[Lancers - Anti-tank Guns - Helicopter Gunships] - Unfairly Terrible in BNW

[[WAR] Larknok1]

The lancer has been discussed exhaustively in past, so I won't take too much of my time to cover it.

It's at an awkward point in the tech tree. It doesn't upgrade until combined arms -- which is *hours* away. Nor does it really "sweep knights off of the battlefield."

Except in a few circumstances, the "hard-counter" units in this game all suck. In exchange for being able to do 20-25% more damage on certain units (once you account for strength differences), the unit is unusable against anything else. Now I'm going to talk at length about the Anti-tank Gun and the Helicopter Gunship.

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For 75 hammers less (300 rather than 375), you can choose to build the anti-tank gun once you've researched combined arms. Let's see what it has to offer:

50 strength. With this strength rating, the anti-tank gun is the worst non-ranged unit available in the Atomic Era. Let's not even compare it to units in the Atomic Era then. How does it stack up against units in the Modern Era? To find a unit on par with it, you have to go all the way back to the great war infantry. Infantry will outpower it by 20, and the Machine Gun will shame it with 60 strength + a 60 strength ranged attack.

So how is its movement? Abysmal. For a unit held from the player until "combined arms" you would think it would at least have 3 movement. Nope, just 2.

So how does it stack up against the one thing it *can* counter, the tank?

The tank gets 70 strength and 5 movement. Essentially, unless the enemy chooses to let their tanks die by attacking a hard counter head on, don't plan on getting any kills with the anti-tank gun.

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So how could it be improved?

The easiest way that I can think of is to give the anti-tank gun 60 strength, increase its cost to 350 hammers, and give it 3 movement.

Alternatively, just give the anti-tank gun a ranged attack (1 tile) that can be used against tanks only. This way, it actually functions like, you know, "anti-tank artillery" like its description says it should.

If either of these two buffs was applied, the darn thing could actually be usable.

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Now it's time to talk about the Helicopter Gunship. Oh yes, the Helicopter Gunship. The supermobile first attack force. Below the radar, in and out, a killing machine. The bane of tanks and infantry when it was first used in real life, it wasn't until hand-held anti-air missile launchers came around that there was any real counter to the thing. So let's see how it gets treated in Civ 5:

Spoiler: like garbage.

Appearing in the late atomic, and as the last unit in its chain (pikemen->lancers->anti-tank gun-> helicopter gunship), for our purposes here, we will treat it like an information era unit.

The first thing to notice is that it consumes aluminum. Alrighty then, one less jet fighter, or modern tank, missile cruiser, or stealth bomber. How does it stack up to any/all of those?

The gunship costs 425 hammers to make -- exactly on par with Modern Armor (425), the Missile Cruiser (425), the Stealth Bomber (425), the Jet Fighter (425), and (surprisingly) the Giant Death Robot (425).

Let's check out the strength produced for a whopping 425 hammers: 60.
This, just like the anti-tank gun, is abysmal. It's going to get outclassed by enemy units all the way back in the modern era. -- The machine gunner, for example, will exchange 1 to 1 for the Gunship, and then return fire with a ranged attack the next turn.

But just to humiliate it some more, lets compare it to the other aluminum units:
Modern Armor (100), Jet Fighter (75 ranged), Stealth Bomber (85 ranged), Missile Cruiser (80 / 100 ranged.)

Not enough humiliation? The Helicopter Gunship doesn't get to capture enemy cities. Wonderful.

Still not enough humiliation? Try to guess which is more threatening to an enemy infantry piece: a Mobile SAM, or a Helicopter Gunship?
Correct Answer: The SAM. The SAM gets 65 strength to the Gunships' 60.

Of course, that's not to say that the Gunship should ever beat the SAM -- the SAM gets a well deserved 150% bonus against helicopters.

So what *can* the Gunship do? It has 6 movement, which is one more than modern armor / GDR. Moreover, it moves over all damage terrain for 1 cost only. It also gets to move away after attacking. It also gets to move over mountains (which is cool) -- but guess what, you get damaged if you end your turn on one.

How about hard counters? Unlike the Anti-tank gun, Firaxis actually felt that it was necessary to give the Gunship not 1, but TWO hard counters. And because of its very low strength, the Gunship is actually effectively countered beginning in the Modern Era by fighters and anti-air guns. Bringing it to its own age of origin, and combat between Jet Fighters / SAMs and Gunships is as one-sided as it gets.

