Underrated UUs/UBs

[Badtz Maru]

Originally Posted by Antilogic

Can you just pick another landing site if you can't directly reach it in one turn? Or does this situation come up regularly where there is a veritable wall of barrier island cities preventing you from striking at any decent target (and I don't just mean the capital, I mean any decent coastal city that has good resources around it).

I guess I'm confused as to where this would be an issue. Do you have a screenshot from one of your games to show this situation occurring?

Why would you need a screenshot to understand there could be circumstances where a coastal city is too far away from the borders to be reached and attacked in the same turn? I can imagine many situations where this would be useful.

The AI does not defend cities that are far from it's borders as well as the ones that are near it's borders, especially if there are no hostile forces near them.

There are times when there is one particular city you want to strike quickly, and you do not have the time or the forces to land somewhere else and spend turns marching to that target.

I had a similar situation come up in one of my games. My neighbor was on good terms with me, was much bigger than me and had a large military. I found out they were not far from getting a cultural victory. The one city that had not reached Legendary yet was (fortunately) within range of my transport ships, so I was able to, without Indiamen, declare war and the same turn attack the city before he had a chance to move defenders to it, and I was able to prevent him winning by razing the city. But what would have happened if that city was NOT within the range of my ships? I would have had to move as close as I could, declare war, move my ships into his territory, and then hit end turn. Then he would be able to send naval forces after my ships, and if they survived that, when they got to his city they would find far more defenders than before.

You don't have to be in a situation where the coastal-yet-far-from-borders city is about to cause the opponent to win by culture or victory for the tactic to be useful. Maybe the AI just has a really great city that is not well defended that you want to take or raze. Maybe you want to get a quick capitulation (I've found taking an enemies capital makes them a lot quicker to capitulate). The fact is, you can do surprise attacks with Indiamen (and Carracks) which are impossible with any other naval unit.

[Antilogic]

Originally Posted by Badtz Maru

Why would you need a screenshot to understand there could be circumstances where a coastal city is too far away from the borders to be reached and attacked in the same turn? I can imagine many situations where this would be useful.

The AI does not defend cities that are far from it's borders as well as the ones that are near it's borders, especially if there are no hostile forces near them.

There are times when there is one particular city you want to strike quickly, and you do not have the time or the forces to land somewhere else and spend turns marching to that target.

I had a similar situation come up in one of my games. My neighbor was on good terms with me, was much bigger than me and had a large military. I found out they were not far from getting a cultural victory. The one city that had not reached Legendary yet was (fortunately) within range of my transport ships, so I was able to, without Indiamen, declare war and the same turn attack the city before he had a chance to move defenders to it, and I was able to prevent him winning by razing the city. But what would have happened if that city was NOT within the range of my ships? I would have had to move as close as I could, declare war, move my ships into his territory, and then hit end turn. Then he would be able to send naval forces after my ships, and if they survived that, when they got to his city they would find far more defenders than before.

You don't have to be in a situation where the coastal-yet-far-from-borders city is about to cause the opponent to win by culture or victory for the tactic to be useful. Maybe the AI just has a really great city that is not well defended that you want to take or raze. Maybe you want to get a quick capitulation (I've found taking an enemies capital makes them a lot quicker to capitulate). The fact is, you can do surprise attacks with Indiamen (and Carracks) which are impossible with any other naval unit.

Because sea borders extend out for a maximum of two water tiles and a galleon has four movement? So I cannot imagine a scenario where ordinary galleons would be unable to move from the sea border to the targeted city and unload their troops in a single turn.

Are you talking about leaving your home waters and going to your opponent's in the same turn? Because that is definitely not what I am saying. I mean you send your fleet into the ocean, get up right next to the AI border with the ocean, wait one turn to have maximum movement, and then move in and unload. You might be able to swing staying one tile away from the border so they can't see you, if it's multiplayer and you aren't facing a stupid AI that can't see a good backstabbing.

If you are talking about amphibious assaults to attack before he has time to move troops into the territory, the same idea applies.

