Gallic Swordsman: Is it overpriced?

[Carbon]

Really, the biggest problem I've had with the Gallic Sword is not its cost (I've seen a few games where these things were worth every shield it cost to build them), my gripe is that it "upgrades" into Medieval Infantry. That makes the window of opportunity to use Gallic Swords so narrow (from Iron Working to Feudalism) that the UU doesn't seem to be worth the bother unless you're ready to go right from the point you discover Iron Working.

To be perfectly honest, I think the Romans and Celts should not have their sword UU upgrade into Medieval Infantry, those are the only two upgrades where the upgraded unit has an inferior stat to the "obsolete" unit. Gallic Swords and Legionaries should upgrade directly to guerillas, then allow these two civs to build Med. Inf. in a seperate chain that also upgrades to guerrillas (so you'd have the option of building either 4-2-1 Med. Inf. or your civ's sword UU until replaceable parts).

[WarpStorm]

Carbon, that sounds good to me. The upgrade chain may not work though. I'll have to think about that.

[Jaybe]

Re Roman/Celt UU upgrades, the "obvious" thing to do is NOT to upgrade them until Guerillas. "Just say NO."

[Theseus]

Exactly. Selective upgrading is smart in other situations as well.. for instance Samurai to Cavs.

[Ghengis-Sean]

The Gallic Warrior is pretty fairly priced. If you look at the Ancient UU's they are improved by a point, either on defense, midieval units are improved by two points.

Example; the Samurai, an extra point of defense, and doesn't need Iron. The Rider though, is a knight with a move of three, meaning that bonus point of move is worth two points. So the Iriqouis Rider is a 3/1/2 and used to be the fastest meanest thing on four legs until the Gallic Swordsmen came around, so of course Gallic Swordsmen should have a hefty price tag, they're swordsmen AND they're horsemen!

Instead of making the gallic swordsmen cheaper,how about this; why not alow the celts to produce swordsmen AND Gallic swordsmen? When I play the Celts it's a pain when you all you really want is a swordsman but you can't build one. This way you can use swordsmen for the bulk of your army and keep those Gallic Swordsmen on standby for special occasions.

just a thought though

[Jon Shafer]

It's way way overpriced. First off, attack of 3 is not dominating in the Ancient Era. Any Spearman in a city can clobber any number of Swordsmen/Gallic Swordsmen, and can also stop Immortals fairly often.

Someone explain to me how adding 1 movement point is worth a 67% cost increase? No unique units had their costs increased in Civ 3, why should this be the case for PTW? Did they just run out of Att/Def/Move/Cost combos so they started tacking on numbers to the latter?

Originally posted by WarpStorm Well, like Firaxis told me last time I complained about something that can be easily changed in the editor, "Warp, that's why we put an editor in there".

It also means no one will ever play the Celts in MP games of any kind.

[monkspider]

I agree with your strong words Trip.
I feel that the Gallic Swordsman is the only UU that is actually worse than the original unit it is based on (the swordsman).

[Sallandair]

Here's an explanation

Someone explain to me how adding 1 movement point is worth a 67% cost increase? No unique units had their costs increased in Civ 3, why should this be the case for PTW? Did they just run out of Att/Def/Move/Cost combos so they started tacking on numbers to the latter?

Because you can save 100% of the cost when the have the ability to retreat, unlike swordsmen. Alot of complaints about adding cash for movement but fail to realize the saving of the ability to retreat.

Just another view on the situation. We start "mod"ing alot of the units - one will begin to throw the balance off even more. Korea being the exception... hehe

[Jon Shafer]

The only essential differences between Horsemen and the Gallic Swordsmen is the fact that a Horseman has 1 fewer attack for 20 fewer shields. I would rather have 1.67 Horsemen than 1 Gallic Swordsmen. Especially considering the fact that Swordsmen and Horsemen are used for entirely different purposes. Horsemen are used mainly for their mobility, and aren't exactly designed for heavy assault, like Swordsmen are. Mixing the unit could be useful... if it was 30 shields.

The final test of all this: if a 3.2.2 unit for 50 shields is so useful, why doesn't anyone play the Celts?

[Sallandair]

You forgot to mention the 1 addition defense in your computation. Nor does anyone want to mention that they are militaristic to boot. Reg Horseman vs Reg Spear in town = 45.6% - Reg Galic vs Reg Spear in town = 64.2%. And if they are both vets the Galic's chances increases as the Horseman's decreases. Not to mention that the surviving Spearman has more than a 20% better chance of killing that injured Horsey over the Galic.

As for final test? After 300+ mp games of 4 or more opponents - 20%+ of the games do have the Celts playing.

My arguement is if 2 swords attack a town and lose and 2 galic attack a town with one retreating, you just saved yourself 10 shields. Basic, but you get the idea.

And when one does reach Knights one has the ability of having units that can keep up without spending the money to upgrade. Especially if funds are a factor.

End statement - It's how you play - not what you play

[player1]

The price of GS is designed to give Horsemen a chance.

For example you'll take several GS as your heavy units and several cheap horsemen (built in your low-prod cities) as supprt against enemy 1 defense units).

GS will do most the work, while Horsmen will be in support role.

When 50 shields is not problem buy GS.
When 30 shields is the problem buy Horsemen (or trigger Golden Age).



P.S.
GS is good unit.

