Gallic Swordsman: Is it overpriced? - Page 2

player1 · February 18, 2003, 15:00

editor

Fried-Psitalon · February 18, 2003, 15:55

The editor works just GREAT for those of us who play people online. Really.

CerberusIV · February 18, 2003, 16:23

My attack is going nicely although it would have become expensive with only two Viking cities taken (1 GS lost so far for killing 4 spearmen and two others retreated).

Conclusion - 40 shields GS is right for SP.

MP is another matter. My only iron is right on the border with the Vikings and a human player would have pillaged it many turns ago, probably archer rushing at the same time.

Jon Shafer · February 19, 2003, 02:56

Quote:

Originally posted by WarpStorm
I would rather have 5 Mounted Warriors than 3 Gallic Swordsmen.

Bingo. If anything, you should be using GAs for offense, as using them for defense means they lose their mobility and their attack of 3. This means their extra defense point is essentially useless, and you might as well have Mounted Warriors. Couple that with the fact that Mounted Warriors are 20 shields cheaper and there's no question in my mind which is a better, more useful unit.

player1 · February 19, 2003, 05:28

If they were 30 shields, 10 Warriors and 200gp would be unstoppable army.

If they were 40 shields, 10 Warriors and 400gp would be unstoppable army.

With 50 shields, you'll need 10 Warriors and 600gp to get unstoppable army.

As for Spearmen in city, that's 2 defense and bonus for terrain and fortify of 0.35.
That's 2.7 total.

So sword units win more often then they lose.
And if its 2 movment unit then they even stay intact if they lose.

P.S.
Of course there is still valid question of changing price to 40.

CerberusIV · February 19, 2003, 05:48

My invasion of the Viking lands went well. I took 8 cities for the loss of 3 Gallic Swords and the Vikings are history. However time has passed and all civs have Feudalism and most have Chivalry so the usefulness of any attack 3 unit is almost over.

The biggest objection to 50 shields for Gallic Swords just occurred to me. It upgrades to a unit that only costs 40 shields so you can upgrade to med inf for free but presumably then pay 80 gold to upgrade to guerilla, not 60 gold. I can't think of another unit where the upgrade unit is cheaper to produce so it is unreasonable to charge more than 40 shields for GS.

aaglo · February 19, 2003, 06:06

Hmmm... interesting thread.

Cost of horseman (2-1-2) - 30 shields
Cost of spearman (1-2-1) - 20 shields
Cost of G-swordmand (3-2-2) - 50 shields + Golden Age ability

I see no problem. It's better than horseman+spearman (stronger attack, faster, 2x exess shields lost) and can release golden age.

IMHO the pricetag is just right. 40 shields would be overwhelming.

player1 · February 19, 2003, 06:37

50 shields would be OK, if it not UU.

But since it's UU...

aaglo · February 19, 2003, 07:09

Quote:

50 shields would be OK, if it not UU.

But since it's UU...

...it's not OK? I don't get it

anarres · February 19, 2003, 08:18

I've had a couple of big arguments about the price of GS.

I started by arguing that they should be 40 shields. Someone else defended the 50 shield price tag by comparing to Immortals, 10 Immortals to 6 GS.

We set up a simple scenario and did lots and lots of maths, the conclusion we came to was that at 50 shields Immortals were the better buy. At 40 shields the GS becamse the better choice. I can find the link to the cfc thread if anyone want more detail, but the servers are down atm.

So what would I do if I could? Set them to 45 shields. The editor however doesn't allow this, the only way to implement would be to double the cost of everything in the editor (yeah - like that's going to happen...). The result is that I have used GS as Celts and they kick ass. Retreat abillity is worth *much* more than the extra movement point, this should be obvious.

The only other relevant point is that the AI is *really* bad at using them effectively. The best way to get a GS army quicklyis to do upgrades, and the AI just doesn't understand how to pillage it's own resource and reconnect it to good use. Add to that the fact that shields are at a premium in the ancient era and the AI falls apart. Concerted, cohesive attacks are needed, and the AI just seems lame at this when they are low on shields, as they always spread the units too thin.

