On the (un?)usefullness of the Gallic Swordsman

[metalhead]

At first glance, this guy appears to be a monster. In practice, he is a monster, able to stomp over any other unit in the ancient era. His speed allows for some quick strikes on enemy border towns by units built in your most productive core cities. His withdrawal ability will allow for him to get back to a city very fast to heal, as is the benefit of all fast units. Perhaps the best unit in the game, when just looking at his stats.

However, this guy has a couple of major drawbacks, the first being his price. 50 shields is a BIG price to pay for a unit in the ancient age. It seems that all but the first couple of cities can build these guys in under 10 turns - most seem to be in the 12-17 turn range for building these guys. Mounting a sufficient invasion force of these guys can be a big challenge. The Golden Age will help you build these guys in a reasonable time, but it has been my experience that they are simply too expensive, and are really only feasible during your GA. You can take several cities in this time, but will be hard-pressed to overrun an enemy civ with them - you're better off with a horsemen horde, and maybe using a couple Gallic Swordsmen as a defensive force that can keep up with horsemen. But, the horde of fast swordsmen that we were all drooling over is just not practical.

The other drawback is that, once you discover Feudalism, you can no longer build them! Medieval Infantry are all you can build, which is really crappy, considering that, by the time you are finished early expansion and your cities are getting productive enough to build them, they are unavailable. 3/2/2 is superior to 4/2/1 in a lot of situations, but the most opportune time to have the Gallic Swordsman, and you are unable to use them. Maybe this is just my game that does this, but if anyone else has seen this, please chime in.

The bottom line - DON'T pick the Celts just because of their UU. If you prefer Mil/Rel, then by all means, go for it, but don't rely on what at first glance seems like a killer unit. It's not nearly as good as you may think. Well, in my opinion, anyway

[Athitis]

I thought one can build his UU even after it is made obsolate. I was at the year 1976 and I could still build my Hoplites.

[alexman]

Originally posted by Athitis
I thought one can build his UU even after it is made obsolate. I was at the year 1976 and I could still build my Hoplites.

You can build your UU even if it has become obsolete only if you haven't had your golden age yet.

metalhead: I agree with you. The cost seems to be well balanced for the stats of this unit. Look at it this way: The Gallic Swordsman is a Mounted Warrior (3-1-2) and and Impi (1-2-2) combined, and it costs as much of one of each of these units, with double maintenance and double HP cancelling out

Actually, given the great variance of the Civ3 combat results, I would prefer to have many cheap mediocre units than few expensive good ones.

[jshelr]

Another thing is realism. I'm a Celt. So, I'm free to say that we've always been much too drunk to be fast enough to have retreat capability.

[Arrian]

I don't have PtW yet (I'll probably get it for Xmas), but I'm pleased that Firaxis made the Gallic warrior cost 50 shields. That's an 80 gold upgrade, which was the key for me. If they were much cheaper than that, the mass upgrade would really be viable. Now I see them as spearhead units leading a stack of horsemen.

I like Mil/Rel, and will probably play the Celts when I get PtW, but I'm no longer really concerned that the unit is unbalancing. If it had been 30 shields... or even 40, it would have been.

Now that Turkish 8/3/3 Cavalry unit, on the other hand...

-Arrian

[metalhead]

Not only is it not unbalancing, I don't even think it's that good. Immortals are still a better UU, the Gallic Swordsman has very limited application due to its outrageous cost. I would have much rather seen it be 2/2/2 and kept at 30 shields.

[badman]

actually, I don't care too much about the 2 defense points. When you have 2 movement points, you don't need the 2 defense IMHO. That's why I rather have the MW instead of the GS, because to me he is nearly as strong but you get him for nearly half the price.

[korn469]

metalhead

i completely agree with you (except for the 2.2.2 30 comment, i think 3.2.2 40 would have been just fine)...it doesn't pack nearly as much firepower as any of the other swordsmen UUs

as far as the Siphai goes, yea it is 8.3.3 but it also costs 100 instead of 80 for normal cavalry, so yea it is better on offense than normal cavalry, but it's not that much better

think about it like this, the mounted warrior is 50% than horsemen on attack for the same cost, while the Siphai is only 33% better on attack than cavalry for 25% more cost

though on the other hand cavalry is one of the best units in the game, so any upgrades just make them that much better

[vmxa1]

