In the mode of the newest unit is always better, I had been pretty much blindly switching my production from Tanks to Mech Infantry once I got Robotics. But recently, I've been giving it a little more thought (some might say too little ;) ) and I've begun to rethink that. Here are some points to bring out some discussion. I'm really looking for comment from others.

Tanks can get City Raider. This is their biggest plus.

Tanks are Armor and thus vulnerable to Gunships, whereas MI are Gunpowder Units.

MI are Gunpowder Units so there are probably lots of enemy units around that have counter promotions.

Tanks have blitz, so can multi-attack.

MI have March, so heal on the run.

MI are stronger and get defensive bonuses.

MI can intercept aircraft.

I don't think one is better than the other in the general sense. One is a defensive-first unit and the other is an offensive first unit.

I drop tanks like a bad habit as soon as I get mechanized infantry. Tanks are going to become obsolete soon enough anyway.

Tanks don't go obsolete. They upgrade to Modern Armor.

peace,
lilnev

Something we saw from Gaiur's game in the isolated start thread was that he mixed his stacks very well. If mech inf is defensive perhaps the ideas is to keep both in the stack, with an eye to upgrading the tanks to modern armour later.

I'll usually continually produce offensive units in my west point city, so I'll keep building tanks here. Everywhere else I'll produce the best offensive unit when I need more and they're current, otherwise other units, including mech infantry when they become available, and before that things like machine guns, infantry, and SAM infantry.

I definitely start making mechanized infantry, but I use them to replace infantry, not tanks. Tanks can get city raider, drill, and barrage. Those all make them better for attacking both in the open and for cities. You need gunpowder units in the stack to protect from gunships and so that you can get terrain bonuses. Mechanized infantry are the first gunpowder units that can keep up with tanks, but I don't feel that they replace them at all.

I don't think one is better than the other in the general sense. One is a defensive-first unit and the other is an offensive first unit.

This is my line of thinking, too. Same way I don't send out a stack of nothing but Catapults, I don't like sending out a stack of nothing but MI, or even predominantly MI. Mix up the stack, if only so you've got some defenders to leave behind in your newly-captured cities. MI are better defenders than Tanks, but it's hard to beat Blitz when you're attacking. And of course, Tanks upgrade to Modern Armor relatively cheaply. Each has its use.

I tend to upgrade from grens to infantry to mech infantry and end up with some CR3 mechs which are extremely powerful in taking cities. Even better is with Ragnar and have them amphibious and go nuts on their coastal cities and a compliment of aircraft (carrier) to weaken defenders. On land attacks though I do always put mechs and tanks together since they travel at the same speed and are good as a team. So I think tanks even when mechs are available are still quite useful. Even better when you can upgrade them to MA.

the collateral damage bonus from barrage is disgusting when you have 5-10 tanks attacking anything.

the collateral damage bonus from barrage is disgusting when you have 5-10 tanks attacking anything.

It's like having cats that you don't have to suicide. I love it. :goodjob:

It's like having cats that you don't have to suicide. I love it. :goodjob:

Tanks without City Raider are suicide units too. You might get lucky and see them survive occasionally, but they generally die. You really do need that CR II or CR III to take cities reliably even after your bombers have reduced the city defenses to near 0.

If you really want to take cities, bring along Tanks to take the city, any leftover Artillery from earlier wars to bombard and then cause collateral damage, take along a Medic III chopper that you have leftover from when you burned the great general on that Charriot and bring a couple of Mech Infantry to make sure that your tanks aren't the ones being attacked by choppers. Don't forget your bombers to do the heavy lifting on taking out the cultural defensive bonus.

As in the rest of Civ, the best unit for taking cities is... a good mixture.

Tanks without City Raider are suicide units too. You might get lucky and see them survive occasionally, but they generally die. You really do need that CR II or CR III to take cities reliably even after your bombers have reduced the city defenses to near 0.

If you really want to take cities, bring along Tanks to take the city, any leftover Artillery from earlier wars to bombard and then cause collateral damage, take along a Medic III chopper that you have leftover from when you burned the great general on that Charriot and bring a couple of Mech Infantry to make sure that your tanks aren't the ones being attacked by choppers. Don't forget your bombers to do the heavy lifting on taking out the cultural defensive bonus.

As in the rest of Civ, the best unit for taking cities is... a good mixture.

I don't know. there has to be some point where the sheer number of tanks with barrage outdoes cr. for instance the fact you cant get cr II or 3 right off the bat where the barrage promotion is pretty low, is a factor.

when you have bombers all defenders are half strength anyway.

Tanks without City Raider are suicide units too. You might get lucky and see them survive occasionally, but they generally die. You really do need that CR II or CR III to take cities reliably even after your bombers have reduced the city defenses to near 0.

