Mass Combat: Advanced for its time

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

The question remains: are they worth it? Do they have better TS per G$ and/or WT?

I'll leave that as an exercise to people who are desiging their armies. The importance of this is not necessarily whether being an early adopter is a good idea so much as "what does it cost to be an early adopter."

Consider, though, that a TL 5 steam tank is functionally invaluable. A Poor prototype of a TL 6 heavy tank would cost you $1.75m and has a TS of 300, with the categories of F and Armor. $1.75m will get you 60 units of Line Infantry, which gives you a TS of 180 with the category of F. The single steam tank will straight up trash your column of napoleonic soldiers, will more than neutralize them in the F category, and provides dominance in a category that simply didn't exist for anyone else: Armor.

So yeah, it's certainly worth it there (expect the TL 5-6 split to be exploited the most). When it comes to cannon vs catapults, I'm not sure, but remember that the WT of the new fangled device remains the same, so even if its more expensive than equivalent catapults would be, its much easier to move them around, and that counts for something.