Do most of you upgrade your obsolete units or do you rebuild most of them? I realize that you would upgrade your best/most upgraded units. I however, have the tendency to set my research to 0% for a few turns in order to upgrade my whole empire.

One plus that I just thought of is that later units out of the production cities tend to be more upgraded than my archers that have seen no action that were built in the ancient period.

Upgrading units before you are going to use them for combat is a huge waste...

Your strategy:

Build 10 archers
Save 2800 gold
Upgrade them all to riflemen


My strategy:

Build 10 archers
Save 1400 gold
Wait
Upgrade the 5 archers closest to the battlefield

I'd love to upgrade them, but you know.. I'm not financial..

Ok, so most don't upgrade all. I use my army most of the time during the game, so upgrading that won't be a waste. As for defensive units, I like to be prepared and do usually play financial. Still, to my main question...

Assume you have a large attack stack that you use constantly throughout the game. Do you:

A) Upgrade just the units with the most XP, disband the units without much XP, and rebuild to fit what you want.

B) Upgrade the whole stack no matter the XP level

C) Rebuild the whole thing (I doubt anyone does that but here it is for completeness) :D

I suppose it boils down to time, cost, and the amount of hammers you can put towards the upgrade.

Keep using obsoleted troops and upgrade the ones with the best promotions first (only upgrade troops that will see battle very, very soon).

Upgrade the 5 archers closest to the battlefield

What happens to the 5 other ? Worth disbanding to save costs ?

Same as TMIT here, note that if you can collateral damage your enemy, it often doesn't really matter what scores the kill.

Upgrading should be tied with beelining as well. Beeline engineering to get early trebs, then it's good to use swords/axes with the trebs then upgrade those upto maces later, for example. That way, production can focus on the siege instead of building maces. Later on, when I find myself warring with rifles/cannons, I often keep my maces in action to have them mop up a city raid and have them climb up to the CRIII promo.

Keep using obsoleted troops and upgrade the ones with the best promotions first (only upgrade troops that will see battle very, very soon).

I think there is a upgrade XP limit (10 Xp ?).
If your unit has more XP than that, the XP of the upgraded unit will be reset to that limit (Exception: great general attached unit).

I use c option
I very often settle my great generals, meaning new troops often get more xps than old ones.
I do upgrade some troops on quick speed though, in newly conquered city = very close to the next fight.

I certainly don't upgrade all my troops but do upgrade some and that's part of my overall strategy for army development. Old garrison units like archers with 3 exp get deleted when unit costs become too much and are replaced with drafted rifles, or whatever. A draft rifle costs one pop (replaced in a few turns) and upgrading an archer to rifle costs 275 gold on normal, a clear waste of gold IMO.

For offensive operations I frequently upgrade troops either because they have special abilities and promotions or even just because they are in the right place at the right time. All sorts of upgrades can add impetus to the attack, HAs and knights upgraded to cavalry (when Rifling is researched), crossbows and grenadiers to machineguns. These type of upgrades are particularly useful if you are invading another continent and have a long supply line to send new troops along. You don't have to wait for the new technology but simply send the obsolete troops in the SoD and upgrade when the research is done.

Like Dave, I keep a few hundred gold around to cover the unexpected and if needed the closest troops get upgraded to foil an invasion, combined with whipping and drafting in nearby cities. For offensive troops, where I have choice in when the upgrade is done, for those with more than 10 exp I usually wait until they get their next promotion at 17 exp or 26 exp before upgrading to avoid losing exp. There is a lot of artistry to when, where and especially if troops should be upgraded ;)

Old garrison units like archers with 3 exp get deleted when unit costs become too much and are replaced with drafted rifles, or whatever. A draft rifle costs one pop (replaced in a few turns) and upgrading an archer to rifle costs 275 gold on normal, a clear waste of gold IMO.

If that archer isn't seeing combat, then leaving the archer > draft > upgrade in virtually every case. The power variance between leaving a draft troop behind vs an archer isn't worth it IMO. You could probably incur the extra cost of just forwarding that drafted rifle rather than retaining it as garrison if the city truly isn't threatened.

Of course in MP you need to consider more cities in the "threatened" category, but the overall strategy isn't different ----> if the unit will stay in the city and not see combat, don't upgrade it.

Well I don't do it for no reason or if there is a better use for the draft rifle. Archers are essentially useless when the enemy has cavalry or better. So if there is any threat to the city even a remote one then the replacement can make sense. If I have a vassal I take pleasure in donating obsolete archers and catapults to them and seeing what they do with the gift. I name the unit before transfer and follow their progress in the vassal's army :crazyeye:

The sort of economy I run often makes drafting easy for long periods and doesn't have a lot of spare gold. So I'm saving the gold from the upgrade and using a resource, food, I have a lot of. Also I tend to be aggressive in the middle and late game, so having a high power curve deters the other AIs getting involved (perhaps accepting them as a vassal) when I beat up a civ. It is interesting to note that in BTS 3.17 an archer is worth 3000 soldiers and a rifle 14000, so in terms of power rating the replacement makes sense, it takes 5 archers to offset 1 rifle's power.

Well I don't do it for no reason or if there is a better use for the draft rifle. Archers are essentially useless when the enemy has cavalry or better. So if there is any threat to the city even a remote one then the replacement can make sense. If I have a vassal I take pleasure in donating obsolete archers and catapults to them and seeing what they do with the gift. I name the unit before transfer and follow their progress in the vassal's army :crazyeye:

The sort of economy I run often makes drafting easy for long periods and doesn't have a lot of spare gold. So I'm saving the gold from the upgrade and using a resource, food, I have a lot of. Also I tend to be aggressive in the middle and late game, so having a high power curve deters the other AIs getting involved (perhaps accepting them as a vassal) when I beat up a civ. It is interesting to note that in BTS 3.17 an archer is worth 3000 soldiers and a rifle 14000, so in terms of power rating the replacement makes sense, it takes 5 archers to offset 1 rifle's power.

Don't overestimate power for anything but getting over the necessary threshold for capitulation (and usually it's irrelevant there too, the bottleneck being getting your target below the average of ALL civ powers).

When you are at war, anybody who would look to declare on you counts the target power as part of their own, and a lot of AIs are willing to declare on nations that are stronger than they are. It is very, very, VERY difficult to use power to deter dogpiling war declarations on high levels. If you can do so you're pretty safe to say that you've won the game already!

Generally speaking, I upgrade certain types of units if I'm expecting to see them go to war. For example, I will almost always mass upgrade all Trebs to cannons because: 1. The cost reasonable, and the difference between the two is massive, 2. Because I'm always fighting a war that could use some cannons. On the other hand, I rarely upgrade longbows to rifles. Too expensive when by that time, I should be able to build new rifles where I need them and also have secure rear cities where my longbows can sit around getting fat and never seeing any action.

I have been known to mass upgrade the entire military in some games (meaning even the old axemen with combat 1) to rifles or infantry, but that is only because I'm swimming in cash and could really use a bump in the power rating to discourage any aggressive actions.