Again, post a screenshot from this game so I can see what you are doing.


EDIT: I'm skeptical of what you said about capitulations because I seem to remember that it has more to do with relative power rankings than whether or not you have the "original" capital. Obviously, taking any city is going to diminish your opponent's ability to produce units and thus cause some trauma, but I have little reason to believe that the capital is more highly valued in this calculation than another city of the same population and productive capacity.

[Badtz Maru]

Originally Posted by Antilogic

Because sea borders extend out for a maximum of two water tiles and a galleon has four movement? So I cannot imagine a scenario where ordinary galleons would be unable to move from the sea border to the targeted city and unload their troops in a single turn.

You must not play many different map styles, I see situations like this all the time.

Example 1 - Archipelago map. Civ started in the middle of a cluster of islands, and has colonized or conquered all the islands surrounding his capital. His capital is on the coast of the central island, but is nowhere near his cultural borders because he has developed cities on all the surrounding islands.

Example 2 - Pretty much any land+sea map, including Pangaea with non-smoothed coasts. Continent has two adjacent peninsulas that the other civ has settled completely, and there is a prize city in the "crotch" between these two peninisulas.

Example 3 - Any map with "Snaky Continents" option. There is a long U-shaped continent that the other civilization has settled completely. At the ends of the U are two cities whose borders meet in the middle of the water Civ has cities on the interior coasts of this U.

Example 4 - Any map where two continents can be within 5 squares of each other. Civ has settled the coast of both continents, and the borders of the cities on one coast have merged with the borders of the cities on the other coast. One of the cities you want is right in the middle.

Any of these can also happen when there are two different civilizations and you have open borders with neither, and their borders combine to block you off from easy access to some cities. I had this situation come up, there were two long continents that were close to each other, different civ on each one, and their borders met the entire length of teh stretch of water between them. I could not access all the cities on this coast in one turn.

[Antilogic]

Good sir, I resent your implications as to my playing style! While I concede hating archipelago maps, I have definitely seen ex. 2 and 3 recently, and frankly would have just picked the nearest city for the landing. I'll take that city within a turn of landing (or immediately through amphibious assault) and then start marching towards the other. On the few occasions I have needed to plan a naval flanking attack, I always plan a two-pronged attack because the AI has serious problems facing a two-front war.

I would point out that I said I would pick a different target as any decently-populated city with resources; I can see how one particular city, such as the capital, would be a problematic target. However, what is to stop you from picking a different target and launching your sneak attack?

I can only conclude that this tactic is used at the end of the game in a desperate attempt to prevent an AI from winning Culture or Space. And in that case, you should have been paying attention and dealt with the problem earlier!

[Badtz Maru]

Originally Posted by Antilogic

Good sir, I resent your implications as to my playing style! While I concede hating archipelago maps, I have definitely seen ex. 2 and 3 recently, and frankly would have just picked the nearest city for the landing. I'll take that city within a turn of landing (or immediately through amphibious assault) and then start marching towards the other. On the few occasions I have needed to plan a naval flanking attack, I always plan a two-pronged attack because the AI has serious problems facing a two-front war.

I would point out that I said I would pick a different target as any decently-populated city with resources; I can see how one particular city, such as the capital, would be a problematic target. However, what is to stop you from picking a different target and launching your sneak attack?

I can only conclude that this tactic is used at the end of the game in a desperate attempt to prevent an AI from winning Culture or Space. And in that case, you should have been paying attention and dealt with the problem earlier!

The thing is that, with these units, the option is there. If I was planning an amphibious invasion with a civilization without the Carrack or Indiamen, I would pick which city I wanted to invade based on what I could hit in one turn. If I had a lot of Carracks or Indiamen, I would pick the city using the same criteria as otherwise, but I would have more to choose from in many situations, and there may be better options. Maybe their best military production city can be taken out first, or their only vital strategic resource may only be reachable with a sneak attack.