If you really want to take cities, bring along Tanks to take the city, any leftover Artillery from earlier wars to bombard and then cause collateral damage, take along a Medic III chopper that you have leftover from when you burned the great general on that Charriot and bring a couple of Mech Infantry to make sure that your tanks aren't the ones being attacked by choppers. Don't forget your bombers to do the heavy lifting on taking out the cultural defensive bonus.

As in the rest of Civ, the best unit for taking cities is... a good mixture.

I don't give up my tanks either. I love my CR promotions. I keep macemen around after I get musketmen. The CR make it totally worth it.

Tanks to gain ground; Mech Infantry (or earlier Infantry, etc.), to hold it.

I don't give up my tanks either. I love my CR promotions. I keep macemen around after I get musketmen. The CR make it totally worth it.

I've found Mace --> Grenadiers to be very worth the gold if they're CR3 or better. Then you have GRENS with CR3, and then when you get Steel and supplement those with CR2 Cannons for prep-work, BOOYAH, the challenge becomes not going broke from the maintenance of all the cities you take.

I've found Mace --> Grenadiers to be very worth the gold if they're CR3 or better.

I never understood the attraction of Grenadiers. Riflemen were obviously way better. Why upgrade CRIII Macemen to Grenadiers when Riflemen were just around the corner.

That's because I was always going for Printing Press and Replaceable Parts early for the economic boost and leaving off the Gunpowder until quite late.

Then I tried an early break toward Gunpowder and got Chemistry with Liberalism. Wow! What a difference.

Getting Grenadiers that early meant that I had a unit that would absolutely decimate all available city defenders in the same way that Macemen do when you get them before anyone else has Civil Service or Feudalism. Grenadiers have the added benefit of being able to reliably take on Riflemen when they come on line much more reliably any other contemporary unit.

In short, CRIII Grenadiers easily take out any unit that comes before Grenadiers. They easily take out Cavalry that are sitting in a city. They reliably take out Riflemen. That's a pretty good unit in my book. Worth the upgrade fee.

The other thing about grenediers is that they team up well with the cannon. Anything you would have used riflemen for, you can use cannon for instead. I like to have a few pikes around too for the cavalry.

I basicly never build riflemen unless I'm the English.

The other nice thing about the chemistry/steel tech line is that it lets you build the ironworks, for great engineer farming.

I used to try to blast away with a hundred kazillion tanks until recently, that is when I moved up to monarch. It was getting late in the game and I was closing in on a space race victory... but so was Mansa. Using my spies to recon I realized that I wasn't going to beat him without slowing him down. Prior to completing the Apollo program I'd been stockpiling tanks. I declared war and literally 6 gunships shredded my 40 tanks, preventing me from overcoming the bulk of his defenses. I learned a lot about the combination of arms. (The overall war was much more complex than this).

Here is the thing I’ve realized about Mechs, they don’t have a natural counter unit. You’re going to play rock-paper-scissors with armor-gunships-sam infantry. That’s what makes them such great defenders, and overall units. Use tanks, use all of the units, but I think you need a health stack of mechs.

Whatever few tanks i make that doesn't get CR 1,2,3 etc. i tend to give flanking 1,2 and collateral damage... then i usually let them start up on a city hoping that they'll whithdraw leaving the defenders battered enough for my CR's to mop up.

It's quite obvious tanks efficiency get lower when Mech. Inf gets into play.
I usually just swap production slightly and add more bombers to the mix, making tanks assaults easier. Some tanks will get upgraded but that's still expansive so they are needed for offensive's I think.

Just build less tanks when you get Mech. Inf as they have an important mission of escorting your offensive forces, especially if they got defensive bonuses to hold cities/hills/jungle.

I never understood the attraction of Grenadiers. Riflemen were obviously way better. Why upgrade CRIII Macemen to Grenadiers when Riflemen were just around the corner.
That's because I was always going for Printing Press and Replaceable Parts early for the economic boost and leaving off the Gunpowder until quite late.

Then I tried an early break toward Gunpowder and got Chemistry with Liberalism. Wow! What a difference.

Getting Grenadiers that early meant that I had a unit that would absolutely decimate all available city defenders in the same way that Macemen do when you get them before anyone else has Civil Service or Feudalism. Grenadiers have the added benefit of being able to reliably take on Riflemen when they come on line much more reliably any other contemporary unit.

In short, CRIII Grenadiers easily take out any unit that comes before Grenadiers. They easily take out Cavalry that are sitting in a city. They reliably take out Riflemen. That's a pretty good unit in my book. Worth the upgrade fee.

Grens get a bonus against gunpowder units, and in the Grenadier era, that means whether a city's defended by Grenadiers or Riflemen, they're gravesites either way. It's not as huge of an advantage when they're vanilla built fresh with Clutch, but CR3 Grens are just huge until they start defending with, say, Machine Guns, or Infantry.