SAM vs Gunship: 65 + (1.5*65) = 162.5 versus 60. 102.5 strength difference.
Jet Fighter vs Gunship: 75 + (75*1.5) = 112.5. 127.5 strength difference.

In both cases, the Gunship gets taken out in about one shot. This assumes that the SAM and Jet Fighter each have 0 promotions. Terrain promotions on the SAM will make it even deadlier.

Now how about that anti-tank bonus? +100% against tanks seems good, right? Re-consider of course that the two hard-counters against it are +150%. Then consider that the armored units the gunship is going to face are going to have some combination of shock+drill. Allow that the modern armor a gunship faces has at least one of these in its favor. Then, to give the Gunship the best possible result, let's give it two +25% against armored upgrades (requires military academy.)

Gunship vs Modern Armor: 60 + (60*1.5) = 150 versus 100 + (100*0.15) = 115.
35 strength difference. THIRTY FIVE. Yeah, nice "hard counter" there.

So what gives? Why have the Anti-tank Gun and the Helicopter Gunship been designed to be the *worst* units in the game? There doesn't seem to be any justification for it.

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Here's my fix: Increase the Helicopter Gunship's Strength to at least 75. It should really be closer to 80.

There is *no* good reason that an information era unit that costs a rare mineral should be overpowered by a Modern Era unit when neither has a distinct advantage over the other. Moreover, when a unit has TWO EFFECTIVE hard counters, both of which have other uses (fighters intercept+dogfight, and AA/SAMS intercept) there is *no* justification for a unit having such low strength. Also, if you're going to make a melee unit incapable of capping an enemy city -- at least make it good at combat? But no, the Gunship gets neither.

[Twelvefield]

Anti tank units aren't much good for anything but fighting tanks. They should have roughly the equal lethal range as a machine gun, since you have to be close to hit a tank properly. An AT gun is not a BVR weapon. Self-propelled AT guns that had stopping power are also a recent invention, so giving them a 3 hex movement would make them too powerful. Essentially, a SAM in Civ is more or less a self-propelled AT gun in the game which can also shoot down aircraft and happens to be good at killing troops as well. If you're going to spam a modern unit, spam the SAM.

You forget that the helo cannot traverse water, making a simple lake the ultimate word in helicopter defense. If anything, the helo should have a ranged attack and the AT gun should be a melee.

There is no denying that the lancer-AT-helo branch of the tech tree is weak. Even more fun with the Ottoman Sipahi, one of their UU's, which feeds directly into that branch.

[Lena]

I will admit up front that I am not a high-level player. That said, I do think the AT Gun and Gunship have their roles.

AT Guns and Tanks interact pretty much like they did in real-world history. Tanks are all-around dominant offensive weapons, while anti-tank guns are almost purely defensive, at least tactically. Tanks have the speed, the armour and the firepower to go up against almost anything else one-on-one and utterly beat the crap out of them. One downside of tanks, however, in-game, is that they don't get any defensive terrain bonuses. Anti-tank guns on the other hand have the firepower, but they lack the armour to withstand direct combat with other units for very long and the speed to keep up with tank maneuvers. Therefore, it is hard to truly use AT Guns offensively, at least in comparison to tanks. Infantry has the same speed problem, but it is more versatile all-round. It is still possible to go on the attack with AT Guns, but where they can truly become a menace is defence. They have as much direct combat strength as Great War Infantry, and this is further compounded by the defensive terrain bonuses it receives. Rough terrain slows down tanks, and provides AT Guns with good locations to set up for the defence. Clever placement allows you to lay down a continuous zone of control, meaning any tanks that try to pass through WILL open themselves up to attack, where they do not get any inherent defensive bonuses, meaning AT Guns will maul them, especially Tanks proper (Landships even more so, if you have that much of a tech lead somehow.) Attacking the guns in their defensive positions is risky for any melee unit, and ranged units run the risk of counterattacks from enemy ranged units, airplanes, or quick-reaction forces, and attacking them with tanks is out of the question entirely. Even a handful of AT Guns, with the right setup, can slow down or outright stall a significant enemy armoured force. Cost-wise, they're also surprisingly efficient; going off the wiki, they cost 300 hammers to build on normal speed. Great War Infantry, with the same base strength, costs 320. Tanks and Infantry cost 375, and Modern Armour a whopping 425, almost one and a half times as much - and with a base strength of 100, a 0xp Modern Armour and a 0xp Anti-Tank Gun are equally matched. Granted, the Modern Armour gets more mileage out of its promotions, given that half of the AT Gun's power comes from its ability instead of its base strength, but at such a major cost difference, AT Guns still remain strategically competitive. You're building almost one and a half guns for every tank the enemy builds, and they don't cost any strategic resources either so if you've got the income to spare, you could easily stock up on AT Guns to ensure swift turnover of wounded or destroyed units in wartime. As time progresses, its role does become more limited, but I'd say that AT Guns never truly go obsolete, if only because of how you can keep throwing them at enemy tanks and still come out on top in terms of production per surviving unit power.

