Shall we play another game?

CivSetä;5558550 said:

^^^^^ You have to avoid machinery to lightbulb liberalism.

Click to expand...

Great! That will speed things up.

futurehermit said:

If you worry about the shelf-life of cav then go for grens instead--much longer lifespan. They are quite easily lightbulbable. You need engineering and gunpowder of course and you have to lightbulb printing press to clear it out of the way (another alternative is taking pp with lib for faster grens).

Click to expand...

That's true. I guess I'll see where things are when I get there. I'm guessing the AI will get rifles around 1400 since this is a slow teching game. A ~300 year window might be ok.

Should have chosen marathon speed

At normal speed the cavalry window is small indeed. I only use them as pickup units myself. Question here for the Cav users: if you plan to attack with cavs, do you build trebs to soften defences or is it just runnning with the horses relying on superior strength to get down fortified longbows in 100% cultural defence bonus cities? If not the cavs have to wait for the trebs anyway and don't seem that useful to me.

Dirk1302 said:

At normal speed the cavalry window is small indeed. I only use them as pickup units myself. Question here for the Cav users: if you plan to attack with cavs, do you build trebs to soften defences or is it just runnning with the horses relying on superior strength to get down fortified longbows in 100% cultural defence bonus cities? If not the cavs have to wait for the trebs anyway and don't seem that useful to me.

Click to expand...

If I do Cav/Treb combo, the Trebs are used for reducing cultural defense only. Bomb the def to 0%, attack with properly promoted (pinch/combat) cavs, while at the same time, sending more cavs to the front.

With cav's mobility you always have the superior attack forces at the front and can take cities very fast. Protect those trebs at all costs. Stick a MedicIII in the stack. Works great with Cav bonus civs(Russia)

If you go with Gren/Trebs, you replace/reinforce your frontal attack force at 1/2 rate as a Cav/Teb combo.

ABigCivFan said:

If I do Cav/Treb combo, the Trebs are used for reducing cultural defense only. Bomb the def to 0%, attack with properly promoted (pinch/combat) cavs, while at the same time, sending more cavs to the front.

With cav's mobility you always have the superior attack forces at the front and can take cities very fast. Protect those trebs at all costs. Stick a MedicIII in the stack. Works great with Cav bonus civs(Russia)

If you go with Gren/Trebs, you replace/reinforce your frontal attack force at 1/2 rate as a Cav/Teb combo.

Click to expand...

It looks like I'll get cavs before trebs since I don't think I can get to engineering in time.

I guess I'll try to get some accuracy catapults to come along for the ride.

Dirk1302 said:

At normal speed the cavalry window is small indeed. I only use them as pickup units myself. Question here for the Cav users: if you plan to attack with cavs, do you build trebs to soften defences or is it just runnning with the horses relying on superior strength to get down fortified longbows in 100% cultural defence bonus cities? If not the cavs have to wait for the trebs anyway and don't seem that useful to me.

Click to expand...

ABigCivFan said:

If I do Cav/Treb combo, the Trebs are used for reducing cultural defense only. Bomb the def to 0%, attack with properly promoted (pinch/combat) cavs, while at the same time, sending more cavs to the front.

With cav's mobility you always have the superior attack forces at the front and can take cities very fast. Protect those trebs at all costs. Stick a MedicIII in the stack. Works great with Cav bonus civs(Russia)

If you go with Gren/Trebs, you replace/reinforce your frontal attack force at 1/2 rate as a Cav/Teb combo.

Click to expand...

Ok that makes sense to me,so you make an initial stack with enough trebs to bombard fairly quickly and some cavs (don't need much initially because they're almost invincible in the field at that time) for trebs protection, initially bombard the cities with the trebs while building ever more cavs that rush behind the initial trebs stack and take the cities easily. You don't need to waste time with doing collateral damage because once the cultural defence bonus is gone cavs prevail easily.Wounded cavs can heal at some leisure because reinforcements are constantly on the way. Sorry that i somewhat copied your post , just a way to get my thoughts straight on this topic. I'll try this, if the circumstances are right you can take a lot of cities in very little time.

