AU mod: The Javelin Thrower

[alexman]

The Mayan UU is the only land unit in C3C with the new enslavement ability: it has a 33% chance of capturing units defeated in combat, turning them into Workers.

Enslavement works even against barbarians, so players often keep a few barbarian camps around as "Slave Farms", which provide a steady flow of workers to the Mayan empire.

Given the importance of workers in the early-game, and the fact that the Industrious and Agricultural traits are arguably the two best traits for the early-game, is the early advantage of the Maya too poweful? And since the AI does not take advantage of barbarian enslavement to the same extent as the human, is this a reason to make Javelin Throwers less powerful?

Any suggestions?

[ducki]

I suggest giving Enslave to all the Meso-American UUs(at least) since they are all ancient and it is in-character. (Maybe expand this to all ancient, first-rank-tech "attack" UUs. if in-character)
I suggest a "House Rule" for all courses disallowing explicit barb "farming" as an exploit - we're all here to learn, not dictate non-course gameplay choices, so this is a good candidate for an exploit House Rule.

I'm of the opinion that giving these new features to more units would expand gameplay choices and that we can all be trusted not to "cheat" - besides, if you cheat, you only hurt yourself .

[nbarclay]

My initial impression is that a house rule against leaving camps around for barb farming is a sufficient solution. The Javelin Thrower is so expensive that it's hard to build many of them early without giving up granaries - and hence giving up the ability to build as many native workers or as many settlers (whose cities can then build native workers if so desired). That, in my view and experience, keeps the ability from causing a significant balance problem in normal use.

Interestingly, the time when building significant numbers of JTs for legitimate barb hunting makes the most sense is when the Mayas can make the least use fo their Agricultural trait. As long as plenty of rivers are around, it's hard for the JT's enslavement ability to outperform granaries, so JTs tend to come both later and in smaller numbers than they might otherwise. But with fewer rivers, pop points are more precious and building JTs to enslave barbs becomes more attractive. Since the JT and the Agricultural trait tend to be at their most useful in different games, they don't combine into something a whole lot more powerful than either one by itself. (Of course on the right map, Agricultural/Industrious is an absolute monster of a trait combination all by itself.)

Nathan

[Risa]

Enslave to warrior, and the problem is solved.

I've test it for months, it works good to me. Not overpowered, not underpowered either.

[pauli]

do enslaved warriors count as real warriors (ie, requiring support), or are they tagged as captured units?

[Risa]

Enslaved warriors don't require support.

[nbarclay]

How many hit points do the enslaved warriors end up with?

I'm skeptical that the Javelin Thrower's high cost would be justified if the enslave ability were changed from workers to warriors. As it is, I tend to view the UU as not particularly impressive compared with other UUs (at least for those of us who don't leave barb camps around to farm them).

[Risa]

All enslaved units are regular. Of course, they can be promoted by usual means later.

[nbarclay]

Which means the enslaved warriors have very limited value other than as MPs unless a player is willing to pay the high upgrade cost for regulars. (I suppose trying to get the enslaved units promoted to vet fighting other barbs would be another option, but that would limit how much barb fighting the Javelin Throwers do and hence their ability to enslave additional units.)

[MrWhereItsAt]

Enslave to Warriors would certainly ensure that JTs are only of any real use in the early Ancient Age, but maybe cripples them too much. Personally I would prefer to leave JTs as they are. If there is the occasion (and you can both spare the unused land AND prevent the AI from settling it) that you can keep barbs around long enough to keep taking workers I think this is your success and you should reap the benefits of such a fiddly little task.

[alexman]

Under consideration:

Yes/No: Change enslaved unit to Warrior

Voting on Friday

[Dominae]

Originally posted by alexman
Yes/No: Change enslaved unit to Warrior

No.

Although Worker-farming is surely expoitative in the hands of the human player, the AI suffers if enslaved units become Warriors; it sorely needs the extra labor, and wastes the potential of Warriors by not upgrading them.


Dominae

[nbarclay]

Although I don't have a vote, I strongly oppose the change because the dramatic devaluation in the enslaved unit takes away most of the justification for making the Javelin Thrower so expensive (one and a half times the cost of a Bowman for the same straight-up combat stats). Even on paper, veteran javelin throwers would have to average obtaining one and a third slaves to repay their extra cost. But that "on paper" figure doesn't capture the fact that it also costs a third more to upgrade the same hit points' worth of regular warriors to swordsmen or MedInfs compared with veterans.

Granted, under governments and in situations where unit support costs are an issue, warriors (and units upgraded from them) that don't require maintenance would present a long-term cost advantage. But that creates the oddity that the only way to use that advantage is to avoid using the resulting slaves enough that they end up dying before their higher upgrade cost is repaid through reduced maintenance. That's not good, in my opinion.

Barb farming aside, I think the Javelin Thrower is balanced pretty well under the standard rules. It also seems a lot more realistic that slaves be used as workers than that they be used as warriors. And as discussed earlier, if we ever play an AU game as the Mayas, we could deal with the barb farming issue by ncluding a house rule against leaving barbarian camps around for the specific purpose of farming them for slaves.

[donZappo]

I agree with nbarclay completely on this issue. A house rule would adress this issue just fine, and it just makes more sense to have workers instead of warriors.

-donZappo

[alexman]

I don't like house rules of that sort. Just because the AI doesn't do something, it doesn't mean that it's automatically an exploit if the player does. If we ban barb farming, then we should also ban suicide galleys, palace jumping, offensive ground unit bombardment, building scouts and explorers, the use of the luxury slider, leaving a city without garrison, et cetera.