Helicopter Gunships aren't as all-around useful, but then again they aren't the panacea of armoured warfare that some people might claim they are. They have their role, but just throwing them straight at enemies isn't going to work in-game or in the real world. They are support units, quick-reaction troops, aerial scouts; they excel at wounding or finishing off enemy tanks, then retreating to safety, wherever that may be. They can be used to scout fairly deep behind enemy lines, and return to safety in the same turn. They can pick off vulnerable units, circle around the front lines to attack artillery and the like, go rampaging across enemy territory burning and pillaging far from the actual battle zone. and withdraw when the enemy sends units after them. It's true that the Mobile SAM is a hard counter to the Gunship, but you're not going to send a Knight to attack a Pikeman in a forest, are you? With its low movement rate, if you stay far enough away from the enemy's roads and railroads, SAMs pose pretty much zero threat. Air cover does remain a problem, unless you have absolute air superiority, but that's possibly the biggest direct weakness Gunships have. They're still capable of going toe-to-toe with Modern Armour too; it doesn't matter if the enemy has a Military Academy and gives his tanks some promotions right off the bat, because at that point, you should have those too and you can just cancel out enemy promotions with your own. A few Helicopter Gunship patrols will easily give you much more advanced warning of an impending attack than a plane with Air Recon can. A handful of them would not go amiss in any army.

Of course, this is all just theoretical, and I'm tired because I've been up for really far too long so I'm literally falling asleep in my chair, so forgive me if I rambled incoherently in that big blob of text up there, I'm not really in a condition to properly proofread it right now. Suffice to say that the AT Gun packs a damn mean punch for its almost hilariously low cost, even against Modern Armour, and Gunships excel in a support role. They're both more specialised than their predecessors are, leaning naturally towards certain ways of being used, but they're by no means obsolete. At least, in my opinion. YMM(AW)V.

[Moon]

Agree on anti-tank unit, but not on lancers or gunships.
Both of them are great scouts with their high movement, and this also means they're often the best choice for pillaging undefended territory and roads.
Gunships with their 6 (usually more) is the best land recon unit around. This allows you to (obviously) scout enemy lines, potentially behind them, and spot for bombers and other long range units.
I think you did overlook some great adventages of those units, maybe you shouldn't stick to the idea of "hard-counters" - units aren't so black&white in this game.

[abonamente]

These units work better than anything else in certain roles, which makes them kind of spec-ops units, able to save your hide in certain circumstances, or support your assault/siege units.

Given their mobility, I send lancers ahead, get line of sight, bombard the city, get out (a slower unit would stay in place and likely be destroyed the next turn). And while I'm at it, I pillage, on my way out. Knights or chivalry units might atempt to track them down and ask them why would they do such a thing, but the lancers have this covered. It is also good to have one such unit back home to harass the enemy units trying to mount a counterattack through the undefended positions on a long frontline, then retreat to the city at risk and help with the defence until reinforcements arrive.

The AT guns are generally as good as the infantry, having a bonus against tanks. Supported by a couple of AA guns, good line of defenders in front of the siege artillery, while in march.

The helicopters are pretty much the only defence against the robots when you are low on uranium and cannot build/buy/send quickly your own robots where you need them. And it is better to tear down the robots with helicopters anyway, than slowing down the assault: your own robots are tough, but they are expensive (uranium) and need a long time to recover when they are wounded. The ability to attack then retreat over mountains, making way for other units in narrow spaces, comes in handy both while attacking or defending.