Exactly. This could work even against Rifleman defended cities.

If I do the Cav/Treb combo, I normally have a HE city with 1-2 instructors+Barracks+Stable+Theocracy/Vas, you can get CombatII+Pinch cavs every 1-2 turns from that city. With bulk of your cavs made up of this force, they can kill rifles easily. With Charismatic civs, even better.

Edit: Pete, Engineering helps soo much with any war effort with its movement bonus; Trebs(can bring down the cultural defense much faster than Cats), Pikes, just add so much power to your military mix and Castles give a nice economics boost to your large commerce cities. I would not neglect this tech no matter what tech tree i pursue.

Round 6: Boring



I got my next GP and took Philo to switch to pacifism. The founding of Taoism was unfortunate since I would prefer one of the unknown civs founded it.

Also it spread to a couple cities so I had to build extra missionaries.



The northern copper city went up. Looking back, there was no rush to build this city and I probably should have put this one up by the silks. Maintenance costs are becoming a drag.



I took Nara, lost one axe, and decided to keep it. It isn't much now but if I raze it, I'll have to rebuild something there later and building settlers really sucks.



Vicky ends up with the GLighthouse. Probably could have gotten this one if I tried. Usually gets built a lot earlier though.



I took and razed Kagoshima. Will build later one tile east once my finances are in order.



Peace comes at a cheap price. Toku has nothing to offer.



Three quick Gss later and I have paper and education.



I still haven't done any exploring because I'm going to make some map trades here and units cost extra cash that I do not have.

From what I can tell, there are barbs to the NE, Toku to the N and Brennus to the W. Vicky is on her own island.

The maintenance situation does look bad but I have about 3 courthouses that'll get finished very soon and a market in the capital. That should get me back to 60%.



Took forever to build the NE. This specialist game is challenging. I long to play HC.

At this point I think I'm free to ditch pacifism. I think we're set to build forges followed by stables in all cities to prepare for the cav invasion force.

Perhaps I should switch to OR to get it done quickly.



I got my 4th GS and am ready to bulb Lib but it will only let me bulb compass. I guess I'll have to get that first.



I can trade right now with Vicky and make her stronger or I can switch to no religion and trade with Brennus. I would like to run OR but it would only be a 5 turn diversion.

Decisions decisions.



Vicky's landmass. Looks like about 6 good cities to the north. Too bad I'd have to enter from the south. I do want that Glighthouse though. I am badly in need of some commerce.

You should had go lurking that article I mentioned when discussing using a GA to ligthbulb Natio.... That compass thing could had been avoided

Well, toku is a non factor, brennus is far away ... so vicky it is. But she'll have longbows and you don't have construction yet.... So that will have to wait ( you don't have economical conditions to cope much more cities until some developing ).

Besides that, not much to say ( you said yourself that this turn had been "boring" )

Maintenance is going to hurt going deep into her territory. Any chance you can wait until you clean up the heart of the Northern areas?

p.s., HC is overpowered

settling next to the silk is not going to cost you really. Lots of commerce = it will pay for itself.
About OrgRel, if I remember well, it's brennus' favourite civic. Not a total waste if you want to improve your relations to the guy.
Of course, if you don't care, you can just as well let him be and research compass instead.

Pro's to settle silk city asap:
1. Little upkeep since it is close to the capital
2. You can finally get 2 more plantations and the chop will overflow into quick building.
3. With 2 more silks you can trade it around for cash which you are in dire need for so the city will pay itself back very quickly.
4. With more trade comes diplomatic points, which is also good.

Very interesting so far.

Question:

Why have you not settle the stone? It is such an important strategic res to have. Could have used it to built Angkor Wat or any stone wonder of your choice. If you dont need it, you can always trade it to AIs for 2 res or many GPT...

Edit: spiritual with multiple religions give you cheap temples/priests. If you had Angker Wat, for all your high low cities, you can use some Wat priests to increase and and later on they can help build units too. They worker better than Engineers with that extra

2W of Stone is prob ok, you can chop the granary and get it to grow quickly. many river tiles...