Other units I almost always upgrade at my earliest convenience, regardless of the war/peace situation:
Archers to Longbows. (Helps my power rating and safety issues right around when the AI starts to get aggressive, and I've been throwing hammers into infrastructure.)
Galleys to Galleons.

If I'm at war, or have a use for the upgraded units, I'm also likely to:
City Raider III melee units.
Cuirassiers to Cavalry
Knights to Cuirassiers
Airships to Fighters
Fighters to Jet Fighters
Infantry to Mech Infantry.

Everything else is a matter of need. Sometimes the call is based on cost (Frigates to Destroyers is EXPENSIVE, but if a couple destroyers could pretty much bottle up Shaka's entire wooden navy, then it might be worth it.) Other times it is a call on how badly I need it. I could build CGIII Grenadiers in a city with settled GGs and then immediately upgrade them to machine guns to be sent to the front. It would be cheaper to just build the MG, but I couldn't get the CG promotions.

I generally have trouble field enough "classical" garrison troops (the cheap types) as HR garrisons (and sometimes even enough non-HR garrisons!) as it is, so outdated troops without much XP often get sent to garrison duty... if you can upgrade to Maces, but the cheapest garrison you can build is a longbow, then you can either pay money to upgrade a 3-XP axeman to a mace, or let it save you 75 Epic hammers for free by putting it on garrison duty... and maybe even put the 75 hammers towards a 5-XP mace.

Instead of upgrading, just build cannon.

Then after you've whacked the target city attack with your tired old axemen and they win anyway.

Move the archer in and promote him....

Instead of upgrading, just build cannon.

The reason I upgrade cannons is to take advantage of the GIGANTIC advantage they give me. At a cost of something like 80 GP per cannon for the upgrade, I can be at war with 20 cannons within two or three turns of getting steel. There's a shot I could completely cripple the first AI before it ever sees Gunpowder (I play monarch) and maybe be on to a second one with no gunpowder as well.

Since I can't draft cannons, it would take me at least 15-20 turns to build a decent force of cannons after steel. IMO, time is money when you get a window of opportunity like the one cannons versus longbows gives you, so I'm more than willing to spend the money to save the time.

many save money and mass upgrade

i refer to this style as "the moneyed upgrader afor attack" method

better to use units before they get old- and save the cash for other things.
except great generals as they upgrade for free.

the evidence is clear

Obviously most players will agree that upgrading the whole army is almost never a good idea. A warrior works just as good for military police duty as does a mech infantry and its much cheaper. My capital is usually guarded by a warrior the whole game, as are most inland tiles. Even coastal cities have very weak defenses most games. Using binary research, one almost always has cash on hand for emergency upgrades, and then there is always the draft. Unless you are on a really low difficulty, power rating is virtually meaningless.

Upgrades are useful for units that have a lot of promotions or promotions they couldn't otherwise get (ie., swordsman with CR promotions should be upgraded to rifles which can't get CR). I also use upgrades sometimes when I simply want to build up a force very quickly. It is certainly not the most cost-effective method but assembling an offensive force quickly has multiple benefits, namely that the AI is bad at responding to a sudden spike in your power graph.

Well I don't do it for no reason or if there is a better use for the draft rifle. Archers are essentially useless when the enemy has cavalry or better. So if there is any threat to the city even a remote one then the replacement can make sense. If I have a vassal I take pleasure in donating obsolete archers and catapults to them and seeing what they do with the gift. I name the unit before transfer and follow their progress in the vassal's army :crazyeye:

The sort of economy I run often makes drafting easy for long periods and doesn't have a lot of spare gold. So I'm saving the gold from the upgrade and using a resource, food, I have a lot of. Also I tend to be aggressive in the middle and late game, so having a high power curve deters the other AIs getting involved (perhaps accepting them as a vassal) when I beat up a civ. It is interesting to note that in BTS 3.17 an archer is worth 3000 soldiers and a rifle 14000, so in terms of power rating the replacement makes sense, it takes 5 archers to offset 1 rifle's power.

On immortal and up I'd be shocked if ANY number of garrison units ever make you get to the threshold to stave off dogpiling or even just a simple declaration before the game is effectively over. Fighting the production/upgrade bonuses of the AI for raw power rating requires a truly massive amount of power disparity. I've had AIs declare when they are down 2:1 in power, aside from chain capping the power rating is largely irrelevant on the higher difficulties.

I almost always upgrade my CR3 melee units to rifles. Same thing for my level 3 knights to Cavalry, and all CR2+ trebs to cannons. I sometimes will upgrade CR3 Axes/Swordsman to Maces, but will just as often use them as cannon fodders.

I also try (don't always succeed) in keeping enough cash on hand to upgrade a couple of defender for "A" border cities. So for instance if a border city has a spearman, axeman, and longbow, and I get attacked. I'll upgrade the spearman, and axeman to pike and maceman. I hope that culture and/or walls will give me enough time to reinforce.

I tend to upgrade my experienced unit, like city raider 3 swordsmen into macemen or riflemen. I do this just before delcaring war. I leave most of my cities guarded by exetremely obsolete untis. But as I usually keep a high gold amount, I can upgrade should anyone attack.

In games where I war throughout the game, I ususally have 4 or 5 units that fight in all my wars. With Hannible (charismatic) I had several CR3/combat3 infanty.

I upgrade everyone . . . just because.

Seems like I need to be more selective.

For me, the decision to promote goes through four checks (having to match at least two to get promo'd):

1) Does it have at least three promotions as an attacker, or two as a defender?
2) Are the promos unavailable to the next unit up the ladder? (CR, CG)
3) Is the unit ever going to see action?
4) Is the price right? (sometimes skipping an era is too pricey.. ie archer -> rifle vs. musket -> rifle)

One thing I can't remember... is it longbows that can promote to CG machine guns? coulda swore something did..... Usually I stick two or three of those in valuable or more-likely-to-be-attacked coastal cities. Otherwise, old warriors/archers work fine for a garrison in cities that can't be immediately threatened by sneak attacks. Watch out for paratroopers though... especially if you aren't running Nat'lism :p

grenadiers upgrade to CG machine guns too

Use 2-3 GM around 1000-1100 AD to upgrade 30-40+ Maceman/Sword to Rifles.

The reason I upgrade cannons is to take advantage of the GIGANTIC advantage they give me. At a cost of something like 80 GP per cannon for the upgrade, I can be at war with 20 cannons within two or three turns of getting steel.

I stand corrected, yes, upgrade to Cannon, then go to war with everything else in the stack untouched, except maybe some anti-cav upgrade.

Don't overestimate power for anything but getting over the necessary threshold for capitulation (and usually it's irrelevant there too, the bottleneck being getting your target below the average of ALL civ powers).

