Swords on the attack

[Panag]

hi ,

"my kingdom for a horse" , asap , ......

have a nice day

[Arrian]

Ooh... Celtic archers upgrading to 40-shield GS's? Me likey.

See, having played the Celts, it is my opinion that the "best" approach is an early archer rush (perhaps oscillating) to grab some land, manually build the FP while researching toward Monarchy at 10% and building warriors (in this case, more archers) and then upgrading as many GS's as possible and wasting the rest of the continent. During the GA, build a few more GSs, but mostly horsemen (to give you a solid horseman force for later upgrading).

So the archer -> GS upgrade path fits right in. But it does require more shield input up-front, which is a good thing. Upgrade cost would then be... 40 gold, just like warriors -> standard swords.

-Arrian

[Artifex]

I am playing a game as Celts right now on emperor. I have a city founded right on top of a hill with iron..and every few turns i pillage the road right outside the city gates..put warriors in all my build q's then upgrade to GS..rinse,wash, repeat. woot! Seems to be working good.

[alexman]

I agree that the best balance for the Gallic Swordsman would be a 40-cost Archer (or Chariot) upgrade.

However, in that case, Celtic strategy is seriously changed from stock. I addition, I think not having a Warrior upgrade in the ancient age would be as great a departure from stock as allowing swordsmen in addition to Gallic swordsmen for the Celts.

Perhaps just decreasing the cost without messing with upgrade paths, with a AU game to test it out, is the way to go.

[nbarclay]

I seriously doubt that you can change the cost of the Gallic Swordsman from 50 to 40 without creating a major change in Celtic strategy. That change transforms the Gallic Swordsman from a UU that's value compared with the regular swordsman is marginal at best into one of the best UUs in the game, and that can hardly help but have an enormous effect on strategy. Unfortunately, there seems to be no middle ground.

And given the enormous impact that the cost reduction is almost certain to have in any case, I don't view the additional issue of changing what it upgrades from as all that big a deal in comparison.

Nathan

[DaveMcW]

What about making the GS a horseman UU at 40 shields?

[alexman]

I would be all for that, provided of course that Celts can build regular swordsmen (but not horsemen).

[Edit: of course there are a few issues:
Do they require iron, horses, both? Are they available with Iron Working or Horseback riding? Is the GS-to-Knight upgrade too powerful? Is this too big of a change from stock?]

[Arrian]

Horse-based, huh? Prolly best to make available with HBR but have them require horses and iron. But then again, one would want to have horsemen available in case you're without iron (because otherwise no iron = archers as best offensive unit).

Would you allow the chariot upgrade or not?

-Arrian

[alexman]

As if we didn't have enough suggestions, here's another one:

Make it a 4-3-1, cost 40 (or 50?) unit, and leave the upgrade path as is. Celts would not be able to build Medieval Infantry in this case.

[BRC]

Originally posted by alexman
As if we didn't have enough suggestions, here's another one:

Make it a 4-3-1, cost 40 (or 50?) unit, and leave the upgrade path as is. Celts would not be able to build Medieval Infantry in this case.

I personally would like to try and find a solution that keeps it at 3.2.2 Have we determined that 40 shields is game-breaking?? I believe that a UU should be somewhat poweful when compared to the "base" unit.

[alexman]

Originally posted by Arrian
Would you allow the chariot upgrade or not?

The Chariot upgrade was actually the reason to suggest the change, so yes. That way you get a 40-gold upgrade cost (like for the sword-level units), but you have to make a 20-shield investment (like for horse-level units).

[Arrian]

Ok, if we're going really radical here, I'd suggest a totally different UU for the Celts.

What were they famous for using? Chariots!

Give them a 2-2-2 "chariot" that costs 30 shields. Stronger than horsemen, but no prebuilding chariots to upgrade to them. Upgrade from them to Knights.

-Arrian

[DaveMcW]

Why not a 2-2-2 horseman? Everyone agrees that the chariot->horseman upgrade is not unbalanced.

[nbarclay]

I don't recall ever associating Celts with chariots, not that I know much about them. And in any case, I prefer to keep the stats and just find a way to make them work. I dislike the 4.3.1 idea for similar reasons of not wanting to completely redo the unit's stats.

A Chariot->Horseman->Gallic Swordsman upgrade path would make Gallic Swordsmen available (and horsemen unavailable) if and only if iron is hooked up, right? Of course it would also have the interesting effect that either chariots or (in the absence of iron) horsemen could be used as prebuilds. And if Gallics require both horses and iron, that would partly offset the lower cost. (Presumably, they get their extra mobility from riding to the scene of the fight before dismounting for actual combat?)

The down side is that with that upgrade path to them, there would be no real choice but to have Gallics upgrade to knights. That would provide players with a major advantage compared with the current upgrade path (although no more of an advantage than the Iroquois have with their Mounted Warriors). Compared with the MW, the revised GS would cost 10 more shields and require an extra resource in return for one point better defense.

And, of course, with this modification, conventional swordsmen would also be available to Celts.

My own feelings about this concept are rather mixed, but I figured I'd explore the issues a bit.

[player1]

But Galic Swordsmen is Swordsmen, not Horsemen.