Longturn Forum

First thing to say is how interesting this game has been for me as my first time on LT. I'm now too far behind to affect this game but the experience has been invaluable. These are a few early ideas.

1. barracks
I would like to see the first barracks made non dependent on tech. Attaching it to warrior code gave an unfair advantage to the aggressive kill-kill-kill people. In fact, I would like to see a free barracks in the capital upgraded through the game. Perhaps the palace could double as a barracks.

2. pikemen
I think pikemen should be reduced from 30 shields to 20. The jump from 10 for a warrior is too much. This could help the 3ks people as well by giving them more time to build attacking units.

3. trade routes
Is it too late to introduce trade routes? Having a large game with nearly 500 cities at T62 for an average of 15 per player, although most players probably have over 20 by now, seems contradictory.

4. caravans
I think caravans should be reduced from 50 shields to 30. This would help the city builders and perhaps help to overcome waste problems with distant cities. More waste and corruption balanced by more trade points.

5. mini-vans
I would introduce a new unit. It would be a sort of second class caravan, a mini-van. It would cost 10 shields, contribute 20 shields, not be able to create trade routes and can only help build small wonders.

1. I like the idea of Palace serving as a barracks. You should generate a diff file and start the vote.

2. Maybe. They are a lot better than Phalanx though, which cost 20 shields. Perhaps 25 is a more appropriate cost (I do agree 30 is high, it is the same as muskets [unless they have been changed]).

3. I doubt you will get much support for this. Trade routes accelerate the game too much. You go from trade at turn 30 to artillery at turn 60... most people who play LT prefer the games to last longer.

4. Maybe reduce to 40, but not 30. This is probably not worth it, given that 3 probably wouldn't pass a vote.

5. Maybe.... At the moment caravans are just like larger version of your 'minivans', so I don't really think it is necessary? If you got 20 small wonder shields from 10 shields they will be a bit hax too.

I'll give a hint to the new players on how to defend against the aggressive kill-kill-kill people under the existing setup.

**** Build your first cities on a hill. Don't leave them empty. ****

Researching warrior code, building a barracks, and then producing veteran archers will take 10 turns at least. A veteran archer has an attack of 4 1/2. A green phalanx or even a vet3 worker will be able to defend against this as long as they are in a city that gets a defensive bonus.

In the early stages defence is much easier than attack. This is sensible and realistic.

Altering the barracks to be dependant on a tech does not change this simple reality.

Probably worth updating to say ** build almost ALL of your cities on hills (or river/forest) ** unless you are pretty certain of what you are doing. Only leave a city empty if you are willing risk losing it.

kevin551 wrote:I'll give a hint to the new players on how to defend against the aggressive kill-kill-kill people under the existing setup.

**** Build your first cities on a hill. Don't leave them empty. ****

det0r:

1. I have done that, hopefully the right way.

2. the thing is warriors and phalanx are not available once you research feudalism. it's really a question of putting two or three units into a new city asap. perhaps if warriors were still available after feudalism that would help.

3. “accelerate the game”. funnily enough, that was the idea. I thought people were becoming bored with this but I can see how it would speed things up too much in a large game.

4. agreed

5. again my idea was to speed up the development of small wonders to help people control large civs.

kevin551:

I usually avoid building my capital on a hill preferring to use the general terrain and other cities for defence.

I always start by setting my capital to build a barracks followed by a settler and research horseback riding. When the barracks is built I reduce the shields so the settlers are not actually produced. When I have horseback riding I change production to horsemen and build a handful of veterans as fast as possible. With five or six horsemen and a good river system you can sometimes wipe out a neighbour before they know you're there. Units that survive the game often become seriously hardened armour. I usually research bronze working early and build veteran phalanx for important locations. I leave warrior code until I want feudalism.

Good points.
1- I agree it could be better for multiplayer to allow barracks from the start.
2- Pikemen cost 30, and Musketers cost 40 in this ruleset. I agree that cheap units are important for multiplayer games, I would suggest to avoid warriors (cost 10) from becoming absolete, so they are always available as the cheapest defensive unit. Or to make them obsolete by Musketeers instead of Pikemen.
3- If trade routes are dissabled, it is a good option to reduce the cost of caravans to 30. If trade routes are enabled, caravans should not be cheaper than freights.


This is a little table with the ratio Defense*HPs/Cost of defensive units, as they were designed for cvi2civ3 mod: In my opinion, any cost between 20 and 30 (ratio between 0.1 and 0.15) would be acceptable for pikemen.

There are many differences in this ruleset which will all interact to change the playing style. For example in the old game I would build dozens of warriors just before I researched gunpowder knowing that Leonardo's would soon upgrade them to musketeers. In this game it is not just the fact that warriors are obsoleted earlier but also the unit upkeep costs are very different. A new approach is required.

I never build pikemen because musketeers are always available so soon after. This ruleset hasn't changed that fact.

bardo:
A good table that illustrates how the units fit together. On that basis the price is right. My point is the cost of a basic city unit jumps from 10 to 30.

kevin551:
Like you I rarely build pikemen but in difficult games I like having the technology available to upgrade existing units if necessary.

Inevitably, here is my suggestion for a new unit available after Warriors become obsolete.

Militia: defence 2, attack 1, cost 10. After feudalism Militia would replace Warriors as the basic military unit. Here's another idea. They would be available to the end of the game and can be ungraded to any non mechanized land based military unit. That would include riflemen, paras and marines. The cost of these upgrades would be high.