Also could whip a boat in Nara to explore western coast. use an explorer to explore beyond those jungle tiles.

ABigCivFan said:

If I do Cav/Treb combo, the Trebs are used for reducing cultural defense only. Bomb the def to 0%, attack with properly promoted (pinch/combat) cavs, while at the same time, sending more cavs to the front.

With cav's mobility you always have the superior attack forces at the front and can take cities very fast. Protect those trebs at all costs. Stick a MedicIII in the stack. Works great with Cav bonus civs(Russia)

If you go with Gren/Trebs, you replace/reinforce your frontal attack force at 1/2 rate as a Cav/Teb combo.

Click to expand...

Dirk1302 said:

Ok that makes sense to me,so you make an initial stack with enough trebs to bombard fairly quickly and some cavs (don't need much initially because they're almost invincible in the field at that time) for trebs protection, initially bombard the cities with the trebs while building ever more cavs that rush behind the initial trebs stack and take the cities easily. You don't need to waste time with doing collateral damage because once the cultural defence bonus is gone cavs prevail easily.Wounded cavs can heal at some leisure because reinforcements are constantly on the way. Sorry that i somewhat copied your post , just a way to get my thoughts straight on this topic. I'll try this, if the circumstances are right you can take a lot of cities in very little time.

Click to expand...

I actually tried the strat on a monarch game, it's indeed a great strat as long as you reach mil tradition before the ai has rifles (easy on monarch). You don't need the trebs actually, i had some 10 cats left from the early wars, got to war with only 6 cavs, 10 cats, a medic 3 chariot and some axe/swords (these ended up doing nothing) while i kept building cavs in the homeland. Indeed these cavs reach the war front very soon.

The greatest advantage of this strat IMO is being able to leave behind wounded cavs and the medic 3 chariot while moving the healthy cavs/cats. The wounded cavs heal in 1-2 turns and are able to catch up with the healthy stack in time for the next city.

Dirk1302 said:

I actually tried the strat on a monarch game, it's indeed a great strat as long as you reach mil tradition before the ai has rifles (easy on monarch). You don't need the trebs actually, i had some 10 cats left from the early wars, got to war with only 6 cavs, 10 cats, a medic 3 chariot and some axe/swords (these ended up doing nothing) while i kept building cavs in the homeland. Indeed these cavs reach the war front very soon.

The greatest advantage of this strat IMO is being able to leave behind wounded cavs and the medic 3 chariot while moving the healthy cavs/cats. The wounded cavs heal in 1-2 turns and are able to catch up with the healthy stack in time for the next city.

Click to expand...

At that stage of the war, very likely you have you HE city capable of building a 3 promotion cav every 1-2 turns. I sometimes save a GE to rush the WP in this city. That means Combat2+Pinch. These cavs can deal with fortified rifles about 50/50. Because you always have the superior numbers with a concentrated attack force against 1 city garrison group, they can take down these rifle defended cities with no problem.

1 more big advantage for this combo: Gren/gunpower attackers do not retreat, cavs do. This means against tough defenders (CG3 Rifles), you can use the cavs to soften it and the retreat odds will always kick in.

r_rolo1 said:

You should had go lurking that article I mentioned when discussing using a GA to ligthbulb Natio.... That compass thing could had been avoided

Well, toku is a non factor, brennus is far away ... so vicky it is. But she'll have longbows and you don't have construction yet.... So that will have to wait ( you don't have economical conditions to cope much more cities until some developing ).

Besides that, not much to say ( you said yourself that this turn had been "boring" )

Click to expand...

No worries here. I need to build harbors anyway. It looks like cavs will come well before astronomy so I'll take out Brennus and Toku simultaneously.

I probably don't need any catapults for Toku. I think he'll be stuck with archers for the entire game.

futurehermit said:

Maintenance is going to hurt going deep into her territory. Any chance you can wait until you clean up the heart of the Northern areas?

p.s., HC is overpowered

Click to expand...