Another powerful addition to the city-blasting stack are CR3 cannons. Normally my city raid tactic is to "soften" with "suicide" artillery and then do the real work of combat with the Grenadiers, but when the arty units are CR3 cannons, it often doesn't even get that far, and the cannons just take the city on their own, and not even that first salvo against a CD1 Rifleman is a loss. (Often the AIs are defending with the same CD1 archers they initially built with just a barracks, upgraded into the Rifling era. AIs also switch to Free Speech and Free Religion at very unwise times.) In those situations the Grenadiers just become an elaborate escort for the new stars of the show: the Cannons!

When it comes to quantum leap techs that really enable conquest, in order, I'd put them at:

1. Feudalism (Vassalage, free unit support, Longbows which can be a very healthy supplement, not only on defense, but as a force-protection unit to easily repel catapult and axeman attacks).

2. Construction (catapults, war elephants)

3. Military Tradition or Chemistry (depending on which liberalism slingshot, what resources are available, etc.)

4. Steel (cannons)

If I'm first at each of those discoveries, continent conquest is just a matter of showing up. And just being first at any one of the four, can give a key advantage to throw a stalemate-war my way and get momentum built up for a positive push.

how does one build a CR3 cannon?? or for that matter a CR3 anything???

that's without the unit going into the field and mixing it up!!!

thanks....

the most i've ever got was a CR3 tank, but it was AFTER i had it on the field for quite some time and was babying it (i lost it in the next conflict to a stupid gunship of course:():mad:

Ways to get a CR III Cannon:

Build a barracks (3xp)
Swap Civic to Vassalge (2xp)
Swap Civic to Theocracy (2xp)
Build a Castle (as Isabel, 3?xp)

Build a Treb or Catapult

When steel researched, upgrade treb/cat to Cannon.

Basically, build buildings that upgrade your units starting xp (Barracks, Stable, Pentagon, West Point, etc). If you want a later unit to have an upgrade that it normally can't, build an earlier version (typically prior to researching that particular tech) and upgrade it. Or, since you should have been at war before, upgrade existing units with experience.

Realistically, it is possible to have a warrior pop 2 huts, getting 5 xp each time, and upgrading to cr3. And upgrading that warrior to mech infantry with cr3. It's just unlikely and a waste.

Heffling

how does one build a CR3 cannon?? or for that matter a CR3 anything???

that's without the unit going into the field and mixing it up!!!

thanks....

the most i've ever got was a CR3 tank, but it was AFTER i had it on the field for quite some time and was babying it (i lost it in the next conflict to a stupid gunship of course:():mad:

I haven't gone to Warlords yet so I don't do the Great General stuff, Great Wall, etc., but in regular Civ4 I go to Vassalage as soon as I discover Feudalism (mostly to reduce upkeep costs for a beefy defensive force--to prevent invasion by aggressive neighbors before I'm ready to tangle with them). When I build Catapults for offense, the first Cat is CRI + Accuracy, for city defense wear-downs, and then all subsequent Cats are CRs I and II.

Overall, the offensive campaign is a darwinistic process whereby a Catapult will either die trying to bombard a city, OR, somehow prevail against defenders, and gain in experience. I nurture the experience growth by throwing less-experienced units into more risky fights, and reserve more-experienced units (where I have the choice) for LESS risky fights. 1 XP per fight isn't a rapid progression of promotion, but it's steady, and since the Cats are starting out with 6 XP they only need to win 4 low-risk battles to get to 10 XP, and promote to CR3. Those catapults I really REALLY try to preserve for the safest of attacks on offense, and many times will only be used to supplement the city bombardment, and the rapidly-build 6 XP Cats get thrown into the "suicide" attacks. The CR3 Cats really do come in handy though, when an AI has a large number of low-strength defenders, and I need a supplement to my relatively small number of Macemen in a more knock-down-drag-out raid on a city. You know the situation: they have 6 Catapults left at 1.5 strength (after collateral damage) and nearly all of your offensive stack has spent their turn wiping out the stack of 6+ Longbowmen!

Anyway, the CR3 Cats either survive or they don't, and the way I play helps them to survive most of the time. When I discover Steel, the upgrade from CR3 Cats to CR3 Cannon is my TOP priority! This is because a CR3 Cannon really doesn't have too hard a time winning against just about any Grenadier or Rifleman defending a city, if that city's defense has been properly worn down to zero. And then as icing on the cake: collateral damage! In this way, even if my main offensive stack are still Macemen and I'm up against Grens and Riflemen, so long as the assault is led off by CR3 Cannon the blitzkrieg usually continues unabated. Next priority to upgrade is to turn CR3 Macemen to CR3 Grenadiers.

