AU mod: The Jaguar Warrior

[alexman]

The problem

C3C increased the cost of the Jaguar Warrior from 10 to 15 shields. This was done in response to the MP community, where rush strategies using this unit were overpowering.

In single player, especially at higher levels where the AI gets such bonuses that an early attack with a unit of strength 1 is not as feasible, the Jaguar Warrior was not considered unbalanced.

At a cost of 15 shields, the Jaguar Warrior is no longer a worthwhile combat unit, and is used mainly for scouting.

Possible Solutions

• Reduce the cost to 12.
• Add zero-range bombardment capability (since now the unit requires Warrior Code, like Archers)
• Add an extra HP bonus

On the other hand, since the Aztecs can now build Warriors in addition to Jaguar Warriors, maybe they can build their UU for scouting and conventional Warriors for Combat. Also consider that the Chariot, which has identical statistics to the Jaguar Warrior but is wheeled and requires Horses, costs 20 shields. Perhaps it's not necessary to make a change to the Jaguar Warrior after all.

What do you think? Is a change needed for the Aztec UU? Do you have any ideas to improve this unit? please share your views for the AU mod!

[ducki]

Maybe I just like the new feature, but what about just giving it Enslave to Worker, like the Maya's Jav Thrower? Maybe I just like the flavor of the really ancient, especially mesoamerican, civs taking slaves.

It's may just be me, but that might be worth the added expense. (Note: I do not use barb "farming". That, IMO, is exploitive and not in the spirit of the feature.)

[alexman]

Personally, I think the Jaguar Warrior is fine in C3C.
The Aztecs already got a boost from their new Agricultural trait, and since now they can build regular Warriors, their UU certainly doesn't put them at a disadvantage. Use the Jag for scouting, and Warriors for your Swordsman upgrade.

[nbarclay]

The Javelin Thrower's enslave ability is balanced by what is, in the early game, an extremely high cost. That makes the question of how much to use Javelin Throwers for anti-barb defense (and possibly for going after barbarian camps) an interesting strategic choice. Note, especially, the trade-off between building Javelin Throwers to get more slaves and building more or earlier granaries to build native workers faster.

Giving Jaguar Warriors "enslave" ability would be another matter entirely. Their lower cost would make them a lot easier to build early and build often, and their faster movement would let each one cover a wider area in search for barbarians to enslave. Further, Jaguar Warriors are probably the most cost-effective exploration units the Aztecs have, so building at least one or two would be almost a complete no-brainer. That would make the enslave ability in the hands of the Jaguar Warrior too powerful.

At cost 15, I find it very hard to envision situations where using the Jaguar Warrior militarily against another civ would make sense. It could work a bit better than warriors for early settler bops if you happen to have a neighbor that escorts settlers with warriors rather than spearmen, and if you regard an ultra-early war as worth fighting, and if you're willing to accept an ultra-early GA as the price of fighting that war, but that combination seems so esoteric as to be all but irrelevant. Under more normal conditions, a 20-shield archer is essentially always a more cost-effective attacker than a 15-shield JW in fighting another civ.

Similarly, the JW's advantage for perimeter defense against barbs and for going after barb camps would be somewhat questionable. Against a 2hp unit, the JWs ability to retreat would only rarely come into play because for the JW to retreat, the barb would have to be uninjured when the JW gets down to one hit point. Thus, while each JW could cover more territory, using JWs to fight barbs would be a somewhat expensive proposition at cost 15. Moreover, using JWs for that purpose results in fewer cities with a military police in them.

Even for exploration, the advantage of using JWs instead of warriors would be rather map-dependent. On unfavorable terrain, JWs are no faster at exploring than warriors even though they cost one and a half times as much. And even in the best case, the advantage of two JWs over three regular warriors is not huge.

All in all, the JW is a UU that is only barely worth having. Considering the way C3C beefed up the UUs that were traditionally considered questionable - lethal bombard for Hwacha and F-15; enslave for Man-O-War. and a cost reduction for the Gallic Swordsman - I don't view that as a good thing.

At cost 12, the JW would be clearly useful but would still not be anywhere near powerful enough to be regarded as one of the better UUs in the game. I think that would make the balance a lot better.

Zero-range bombard seems totally out of character for a fast-mover that is not touted as having a long-range weapon of any kind. Adding an extra hit point in place of lowering the cost could be an interesting alternative for making the unit's cost/benefit ratio reasonable, but I think reducing the cost would be a more conservative change (especially since it would be moving things back toward how they were in previous versions rather than moving off in a new direction).

