Cavalry Spam is so cool...

[DVLOS]

But its not...

Can there be some unit counters or balances put in place here? As playing the AI is just becoming a constant tedious slog at higher difficulties.

... One AI declares war
... Two other AI back up their buddy
... All Volcanoes will explode, rivers flood, hurricane form, supercell over stationed armies (still even on light)
... standby for never-ending cavalry spam

[Rhapsody]

Ranged and using terrain to your advantage stops cavalry pretty effectively. It doesn't matter if a unit has extra movement and ignores ZOC if a forest, river or rough terrain stops their advancement anyway.

[Bandit17]

So you want higher difficulty to be easier? Am I reading that right?

[Many-Named]

Originally posted by Bandit17:

So you want higher difficulty to be easier? Am I reading that right?

*a counter to cavalry

[Bandit17]

Originally posted by Many-Named:

Originally posted by Bandit17:

So you want higher difficulty to be easier? Am I reading that right?

*a counter to cavalry

Which was already said here:

Originally posted by Rhapsody:

Ranged and using terrain to your advantage stops cavalry pretty effectively. It doesn't matter if a unit has extra movement and ignores ZOC if a forest, river or rough terrain stops their advancement anyway.

On top of that Cavalry does a good job stopping cavalry. Especially when you stack bonuses properly.

If you can't handle higher difficulty than turn it down a notch instead of crying foul.

[DVLOS]

Originally posted by Rhapsody:

Ranged and using terrain to your advantage stops cavalry pretty effectively. It doesn't matter if a unit has extra movement and ignores ZOC if a forest, river or rough terrain stops their advancement anyway.

Are you telling me you can position ranged carefully on the other side of forests and other areas around these cities and stop AI cavalry when they send 20?

No I dont want it easier, I want a clear formula... like Pikeman > Knight as with old Civ's that kind of had you keep a contingent of units for different reasons Soldiers that are great in fortified locations to hold a key area... pikeman to counter cavalry, archers to ranged defense, and siege for walls... all these seems to work except for Cavalry which require apparently

PERFECT MAP GENERATIONS to counter.

[Bandit17]

You don't need perfect map generations. You need to know your enemy. If they have a ton of cav than you either match them like for like but with better combat bonuses or you dig in with a proper commander and defensive line. I have had no problem using fortified infantry backed by a few ranged units to break cav.

So play better is really the solution here. The AI has gotten stronger since the last patch so I am not surprised to see some players get frustrated by it and blame the game instead of themselves when they get their butt kicked.

[Rhapsody]

Originally posted by DVLOS:

Are you telling me you can position ranged carefully on the other side of forests and other areas around these cities and stop AI cavalry when they send 20?

No. You just take a shot at them when they are bogged down in terrain that impedes movement. Shooting through forests is not necessary... although the Maya can do that too. Even if you're in the desert, there's vegetation and rough terrain everywhere. You don't need "perfect map generation" for this... or anything else.

I have been saying that cavalry should be more expensive... but it doesn't need to be any weaker, or other units stronger.

[alexleshok]

I won't stop spamming this - maybe the devs will notice and listen:

ON CAVALRY AND INFANTRY
Production cost and maintenance of Cavalry Units have been increased. The Production cost has increased by 10 Production per Age and the maintenance cost has been increased by 1 Gold in all Ages.

Right now AI still builds tanks only. Damn, the core problem of Cavalry supremacy are not costs but:
1. Cavalry is overall +5 CS stronger than Infantry
2. Cavalry ignores ZOC and has +1 (+2 - tanks) movement
3. Cavalry can fortify and cavalry does get buffed when defending fortifications but does not get debuffed when attacking fortifications
4. Cavalry gets +2 CS vs infantry per dedicated resource while Infantry gets +1 CS vs cav per its dedicated resource.

I suggest the devs to implement the following:
1. Cavalry does not get defensive bonus in fortifications
2. Cavalry and Infantry have the same base strength. Cavalry gets CS + 5 in open field. Cavalry gets CS - 5 when attacking fortifications/districts.
This way if current tier base melee strength is 50 - it's 55 vs 50 in favor of cavalry when attacking infantry in open field, but it's 45 vs 56 in favor of infantry when attacking fortified infantry. Defending cavalry vs attacking infantry in fortification/district - it's even 50 vs 50.
3. Horses/Oil provide only base +1 CS per resource (not +1 more vs inf)
4. Cavalry is twice more expensive than infantry both in hammers and maintenance coins.

