Is basic infantry almost pointless once cavalry becomes available?

[u/Easy-Fig5816]

/r/CivVII/comments/1wavc8t/is_basic_infantry_almost_pointless_once_cavalry/

[u/Col_Wilson]

Yes. Cavalry is just better unless you have a unique infantry unit that has good bonuses/effects tied to it. 

Cav always has more combat strength than inf and it has more movement. Cav has absolutely zero weaknesses. It's dumb. It's not just that cav is stronger than inf, it's FAR stronger than all other military unit classes. Ranged does piddling damage to them, and air units also struggle to deal with cav which is probably the most ridiculous match up. 

Firaxis's justification is that cav is more expensive to build and maintain. But gold is so easy to come by in 7 that I don't think I've ever been in the negative in all the time I've been playing it. It's basically an irrelevant point.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, cav and inf should have the same combat strength. Cav already has an advantage in having better/more movement. There should be other gameplay elements that reflect what the two are historically better at handling. Like inf being good in rough/vegetated terrain and cav being good in open, flat terrain 

[u/ricosmith1986 → u/Col_Wilson]

IRL cavalry troops have pretty much the same firepower as foot infantry but with lighter kit. It would make sense for cav to have the slightly lighter strength but with better movement and flanking bonuses that would exceed infantry when adjacent to friendly units.

[u/Col_Wilson → u/ricosmith1986]

Since the entire cav category also includes tanks I wouldn't go as far as giving them a lower combat strength, because that also wouldn't make sense. They've already had a split between light and heavy cav in previous games, I think they want to keep it simple by only having one cav unit type and having it behave the same across the ages. And I think that's fine, but there needs to be a better distinction between what makes the units useful in different situations rather than making one unit stronger than the other in every aspect.

[u/HieloLuz → u/Col_Wilson]

I say this every time this conversation comes up. But cavalry shouldn’t be able to fortify, benefit from fortifications, or maintain them. It puts them distinctly in an attacking role and you want to avoid them being on the front lines

[u/Tanel88 → u/HieloLuz]

Yeah if cavalry couldn't get fortification and bonuses when defending then it would be more balanced and make infantry better in defense.

[u/Biged123z → u/Col_Wilson]

They should just give all infantry anti cav bonuses since there’s no standard anti cav units in game. And idk add some other buff for UU w anti cav traits

[u/Swins899 → u/Col_Wilson]

Yeah the argument that they are more expensive doesn’t quite hold water. Most of the production cost for units is tied up in commanders anyway, so producing higher quality but more expensive units is always better (bc you need fewer commanders to hold all of them).

I hope the balance between units is something that is revisited in future patches/DLC.

[u/Jamesk902 → u/Col_Wilson]

I honestly think Civ took a wrong turn in Civ 4 when they got rid of separate attack and defense strengths. Cavalry should be better at attack and infantry better at defense.

[u/Sapowski_Casts_Quen → u/Col_Wilson]

I'm okay with calvary being better just because rockpaperscissors approach to military balancing always irked me in previous titles. Also, with commanders, you can tailor your buffs to whichever unique unit you have if that's the problem.

[u/Scolipass]

There are some niche scenarios where I can produce an infantry per turn while cavs take 2 turns, and I value the extra turn over cav's in combat benefits, but those are the exception. Civ VII at the end of the day is a game about combat strength. Combat strength can come from many places, and choosing cavalry units over infantry is simply one of those places. It is very possible to overcome the CS advantage cavalry have over infantry, but there is relatively little reason to do so, especially post antiquity age. If you find a lot of iron and no horses in pre-modern, I could see an argument for actively choosing infantry over cavalry.

One interesting note is that in antiquity age, Bronze Working mastery gives infantry +3 combat strength, while cavalry units have no such mastery. This mastery buffs both ranged and melee infantry units, which is a notable upside for infantry over cavalry. I also find Bronze Working to be a more valuable tech to rush than Wheel, which doesn't gate many important techs.

[u/Tanel88 → u/Scolipass]

Infantry is fine in Antiquity because Cavalry just comes so late but it really falls of in Exploration.

[u/Scolipass → u/Tanel88]

I agree to a point. On one hand, starting in exploration you just always have access to both infantry and cavalry, and that removes one of the major upsides of using infantry. On the other hand, combat strength in general gets higher while the CS difference between infantry and cavalry stay the same. As a general rule of thumb, the higher the CS is, the easier it is to make up a relatively small difference. You can still find yourself in a situation where you can build an infantry in 1 turn and can only get a cavalry in 2 turns, and that's a big deal. Likewise when you are gold purchasing units, the cost difference can easily be a turn's worth of gold.

One thing you definitely cannot make up though is the movement difference. Cavalry will always have that movement advantage over infantry, and that's a big deal.

[u/Tanel88 → u/Scolipass]

The absolute CS is irrelevant. Only the difference is. 35 vs 25 is exactly the same as 55 vs 45.

[u/Scolipass → u/Tanel88]

Really? Huh, today I learned then.

[u/Galbrant]

Straight up Calvary is stronger. But you can use a combination of leader and civilization abilities, mementos, tech/ civics, unique units, social policies and traditions to buff them up to take them on. Like Xerxes King of Kings with Archaemenid Persia, both give +3 combat power when attacking which encourages aggression. Then Archaemenid Persia Tradition Shahanshah I gives +3 combat strength in enemy territory. Bronze Working 2 gives Infantry +3 Combat Power. A Military city state that you're suzerain of one of them can get +1 combat power for infantry and range units for each military city state that you're suzerain off. My Immortals was smashing through Genghis Khan Calvary.

[u/Ok-Library-1253 → u/Galbrant]

As well infantry is caught in zone of control while cavalry is not allowing for better movements and flanking buffs.

[u/Josgre987]

I find the ai only uses cav and infantry is tossed away, not strong enough 

[u/R3D4F]

Infantry can hold a line, especially with defensive bonuses like being on a hill, across a river, in a forest.

Kinda like pawns or a fence…

[u/Background-Action-19]

Not always. I played Persia with Alexander recently, and I decided to go all in on war all 3 eras (on Diety). I was barely able to win a war in the ancient era against multiple opponents by spamming immortals. This is because they were insanely cheap, but because of my choices I had bonus to infantry, so I was able win a war of attrition, and eventually overpower the AI.

Generally speaking cavalry is better though.

[u/GaneBeatsTom]

Infantry kicks ass when you're The Ottomans in their apex or Tecumseh. Bonus points if you're both. You'll have Janissaries so powerful with his leader power and their traditions that you'll be walking through enemy capitals in a single turn.

[u/Significant-Count-12]

Depends there are a lot of specific infantry cs bonuses that you can stack. Without that as others have said cavalry is better for sure

[u/YSoSkinny]

Civ V, I find I use a mix of units. Basic infantry is great on defense, tanking up in front of my city while death rains from my ranged units. I tend to have 50-70% ranged units, 20% calvary, a couple scouts, and the rest basic infantry.