So I don't find that line of upgrades particularly weak, these units serve well in their roles. The problem is they originate in pikeman units. Which, at some point, might form the spine of your army. In this case, if you choose to upgrade, you are basically left with no army, have to rebuild it from scratch. And you don't need that many special operations units, anyway. Why pay for the upgrade, then pay maintenance and never actually use most of them? I believe this is the really annoying part, which generates all the complaints (mine included). Having to disband my veteran pikemen is such a heartbreaker :) So I prefer not to. I always go with Oligarchy, so having cheap pikemen in cities even in the atomic era gives those cities a very important bonus in range strength. If I chose to pursue the Honor tree too, then it is even better: garrisoned pikemen give me culture and happiness for free (remember Oligarchy). On a huge map, when I have dozens of cities, I keep them in areas less exposed. That allows me to rebuild my army as I expand, then upgrade those units in time, one by one, as needed, and send them forth. This workaround doesn't fit well other settings though, and that particular lineage is still quite annoying.

[Twelvefield]

That is an excellent point: there is a big difference between building a helo or an AT gun versus upgrading through the chain to get them. By upgrading, you do bypass the more versatile offense-oriented part of the tech tree at a heavy cost to get units that are very specialized. I don't think I have ever upgraded a unit into a gunship. If I need an AT gun or a helo, I just build them from scratch. Hopefully, I will have barracks, etc. enough to give them an XP boost to give them early promotions.

I think here may be the issue: promoting defensive units from accumulated experience points means that you are being attacked a lot. Promoting offensive units means you are doing the attacking. Most players would prefer to attack much of the time, since that gives you the initiative in the war. There are times when you can play a Spartan defense and let the stupid AI suicide its units one at a time againt your citadel, but normally you won't have a dozen defensive units covering that one spot. You would just have 1-3 defensive units holding strong ground. Your pikemen in the citadel might upgrade quite rapidly, but your pikemen garrisoning Back Forty City would never see any action, and it would not be very useful to upgrade them later.

I sedom get those Spartan defenses in my games, though, and I prefer a mobile offensive army over a Maginot Line.

[gnorf73]

Man these forums are a goldmine of information for a new player. You guys are great. I really have nothing to add besides a +1.

[[WAR] Larknok1]

Originally posted by Twelvefield:

Anti tank units aren't much good for anything but fighting tanks. They should have roughly the equal lethal range as a machine gun, since you have to be close to hit a tank properly. An AT gun is not a BVR weapon. Self-propelled AT guns that had stopping power are also a recent invention, so giving them a 3 hex movement would make them too powerful. Essentially, a SAM in Civ is more or less a self-propelled AT gun in the game which can also shoot down aircraft and happens to be good at killing troops as well. If you're going to spam a modern unit, spam the SAM.

You forget that the helo cannot traverse water, making a simple lake the ultimate word in helicopter defense. If anything, the helo should have a ranged attack and the AT gun should be a melee.

There is no denying that the lancer-AT-helo branch of the tech tree is weak. Even more fun with the Ottoman Sipahi, one of their UU's, which feeds directly into that branch.

As I pointed out earlier, AT guns aren't even good at killing tanks. They cannot hunt them down, so their effectiveness relies completely on the enemy simply not having anything to throw at them BUT tanks.

Also, remember that my suggestions were either: 3 hex movement + 10 strength, OR 1 range attack (like a machine gunner.)

And no, neither of these would make the AT too powerful. It would make it usable, but nowhere near the best choice. Tanks, for example, still have 70 strength and 5 movement. 60 strength and 3 movement still won't *really* be able to compare. Nor would a ranged anti-tank unit with 50 strength and 2 movement.

The truth is, in game design, if a hard counter cannot do anything except counter -- even if it does this job well -- it is still a useless unit/card/game piece. This is because the entire offensive plan of a hard-counter is fundamentally inoffensive. Offense wins games in Civ 5. Not defense. (This is true for every victory condition.)

The SAM is a mobile land carrier auto-equipped with a fighter on permanent intercept, also capable of moving and attacking units with melee that turn. Now don't get me wrong, I love what the devs have done with the SAM -- allowing it a solid Melee attack was a great step in the right direction. It's nice to see armies lugging along a double medic SAM because actually combining different units is profitable now.

