Were units and techs reduced?

[Grim Legacy]

Is it me or am I correct in thinking that in Civ3 the number of different units and number of technologies were reduced from Civ2?

Terrain options were reduced as well; no farmland, no terraforming and no swamps.

Less is more I presume...

It does affect the gameplay: by reducing the tech tree, units become obsolete much faster. In one of my games I never bothered with gunpowder units or cavalry... let alone cannons. They were almost instantly overtaken by riflemen and artillery. The industrial era flashes by.

Terrain no longer requires diligent work to make the most of it. Workers are cheap and I always have a boatload of them in captivity too. Irrigation, roads, clearing and you're done. Clearing is headache-free as well: if you decide you have too little shield production after all, you simply add a mine to the grassland or plains (lol), or reforest the least productive square. Lumberjacking is an odd duck too... very easy to do, especially if you have so many workers idling.

Units choices are more limited too. Due to not only the (possible) reduction in their number, but also due to the *extreme* similarity of strengths they have, there are only a few worthwile.
For example: in the ancient era, the swordsmen have Att 3 -the only unit above 2, and thus worthwile. Archers and horsemen are pretty weak in comparison (2 moves or not). Or take the chariot: from 4 (civ1) to 3 (civ2) to freaking 1! Useless to the max. Horsemen are twice as strong.

Comments welcome.

[Kekkonen]

The number of units is reduced, yeah. I don't know if they become obsolete faster because of that though, I think it's more because of the way the tech tree is built. Replaceable Parts comes (or can come) very quickly after Nationalism, so if you have rubber riflemen don't last long.

That being said, I kind of like things the way they are. I'd hate to get into the kind of unit jungle you had in CTP. When just about every freakin' tech gives you a new unit, all your units are obsolete all the time...

You're right about chariots though. I haven't built one yet. It might be useful as a replacement for a scout, you get a movement 2 unit which won't necessarily get killed by the first barbarian you meet. But that's not what chariots were for historically. (In fact, doesn't that sound a bit like early light cavalry, i.e. horsemen?)

[Grim Legacy]

Agree on both points: horsemen are more easily pictured as scouts and the CtP way of units is worthless indeed.

Maybe inserting more techs that do not give units extends the usefullnes of the existing armies. And then add a few units to make up for the loss.