW, disbanded most of those 61 Paratroopers in cconquered cities, to hurry up temples and courthouses.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=60499

Proceding to self quotation and I hope this is not tought of as spam as I had not noted this thread until now. I posted the other thread to ask about what/if something will be done about these units.

1. Cruise Missile: This looks more like a shortened range scud missile to me. (The addition of scud missiles would be nice BTW). But the current cruise missile is all weird, it does not load into submarines or carriers, it can be fired from anywhere on the ground, it fires barely at artillery range and it can take up to 3 of them to kill a tank.
2. Paratroopers: Jumping from airbases and non-airport cities and increasing their range to about 8 or 9 would make them nice. I was trying to mod that but I dont know how to do it...
3. Explorer: So useless that people use it to... pillage? And I cant imagine an explorer pillaging. I dont know how could it be improved, but I know it's not any usefull.
4. The submarines: They're so damn weak... They should be scary, maybe a bit fragile but definately very scary.

Carriers also dont carry much, but they work just fine when building them in groups of 4. Or I could be saying that you cant have a decent airstrike from carriers unless you build them in groups of 4. I dont mind, I just go with the groups of 4 thing.

[Blue Moose]

Admiral PJ:

The normal tanks are WWII equivalent tanks, in which case they should have a movement of 3, I think. Though, they should be able to handle pretty much any terrain as well as Cavalry (though perhaps Tanks shouldn't be allowed into unroaded mountains). Tanks were originally made as attacking vehicles that could withstand machine gun fire and go over trenches (WWI tanks did this, though they mostly stunk). As such they are pretty good at going over most terrain. Even in WWII the german Panzer's could easily run over most small trees (one a few inches thick wasn't a problem at all). So they could manage forests, though at a slower movement rate (which is how things are). However...they should be able to move as fast as horses...a bit silly, in my opinion....Calvary is a bit strange too, really...where'd these fast horses come from? If anything, Horseman and Cavs should be just as fast, but knight not (weighted down by all that armor)...but I realize why this isn't how it is (game balance).

Other thoughts:

The main problem with artillery is that is moves far, far too slow. It is useless for offense, since you want to move quickly. Take multiple cities a turn if you can....and you just don't have time for the dinky 1-MP artillery to get into position. Things are better with bombers, since a neighboring city or multiple carriers are good enough; though you need a heck of a lot for cities (and you kill all those people too...). Artillery is really only good for defensive positions, forts and cities....hitting them when they attack cities, and as they approach. Then again...bombers can do this job pretty well, and bombers have other uses as well....so typically I just build a bunch of bombers and use them as need (with rebasing they are fairly mobile). I hardly ever use artillery...captured ones come in handy though...but that's just because they are at the scene of combat on occasion. Really, from cannons on, these things should have at least move 2...as they were either mechanized to some extent, or horses were used to move them around.....then again, this wouldn't be as much of a problem if you had a good way to defend your borders...or if infantry was needed for anything other than a defensive role. Oh well.

-Moose

[alexman]

MarkG, isn't it time to un-top this very old thread? Besides much of the information here being no longer relevant, I could name at least 10 strategy threads that deserve to be topped before this one.

[Harovan]

alexman: If you want a thread topped/untopped, best is to PM a link to a moderator. For this thread don't bother, I already sent a PM to Ming.

EDIT: And Markos, because it needs the magic of 2 mods to untop a thread, started by GOD himself .

[Trebor]

AA

[Explorer579]

Immortals are my favorite! They are too powerful if you start making them before other civilizations.

Wanna win a game early, easy and at higher difficulty levels? Here is my scenario:
1) Play persians;

2) start researching iron working;

3) give other civilizations what they want (don't get them angry at you yet);

4) before you are about to find iron working, have a settler protected by a spearman ready to move for settling and have two workers ready to build roads;

5) as you discover iron working, find the iron closest to and safest to you and go build a city next to it and have the workers start building a road to it;

6) trade maps with other cultures around you;

7) prepare two spearman a boat if needed;

8) take/land these two spearman on your first designated enemy's potential source of iron. never make him connect to this resource. you can wait if the enemy does not have a road to the iron yet.

