Crossbows
Why have crossbows been changed? There is a short answer, long answer, and I’m pretty sure there is also a nonsensical answer as well.
The answer is straightforward: Nerf to China, if they are no longer unique in having access to collateral Xbows, and merely have “better” and easier to access Xbows.
The long answer is somewhat convoluted but it’s based off changes to Castles and the workshop hammer on Engineering, concern that Machinery is starting to become too much of a one size fits all tech choice, difficulty with naval invasions (of all descriptions, not just attempts to raze coastal cities, capture islands, but also taking and holding a beachhead), the naval changes, and the Xbow crowding out the role of the Longbow. And the CKN enabling strategies that no other civ can follow that are…stronger.
There are two scenarios where Xbows will have major changes to the game IMO: attacks off boats into cities (no other unit provides collateral as siege can’t attack off boats), and in SoD v SoD battles. I’ll go through the SoD battle effects first.
The main concern seems to be that as Xbows provide collateral, they can both replace catapults in SoD stacks, and supplement what catapults are already present in a defenders stack (defender being the invaded player who has cultural control of the area being fought in). I’m not sure why or how this is considered a problem: A strength 6 unit that can take combat promotions will occasionally get odds on other units in SoD stacks when catapults will not, and the Xbow can therefore kill a unit that a catapult would probably die to, but…this is actually a narrow range. After knights exist, and then muskets, collateral units are going to die before an SoD is down in health to a range where Xbows can kill and live, and as WE now require Construction/HBR/IW/Iron, then really the Xbow never has a position in the game where it will just straight up kill a stack by itself. Then the Xbow hits 4 units total (1 attacked, 3 collateral) and the catapult hits 6 (1 attacked, 5 collateral), plus the Cat can do more damage to actual units. And you need catapults for cultural defense, so a player needs catapults around anyway to be able to turn a decisive win on defence into an effective offensive attack. So I don’t think it’s fair to say that Xbows replace catapults in SoD combat.
Do Xbows supplement cats? Well…collateral can be wasted, if catapults have already dropped units below the damage that Xbows can do, and if the collateral drops onto units that you have odds on, it can cost you XP (ie if the Xbow collateral hits catapults and you have units in hand to clean up the cats anyway, do you want it?) So if there are “too many” catapults used, Xbows can be superfluous. So there is this narrow range where swapping over to from cats to Xbows can kill a few units and the collateral matters, but I don’t think it’s always useful.
What about smaller stacks? 4 through 8 units? Not a true SoD, but what happens if an invader hits brings a stack of this size into your culture? Do Xbows change the calculus at all? I think this is a straightforward “Yes”, but only in the sense that it probably means you figure out how many cats you need to make the stack killable, and then swap the last one or two cats you would use for Xbows. But even then it depends on terrain, what units are available. It makes it a good idea to keep Xbows as city defenders so you have the flexibility (which is where to concern for the longbow comes in).
With naval operations: The Xbow is the only unit that can provide collateral off a boat, but it does not exist in the ancient era. It requires Machinery and Construction. The Xbow starts to be buildable just as players are reaching for Optics and Caravels or an Astro bulb plan; a GE rushed Machinery does not give access any more. You still need iron (and usually IW) and now also need Construction, so that’s Maths, Masonry and Construction. Realistically, the Xbow exists in a world where every player can build war elephants; every player can make amphibious war elephants if they want to invest in the civics and buildings.
What this means is that the idea of Xbows marauding off 4 move galleys, crashing into archers in small little 20% culture defence cities is not reasonable. Crashing into CG2 longbows behind walls is the more reasonable scenario, softening them up for CR2 or C2/Amphib swords and maces. Or the stack of galleys, carrying hundreds of hammers worth of units, run into fast triremes and get sent to the bottom of the ocean, that’s also reasonable. Or find that players have built castles in coastal cities for 100% defensive bonuses that you can’t strip away without landing siege.
