Gallic Swordsman: Is it overpriced?

[Cruddy]

I agree, it is an expensive unit. But that's to stop it from being a game winning unit.

I've only played with them once and totally failed to upgrade (had to build them ALL from scratch) - and they still kicked Roman butt. The battles they lost, enough retreated to counterattack a couple turns later.

[Arrian]

We did an AU game on the strategy forum designed to test just this question: is the GS too expensive?

The vote came down almost 4 to 1 in favor of "No, it's fine as is."

It's not just the unit itself that matters. It's also that it's a dominant unit provided to a militaristic civ which upgrades from a 10-shield prebuild. Have a look at what we did in AU206...

http://www.apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=78680

So yeah, I'd love 5 MWs over 3 GSs... but only if I got to keep the Celt's traits. The Iroquois take FOREVER to get going (full price barracks, non-industrious, prebuild is 20 shields per).

40 shields would be nice. A bit too nice. I think that the "right" cost is something like 45, which of course doesn't exist in the game.

30 for a GS is preposterous.

-Arrian

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

I'd have to agree that the GS is priced correctly, and the AU course thread is a good palce to check it out.

Some of the other PTW UUs, though, notably the Berserkir...

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Trip

You realize that a GA is only good when it's on your terms. The GS is the kind of unit where you don't really get much of a choice as to when your GA will be if you want to have any sort of offensive capability until the Middle Ages. An early GA is rarely a good thing, you see.

The Celts are Religious, making a "beeline to Monarchy" approach eminently viable. Build a bunch of warriors, save up gold on 40-turn research, and upgrade and unleash havoc on your rivals the moment you change to Monarchy. The Celts certainly aren't the most flexible civ in the game, but if you play to their strengths, they can be very powerful. And they'd be far too powerful in the hands of people who play to their strengths if the GS were 40 shields instead of 50.