MOD: Patch suggestion MOD (PtW version)

[Caliban]

Agreed! The Celtic AI is flooding me with swordsmen at the moment! In the current version they are definitely too cheap.

[Ewald]

Rejected! The additional point in defense doesn't justify a 60% increase in cost compared to the iroqois mounted warrior. What's wrong in giving a militaristic civ a strong and affordable UU? I see no point in weakening UU of militaristic civs because of higher promotion and retreat probabilities. It is consensus among players that the military trait is fairly weak. Why punishing militaristic civs even further?

[player1]

Militaristic trait is not weak.
(cheap barracks are key victory)

Anyway, the weak point of Mounted Warrior is that while powerful at attack, it is vulnerable at defense.
Good group of enemy horsemen can keep them in check.

Now, same thing can't be done against Galic Swordsmen.

I've played same games with Celts and read about some other test games, and thing that I can say is that if enemy has no Iron, you'll certainly win, even with 50 cost Galic.

Now if they have Iron, things will be a little bit tougher, but since you'll activate your GA and start pumping Galic Swordsmen quickly, you'll still get good benefits.

So, we have a unit that is regarded as balanced by many people and also regarded as underpowered by other group of people.

Since, with such division of opinions, real conclusion can't be made, I'll probably keep them with 50 shields, since this is conservative mod (feel free to change personal versions of you MOD if you don't agree).

.

Now, some other things.
Someone pointed out at AU thread, that 50 cost Keshik can becomes too much powerful, since he'll be +40% more cost effective at attack, and barely, 6.7% less effective at defense then Knight. Now these benefits alone would make a good UU, without need of further boosts, like better movement at Mountains and Hills.
But since such change (removing mountain movement) would remove some Keshik flavor, maybe something else need to be done.

What about giving them defense of 3, with price of 60?
Or about giving them blitz attack with original cost of 60 instead?
(blitz is in flavor with quick rushes with mounted archers)


Also, one thing with the Elephants.
How would they work, if I remove movement bonus in Jungles and reduce cost to 60 shields?
(like in Beta Tester MOD)
Is it out of flavor (Elephants are supposed to be expensive), or out of balance?

[Caliban]

In my little world, Keshiks do have the ability to blitz, but cost 70, as I think that way one Keshik is worth two on the battlefield (attacks twice).

Just my two cents.

[player1]

I don't think that it would up cost to 70 shields.

Because,
-They need to be adjanced to opponent at enmy turn to get use of bliz.
-and they have only defense of 2 (counter-attack anybody?)
-blitz can be used only twice
-attack of 4 is not grounbreakeing, compared to attack of Tanks or Modern Armor (were is much greater chance of survivability of these units)
-they still have 3-5hps (so it's not like 2 Knights)
-and I want to keep "cheap UU" flavor
-blitz to Keshik is cool, but in no way some super-advantage, just good enough to move thier efficiency from bad to good

.

So after some consideration, I think that changes to be done in next version are:
Keshik with Blitz and original cost of 60.
Galic Swordsmen with original cost of 50.

And that's all.
(I won't experiment with elephants)

[player1]

But I would in no way add blitz to Ansar Warrior as done in Beta Tester MOD.

That's just insane good blitz.

[player1]

Actually, I think that with blitz I would make Keshik 70 cost instead, since while on "defensive offense" they can do pretty decent punch (think of Civ2 Elephants on defense waiting to punch enemy units that come close).

[Ewald]

For me "Blitz" just doesn't seem historically correct for middle age units.

[player1]

True, but I really had no other way to make distinction with Keshik (whtout unabalanicing something else or giving weird stats).

On the other hand in civilopedia, it's just called "attacking multiple times", not blitz.

Anyway, it does go in flavor with Mounted Archers (Keshik).
Strike from distance, move out, strike again.

[Ewald]

Yes, but only if attacking the same opponent multiple times.

Don't you think Keshiks become too expensive this way? IMHO Mongols should have cheap units (mass attack).

[player1]

Depends.

As I said before, their value is much greater when doing offensive defense (2 attacks). Usually most effective against enemy infantry.

Let's see the cost breakdown.

If you have a blitz Knight, that would be almost good as other Knight-type UUs. Since that's just "almost", add no need for Iron to that as bonus.
Now if you add to that better movment on hills and mountains (and ZOC too), you need to give slight disadvantage, like one defense point less.


P.S.
Since usually units move in stacks, you could say that with blitz you attack "same opponents".

[player1]

Hmm...

I run several tests and
it looks that defensive blizt with Keshik doesn't need to be considered too much powerful after all.
Since you can get similar effect with just two 30-cost Longbowmen (and in both cases you would become vunerable to enemy mobile units near the border, since Keshik has poor defense).

Offensive blizt is not too much dangerous, since you have just 2 points of defense and enemy defenses inside cities are good enough to warrant loss of HPs too often (and if you take Pikemen for defense, they will slow you down).
7+ pop city with Pikemen gives defense of 5.55 (so chance to lose no more then 1hp from veteran defender is 10%),
and 1-6 pop non-walled town with Pikemen gives defense of 4.05 (chance of 18%).

So I'll put Keshik with blizt and 60 shields cost.
If after additional testing it starts looking overpowering (although I doubt that), then I'll maybe change it again.


P.S.
I'll also add "foot unit" flag to scout, explorer, leader and king units, in order to make then transferable by helicopters (and they are also "foot units" after all).

And of course Galic Swordsmen with 50 shields.

[player1]

Version 1.22 is OUT!

Comments to changes in v1.22

Foot Unit flag added to Scout, Explorer, Leader and King units, in order to make them transferable by helicopters. Since these units already got Airlift ability before, there is no good reason to prevent their transport by helicopters (it even makes some interesting strategies for king units).

Galic Swordsmen cost is changed back to 50 shields. Some testing showed that last cost reduction was not really needed.

I realized that cost of 50 shields for Keshik from last version of MOD was too much. So I tried a different approach in boosting Keshik. It will get original price of 60, but also a blitz ability (can attack multiple times in single turn). It goes well with flavor of "mounted archers" (attack, withdraw, attack). Also, Keshik is probably a unit that benefits the least from blitz (it's difficult to blitz Pikemen, and due to low Keshik defense they are easy to be counterattacked).

Note: Since BIX format is same for both 1.14f and 1.21f PtW patch, you could use this MOD with 1.14f patch too.

[Ewald]

Question: Do you plan to do something about airfields, player 1?

[player1]

???

What about airfields?
I don't see any problems with them.