The increased tech cost of enabling Xbows gives players significantly more time to produce naval defenses including a navy, or putting in trade route enabling Castles that don’t obsolete until Corporation. Engineering is now a worthwhile beeline target because it also opens up the additional workshop hammer, whereas Guilds doesn’t. Xbows can be used on defense, they can take CG. Even with collateral, Xbows max out at causing 40hp worth of damage. A 60hp Xbow with CG2 behind a castle with fort has 170% defense bonus against Xbows, and the melee bonus wipes out the swords innate city attack bonus. And then there are the benefits of promoting longbows up the drill line for less collateral damage, and it is easy to see that there are methods of defense against Xbows off boats.
The important thing to keep in mind is this: Yes, the Xbow now gives collateral. It requires more tech than the CKN, it hits fewer units with collateral than a CKN, can do much less collateral damage in total to each unit than a CKN, and has fewer free strikes than a CKN. Because it requires more tech, it leaves a niche for the longbow (just grab Feudalism for a basic strength 6 city defender).
At no point does the base Xbow do anything that China couldn’t already do. The Xbow changes do not open up new strategies that have never been available before: anything the Xbow can do, the CKN can do better. The Xbow changes enable all of the other civs to do something similar, not better, and not new.
If this game highlights players losing coastal cities due to raids from Xbows off faster galleys, that is not an issue with the Xbow. It will be an issue with naval mechanics (and, I’ll just state this now, probably to do with players making mistakes because they don’t under those mechanics). But this is another reason why the Xbow has changed: it does allow players to be punished for not defending coastal cities. It is easier to fit collateral and hitters onto limited boat transport capacity so it is possible to run around and take lightly defended islands, but it is not enough to take cities that have good defenses. And those defenses have been made, not so much more accessible, but less economically damaging to put in place.
All that said: if there are problems with fast galleys being a pain to deal with, but the later era boats are OK, we can just nerf the galley to have a base 0 movement points but start with Navigation 1 and 2, so it caps out at 3 movement with circumnavigation. Then leave the trireme at 1 base MP and start with Navigation 1, and triremes should be able to run down galleys and provide a better naval defense. Might have to change the tech requirements for triremes to something like Maths, Sailing and IW rather than MC though.
Why have crossbows been changed? There is a short answer, long answer, and I’m pretty sure there is also a nonsensical answer as well.
The answer is straightforward: Nerf to China, if they are no longer unique in having access to collateral Xbows, and merely have “better” and easier to access Xbows.
The long answer is somewhat convoluted but it’s based off changes to Castles and the workshop hammer on Engineering, concern that Machinery is starting to become too much of a one size fits all tech choice, difficulty with naval invasions (of all descriptions, not just attempts to raze coastal cities, capture islands, but also taking and holding a beachhead), the naval changes, and the Xbow crowding out the role of the Longbow. And the CKN enabling strategies that no other civ can follow that are…stronger.
There are two scenarios where Xbows will have major changes to the game IMO: attacks off boats into cities (no other unit provides collateral as siege can’t attack off boats), and in SoD v SoD battles. I’ll go through the SoD battle effects first.
The main concern seems to be that as Xbows provide collateral, they can both replace catapults in SoD stacks, and supplement what catapults are already present in a defenders stack (defender being the invaded player who has cultural control of the area being fought in). I’m not sure why or how this is considered a problem: A strength 6 unit that can take combat promotions will occasionally get odds on other units in SoD stacks when catapults will not, and the Xbow can therefore kill a unit that a catapult would probably die to, but…this is actually a narrow range. After knights exist, and then muskets, collateral units are going to die before an SoD is down in health to a range where Xbows can kill and live, and as WE now require Construction/HBR/IW/Iron, then really the Xbow never has a position in the game where it will just straight up kill a stack by itself. Then the Xbow hits 4 units total (1 attacked, 3 collateral) and the catapult hits 6 (1 attacked, 5 collateral), plus the Cat can do more damage to actual units. And you need catapults for cultural defense, so a player needs catapults around anyway to be able to turn a decisive win on defence into an effective offensive attack. So I don’t think it’s fair to say that Xbows replace catapults in SoD combat.
