Unit Strengths by Era

[SofaKing]

Originally posted by pcasey
Mech Infantry ... why not just build modern armor? Almost the same cost, moves faster, defends 16/18s as well and can attack with twice the power and 2x on any given turn.

I think that is reasonable, assuming you have access to Aluminum. If you don't, you need to build MI. I'm pretty sure the Firaxis designed these units to make strategic resource management (war) an intrinsic part of the game. If the units seem unbalanced in game play, it is the strategic resources that are too plentiful, rather than poor unit design.

Also, if you have Aluminum, you might not want to build MI, but you'll still want to upgrade your infantry.

[Eggolas]

The one unit most unbalanced between the AI and the human player is Artillery and this imbalance results in the destruction of the AI in Regent-Emperor games (sorry, no Deity playing here).

Artillery has some awesome attributes when combined with a rail network and those capabilities are not used by the AI.

For instance, artillery can bring a stack of naval vessels off your coast (the AI always seems to stop within 2 tiles of the coast) to red-bar status in no time, allowing your naval vessels to finish them off without suffering much damage. This is one way to deal with the Ironclad horde.

Artillery can also be moved and massed to obliterate an invasion stack. I once handled a 62-unit stack of Persians invading my territory by moving and concentrating 47 artillery, bombarding the stack and then massing the land response. Net result was only one casualty and complete destruction of the opponent stack. Considering the cost of artillery and it's ability to bring even tanks down to red-bar status in Industrial Age, they are too powerful in the hands of a human player.

The AI does concentrate artillery well in it's capital from time to time, but it does not move it out to meet a threat. That leaves the human player with a significant advantage in open terrain as any stacks of opposing units are so much grist for the mill.

[player1]

Somthing about naval units:

Subs with attack of 10 would be ideal.
Without escort of such Subs (to detect enmy Subs) enemy can easily destoy your Destoyers & Battleships.

Subs should be upgradeable to Nuclear Subs.

Destoyer should be able to carry one Cruise Missile.
AEGSIS Cr. should be able to carry two Cruise Missiles.
That way they whould be as important as Battleships.


Cruise Missiles should have rate of fire 5.
That way they could KILL elite hoplite (and full elite Battleships sometimes if lucky).

And would be (very) usefull unit, like in real world.




P.S.
Some OFF-TOPIC (but strategical suggestions):

Colonnies shouldn't be assimilated automaticly with enemy borders.
They should use city assimilation rules instead (only if in enemy borders).
Also building city right near enemy colony should be act of WAR.

Luxury resorsces are way to strong (with Marketplace). I NEVER have need to use luxury tax instead. So I suggest them to be toned down a little. Like: 1,1,1,2,2,2,3,3 (instead of 1,1,2,2,3,3,4,4).

TAXMEN & SCIENTISTS should give (at least) 3 gold (or science) insted of ONE.
That way it would be usefull to have cities with size above 20. The way it is now, I usually start extensive mining when my cities reach size of 20, so I get MANY extra shields instead of 2-3 gold from taxmen.

Also Wealth should be more powerfull in ancient age. It should be 4 shields for 1 gold. For now (8 for 1), it is mostly useless.

[vmxa1]

I agree that creating a city next to a colony is an act of war. It would not be tolerate in real life. I would like to see crossing ones cultural lines as an act of war. I should be allowed to attack anyone in my lands. Would Germany allow France to build a city in their borders, just because they have not built a road there? When the AI says it will leave and then does not, that is an act of war. Now if they persist and I attack, I am the one that suffers. I do not agree with all that say you should let them build a city and then assimilate it. The problem is that you can not count on that. I had a new city plopped on the edge of the water and my capitol was next to it and it was never captured. Not sure why as I was very large and they were not connected. I have seen many small cities go for generations before being captured. I often do not want them at that point.

[player1]

Recently I have toyed with editor & upgrades by using avdices from korn.

It comes to my mind that maybe main resone why noramlly you can't upgardae to UU is probably not a game balance, then a realisation problem. The same reson why there is no multiple obsolence flags.
Still korn & several others founded the way to upgrade to UU in existing editor.

SO I made some chages to see how it works, and results are satisfactonary. Maybe you should be able to upgade to UU in next patch?




Still I have one complain. It is about Saltpeter. In one point of game you won't need a Saltpeter. And then in your building queue you'll find KINGHTS (wich is irritating: "General, will you build Marnes, Infantry, Tanks or perheps Knights), although you can build Riflemen (or Infantry if you have Rubber).