I don't just pick a city at random when starting a war, I carefully review what I know about all the cities and pick the one to hit first that has the optimum combination of city value, hurting the enemies ability to react, and lack of resistance. The ability to do an improved sneak attack by these units is not going to be something that is always useful, but there are not uncommon situations which open up the OPPORTUNITY to make use of this ability, and if you are playing the Dutch on a watery map, you have more options when making an amphibious invasion. You can hit any coastal city, not just ones close to the border, and that may mean you can take out their highest production city, or one with a vital wonder (e.g. take out the city with Statue of Zeus first), or the one sitting next to their only source if iron - in situations where you could not do that with another civ.

[naterator]

Originally Posted by Antilogic

I can only conclude that this tactic is used at the end of the game in a desperate attempt to prevent an AI from winning Culture or Space. And in that case, you should have been paying attention and dealt with the problem earlier!

Not to mention that if the AI is launching spaceships and you don't have combustion, then there's some larger problems than just how to get to their shores.

[Badtz Maru]

Originally Posted by naterator

Not to mention that if the AI is launching spaceships and you don't have combustion, then there's some larger problems than just how to get to their shores.

After finding out about this ability for these units, I will be certain to leave them un-upgraded - they won't stand up to any modern units in battle, but with this tactic they don't HAVE to be able to survive against modern naval units, since the AI does not get a chance to attack them before the attack is done. It makes for some funny mental images, though - imagining a fleet of antique wooden sailing ships pulling up to a modern city, and suddenly hundreds of marines with assault rifles come pouring out of them.

If you are Dutch and on a water map where some cities are not within range of a modern transport from the cultural borders, it's a very good idea to keep a small fleet of unupgraded Indiamen.

[RedFury]

Originally Posted by TheMeInTeam

Unless you're playing deity or raging barbs, the vast majority of starts can handle barbs with nothing but warriors. For obvious exceptions (it's turn 15+ and you've met nobody and there is a lot of mainland), you can just pick up archery or great wall as either own barbs quite soundly and are available to all civs.

This works great on standard size maps, or smaller, which is what most people play I'd imagine.

However, its worth noting that for typical map scripts (continents, fractal, etc) your success rate with spawn-busting fades rather rapidly on large/huge maps (with default settings/AI's) due to much larger land mass per civ.

I find a typical 80% spawn-bust success rate on immortal/epic/standard-map drops to about 20% on large maps.

[TheMeInTeam]

Originally Posted by Antilogic

Can you just pick another landing site if you can't directly reach it in one turn? Or does this situation come up regularly where there is a veritable wall of barrier island cities preventing you from striking at any decent target (and I don't just mean the capital, I mean any decent coastal city that has good resources around it).

I guess I'm confused as to where this would be an issue. Do you have a screenshot from one of your games to show this situation occurring?

When you have 2 large islands that are separated by a narrow channel, it is very possible to have the cities toward the middle inaccessible on first turn of DoW, but mainly if only 1 AI managed to dominate culture there.

[Antilogic]

Originally Posted by Badtz Maru

The thing is that, with these units, the option is there. If I was planning an amphibious invasion with a civilization without the Carrack or Indiamen, I would pick which city I wanted to invade based on what I could hit in one turn. If I had a lot of Carracks or Indiamen, I would pick the city using the same criteria as otherwise, but I would have more to choose from in many situations, and there may be better options. Maybe their best military production city can be taken out first, or their only vital strategic resource may only be reachable with a sneak attack.

I don't just pick a city at random when starting a war, I carefully review what I know about all the cities and pick the one to hit first that has the optimum combination of city value, hurting the enemies ability to react, and lack of resistance. The ability to do an improved sneak attack by these units is not going to be something that is always useful, but there are not uncommon situations which open up the OPPORTUNITY to make use of this ability, and if you are playing the Dutch on a watery map, you have more options when making an amphibious invasion. You can hit any coastal city, not just ones close to the border, and that may mean you can take out their highest production city, or one with a vital wonder (e.g. take out the city with Statue of Zeus first), or the one sitting next to their only source if iron - in situations where you could not do that with another civ.