Do Xbows supplement cats? Well…collateral can be wasted, if catapults have already dropped units below the damage that Xbows can do, and if the collateral drops onto units that you have odds on, it can cost you XP (ie if the Xbow collateral hits catapults and you have units in hand to clean up the cats anyway, do you want it?) So if there are “too many” catapults used, Xbows can be superfluous. So there is this narrow range where swapping over to from cats to Xbows can kill a few units and the collateral matters, but I don’t think it’s always useful.
What about smaller stacks? 4 through 8 units? Not a true SoD, but what happens if an invader hits brings a stack of this size into your culture? Do Xbows change the calculus at all? I think this is a straightforward “Yes”, but only in the sense that it probably means you figure out how many cats you need to make the stack killable, and then swap the last one or two cats you would use for Xbows. But even then it depends on terrain, what units are available. It makes it a good idea to keep Xbows as city defenders so you have the flexibility (which is where to concern for the longbow comes in).
With naval operations: The Xbow is the only unit that can provide collateral off a boat, but it does not exist in the ancient era. It requires Machinery and Construction. The Xbow starts to be buildable just as players are reaching for Optics and Caravels or an Astro bulb plan; a GE rushed Machinery does not give access any more. You still need iron (and usually IW) and now also need Construction, so that’s Maths, Masonry and Construction. Realistically, the Xbow exists in a world where every player can build war elephants; every player can make amphibious war elephants if they want to invest in the civics and buildings.
What this means is that the idea of Xbows marauding off 4 move galleys, crashing into archers in small little 20% culture defence cities is not reasonable. Crashing into CG2 longbows behind walls is the more reasonable scenario, softening them up for CR2 or C2/Amphib swords and maces. Or the stack of galleys, carrying hundreds of hammers worth of units, run into fast triremes and get sent to the bottom of the ocean, that’s also reasonable. Or find that players have built castles in coastal cities for 100% defensive bonuses that you can’t strip away without landing siege.
The increased tech cost of enabling Xbows gives players significantly more time to produce naval defenses including a navy, or putting in trade route enabling Castles that don’t obsolete until Corporation. Engineering is now a worthwhile beeline target because it also opens up the additional workshop hammer, whereas Guilds doesn’t. Xbows can be used on defense, they can take CG. Even with collateral, Xbows max out at causing 40hp worth of damage. A 60hp Xbow with CG2 behind a castle with fort has 170% defense bonus against Xbows, and the melee bonus wipes out the swords innate city attack bonus. And then there are the benefits of promoting longbows up the drill line for less collateral damage, and it is easy to see that there are methods of defense against Xbows off boats.
The important thing to keep in mind is this: Yes, the Xbow now gives collateral. It requires more tech than the CKN, it hits fewer units with collateral than a CKN, can do much less collateral damage in total to each unit than a CKN, and has fewer free strikes than a CKN. Because it requires more tech, it leaves a niche for the longbow (just grab Feudalism for a basic strength 6 city defender).
At no point does the base Xbow do anything that China couldn’t already do. The Xbow changes do not open up new strategies that have never been available before: anything the Xbow can do, the CKN can do better. The Xbow changes enable all of the other civs to do something similar, not better, and not new.
If this game highlights players losing coastal cities due to raids from Xbows off faster galleys, that is not an issue with the Xbow. It will be an issue with naval mechanics (and, I’ll just state this now, probably to do with players making mistakes because they don’t under those mechanics). But this is another reason why the Xbow has changed: it does allow players to be punished for not defending coastal cities. It is easier to fit collateral and hitters onto limited boat transport capacity so it is possible to run around and take lightly defended islands, but it is not enough to take cities that have good defenses. And those defenses have been made, not so much more accessible, but less economically damaging to put in place.
All that said: if there are problems with fast galleys being a pain to deal with, but the later era boats are OK, we can just nerf the galley to have a base 0 movement points but start with Navigation 1 and 2, so it caps out at 3 movement with circumnavigation. Then leave the trireme at 1 base MP and start with Navigation 1, and triremes should be able to run down galleys and provide a better naval defense. Might have to change the tech requirements for triremes to something like Maths, Sailing and IW rather than MC though.
