Why are Musketmen so bad?

[Vince278]

I'm an optimist who believes the game was designed the way it was after much thought and making changes could unbalance things instead of the other way around. Also, the AI isn't smart enough to catch and understand the changes to take advantage of them so the balance gets tipped to the human player, at least in this case.

[geniemalin]

I'm not so sure there - the computer uses a lot more Musketmen than I do at the moment (I don't generally bother to upgrade Pikes until Rifles unless critical and/or I'm very rich) so strengthening Muskets would only help the AI (in my games, anyway.)

[CerberusIV]

Originally posted by Mad Bomber
Cerberus:

the age of cavalry ended when the infanrty decided to stick a bayonett on the end of a musket, giving them both the firepower of the musket and the protection of the pike. (mid 17th century) Although cav were still used its effectiveness as a shock troop had ebbed by the start of the eighteenth century.

Not the forum to debate military history but there are plenty of examples in the two conflicts I mentioned of cavalry breaking infantry. Gustavus Adolphus's reform of cavalry units back into shock troops was widely copied because it worked (at least on some occasions).

[Jaybe]

Muskets are so bad because (similar to Mad Bomber's views) foot-unit attack strengths are too small with the Firaxis design decision to make fast units the primary attackers.

I make attack and defense strengths equal until Infantry, where the machine gun gives extra defensive advantage (8/10). However, I ALSO give fortify (fortification) a 50% bonus, and same with rivers. Now meeting engagements are a tossup with similar foot units, and they regain their rightful place on the battlefield. And a heavily dug in position is expensive to take.

Now, if only I could have an editor option where foot units could also retreat ... (sigh)

[Xorbon]

I modded the costs of musketmen and riflemen down by 10 shields each (so they cost 50 and 70 shields, respectively). To pay 60 for a 2/4/1 unit is ridiculous.

By the way, while muskets may have cost more to produce, the infantry using them required less training (than infantry using other weapons of the time). So, it might not be so unrealistic to have musketmen that cost just 20 shields more than pikemen.

O.T.: I've also modded the cost of Sipahi down to 90 shields. Every other UU gets a free stat increase. This way, the sipahi gets one stat increase for free, and a second stat increase for 10 shields.

[spy14]

I saw a musket fired a few years back, its takes over a minute to load even by a professional. A fast unit, especially cavalry with their rifles, will have a good chance against musketmen.

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by Jaybe
Muskets are so bad because (similar to Mad Bomber's views) foot-unit attack strengths are too small with the Firaxis design decision to make fast units the primary attackers.

I make attack and defense strengths equal until Infantry, where the machine gun gives extra defensive advantage (8/10). However, I ALSO give fortify (fortification) a 50% bonus, and same with rivers. Now meeting engagements are a tossup with similar foot units, and they regain their rightful place on the battlefield. And a heavily dug in position is expensive to take.

Now, if only I could have an editor option where foot units could also retreat ... (sigh)

The problem also is cost; reducing the cost of the defensive units would be more accurate as a historical perspective. In most armies fast movers made up no more than 10-15% of an armies strength ( a few exceptions are the mongols and the hittites)

This thread has started a good discussion, either the cost of the defenders should be lowered or the cost of Horse units should be jacked way up. Also a variable maintenence cost for units is sorely needed. And the retreat ability should be used for all units


Xorbon: I am thinking that the Pike should be 30S, Muskets 40S, and Rifles 50S. This makes them cheap to build and cheap to upgrade.

Jay: I think that increasing the defensive bonuses counterbalances the increase of the attack factor. A better way to limit Knights and cav is to increase their cost. I would rather have a 3/4 musket attack another 3/4 musket than a 4/4 musket attack a 4/4 musket with a 50% increase in defensive bonuses.

[Bleyn]

Originally posted by spy14
I saw a musket fired a few years back, its takes over a minute to load even by a professional. A fast unit, especially cavalry with their rifles, will have a good chance against musketmen.

That's not exactly accurate. It is well documented that a typical British infantryman of the late 18th or early 19th century using the Brown Bess musket, could on a dry day, fire on an average of three rounds per minute. The elites like the men of Black Bob Crauford's Light Division might manage four rounds per minute, on a dry day.

However, this was mainly because the British actually drilled their troops with their muskets more consistently and more properly than any other army around them. Most European armies of the 17th-19th centuries bothered to allow their men to live fire their muskets maybe once a year outside of battle. And even then, they might only get to fire a couple of rounds. I would not be surprised if most of these armies would have been challenged to get off more than one or maybe two shots a minute.

Another factor that also slowed down most soldiers was forced adherence to overly complex and cumbersome loading procedures. To my understanding, the faster firing armies also tended to have more streamlined and effecient loading drill.


