AU mod: The Jaguar Warrior

[alexman]

The problem

C3C increased the cost of the Jaguar Warrior from 10 to 15 shields. This was done in response to the MP community, where rush strategies using this unit were overpowering.

In single player, especially at higher levels where the AI gets such bonuses that an early attack with a unit of strength 1 is not as feasible, the Jaguar Warrior was not considered unbalanced.

At a cost of 15 shields, the Jaguar Warrior is no longer a worthwhile combat unit, and is used mainly for scouting.

Possible Solutions

• Reduce the cost to 12.
• Add zero-range bombardment capability (since now the unit requires Warrior Code, like Archers)
• Add an extra HP bonus

On the other hand, since the Aztecs can now build Warriors in addition to Jaguar Warriors, maybe they can build their UU for scouting and conventional Warriors for Combat. Also consider that the Chariot, which has identical statistics to the Jaguar Warrior but is wheeled and requires Horses, costs 20 shields. Perhaps it's not necessary to make a change to the Jaguar Warrior after all.

What do you think? Is a change needed for the Aztec UU? Do you have any ideas to improve this unit? please share your views for the AU mod!

[ducki]

Maybe I just like the new feature, but what about just giving it Enslave to Worker, like the Maya's Jav Thrower? Maybe I just like the flavor of the really ancient, especially mesoamerican, civs taking slaves.

It's may just be me, but that might be worth the added expense. (Note: I do not use barb "farming". That, IMO, is exploitive and not in the spirit of the feature.)

[alexman]

Personally, I think the Jaguar Warrior is fine in C3C.
The Aztecs already got a boost from their new Agricultural trait, and since now they can build regular Warriors, their UU certainly doesn't put them at a disadvantage. Use the Jag for scouting, and Warriors for your Swordsman upgrade.

[nbarclay]

The Javelin Thrower's enslave ability is balanced by what is, in the early game, an extremely high cost. That makes the question of how much to use Javelin Throwers for anti-barb defense (and possibly for going after barbarian camps) an interesting strategic choice. Note, especially, the trade-off between building Javelin Throwers to get more slaves and building more or earlier granaries to build native workers faster.

Giving Jaguar Warriors "enslave" ability would be another matter entirely. Their lower cost would make them a lot easier to build early and build often, and their faster movement would let each one cover a wider area in search for barbarians to enslave. Further, Jaguar Warriors are probably the most cost-effective exploration units the Aztecs have, so building at least one or two would be almost a complete no-brainer. That would make the enslave ability in the hands of the Jaguar Warrior too powerful.

At cost 15, I find it very hard to envision situations where using the Jaguar Warrior militarily against another civ would make sense. It could work a bit better than warriors for early settler bops if you happen to have a neighbor that escorts settlers with warriors rather than spearmen, and if you regard an ultra-early war as worth fighting, and if you're willing to accept an ultra-early GA as the price of fighting that war, but that combination seems so esoteric as to be all but irrelevant. Under more normal conditions, a 20-shield archer is essentially always a more cost-effective attacker than a 15-shield JW in fighting another civ.

Similarly, the JW's advantage for perimeter defense against barbs and for going after barb camps would be somewhat questionable. Against a 2hp unit, the JWs ability to retreat would only rarely come into play because for the JW to retreat, the barb would have to be uninjured when the JW gets down to one hit point. Thus, while each JW could cover more territory, using JWs to fight barbs would be a somewhat expensive proposition at cost 15. Moreover, using JWs for that purpose results in fewer cities with a military police in them.

Even for exploration, the advantage of using JWs instead of warriors would be rather map-dependent. On unfavorable terrain, JWs are no faster at exploring than warriors even though they cost one and a half times as much. And even in the best case, the advantage of two JWs over three regular warriors is not huge.

All in all, the JW is a UU that is only barely worth having. Considering the way C3C beefed up the UUs that were traditionally considered questionable - lethal bombard for Hwacha and F-15; enslave for Man-O-War. and a cost reduction for the Gallic Swordsman - I don't view that as a good thing.

At cost 12, the JW would be clearly useful but would still not be anywhere near powerful enough to be regarded as one of the better UUs in the game. I think that would make the balance a lot better.

Zero-range bombard seems totally out of character for a fast-mover that is not touted as having a long-range weapon of any kind. Adding an extra hit point in place of lowering the cost could be an interesting alternative for making the unit's cost/benefit ratio reasonable, but I think reducing the cost would be a more conservative change (especially since it would be moving things back toward how they were in previous versions rather than moving off in a new direction).

Nathan

[Risa]

Oops, double post.

[Risa]

I don't think it need any changes.

If we do need a change to it, I prefer +1 bonus hp. And we should consider the problem of chariot under that situation.

[nbarclay]

Risa (and anyone else who wants to defend the status quo), under what circumstances and to what extent would you use Jaguar Warriors with their current cost and stats? And what difficulty level do you play on?

[Dominae]

Why reinvent the wheel? Jaguar Warriors should either cost 10 or 15 Shields. Any other change would be just for the sake of change.

So, which do we prefer? Personally I would like to see the Jag return to its old version, which was perfectly fine for SP play. This means reintroducing it into the Warrior upgrade chain.


Dominae

[Risa]

Originally posted by nbarclay
Risa (and anyone else who wants to defend the status quo), under what circumstances and to what extent would you use Jaguar Warriors with their current cost and stats? And what difficulty level do you play on?

Any time I want to use chariots. (Yup, that reads "almost never".)

[Nor Me]

Disabling the warrior for the aztecs is more important than it's cost. It would really help the AI starting on the higher difficulty levels if they started with free Jaguars rather than ordinary warriors.

On the lower levels, this would hurt their defense unless we reduce the cost. 12 seems reasonable.

The Aztecs are one of the better civs and certainly don't need improvement. But I don't think this will be too good. If anything, they might be worse as it's harder to avoid an early GA.

[alexman]

At higher levels, I personally don't see any reason for the Aztec AI to be stronger than the other AI, and in any case the early game is not where the AI needs the help.

At lower levels, the AI's first defender build is the cheapest unit, so the higher Jag cost doesn't come into play for defense. Later, they build Spearmen for defense.

[alexman]

Originally posted by nbarclay
Risa (and anyone else who wants to defend the status quo), under what circumstances and to what extent would you use Jaguar Warriors with their current cost and stats? And what difficulty level do you play on?

Scouting is much more imprortant in C3C (especially early scouting for non-expansionist civs who have to scout with their military units before the continent is covered by cultural borders of other civs). Jaguar Warriors give more movement per shield investment.

So I would use Jags mainly for scouting, and of course to start my GA if I need to do so.

This advantage is enough for me. The only reason to change this unit would be if the Aztecs were weak, not because the unit alone is weak. Since this is not the case, I say follow the minimum change philosohy.

[ducki]

return to its old version, which was perfectly fine for SP play

Since the cost increase was mostly a MP balance, I have to agree. Mostly we're doing SP here at AU. Mostly. If it's that big a deal for MP players that use AU, that's just one minor tweak that could be made on an individual user's machine.

For SP, lets return it to the pre-C3C version.

Edit: Yes, this is an about-face on the enslave idea. I'd still like to see a lot more enslavement, as it's a cool feature, but that's probably a bit far from stock/vanilla for AU.

[alexman]

Originally posted by ducki

For SP, lets return it to the pre-C3C version.

Remove the Agricultural trait too?

[ducki]

No, I'm talking unit, not tribe, though another Mil-Rel tribe would be nice, Ag fits the Aztec historically and with such an early, low attack UU, more strength is good,