Nathan

[Risa]

Oops, double post.

[Risa]

I don't think it need any changes.

If we do need a change to it, I prefer +1 bonus hp. And we should consider the problem of chariot under that situation.

[nbarclay]

Risa (and anyone else who wants to defend the status quo), under what circumstances and to what extent would you use Jaguar Warriors with their current cost and stats? And what difficulty level do you play on?

[Dominae]

Why reinvent the wheel? Jaguar Warriors should either cost 10 or 15 Shields. Any other change would be just for the sake of change.

So, which do we prefer? Personally I would like to see the Jag return to its old version, which was perfectly fine for SP play. This means reintroducing it into the Warrior upgrade chain.


Dominae

[Risa]

Originally posted by nbarclay
Risa (and anyone else who wants to defend the status quo), under what circumstances and to what extent would you use Jaguar Warriors with their current cost and stats? And what difficulty level do you play on?

Any time I want to use chariots. (Yup, that reads "almost never".)

[Nor Me]

Disabling the warrior for the aztecs is more important than it's cost. It would really help the AI starting on the higher difficulty levels if they started with free Jaguars rather than ordinary warriors.

On the lower levels, this would hurt their defense unless we reduce the cost. 12 seems reasonable.

The Aztecs are one of the better civs and certainly don't need improvement. But I don't think this will be too good. If anything, they might be worse as it's harder to avoid an early GA.

[alexman]

At higher levels, I personally don't see any reason for the Aztec AI to be stronger than the other AI, and in any case the early game is not where the AI needs the help.

At lower levels, the AI's first defender build is the cheapest unit, so the higher Jag cost doesn't come into play for defense. Later, they build Spearmen for defense.

[alexman]

Originally posted by nbarclay
Risa (and anyone else who wants to defend the status quo), under what circumstances and to what extent would you use Jaguar Warriors with their current cost and stats? And what difficulty level do you play on?

Scouting is much more imprortant in C3C (especially early scouting for non-expansionist civs who have to scout with their military units before the continent is covered by cultural borders of other civs). Jaguar Warriors give more movement per shield investment.

So I would use Jags mainly for scouting, and of course to start my GA if I need to do so.

This advantage is enough for me. The only reason to change this unit would be if the Aztecs were weak, not because the unit alone is weak. Since this is not the case, I say follow the minimum change philosohy.

[ducki]

return to its old version, which was perfectly fine for SP play

Since the cost increase was mostly a MP balance, I have to agree. Mostly we're doing SP here at AU. Mostly. If it's that big a deal for MP players that use AU, that's just one minor tweak that could be made on an individual user's machine.

For SP, lets return it to the pre-C3C version.

Edit: Yes, this is an about-face on the enslave idea. I'd still like to see a lot more enslavement, as it's a cool feature, but that's probably a bit far from stock/vanilla for AU.

[alexman]

Originally posted by ducki

For SP, lets return it to the pre-C3C version.

Remove the Agricultural trait too?

[ducki]

No, I'm talking unit, not tribe, though another Mil-Rel tribe would be nice, Ag fits the Aztec historically and with such an early, low attack UU, more strength is good,

[alexman]

Sorry, let me explain:

The Agricultural trait is currently the best early-game trait in the game. Much like Industrious was in PTW. Combine that with cheap barracks, and the possibility of an early GA, and the Aztecs have enormous early-game warmongering potential. They don't need a good combat UU on top of that. Can you imagine the PTW Chinese with a useful Ancient UU?

So I think that the fact that the JW was not too strong in PTW should not be a reason for us make a change to the Aztecs in C3C. They are a different civ in C3C. Let's gain some more in-game experience with the Aztecs in C3C, and we can make a change if they need it.

[ducki]

Ah, I gotcha.
From the OP, I assumed it was an "issue".

In fact, I place a lot of faith in the OPs suggesting a unit/tech is worth discussing changes on. My thinking is, if enough folks think it's an issue that it's been posted as worth discussing, then it probably needs changing.

Changing outlook now, sorry for the confusion.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by alexman
The Agricultural trait is currently the best early-game trait in the game. Much like Industrious was in PTW. Combine that with cheap barracks, and the possibility of an early GA, and the Aztecs have enormous early-game warmongering potential. They don't need a good combat UU on top of that. Can you imagine the PTW Chinese with a useful Ancient UU?