When you are at war, anybody who would look to declare on you counts the target power as part of their own, and a lot of AIs are willing to declare on nations that are stronger than they are. It is very, very, VERY difficult to use power to deter dogpiling war declarations on high levels. If you can do so you're pretty safe to say that you've won the game already!

I'm not overestimating anything and didn't mention dogpiling. Stop going off at a tangent.

You are being over dramatic. Power rating is a useful thing to be aware of, even if not the be all and end all of strategy. I know it can be difficult to to overawe ALL the AIs but it is often possible to influence the lower ranked AIs and that is useful. That can make unravelling the diplomatic and military situation by reducing the number of participants.

Depends on the level you play on. It's safe to say that on immortal+ you will seldom have enough power to influence any ai. If for convenience sake we set the xml modifier to 1 you need 1.5 * the power of an ai to avoid a declaration this way.As TMIT says if you're being dogpiled ais cumulate there own power against you in their declaration decision.

Power can be useful as a very rough yardstick when you want to initiate a war against an ai you haven't scouted thoroughly. if the value < 0.5 think again, if it's >=0.7 you're usually good to go.

For your information I play mostly on Emperor for relaxation and can win on Immortal. Deity is beyond me and just not fun or interesting.

Do you have a link to a discussion of just how the power rating affects AI decisions? That would be more useful than half-thought out, ad hoc comments from you and others.

Besides that this thread is about upgrading units, not power rating. I merely introduced the topic as a side effect of upgrading and it's turning into a derail.

@UncleJJ: You will find the relevant info there (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=286180)... read more particularly posts from DanF in page 6 ;)

Cheers,
Raskolnikov

For your information I play mostly on Emperor for relaxation and can win on Immortal. Deity is beyond me and just not fun or interesting.

Do you have a link to a discussion of just how the power rating affects AI decisions? That would be more useful than half-thought out, ad hoc comments from you and others.

Besides that this thread is about upgrading units, not power rating. I merely introduced the topic as a side effect of upgrading and it's turning into a derail.Well those others know and you don't. I, TMIT and others have posted the link Ras provided here many times, the conclusions there are generally valid for emperor as well. It's your uninformed comments that aren't too well thought out imo.

@UncleJJ: You will find the relevant info there (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=286180)... read more particularly posts from DanF in page 6 ;)

Cheers,
Raskolnikov

Thanks :) I took a look at the thread and I do remember seeing it before. However, I avoided it then and choose to do so now since I feel that level of analysis spoils the game. I don't mind others playing that way but it's not for me. If that's the only way to win frequently on Diety then I pity the players who do it. I know I would not enjoy playing that way or get any sense of achievement de-constructing the game to that extent. But I realise there are many ways to play this game and I'm happy for everyone to get what they can from it.

Well those others know and you don't. I, TMIT and others have posted the link Ras provided here many times, the conclusions there are generally valid for emperor as well. It's your uninformed comments that aren't too well thought out imo.

I never mentioned dogpiling in any of my posts in this thread and it's never been a concern of mine. It was TMIT who chose to go off on that tangent and you joined in later. As far as I'm concerned it is irrelevant to whatever I have posted here, so stop trying to drag me into one of your pet hobby horses. I'm not interested by your obcessions.

My comments here were not about dogpiling, so please explain just how they were uninformed? If you know better feel free to correct any errors I made. The thread where Dan explained how things worked to you is not relevant to my comments as far as I can see. If you can tell me how the power rating affects other things such as threats demanding technology or gold , or the way it affects capitulation then I'll be better informed and you'll be doing me a service.

grenadiers upgrade to CG machine guns too

Thanks... I knew there had to be SOME reason I always tried to acquire military science :lol:

Also I tend to be aggressive in the middle and late game, so having a high power curve deters the other AIs getting involved (perhaps accepting them as a vassal) when I beat up a civ. I think DanF's article is relevant to this isn't it? It states that your high power usually doesn't deter the ais from declaring (and dogpiling) on you. You say you're not talking about dogpiling, from your remark here i read that dogpiling (and vassal acceptation) are exactly the things you are talking about.So i don't think TMIT went off a tangent he just corrected your uninformed idea of the powergraph being so important. I don't understand your annoyance about this just as i don't understand your annoyance with my first post here.

I don't know how the powergraph affects demands, it's one thing we weren't talking about. As for capitulation i think the normal war decision rules stand. An ai will take a vassal declaring on you if you're under his power threshold and his attitude towards you allows him to declare on you anyway. I'm not totally sure of this, it seems TMIT knows more about this, hope he posts it here.

Thanks... I knew there had to be SOME reason I always tried to acquire military science :lol:This can indeed be huge, after reading about it here i used it in a particularly violent game where i was Toku. Those upgraded MG's are nearly invincible in your cities

I think DanF's article is relevant to this isn't it? It states that your high power usually doesn't deter the ais from declaring (and dogpiling) on you. You say you're not talking about dogpiling, from your remark here i read that dogpiling (and vassal acceptation) are exactly the things you are talking about.So i don't think TMIT went off a tangent he just corrected your uninformed idea of the powergraph being so important. I don't understand your annoyance about this just as i don't understand your annoyance with my first post here.

I don't know how the powergraph affects demands, it's one thing we weren't talking about. As for capitulation i think the normal war decision rules stand. An ai will take a vassal declaring on you if you're under his power threshold and his attitude towards you allows him to declare on you anyway. I'm not totally sure of this, it seems TMIT knows more about this, hope he posts it here.

This does not correspond with my appreciation of the game. Capitulation is a trade deal and uses trade logic (with some checks of power rating among other things). Dogpiling is a specific type of war declaration when 2 civs are already at war and a third civ decides (through the dogpile logic) to join in against one side or the other. Maybe I'm wrong and dogpile logic is somehow involved in capitulation as well, although that doesn't seem to make much sense as they are clearly different situations, so I look forward to you (or someone else) showing where in that thread (or elsewhere) this is made clear.

My annoyance with TMIT is because of his exaggerated and hectoring tone. It is possible to be informative but not inflammitary or assume that I (or anyone else on this board) is ignorant of basic priciples. Even if I am ignorant of something there are ways to express oneself with causing annoyance, frankly I expect better of TMIT. You chose to support TMIT and attracted my ire. If you had merely been informative and referenced the thread as Raskolnikov did, I would have thanked you, instead you got involved.

However, let's examine what I actually did say rather than what TMIT and you think I said. It is absolutely true that the power rating can dissaude at least some civs from intervening in wars and that is all I said. Hence the value of upgrading troops that can play a small part in the power gain, which is the bit that is relevant to this thread. As I play on Immortal I am already aware that getting that level of power is more difficult on higher levels. I need neither TMIT nor you to tell me the obvious. Nevertheless, and all DanF's work not withstanding, it is still possible to stop war declarations and I presume vassalising to a third party with sufficient power. It just has to be a lot on Immortal and even more, I assume, on Diety. But since I never mentioned the difficulty level or the required power I just don't see how I could be accused of being uninformed, but perhaps thats not what you meant with your slur.