What the comparison between the SAM and the Gunship was supposed to point out is how crazy it is that this support anti-air interceptor is more offensively capable than a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ assault helicopter loaded with hellfire missiles and a 30mm cannon.

[[WAR] Larknok1]

Originally posted by Strategia:

I will admit up front that I am not a high-level player. That said, I do think the AT Gun and Gunship have their roles.

AT Guns and Tanks interact pretty much like they did in real-world history. Tanks are all-around dominant offensive weapons, while anti-tank guns are almost purely defensive, at least tactically. Tanks have the speed, the armour and the firepower to go up against almost anything else one-on-one and utterly beat the crap out of them. One downside of tanks, however, in-game, is that they don't get any defensive terrain bonuses. Anti-tank guns on the other hand have the firepower, but they lack the armour to withstand direct combat with other units for very long and the speed to keep up with tank maneuvers. Therefore, it is hard to truly use AT Guns offensively, at least in comparison to tanks. Infantry has the same speed problem, but it is more versatile all-round. It is still possible to go on the attack with AT Guns, but where they can truly become a menace is defence. They have as much direct combat strength as Great War Infantry, and this is further compounded by the defensive terrain bonuses it receives. Rough terrain slows down tanks, and provides AT Guns with good locations to set up for the defence. Clever placement allows you to lay down a continuous zone of control, meaning any tanks that try to pass through WILL open themselves up to attack, where they do not get any inherent defensive bonuses, meaning AT Guns will maul them, especially Tanks proper (Landships even more so, if you have that much of a tech lead somehow.) Attacking the guns in their defensive positions is risky for any melee unit, and ranged units run the risk of counterattacks from enemy ranged units, airplanes, or quick-reaction forces, and attacking them with tanks is out of the question entirely. Even a handful of AT Guns, with the right setup, can slow down or outright stall a significant enemy armoured force. Cost-wise, they're also surprisingly efficient; going off the wiki, they cost 300 hammers to build on normal speed. Great War Infantry, with the same base strength, costs 320. Tanks and Infantry cost 375, and Modern Armour a whopping 425, almost one and a half times as much - and with a base strength of 100, a 0xp Modern Armour and a 0xp Anti-Tank Gun are equally matched. Granted, the Modern Armour gets more mileage out of its promotions, given that half of the AT Gun's power comes from its ability instead of its base strength, but at such a major cost difference, AT Guns still remain strategically competitive. You're building almost one and a half guns for every tank the enemy builds, and they don't cost any strategic resources either so if you've got the income to spare, you could easily stock up on AT Guns to ensure swift turnover of wounded or destroyed units in wartime. As time progresses, its role does become more limited, but I'd say that AT Guns never truly go obsolete, if only because of how you can keep throwing them at enemy tanks and still come out on top in terms of production per surviving unit power.

Helicopter Gunships aren't as all-around useful, but then again they aren't the panacea of armoured warfare that some people might claim they are. They have their role, but just throwing them straight at enemies isn't going to work in-game or in the real world. They are support units, quick-reaction troops, aerial scouts; they excel at wounding or finishing off enemy tanks, then retreating to safety, wherever that may be. They can be used to scout fairly deep behind enemy lines, and return to safety in the same turn. They can pick off vulnerable units, circle around the front lines to attack artillery and the like, go rampaging across enemy territory burning and pillaging far from the actual battle zone. and withdraw when the enemy sends units after them. It's true that the Mobile SAM is a hard counter to the Gunship, but you're not going to send a Knight to attack a Pikeman in a forest, are you? With its low movement rate, if you stay far enough away from the enemy's roads and railroads, SAMs pose pretty much zero threat. Air cover does remain a problem, unless you have absolute air superiority, but that's possibly the biggest direct weakness Gunships have. They're still capable of going toe-to-toe with Modern Armour too; it doesn't matter if the enemy has a Military Academy and gives his tanks some promotions right off the bat, because at that point, you should have those too and you can just cancel out enemy promotions with your own. A few Helicopter Gunship patrols will easily give you much more advanced warning of an impending attack than a plane with Air Recon can. A handful of them would not go amiss in any army.

Of course, this is all just theoretical, and I'm tired because I've been up for really far too long so I'm literally falling asleep in my chair, so forgive me if I rambled incoherently in that big blob of text up there, I'm not really in a condition to properly proofread it right now. Suffice to say that the AT Gun packs a damn mean punch for its almost hilariously low cost, even against Modern Armour, and Gunships excel in a support role. They're both more specialised than their predecessors are, leaning naturally towards certain ways of being used, but they're by no means obsolete. At least, in my opinion. YMM(AW)V.

