AU mod: Cavalry

[Modo44]

Why not revert to the PTW version of Cossack with it's increased defense? Cavalry in the open is weak, so this would be a real benefit for the UU.

I think the Sipahi is ok at 7/3/3, costing 100. It's a strong attacker, but very expensive and still a weak defender, so you get a two-edged sword. The situation can be compared to the mighty Gallic Swordsman, hich was left alone after a test game.

[alexman]

We obviously have several good options to fix the Cossacks, if they are indeed considered broken.

I would support the option with the least amount of change from stock C3C, and what better option than no change at all: Exclude the Cossack from the general Cavalry change in the AU mod. A 6.3.3 unit with blitz and 90 cost seems like the best option to me when generic Cavalry is 5.3.3 and cost 80.

As for the Sipahi, the better balanced unit is probably what player1 suggests, but for the sake of minimum change, I like what is currently implemented in the mod.

[nbarclay]

In one of the AU 504 DARs, Arrian asked whether cavalry upgrade to a 6-attack version with Nationalism and I reminded him that that idea was one that had been considered and rejected. I'd like to revisit that issue.

Under the standard rules, cavalry, infantry, and guerillas all have the same attack value: 6. Thus, cavalry remain interesting as offensive units all the way until tanks become available.

But under the AU Mod rules, we've changed that situation dramatically. At the same time that we lowered the attack value of cavalry by one, we increased the attack values for infantry and guerillas by two. The result is that while cavalry remain impossible to upgrade, they become totally and completely obsolete as offensive units a good bit earlier than they do under the standard rules.

As a result (and in light of the greater value of bombardment units in C3C), with one exception, I've made very little use of cavalry in AU Mod games since we made that change. And that exception was in AU 601 where my target was a human being who I hoped I could surprise, not an AI against which a slow but inexorable bombardment stack approach provides a cheaper, albeit slower, path to victory. It may be that others find our modified cavalry more interesting to use than I do, but from my perspective, we've done too good a job nerfing cavalry.

Here's what I'd like to do:

1) Rename our modified cavalry unit "Light Cavalry" and move the regular cavalry unit to Nationalism with a cost of 90. One of the two cavalry units would use the graphic from the Austrian Hussar. (Austria is a civ that ships with Conquests but that is disabled due to the limit on how many civs can be played, so the graphic already exists.)

2) Restore the Cossack to standard rules. Since it would start with an attack value of 6, no upgrade would be needed.

3) Leave the Sipahi the way it currently is in the AU Mod, with an attack value of 7 and cost of 100. There would be no upgrade for it, but even without an upgrade, it would remain superior to conventional cavalry. And the lacik of an upgrade would counterbalance the fact that until Nationalism, the Sipahi's advantage over conventional cavalry is even greater percentagewise in the AU Mod than it is under the stock rules (40% higher compared with 1/3 higher).

Note that with this combination of units, only the standard cavalry unit needs to be upgraded with Nationalism (since the two UUs start out better). Thus, we need only one graphic to differentiate between light and heavy units - a graphic the Hussar provides.

Do others agree that we've nerfed cavalry too much? Or is my perception of the situation different from how others feel about it?

[Krill]

Yes, cav have been nerfed too much. While I do like your suggestion, I think it is little too far from stock for most new comers to understand (although I doubt there will be many newcomers to this game anymore).

[punkbass2000]

Well, warfare is far from my forte, but yes, I do feel Cavalry have nerfed a little too much in the AU mod. I, too, rarely use them and often skip over MT completely because of it. In the current AU game, I will definitely not be upgrading any WE to cavalry and hopefully be able to avoid them altogether. It would be nice if cavalry could be 5.5 (that's a decimal), but there's no way to do that without flat out doubling all A/D and then making cavalry 11/6, I believe, which, I assume would be too extreme for AU.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Krill
Yes, cav have been nerfed too much. While I do like your suggestion, I think it is little too far from stock for most new comers to understand (although I doubt there will be many newcomers to this game anymore).

Is it really all that complicated? In terms of the Readme file, it would come down to:

- Split the Cavalry unit into two units, a 5.3.3 Light Cavalry available with Military Tradition and a 6.3.3 Heavy Cavalry unit available with Nationalism at a cost of 90. The Light Cavalry uses the graphic from the Austrian Hussar.

- Reduced the attack value of the Sipahi from 8 to 7.

- The Cossack remains unchanged.

Further, with Light Cavalry having a different name and a different graphic from cavalry in the the standard game (if the Light Cavalry would be the one that uses the Hussar graphic), it would be very hard for newcomers to miss the fact that something has been changed even if they don't bother to read the readme. So I don't think the change would be all that hard to deal with. Certainly, I don't think it would be anywhere near as radical a change from a newcomer's perspective as what we did with Philosophy!

[Modo44]

The thing is, a newcomer probably will research everything in the Medieval times, before continuing to the Industrial age. Now what will he go for? Oh, here is a cool 6-defense unit - take it! So the lifespan of the Light Cavalry could well be under 10 turns in many games. Plus this would make the Riflemen useless very fast. Poor AIs love it, remember? And a 5-attack retreating unit is more than enough against Muskets.

If an upgrade is desired, I would go for an improved version of Cavalry (say 8/4/3), but with a later technology. Replaceable Parts would be best, or at least Industrialization. This would make the Light Cavalry live longer and the upgrade still worthwile, at least for hunting Tanks. I know it's far from stock rules though. :|

What I did for now in my private games, was allowing an upgrade from Cavalry to Modern Armor. This means there is a reason to keep those Cavs alive until the Modern times, even if they are weak. Also, it makes a mass upgrade possible and feasible. Unlike Tanks, Cavalry can more often be built in 1-turn cycles by that time, so a strategic choice is added to the game.