Wow, epic strawman argument there. I never said pick a city at random. I said pick another decently-sized city with resources. You make it sound like I'm going after those little one tile island cities because I can't hit their capital.

The other question is whether or not you intend to reinforce this beachhead if it is so difficult to reach in the first place--you can bet the AI will be amassing warships and attacking any ship flying your flag. Given this scenario, I would rather land, take another good city that is easier to hold onto and reinforce, and then attack this so-much-more-valued target. You can chalk it up to personal play style.

But as you said in your last paragraph: "there are not uncommon situations which open up the OPPORTUNITY to make use of this ability", which I am interpreting to mean the situation, on particular map types, occasionally surfaces where this ability might be useful. That's a few too many ifs for me.

Originally Posted by TheMeInTeam

When you have 2 large islands that are separated by a narrow channel, it is very possible to have the cities toward the middle inaccessible on first turn of DoW, but mainly if only 1 AI managed to dominate culture there.

That's not in doubt. What is in doubt, on my end, is whether every AI city worth attacking falls under this category. It's a subtle but important difference.

[Silu]

Originally Posted by Antilogic

I can only conclude that this tactic is used at the end of the game in a desperate attempt to prevent an AI from winning Culture or Space. And in that case, you should have been paying attention and dealt with the problem earlier!

What does paying attention have to do with it? Banzai charge at the last minute is often by far the most efficient way to deal with either of those if you aren't in a position to vassal/eliminate them. There's nothing "desperate" about it.

If EIs provide access to such a city they're worth their weight in gold and a reason in and of itself to leave them unupgraded.

[r_rolo1]

Originally Posted by Silu

If EIs provide access to such a city they're worth their weight in gold and a reason in and of itself to leave them unupgraded.

Who needs to let EI unupgraded ? Just farm, workshop, windmill or cottage over your oil well and/or uranium mine and return to age of sail for as long as you need to chunk out the EI you need

Unfortunately this does not work as well with carracks ( because you have to block frigates and subs , and frigates need iron )

[Iranon]

Supposedly-obsolete units showing the fancy new ones how it's done always makes me smile. And there are real-life precedents, sailing ships have been put to surprisingly good use in 20th century warfare. For anyone interested in something too outrageous for a tall tale, look up the Seeadler or its captain, Felix Graf von Luckner.

[Antilogic]

Originally Posted by Silu

What does paying attention have to do with it? Banzai charge at the last minute is often by far the most efficient way to deal with either of those if you aren't in a position to vassal/eliminate them. There's nothing "desperate" about it.

If EIs provide access to such a city they're worth their weight in gold and a reason in and of itself to leave them unupgraded.

The most effective way of doing it is winning a Conquest or a Domination by 1700 CE so you don't have to put up with this silliness.

This entire argument strikes me as ridiculous.

[Silu]

Originally Posted by Antilogic

The most effective way of doing it is winning a Conquest or a Domination by 1700 CE so you don't have to put up with this silliness.

This entire argument strikes me as ridiculous.

So what you're saying is, "If an AI is about to win, you should have just won the game 100 turns earlier!" ?

Helpful advice for every game of Civ, gotta admit. Now why didn't I think of that the times when I have been struggling against late game AI space and cultural vics...

[Antilogic]

Originally Posted by Silu

So what you're saying is, "If an AI is about to win, you should have just won the game 100 turns earlier!" ?

Helpful advice for every game of Civ, gotta admit. Now why didn't I think of that the times when I have been struggling against late game AI space and cultural vics...

That's what I do. I've also never had problems with an AI almost winning culture or a space race.

However, what I think is ridiculous is the idea that, on a regular basis, there aren't any decent targets for an [amphibious, if necessary] sneak attack. That all the good AI cities are perfectly sheltered and untouchable. That you can't sign open borders with a neighbor and do a more conventional ground attack. That miraculously the coastline forms a perfect inner sea which you can't enter. That another nearby continent has another AI who is so unwilling to trust you as to not open borders and let you get close to the target. And that all this happens at once. It's true the best target might be sheltered, but I have always been able to find a decent place to launch an amphibious assault when I absolutely need to, and I have done so using ordinary naval units. Or went the open borders with a third-party route.

