The Spanish and their UU (Firaxis ??)

[Unconquered]

I have recently been playing as the Spanish because I like their UU. I noticed however, in the editor the upgrade chain to Conquistador is as follows:

Scout --> Conquistador --> Explorer

Since the Spanish cannot build scouts (not expansionistic), why are the Conquistadors even included in the upgrade chain?

I believe the spanish UU is very slightly weak (roughly the same as a knight except it comes later). It is excellent though for that first strike into enemy territory to pillage his resources and infrastructure. Most civilizations by this time have Musketmen, so attacking cities is difficult with these units. You need many units since they only have three attack points. High movement makes up for its weak attack and defense stats and its place in the tech tree. So it is an almost balanced unit overall, my only complaint is lack of upgradability to or from the Conquistador. When you build them you are stuck with them.

Also, the confusion mentioned above about the upgrade chain makes me wonder if Firaxis' intent was to make the scout upgrade to the Conquistador and they forgot that the Spanish can't build scouts.

Or after balancing they figured a knight equivalent unit that you could insert into enemy territory six tiles deep after a massive scout upgrade would be too unbalancing.

Maybe someone from Firaxis could clarify?

[Alfonso]

Tienes toda la razón Unconquered, el conquistador es la peor unidad del juego. Cuenta la historia que el secreto de la conquista de América fue las armas de fuego y el conquistador de firaxis no lleva, la única forma de arreglarlo seria que cambien la animación por otra con armas de fuego que sustituya al explorador pero que tenga 5/2/2 y todos los terrenos como carreteras

Me gustan mas, como unidad única, Los Tercios.
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In english:

You are all the Unconquered right, the conqueror is the worse unit of the game. It counts the history that the secret of the conquest of America was the firearms and the conqueror of firaxis does not take, the only form to fix it serious that changes the animation by another one with firearms that replace the explorer but who it has 5/2/2 and all the lands like highways. I like more, like unique unit, Los Tercios.

PS: Pardon by my English, is not very good.

[Kramsib]

The original problem is that Spanish are not a commercial civilization. We have talked a lot about it in the Spanish Forum and we all agreed that we can be Religious but not Commercial at all, perhaps Militaristic or perhaps Expansionist. If we were Militaristic, our UU should be the Tercio, but if we were Expansionist our UU could be the Conquistador.

So Conquistador could be the update for the Spanish scouts, and substitute the Explorer.

As far as I can see, Conquistador is not an attack unit, it is a Explorer with attack points and a good movement. It is a unit to explore the terrain and take advantage from the Barbarians Village, the problem is that, when they appear the game is so advanced that there is no barbarians to fight.

[Catt]

Originally posted by Unconquered
I have recently been playing as the Spanish because I like their UU. I noticed however, in the editor the upgrade chain to Conquistador is as follows:

Scout --> Conquistador --> Explorer

Since the Spanish cannot build scouts (not expansionistic), why are the Conquistadors even included in the upgrade chain?

The upgrade chains in the editor are logical chains intended to cover all possible upgrades, regardless of civ choice. Rather than have a different upgrade chain for every civ, there is one upgrade chain, and each civ has certain units (UUs) available to it and certain units (UU-replaced "normal" units) unavailable to it. When a potential upgrade is requested by the player, the game looks at the upgrade chain in order to determine what exactly the unit in question upgrades to: the game skips over those units in the chain that are unavailable but "latches onto" the first available unit in the chain.

As an example, when any expansionist civ tries to upgrade a scout, the application says "upgrade to conquistador" but then also says "unavailable" and moves to the next unit, the explorer. When a player wants to build an "explorer" the game says "build conqistador" but if that unit is unavailable, ten the order is to build explorer (next in the chain). The conquistador is a funny one, since it really isn't part of any upgrade chain at all, but the principle is the same. With the discovery of navigation, each civ can build "conquistadors" -- except that particular unit is available only to the Spanish; every other civ skips it and hits "explorer" in the upgrade chain.

For a better example of what I mean, check out the upgrade chain for the swordsman: swordsman -> gallic swordsman -> legionary -> immortals -> medieval infantry. Every unit that upgrades to a swordsman (warrior and warrior UUs) hits this chain -- if swordsman is unavailable (playing the persians, for instance) it jumps to GS, Legionary, and then finally hits immortals. The same list is conslted when a swordsman build is selected (if swordsman unavailable, move to te next unit in the chain).

Catt

Edit: spelling

[Josephias]

If you think that upgrade chain is weird, you should see what happens in the Spanish Version of the game... in it, the Conquistador appears as a replacement for the Cavalry, this way...