One could say, but its not superb unit jike Jaguar Warrior Numidian Merecenary or Mouted Warrior.

But you don't need to make every UU superb.

It's more like that those units are overpwoered, then it's GS underpowered.

Focus more or rrealy bad UUs like Elephant, Keshik, F-15, Man-O-War, Hwacha, etc...

[Ancyrean]

Yesterday I started a game with the Celts (monarch, large, raging barbs) and I was on a fairly large continent with the Germans and the English. I waited until I built 6 GS and declared war on the Germans. As soon as my GS stack hit the first enemy town and took out the spearmen inside, I had my GA. Of all my cities, I had 4 cities with production of 6-7 shields per turn and with the GA these had their production jump to higher levels, around 10 per turn. That meant, on average, a GS from each of this 4 cities every 5 or 6 turns, and for the duration of the GA I manufactured an additional 12 GS, while the original 6 held the line .

I then had the chance to observe how powerful a unit GS is, as it is.

The cool catch about the GS is, obviously, its speed and survivability. My GA provided me with near normal levels of production for a usual unit, and an abundance of GS made such a huge difference. The AI eschewed from taking on my GS stack, and of all GS units I produced I lost only two or three during the entire campaign that followed to annihilate the Germans and the English (that's nearly 30 cities in total).

My GS stack arrived on the battlefields fast, they retreated when they were overwhelmed both in attack and when attacked. Combined with the military trait, 80 % of my GS units were elites, producing 3 Great Leaders (one went for an army, second for Forb Palace, third saved for Sistine Chapel) during the war.

I think we forget the boosting impact of the GA on production. The high price for GS is balanced out by the GA (that's still not as good as a later-era GA but this is a problem for many other ancient era UUs, including the legion and the immortal, and yes in a Legion-induced Roman GA you can produce many many more legions but my point here is the extra speed of GS MIGHT be making up for less quantities. It would still be premature for me to say GS is superior to the Legion).

In my opinion there's no way for any civ to stand in the way of very large numbers of GS with a pricetag as low as 30 or even 40 (Guys who tried 40 in the editor can correct me on this, and anyone who played the Celts in MP are welcome to compare this single-player description with the realities of MP). Maybe I'm still under the influence of the exhilerating experience of having so uncontested a dominance in my recent war, but in light of the above observations, a production price of 50 might be just about right.

[CerberusIV]

I am currently playing the Celts in SP. It is hard to judge as I got a good start position and have 10 cities up (regent) but I have easily built 10 GS and am just waiting to research Republic before slaughtering the Vikings for my GA.

I wonder if the Mounted Warrior is a better comparison to the GS than Legionaries - same attack, same move, less defence for less cost.

[WarpStorm]

I would rather have 5 Mounted Warriors than 3 Gallic Swordsmen.

[Sperricles]

The GS needs to be compared to one of 2 units...the mounted warrior or the impi, which each show the double movement but use it for respectively different attack and defense purposes. 50 shields vs 20 shield impi is simply not cost effective as a defence. And consider that is you match shield for shield...you have 2.5 spearman against each gallic swordsman ( just enough to survive the first attack and and send 1.5 units to chase down the injured GS. Cost for you to send 10 GS to attack me: 500 shields. Cost to match you unit to unit with cheap spearmen: 200 shields. Moral of this story? Anyone with scouts patrolling the borders WILL see you coming and can mobilize a defense very inexpensively and easily.

The closer comparison is the mounted warrior, since a unit with 2 movement is better able to maneuver into which ever position it prefers (which in this case is most likely to be attacking position). Both have double movement, the retreat option, and an attack of 3. So now, remind me again why we are charging 20 shields to give a mounted warrior 1 extra defense that most often will not be used since the unit serves best on offense?

Now to be fair lets look at Carthage...whose UU gets an extra defense and an extra offense. This unit is the reason babylonian bowmen got renamed "poor man's mercenary". Invalidating the bowman only cost hannibal 10 shields or 50% depending on how you view it. Apply the same logic to the GS and it should be 40-45 shields!

Compare to Legion....yes GS should cost more because the extra movement allows them to pick good terrain, retreat, and evade others enough to easily match the 3 defense...but also time a quick surprise attack on a city.

Swordsman to swordsman I also agree any civ can outdo gallic swordsmen. Celts pay 50 shields for 3-4 hit points. I'll gladly pay 60 for 6-8 hp! Dont forget the fact that the GS will only get to attack once, but both of my swordsmen will get to attack (giving me an extra attack each turn)

I have played hundreds of players in MP, and especially in elimination and come to the follwing conclusions. Iroquois will devastate Celts. Zulu mobile defense will handle them just fine. 20 shields of jaguar warrior often means a dead GS. Egyptian Chariots are not afraid of Celts. All other civs simply know to get in the celts face early and pillage pillage pillage since it takes them so long to get a reasonable surprise attack ( or even homeland defense) of GS built, then just match em unit for unit with spearmen (or better yet hoplites), and have your scouting units/outposts tell you when they are coming. If and ONLY if Celts go unchecked for a long time they can be devastaing... and sometimes if they come by boat. Ah yes...and ALL of this depends completely on IRON....unlike some other UU's that are not resource dependent.



In summay...Min price 35 ...Max price 45...(who says it has to be a multiple of 10 anyway?)