AU mod: The Jaguar Warrior

[Aeson]

Your testing is interesting Nathan. You got a Granary up while doing it, while not losing a lot in the peace negotiations. Normally I would put out a second and maybe third city before the Granary just to keep at or above the number of AI cities. The cost of doing so is a slightly slower overall REX, but having peace negotiations more in your favor. Interesting tradeoff of goods for faster expansion on your part, which probably will pay off in the long run. It is more dangerous though as you could have lost a city.

Another more mundane advantage to the Jags (and Impi) is their use as garrison units early on. Often because of the luxury slider moving back and forth and populations fluxuating so much early on, moving garrison units around from city to city is important and can save quite a bit of cash. Jags can cover those cities which are more than 3 tiles, have a badly placed river crossing, or just cover more cities. Once Horses are hooked up I use Chariots or Horsemen for this, but early on there tend to be times I run a higher luxury rate than necessary while Warriors make their transit to the city in need.

I agree it isn't as straightforward a unit to use, but there are a few other UU's whose true benefits are somewhat difficult to comprehend at first. The Dromon's are one that sticks out, and definitely it preformed a lot better than I expected as support for ground troops. Impi are another along the same lines as a Jag, slower to get there, but possible to use to completely strangle an AI. Hawacha's are arguably one of the most powerful UU when used right, but I still have trouble building up a military of the proper consistancy to take advantage of it because of how unconventional it feels.

If a change were to be made to the Jag, I would think the +1 HP would be a good idea. It really wouldn't make their use as pillagers more effective, and would give them a slightly more viable use as attackers.

The other very weird idea would be to remove their defense altogether so that you won't trigger your GA by being attacked while cutting up the AI's infrastructure. To me, this is usually the greatest risk involved with using the Jags this way, and why I tend to avoid pillaging tiles with them unless it's a Cow or FP Wheat (or one which I won't be attacked on of course). I doubt most people would appreciate that change though.

[alexman]

Interesting idea, Aeson, but unfortunately the AI wouldn't know what to do with a unit without defensive strength. The editor doesn't allow you to flag such a unit as offensive for the AI.

[Aeson]

What does the AI do with them? Sit them in cities like Cats?

Another option could be to give Jags 0 range bombard (I always thought they looked like throwing axes anyways ). It's a stretch but gives them a direct use in military applications. It won't set them up to be the dominant rushers they were or impact their use as terror troops much. And it's one of the things the AI uses well.

[nbarclay]

And a cost-15 Jag can do exactly what that a cost-10 Jag can't? At cost 10, the Jag is good both for early rushes (as Dominae says would be the obvious use in the eyes of RTS veterans) and for unconventional warfare. At cost 15, the Jag's only real military use is in unconventional warfare, and even that use is more expensive and therefore harder to make worth the cost and risk. I don't see how having the Jag be useful for two purposes rather than just one would result in fewer strategic choices. On the contrary, I view having the Jag useful only as an unconventional warfare unit as being more limiting in terms of strategic choices.

Further, as I keep saying, and as no one has addressed that I recall, the fact that a Jag rush is impractical at cost 15 takes away what was, in earlier versions, an enormous incentive for Aztec players to trigger a GA early. Yes, unconventional warfare tactics risk triggering a GA early if something goes wrong, but where is the incentive for players to deliberately trigger an early GA in order to take full advantage of their UU? Where is the strategic choice, "Are the advantages of attacking with Jags worth triggering a despotic GA?"

I would also note that my usual approach to dealing with good ancient offensive UUs - building up a force, switching to Republic, and then striking - would be entirely impractical with Jags. Both support costs and war weariness would make a huge mess out of such a strategy. Even building up a large Jag force and switching to Monarchy to use it would create serious support cost problems. For that matter, there would be a limit to how overwhelming a Jag force can be built up under Despotism before the force is unleashed without creating support cost problems! The whole concept of the Jag as a useful offensive unit is full of strategic depth and issues that aren't faced with other ancient UUs, but all of that depth is lost when using Jags as a civ's main offensive force is rendered impractical.

As I see it, reducing the Jag's cost back to where it was originally takes away none of the strategic depth involved in being able to use the unit profitably in unconventional warfare, but only adds the additional depth associated with being able to use it in full-scale offensives as well. It gives the Jag two ways of profiting players who adapt their strategy to fit its special nature instead of just one.