Cavalry --> Conquistador --> Siphai

That makes Spanish civilization unable to build Cavalry (and Knights, btw.) when it gets the Conquistadors (as the game things knights and cavalry are obsolete to them), thus leaving Spain with no good attack unit for most of the Industrial ages!!
Luckily, that's solved by modifying the upgrade path for Cavalry in the Editor (Blocking it or changing to Siphai), but anyway it's one more of the extra bugs we have to complain to Infrogames, added to the late release and such... And it ends being a bad joke the spanish civilization to be bugged that way precisely in the spanish version

I won't enter into if it's a good unit or not, as I still have not had time to play a true game with the Spanish. (Celts have some special attractive that I couldn't miss)

[Jaguar]

Originally posted by Alfonso
Tienes toda la razón Unconquered, el conquistador es la peor unidad del juego. Cuenta la historia que el secreto de la conquista de América fue las armas de fuego y el conquistador de firaxis no lleva, la única forma de arreglarlo seria que cambien la animación por otra con armas de fuego que sustituya al explorador pero que tenga 5/2/2 y todos los terrenos como carreteras

Me gustan mas, como unidad única, Los Tercios.
------------------------------------------------------
In english:

You are all the Unconquered right, the conqueror is the worse unit of the game. It counts the history that the secret of the conquest of America was the firearms and the conqueror of firaxis does not take, the only form to fix it serious that changes the animation by another one with firearms that replace the explorer but who it has 5/2/2 and all the lands like highways. I like more, like unique unit, Los Tercios.

PS: Pardon by my English, is not very good.

Un traduccion mejor:
You are right, Unconquered, the conquistador is the worst unit in the game. History says that the secret of the conquest of America was firearms and the Firaxis conquistador doesn't have them. The only way to fix it is to change the animation to one with firearms. It should be 5/2/2 and all as road.

I would prefer Tercios as a unique unit.

Un conquistador con armas de fuego esta aqui:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showth...&pagenumber=19

[Alfonso]

Gracias, Jaguar Warrior.

[PLATO]

I have found the Conquistador to be a unit of very little utility. It is one of the principle reasons I don't play Spain very often. Much the same as a Man O' War for the English.

[Bummer]

yeah, you people here are right. the spain in play the world is very different from the spain that turned my country into a colony for 400 years and affects our culture up to this day. they should replace commercial with expansionist. the spanish were horrible in business in their colonies.

Carl

[Spiffor]

The Conquistador is the fastest unit that can be found in enemy territory until planes are around. It gives the Spanish a definitive advantage when pillaging, capturing workers and artillery (something the explorer can't do).
At this time of the game, the enemy's territory is not roaded on every tile, and the enemy may have missed the opportunity to connect several sources of the same resource (the AI has trouble connecting multiple resources early). This means it is fairly possible to take Iron or horses away from the AI with a good pillage.
If the AI has no Iron at this period, it will build horsemen and longbowmen. These units have 1 defense, and are cannon-fodder (erm, spear-fodder) for your conquistadors

The conquistadors suck at directly attacking a modern enemy. But it rules when it comes to prune him with more subtelty, and also more efficiency.

[Unconquered]

Originally posted by Catt


As an example, when any expansionist civ tries to upgrade a scout, the application says "upgrade to conquistador" but then also says "unavailable" and moves to the next unit, the explorer.

Catt

I understand all of this (and the rest of the post ). My point is...

a) Only the Spanish can build Conquistadors
b) Only expansionist Civs can build scouts
c) Spanish are not expansionist

Therefore, the chain upgrade chain would work just as well if it was:

Scout ---> Explorer ... leaving out Conquistador.

The inclusion of Conquistador, if it is not an error, implies one of the following:

a) Spanish were intended to be expansionist, and therefore able to build scouts (and able to upgrade)

b) The Spanish would be the exception, the exception being a non-expansionistic Civ able to build scouts (so they can get the upgrade). I believe this is unlikely.

With the placing of the Conquistador in the upgrade chain it is reasonable to expect that Firaxis intended the Conquistador to be upgradable (every other unit in the upgrade chain upgrades to some unit, except the last unit in the chain). This is not the case. So expecting error, the following are possible:

a) The inclusion of the Conquistador in the upgrade chain is the error.

b) The spanish were intended to have the expansionistic trait.

c) They were to be the exception as stated above.

I tried to explain it best I can... for any questions see my first post... Also, any comments from the Firaxians would be appreciated (do they even read posts anymore?)

[Catt]

Originally posted by Unconquered


I understand all of this (and the rest of the post ). My point is...

You may very well be right. But I think (and what I didn't make clear above) is that they appear in the upgrade chain just to prevent the Spanish from building an Explorer -- i.e., the Conqistador replaces the Explorer -- every civ can build explorers (expansionist or not) except the Spanish. Placing the Conquistador in the chain accomplishes this goal and I suspect was the easiest coding solution to the design decision. Put another way, could the Conquistador's placement in the upgrade chain have more to do with the unit that follows it (Explorer) than the unit that precedes it (Scout)? You seem to be convinced that it's position is as a result of the preceding Scout unit.