IIRC, upgraded units lose their accumulated XP back down to the previous level that allowed their last promotion. For exapmple, my CR II swordsman with 12 XP (took 10 to get the CR II) will lose the extra 2 XP he has earned and be a 10 XP maceman or whatever. Those lost XP can add up.

@UncleJJ,

Fair enough, i don't think TMIT's tone was offensive , mine was mildly offensive just as yours imo. I found your reaction somewhat annoying also because the link to the article has been posted many times and reacted in style. Can't fault you for not reading it though, I think i'll include the link to the article in my sig.

As to the points you raise, since you play emperor + i react with comments on that level.

I highly doubt capitulation is an ordinary trade deal, i think the war rules set down in DanF,s article more or less apply, but might be a bit more to it though. Dogpile probably doesn't play a role in vassalazation.

The thing about declaration principles is that they're not basic principles at all, it's imo rather fuzzy logic in which power considerations play a very minor role, things like land target, DAGGER-STRATEGY and attitude play a much larger role. Without looking at the code you'll probably never find out. This has caught many good players out in the past who built early barracks to boost power because it seemed power should be important. It should be imo but it just isn't.

I doubt the power rating can realistically stop declarations or dissuade the other ais from becoming involved, this is not in line with DanF's findings. I think we're talking about the same things really and just disagree. But it's easy enough to check, see in your next emperor game if you reach ~1.5 * power of the other ais. I know from immortal + that it can only be done in the end game.

This can indeed be huge, after reading about it here i used it in a particularly violent game where i was Toku. Those upgraded MG's are nearly invincible in your cities

Agreed. I love them for sneak attack protection. Just two CG2 or CG3 MGs can chew up a whole boatload of artillery that would normally shred infantry. The only problem comes when the enemy finally starts floating tanks over :(

IIRC, upgraded units lose their accumulated XP back down to the previous level that allowed their last promotion. For exapmple, my CR II swordsman with 12 XP (took 10 to get the CR II) will lose the extra 2 XP he has earned and be a 10 XP maceman or whatever. Those lost XP can add up.

Correct; which is why its best to upgrade a unit just after you promote it, rather than build it to 16xp (13 for CHAR trait) and then promote. A CR3 mace will tear apart a cannon-weakened musket just fine if the battle will get it to that next crucial promotion without wasting the XP. Good point Fetch.

Upgrading a large chunk of your army can be handy when you get a key tech advantage that you want to exploit asap. In my current game I got to steel before any other civ and upgraded my trebs to cannons to go run riot through enemy lands. I think it was worth it to be able to bring the pain that many turns earlier (plus I had tons of cash just sitting there).

That's not how it works, IIRC.

Upgraded units keep the XP that they had before upgrading, up to a maximum of 10 XP. If they gained any levels that require more than 10 XP, they still keep those levels, but in order to gain the next level they must start from 10 XP.

Example:

Before: 7/5 XP (2nd level)
After: 7/5 XP (2nd level)

Before: 16/17 XP (4th level)
After: 10/17 XP (4th level)

Before: 20/26 XP (5th level)
After: 10/26 XP (5th level)

i dont upgrade until ennemy is near my city. When they are really to old to be upgraded i give them to other civs. gives a bonus diplomacy, plus if they upgrade them against me it will cripple their gold.

Second I always upgrade since most of the time in the end games i'm on State Property with Police State and since i have nothing to do with my 7000 golds i upgrade!

How much do you need to gift to get diplo bonus?

JJ and I have gotten into heated discussion (hopefully not personal, at least it isn't on my end, but heated nonetheless) in other threads and perhaps that's spilling over here a bit. The intention in this thread was not to come down on anyone, but to point out that an assertion was somewhat inaccurate.

JJ is correct in that the dogpile war check is separate from other warchecks, however *all* war checks calculate the power of the target. If you are at war, it adds the power of your enemies to its own for that power. Essentially, if you are at war and not in the process of cleaning up the game, you *will* fail the war check on emp+.

Having somewhere from just >100% to 200% of a nations power (depending on leader) is hard enough when you AREN'T at war. Again situations where you're not already in cleanup where you can use power to deter war in this way are quite rare in high level play.

As for capitulations, I assert the mechanics are illogical and poorly-developed, but we have to live with them regardless.

To clear the "we're doing fine on our own", you have to be stronger than the target by enough. However, the target's power ALSO has to be below the average of all civs. The average is a serious problem in this game, and the typical bottleneck. Someone beat gandhi to 3 cities and capped him? Hurts the average. Someone created a weak colony? Hurts the average. 1 tile island vassal after punting him off the continent? Hurts the average.

I've had situations where going into the worldbuilder and DELETING MY OWN VASSAL was enough to make the target capitulate when it otherwise would not...:sad:. That can't possibly be how it was intended to work but as of 3.19 that's still the reality.

One more rule for capitulation ------> target is a "land target" (shares 8 tiles of border) of a 3rd civ at war with it. For this I don't recall the exact numbers, but it is a *very* significant factor, and is part of the reason rolling capitulations on maps like pangaea is so common. A lot of my recent immortal games showcase abusing the hell out of this rule, by combining it with "farming war success" (war success also factors in, again I forget how much and generally just kill as many units as I need before they cap) by shredding the AI stack in my vassal's territory. Wars that should be difficult slog-fests turn into 10-15 turn capitulations that way...even if you're very backwards compared to the target.

All of this sums to making power from garrison forces CLOSE to useless. Power rating isn't entirely useless, but in practice you'll do far better assuming it is rather than assuming it plays any significant role in the game in high level play. If you want capitulation you're far off getting a 3rd civ into war on your targets border and accruing war success (while dropping target power against the average) than worrying about drafting or upgrading garrisons. If you want to avoid war use diplomacy since in practice that's the only viable way.

Of course, once the war starts, the troops you have available to fight are still material....

@TMIT: Sorry for being so tardy in replying to this thread. I’ve been away from my computer spending time with my family. Also it turned out to be very long :(

JJ and I have gotten into heated discussion (hopefully not personal, at least it isn't on my end, but heated nonetheless) in other threads and perhaps that's spilling over here a bit. The intention in this thread was not to come down on anyone, but to point out that an assertion was somewhat inaccurate.
Our “heated” discussion was due to your assumptions in this thread and then spread to another unrelated thread where you repeated a long standing but minor error. As far as I’m concerned it is nothing to worry about. It is certainly not personal and I don’t take offence, I’m just mildly annoyed at being misunderstood and then lectured at. I hope I can explain my position and eventually we’ll agree some common ground. At present I have nothing but your and Dirk’s opinions with nothing to back those up and these opinions run counter to my intuitions. I still feel that pumping up the power rating can be usefully employed at higher levels of difficulty, certainly on Emperor and by extension Immortal in many circumstances although not all, for Deity I have no experience of the power levels reached by the AIs and until it can be shown to work on Immortal I suspend judgement. This will not be viable in every game but there will, I guess, be many situations where this is a good way to end a game quickly with a high score.