Personnaly I would like Saltperter to become obsolete completly.
Like after dicoverng Rep. Parts tech you should be able to build Cavalry without Saltpeter. In that case it would be nice to have Rilflemen require Saltpeter, at least until you get right advances (and have both Cavalry & Rilflemen without need of Saltpeter).


I know how to do this in EDITOR.
You just need to make new units: Riflemen1 & Cavalry1 (put space instead of 1, so players won't see the difference between new & old units)
now make them exactly same as original but without need of Saltpeter (& make original riflemen need saltpeter) and make them usefull after getting Rep. Parts (or some other tech). Then give old Rif. & Cav. ability to upgrade to new ones.

Of course for all of this you'll need to have ability to add new units.

I hope Firaxis could find some MORE ELEGANT solution.

[sophist]

Originally posted by player1

Colonnies shouldn't be assimilated automaticly with enemy borders.
They should use city assimilation rules instead (only if in enemy borders).
Also building city right near enemy colony should be act of WAR.

That gives colonies greater importance than cities themselves. After all, assimilation of one of your cities is not an act of war, and I think everyone will agree that city > colony. Besides, that wouldn't settle building a city two squares away that absorbs the colony 20 turns later.

[barefootbadass]

Originally posted by korn469
barefootbadass



marine 8/6/1 100 rubber
infantry 6/10/1 90 rubber

if you use the Civilization III Combat Calculator you'll find that the best odds you can get when attacking fortified infantry in a city is 83.5 to 16.6 (or one out of 6 times the infantry will win) and that is assuming an elite marine attacking a one hp infantry unit, in a most cases even with heavy naval and air bombardment it would probably be vet marines facing either 1hp infantry (76.3-23.8) or 2hp infantry (47.5-52.5)...so marines are only mildly effective in their main role, of directly attacking cities from ships, and they don't excel in any other role, marines attacking cities amphibiously with even close odds will get slaughtered (vet marine vs. reg fortified infantry 26-74)

plus i don't see what the big advantage of marines and helicopters is...helicopters with marines have to be in city and only have an airdrop range of 6, i would rather have two cavalry units (cost 160) on my border than one marine and a helicopter (cost 200), because an invasion a close by landmass would be prohibitive since you would need a helicopter to airdrop each marine, whereas a single transport could carry an invasion force



paratrooper 6/8/1 100 oil, rubber
infantry 6/10/1 90 rubber (defense)
tank 16/8/2 100 oil, rubber (offense/defense)
cavalry 6/3/3 80 horses, saltpeter (offense)

needs no change? well paratroopers aren't very useful on attack, they aren't very useful on defense, and their big advantage is they can paradrop out to 6 space but that uses 1 movement point, so after they paradrop they are setting ducks...i don't see how they are very disruptive at all, on offense if they paradrop then they are immobile, and don't provide a player with the defense that they need to fight off an attack, i'd rather invest in another tank instead of a paratrooper
on defense, infantry, cavalry, and tanks moving along railroads are much more disruptive than paratroopers doing paradrops, and by the time that paratroopers are available railroads should cover all if not most of your territory

if airdrops didn't use all of their movement they would be much more efficient, but as it is now i think other units are more effective in any role a paratrooper hopes to fill

Amphibious assaults are notoriously bloody, so they are absolutely fine for that purpose. I was not assuming the odds were any better than you said. I agree that helicopters lifting marines is a little limited because of having to launch from a city(the game needs at least airbases for workers to build), but you can build a little 'airbase' city to send off the troops. I also know that the defense of paratroopers isn't that great. So? They are light troops and if you put them on mountains or other defensible terrain in numbers they will provide distraction since they are a threat to pillage and must be dealt with(especially if you use them to attack resources and luxuries.

These two kinds of troops aren't suited as all purpose attackers or defenders, they should be used for specialized stuff.

And, radar artillery isn't really that expensive, just upgrade your old artillery(I always have loads of them).

[Kaneda]

Originally posted by vmxa1
I agree that marines are of no real value as it is now. I have never made them. The idea that a well trained marine would have any trouble with a knight in battle is ludicrous. The marine would have a field day with a target the size of a horse loaded down with armour. Now you have a dismounted and slow knight with a sword or pike verse an automatic weapon, hum.
I would like to see a filter to allow me to remove obsolete items from the build list or if you make them go away after a period of time that is fine. I hate seeing warriors in my list while I am making tanks.

I just found one utility for using marines: attacking that cities placed in a land tile surrounded only by water (it has no surrounding land area) making that impossible to land and attack with armors, just the marines can attack from the transport.

Perhaps the cost should be minimized and att. strenght raised by 1 or 2.