A combo of CR3 Cannons and CR3 Grenadiers is a devastating assault against any city that doesn't have Assembly Line and Infantry yet (and if they defend with Machine Guns, the CR3 Cannons have STILL got their number most of the time!), and even then they can cause enough headaches that the AI will consider peace and tossing a bit of gold or a tech in to sweeten the deal. Those upgrades are very much worth the gold. Most other upgrades I don't spend the gold unless they go beyond 17 XP. Just replace from the West Point city.

for a CR 3 anything, it's 10 XP.

In vanilla :
- barracks, West Point, vassalage
or
- barracks, West Point, theocracy
or
- barracks, west point, pentagon
or
- barracks, vassalage, theocracy, pentagon

In warlords,
- barracks, West Point, vassalage and theocracy
or
- barracks, vassalage, theocracy and citadel (for spanish siege only ;))
or
- barracks, vassalage, theocracy, MInstructor 1 , MInstructor 2
or
- barracks, vassalage or theocracy, MI 1, MI 2, MI 3
or
- barracks, westpoint, MI 1, MI 2


Note that for charismatic leaders, level 4 is at 8 XP = barracks, WP, MI 1.
Also note that you don't get westpoint without warring.
Also note that with warring, you can get 2 MI = westpoint effect.

The M Instructor effect alone is luring me to get the Warlords expansion, hehe.

I only ever build mech inf as cover, because usually I'm up to the teeth in armour by the time mech inf come on stream. City Raider tanks covered by gunships and supported by bombers are unstoppable, I've never really been in a situation where I've bothered to upgrade to modern armour.

Case in point, in an MP game, I was taking out his coastal cities, came across his main bastion defended by some 20 mech inf, all with 2 upgrades, either city garrison II or combat I and ambush. After an airstrike of 20 bombers, I sent in the tanks from the transports, mine had only city raider II, but I believe I only lost 2, and both had good chances of success when they lost.

In the end, there's a finite supply of city raider mech inf, usually my old macemen have been picked off in previous eras as grenadiers and infantry. But tanks keep rolling.

I never understood the attraction of Grenadiers. Riflemen were obviously way better. Why upgrade CRIII Macemen to Grenadiers when Riflemen were just around the corner.

That's because I was always going for Printing Press and Replaceable Parts early for the economic boost and leaving off the Gunpowder until quite late.

Then I tried an early break toward Gunpowder and got Chemistry with Liberalism. Wow! What a difference.

Getting Grenadiers that early meant that I had a unit that would absolutely decimate all available city defenders in the same way that Macemen do when you get them before anyone else has Civil Service or Feudalism. Grenadiers have the added benefit of being able to reliably take on Riflemen when they come on line much more reliably any other contemporary unit.

In short, CRIII Grenadiers easily take out any unit that comes before Grenadiers. They easily take out Cavalry that are sitting in a city. They reliably take out Riflemen. That's a pretty good unit in my book. Worth the upgrade fee.

Grenadiers are the best unit in their era in the game in my opinion, I've always held riflemen in very low regard, but as you say, its all in the order you research. I tend to beeline for chemistry-steel and go on the rampage with upgraded city raiders, and new grenadiers with pinch and a few cannons. by the time I get rifles, Infantry are just around the corner, and besides cover against cav, they're useless in attack or defence as they're owned by grenadiers.

Grenadiers are the best unit in their era in the game in my opinion, I've always held riflemen in very low regard, but as you say, its all in the order you research. I tend to beeline for chemistry-steel and go on the rampage with upgraded city raiders, and new grenadiers with pinch and a few cannons. by the time I get rifles, Infantry are just around the corner, and besides cover against cav, they're useless in attack or defence as they're owned by grenadiers.

That's exactly what I do, and exactly why as well. Though Riflemen tend to be my garrison choice in the back-cities (any threats there will be a mounted one!), in my war zone cities I usually have Grenadiers with CG2 holding down the fort and Riflemen to act as "Pikemen" to bat away Cavalry, Combat II and when they hit 10 XP, Formation.

When I get Railroad, the CG2 Grenadiers become CG2 Machine Guns, which are pretty strong defenders until the enemy discovers Industrialism. Rifleman defenders are just expendable, replaced by new-built Infantry out of the WP city usually rather than upgraded, unless they went beyond 17 XP.

Apart from the highly specialist and slow moving Sam inf (useless for all other tasks) Mechanized inf is the only unit that can stop gunships effectively. Tanks always have to hide for gunships and even MA is not save from them. In my book Gunships and mech inf supported by lots of aircraft is the strongest combination of units in the game. If you use aircraft Mech inf is easily strong enough on offense to take cities.

As for Rifleman being lowly, build globe in 2 food resource city, switch nationhood and have fun. But on pure attack i also prefer gren's that i promote out of maces.