What to do with a 4th Great General?

I'm playing the Nobles' Club Ghengis Khan game, aiming to conquer an Arboria map with Kheshiks. It's 50 BC, and I've just received my 4th great general and need to figure out what to do with him. The first one went to a super-medic, the next 2 to my best production city (so with Ger and Barracks that one gives 11xp and thus 3 promos). I don't expect ever to get so far as to build a military academy. So what do I do with him? Theocracy might be 20-30 turns off but there's no widely-spread religion, so if I settle him in my next best production city I'd get 9XP units for now, which is likely pretty valuable, and the game is likely to go on long enough for Theocracy to show up eventually if I divert one city to building a monastery and a few missionaries.

But is there something else useful to do instead? Are any of those other GG-only promotions worth using at this point?

There are still plenty of cities to conquer, so I might even get a 5th GG someday.

Another Super Medic, and split the stack in half with one each for a faster conquer?

I would settle the next best city and punch out 9 XP mounted units. Use the flanking II promotion and send them agressively into battle. You will have your 5th GG in no time and settle in the same city.

dalamb said:

But is there something else useful to do instead? Are any of those other GG-only promotions worth using at this point?

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Outside of the medic I would not recommend bothering with the other promotions except for fun, things like seeing how many xp your head Kheshik can get.

If there is little chance of this game going that much longer I would set up a 2nd medic as well. In a normal game I like to settle the 4th GG in a good production city that's coastal for boats but if I remember that game this is not necessary. I also like to make sure WP is open, again this doesn't seem important in your game.

Basically if you have enough of an army to be at 2 stacks I would go medic, otherwise 2nd best production city gets a new resident.

yeah genghis khan always gives me way more GGs than I know what to do with.

one possibility is to combine them with trebuchets to make mobile seige.

I have several opponents left to conquer so the game will go along for a little while -- but not so far as trebs. Coastal is irrelevant on an Arboria map. So I guess it's 2nd production city or another medic; medic may win out if I get enough more Kheshiks for a 2nd stack, which I'm not quite sure of at the moment.

I suppose if I get a 6th GG I could so something crazy with him.

With 4 GG in the BCs I imagine you can do whatever you want with him

Yeah -- that particular NC game makes for a classic "crush your enemies, see them scatter before you, and hear the lamentations of their women."

how do you get 4 GG's on noble? There just simply isn't enough combat!

Sure there is: this game was set up to get Noble-level players to practice a strategy TheMeInTeam told us about involving conquering the world with just Horse Archers in general and Kheshiks in particular. If you wait for Kheshiks your neighbours all have several cities, so there's lots of units to kill, and Ghengis is IMP for 100% great general emergence. In my case my first opponent had gone to war against another AI so had even more units for me to destroy.

Given you have a surplus, and are likely to get more, I would suggest a combat 6 super keshick. Just make sure you have a few shock promoted keshicks which will take the fall against spearman.

What's his name? Would he be a cool field general?

NPM

§L¥ Gµ¥;8823570 said:

how do you get 4 GG's on noble? There just simply isn't enough combat!

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Depends on map size and the opponents.

NPM

One more great general means with vassalage theocracy you can get 17 exp keshiks.
Other uses: settle in another city so it can pump 5 exp siege units.
What I like to call the anti-Shaka: a mobility shock axeman, with possibly other promotions (leadership, lots of combat, maybe march) or you can divy up the extra exp to siege or other units. A great general combat 6 horse archer isn't much better than 2-3 of your combat 3 horse archers, whereas a 2 move spear defender has no equivalent.
Mobile siege is a cool idea, but you need a ton of great generals before you can take down walled cities (13ish accuracy catapults), and they can still get flanked.

vicawoo said:

What I like to call the anti-Shaka: a mobility shock axeman, with possibly other promotions (leadership, lots of combat, maybe march)

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Hmm. I think you mean Morale (+1 movement) because Mobility (-1 terrain cost) depends on the Flanking chain, which isn't available to melee. On Arboria, though, there are so many trees that +1 movement might not help a lot.

In my 2-GG city I could generate a 3+2+2+20=27 xp axeman, which would have Combat I and 5 promotions, which could get Shock, Combat II-IV, and Commando. Maybe that would help. If I calculate correctly he'd need 9 more XP for another promotion -- 7 if I wait for Theocracy -- which would get him Morale. The AI have moderately well developed road networks at this point, so maybe a Commando Combat IV Shock axeman would be useful.

Morale Mobility Potato Potato.

Commando would be decent except you have to wait until military science. The axeman doesn't have to be super strong, just enough to ward off 3 or so spears without dying. Stronger might be worse, as preferably it doesn't fend off axes and swords. A drill crossbow would probably be fine, too, if you have the tech.

If it's arboria, woodsman 2 should be more than enough.

Crossbow is a bit far ahead. I have the first 3 columns of the tech advisor screen, IW, Writing, Alphabet, Currency, Aesthetics, and almost have Literature (HE, of course). I figured on Theology next, monarchy/feudalism after that.

There are only two good uses for the scenario I'm envisioning (masses of HA, end game no later than knights) - either settle in another production city and figure that you will get the next XP reasonably easily or make an ubermash.