That's just the problem: when you posit that a melee piece is only "defensive," you're saying that it's actually terrible in Civ 5. Not only is the anti-tank gun incapable of defending with ranged attacks like the superior alternatives: bazooka and machine gunner, but it CANNOT MATCH THESE RANGED UNITS IN MELEE. Moreover, when you say that you intend to be on defense, you are saying 2 things in Civ 5:

1) That you are losing the game. (Offensive play wins, and this holds true for all victory conditions.)
And 2) That all military melee engagements will be decided upon by the aggressor against you. Do you really think they're going to target your anti-tank guns with tanks? Think again.

And no, you *cannot* go on the offensive with the anti-tank gun. Not against any AI above Emperor or any good human player you can't. Having the lowest strength of any 2 movement melee only unit makes sure of that.

Just to give a little bit more perspective on the anti-tank gun: the machine gunner, in every possible circumstance, is better than it. Even against its so-called "counter," a free 60 ranged strength hit from a machine gunner is a far better bet than losing half your health to do about the same to a tank.

The production difference also really doesn't mean anything. It is effectively like saying that you can get 10 inferior units in some time t, during which you could have gotten 8 superior units.

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"They have their role, but just throwing them straight at enemies isn't going to work in-game or in the real world."

I am not asking that the helicopter gunship be realistic here. I am asking that it be *useful.* There's a reason they added Xcoms and buffed the GDR and the SAM. These are game re-balances. They change around what can and cannot be used. I will make no argument that the gunship is unrealistic in game -- beyond of course, the fact that mobile SAMs do more effective damage to every non-tank land unit.

My issue is this: let's say you want recon in Civ 5. Go Modern Armor. You get a persistent unit that won't die on you in two seconds, has only one movement less than the gunship, can make use of roads/railroads to get deep into enemy territory easily, and can survive more than one turn to pillage and heal. If that's no enough recon for you, paradrop in a few paratroopers and let them wreak havoc behind lines.

Now let's say you want a powerful frontline killer in Civ 5. Once again, go Modern Armor. The ability to move after combat + a powerful 100 strength makes this bad boy unstoppable in combat.

Now let's say you want to take enemy cities in one turn after bombing them -- oh that's right, let's use the Modern Armor again.

See a problem? The tanks rule this game, and their only real counter is terrible at its only niche job. There is *nothing* to lose by giving the gunship 75-80 strength. All that will happen is that armies will start to have a mix of infantry, SAM units, a gunship or two, and two to three tanks -- like it should be. As it is right now, armies are comprised of six+ tanks and a SAM with double medic.

Moreover, it would only necessitate the use of the helicopter gunship's counters -- giving them a little more use. The Fighter Jet in particular would see a little more use.

[[WAR] Larknok1]

Originally posted by noivoieidoi:

These units work better than anything else in certain roles, which makes them kind of spec-ops units, able to save your hide in certain circumstances, or support your assault/siege units.

This is not true for the anti-tank gun, as I have pointed out in a previous comment response that a machine-gunner (necessarily accessible one tech prior) -- will be better in every possible engagement.

Originally posted by noivoieidoi:

The AT guns are generally as good as the infantry, having a bonus against tanks. Supported by a couple of AA guns, good line of defenders in front of the siege artillery, while in march.

This is not true either. The AT gun is going to be too little power too late to be any use on the offensive. Plus, there is no good reason to favor AT guns on the offensive over the machine-gunner, or hell-- the tank itself.

Originally posted by noivoieidoi:

The helicopters are pretty much the only defence against the robots when you are low on uranium and cannot build/buy/send quickly your own robots where you need them. And it is better to tear down the robots with helicopters anyway, than slowing down the assault: your own robots are tough, but they are expensive (uranium) and need a long time to recover when they are wounded. The ability to attack then retreat over mountains, making way for other units in narrow spaces, comes in handy both while attacking or defending.

This is simply not true as the game currently stands. -- For the same production/aluminum cost that you could have put into a stealth bomber or a fighter, you get a melee unit which, given two anti-armored promotions -- is capable of having *only* an equal strength footing with GDRs. I would take an anti-ground stealth bomber over that any day of the week.