[Skanky Burns]

Cruise missiles are good for destroying enemy ships if you dont have a decent navy. However they only do about 2 hp damage on a frigate. So i tried bombarding them with artillery, and got them down to 1 hp. Then i tried finishing it off with the cruise missile, only to be told that i cant bombard a unit with only 1 hp?!?

Cruise missiles should be able to target units with only 1 hp!!!

Although i dont mind too much if this gets overlooked. I use bombards and battleships for coastal defence.

[player1]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns
Cruise missiles should be able to target units with only 1 hp!!!

Yes, that IS a BUG.

They should also have f. rate of 5, to make THEORETICLY possibile to kill ELITE unit with Cr. Missles.

These two things would FIX cr. mis. for good.

[player1]

WARNING! WARNING!

To korn & Firaxis:

Non-upgradeable but obsolete TRICK doesn't work!

You can still upgrade those units with Shilf-U.


P.S.
Forest should give more shileds with railroads.
The way it is, forests become "obsolete" after getting railroads.

Also make it possibile to bombard 0-defense units.
I relly hate when I bombard strat. res. and several rounds later workers come to make roads again. Then I can't drive-off those workers (can't be bombed).

Suggestion:
Just make those bombards automatic hit.

[Awender]

Originally posted by player1
P.S.
Nukes should be more destructive both physicly & diplomaticly.

I don't think so. Have you seen any diplomacy drawback after using nuclear bombs on Japanese?

I think the whole world was shocked but became politer toward USA...

[player1]

Originally posted by Awender


I don't think so. Have you seen any diplomacy drawback after using nuclear bombs on Japanese?

I think the whole world was shocked but became politer toward USA...

So, why don't they use them more often?

I doubt that world would be more polite toward America is they use them again. Or make global ecological disaster.

It's polite because of Amerca's economical & military power. Not because of their Nukes.

In Japan, it was a first time. World can forgive that (I doubt Japanise could).

[vmxa1]

I would like to see the AI made an attempt to keep its pollution down. Is it not in its own interest?

[cheerful]

I would recommend the civ 2 ZOC for border fotress. This will make it possible for border defense on good defensive terrain. You can't have city on mountain. But you can sure build fotress and fortify some defenders in it. This makes the attacking more difficult (the mountain sure will give the attackers a hard time) and give the defenders some time to respond.

In the current rule, border is useless regarding defensive strength. The diamond shape of the tile (not hexagon) requires 2 lines of units to cut off the connection.

Another could-be-useful thing is make wounded troops slower in enemy territory. This gives the defender chances to track them down and finish them off with mobile units and still go back to city b/c they CAN use road.

[barefootbadass]

Originally posted by pcasey
Archers ... if you want to rush, use horsesmen. Too slow and too vulnerable.
Chariots ... why not wait a few turns and get horsemen if you have horses?
Longbowmen ... I have to escort them with a pikemen anyway, so why not just make a knight that'll move twice as fast, cost the same as the two unit stack and have retreat options?


Musketmen ... 2 pikemen are better than one musketman and costs the same

Destroyer ... why not wait a few turns and build battleships?

Artillary ... Give me a tank or a modern armor over an artillary any day.

Cruise missile ... exactly what role is a range one disposable bombard unit that can't destroy anything supposed to play?

Mech Infantry ... why not just build modern armor? Almost the same cost, moves faster, defends 16/18s as well and can attack with twice the power and 2x on any given turn.

An Air Force ... I'm a heretic on this one, but I think the air units are useless in Civ III. For the cost of building up the 10 bombers I'd need to soften up an enemy city, I can build 10 modern armor. With 10 modern armor attacking, I won't *need* to soften it up. Plus I'll have units to garrison it with after I'm done.

Archers have a very short useful period, basically only useful before iron working or the wheel, or if you lack either of those resources. Chariots are better than archers if you have the right terrain, since they can retreat and be upgraded to horseys. I'd build a horde of them facing spearmen defenders any day. I usually don't, but there are circumstances where they could be useful(say you aren't the greeks or the zulus and have to deal with the aztecs' jag warriors, or you need to attack NOW, before the 16 turns to horseback are up). Longbowmen are nice counterattackers where they can use your roads, and even attackers if you don't have the horses.

I agree on the musketmen, I only get them by upgrading pikes or spears in critically contested cities.

Destroyers are nice, 2 destroyers = 240 shields, 1 battleship = 200 shields.

Mech infantry is a better defender, period. Modern armor should be used to attack, not sit defending a city and maintaining ML(if applicable).

You seem to find artillery and otehr bombardment worthless. It would be if it only damaged units, although its useful that way too. It does increase the chances of your modern armor units being successful, and with enough hp to attack again(if the modern armor only has 1 or 2 hp left you can't really take advantage of the blitz capability fully can you?).

