Offensive and Defensive units

[Optimizer]

Someone said that the AI will have no problem to handle units with both offensive and defensive roles.

I am considering to have an offensive unit chain consisting of Archer - Longbowman - Musketman (yes, the Musketman would be offensive) which have Zone of Control, "defensive bombardment" and Amphibious attack ability. The defensive unit chain would consist of Spearman - Pikeman.

Both the Musketman and the Pikeman would upgrade to the Grenadier (with a bayonet, an improved musket and formation tactics), which later becomes a Rifleman and an Infantryman (Can someone come up with a more age-specific name?)

What do you think?

[Willem]

Actually, I'v e heard just the opposite, that having more than one strategy can cause some problems with the game.

[Ozymandias]

Re: Offensive and Defensive units

Originally posted by Optimizer

Both the Musketman and the Pikeman would upgrade to the Grenadier (with a bayonet, an improved musket and formation tactics), which later becomes a Rifleman and an Infantryman (Can someone come up with a more age-specific name?)

What do you think?

Early musketmen (matchlock muskets; arquebusiers; etc.) were ONLY employed in formation with pikes, as extremely long reload time made these troops incredibly vulnerable to cavalry charges etc. To have a separate Musketman unit is (speaking as a purist) non-sensical.

The 30 Years War probably offers the most accessible literature on the topic; lines of combined musket and pike combinations facing off against one another -- So I would suggest the "Musketman" unit be considered a combination of musket and pile. They should be considered BOTH defensive and offensive units.

The elite unit would be the Spanish "tercio".

Concurrent weapons systems would include heavy cavalry (Gustavus Adolphus' preferred batlefield arm of decision), early dragoons and "caracole" cavalry: pistol-armed cavalry trained to charge within pistol range, discharge their pistols, and then retreat to reload.

As muskets improved AND the bayonet was invented, we have the "classical" linear formations we probably all associate with redcoats and whatnot. I would suggest the proper name for this unit be "Flintlock" after the improved firing mechanism.

"Grenadiers" were one form of elite troop during this period, these units typically being comprised of the tallest soldiers, armed with fused grenades (hence their name) as well as muskets.

Muskets should certainly upgrade to Flintlocks which should then upgrade to Riflemen and would correspond to the mid-19th century.

Hoping this is all helpful --

Oz

[Optimizer]

Early musketmen (matchlock muskets; arquebusiers; etc.) were ONLY employed in formation with pikes, as extremely long reload time made these troops incredibly vulnerable to cavalry charges etc. To have a separate Musketman unit is (speaking as a purist) non-sensical.

That is why I thought of making them a unit with a very low defense rate, so that they would need to be stacked with Pikemen.

[Ozymandias]

Originally posted by Optimizer


That is why I thought of making them a unit with a very low defense rate, so that they would need to be stacked with Pikemen.

Agreed entirely, but how well does the AI handle the pairing of offensive and defensive units? (Obviously, I've spent more time thinking and posting than experimenting -- so far! -- but so it goes.)

-O.

[Diodorus Sicilus]

Offensive and Defensive units

The problem is that the 'musketman' actually represents two different historical troop-types. The early matchlock or aquebus had two primary characteristics: since it used a length of match with fire in the open, its formations had to be very loose to avoid troops setting each other (and each other's gunpowder) on fire. Since it also was very slow-firing, it was essentially an auxiliary to the "noble arm" - the pike.
The matchlock musket was replaced by the flintlock, or mechanical-lock musket. Open fire being no longer necessary since the ignition spark could be produced at need by the flint, this allowed much tighter formations, and therefore much higher firepower per front. Minor improvements like the iron ramroad, conical touch-hole and regularized drill also improced the rate of fire, and firepower, dramatically. Almost simultaneously with the widespread adoption of the flintlock in Europe (1690 - 1710), the socket bayonet gave each foot soldier his own 'mini-pike' to fend off cavalry and to press home a shock attack.
The effect of all this is that you have a musket or matchlock man with relatively high firepower compared to earlier troops (aside: while the longbow could fire further and faster for a few moments, after the bowman got tired his rate of fire AND range drops dramatically. Also, while arrows wound more than they kill, the heavy lead balls fired by aquebus and musket killed or incapacitated almost wherever they hit - the effective firepower of the musket is therefore greater over the length of time represented by a day-long battle)
but very poor shock (attack factor) or defense against cavalry or shock troops (defense factor). After about a century (historically the musket/aquebus and pike combination reigned from about Nassau's reforms of 1600 - 1610 to about 1690) this is replaced by the flintlock and linear formations (depth of infantry formations between 1690 and 1730 dropped from 6 to 3 ranks average). These have even greater firepower, and defense and attack factors equal or greater than the pike alone.
I suggest the nomenclature for the flintlock-armed troops could be 'fusiliers'. Later it became purely honorific, but originally this refered specifically to troops armed with 'fusils' - the first flintlock muskets issued to the French army.
The sequence then, would be:
Musketman (or aquebussier - has a more specific period flavor)
firepower greater than previous units, defense factor slightly lower than pikes, attack factor low - a defensive unit
Fusilier
Firepower high, defense as high as pikemen, attack factor higher - an offensive unit. Historically, flintlock armed infantry could almost always attack the enemy successfully, and was defeated by a counterattack by other flintlock armed infantry or cavalry that caught them by surprise.
Grenadier
Very high attack factor, similar defense and firepower to fusiliers. Really, grenadiers don't represent any technological advance over flintlocks - in fact, their primitive gunpowder bombs were a backwards step, and were quickly abandoned. Grenadier would really be more appropriate as a term for the Elite matchlock or flintlock infantry, except that I don't believe the game supports separate titles based on morale level alone.