Nathan

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Aeson
Your testing is interesting Nathan. You got a Granary up while doing it, while not losing a lot in the peace negotiations. Normally I would put out a second and maybe third city before the Granary just to keep at or above the number of AI cities. The cost of doing so is a slightly slower overall REX, but having peace negotiations more in your favor. Interesting tradeoff of goods for faster expansion on your part, which probably will pay off in the long run. It is more dangerous though as you could have lost a city.

I did put out a second city before my granary in my capital; two jags are a bit expensive to build both them and a granary before the first settler. It was that second city's granary that was disrupted when I had to switch to building an archer for emergency defense. (As it turned out when I played a little farther, that didn't hurt me much after all; I got a SGL shortly after and rushed the Pyramids around the time the original, disrupted granary would have been finished. But that's not the kind of luck you can count on getting!)

And remember that I did have a hard time getting peace with the Iroquois on decent terms even with my second city built before I built a granary. As it turns out, even after my successful defense of my second city, the window of opportunity for peace without paying was only a couple turns or so. I was so busy writing about my experiment that I forgot where I was and didn't get the peace deal signed, so I ended up having to go to an autosave to get back where I was supposed to be.

The cost in terms of a slower REX is a serious down side to the strategy of using Jags for special ops: it cuts into the advantage gained relative to your neighbors (since you hurt yourself in addition to hurting them) and, far more importantly, sets you back relative to more distant civs. In games like my test game where the neighbors start close and there isn't a lot of room for peaceful expansion, hurting the neighbors early can be extremely useful because you'll have to fight them relatively early anyhow in order to have enough land. But in games where there is plenty of room to REX peacefully, the net benefits are more doubtful.

Nathan

[alexman]

I don't buy the argument about reducing strategic choice because a UU is no good for conventional attack. You don't have to use your UU for that. You have Archers, Swordsmen, or Horsemen for that role.

[ducki]

Originally posted by alexman
I don't buy the argument about reducing strategic choice because a UU is no good for conventional attack. You don't have to use your UU for that. You have Archers, Swordsmen, or Horsemen for that role.

I don't buy that the UU is no good for conventional attack.
Not cost-effective? Probably.
Not as "easy" as PtW? Sure.
No good? I just don't agree.

We're a bunch of fairly experienced players, some of us extremely analytical, so the analysis we get about cost effectiveness, combat simulations with victories in terms of shield cost, and so on is important information, but let's remember that cost-effective is not the same as useful, powerful, or the catch-all "good".

I feel there is more and deeper strategic choice in a UU like the 15-shield Jag - where there's no clearcut "best" plan - than the old-style wolfpacks of doom Jags.

That's just my opinion, I'm going to abandon my latest game where I got the Pyramids in 2150BC to go play with Monty. I'm feeling a bit peckish and some blood would do me good.

[nbarclay]

Here's a recap of my test results with Jaguar Warriors with an extra hit point added. The battles are against 50 regular spears, and the attackers are pseudo-veterans - regulars with an extra hit point - that don't have quite as good a chance of retreating as real veterans would. The victim (Egypt) is not militaristic.

Test 1:

Archers: Victory, 30 losses (600 shields lost)
Horsemen: Defeat, 29 losses (870 shields lost), 1 enemy survives with one hit point left.
Jaguar Warriors: Victory, 73 losses (730/876/1095 shields lost).
Jaguar Warriors +1HP: Victory, 61 losses (915 shields)

Test 2:

Archers: Victory, 42 losses (840 shields).
Horsemen: Victory, 19 losses (570 shields).
Jaguar Warriors: Victory, 72 losses (720/864/1080 shields). Egypt got a leader on defense.
Jaguar Warriors +1HP: Victory, 56 losses (840 shields)

Test 3:

Archers: Victory, 30 losses (600 shields).
Horsemen: Victory, 37 losses (1110 shields).
Jaguar Warriors: Victory, 58 losses (580/696/870 shields).
Jaguar Warriors +1HP: Victory, 59 losses (885 shields)

Test 4:

Archers: Victory, 38 losses (760 shields).
Horsemen: Victory, 23 losses (690 shields).
Jaguar Warriors: Victory, 55 losses (550/660/825 shields).
Jaguar Warriors +1HP: Victory, 38 losses (570 shields)

Test 5:

Archers: Victory, 42 losses (840 shields)
Horsemen: Victory, 23 losses (690 shields)
Jaguar Warriors: Victory, 63 losses (630/756/945 shields). Egypt got a leader on defense.
Jaguar Warriors +1HP: Victory, 57 losses (855 shields), Egypt got a leader on defense.


