New Unit Gripe

[punkbass2000]

I think the GS might do well in a combined arms situation. You may only have a few, but combining them with some horsemen eliminates the need for those few spearmen to tag a long, plus you still have '3' attackers when you need them. Just a thought, as I don't actually have this game yet...

[ducki]

Damn, I lost my cookie and lost a rather long reply.

In short, it's a good, balanced UU that adds a bit of variety to the normal Military-Religious Ancient Age.

Higher cost for both Shields and Upgrades mean you have a slightly smaller military.
A slightly faster (and retreating) unit means you can get by with a slightly smaller military.
2 movement means you can produce these twice as far from the front lines(hopefully in your core, this early) and still get to the front lines in a timely manner.

You're not going to see Arrian-like hordes of these, but you also don't need to use Arrian-like hordes of these.

It's Catch-22, but in a good, balanced way.

Basically, it's a fun unit to start your Golden Age with.
Try taking these along with your Horseman hordes instead of a spearman, he can both defend/fortify captured cities AND attack, will retreat sometimes, AND will start your GA, allowing you to either complete a wonder or create more of these in a timely manner.

I don't think you're going to see stacks of 100 of these, but you don't really need to.


A good, balanced, flexible UU.
A fun change of pace, I say.

[DrFell]

I really think they should cost 40 shields. As it is, they offer one defence point more than a mounted warrior - and that's all. That one defence point costs you 20 shields. Nasty.

[metalhead]

Originally posted by Catt

I actually found myself wishing I had the option to build 30-shield 3.2.1 units (and I didn't care for losing the ability to build them in favor of Medieval Infantry when Feudalism came along and I finally had enough infrastructure to make 50-shield builds not so daunting).

I, too, found losing the ability to build GS after Feudalism to be extremely irritating and, quite frankly, stupid. I don't think this was intentional on the programmer's part, and will hopefully be addressed in an upcoming patch. Do you know if Legionaries are now unavailable in PtW after Medieval Infantry come around?

I also wish for the option to build regular swordsmen in my games with the Celts. Could mod it, but that may be too unbalancing, as the opportunity cost from losing regular swordsmen for the more expensive unit was probably factored in as part of game balance. I think that Immortals and Legionaries are superior units to the GS. An Immortal GA allows you to crank them out at an astounding rate. Building Gallic Swordsmen during a GA still seems to take way too long.

[Jon Shafer]

A combined Horseman/Gallic Swordsman rush is nearly impossible to resist, trust me.

However, the time it takes to create it is somewhat of a liability. You basically have to gear your entire infrastructure and economy towards cranking out a nice-looking force of 'em. But it's like a lot of the other UUs in PTW: hiked cost for extra benefits. If you get the hang of how you have to play the game to use such units, then you can be impossible to beat.