You regard the JW as a "good combat UU" even at cost 10? I've always viewed it as weak enough even at cost 10 - and the GA timing associated with its use as painful enough - that I've never had any real interest in playing the Aztecs. (Since I'm not a warmonger, the Aztecs' old Religious/Militarisitc combination didn't interest me nearly as much as it did some others.) It's possible that I'm underestimating the JW due to my lack of experience, but at best, the JW is a one-trick pony that has little military value unless it's used for an ultra-early rush at the expense of REXing. With the cost increase in C3C, it changes from a one-trick pony to, at least on Emperor, a pony with no particularly useful tricks at all from a military perspective.

As for your bringing up China, would China in PtW with the JW have been anything more than the palest shadow of the great power they are with the Rider? It seems to me that most of China's power comes from having a first-tier military UU that comes at a good time, and from the fact that their traits and their UU complement each other well.

I would also note that even for scouting purposes, the JW's advantage is neither large nor reliable at cost 15. On good terrain, two JWs can cover only 4/3 the terrain that three warriors can at equal cost, while on bad terrain, three warriors can actually cover more ground. With the higher cost in C3C, not only does the JW become a joke militarily, but much of the scouting advantage it gave the Aztecs in earlier versions disappears.

At cost 10 or 12, the idea of trying to find ways to parlay the JW's early striking power into a long-term advantage worth delaying a REX over is strategically interesting. But at cost 15, about the only role the JW can play in such a strategy is is as a GA trigger. Thus, I think lowering the cost makes excellent sense from the perspective of adding strategic options to the game.

Nathan

[alexman]

Originally posted by nbarclay

would China in PtW with the JW have been anything more than the palest shadow of the great power they are with the Rider?

China was the best civilization in PTW for an Archer rush. Can you imagine if they were also in a GA as they were producing their Archers? Not to mention a swarm of JW to go with those Archers.

And speaking of the military might of Jaguar Warriors, three of them have much better odds to defeat a spearman than a single Horseman, even though they cost the same.

[nbarclay]

Chances of victory only tell part of the story, since a horseman that wins survives while a group of three JWs that wins is likely to take some losses. To get a clearer picture, I decided to build a test scenario. The results were more or less what I expected: winning isn’t a huge problem for Jaguar Warriors, but the losses taken in the process of winning were considerable. The methodology is as follows:

- Egypt is player 1 and the Aztecs are player 2. I play in hotseat mode. Note that the fact that the enemy is not militaristic works in favor of the Jaguar Warriors because losing battles and having enemies promoted is a vastly bigger problem for them than it is for units with higher attack values.
- Egypt has three stacks of 50 spearmen. In its turn, it builds Thebes and fortifies each stack.
- The Aztecs then attack each stack. One attack force has 300 JWs, one has 100 archers, and one has 100 horsemen.
- All combat is on open grassland (which should have the same defensive value as a town on grassland if I remember correctly).
- The defenders are regular. The attackers are regulars with four hit points (since I don't know how to change the brush to do genuine veterans and changing hundreds of units to veterans after they're placed would be a nightmare). This makes retreat slightly less effective for the horsemen and JWs than it would be with real vets. (That’s a bigger problem for the JWs than for the horsemen because JWs are more likely to need to retreat.)

And here are the results.

Test 1:

Archers: Victory, 30 losses (600 shields lost)
Horsemen: Defeat, 29 losses (870 shields lost), 1 enemy survives with one hit point left.
Jaguar Warriors: Victory, 73 losses (730/876/1095 shields lost).

Test 2:

Archers: Victory, 42 losses (840 shields).
Horsemen: Victory, 19 losses (570 shields).
Jaguar Warriors: Victory, 72 losses (720/864/1080 shields). Egypt got a leader on defense.

Test 3:

Archers: Victory, 30 losses (600 shields).
Horsemen: Victory, 37 losses (1110 shields).
Jaguar Warriors: Victory, 58 losses (580/696/870 shields).

Test 4:

Archers: Victory, 38 losses (760 shields).
Horsemen: Victory, 23 losses (690 shields).
Jaguar Warriors: Victory, 55 losses (550/660/825 shields).

Test 5:

Archers: Victory, 42 losses (840 shields)
Horsemen: Victory, 23 losses (690 shields)
Jaguar Warriors: Victory, 63 losses (630/756/945 shields). Egypt got a leader on defense.

Out of the five tests, we have minimum losses of

Archers: 30 losses (600 shields lost)
Horsemen: 19 losses (570 shields lost)
Jaguar Warriors: 55 losses (550/660/825 shields

and maximum losses of

Archers: 42 losses (840 shields lost)
Horsemen: 37 losses (1110 shields lost)
Jaguar Warriors: 73 losses (730/876/1095 shields lost)

with an average of

Archers: 36.4 losses (728 shields lost)
Horsemen: 26.2 losses (786 shields lost)*
Jaguar Warriors: 64.2 losses (642/770/963 shields lost)

*Remember that in one of the horseman battles, a 1-hit-point defender survived.