[jariel]

its funny that in my games they come quite evenly with infantry and cavalry or try to come but 2 boats in the right place when your settlement is build vith some tought will keep 50 cavalry away.. however i do agree with most of alexleshoks change proposals.

[alexleshok]

Originally posted by jariel:

its funny that in my games they come quite evenly with infantry and cavalry or try to come but 2 boats in the right place when your settlement is build vith some tought will keep 50 cavalry away.. however i do agree with most of alexleshoks change proposals.

Players get some infantry for free in the beginning of each age. But build mainly cav - so there's only reiters/pistoleers (don't call 'em lancers) and tanks by the second half of an age.

[Noma]

Why aren't you using pikemen or spearmen ? Do you mean there are no such units. or they don't counter cavalry ?

I don't have the game, but was wondering how it has been doing since the very saddening bad launch.

[Rhapsody]

Originally posted by Noma:

Why aren't you using pikemen or spearmen ? Do you mean there are no such units. or they don't counter cavalry ?

I don't have the game, but was wondering how it has been doing since the very saddening bad launch.

There's no rock-paper-scissors anymore, at least for now. The units are, generally speaking, homogenized in many aspects, which makes it more important to use environment and especially army commanders (and other branches of commanders) intelligently. Currently, cavalry are somewhat more expensive to produce and maintain, are always +5 points stronger than infantry of same tier, have +1 movement and ignore ZOC. Strategic resources are merged into empire resource category and are used solely for buffing combat strength of units (sometimes against certain unit classes only) instead of being required for their construction, so this makes cavalry readily available to everyone.

Besides using actual tactics to counter the enemy force, you can still specialize your armies by means of tech progress (every age has some tech masteries that increase base combat strength of certain unit class). And since every civilization has a unique unit (or two) that remain relevant throughout the age, that is a significant tactical consideration as well. Along with introduction of commanders, it may even have been the main reason to doing away with the rock-paper-scissors element.

There are still various UUs to counter cavalry directly or indirectly, like the tercio of Spain or the hwulche of Maya (since they can move and attack through forests). And in the modern age, the advantages of cavalry are heavily mitigated by deploying of ground attack planes. Additionally, some civilizations have actually weaker cavalry under certain conditions, like the Abbasid mamluk or the Khmer yuthahathi (until they progress their civics further).

I think the game could still use some further balancing of cavalry, either increasing their maintenance or production cost further or adjusting of how the various resources add combat strength in relation to countering cavalry, but at this point it's very much fine-tuning and not a major concern.

[DVLOS]

I think it's a "major concern" as there are some ridiculous attributes given to cavalry, when in the history of cavalry did they "fortify" their position thus removing the MAIN advantage of cavalry which is MOVEMENT.

Remember when horses climbed walls to defeat castles?

There has to be a little RPS going on here IMHO. I think CIV 7 has taken a lot of heat but commanders + combat is actually a stronger point but with this latest AI update its just 1 unit spam all day and it gets tiring... it's getting as tiring as the nonexistent espionage and religion "strategy aspects".

[Rhapsody]

Originally posted by DVLOS:

I think it's a "major concern" as there are some ridiculous attributes given to cavalry, when in the history of cavalry did they "fortify" their position thus removing the MAIN advantage of cavalry which is MOVEMENT.

Remember when horses climbed walls to defeat castles?

What ridiculous attributes exactly? Having superior logistics, training and equipment should translate to generally increased combat effectiveness. Just by not having to march everywhere by foot lets the force act much more cohesively in battle, no matter the circumstances. And yes, the main advantage of cavalry is still movement. That's why they have higher movement and can ignore ZOC. Extra combat strength is just icing on the cake.

Horses currently increase combat strength of cavalry by 1 point and grant an extra point against infantry. This doesn't make them super units for attacking fortifications of any kind, however. That task is still very much left to ranged and siege units.

But as I said, I think the horses resource in particular could use some tweaking. The generic combat bonus could be changed to bonus against ranged or siege units, for instance.

[SpitfireMkVIII]

Imagine 'ing the face of 35+ years of strategy-game conventions, just to come up with a cavalry unit that acts just like an elite infantry unit, but with extra movement. It's like the Devs never played Chess, let alone an RTS/4X title.

They should've made Civ into a city builder, because conquest simulation is clearly not their strong-suit.