Rebalancing Civ4: RtR Mod

[Krill]

So Krill, Seven has a point about the uselessness of swords, but maybe take it further...baselined 7 strength, Praetorians get free Shock?

Simple answer (because I don't want to write 2K words on this topic), but the stronger swords become, the harder it is generally to take cities simply because leaving swords in cities they become immoveable objects. I'm not sure about the uselessness part though; I think that's down to the fact that IW has to be avoided in favour of other techs more than the sword itself. After all, jungle is ignored for as long as possible except for resources (and IW is often researched only once Calendar is the next tech).

I think that the best options would be something around making IW cheaper and potentially giving swords a buff along the lines of march or something; strength 7 means that they will murder HA on defence (and S6 is enough to lead to a blood bath as well). The solution Seven used in ToW with C1 is fine there but that's because of trait changes, here it's not really possible.

I don't think that giving C1, C2 or other promotions actually makes the swords any more viable, simply because it doesn't change the fact that HA still fit every other role.

[Dhalphir]

Why not give swords free CR1 and CR2? Could that work?

[Krill]

What, to waddle through enemy culture and still get destroyed by axes or HA?

[Dhalphir]

I was thinking more to make it worthwhile to include a couple in your stack to go up against archers in cities.

[Krill]

They already are worthwhile to include in a stack as bulk defenders.

[WilliamLP]

Do the best players ever build a single sword? (Ever?)

For stack defense, what situations are two swords better than an axe and a spear combined? (Ignoring that they're more expensive and need a tech detour.) Am I missing something?

If you're worried about defense against HAs being too easy, aren't elephants (far superior for this) at a similar level of tech, and on a path that you often want to go for soon anyway?

It feels like even if swords have a brief period of utility they are absolute trash as soon as any medieval units show up. Longbows seem superior for literally everything, and maces and crossbows make them look ridiculous. Even the lowly axe and spear seem to have more purpose at this point. (The axe is better for protecting mounted stacks against spears and pikes, the spear for being beef fortified in cities with high culture).

Making them viable would be unbalancing though, by definition, and would change the game because the current balance seems to be to pretend they don't exist.

[Krill]

Elephants are rarer due to cost (60 hammers!) and don't get tile defence. Strength 7 units in a 40% city defend at 11.55 ignoring hills or promotions; the WE is still at 7, 10.5 against HA. Swords at 40 hammers are easier to produce.

Swords are generally underrated because they scale better from %age modifiers like promotions, fortification and culture than axes or spears, and they do perform better whilst damaged in those scenarios (whereas a spear and to a lesser extent the axe can be taken down for the cost of a single HA in a lot of scenarios). Spears are actually fairly trash in comparison, they are better suited for use in the field on flatland because of the integral +100% against mounted.

The longbow is generally more useful because of the opportunity to take CD promotions and the hill bonus, but it does come at a rather expensive tech and is still more expensive than the sword. Look at that more as a problem of tech path than the unit though: If IW is so much cheaper and provides a unit that does the same job but cheaper, why do people ignore it and get Fuedalism? It's because the role the sword fills isn't needed at T60 but is needed after T120, so IW is ignored early on and later Fuedalism gives enough other benefits that it is worth researching by that point in the game.

If swords were given greater utility and ability to scale into the mediaeval era that'd probably be a perfectly good implementation of a buff, it's just finding what that buff is and getting it to not break earlier combat. March, bonuses against melee, archery units, cost problems, tech path issues...those would be viable changes in some combination, but not a strength increase.

[Commodore]

So clearly:

Mildly buffs vs. melee, helps with city defense, but doesn't lead to anything else.

Or, maybe:


March might work too; they need something.

[NobleHelium]

Yes, swordsmen need Ambush and Interception 2, clearly.

[SevenSpirits]

Swords are generally underrated because they scale better from %age modifiers like promotions, fortification and culture than axes or spears, and they do perform better whilst damaged in those scenarios (whereas a spear and to a lesser extent the axe can be taken down for the cost of a single HA in a lot of scenarios). Spears are actually fairly trash in comparison, they are better suited for use in the field on flatland because of the integral +100% against mounted.

This is starting to exaggerate a bit. First - being damaged affects swords and spears equally. It's a percentage modifier that independent of other modifiers. Second - in order for a sword to be superior to a spear against a mounted unit, your total net bonuses need to be over 100%. E.g.:

25% fortified unit in a walled hill city has +100% defense. That puts a spear at strength 12 vs mounted units, and a sword also at strength 12. But add shock to the mounted unit? Now net defense bonus is only 75% and the spear is strength 11 while the sword is strength 10.5. It takes extreme circumstances for a sword to ever be a better defender against mounted than a spear.

Swords' high base strength and nonreliance on fighting a specific unit type are useful in a couple situations, sure. They are OK city defenders, not because they are better than spears against mounted (they rarely are), but because they are a bit better vs non-mounted units. (However, they are still kind of lame vs axes, and this is their main problem.) In particular, the high base strength is useful for defending coastal cities against amphibious attacks, since you get a massive defense bonus in that case. They are also good attackers after catapults. But this is a case where you could have just used horse archers like Krill intended.

March would be a fine ability to give them, since it diversifies their abilities beyond the ironic (given their city attack ability) city defense role a bit more. But giving it as an upgrade would worry me - I think march is pretty strong and I'd be worried that mass swordsman upgrades + a supermedic become a major thing.