[Tarquinius]

I like Nathan's idea. Especially as we have an unused graphic perfect for this! (the Austrian Hussar)
It makes cavalry in the middle ages weaker than in stock, but in the industrial ages the same as in stock, exactly as we want it!
So I supoort this change

[sabrewolf]

what i like especially about this proposal is the additional strategic depth.

- one of the problems of upgrading is that you loose the elite status of units. i often have swordsmen and warriors around when medinfs are available and knights when cavalry is around... just for those additional elite victory chances. by inserting the light cavalry, there is another such decision to make.

- nationalism is the AIs favourite technology. so if you have a slight tech lead, you'll have to think twice if you want to research something the AI will go for anyway.


i don't like modo's idea of an even better cavalry. 3 movement points are so good, they don't need 8 attack (you get that with infantry anyhow). and 8 would even have a good chance against riflemen (and completely rock against musketmen).

[Modo44]

My idea is to prolong the lifespan of Light Cavalry. The increased attack value is mostly due to the proposed later appearance of Cavalry. It would also increase the upgrade cost a bit. The unit would still be easy prey for attacks, unlike Tanks. Perhaps 7/4/3 stats would be better?

[sabrewolf]

ok, prologing is another idea. but 6 could still suffice (now we're stuck with only 5 attack). maybe put it to communism/fascism (iirc AUmod merged those techs?), which would make the human sometime research that too.

what could be techs other than nationalism and its branch that could do for the "full" cavalry?

[Modo44]

Yes, Communism seems like a good idea for the standard (6/3/3) Cavalry. It would definately make this tech more valuable (I can't remember when I last researched it myself, same goes for Espionage.).

Replaceable Parts would be too far away for standard Cavalry, so the stronger version would have to go with this choice. I would still go this way. Standard Cavalry is already strong against Riflemen, so making it 7/4/3 wouldn't change the balance that much. Especially since the higher numbers make the difference less significant and it would come even later in the game. And if Cavalry should stay without upgrades, this would make the unit valuable throughout the Industrial times, not just until Infantry.

[Arrian]

I'd put it in Nationalism. I'm in favor of Nathan's idea.

-Arrian

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Modo44
The thing is, a newcomer probably will research everything in the Medieval times, before continuing to the Industrial age. Now what will he go for? Oh, here is a cool 6-defense unit - take it! So the lifespan of the Light Cavalry could well be under 10 turns in many games. Plus this would make the Riflemen useless very fast. Poor AIs love it, remember? And a 5-attack retreating unit is more than enough against Muskets.

The AU Mod is oriented mainly toward providing deeper strategic challenges for players who already understand the game. That's not to say that the goal of accommodating less experienced players should be dismissed as entirely unimportant. But since what we want is for players to become experienced, I see little sense in basing the Mod's design on speculation about things that inexperienced players might do as a result of their not having learned better.

Conventional cavalry against riflemen are not unbalanced. When I first started playing Civ 3, I often engaged in cavalry assaults against riflemen, but I eventually gave up that tactic as too costly under most circumstances. That's not to say that I never take on riflemen with six-attack cavalry, but most of the time, the appearance of significant numbers of riflemen has been my signal to stop my cavalry offensives. So as long as our heavy cavalry are merely the same cavalry as come in the stock rules, I see no threat of rendering riflemen useless.

The real balance problem is cavalry with an attack value of six against musketmen and, even worse, against pikemen. Having full-power cavalry available with Nationalism instead of with Military Tradition won't make such attacks impossible, but winning the game with cavalry would take a bigger tech lead than it does under the standard rules.

I also like what the change would do to strategic choices. Do you use cannons to soften up enemies in a slow, drawn-out war, or do you rely on your cavalry's speed to make wars a lot shorter? Do you go ahead and start your cavalry warfare using light cavalry in order to have more time and in the hope that some target civs will have weaker defensive units, or do you wait until you can use heavy cavalry?

One other quirk to the change, and I'm not sure how good or bad it is, is that players could bypass Military Tradition entirely since heavy cavalry would be available with Nationalism whether they have Military Tradition or not. On one hand, the question of whether to research Military Tradition to get light cavalry sooner or to wait for heavy cavalry could itself be strategically interesting. But on the other, the fact that players could save the cost of researching Military Tradition would undo some of the benefit of pushing players to research Nationalism. (Of course without Military Tradition, players couldn't build the Military Academy. But the fact that we've reduced the power of armies in the AU Mod would make that less of an issue.)

As for the idea of delaying heavy cavalry until Communism or Fascism, keep in mind that infantry and artillery are only three techs deep in the industrial era if players pursue a beeline. So by the time players would research two industrial techs in order to get heavy cavalry, they would be almost to a point where they could start using infantry/artillery tactics, an approach that is slower but that remains overwhelmingly powerful a whole lot longer. If we want cavalry rushes to be an interesting alternative to infantry/artillery warfare, I thiink delaying the more powerful cavalry beyond Nationalism would seriously undermine that goal.

[Arrian]

...players could bypass Military Tradition entirely since heavy cavalry would be available with Nationalism whether they have Military Tradition or not.

Ack, I hadn't considered that. Hmm. Given the pretty much nerfed armies in the AU mod, I probably would bypass MT the vast majority of the time.

Could we add a tech? I mean, ironclads is (IMO) a pretty useless one (caveat - I don't recall if the AU mod did anything to rectify that)... perhaps we could rename it and put both ironclads and 6-attack cavalry under it, with MT as a prereq (is that possible?).

-Arrian