Out of the five tests, we have minimum losses of

Archers: 30 losses (600 shields lost)
Horsemen: 19 losses (570 shields lost)
Jaguar Warriors: 55 losses (550/660/825 shields)
Jaguar Warriors +1HP: 38 losses (570 shields)

and maximum losses of

Archers: 42 losses (840 shields lost)
Horsemen: 37 losses (1110 shields lost)
Jaguar Warriors: 73 losses (730/876/1095 shields lost)
Jaguar Warriors +1HP: 61 losses (915 shields)

with an average of

Archers: 36.4 losses (728 shields lost)
Horsemen: 26.2 losses (786 shields lost)*
Jaguar Warriors: 64.2 losses (642/770/963 shields lost)
Jaguar Warriors +1HP: 54.2 losses (813 shields lost)

*Remember that in one of the horseman battles, a 1-hit-point defender survived.

If we discard the highest and lowest results for each unit as least likely to be representative, out of the remaining three, we get minimum losses of

Archers: 30 losses (600 shields lost)
Horsemen: 23 losses (690 shields lost)
Jaguar Warriors: 58 losses (580/696/870 shields)
Jaguar Warriors +1HP: Victory, 56 losses (840 shields)

and maximum losses of

Archers: 42 losses (840 shields lost)
Horsemen: 29 losses* (870 shields lost)
Jaguar Warriors: Victory, 72 losses (720/864/1080 shields lost)
Jaguar Warriors +1HP: Victory, 59 losses (885 shields lost)

with an average of

Archers: 36.7 losses (733 shields lost)
Horsemen: 25 losses (750 shields lost)
Jaguar Warriors: 64.3 losses (643/772/965 shields lost)
Jaguar Warriors +1HP: 57.3 losses (860 shields lost)

Real veterans would have done slightly better since they would have had a little bit better chance of retreating. On the other hand, a Militaristic opponent would have had a better chance of getting promoted after one victory instead of two.

From these tests, it looks like Jaguar Warriors with an extra hit point at cost 15 would not be the really terrible units for conventional assaults that Jags without an extra hit point are, but the cost of assaulting a city with Jags would still be higher than the cost of assaulting one with conventional units. There would still be no real incentive for players to trigger a GA in order to take advantage of the military value of Jags.

I also did a test run with two bonus hit points and ended up only losing 30 Jags. Unless that test run was a much bigger statistical fluke than I think it was, Jags with two bonus hit points would be way too powerful.

[Dominae]

Why is it necessary for Jags to be direct assault units?

Do you ever Warrior-rush? Not unless you're feeling lucky. Do you ever use Warriors to "bop" lightly-escorted Settlers and Workers? Yes, if you feel you can handle the counter-attack.

Jags, being Warrior upgrades, should do basically the same thing Warriors do, only better. As Aeson's posts have pointed out, there's plenty Jags do better than Warriors. Here's another one: Militaristic trait plus 2-movement equals a very high survival rate.

Just because it's not cost-effective to send 15-Shield Jags against Spearmen in cities does not mean the Aztec UU is useless. By adding an extra HP you're only trying to make it cost-effective again, a fine example of fixing something that's not broken.


Dominae

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by alexman
I don't buy the argument about reducing strategic choice because a UU is no good for conventional attack. You don't have to use your UU for that. You have Archers, Swordsmen, or Horsemen for that role.

But you don't have to trigger your GA in order to attack with those units. Thus, you don't have to give up a unit-for-unit combat advantage if you fight early but don't want to trigger a GA. The old Aztec dilemma of having a UU that can provide a significant combat advantage, but only if you are willing to trigger a despotic GA, no longer exists.

[ducki]

I still think its flexibility is a big strength.
Add to that, the Aztecs can build Warriors or Archers instead if they fear the evil Germans will come a'knockin' on the door. It's not like most other UUs where if you don't build your UU then you really have to settle for a weak military - you get to choose - lots of warriors built quicker, archers for more punch, or Jags for a warrior on coke?

If you play the Aztecs - or the Maya or the Inca or Egypt - you have to realize that you might end up with a despotic GA through no fault of your own. The same could be said of Carthage and Greece. In fact, that's one of the things that makes these civs a bit deeper - if you're not on your toes, you could end up with a 4 town GA, like I did in pvzh's Feudalism game. Is it comparatively sucky compared to a perfectly timed Republican middle age GA just in time to sweep the big 4? Sure.
Does it ruin the game? Nope. In fact, I think I have seen the dark, and it is deep.