Don't get me wrong -- you may very well be right -- the civs and their UUs clearly underwent a lot of tweaking and experimentation before release (the original Civ 3 manual, through its inaccuracies, demonstrates that this tweaking went on long after the manual's publication date). It's very possible that all sorts of experimentation with the Spanish civ traits and the UU features occured, and the editor implementation of the upgrade chain is a legacy of this experimentation. But I think it's as least as likely that the upgrade chain is fashioned as it is because it is the easiest (and consistent) way to implement UUs that replace another existing unit available to other civs.

Catt

[Unconquered]

I would agree with you if it wasn't for the fact that the Explorer is diabled for the Spanish in the "Available To" Box. This is how the Spanish are prevented from building the Explorer, not the upgrade chain. I suspect if we enabled the Explorer, Spanish conquistadors would upgrade to Explorers. I understand what you are saying but I can't explain my point any better than I did above. The Conquistador in the upgrade chain is not neccessary. Replace it with Scout ---> Explorer and in the Spanish "Available To" Box unhightlight explorer and the game works the same for Spanish and non-Spanish Civs. This leads me to believe that it was last minute tweaking for reasons unknown.

The way it is now. The conquistador does not upgrade nor can it be upgraded to.

[Catt]

Originally posted by Unconquered
I would agree with you if it wasn't for the fact that the Explorer is diabled for the Spanish in the "Available To" Box. This is how the Spanish are prevented from building the Explorer, not the upgrade chain.

You're absolutely right, but that's true of all UUs -- the "Available To" box is employed the same way for every civ and its UU. But where the UU replaces a standard unit, it also seems to find its way into the standard unit's upgrade chain (if such a chain exists). I'm only positing that the UU is placed in the upgrade chain of it's "replaced" unit out of common practice with how other other civs' UUs are handled -- neverminding the fact that the UU is, in this case, in a very short upgrade chain that doesn't even apply to the civ in question.

I still think there's a pretty good chance though that, as you suggest, it is evidence of some experimentation with the civ traits and UU features.

Catt

[TheArsenal]

Originally posted by Spiffor

The Conquistador is the fastest unit that can be found in enemy territory until planes are around. It gives the Spanish a definitive advantage when pillaging, capturing workers and artillery (something the explorer can't do).
At this time of the game, the enemy's territory is not roaded on every tile, and the enemy may have missed the opportunity to connect several sources of the same resource (the AI has trouble connecting multiple resources early). This means it is fairly possible to take Iron or horses away from the AI with a good pillage.
If the AI has no Iron at this period, it will build horsemen and longbowmen. These units have 1 defense, and are cannon-fodder (erm, spear-fodder) for your conquistadors

The conquistadors suck at directly attacking a modern enemy. But it rules when it comes to prune him with more subtelty, and also more efficiency.

I was beginning to think I was the only one who found the conquistador to be useful. I think the problem people have with it is they see it as an under strength attacking unit, when it is in fact - as you allude to - a fast moving harassing unit.

By no means pretending to be the expert here, far from it, but I also find that in addition to being able to cut out resources by destroying connecting roads, you can in many cases attack a road at several points between cities slowing defensive reinforcements from the interior of defending Civ's territory. This (when I'm lucky) gives me that crucial turn or two I need to attack/defend only against a city's garrisoned units, instead of being weakened by attacking units from other cities. And in those cases enemy units do reach the conquistador before I have a chance to pull them back, that is still one more fight, and one more turn, they don't reinforce the defending city's units.

Disadvantages: they die easily, and I have to build quite a few. Advantages: if just wounded they can get back into safe territory quickly.

[WarpStorm]

Originally posted by Catt
I still think there's a pretty good chance though that, as you suggest, it is evidence of some experimentation with the civ traits and UU features.

It was experimented with. I remember a version that replaced the Cavalry. This was a real bad trade off. I know that I was one of the people who suggested it be moved.

[Catt]

Originally posted by WarpStorm

It was experimented with. I remember a version that replaced the Cavalry. This was a real bad trade off. I know that I was one of the people who suggested it be moved.

Yeah, I remember early PTW reviews / interviews indicating that the Conquistador replaced the cavalry (and it sounds like there is a problem to that effect in the Spanish version of the game).

Did you beta-testers ever play an expansionist Spanish civ (I think that's Unconquered's suspicion based on the position in the upgrade chain)?

The vanilla Civ 3 manual listed the Chinese as Industrious and Scientific -- and the ealry (still?) editor flags had a bunch of flags checked that one would expect for a Scientific civ -- even though the Chinese were released as Militaristic instead of Scientific. (The Rider was also listed as 2.2.2 replacing the horseman). I took that as a pretty strong indication that the designers had experimented pretty widely with the Chinese civ's traits and UU .

Catt