AU mod: Balancing Ground Unit Bombardment

[lockstep]

As I understand it, Cannons/Hwach'as (in PtW as well as in C3C) were/are less cost-effective than either Catapults or Artillery in nearly every case - in other words, an outlier of the artillery-type units. So, in order to change as little as possible, I'd rather leave Catapults and Artillery (and, of course, Radar Artillery) alone and adopt the AU v1.17 solution (cost 60, RoF 2) for Cannons/Hwach'as.

Consequentially, I'd like to see the new Trebuchet (obviously the second outlier) strengthened according to your calculations. And I propose a 50-shield, 2-RoF Trebuchet a) because of the reduced micromanagement b) because a shield cost of 50 is more in line with the cost of other early-medieval units (pikeman 30, medieval infrantry 40, knight 70) than a cost of 25 c) because I'd choose odd shield costs only as a last resort.

[alexman]

Originally posted by lockstep
As I understand it, Cannons/Hwach'as (in PtW as well as in C3C) were/are less cost-effective than either Catapults or Artillery in nearly every case - in other words, an outlier of the artillery-type units.

Actually, Catapults are better than Artillery for defenders of strength less than 12! So I think it's better to weaken Catapults and Strengthen Cannons instead. Here is the change I propose:

Catapult: Cost=25
Trebuchet: No change (Cost=30)
Cannon: Cost=70, ROF=2

Then, Trebuchets are better than Catapults for a defender of strength greater than 4. Cannons are better than Trebuchets for a defender of strength greater than 8, and better than Catapults for a defender of strength greater than 5.3.

PS. Artillery would then be better than Catapults for a defender of strength greater than 5.1 instead of 12.

[lockstep]

Sounds good ... smoothing out artillery-type cost-effectiveness while

1. changing as little as possible,
2. especially not strengthening artillery and radar artillery,
3. making cannons more 'impressive' (RoF 2) than trebuchets.

EDIT: And I can live with having to micromanage trebuchets.

[alexman]

Does anyone else have anything to add, or should we mark it as under consideration?

[Dominae]

Why not just make the Cannon cost 35?

I have a feeling that by increasing the ROF of Cannon, they will become very powerful with upgrades. The pure Shield cost of a unit is not always a good balancing factor.


Dominae

[alexman]

Either way could work, but I like the more expensive Cannons for flavor reasons (the same reason I like having Musketmen so much more expensive than Pikemen).

By the way, a Trebuchet-to-70-cost-cannon would normally cost 120g. Hard to imagine exploiting that more than the Horseman-Cavalry upgrade.

[Dominae]

Well, I prefer the 35-Shield solution, as it's more conservative.

(Gee, we're not agreeing a lot today, are we Alex?)


Dominae

[Risa]

As the bombard unit between Range 1, RoF 1 Trebuchet and Range 2, RoF 2 Artillery, I prefer cannon to be 70 (or 60) shields, Range 1, RoF2, rather than 35 shields, Range 1, RoF 1.

[Dominae]

Well, that does not really address the gameplay aspect, does it?

[alexman]

Originally posted by Dominae
I have a feeling that by increasing the ROF of Cannon, they will become very powerful with upgrades.

2-ROF Cannons are OK, but the real danger is 2-ROF, 2-range Artillery, after railroads. You will not be able to avoid the massive Artillery upgrade unless you reduce its cost and ROF as well.

So I think it's better to increase the cost and ROF of ground bombard units earlier in the tech tree, rather than later, so you have less time to build such units to upgrade to artillery. At least then you will have to go through the process of disconnecting your saltpeter (which is not always easy, if you have a city on the resource), before you can build cheap bombardment units between Gunpowder and Rep. Parts.

[Dominae]

Around Artillery, Shields are not that difficult to come by; you can have 2-turn Artillery quite easily. The same is not true when Cannon become available; in the mid-Medieval era, Gold and upgrades are still king.

So, I think there will be more problems with a more powerful Cannon that you would want to upgrade to instead of build, than there are currently with Artillery.


Dominae

[alexman]

After thinking some more about it, I'm a bit uncomfortable about strengthening the Cannon when ground bombard units have been given such a boost in C3C.

So here's a better solution IMHO:

Catapult costs 30 shields
Trebuchet costs 35 shields
No change to Cannon.

Then the Trebuchet is better than the Catapult for defenders of strength higher than 3.

Cannons are better than Catapults for defenders of strength higher than 4, and better than Trebuchets for a defender of strength higher than 6.

Since units are targeted first in sieges, Catapults should be well worth it, even at 30 shields, but the cost increase definitely helps the AI. What do you think?

[alexman]

Since there is no argument, let's place the above proposal under consideration. Voting in a week.

[nbarclay]

I missed this proposal the first time around. As I see it, the most important balance issue is not the balance between various types of bombardment units and each other, but rather the balance between bombardment-based tactics and other tactics. Getting a better balance between different types of units would be nice,. but not at the expense of the big picture.

The question is, is the offensive use of catapults in C3C so powerful compared with other modes of combat that it needs to be toned down, or is it just powerful enough to be interesting and useful in some types of situations? If the former, increasing the cost of catapults could improve the game's balance and make the choice of how to mount an offensive more interesting. But if, at cost 20, the question of whether to build catapults or just conventional attackers is already generally interesting without an obvious generic answer, increasing the cost of catapults by 50% would tend to very seriously undermine that interest.

So the question is, is it clear that at cost 20, catapults are too powerful compared with fighting without them? I haven't kept my ear to the ground enough to know what all people have said about the issue, and I have no experience with it myself, so I'm not in a position to judge the answer. But unless the answer is, "Yes, there is a clear consensus that offensive use of catapults is too powerful," I strongly oppose such a radical increase in cost.

One factor worth noting in regard to bombardment units is that you have to pay to support them (at least past your free unit support levels). Thus, even if a larger number of less powerful units packs more bang for the shield, it is not necessarily a better deal over time. That is especially true in Republic and Feudalism since their support cost is higher than one gold per unit. I'm not saying that that makes anomalies where "more advanced" units provide less bang for the shield a good thing, but it does make such anomalies at least a little less bad.

Nathan

[Risa]

Cannons won't face the same problem as artillery. Artillery can keep up with infantries (main attack force when artillery is available), while cannons can't stay with cavalries (main attack force of cannon's age) without slowing down them.