If we discard the highest and lowest results for each unit as least likely to be representative, out of the remaining three, we get minimum losses of

Archers: 30 losses (600 shields lost)
Horsemen: 23 losses (690 shields lost)
Jaguar Warriors: 58 losses (580/696/870 shields)

and maximum losses of

Archers: 42 losses (840 shields lost)
Horsemen: 29 losses* (870 shields lost)
Jaguar Warriors: Victory, 72 losses (720/864/1080 shields lost)

with an average of

Archers: 36.7 losses (733 shields lost)
Horsemen: 25 losses (750 shields lost)
Jaguar Warriors: 64.3 losses (643/772/965 shields lost)


This indicates that even at cost 10, the Jaguar Warrior is not seriously overpowered considering that it is a UU. (War Chariots, for example, would have performed the same as horsemen but with only two thirds the shield cost for the same unit losses. The fact that the Jaguar Warrior is useful for only a short period of time and the fact that the number of units required for a Jaguar Warrior rush is likely to present maintenance cost issues further undercut the idea that the Jaguar Warrior would be significantly overpowered at cost 10.

At cost 12, the average losses for Jaguar Warriors would be roughly on par with archers and horsemen. That would leave Jaguar Warriors’ ability to get to the enemy faster as their only serious combat advantage over archers (and that offset by the problem of supporting enough units), but superior scouting ability compared with warriors would keep the UU halfway respectable.

At cost 15 the Jaguar Warrior is a complete joke as a UU. The average shield losses attacking spearmen are thirty percent higher than for archers, and that’s above and the problem of supporting the number of units required remains. Even the advantage the Jaguar Warrior provides for scouting is merely marginal at that high a cost.

Personally, I don’t especially care whether we go back to cost 10 or go to cost 12. Each can be considered “more conservative” than the other depending on a person’s perspective, and I don’t care a whole lot whether the UU offers a significant advantage for players interested in rushing an opponent early or only a small advantage. But I definitely think we need to do one or the other to make the UU worth something in military terms.

By the way, this also means that if we reduce the cost of the Chasqui Scout to 15, we don’t have to worry about balance problems due to Chasqui Scout rushes.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by alexman


China was the best civilization in PTW for an Archer rush. Can you imagine if they were also in a GA as they were producing their Archers? Not to mention a swarm of JW to go with those Archers.

But consider the cost of such a strategy. (1) Building the necessary barracks and units requires sacrificing a lot of REXing potential. (2) Burning the GA so early means it won't be available later when the general view is that it will be more valuable. (3) Damaging or destroying neighbors wrecks their value as tech trading partners. In the early game on non-pangea maps, it's a lot easier to pull ahead of other regions of the world in tech if you have good trading partners.

Even in situations where an archer rush is called for, a cost-15 Jaguar Warrior is such a joke militarily that its military value would play no meaningful role in the choice of whether or not to go ahead and trigger a GA. If the Aztecs want an early GA, the logical choice would be to win one battle with a JW in order to trigger it but otherwise stick to archers for their offensive forces. If they don't want an early GA, they can keep their JWs out of the line of fire and not give up any significant military advantage that using their UU instead of conventional units would provide.

But if the JW provides a clear military benefit, the choice becomes more complex: "Do I take advantage of my UU even though it means triggering a GA earlier than I really want to, or do I forego the early military advantage my UU could provide in order to save my GA?" That kind of adding of strategic choices is very much the sort of thing the AU Mod is intended to accomplish.

Nathan

[ducki]

But if the JW provides a clear military benefit, the choice becomes more complex: "Do I take advantage of my UU even though it means triggering a GA earlier than I really want to, or do I forego the early military advantage my UU could provide in order to save my GA?"

I agree with this sentiment, although I am extremely loathe to spend my GA so early, especially with so few cities that are so poorly developed. IMO, anyone with a 1-attack offensive UU is getting the short end of the stick.

[alexman]

Thanks for the tests, Nathan. I don't think the results come as a big surprise to anyone - nobody here claims that a 15-shield Jaguar is good for combat, although one can imagine situations where it is better than a Warrior in combat.

The fact remains that the Jaguar Warrior is far from a useless UU. Scouting is much more important in C3C, and the Aztects get an opportunity to obtain early maps and contacts. Non-expansionist civs might get stuck with their Warriors unable to cross a foreign empire to see what's beyond (leave or declare war), but a 2-move unit is much less likely to have that problem, since it gets there earlier, before foreign borders cover the continent.

