Swordsmen should upgrade to Knights

[Admiral PJ]

I think its good we can build swordsmen later on though, as they are nice and cheap for the small cities to make and can be used as police/culture enforcement.

We just need a realistic industrial unit thats cheap, some kind of civilian militia.

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by Akaoz
You mean to tell me that the AI doesn't update the offense/defense flags when upgrading?

So that if you upgrade say knights to a 1/10/1 unit and flag it as defensive, the AI will go to war with it as an assault unit?

That's correct. Unfortunate, but true. It doesn't seem that hard to change, but I suppose I haven't seen the AI code, so I can't say for sure...

[player1]

In fact, Soren said that if new unit has only defense flag, and old one was offensive it would be changed to defensive.

Of course since Rilemen has both offense & defense flags, if you upgarde let's say Swordsmen to Riflemen you'll get offense Riflemen.

That's the main reaon why I have taken out offense flag form Mech. Inf.

[Gen.Dragolen]

Player1,

I think that since in the un-modded version (1.29f) I have seen the AI attack with 100+ MI, and clean other civ's off the map, there is nothing wrong with having MI use both offense and defense flags.

Considering current American and Soviet doctrines use the MI to support the Armour, both in defense and offense, the AI Civ's shouldn't have their hands tied. If they can produce a couple of hundred MI before I can make enough MA's to kill them, they will win by wiegh of numbers alone.

In addition, I have used MI on the offensive several times, especially when I was short on the rubber and oil needed to produce tanks, and did quite well, even against Infantry. Granted I needed some artillery and bombers to soften them up, I lost very few units. Too bad the AI Civ's can use their units as well as a human: save the tanks for the tougher targets and use support weapons to paste the target before sending in the lesser troops...

Getting back to the theme of the thread, I still hold to the idea that there should be a definite break in the upgrade chain when gunpowder units appear: their use is substantially different from employing non-gunpowder units, and the training of such troops is very from bowmen and hand to hand units. Team work and coordination take on much more important roles. Not to mention supply and morale. Instead of loosing heart in hand to hand action, you are facing volleys of musket balls from a couple of hundred meters and you can barely see the face of the person shooting at you. Discipline and leadership become much harder to maintain when almost random casualties can take out many officers and hopefully the guys standing next to you. And wounds tend to be much more severe, with limbs torn off by the heavy slow .50 cal musket balls instead of clean cuts and punctures from swords and spears.

The upshot is that yes swordsmen should be allowed to upgrade to knights while pikemen and longbowmen should not be allowed to become musketmen.

The only exception to this should be the knights who should upgrade to a light cavalry (Lancers) since the cavalry relied on single shot carbines, pistols, lances and sabres until the US Civil War. Then you started to see the repeating rifles come into use.

Anyway, I'm going to hold off making alot of changes to the last mod version I've been tinkering with until PtW arrives at the end of the month. Then we'll see what needs help in the upgrade paths.


D.

[player1]

Originally posted by Gen.Dragolen
Player1,

I think that since in the un-modded version (1.29f) I have seen the AI attack with 100+ MI, and clean other civ's off the map, there is nothing wrong with having MI use both offense and defense flags.

Now, if they have produced 50MA instead of 100MI, I think thay'll clear your civ too, not just other civs.

There is no real reason to keep them at offnse, since if you have resources for MI, you they also have reources for MA or Tank.

So it' better to attack cities with them.

By the way, defensive flag doesn't mean just sitting it cities either.
It's also, offensive pillaging, and unit defensive unit support.

[Gen.Dragolen]

Originally posted by player1


Now, if they have produced 50MA instead of 100MI, I think thay'll clear your civ too, not just other civs...

player1,

Yes the trick would be to make them build 100 MA, though in most games, that wouldn't be enough for them to kill you or me either...

D.

[player1]

And they would build them if you flag MI as defensive only.

AI would figure out that he alredy has enough defensive units, and will go building offensive MA.

Especialy, since all those offensive Infantries will become defensive MI, and thus would lower AI number of offesnive units, which would focus him on building MA as often as possbile.

[sabrewolf]

my swordsmen used to upgrade to knights, but that made that path too powerful.

my new combination (not playtested enough yet):
- crossbowman (5,2,1, renamed from original longbowman) or longbowman (5,3,1, english UU-replaces crossbowman): makes up for the movement-disadvantage towards the knights (why should you otherwise use longbowmen?)
- pikeman (1,4,1)
- musketman (2,5,1)
- rifleman (5,7,1)
- infantry (7,10,1)
- cavalry (8,3,3)
- marine and paratrooper also had a small powerup

upgrade path:
- sword --> musketman
- cross/logbow --> rifleman
- don't forget that hoplite now upgrades to pikeman
- cavalry --> tank