Why are Musketmen so bad?

[gunkulator]

How many musketmen do you actually end up building anyway? Most of your defenders will be upgraded pikemen. Still, since muskets do cost twice as much as pikes for a mere 33% defense improvement, it is wise to plan for the increase. Right before gunpowder, I go on a pikeman building spree and then upgrade each pike when I have the money.

[Shogun Gunner]

Gunkulator, I will sometimes skip the upgrade from pike to musket and go from pike to rifleman -- assuming the enemies of the state aren't agitating on the borders.

I agree with your assessment Anun Ik Oba.

[gunkulator]

Shogun Gunner, I usually skip riflemen and go from musketmen to infantry. Nationalism is not a required tech and there are simply too many juicy Industrial Age techs to aim for. If you stay on the "lower" tech branch, you're only a handful of techs away from Replaceable Parts (and even fewer if you get T of E) so you won't have to go too long without an upgrade.

OTOH, the pikeman to rifleman wait is just too long IMHO. Pikes are usually the first or second Middle Age tech. To get rifles, you have to get through the entire rest of the Middle Ages before researching Nationalism.

Also, since Nationalism is a first tier, non-mandatory tech, the AI places little value on it and will usually trade for it or offer it with a peace treaty.

[edit - bad grammar]

[belchingjester]

One thing I disliked about the move from Civ2 to Civ3 was the loss of hit points.

I liked SMAC's combination of morale and hitpoints much better than Civ3's implementation - much more nuanced.

In Civ2, that was the main advantage of a musketeer over a pikeman - didn't defend much better on A/D/M (worse vs. mounted), but had twice as many hitpoints.

In Civ3, this has been flattened (I don't know why), so all units have the same number of hitpoints (warrior/battleship, anyone?)
-belchingjester

[gunkulator]

My guess is that hit points were reduced to add more randomness in combat. In Civ2, there are so many hitpoints, especially after gunpowder, that combat is drearily predictable. All you had to do was compare modified attack and defense values and you could predict the winner 98% of the time. I mean, did your Howitzers ever lose to defending Alpine Troops? _Ever_?!? Boring. In Civ1 all units essentially had 1 hp leading to frequent bizarre combat outcomes. Civ3 is a compromise.

This helps the AI enormously since you actually have to think about defense now. One musket in a city was all you needed in Civ2 if you knew the AI only had knights. In Civ3, you can't get away with that. Similarily for attack, one cavalry per defending musket was all you ever needed to guarantee success. Too easy.

Your warrior/battleship scenario will never happen in Civ3 since land and sea units can't attack each other, except for bombardment. In general comparing sea and land units hps is an apples-to-oranages comparison.

[Shogun Gunner]

I would think that "the flattening of hitpoints" (nice way to put it, belchingjester) was offset by the greater range of attack/defend strengths in Civ3. Remember all the arguments about spearman strength being too strong relative to the tank or other modern units? It seems that the hitpoints was to give the modern units greater staying power despite the lack of range from the weakest unit to the strongest unit. In Civ3 we have that range and gave away the hitpoints. I'm actually okay with it. There are few examples (like the musketmen discussion) where it's not quite right, but overall it seems to work IMO.