I did not play long enough to make Siphai, but 20 extra shieldsis not bad, if it means keeping them alive longer. I would think 833 beats 633 more often than not. The real value to me is the lesssor units it will be sent to fight. Spearmen in cities or pikemen and swords (legions/immortals) will win a lot less, I would expect. There by saving a fair sized investment. Fights that you sent 8 calv into and lost 3, may now fare much better. If so, the 20 shields will pay a nice return by saving the 80 shiled cost of the what would have been a dead calv.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by vmxa1
I did not play long enough to make Siphai, but 20 extra shieldsis not bad, if it means keeping them alive longer. I would think 833 beats 633 more often than not. The real value to me is the lesssor units it will be sent to fight. Spearmen in cities or pikemen and swords (legions/immortals) will win a lot less, I would expect. There by saving a fair sized investment. Fights that you sent 8 calv into and lost 3, may now fare much better. If so, the 20 shields will pay a nice return by saving the 80 shiled cost of the what would have been a dead calv.

That's basically my thinking too. Also, 8/3/3 has two other key advantages. (1) Elites are more likely to live long enough to produce leaders. (2) 8/3/3 would attack riflemen almost as easily as 6/3/3 attacls musketmen, making the age when cavalry reigh supreme last longer if you're willing to accept the higher cost when units die.

Nathan

[korn469]

don't get me wrong, i agree that the Siphai is a better unit than the normal cavalry unit, but it's not that much better, shield for shield it gives you about 7% more firepower, and i'm sure that an argument can be made for have one 100 attack unit that cost x number of shields instead of having ten 10 attack units that cost the same thing, but although a higher attack unit has a greater chance of winning each individual round of combat, it has less hitpoints which should balance it out to an extent

as far as UUs go, if the Siphai got the same upgrade as the Mounted Warrior did then it would be 9.3.3 and still cost 80 shields, this won't happen because cavalry dominate the game far more than horsemen do

the number one reason why Cavalry dominates the game isn't cavalry...instead it is musketmen, they are one of the most hapless units in the game, they cost double what a pikeman does, but they only give you 33% more defensive power, compare that with riflemen which cost 33% more than a musketman but give you 50% more defensive power, or infantry which cost about 13% more than a rifleman but gives you about 66% more defensive power

[nbarclay]

The cost/performance ratio of musketmen against knights is actually better than that of riflemen against cavalry. Musketmen are cheaper than knights, while riflemen are the same cost as cavalry. (Granted, a musketman attacking a knight doesn't do as well as a rifleman attacking a cavalry, but neither of those units is a cost-effective attacker.)

The real problem with musketmen is that they're so often forced to fight opponents that are totally out of their league. Depending on the research paths taken, cavalry can show up a couple dozen turns or more before anyone figures out how to make riflemen, and musketmen, for all their power against knights, can't cope with their more modern adversaries.

As for the relatively high cost of going from pikemen to musketmen, consider how fantastic a bargain pikemen are against horsemen: same cost, but a defense value half again the enemy's attack value. When going from a paradigm where defenders have a huge advantage over equal-cost mounted attackers to one where performance is about the same at the same cost level, it was inevitable that either knight upgrades would be a real bargain or musketman upgrades would be a real rip-off (or maybe a little of each).

Nathan

[vmxa1]

I would submit that the no 1 reason that calv rule so long it that they have 3 move points. This lets them do a lot of things and get out of trouble.

[korn469]

nbarclay

you're on to something

chariot vs. spearman: same cost, spearman has a 2:1 advantage

horseman vs. pikeman: same cost, pikeman has a 1.5:1 advantage

knight vs. musketman: musketman has a 7:6 cost advantage, 1:1

cavalry vs. rifleman: same cost, 1:1

tank vs. infantry: infantry has a 10:9 cost advantage, 1.6:1 advantage for tanks

modern armor vs. mech infantry: mi has a 12:11 advantage, 4:3 advantage for ma

so it goes from a complete defense advantage up to where tanks can push infantry around with ease...but while that is the pattern, i still think that musketmen are a weak link in the defensive unit upgrade chain, because against cavalry any other defensive unit will outperform it

while horsemen don't have very good odds against pikemen, 2 horsemen versus one musketman isn't that bad

[monkspider]

A interesting discussion brewing here.
Korn: One variable that isn't included in these figures however, is hitpoints, and a plethora of horsemen attacks against fortified musketmen are sure to cause some promotions.