For a keshik/knight army the ubermash is it bit difficult though GK is one of the better leaders for it. First, you will need morale so it can keep up with the HAs. Next you need MIII/WIII - 7 promos. This requires 50 XP (or 65 using leadership), out of the box you should be able to get 7 xp from your military city and 20 xp from your gg. This gives you a grand total of 27 free xp and requires 23 fights at gimmee odds to promote further; using leadership requires 19 fights at gimmee odds. Depending upon map size this can be doable. However if you have your ubermash unit on a tile with another unit you can add another 10 XP each shot, burning 2 ggs will place you within 13 xp and 2 within 3.

If you feel like gambling, attacking at 89% odds (give or take depending upon first strike issues) you can very quickly get a leadership medic up to Morale/WIII/MIII with just about even odds of survival.

The settled gg is a surefire bet for more xp which is good. The ubermash with the bonus healing will eventually become more powerful as you have larger and larger stacks which are further and further from your main production cites.

I've played around with tactics/leadership mounted units, but I remain unimpressed with their yields. A mobility/shock axe is a complete waste; using GII archers and WII axes should be viable with agg/Arboria setup. Even if you can't a few shock keshiks should have reasonably decent odds against a spear on defense.

mirthadir said:

There are only two good uses for the scenario I'm envisioning (masses of HA, end game no later than knights) - either settle in another production city and figure that you will get the next XP reasonably easily or make an ubermash.

For a keshik/knight army the ubermash is it bit difficult though GK is one of the better leaders for it. First, you will need morale so it can keep up with the HAs. Next you need MIII/WIII - 7 promos. This requires 50 XP (or 65 using leadership), out of the box you should be able to get 7 xp from your military city and 20 xp from your gg. This gives you a grand total of 27 free xp and requires 23 fights at gimmee odds to promote further; using leadership requires 19 fights at gimmee odds. Depending upon map size this can be doable. However if you have your ubermash unit on a tile with another unit you can add another 10 XP each shot, burning 2 ggs will place you within 13 xp and 2 within 3.

If you feel like gambling, attacking at 89% odds (give or take depending upon first strike issues) you can very quickly get a leadership medic up to Morale/WIII/MIII with just about even odds of survival.

The settled gg is a surefire bet for more xp which is good. The ubermash with the bonus healing will eventually become more powerful as you have larger and larger stacks which are further and further from your main production cites.

I've played around with tactics/leadership mounted units, but I remain unimpressed with their yields. A mobility/shock axe is a complete waste; using GII archers and WII axes should be viable with agg/Arboria setup. Even if you can't a few shock keshiks should have reasonably decent odds against a spear on defense.

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A big question is how much better a great general must be compared to a normal unit to be worthwhile.

In his arboria situation, a woodsman axe and some careful movement should keep up with keshiks. In the general situation, you might be moving your horse archer stack across flat land, at which point your archer/axe falls behind. You can slow down or risk letting spears suicide on your stack. Next turn you can clean them up outside of a city, but you will often be defending with your strongest horse archer.

How much do you lose per battle? I turn to a combat calculator. Edit: the calculator doesn't subtract shock from defense properly. Used WB instead.
Spearman C1 vs Combat 2 Shock. 70.1%
Spearman 1 vs Combat 3 Shock. 66%
Spearman 2 vs combat 2 shock HA. 74.7%
Spearman 2 vs Combat 3 shock HA. 71.2%

Spearman 1 vs Combat Shock axe: 0.7%%
Spearman 1 vs Combat 3 axe: 0.8%%
Spearman 2 vs Combat 3 axe: 1.2%
Spearman 2 vs Combat 3 axe, 3.6 strength (average remaining strength after one battle): 20%

So each time a spear attacks, you lose about 0.65 to 0.75 horse archers.
Now they're not just ordinary 2 promotion horse archers, they are 3 to 4 promotion horse archers. I believe mithrandir is the one who said that a promotion is worth 15% more. So a 3 promotion horse archer is worth 11% more, a 4 promotion 23% more.

So each time a combat 1 spear attacks, your c3 morale axe earns about 0.8 worth of 5 exp horse archers. Every time a combat 2 spear attacks, you earn 0.82 to 0.87 horse archers.

So after say 5 defenses, you save about 4 horse archers. More if they attrition more, less if they don't. Is that worth it? Well if you're gunning from 11 exp to 17 exp, you're gaining a 11.5% bonus over a 5 exp horse archer (from the 15% figure) at the cost of 3 great generals, so each great general is about a 4% multiplier, or you get 4 horse archers worth after 100 horse archers.
A tactics great general will save 2.5 flanking 2 horse archers at terrible odds, possibly more with some promotions. Granted those are terrible since it's highly vulnerable to bad luck and they aren't replaceable...
Say a combat 6 great general is worth, let's see, say combat 6 is worth 2 promotions, 1+7*.15=2.05 compared to 1.3 for a 5 exp horse archer. That's 1.6 horse archers.

Note: on flat land, a combat 3 shock horse archer will defend a non-shock sword before a combat 1 shock axe, which is before a combat 3 axe. A combat 3 axe will defend before a combat 2 shock horse archer. Against a shock sword, the shock archer will defend first.

If you only have 1 big stack of Keshiks moving around without siege, I'd go for attaching the GG to siege for one or two cats to keep up with the stack. Never hurts to take the top bit of cultural defence off and you never know when a bit of collateral might come in useful too. I had a GK game where I had 4 GG trebs moving around with my stack of knights (highly promoted from their time as Keshiks), was pretty effective at taking fringe cities while the usual mace + treb stack takes the core.