I have created a google document to look at various aspect of the land military units which can be found here Land unit power and cost per era, please use it to find ways to improve the game.

What I found:

Average combat strength increase in a linear way of about 7 from each era, even as the game progress from melee focus in the 3 first era towards ranged focus in the latter eras, which may cause a problem for players behind, especially in medieval trying to fight players in early modern which see a dramatic switch from melee focus to ranged focus. Average combat strength per era is:

• Ancient: 17,33333333 
• Classical: 25,5 
• Medieval: 32,8 
• Early Modern: 41,5 
• Industrial: 48

• Classical: 1.51
• Medieval: 2.96
• Early Modern: 2.12 
• Industrial: 2.53

• Ancient: 89,16666667
• Classical: 135
• Medieval: 400
• Early Modern: 848,75
• Industrial: 2146,833333

• Ancient: 1
• Classical: 1
• Medieval: 1.4
• Early Modern: 2
• Industrial: 2.5

• Ancient = Chariot, 22 combat strength 180 industry cost, 1 population cost
• Classical = Horseman , 26 combat strength 180 industry cost, 1 population cost 
• Medieval = Knight , 36 combat strength 800 industry cost, 2 population cost 
• Early Modern = Musketeers, 46 combat strength 970 industry cost, 2 population cost 
• Industrial = Siege Artillery, 51 combat strength 2575 industry cost, 2 population cost 

 

• The improvements from ancient to classical come at very low cost, in fact a swordsman who are better than warriors or spearmen cost the same as those units, obviously with just two units in classical it may not be the best comparison.
• The cost increase from classical to medieval is enormous, a knight cost 800 and 2 population and a great swordsman cost 400 and 2 population, cost that could maybe be a bit lower.
• Going from medieval to early modern is a huge improvement in terms of combat strength once you adjust for the fact that the majority of units are now ranged, the average cost only increase 2 times, less than the 3 times cost increase to go from classical to medieval units. A ranged 46 combat strength musketeer cost 970 while a medieval 36 combat strength knight cost 800. An anti cavalry 41 combat strength halberdier cost 485 and 3 population while a 35 combat strength great swordsman cost 400 and 2 population. Maybe the difference in cost between medieval and early modern could be greater, likely by reducing the cost of medieval units to put the cost increase more like 2.5 times more expensive than classical and thus maybe have the early modern units be on average 2.5 times more expensive than the medieval ones.
• The gap between early modern to industrial seems smaller in terms of combat strength than previous gaps, meanwhile it is the second largest cost increase gap, some units here like line infantry cost far more than the strong early modern musketeer while not being particular stronger, like would you build a 2.5 times more expensive line infantry that have 1 more combat strength more than a musketeer? Some rebalanced between early modern and industrial era units may thus be needed.

itcouldbeaboat wrote:

Swordsman and Great-swordsman require 1 and 2 iron respectively. As far as I can tell from the last 2 maps in beta, having 1 iron is not guaranteed without a trade partner and acquiring saltpeter for musketeers is of even greater difficulty. I believe if you factor in the cost of having access to those resources in a challenging environment (read: decent AI difficulty/other players) the change in strength in ancient to classic is more justified and the lack of need for strategics for line infantry is its new strength.

The strongest ancient era units such as spearmen and chariots also need resources. It is hard to compare resources and creating strong units tied to resources can cause snowball issues with the strongest or most lucky players can get a huge advantage by having the right resources at the right time. Line infantry make somewhat sense as an upgrade from halberdiers which is also a resourceless unit with significant lower combat strength and no ranged attack. However the line infantry don't mak as much sense as an upgrade to the musketeer.

Looking at the combat strength difference and cost ratio between cavalry units and anti cavalry units of each era, starting from chariots and spearmen and ending with dragoons and line infantry I get following graphs and the +5 anti cavalry bonus is counted into this.

The huge drop in early modern is due to anti cavalry becoming halberdiers while knights stay knights, this make it a very risk to build knights. The cost ratio is also terrible for just knights:

In the two first eras, cavalry units cost two times as much as anti cavalry, but in medieval it become 4 times as expensive to build knights vs pikemen and the combat difference between knights and pikemen is smaller than the difference between horsemen and spearmen. In early modern knights stay knights while pikemen become halberdiers which is significantly more expensive but can destroy knights without any issue. In industrial era the differences in both cost and combat strength is very minimal.

The knight look too expensive and have a major early modern weakness, reducing its cost or so may help it become more sensible investment.

Similar we can look at the melee and anti cavalry lines, who last for the first 3 era before merging into the halberdiers. For the combat strength difference we get this graph:

The spearmen is still spearmen in classical era, while the warrior become swordsmen. Medieval era is strange with the resourceless pikemen being just 4 combat strength weaker than the resource using great swordsman, cost ratio also don't favor the great swordsman:

Warrior, swordsmen and spearmen cost the same thus the cost ratio is 1 for the two first eras. However in medieval the great swordsman cost two times as much in both industry and population, while the combat strength gap between melee and anti cavalry decreases, also while spearmen and great swordsmen need resources, pikemen do not need any resources.

To me it look like the great swordsman need to be stronger relative the pikemen to justify the cost and resource requirement.