Originally posted by noivoieidoi:

So I don't find that line of upgrades particularly weak, these units serve well in their roles.

The truth is, the anti-tank gun and the gunship *have no roles* in games where you actually want to win, because everything that they do is done better by some other unit given their production costs, strengths, and the techs at which they are respectively introduced. Anti-tank? Get bombers or your own tanks. Recon? Tanks will more than suffice, and will actually survive too.

[Trip Fisk]

there's too much to read, but if people are saying the units meant to be purely offensive (mounted & armor) and the ones meant to be purely defensive (anti-mounted & anti-armor) suck too much and are complete garbage while the units meant to be middle of the road/common fodder are way too strong and the game is in desperate need of rebalancing unit strength...

you're absolutely 100% right.

its almost pointless to build tanks and anti-tank units. Infantry is accessed so much earlier than tanks proper and they're the same exact strength. tanks, the traditional butt kickers in the civ series, are so wimpy in this game. they've basically been reduced to fast foot soldiers.

helicopters shouldn't be weaker than infantry either.

There's almost no point to building armor or anti-armor as early as cavalry and lancers they're that pathetic. The only benefit their moves/turn.

[thedUWUmslayer]

THE TEXT WAAAAALLLLSSSSS.....THEY'RE EVERYWHEREEEEEEEEE! Seriously. This thread is nothing BUT text walls! My eyes. They burn.

[VDZ]

Originally posted by larknok1:

1) That you are losing the game. (Offensive play wins, and this holds true for all victory conditions.)

And here is the reason you dislike these units. With your playing style, defensive play is apparently not a viable strategy. However, with different playing styles, especially ones focusing on having only a single city, defensive play can work very well. Fighting at your own borders gives you several advantages, not least of which is the ability to manipulate the enemy's movement into your territory. It frequently leads to the enemy spending more units than he can kill, and it's a lot easier for you to re-create the units than it is for them to move them all the way back to your territory.

I never use anti-tank guns so I can't say much about them (I prefer using the units from the upper part of the tech tree since I'm getting them anyways when I'm boosting my science/economy/etc), but the way you're thinking about the Gunships is just completely wrong. Although there are some exceptions, in general, helicopters are NOT for engaging enemies. Technically speaking they are military units, but so are Scouts. The Helicopter is a 6-movement, no terrain cost unit with the additional abilities to restrict enemy movement and pillage. It also happens to put up a fight when attacked; not to destroy enemy units, but to keep itself from being destroyed.

It's true that they're worthless if you're playing a purely offensive strategy and your entire army is already well inside enemy borders, but all of the units you mentioned are far more useful for self-defense.

[Trip Fisk]

Originally posted by VDZ:

but the way you're thinking about the Gunships is just completely wrong. Although there are some exceptions, in general, helicopters are NOT for engaging enemies. Technically speaking they are military units, but so are Scouts. The Helicopter is a 6-movement, no terrain cost unit with the additional abilities to restrict enemy movement and pillage. It also happens to put up a fight when attacked; not to destroy enemy units, but to keep itself from being destroyed.

dude, what are you talking about? the helicopters are intended to be the late game top of the line anti-armor units. they're 10 points weaker than infantry. They get horribly messed up if they attack once. They get horribly messed if if they get attacked once. They get killed easily.

They get an awesome movement rate (with a catch: no road/railroad benefit) with the ability to cross mountains, but that's it. They stink even at what they're supposed to be really good at which is killing tanks.

they also stink at scouting since by that time, you usually have the entire map revealed anyhow. They're not good for surveilance since aircraft always show you what's going on 8 or so tiles away from where they're stationed.

the only use I've found for the helicopters was to give them the medic promotion and send them along side better units. Maybe even sending them over to an enemy resource to plunder. That's about all they're good for. They're complete garbage compared to other units that do the same things better and earlier.

[Trip Fisk]

actually, you know what would fix helicopter gunships is if they were made ranged units.

bazookas are ranged. and those don't really shoot that far IRL. gunships shoot the same things but bigger, badder, farther, and more accurately.

helicopter gunships would be *AWESOME* defensive units if that happened.

[Mashsmouth]

Holy lord... The walls of text...

Anyway, I support this. I hate when my entire ancient era army must either be destroyed or end up as helicopters :|