[player1]

I think that 3-4-1 cost 50 Musketmens would be ideal.
For attack you could still use cheap Swordsmen, but if you want to be sure...

Longbowmen needs cost of 30, so Immortals won't be cheaper.
Cost of 40 prevents players from using them often instead of swordsmen (in pikemen combo of course). At least as cheap "defense" against enemy knights.

[zorbop]

am i the only one who sees the power of the babylonian 2/2/1 bowmen?
they come at the very begining, before mounted wariors or swordsmen.
if your capital has 5 shields per turn, thats one every 4 turns. it will overrun any civ(except greece) before they have a chance to defend.
jaguar warriors can't really hurt them either.
and as a bonus babylon cultur buildings are cheaper so you can get back to bowmen.

[barefootbadass]

Originally posted by zorbop
am i the only one who sees the power of the babylonian 2/2/1 bowmen?
they come at the very begining, before mounted wariors or swordsmen.
if your capital has 5 shields per turn, thats one every 4 turns. it will overrun any civ(except greece) before they have a chance to defend.
jaguar warriors can't really hurt them either.

Well jag warriors have retreat so they most certainly can hurt them, just like they take down ordinary spearmen. And if you are attacking the jags they can just run usually. It basically has the same shelf life of an archer since it has the same upgrade possibilities. Definitely as useful as the archer during that shelf life and a little more durable.

[Qilue]

Combining with the idea above with regards to musketmen changing to 3/4/1 and 50 shields, change musketeers to 3/4/2 and 50 shields. Although, this would basically give the french a medieval era version of an Impi.

As to strategy, few here have made any mention of using terrain improvements and catapults/cannon/artillery for defensive purposes.

I play a defensive builder style and usually always plant forests on my frontiers. Then, any invader is slowed down to a crawl in the forest (the only thing that can be damaged is any roads) while my catapults/cannon/artillery (which I build in large numbers) turns the aforementioned concentrated attack into a desparate retreat which generally gives me time to bring up units for an appropiate form of punishment for daring to invade me.

During my last game (I was Zulus) where I had 6000 years of war with the Russians interrupted by brief periods when there was an outbreak of peace, I was able to concentrate my defences in this three square wide ismus which was all hills. Only twice did her units reach the city improvements undamaged and both times they were exterminated after my catapults/cannon/artillery had finished with them.

Now, something I discovered during this games relates to a previous post regarding the AI not attacking combined arms stacks. It's not so much the combined nature of the stack, rather the AI doesn't seem to want to attack defensive units with def values high relative to the att values of it's units.

In the game mentioned above during the first war, I had three impis camped on a mountain and some rather big stacks of units actively avoided them. In a later war, I landed 24 riflemen (which came under heavy attack) to capture a city for it's rubber. After the upgrade, I marched 6 of those infantry up to another city (it had rubber too) and they were only attacked by a single unit and then ignored.

Later, I had a single regular infantry unit wandering around in russian territory destroying improvements while knights (for some reason she never built cossacks) were zipping past on their way to the front and not once did this unit get attacked. The two cities I had captured were likewise never attacked apart from the improvements destroyed. Also, down at the ismus, I had camped some riflemen (later infantry) on a mountain there (easier to kill attackers on hills) and they were also ignored, even by a stack of 60+ knights.

[Arrian]

A while back I tried to make the point that the AI's failure to upgrade its units, not to mention build veterans, were major factors that allowed us humans to defeat them with relative ease. I finally have an example.

I was chatting with a friend of mine this weekend, and he was preparing to invade the Aztecs (He was Greek, I think). He had massed a bunch of Cavalry and some riflemen at the border. He divided his troops such that he had 28 Cav plus some riflemen on the "Tenochticlan front" and maybe 15-20 on the other end of the line, with 3 Cav or so per city for the middle. He launched his attack.

At first, all was well. The border cities all fell, although he noticed his units were getting beat up pretty bad, and he even lost a couple of Cav. Then he went for Tenochticlan. I listened as he threw 20 or so Cavalry at it. He lost. He killed a bunch of units, but also took casualties, and his beat up Cav were anhiliated by the counterattack. He was progressing in the center and the left flank, but his attack on Tenochticlan was stopped cold and butchered. After a little while, he was on the defensive, desperately trying to hold those border cities.

It took us a little while to figure out what went wrong. One of the main reasons he wanted Tenochticlan was that it was home to 3 wonders: Coperincus, Sun Tzu and something else. Sun Tzu. *DING* There you have it. Normally, you fight AI armies that consist primarly of regular units, many of which are out of date. Not this time. The Aztecs defenders were all veteran riflemen, as opposed to one regular riflemen on top of a musketman and a pikeman. They also had Cavalry, which were of course also vets. They fought the same way, tactically speaking, as they normally do, but this time their army was better.