Let me first deal with your comments and then make my own points.


JJ is correct in that the dogpile war check is separate from other warchecks, however *all* war checks calculate the power of the target. If you are at war, it adds the power of your enemies to its own for that power.
Good we agree. And that is well known.

Essentially, if you are at war and not in the process of cleaning up the game, you *will* fail the war check on emp+.
This is just opinion. I don’t see how you can know this unless you’ve actually tried it properly. This is not always true for Emperor from the time when drafting can substantially boost the player’s power above at least *some*AIs. It might not work for the top AI power but maybe you can settle with him diplomatically, most of the other AIs will not be able to pass the test for powerful player. I’m not sure what you mean by emp+, I presume you mean Emperor, Immortal and Diety.


Having somewhere from just >100% to 200% of a nations power (depending on leader) is hard enough when you AREN'T at war. Again situations where you're not already in cleanup where you can use power to deter war in this way are quite rare in high level play.

Have you actually thought about how you might raise your power purposely? I mean rather than build troops specifically to win wars because they are good at fighting, build them because they can raise your power efficently. In truth if you have enough firepower (airpower and artillery) in the late game the type of follow up troops that occupy the cities don’t matter too much. For instance, maybe it is better to stick with rifling for longer and draft rifles while researching Flight instead of Assembly Line.


As for capitulations, I assert the mechanics are illogical and poorly-developed, but we have to live with them regardless.

Maybe, but vassals are a way to power and population (for UN and AP votes). I am trying to explore their use in the late game and because they have diplomatic consequences it is probably better to rely more on power to deter attacks that could delay victory.


To clear the "we're doing fine on our own", you have to be stronger than the target by enough. However, the target's power ALSO has to be below the average of all civs. The average is a serious problem in this game, and the typical bottleneck. Someone beat gandhi to 3 cities and capped him? Hurts the average. Someone created a weak colony? Hurts the average. 1 tile island vassal after punting him off the continent? Hurts the average.

Creating a weak colony does hurt the average but I don’t think the rest of this is really true in most circumstances. What you are neglecting is that if Ghandi losses some cities then Shaka gains them and after a while those cities get garrisons and some buildings and the power lost by Ghandi is largely accounted for by what is gained by Shaka and the average maintained. There are ways to boost the power of weak civs, other than the one we wish to capitulate, and I’ll come on to those strategies later in a general discussion of how to manipulate our own power and that of vassals and even weak third parties.

Taking a vassal does not have to reduce the overall average by much, however killing too many of his troops in the process does reduce the average. Wars need to be quick and decisive with low casualties. In fact, taking a backward vassal and giving him better military technologies and donating him obsolete units to update can be a way to raise both your team’s total power and the average of all civs at the same time, thereby making other capitulations easier. This is an important part of the chain capitulation strategy I am trying to develop. So I contest this point, it does not have to be so. Be careful to not generalise from a specific instance.


I've had situations where going into the worldbuilder and DELETING MY OWN VASSAL was enough to make the target capitulate when it otherwise would not...:sad:. That can't possibly be how it was intended to work but as of 3.19 that's still the reality.

Interesting. We can use the WB to explore various theories in a few test games.


One more rule for capitulation ------> target is a "land target" (shares 8 tiles of border) of a 3rd civ at war with it. For this I don't recall the exact numbers, but it is a *very* significant factor, and is part of the reason rolling capitulations on maps like pangaea is so common. A lot of my recent immortal games showcase abusing the hell out of this rule, by combining it with "farming war success" (war success also factors in, again I forget how much and generally just kill as many units as I need before they cap) by shredding the AI stack in my vassal's territory. Wars that should be difficult slog-fests turn into 10-15 turn capitulations that way...even if you're very backwards compared to the target.
The land target rules apply to war declarations and are particularly relevant to dogpiling and it seems often stop them from happening. I usually play on continents and other water heavy maps and almost never on pangea or maps where more than half the AIs share my landmass. This probably accounts in part at least for our different perspectives. My overall gameplan is often to consolidate my own landmass and any weak neighbours before projecting my military overseas with galleons or transports. It is in this latter phase that I am advocating using the power rating.


All of this sums to making power from garrison forces CLOSE to useless. Power rating isn't entirely useless, but in practice you'll do far better assuming it is rather than assuming it plays any significant role in the game in high level play. If you want capitulation you're far off getting a 3rd civ into war on your targets border and accruing war success (while dropping target power against the average) than worrying about drafting or upgrading garrisons. If you want to avoid war use diplomacy since in practice that's the only viable way.



You are repeatedly making the same point. We all know that at high difficulty levels it will be harder to get more power than some of the larger AIs. I still believe it’s possible if done right. Of course upgrading garrisons is only a miniscule part in the overall power build up, who said otherwise? I also think you might not be following the best tech path or building the best sort of troops to maximise the effects of power rating both for yourself and the vassals. That would affect your judgement about the practicality of using power rating to control the late game.

It is important to note that I am not trying to use power rating in the early game (one of Dirk’s concerns). It seems to me on Immortal a human player doesn’t have much chance of matching the AI power ratings until the Renaissance. The human player probably needs twice as much land as the average AI and maybe 3 times the cities. With drafting and a better economy able to support large numbers of troops the human can build up more power than at least some of the AIs particularly the ones following less militarily orientated strategies.

Vassals: The power of a vassal is added to your own power rating when DoW decisions are considered. A way for a player to supplement his own power rapidly is to gain one or more vassals. So if you had been relying on diplomacy to avert war in the early game, which is a good idea, then as soon as you start taking vassals it’s a good idea to switch to power rating as the means of deterrence as well as effects like Land target restrictions.

My main interest in this subject at present is the use of chain capitulation to rapidly bring a game to an end. I believe that power rating can have a lot to do in that process and is perhaps the most important factor. To successfully capitulate an AI you need to overawe it with your own power rating and to reduce it to less than the average power of players in that game. That is easy to do by destroying large parts of its army and taking its cities. But for chain capitulation destroying too much power in your future vassal is a bad thing since it will reduce their contribution to the team power rating once they become a vassal and will also make capitulation of other civs harder by lowering the average among all civs. So I want a technique that produces a rapid Blitzkrieg effect of civs capitulating and still retaining much of their original power.

It seems to me this can be done by delaying the attack and building up overwhelming power. The problem then is voluntary capitulation of weaker civs to other medium strength ones and defensive pacts between friendly civs. To prevent that becoming a problem chain capitulation needs to be a quick succession of victories rather than spread out in time. The diplomatic situation with other powerful civs will deteriorate rapidly from war declarations and from taking vassals. However, if the vassals have useful power ratings the total power might deter at least some types of war.