HC overpowered? No way! Okay, maybe just a little bit but he's fun to play.

Killroyan said:

Pro's to settle silk city asap:
1. Little upkeep since it is close to the capital
2. You can finally get 2 more plantations and the chop will overflow into quick building.
3. With 2 more silks you can trade it around for cash which you are in dire need for so the city will pay itself back very quickly.
4. With more trade comes diplomatic points, which is also good.

Very interesting so far.

Click to expand...

Yes, I'm popping two settlers very soon. Just need to finish up the courthouses first.

ABigCivFan said:

Question:

Why have you not settle the stone? It is such an important strategic res to have. Could have used it to built Angkor Wat or any stone wonder of your choice. If you dont need it, you can always trade it to AIs for 2 res or many GPT...

Edit: spiritual with multiple religions give you cheap temples/priests. If you had Angker Wat, for all your high low cities, you can use some Wat priests to increase and and later on they can help build units too. They worker better than Engineers with that extra

2W of Stone is prob ok, you can chop the granary and get it to grow quickly. many river tiles...

Also could whip a boat in Nara to explore western coast. use an explorer to explore beyond those jungle tiles.

Click to expand...

I was down to 10% science with a slight profit at one point so there just wasn't enough funding to pay for two more cities. I don't plan on building any more wonders. Maybe SoL but that'll be all.



The plan now is:

1. Rush to cavs
2. Trade with Brennus for missing techs.
3. Stop tech trading with Vicky.
4. Build some caravels and make some trades with the new civs.
5. Conquer my landmass quickly.
6. Get astronomy and enter Vicky's land before she gets to rifling.
7. Depending on the unknown civs, I'll choose between space race or domination.

ABigCivFan said:

At that stage of the war, very likely you have you HE city capable of building a 3 promotion cav every 1-2 turns. I sometimes save a GE to rush the WP in this city. That means Combat2+Pinch. These cavs can deal with fortified rifles about 50/50. Because you always have the superior numbers with a concentrated attack force against 1 city garrison group, they can take down these rifle defended cities with no problem.

1 more big advantage for this combo: Gren/gunpower attackers do not retreat, cavs do. This means against tough defenders (CG3 Rifles), you can use the cavs to soften it and the retreat odds will always kick in.

Click to expand...

Agree with this, actually it was early in the game, i got mil trad from liberalism and the early war wasn't very extensive so i had only one GG which (as always) was spent on a medic 3 chariot. So my cavs only had 2 initial promotions (barracks + stable) and i got one cav/3 turns in my HE city. Still easily good enough because i faced longbows and didn't lose one unit while taking 5 cities. I think i can get this to work in most emperor games, on immortal it's more difficult, i don't think you have the opportunity window there unless later in the game when you get westpoint and can lead heavy promoted cavs into the field. Gren/cannon/drafted globe rifles is a slow but very reliable combo on immortal, only question here is can you take the cities fast enough to enjoy them for a winning space race.

Pete2006 said:

HC overpowered? No way! Okay, maybe just a little bit but he's fun to play.

Click to expand...

If you use the quecha's only to stave of the initial barbs then he's just a very good leader. If you use them to take 3 very early cities from the ai for virtually no hammer cost at all i think he's way overpowered, no other civ that can do that.

Dirk1302 said:

If you use the quecha's only to stave of the initial barbs then he's just a very good leader. If you use them to take 3 very early cities from the ai for virtually no hammer cost at all i think he's way overpowered, no other civ that can do that.

Click to expand...

HC is so good because he is so flexible. He's good at everything: war, culture, religion, wonders, production, money...

Yes,he's a real talented guy. He has one terrific (financial) and one good (industrious) trait. His UU is the best there is though you have to be quick to get the most out of it. Terraces are also superstrong. Then he starts with agriculture and mysticism, you just can't do better than that.

Won the Liberalism race and met two civs from the other side. Got cavs ~1100 and should be able to take the rest of my continent soon.

I think with better planning I could have gotten cavs ~1000 or even earlier.