So, although I see the argument about various units (in particular the mobile ones) being overpowered, I think a LOT can be done to improve the AI's war ability if the AI were encouraged to build barracks, and if possible, cycle its older units through barracks-equipped cities to upgrade them. Then we can really discuss unit balance. As it stands now, unless the AI manages to grab Sun Tzu, the discussion of unit strength by era is hampered by the fact (at least in my experience) that the AI's units are usually regulars, and often out of date.

-Arrian

[player1]

Originally posted by Arrian
I think a LOT can be done to improve the AI's war ability if the AI were encouraged to build barracks, and if possible, cycle its older units through barracks-equipped cities to upgrade them. Then we can really discuss unit balance. As it stands now, unless the AI manages to grab Sun Tzu, the discussion of unit strength by era is hampered by the fact (at least in my experience) that the AI's units are usually regulars, and often out of date.
-Arrian

In my games most of obsolete units where in cities wich lacked BARRACKS.

So AI NEEDS to know to:
-build barracks more often
or
-cycle obsolete units (even those garrisoned in cities) and upgrade them in other barracks cities.

[barefootbadass]

Regarding barracks, I think the AI does not place enough value in them. Another thing, related, is that it underestimates the significance of hp of units in battle. I had a veteran knight fend off like 4 calvary from the ai in one game on open terrain(maybe a river, can't remember) but the reason was because the ai attacked with calvary that were wounded to 1 or 2 hp. My knight did become elite and they finally got it with a 5th calvary, but it clearly overestimated its advantage, although I was probably still a bit lucky to fight off that many, it shouldn't have attacked with those units.

[Darth Sidious]

havent read all the other replies, so might be discussed before.

Special units: some civ's have their special unit very early, some have it very late, like the F15.
I strongly dislike this in regards to the golden age. on deity, it is hard or imposible to trigger golden age by wonders when you want it, so you'll have to do so with your special units.

I think the best moment to get golden age is when you just conquered your first opponent and moved to monarchy or republic. This makes an imbalance between the tribes.

The units themselves also have a huge difference in potential. although i haven't played late game yet, i think a unit like the F15 will not be such a huge thing, and having a special unit on sea like the english isn't very usefull either.
The hoplite has huge defence in early game, it will stop the "iron" units and the early mounted units pretty well while another tribe has to get iron himself to stop those. Also the immortal seems very strong to me although i dont have experience with that one yet.
for the rest i think the idea is nice, just should be more balanced.

I did not play far enough to judge the way the strenght of units overal increasein time. Most units seem usefull to me, so compared to eachother they are balanced i guess. Only the bombard units i have only used once, and i think they suck.

[Darth Sidious]

is that units would have strengths against certain others.

like pikeman, are of course usefull to defend against mounted units, but against archers they should suck. archers for example could have a defence bonus against other archers, since the defender is supposed to be in a good position while the offender has to get in range first before he can shoot.

In starcraft this is done very simple with the unit sizes and damage types. This adds a lot of strategy to the game (there barely would be any strategy without this)

[vmxa1]

You are so right, the F15 is not worth two cent over another jet as it comes too late to be significant. The Man O War, is a poor UU as it has a short life span and many people play on maps with little water so ships are not a factor. The Samuari comes at a good point and can be held off to trigger GA later with out a big penalty.

[Darth Sidious]

special units are supposed to be a benefit right?

it really sucks you cant upgrade to your special unit. I mean it REAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALy sucks.

change this please.

[vmxa1]

I have upgraded the Samauri and I think some others. It was strange as I recall. When I got calvary, I could not upgrade right away, but later it let me. I realized I had not used my UU in fight, so I had to build one and send it in to a fight (unit it attack at been reduced by arty to 1HP) so I could get my GA. This was prepatch.

[Arrian]

I think the reason you aren't allowed to upgrade TO your UU is because they are considered powerful units. I think the Civ that gets screwed worst by this is Russia. They can't upgrade Knights to Cossacks, and of course Cavalry/Cossacks don't upgrade to Tanks. Ouch.

-Arrian

[dadacp]

I personally am satisfied with the French Musketeer as a UU. I build only one to get a Golden Age. Then I quickly have many wonders and cavalry for attack. For defense I can still build the cheap pikemen, which I otherwise couldn't.

The main benefit of the the Musketeer is not that is in itself very useful. It comes soon after one is in Republic or Monarchy and can benefit from a Golden Age. And It blocks the upgrade path for pikemen, letting them still be built.