citizenalex
Chieftain
Having played steadily (read: addicted) for a year or so now, I have come to appreciate the Hidden Nationality trait for its ability to remove the one major obstacle everyone faces...
XP being the biggest edge any unit can have is more XP...and you need war with actual rival nations in order to build up your XP to serious levels - but war implies all sorts of disadvantages like your land getting trampled on and pillaged and maybe a city or two up in flames, and lest we forget war weariness and your production queues clogged up for the war effort...
But not so with Hidden Nationality! Build up a shadow army composed of the three stooges or a few war elephants and maybe a nightwatch and some bears for good measure. Once you have Esus your army should have a solid core of recon XP farmers that can cast mask and go wreak havok!
The earlier you start this strategy the more effective it is. Your secretly sponsored terror tactics will go unnoticed by your people and rival nations...You can even spice things up between civs and send your HN troops on the border of two warring nations and turn the tides of battle by pre-weakening one or the other.
A few caveats: Although HN units can be stacked over one another, they cannot be managed as one. Don't let this stop you from attacking civs in a stack, as with a normal army.
Because HN can't go on board national ships, you can only use privateers to tow them from one island to another. Having a few Privateers with the cargo space promo will speed up your ferrying, at least until you get some Obsidian Gates.
Finally, it's easy to forget your HN's are still vulnerable to attacks once garrissoned in your city. Some civs may have signed Open Borders with you and will attack the city if it has an HN - to no effect on the city or diplomacy, but your HN's should always be kept in the same, well defended pile when on idle (which should be very rare)
XP being the biggest edge any unit can have is more XP...and you need war with actual rival nations in order to build up your XP to serious levels - but war implies all sorts of disadvantages like your land getting trampled on and pillaged and maybe a city or two up in flames, and lest we forget war weariness and your production queues clogged up for the war effort...
But not so with Hidden Nationality! Build up a shadow army composed of the three stooges or a few war elephants and maybe a nightwatch and some bears for good measure. Once you have Esus your army should have a solid core of recon XP farmers that can cast mask and go wreak havok!
The earlier you start this strategy the more effective it is. Your secretly sponsored terror tactics will go unnoticed by your people and rival nations...You can even spice things up between civs and send your HN troops on the border of two warring nations and turn the tides of battle by pre-weakening one or the other.
A few caveats: Although HN units can be stacked over one another, they cannot be managed as one. Don't let this stop you from attacking civs in a stack, as with a normal army.
Because HN can't go on board national ships, you can only use privateers to tow them from one island to another. Having a few Privateers with the cargo space promo will speed up your ferrying, at least until you get some Obsidian Gates.
Finally, it's easy to forget your HN's are still vulnerable to attacks once garrissoned in your city. Some civs may have signed Open Borders with you and will attack the city if it has an HN - to no effect on the city or diplomacy, but your HN's should always be kept in the same, well defended pile when on idle (which should be very rare)