PTW -New Viking UU

[vulture]

Slightly off topic for this forum, but somewhat relevant since it will involve a change in tactics for players like me who don't mind leaving coastal cities without a garrison until amphibious warfare arrives. The Viking UU is capable of amphibious assault, and apparently replaces the longbowman, and has better attack and defense. So one of the civs is going to (probably) have a 5/2/1 unit with amphibious assault from the time of feudalism onwards. With those stats it will be a viable attacker from feudalism through to nationalism, and the best attacker before cavalry.

Now that's a civ that is going to be popular with warmongers, especially on archipelago maps. And with one of those early medieval golden ages to boot...

And imagine the fun you could have with the Great Lighthouse to boot. Your triremes sit in sea waters, safe from enemy attack, until you have amasses sufficient numbers to blitz all your opponent coastal cities simultaneously. Plus you can land your knights to strtke inland on the same turn. You could wipe out a large civ the same moment as you declare war!

[cyberhunne]

It definitely sounds like a fun unit . Being next to Vikings is a good reason to build a navy to protect your coast. I just hope the AI will make good use of them.

Apart from capturing coastal cities, I imagine "slave raids" would also be possible with them, if there are enemy workers at coastal tiles.

From it´s offensive strength compared to the standard defenders of that period, it sounds like a much more useful unit than the Marine.

[XOR]

If the longbowman is 4.1.1 and this UU replaces the longbowman odds are they will only give it 1 addition (as in the rest of the UUs). It could be that the ability to do amphibious assaults will be that only addition, which means that this Viking unit will be 4.1.1 amphibious and not 5.2.1 as you said. This way it would be powerfull but not terribly unbalancing. (They really should do something about those elephants sometime, having a UU that does nothing other than not requiring a resource is almost the same as not having a UU.)

Consider the defenses at that era compose of Pikemen (1.3.1) and later on of musketmen (2.4.1). An attack of 5 in an amphibious unit is just not going to happen unless someone goes nuts in the programmer team.

[vulture]

Originally posted by XOR

Consider the defenses at that era compose of Pikemen (1.3.1) and later on of musketmen (2.4.1). An attack of 5 in an amphibious unit is just not going to happen unless someone goes nuts in the programmer team.

The IGN preview makes it sounds as though they have indeed gone nuts in the programming team, with mention of a 4/2/2 unit that replaces the swordsman, and a 4/2/2 horse unit (weaker than knights, so probably coming earlier, and they mention that it replaces the horseman). Both units would be stupidly overpowered in the ancient era. Either the programmers have gone nuts, or the IGN information is (hopefully) wrong. But anyway, they were the ones who described the Beserker as a longbow with extra attack, defence and amphibious ability.

I agree that a 5/2/1 amphibious unit is somewhat overpowered at that stage in the game though.

[XOR]

The 4.2.2 swordsman, I believe must be the Scot's swordman guy. I suspect this is that "swordman", as you can see in the picture on the link I'll post below, its 3.2.2.

http://apolyton.net/view.php?/civ3/images/ptwscreenshots/02aug/civ3ptw02aug-15.jpg

[XOR]

According to gamespot:

There are 2 new units.
Medieval Infantry 4.2.1 requires Feudalism.
Guerilla 6.6.¿1? requires Replaceable parts.

I can predict that Guerilla will treat all tiles as roads and/or have hidden nationality, Ideally, they would be invisible instead of having hidden nationality, but that is not going to happen I suspect.

The Arabs are expansionist and religious, and their unique unit is the ansar warrior, a replacement for the knight with less defensive strength, lower cost, and faster movement.

The Carthaginians are commercial and industrious and have the numidian mercenary unit, which is a spearman replacement. It has better offense but is more expensive.

The Celts are militaristic and religious, and their unique unit, their faster gallic swordsman, replaces the regular swordsman.

Koreans are commercial and scientific, and their hwach'a is more powerful and less costly than the regular cannon it replaces.

The Mongols are expansionist and militaristic, and they replace the knight with the much cheaper but less defensive keshik.

The Ottoman tribe, meanwhile, is industrious and scientific and offers the sipahi unit, which replaces cavalry.

The Spanish are commercial and religious. The conquistador is their unique unit, and it adds to the Spanish arsenal rather than replacing any unit. Conquistadors are cheaper than cavalry and less powerful, and they treat all terrain as roads.

Finally, the Vikings are militaristic and expansionist. Their unique unit is the berserk, which replaces the longbowman. They are much stronger offensively and defensively than longbowmen, and they can also make amphibious attacks.

So your 4.2.2 unit that is weaker than knights will probably be the Arab ansar warrior or the Mongol Keshik, which replace knights but are much cheaper.