9) build barracks first then immortals. you will have trained immortals.

10) as soon as you have 3 immortals, keep producing immortasl (just immortals) and start invading the enemy city next to you.

10) finish off the first cvilization (or reduce it to one city)then start with the second.

11) do not forget to accept peace with enemy form time to time after you beat them hard just to get all their technology, money, and maybe a city or two.

Enjoy! Iran rule!

[Zero]

immortals are overrated... attack of 4 is very desirable, but they are still "mortal" when being attacked with only defense of 2. Of course thats the best you can have in ancient age so its not bad or anything but A shrewd Roman player can defeat Persian Immortals.

When Legions attack Immortal the odds are 3 VS 2 % wise thats a 50% more favorable toward Legion

When Immortal Attack Legion the odds are 4 VS 3 thats 33% more favorable for Immortal.


In addition Roman Militaristic trait allows far more barracks and promotion for GL and better quality units. Thus, using all these adv. Roman player can beat a Persian rusher.

Persians do start with bronze working. That is very advantageous as it allows Immortals faster than Legion I admit.

[Zero]

Same could apply to Greeks beating Persia, except unit would be hoplite/Swordmen mixed stack (so when defending and attacking its still 3/3) and You would have to ignore Roman militaristic edge. But for sacrificing Mil, You'll get sci trait, so you will start off with equal footing with Persia in that you will have bronze working.

[Muddi]

personaly I like the mesketeers extra attack point. When you've thrown all your units at a city and you can see they have a unit with one hp left, its great being able to use musket to take that city rather than letting it heal up good as new next turn


Bombarding formula should be revised.
They should kill less pop. & builbings and injure more units <--- Bombers should have objectives (destroy harbor for example)

It would make sense knigh having zone of control. why? Because they are lords and nobles of course

-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. <-- the reason for this is so that if you loose your supply of oil, you can still build a navy. An old ship is better than no ship dude.

I think a cost increase is in order for all the retreat-capable units,<-- the cost is you have to guard (or have) a supply of horses.

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

it just doesn't make any sense whatsoever that a civ will have ancient 4000 BC warriors in 1950 AD<--- have you ever heard of the dark ages? Where alot of tech was lost after the fall of the roman empire? This can be represented by loss of resources (a great part of 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. <--- whos to say that a wooden ship cant use depth charges. Just cos the hull is old doesnt mean they cant put more modern weapons on board

[player1]

Originally posted by Muddi
Decrease the % chance of a unit withdrawing from combat (make it something other than automatic)
thats a good idea

It's already done.
Take a patch.

[Arrian]

I just noticed something: the Turkish UU in PTW is 8/3/3 Cavalry. Madness!

The Gallic warrior or whatever is incredibly powerful as well, but 50 shields in the ancient era is quite an investment. Though I think that unit is probably overpowered.

The Turkish Cav UU is 100 shields, which isn't really all that much more than regular Cav (80 shields, IIRC). Madness, I tell you!

-Arrian

[lockstep]

Originally posted by Arrian
I just noticed something: the Turkish UU in PTW is 8/3/3 Cavalry. Madness!

Or at least a good reason not to skip Nationalism as a neighboring civ.

[player1]

Originally posted by Arrian
The Gallic warrior or whatever is incredibly powerful as well, but 50 shields in the ancient era is quite an investment. Though I think that unit is probably overpowered.

Although, comparing it with MW cost of 30, you could say that Celts are at disadvantage.

Cost of 50 is more apropriate for "normal unit" with similar stats, not an UU.

[vmxa1]

Are you talking about the ottomans Sipahi, it is 7 3 3 in the manual. I have not looked at the unit after the patch.