[Silu]

Originally Posted by Antilogic

That's what I do. I've also never had problems with an AI almost winning culture or a space race.

However, what I think is ridiculous is the idea that, on a regular basis, there aren't any decent targets for an [amphibious, if necessary] sneak attack. That all the good AI cities are perfectly sheltered and untouchable. That you can't sign open borders with a neighbor and do a more conventional ground attack. That miraculously the coastline forms a perfect inner sea which you can't enter. That another nearby continent has another AI who is so unwilling to trust you as to not open borders and let you get close to the target. And that all this happens at once. It's true the best target might be sheltered, but I have always been able to find a decent place to launch an amphibious assault when I absolutely need to, and I have done so using ordinary naval units. Or went the open borders with a third-party route.

Well then you either play on a level far too easy for you or you're a much better player than I. In the latter case, you shouldn't assume everyone has equally magical skills.

It doesn't need to happen on a regular basis. If it helps you win even one in all of your Civ games then it's a helpful thing to keep in mind when playing. Pretty sure no one was saying it's useful in every game.

[TheMeInTeam]

Originally Posted by RedFury

This works great on standard size maps, or smaller, which is what most people play I'd imagine.

However, its worth noting that for typical map scripts (continents, fractal, etc) your success rate with spawn-busting fades rather rapidly on large/huge maps (with default settings/AI's) due to much larger land mass per civ.

I find a typical 80% spawn-bust success rate on immortal/epic/standard-map drops to about 20% on large maps.

This is a good point. I generally assume standard size/#civs because otherwise we have to constantly clarify. Of course opening larger tracts of land will result in more barbs...and doing so increases the value of early archery and greatly increases the value of great wall. Great wall on huge epic or marathon is many times more valuable than great wall on standard as suddenly it's like having 15+ perfectly positioned units instead of like 4 (and it costs the same in both cases).

[laughingvulcan]

I've always liked the immortal, since I like early UUs and in addition their bonus on archer units come when archers are prevalent. Also like the Cho-ko-nu a lot, just find it a lot of fun to have a strong archery unit give collateral damage, while at the same time I like the UB for the Chinese a ton -- the pavillion, which gives the bonus of +25% culture for that city. Also haven't minded the musketeers in games when I'm behind in technology and having to cut every corner I can to upgrade my infrastructure with banks and such -- the speedy musketeer has helped to keep my nation intact on several occasions until I have the technology and time to build a bunch of stronger military units.

[Antilogic]

Originally Posted by Silu

Well then you either play on a level far too easy for you or you're a much better player than I. In the latter case, you shouldn't assume everyone has equally magical skills.

It doesn't need to happen on a regular basis. If it helps you win even one in all of your Civ games then it's a helpful thing to keep in mind when playing. Pretty sure no one was saying it's useful in every game.

Full disclosure: I play Monarch, but I could probably move up. However, please don't confuse my tongue-in-cheek sarcasm with smiley faces after it for my real argument.

It's not magical skills that I am talking about. Literally the planets and the cosmos have to align for this one particular ability of East Indiamen (and to a lesser extent Carracks, but that wasn't the focus of the conversation) to be useful. And this is in the context of underrated UUs, so that means this scenario, which I describe as uncommon at best and more likely rare, has to occur often enough that I will wish I had the Dutch UU to exploit the opportunity. I'm not convinced.

I'm not saying every game. I'm not saying every few games. I'm saying that I can only recall a handful of positions like this in my entire Civ4-playing career.

And frankly, random events like all your melee units getting Cover for free are about as rare in my eyes but also helpful as well. If I described a new civilization's UU as a "once every so many games, you might get this extra ability, maybe"...I would probably be laughed at.