Further, talking of rifle armed cavalry against musket armed infantry is somewhat inaccurate. The first rifle armed cavalry probably didn't appear any earlier than the time of the Crimean War, by which time the infantry would have been starting to be armed with rifles also. And the first effective rifile armed cavalry would have been the US Army cavalry that began receiving breech loading and repeating rifles such as the Spencer during the Civil War. In fact, before the advent of the breech-loading cartridge gun, firearms were not the standard weapon of any cavalrymen. Even the so-called Carbineers that existed in many armies for several centuries did not regularly use their carbines because reloading any muzzle loading weapon on horseback was extremely ackward. And the early carbines would not have been rifles. They were just smaller muskets with somewhat shorter than normal barrels that would have been less ackward for a mounted man to wield. Such that while a Carbineer may have been armed with a carbine, in battle he might fire it once, maybe twice. Otherwise, he would have relied on a sword just like most other cavalry.

So, while, yes, I will agree that a rifle armed cavalryman of the US Civil War era would have made dogmeat of Wellington's army, this is true for the same reason that Hitler's panzers made dogmeat of the Polish lance-armed horse cavalry at the start of WW2. That being the disparity in the level of technology employed in their arms, much more than anything related to their speed. Indeed, if you took a well-led unit of US Civil War era infantrymen, and faced them off against a somewhat superior number of Wellington's infantrymen, the mere fact of the longer range and more accurate fire of the newer rifled gun would have been telling, and this between two units of foot soldiers using muzzle-loading weapons of similar rates of fire.

And lacking the long range, ease of loading, and higher rate of fire of a breech-loading rifle, the speed of lesser armed cavalry units would not a solely decisive factor against any infantry. The level of training and discipline of the infantry and the quality of the leadership they were given were very important factors. And most situations where cavalry were sucessful against infantry, that sucess could be directly attributed to matters of training, discipline, leadership, or just plain luck. Speed honestly had relatively little to do with it.

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Mad Bomber
Jay: I think that increasing the defensive bonuses counterbalances the increase of the attack factor. A better way to limit Knights and cav is to increase their cost. I would rather have a 3/4 musket attack another 3/4 musket than a 4/4 musket attack a 4/4 musket with a 50% increase in defensive bonuses.

I may consider increasing cav costs to 90; my tanks are already 120 shields (MA: 160). Increased foot attack strengths also allows them to dispatch fast units that stick their nose out too far without fortifying. My changes are more focused on having foot be the main participant in battle, rather than just nerfing the fast units.

JB

[CybellesReverie]

The problem with high defense values is stacking multipliers in well placed cities. Hill+Walls+river makes that 4 look much higher. Although most of the time a city defender will only have the option of one or two of these attritubes, a higher value would make attacking in certain situations almost impossible. Infact, this is why defense is always lower than offensive values during any age; and i would suspect the fact that the highest attackers' value of 6 and defenders of 4 is correlated to the ancient values of 3 and 2 respectively. This is why the Hoplite is such a powerful defensive unit. (Actually, though, with this logic the French UU should have a defense value of 6 imo, rather than an attack of 3, making it a kind of French Hoplite.)

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by Jaybe

I may consider increasing cav costs to 90; my tanks are already 120 shields (MA: 160). Increased foot attack strengths also allows them to dispatch fast units that stick their nose out too far without fortifying. My changes are more focused on having foot be the main participant in battle, rather than just nerfing the fast units.

JB

JB: In order to make the footsloggers the main participants in the battle you must nerf the fast movers the question is one and the same. The reason that knights and cav are used so much in CIV 3 is that there is no reason not to. Why would I want to use one move units when the units that move faster are equal or superior and cost approx the same to produce? You end up with the fast movers taking out the cities and the slowmovers killing straglers and securing the city. the only time the situation is reversed is during the fime between Replaceable parts and Motorized Transportation.

[gunkulator]

It's true that all fast moving units have significant advantages over foot soldiers outside of A/D strength simply due to their retreat ability. Cav and Inf cost about the same, both have att=6, however I need fewer Cavs for attacking simply because more of them will survive the battle. Combine this with no use of roads/rails in AI land, and their simply isn't any reason to attack with foot soldiers outside of the ancient era (archers, swords).

OTOH, noone wants to defend cities with Knights or Cavalry, so they'll always be a need for foot soldiers in Civ3, just not an offensive need.

[Jaybe]

MB, if you are one who invades just with fast units, then please understand that you and I use the game differently.

Traditional defense units with real attack capability are quite useful, on both offensive and defensive environments. IRL, "fast" units have very rarely been the majority of an invading force (mongols a major exception?). I come from a warfare simulations background, so it just doesn't *feel* right to not have knights or cav accompanied by hosts of foot-sloggers. By the time infantry and tanks are on the battlefield, I feel much more comfortable with semi-solid front lines while in an enemy's territory, and tanks have never been more than 1/4 of my combat arms.

[Shogun Gunner]

If no other reason, try to bring the "footsloggers" along to defend against AI counterattack. Sometimes this isn't possible due to speed issues.

[Sarxis]

The cost difference between pike and musket doesn't seem to far fetched, gameplay or history-wise.