Ways to boost power of a vassal:
a) Gift them military techs, this costs nothing. Some care is needed if they are likely to trade them on to other civs. For instance gifting Rifling, Guilds, Flight and Mil Science is equivalent to 2 infantry in terms of power.
b) Gift them units. These can be obsolete units which they then upgrade with the discount of the difficulty level. These troops are unlikely to be used well militarily but we are using them to boost power. This is a way for the human to exploit AI bonuses on higher levels.
a) Liberate cities, particularly those that were his originally as this restores his culture. Liberated cities get 2 draft troops and you get a diplomatic bonus with the vassal.

Rather than carry on setting out my ideas here, in a thread on upgrades, I think I’ll start another thread discussing chain capitulation. Upgrades are a part of the overall plan but there are too many other considerations not relevant here.

You could always stockpile a load of gold to upgrade a stack of maces/trebs to rifles/cannons, with the intention of keeping your power low enough for your neighbour to declare war on you (you then upgrade and kick their ass). That way you avoid diplomatic penalties.

My main interest in this subject at present is the use of chain capitulation to rapidly bring a game to an end. I believe that power rating can have a lot to do in that process and is perhaps the most important factor. To successfully capitulate an AI you need to overawe it with your own power rating and to reduce it to less than the average power of players in that game. That is easy to do by destroying large parts of its army and taking its cities. But for chain capitulation destroying too much power in your future vassal is a bad thing since it will reduce their contribution to the team power rating once they become a vassal and will also make capitulation of other civs harder by lowering the average among all civs. So I want a technique that produces a rapid Blitzkrieg effect of civs capitulating and still retaining much of their original power.

I have had a lot of success with chain capping ----> it's one of my most typical finishing strategies (and I play a lot of games).

Power is of course important but at that point I'm generally building only units anyway in a lot of my cities. "Refuses to talk" is XML based and is doubled if they declare on you IIRC, but it is also modified by war success ----> killing units without losing any makes them willing to talk quickly.

"land target" as a means to cap the enemy is pretty important, not only because it makes your target willing to cap sooner, but also because they'll cap at higher power. You have to kill fewer troops and thus the average drops less.

A very typical strategy if you're not bordering a large AI is to cap a smaller AI near it, declare war on the bigger AI, kill its SoD in vassal territory, then take cities while allowing your vassal to stay a "land target", such that the bigger civ caps much earlier than normal. Just make sure they're below 50% land or pop though :sad:.

Several of my immortal university games have had me winning domination (or UN diplomation) without a runaway power lead however, after capping all but 1 civ (which has been at least 75% of my power but in some cases was STRONGER), by abusing the combination of "land target" and war success. I'm definitely not sold on the importance of drafting troops just for power.

As for situations where you have flight + a lot of carriers/fighters, you're in good shape and can use pretty much anything, even cavalry :p. Power might be useful there, but it's not long before you could just beat down the target a bit anyway since you have such a powerful setup already (assuming you're not fighting mobile SAMs and modern armor, a large volume of fighters is just more than the AI can handle). I still prefer infantry (or cavalry) + arty/antitank though...for land maps anyway.

The land target rules apply to war declarations and are particularly relevant to dogpiling and it seems often stop them from happening. I usually play on continents and other water heavy maps and almost never on pangea or maps where more than half the AIs share my landmass. This probably accounts in part at least for our different perspectives. My overall gameplan is often to consolidate my own landmass and any weak neighbours before projecting my military overseas with galleons or transports. It is in this latter phase that I am advocating using the power rating.


Emp cotinents normally means that once your landmass is consolidated the game is in the bag. I have yet to see an emp AI wholly consolidate its cotinent on emp nor have I seen such a scenario where, even with a strong tech disadvantage I cannot own the seas and eventually begin poaching off an airhead on emp.

Maybe on emp you can reach this point before you can effectively fight the world at once (which, granted is suboptimal for score and completion times, but is quite possible), but I would bet against even this scenario on immort+ of your power rating ever tipping the scales before you can fight the world at large. Maybe on some oversized map, but not with standard maps.

Several of my recent games have been ended quickly with chain capitulation and this has increased my interest in using this as a method to end the game. What I have noticed is that attacking with overwhelming force means the civ will capitulate in 1 or 2 turns with very few losses to it or me. This is much better than a long drawn out slugging match that could have happened if I had started 10 turns earlier. It seems to me that there is more to this than simply producing a lot of troops and attacking a weak AI and then another.

Power is certainly not the only factor involved but it is an important factor in several ways or at least can be under some circumstances. Generally having more power at that stage of the game is a good thing since it hastens capitulation of weak targets. So studying ways of generating power efficiently is worthwhile and I've developed a spreadsheet comparing power with the costs of various units taking account of how they can be built by hammers, whipping, drafting, upgrades and US rush buying. What this shows is that some units are much more worthwhile than others for increasing power. Also there are much higher power for hammer ratios for some later units such as destroyers (150) and paratroopers (188) than earlier troops such as frigates (89) and grenadier (120). This at least partly explains the very large rise in power the AIs get in the late game often by upgrading their troops as well as building new ones.

Upgrading some troops is quite an efficient use of gold if increasing power is the main objective. For instance each gold spent on upgrading a frigate to a destroyer, not something I normally do, gains 62 power and is better than many other upgrades that I do use; such as a grenadier to a machine gun which only gains 21 power per gold.

"land target" as a means to cap the enemy is pretty important, not only because it makes your target willing to cap sooner, but also because they'll cap at higher power. You have to kill fewer troops and thus the average drops less.

A very typical strategy if you're not bordering a large AI is to cap a smaller AI near it, declare war on the bigger AI, kill its SoD in vassal territory, then take cities while allowing your vassal to stay a "land target", such that the bigger civ caps much earlier than normal. Just make sure they're below 50% land or pop though :sad:.
I understand how "land target" rules affects the AI DoW logic but haven't seen reference to that for capitulation. Do you have a link?

Several of my immortal university games have had me winning domination (or UN diplomation) without a runaway power lead however, after capping all but 1 civ (which has been at least 75% of my power but in some cases was STRONGER), by abusing the combination of "land target" and war success. I'm definitely not sold on the importance of drafting troops just for power.
Drafting is an efficient way to raise your own power with 3 rifles at 14K each worth a bit more than 2 infantry at 20K each despite costing 1 pop less. Prolonged drafting that can raise 70 rifles is worth 1 million power and forms the basis of a very high power. If you're building or whipping troops then paratroopers are better than infantry both tactically and for power, so Fascism is researched immediately after Assembly Line and my only infantry would be a few drafted ones and upgrades from earlier troops, none get built.

As for situations where you have flight + a lot of carriers/fighters, you're in good shape and can use pretty much anything, even cavalry :p. Power might be useful there, but it's not long before you could just beat down the target a bit anyway since you have such a powerful setup already (assuming you're not fighting mobile SAMs and modern armor, a large volume of fighters is just more than the AI can handle). I still prefer infantry (or cavalry) + arty/antitank though...for land maps anyway.
Actually carriers and fighters are pretty middle order when the power for hammers are considered, destroyers are better value. What they do help give though is the high kill to loss ratio that hastens the capitulation decision, then the power ratings get compared and capitulation occurs before any other AIs can interfer. Often my losses are only a fighter and I kill 12 enemy units and take 2 cities and they capitulate despite having 8 cities left.