By the way, when rifles replace the smoothbore flintlocks, the result is a much higher defense factor, but little change in the infantry's attack factor. Infantry attack factors did not 'catch up' until they got their own heavy support in the form of mortars, infantry guns, etc in WWII. I suggest the further sequence then:
Rifleman
High defense factor, firepower slightly greater than fusilier, attack factor same. A Defensive unit
Doughboy
(I know this is strictly speaking a slang term for a WWI American soldier, but it evokes the early twentieth century troop type: bolt-action rifles, heavy machineguns, et al)
Very high defense factor, firepower much greater than rifleman, attack factor only slightly higher - a defensive unit, which cannot really attack other Doughboy-type units without artillery support. Result: slow, WWI style attacks in the game!
Stormtrooper
As opposed to its political meaning of a Nazi thug of the 1930s, this also refers to the WWII type assault infantry: high proportion of light automatic weapons (light MGs, submachineguns, etc) and its own heavy fire support. Has defense factor equal to or slightly higher than Doughboy, attack factor and firepower much higher: an Offensive Unit.
Mechanized Infantry
The latest: high attack and defense factors, high firepower. Compared to modern armor they are defensive units, but they should have an attack factor higher than any previous foot unit also,

Of course, any changes along these lines might result in a horrific unbalancing of the game. Right now, a lot of the units in CivIII do not reflect their historical characteristics (examples: Spearmen and Hoplites were offensive units historically, archers and longbowmen defensive, muskets defensive then offensive, pikemen offensive in Macedonian, Swiss, and Swedish armies). Trouble is, changing them all results in very unbalanced games (I've tried it - once!), with empires disappearing soon after they contact anyone larger - which may be historical, except that they never come back and by the middle game the whole map is reduced to one or two mega-empires with nothing left to do but duke it out - boring and simplistic.

This is all going to take a lot of tweaking to find the right factors and a lot of playtesting to keep the game balanced throughout all the eras...

[Optimizer]

Thank you for your clarifications. We can't have all the significant units of world history in Civ 3, so we must generalize.

[Ozymandias]

Re: Offensive and Defensive units

Originally posted by Diodorus Sicilus
Trouble is, changing them all results in very unbalanced games (I've tried it - once!), with empires disappearing soon after they contact anyone larger ... This is all going to take a lot of tweaking to find the right factors and a lot of playtesting to keep the game balanced throughout all the eras...

Diodorus (btw, great "nomme de jeu" -- game nickname) --

I agree entirely. I think the tech tree and units CAN be reworked without concommitently ruining the game.

Warfare can be viewed as competition between offensive and defensive measures -- offense overcoming defense, leading to better defence requiring better offense, etc.

The tech tree should be reworked so that offensive and defensive weapons systems (I say "systems" to take into account tactics and C3 etc. as well as the hardware) introduced
accordingly -- point and counterpoint.

Ideally, the gameplay would work out that you might feel complacent with your brand-new defensive weapons, and let your research venture into the scientific, only to eventually discover that your warlike neighbor has evolved the correct counter-measure to your defense. -- And, yes, this would require reworking quite a few units' factors. And you're also quite right about offensive units being misrepresented as defensive etc., with the caveat that several weapons systems (phalanx and legion come right to mind) were BOTH offensive and defensive in nature.

Your comments on the evolution of infantry would also tie in nicely with the evolution of artillery, from medieval bombards to Big Bertha.

In short, I think the game mechanics and level of abstraction provided by Civ3 can be used to far better model reality.

-- On a technical note, a question - didn't "fusileer" refer to the "fusil" or fuse of the matchlock? -- And, hopefully not being too pedantic, between matchlock and flintlock was the wheellock, which would have ben used for the caracole cavalry I mention.

BTW I'm in favor of voting/rating/recommending threads like this, wherein we get intelligently and civilly into the overlap of game mechanics and history.

Best Regards,

Oz

[Optimizer]

Thanks for your opinions. They will be helpful if I ever manage to finish my mod.

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by Optimizer
Thanks for your opinions. They will be helpful if I ever manage to finish my mod.

A little late here aren't we?

[Optimizer]

You got me there!

[Optimizer]

So, what is the last bid? Can a unit be both offensive and defensive without problems?

[zulu9812]

Yes - according to Firaxis, when the AI builds a unit with two strategies, only one of thise stratgies will be assigned to that unit. So if Musketman was both Offensive and Defensive, the AI would build Offensive Musketmen and Defensive Musketmen.