So, good idea for humans to play Celts, bad idea for the AI to so so. 50 shields is a little pricey, but not massively overboard.

Artifex · February 24, 2003, 23:49

The overaul impression I get here is that the GS is basically a broken unit..kind of like the man o war. It's kind of sad because it could have been a great unit.

Jon Shafer · February 25, 2003, 01:51

Quote:

Originally posted by aaglo
Hmmm... interesting thread.

Cost of horseman (2-1-2) - 30 shields
Cost of spearman (1-2-1) - 20 shields
Cost of G-swordmand (3-2-2) - 50 shields + Golden Age ability

I see no problem. It's better than horseman+spearman (stronger attack, faster, 2x exess shields lost) and can release golden age.

IMHO the pricetag is just right. 40 shields would be overwhelming.

You realize that a GA is only good when it's on your terms. The GS is the kind of unit where you don't really get much of a choice as to when your GA will be if you want to have any sort of offensive capability until the Middle Ages. An early GA is rarely a good thing, you see.

Fosse · February 25, 2003, 02:27

I think that the GS is powerful enough in the early middle ages and late ancient ages that waiting until in Republic or Monarchy won't actually hurt the player who is dead set on having a non-despostism GA and nothing else. 3-2-2, bearing in mind that the unit may retreat, is useful against anything up to musketmen, after all.

Cort Haus · April 15, 2003, 13:13

A combined sword and horseman is worth 50. They'd be too strong if it was cheaper.

Chemical Ollie · April 18, 2003, 04:23

I think the GS rocks. The retreat ability increase it's survivability, which makes the higher price justified. If you have capacity to produce them in numbers, they will last all the way to the emerge of riflemen. I have used stacks of GS to capture cities defended by musketmen. They can also attack and kill knights, even if they die easily when defending against them. But this only works if you have a large empire where you can produce them in numbers.

Cruddy · April 25, 2003, 10:41

I agree, it is an expensive unit. But that's to stop it from being a game winning unit.

I've only played with them once and totally failed to upgrade (had to build them ALL from scratch) - and they still kicked Roman butt. The battles they lost, enough retreated to counterattack a couple turns later.

Arrian · April 25, 2003, 11:03

We did an AU game on the strategy forum designed to test just this question: is the GS too expensive?

The vote came down almost 4 to 1 in favor of "No, it's fine as is."

It's not just the unit itself that matters. It's also that it's a dominant unit provided to a militaristic civ which upgrades from a 10-shield prebuild. Have a look at what we did in AU206...

http://www.apolyton.net/forums/showt...threadid=78680

So yeah, I'd love 5 MWs over 3 GSs... but only if I got to keep the Celt's traits. The Iroquois take FOREVER to get going (full price barracks, non-industrious, prebuild is 20 shields per).

40 shields would be nice. A bit too nice. I think that the "right" cost is something like 45, which of course doesn't exist in the game.

30 for a GS is preposterous.

-Arrian

Yahweh Sabaoth · April 25, 2003, 11:53

I'd have to agree that the GS is priced correctly, and the AU course thread is a good palce to check it out.

Some of the other PTW UUs, though, notably the Berserkir...

nbarclay · April 26, 2003, 04:47

Quote:

Originally posted by Trip

You realize that a GA is only good when it's on your terms. The GS is the kind of unit where you don't really get much of a choice as to when your GA will be if you want to have any sort of offensive capability until the Middle Ages. An early GA is rarely a good thing, you see.

The Celts are Religious, making a "beeline to Monarchy" approach eminently viable. Build a bunch of warriors, save up gold on 40-turn research, and upgrade and unleash havoc on your rivals the moment you change to Monarchy. The Celts certainly aren't the most flexible civ in the game, but if you play to their strengths, they can be very powerful. And they'd be far too powerful in the hands of people who play to their strengths if the GS were 40 shields instead of 50.