Lancer's the weirdest Unit in the game

[Akko Chan]

Lancer's begin appearing midway through the Renaissance Era as a means to combat Knights and Horsemen. Historically During this era many soldiers began finding the heavy Steel Plated Armor and Swords too bulky and difficult to continue fighting effeciently.

the lance technique and ergo lancer unit was born. Many horse fighters began finding it easier just to hold a large spear made of re-enforced steel held firm in place and charging at the enemy rather than the more difficult and far more lethal approach of getting within swords length while on horseback.

Lancers are vulnerable to Middle Ages Pikemen (ironically the Pre-upgraded version of the Lancer in Civ 5) and are more effecient against Knights. However By the Renaissance era in Civilization V most Soldiers were Fitted with Muskets.

In the ideal situation players would be able to mass produce Lancer's to combat Middle age Knights and thus make a Domination Victory more easy during this era. Unfortunately what sounds good on paper does not work in practise. In order to benefit from the Lancers Anti-Knight capabilities it would first require Knights, Knights who once reach the Renaissance era upgrade to Musketmen thus Making Lancers sole purpose Gone within a Couple of Research Turns (5-25 turns). therefore the only way to truly benefit from the Lancer unit is to Engage in Wars with Less-cultured and less-scientifically advanced Civs in the game.

the ultimate issue with this practise is if they're weaker than you then chances are you have no motive to go to war with them since they are the dust between your boots.

Following the Renaissance era is the industrial era were Soldiers began becoming equiped with simple Rifles and the development of Magazines and ammunition with proper shells and Calibers. Advanced and elite foot soldiers gave way to Highly skilled Cavalry units. Capable of moving as Fast or faster then Knights and even Lancers, Equipped usually with light leather armor and steel plating their main advantage over previous Horse based units is their range. This gave them a damage improvement compared to previous iterations. Cavalry is considered a unique unit, they don't particularly upgrade into any new role rather their role is replaced with the Landship during the Modern era.

The abandonment of Knights to Musketmen to Riflemen feels very natural
So Too is Cavalry to Landships and then to Tanks.

But where does that leave the humble lancer?
He does not upgrade again within the game again until the Atomic Era where he becomes an Anti-Tank gun. Thus the Lancer Proves to be of little to no use for almost 3 era's During this time he feels extremely out of place. With Most soldiers kitted out in Olive Drab, Greens and Dark Browns: the lancer walks around in bright blue clothes like a French Foot Soldier of the first world war.

Some may argue he has some role during the Modern era against Cavalry but really can you honestly imagine a man on a horse charging with a spear against a highly skilled soldier with an m16 Garand rifle?

I would have to Suggest Moving the Lancer (Metallurgy) and the Musketmen (Gunpowder) into opposite positions as it makes no sense that one can discover and craft effective gunpowder based muskets without learning how to smelt metal into bullets and gun barrels using metallurgy and advanced smithing and welding. It would also give the Longswordsmen more use in the game who also find their obeselence coming very quickly as many would find pikemen or musketmen or even simple swordsmen more effective than spending the gold to upgrade or destroying the Longswordsmen and replacing them with musketmen.


To Fill the Gap from the Lancer to the Anti-Tank Gun i would Suggest a new Research Below Steam Power known as Mechanical Engineering. The Game suggests Engines and Petrol Powered Cars existed during the Industrial era with the Discovery of Oil and how immediately as you enter the Modern era you gain Aeroplanes, Tanks and Submarines.

Mechanical Engineering would give rise to the Following List of Items

Armored Truck (Upgrades from Lancer)
32 Damage ( -40% Damage Penalty Vs Riflemen) (+30% Damage Vs Cavalry)
Moves 5 Tiles
Can not move after an attack.

Description: with the invention of the Devasating Gatling gun gave rise to gun mounted trucks which devastated Cavalry Soldiers across the world. a Single Gun Mounted Gatling gun user on an armored truck could tear a town apart before a single Cavalryman could mount his horse.