Regarding your tests, what was the reasoning behind not comparing against Warriors? I think the question we're not asking but should be is "Is the retreat ability worth 5 shields? What advantage does a fastmover warrior have over a slowmover? Is it comparable to the difference between Gallic Swords and Swords? Is the cost increase similar?"
Anyway, why not compare it against the unit it is based on instead of units with twice the attack power? That seems like a stacked deck, but I'm not as number-savvy as some here, so maybe I don't get the link between a warrior UU and standard horsemen and archers.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Dominae
Why is it necessary for Jags to be direct assault units?

Do you ever Warrior-rush? Not unless you're feeling lucky. Do you ever use Warriors to "bop" lightly-escorted Settlers and Workers? Yes, if you feel you can handle the counter-attack.

If Jaguar Warriors could bop settlers without triggering a GA, I would accept that argument as valid. But warriors normally do their settler bopping and worker snagging earlier in the game than golden ages make sense. That makes viewing Jaguar Warriors just as warrior replacements for bopping purposes highly problematical.

Note that it's not just the despotic tile penalty that makes me view a GA with just two or three cities as generally a lousy idea (except maybe on tiny maps). On top of that, everything takes so much longer in the early game that twenty turns is not nearly as long a time relative to how long it takes to get things done. Twenty turns in the late ancient or mid medieval period can often be used to research three or four or even five techs, while a civ that starts researching Writing the turn a golden age starts is unlikely to be finished before the GA ends. Similarly, the small town sizes tend to make production take a lot longer in the early game than it does later, and building settlers and workers during the GA exacerbates the problem (while not building them means a delay in REXing and thus a loss of longer-term advantage). And then there's the problem of keeping up enough tile improvements to get good advantage from the GA. Even without the despotic tile penalty, ultra-early GAs would be wasteful, and the despotic tile penalty makes the situation that much worse.

Attacking workers can work because it can often be done in ways that avoid facing counterattack, and thus that probably won't trigger a too-early GA. All you have to do is catch a worker or workers on not-yet-roaded flatlands at the edge of the AI's territory. (If there's forest, you can wait until the forest is cleared, as I figured out in my test game.) But bopping settlers by definition triggers a GA when the Aztecs succeed.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by ducki

Regarding your tests, what was the reasoning behind not comparing against Warriors? I think the question we're not asking but should be is "Is the retreat ability worth 5 shields? What advantage does a fastmover warrior have over a slowmover? Is it comparable to the difference between Gallic Swords and Swords? Is the cost increase similar?"
Anyway, why not compare it against the unit it is based on instead of units with twice the attack power? That seems like a stacked deck, but I'm not as number-savvy as some here, so maybe I don't get the link between a warrior UU and standard horsemen and archers.

The simplest answer to your question would be another question: how often do you use warriors in combat? And, especially, how often do you build warriors specifically for use in combat, as opposed to just using a warrior you built as a MP to fight if the need arises?

I view the comparison with archers as by far the most important because that is what players are likely to use instead as their main offensive unit in a very early war if using Jags is impractical. Warrior rushes are, as Dominae pointed out, exceedingly rare, and are virtually unheard of for a civ like the Aztecs that starts with the ability to build archers. Horsemen were of interest more as a matter of curiosity because I wanted to compare Jags with another fast-mover and horsemen are available to everyone (including the Aztecs).

Normally, UUs fit into one of two categories. Some, such as the Immortal and Rider, are based on a unit that is itself the premiere unit of its type for an extended period. Others, such as the War Chariot and Enkidu Warrior, are based on units that normally have a short shelf life, but the UUs are beefed up to a point where they are more cost-effective (at least for a great many purposes) than the more advanced unit that would normally be used instead. Thus, one way or the other, UUs have a legitimate place in the order of battle for an extended period of time. The only exceptions that I can think of off the top of my head are the Jaguar Warrior and the Chasqui Scout, and the unit the Chasqui is based on is not a combat unit at all.

For the Jaguar Warrior to fit into that pattern, it has to be not just better than a warrior, but also cost-effective enough to be an attractive alternative to the other no-resources-required units available at essentially the same time. Since archers and Jaguar Warriors require the same tech, a comparison between them is absolutely vital if we want to know whether the Jag fits the pattern or not.

[Theseus]

A simple solution:

An upcoming AU game should be focused on the power of early GAs; we play as Aztecs; we break down into two groups, one at 10g and one at 15g.

[Dominae]

I think we all should test it at 15 Shields to see if it's "useless".

The argument here is not whether 10 Shields is unbalancing (we know it's not from Civ3 and PTW, at least in SP), but whether 15 Shields is poor enough to justify a change.

I like that idea for a course though ("The Power of Early Gold").


Dominae