I understand how "land target" rules affects the AI DoW logic but haven't seen reference to that for capitulation. Do you have a link?


http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=295173&highlight=masters+vassals

There was a later thread started by someone else in the bug report subforum where danf actually calculated out the impact of a land target war ally. However, since I didn't start it and I already did a search I don't feel like scooping it up. You can choose to utilize the land target rule for capitulations or not as you please.

The other big factor in getting them to talk quickly is war success. If you kill 10-20 units and lose 0, they'll be willing to talk as early as the 2nd turn even with relatively similar power. If the AI has a stack this is quite easy if you're going with vassal chains, as their stack will be a sitting duck in vassal territory. Extra power helps here if it puts you over the threshold but there's a good chance you'll be over it without much effort.

I'd much rather focus on troops that allow us to kill the enemy troops quickly and easily, because we can get highly favorable kill-death outputs even at tech parity or worse. Dropping an opponent's power is much easier than raising your own when it comes to the AI and its bonuses. The AI also makes a great place to dump your crappy units of course. As efficient as upgrades are for us, handing obsoleted units to vassals with a 50% upgrade discount is even better, especially because the bottleneck is usually average power rather than our power.

Building troops to merely kick the average up does not seem cost-effective to me. It makes a lot more sense to drop the power of the target against such an average...

Of course its not like either of us stops building units in game-ending pushes. But our own power only matters to the point where we are sufficiently stronger than our war targets to gain capitulation, and that's frequently easy to attain relative to the average or gaining enough land/pop.

Obviously most players will agree that upgrading the whole army is almost never a good idea. A warrior works just as good for military police duty as does a mech infantry and its much cheaper. My capital is usually guarded by a warrior the whole game, as are most inland tiles. Even coastal cities have very weak defenses most games. Using binary research, one almost always has cash on hand for emergency upgrades, and then there is always the draft. Unless you are on a really low difficulty, power rating is virtually meaningless.

Upgrades are useful for units that have a lot of promotions or promotions they couldn't otherwise get (ie., swordsman with CR promotions should be upgraded to rifles which can't get CR). I also use upgrades sometimes when I simply want to build up a force very quickly. It is certainly not the most cost-effective method but assembling an offensive force quickly has multiple benefits, namely that the AI is bad at responding to a sudden spike in your power graph.


Are you serious?? There are still people who get away with defending cities with archers and warriors to the end of the game? Wow. I don't know if my luck is just bad, or whatever, but the BTS AI is a little too untrustworthy for me to do that. Far too many times have I had an army of like 100 infantry, and another civ has an army half that size, and yet they manage to land an invasion force right beside the one city I have that's only defended by some xbows, and I lose it. It's very annoying. That's why now when I play I actively defend my territory. It's something I used to only do when playing war-monger games. But now, even when I'm pursuing a peaceful strategy, I actively defend my territory. That means upgraded garrisons in every city and mobile defence units stationed throughout the empire (so in the middle ages that would mean longbows defending every city, usually at least 2, with more in the border cities and some knights position throughout my empire, knights are the fast units that can be used to put out the fires, in other words, get to a troubled city fast. Knights will also put the hurt on enemy seige units. In industrial times that would mean infantry dfending cities and fighter planes in all border cities as well as stack of tanks positioned throughout my empire for quick defense. I also make sure to defend my waters. I'll have ships defending seafood sources and later in the game I'll have subs and destroyers scouting the ocean between mea nd other civs so that I always have advanced warning of an attack

@noto2
to be able to defend with nothing, you need to be very careful of your diplomacy.

On the high levels, it's the only way to survive anyway.

Are you serious?? There are still people who get away with defending cities with archers and warriors to the end of the game?
Quite serious. Inland cities do not need modern defenses. It sunds like your primary problem is diplomatic, not miltary in nature.

Far too many times have I had an army of like 100 infantry, and another civ has an army half that size, and yet they manage to land an invasion force right beside the one city I have that's only defended by some xbows, and I lose it.

If an army of 50 infantry is landed next to a coastal city, you are losing that city. Rarely have I seen the AI conduct particularly effective amphibious warfare, though they have certainly gotten better. Usually they land much smaller stacks which can be dealt with.

But now, even when I'm pursuing a peaceful strategy, I actively defend my territory. That means upgraded garrisons in every city and mobile defence units stationed throughout the empire (so in the middle ages that would mean longbows defending every city, usually at least 2, with more in the border cities and some knights position throughout my empire, knights are the fast units that can be used to put out the fires, in other words, get to a troubled city fast. Knights will also put the hurt on enemy seige units. In industrial times that would mean infantry dfending cities and fighter planes in all border cities as well as stack of tanks positioned throughout my empire for quick defense. I also make sure to defend my waters. I'll have ships defending seafood sources and later in the game I'll have subs and destroyers scouting the ocean between me and other civs so that I always have advanced warning of an attack

Wow. Do you have any idea how much money and hammers all your "mobile defense teams" are costing you? And all the subs and destroyers on patrol can be replaced with a couple of airships running recon missions every turn.

Winning on increasingly higher difficulties requires extremely efficient use of military. There is simply no way to have this perfect defense with roving rapid response teams. Even on BTS, the AI is fairly predictable as far as where and how they attack. Watch for when they go WHEOOHRN and prepare accordingly. Know who does and does not attack pleased. WIth those who do not, you can leave your borders completely undefended.

The size of some of the replies on this thread scare me.

Once you've constructed a rail path you can reinforce most areas in a standard-size map empire in 1-2 turns from pretty much anywhere in your territory.

Before that, you have to plan ahead mildly.

The AI will typically mass a stack in a city that is near the borders of its target. Its stack then leaves and will take the shortest path into its target territory en route to a city. I have seen some variance when there are multiple border cities involved, but past that the AI is predictable. It will march from its borders to yours if on the same land mass. Otherwise, it will mass naval units in one city (usually one that's closest to you) and then sail straight over and either hit amphibiously or land at shortest travel.

If you actually have an army, you pay attention to WHEOOHRN, and you actually scout a little bit, it's usually easy to know *exactly* where the enemy will attack.

I usually upgrade the hell out of my troops when I get a great merchant and he conducts his trade mission. This might not be that wrong since they are usually sitting around with 3-4 promotions and are needed for the next war. Maybe I just have too few military production cities, since I always feel im lagging behind in size of army. later great merchants are usually used in the same manner - If I am on a landlocked mega continent I might upgrade city defenders as well, mainly in order to raise my power, but also so I dont look too weak.

TMIT is very right about defending against naval invasion. The AI isn't sneaky enough to attack the least defended city; they just sail for the closest one and attack. If you shred their first attackers who try directly from the boat, they will most likely land the remainder next to the city, so you have a turn to reinforce, draft, or whatever you need to do to make the attack fail.