The Medieval infantry (4.2.1) of feudalism would probably make it silly to have longbowmen (4.1.1) unless the longbowmen are cheaper. However, now that there is a 4.2.1 unit earlier than longbowmen a 5.2.1 sounds rather understandable, but I still think it's too much, 4.2.1 would be more adequate, that makes the power of a Medieval infantry with amphibious at the cost of a longbowman.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

The Gallic Swordsmen will be 3/2/2. That makes sense since the Celts went head to head with the Romans (3.3.1) and this combination of Legionnare vs Gallic will be interesting.
Berzerk will most likely be an upgrade from a Med Inf. Why? Well the preview says that it is stronger offensively and defensively than a longbowmen. But what if they made a mistake and forgot about med inf. Im suspecting that the Bezerk will either be an upgraded Med Inf (4.2.1) That means that if will probably be a 5.2.1 or 4.3.1. Right now, Im leaning towards 5.2.1 because when you think about Vikings, you think about raids. Of course, it could also just be 4.2.1 with amphibious.

[Az]

Lawrence:
My biggest question is how much will the med infantry cost in shields ? the Longbowman is 40. will it cost 50?

[Gangerolf]

Apart from capturing coastal cities, I imagine "slave raids" would also be possible with them, if there are enemy workers at coastal tiles.

great idea can't wait

[Carver]

Originally posted by XOR
So your 4.2.2 unit that is weaker than knights will probably be the Arab ansar warrior or the Mongol Keshik, which replace knights but are much cheaper.

I hope they balance all this right, it sounds like we're getting some rather powerful units. I probably won't research chivalry if I can build a 4-2-2 units without it.

The Medieval infantry (4.2.1)

Of course, the med inf would do just fine, especially if you're planning to have a defensive military at that point. So I guess all civs (except warmongers) will be able to skip chivalry.

[Carver]

Regardless, with amphib assault that early, I think the Vikings are a strong canidate for most powerful civ.

[Arrian]

4/2/1 amphibious... that could be awfully useful. I wonder... if they replace longbowmen, then archers can be upgraded to Beserks, but not swordsmen (who will upgrade to the 4/2/1 medieval infantry).

I still think 3/2/2 replaces swordsmen for the Celts is insanely overpowered.

The Mongol unit (4/2/2 all terrain as roads) has the potential to be the single most powerful UU in an age of powerful UU's (Rider, Samurai, Cossack). 2 moves w/all terrain as roads makes for a much more mobile unit than a 3-mover. You can take it 5 tiles into enemy territory and then attack something. Yeesh.

I think Firaxis may have created a group of "ubercivs" for PtW.

-Arrian

[XOR]

I still think the medieval infantry isn't going very far, just note the short distance between feudalism and gunpowder. I never even build pikemen anymore, the gunpowder era seems mostly a peace+defend era dedicated to rushing into cavalry and riflemen before the AI does.

[vulture]

Originally posted by Arrian

The Mongol unit (4/2/2 all terrain as roads) has the potential to be the single most powerful UU in an age of powerful UU's (Rider, Samurai, Cossack). 2 moves w/all terrain as roads makes for a much more mobile unit than a 3-mover. You can take it 5 tiles into enemy territory and then attack something. Yeesh.

According to the article, it's not the Mongols who get the 'all terrain as roads' unit. They just get the medievel version of the jaguar warrior - cheap and nasty. It's the Spanish conquistador (cavalry replacement) with the off-road ability. Weaker than cavalry, but with possibly 9 moves in enemy territory (unless they downgrade the movement to compensate). If it really is a 3 move unit, then anything with an attack strength above 4 is going to look pretty vicious, and be an absolute headache for the players to defend against. I mean, how do you defend knowing that a stack of 20 cavalry subsititutes can strike any city with 8 squares of your border with no warning? Most defenses rely on stacking troops primarily in towns that can be reached from the border without warning.

I think Firaxis may have created a group of "ubercivs" for PtW.

-Arrian

That's the impression I get too, and it always seems to be a danger with sequels (in games, films or books). Lets hope its not too unbalanced (although having some AI civs that can be a serious threat to you in the medieval era would be a nice twist).

[Arrian]

Vulture,

Oh, for some reason (one of the screenshots) I thought the Mongols got a 4/2/2. Maybe they do, just w/o the all terrain as roads, and it's a no-resource cheapy unit.

Whatever, we'll see how things work when PtW comes out. If things ARE unbalanced, we'll have some fun tearing up the world, and then set about telling Firaxis how unbalanced it is, and modding things back into balance.

-Arrian