Mountains and Snow (Hills) tiles now Contribute to Production (Thanks to Farm Machinery such as Tractors and Mechanical Mining)

Water Wells (Tile Improvement)

Maintence cost: 4 gold
+1 Production +1 food
Can be Built on Deserts or Snow Biomes and act as a lake for any tile directly touching them (allows for farming on barren Snow or Deserts)

[Slumpii]

lancer is a wierd unit i agree, i never use them, just more of a process of an upgrade than anything else, at that point in the game they are rather useless :)

[Slumpii]

basically i use them as cannon fodder xDD

[Matthew]

The lancer has always been an odd unit.

Honestly I don't think its intended role in the game is necessarily as anti-cavalry especially since lancers themselves generally don't do well against cavalry outside of a charge.

I think it is mainly meant for its movement (they actually do quite well at flanking cannon). The anti-cav bonus seems to me to distinguish it from the knight to be a "proper" advancement in tech. In other words, "If I need movement why don't I just keep using knights?" The answer being this knight also has a bonus against other knights, so an army using the more advanced lancer has the edge over the previous era knight. As for why pike ~> lancer instead of knight ~> lancer, dunno. Perhaps the upgrade would come too soon for knights and also they wanted to do something with the pike upgrade line.

Of course this doesn't answer the awkward way the unit is implemented and its upgrade path. Going from 2 move anti-cav through fortification to 4 move pure offensive flank unit then eventually back to a 2 move anti-tank fortification unit and then finally to yet another 6 move offensive unit. It is like they tried to combine two upgrade paths into one.

This is an old topic which has been discussed countless times. My own personal suggestion was to simply have pikes upgrade into muskets since, despite having the anti-cav bonus, pikes in gameplay terms function as swords when you have no iron. Fortified meatshields to block zone of control. Muskets and beyond maintain that same function, so it makes more sense for pikes to upgrade into that.

And then have an entire light cav unit line. Units which don't do as well in straight up combat compared heavy cav but come with other perks to compmensate. Lancers could fit here, and also an additional unit of a light track vehicle or whatever, as well as the already in-game heli.

And finally have anti-tank guns as a new, separate unit similar to ground-to-air units.

So in short: pikes ~> muskets, a separate light cav unit line, and anti-tank guns as a separate unit.

Also I think you are playing a mod because knights aren't supposed to upgrade into muskets.

[Akko Chan]

Originally posted by Matthew:

The lancer has always been an odd unit.

Honestly I don't think its intended role in the game is necessarily as anti-cavalry especially since lancers themselves generally don't do well against cavalry outside of a charge.

I think it is mainly meant for its movement (they actually do quite well at flanking cannon). The anti-cav bonus seems to me to distinguish it from the knight to be a "proper" advancement in tech. In other words, "If I need movement why don't I just keep using knights?" The answer being this knight also has a bonus against other knights, so an army using the more advanced lancer has the edge over the previous era knight. As for why pike ~> lancer instead of knight ~> lancer, dunno. Perhaps the upgrade would come too soon for knights and also they wanted to do something with the pike upgrade line.

Of course this doesn't answer the awkward way the unit is implemented and its upgrade path. Going from 2 move anti-cav through fortification to 4 move pure offensive flank unit then eventually back to a 2 move anti-tank fortification unit and then finally to yet another 6 move offensive unit. It is like they tried to combine two upgrade paths into one.

This is an old topic which has been discussed countless times. My own personal suggestion was to simply have pikes upgrade into muskets since, despite having the anti-cav bonus, pikes in gameplay terms function as swords when you have no iron. Fortified meatshields to block zone of control. Muskets and beyond maintain that same function, so it makes more sense for pikes to upgrade into that.

And then have an entire light cav unit line. Units which don't do as well in straight up combat compared heavy cav but come with other perks to compmensate. Lancers could fit here, and also an additional unit of a light track vehicle or whatever, as well as the already in-game heli.

And finally have anti-tank guns as a new, separate unit similar to ground-to-air units.

So in short: pikes ~> muskets, a separate light cav unit line, and anti-tank guns as a separate unit.

Also I think you are playing a mod because knights aren't supposed to upgrade into muskets.

I'm just going off of memory so it stands to reason i am wrong about knights going to musketmen. longswordsmen to musketmen make more sense but i see how it would be more practical for knights to upgrade into lances as this is historically accurate rather than lances being their own units