I think the AU mod should make changes to a UU if a) the civilization is worse-off than if it could build the standard unit being replaced by that UU (e.g. Keshik, Chasqui), or b) The civilization is relatively strong overall, and the UU provides a considerable advantage (e.g. Javelin Thrower). The Aztecs and the Jaguar Warrior fall into neither of the above categories.

[ducki]

Good summary, alexman. I'd only change one little thing.

a) the civilization is worse-off than if it could build the standard unit being replaced by that UU (e.g. Keshik, Chasqui)

I'd rather see that as "the civilization is not better-off than...".
That's still just as subjective, but the connotation is more in line with what I think UUs should do - be better than the generic unit in some way.

[OPD]

I always think of the JW as being half of the expantionist trait, you get the contacts as quicky and get more stuff from huts as you can typically pop more. Also being able to pop then run away if you get barbs is good. 15 shields is bit silly though, back to 10 for non mp would be better.

Also I wouldn't say that the Keshik is worse than the standard knight. I've played a couple of times as the mongols on 3 billion years maps and it's alot of fun. The defence thing going down sucks but isn't too much of a big deal as alot of the time they are on mountains/hills when defending anyway. Playing with their ZoC is alot of fun too.

I'm not saying the Kesik is comparable to the Rider but the are interesting to play with and can be used well strategically.

[nbarclay]

Alexman, you seem to attach a whole lot more importance to deep scouting than I do. Unless I can build units I can spare for distant scouting without undercutting my REX, I'm usually willing to live with ignorance of what the land beyond AI borders looks like.

Regarding using JWs to pop huts, huts seem to produce a lot more barbs and a lot fewer goodies in C3C than they did previously. That makes the JW's scouting advantage, even to the extent that it exists, less significant than it was previously. Also, the fact that barbs don't gang up on the unit that popped a hut the way they did in vanilla Civ 3 makes "pop and run" less useful, although it still has some value in AI territory if you want all the barbs popped to pester the AI.

Traditionally, I haven't been fond of modifying UUs just because they're relatively weak. But when I look at how the Hwacha, Man-of-War, F-16, and Gallic Swordsman were all improved in one way or another in C3C, I get the strong impression that Firaxis is trying to move away from having UUs that offer only a tiny or questionable advantage over the unit they replace. That's one of the main reasons I'm willing to support zero-range bombard for the Keshik: it's in the spirit of moving away from having UUs with only marginal or questionable value.

Another factor that causes me to think the Jaguar Warrior needs changed is my belief that the unit was changed for MP purposes, not for SP purposes. In essence, I think they broke the unit from a SP perspective in their desire to keep it from being overpowering in MP. And then, because the JW was broken, they ended up breaking the Chasqui too. So I feel like if we reduce the JW's cost, we're fixing what is, from a SP perspective, a mistake Firaxis made rather than like we're going off in left field and arbitrarily trying to give a UU added value.

Nathan

[alexman]

Under consideration:

Yes/No: Reduce cost to 12 shields.

Voting on Friday.

[vulture]

I'd rather see it go back to 10, but I think the difference between 10 and 12 is getting close to trivial. It makes a difference for towns producing 1, 2 or 5 spt (or 10 or 11, but are you really going to be building Jags when you have that kind of production available), while for towns producing 3, 4, or 6-9 spt the build time is exactly the same. But the upgrade to swordsmen costs 54 gold for a 12 shield jag, as opposed to 60 for a 10 shield. That's only a 10% difference. Curiosly, for a player who only ever builds jags in cities producing 3 or 4 spt, a 12 shield jag could be slightly stronger than a 10 shield jag. However most of the time you are trading off an extra turn of build time in some cities in return for slightly cheaper upgarde costs to swords.

I still think I'd like to see the cost back at 10 though. Jags aren't really intended to be built just for scouting and upgrading to swords, they are meant to be combat units and you need a lot of them to get the benefits.

[nbarclay]

Since Dominae and Vulture both prefer 10 (as of last Dominae said), I think both 10 and 12 should be under consideration rather than only 12. I'm not trying to lobby for 10 instead of 12 (since I don't have a strong feeling one way or the other about it); I just want to make sure we don't end up choosing 12 instead of 10 just because 12 was the only option included in the vote.

[alexman]

We will have another vote to reduce to 10 shields, if this change (12) makes it.

Time to vote now.

Mine:
No change.