In my experience, the AI rarely throws naval assaults at me before cannons, rifles, and cavalry. That being the case, usually my coastal cities which lie closest to people who don't like me get three or four of the strongest units I can muster, or once I get railroad, at least two machine gunners. All inland cities just get a basic warrior or archer garrison, and coastal cities that are more remote just get a rifle or something.

@Racsoviale: GMs are too valuable to be wasted on trade missions on higher levels IMO. Bulbing techs or settling often take priority, and GAs are even more useful for building a good garrison that some chump change for upgrades. Most often, I save my first great merchant for Sid's Sushi, too, since that corporation is just too valuable to pass up.

It sounds like you are not doing something right if you are having trouble building enough troops and raising the cash to upgrade them. Perhaps you are building too many buildings and too few troops? Also, try selling highly outdated non-military techs to low-tier civs for all their gold... you'll end up with oodles more gold than that one lousy trade mission.

Capnvonbaron: I think you are right, I usually REX hard or rush early either way I end up fighting my own economy through most of the game. This I believe is because of poor infrastructure/too much whip/too few workers. The problem is I end up building a lot of cottage cities, and not having more than one designated army production city.

Furthermore I think I might deviate too much from getting Code of Laws early, it is usually when I am at 20-30 % research I begin researching currency(bad I know) meanwhile I am still settling new cities.
This usually ends up with me being between 0-10 % before I am done researching Code of Laws.

sorry about the OT

@Racsoviale: GMs are too valuable to be wasted on trade missions on higher levels IMO. Bulbing techs or settling often take priority, and GAs are even more useful for building a good garrison that some chump change for upgrades. Most often, I save my first great merchant for Sid's Sushi, too, since that corporation is just too valuable to pass up.

I don't agree with this, a mid game TM netting some 1500 gold on average can be great. Also bulbing with GM's is not that profitable. You can bulb machinery but this is an easy tech to get in trade.

Congrats on 2,000 posts Dirk1302, looks cool ;)

I don't agree with this, a mid game TM netting some 1500 gold on average can be great. Also bulbing with GM's is not that profitable. You can bulb machinery but this is an easy tech to get in trade.

in the early game, a trade mission is really not that grand.
When you get a mid game merchant, and you're not sure you''l get another soon, you may consider sushi...

One time where I always make sure to get some upgrades in is in the time between rifling and military science. During that time I crank out cr2 maces in my heroic epic city which will have a general stationed and just immediately promote them to rifles. That way you get to bring that seige tower along with you into the renaissance and even modern era :)

Great Merchant is a stack of modern army.

Philosopy and caste system is brutal force.

in the early game, a trade mission is really not that grand.
When you get a mid game merchant, and you're not sure you''l get another soon, you may consider sushi...Early game settle is often better. Don't get them often early game though. Sushi can be great, as i use workshops a lot and often go domination i need sp so generally no sushi for me.

One time where I always make sure to get some upgrades in is in the time between rifling and military science. During that time I crank out cr2 maces in my heroic epic city which will have a general stationed and just immediately promote them to rifles. That way you get to bring that seige tower along with you into the renaissance and even modern era :) Why do use cr2 rifles when you have siege? Since you're talking about MS i presume your siege is cannons if not i'd go steel first then ms.

CR II is overrated, its only +45% vs city, while C I/Pinch is +35%, not a big difference against gunpowder units. If you are fighting longbows, even drafted rifles are good enough.

CR III is the killer promotion, its an additional +40% (+30% vs city, +10% vs gunpowder)!

CR II is overrated, its only +45% vs city, while C I/Pinch is +35%, not a big difference against gunpowder units. If you are fighting longbows, even drafted rifles are good enough.

CR III is the killer promotion, its an additional +40% (+30% vs city, +10% vs gunpowder)!

I sort of agree but that's because I seldom upgrade a mace until it is CR3. With cannon support that usually doesn't take too many combats. It seems such a waste to have a CR2 rifle that could have been a CR3 one.

However on a technical note a CR2 rifle is much more versatile than a Pinch one and makes a much better general attacker. At that stage of the game, if you're facing an opponent of equal technology, the top defender will often not be a gunpowder unit but can be a cavalry with pinch, a machine gun (good luck against that), or a cannon or artillery. Against those Pinch is useless and simply means they are more likely to get selected over a gunpowder defender. The CR2 troop simply attacks all of them and apart from the machine gun stands a good chance.

If you're using cannons, your CR is right there. Just combat is fine on the rifles. Pinch is less versatile but not too bad since other than cavalry all the competent renaissance defenders are indeed gunpowder units.

Overall CR is definitely better (when attacking cities), but I'm not convinced that it's a great deal or even significantly better in practice in a lot of cases.

Without cannons, taking cities defended by longbows with rifles is harder. I've quit doing it since my tech pace usually lags compared to other players and at my difficulty they often get rifles or grenadiers too soon for my tastes, but I do recall something along the lines of combat being more comparable to CR at high % modifiers of defense. Still, CR rifles are quite good with spies, though if I have iron the cannon line is just preferred because it attacks effectively until *they* have rifles, and sometimes well after that. Cavalry hurt though.

one thing I don't think I understand right is promotions... so you're saying CR2 + Pinch doesn't add together when attacking gunpowder units in a city, and so I'm not getting 70% strength? Does CR add to any promotions (Combat, shock, etc)?

Yes, they work together, but in that case CR3 is still better :) Pinch is a defensive promotion.
Note that all attacker's promotions lessen the strength of the defender, while combat add to the attacker strength (C3 = + 30% for the attacker, CR2 = - 50% for the defender).

Cheers

Makes sense. Sooo... how about CR3 + pinch? :)

hehe yeah it's good, with an AGG leader, you might also want to try C1+ cover + CR path rushing a metalless AI :) (start with cover then CR path)

i've been trying to slog through the lonely victoria game.

in that one, i don't have great production, but i am financial. so, instead of building redcoats, i built crossbows and upgraded them for 170 :gold: each. of course, i had to set the slider to 0%, but i was able to produce redcoats probably about 1.8 times faster than building them from scratch.

also, i had gotten the free combat 1 trireme event, so before steel became available i whipped a few triremes for 2 pop in some very low production cities and then upgraded them to combat 2 frigates (i was running vassalage).

i've been trying to slog through the lonely victoria game.

in that one, i don't have great production, but i am financial. so, instead of building redcoats, i built crossbows and upgraded them for 170 :gold: each. of course, i had to set the slider to 0%, but i was able to produce redcoats probably about 1.8 times faster than building them from scratch.

also, i had gotten the free combat 1 trireme event, so before steel became available i whipped a few triremes for 2 pop in some very low production cities and then upgraded them to combat 2 frigates (i was running vassalage).

you know you can upgrade macemen too, for a better result = better promotions (just avoid military science)