Choosing wisely the early war targets

[yanner39]

I recently played a Monarch game as Alex. I spawned on a continent with Zara, Wang and Louis. I expanded quickly to 6 cities and let the AIs develop the jungle land for me.

I had 3 choices to attack: Louis, my neighbour to the west with 3 cities and a holy city (quick Code of Laws). Wang to my North, nice land due to jungle, some gems. And Zara to the NW, but his borders didn't touch mine.

I ended up going for Louis' 3 cities, which I took quickly (I'm getting pretty good at this warring. ) It was way too easy.

Here's my Q: Should I have gone for the Protective Civ first? I ask because when it came time to go after Wang, he had Feud and I saw a couple PRO Longbowman (note: it probably took my too long to go after Wang after I disposed of Louis, but that's besides the point!).

Is there a counter in the Medieval Era for PRO Longbowman? Mean, they have a ST of 6 but with a 75% bonus, that a strenght of 10. Maces I guess but my Trebs won't be able to soften them up unless they are heavily promoted (Barracks, Military Instructor) and even so.

Once the PRO Civ has Longbowman, should i just race for steel and cannon?

If I would have dealt with Wang early, I would just have to deal with PRO archers.

The goal is/was to conquer my continent.

No screenies, just in general...

 

[kossin]

Depends... best land, will bug you, easier target, heathen, key wonders/cities/resources...

Generally try to avoid DoW when an AI is close to LBs, especially if Pro.

 

[yanner39]

Depends... best land, will bug you, easier target, heathen, key wonders/cities/resources...

Generally try to avoid DoW when an AI is close to LBs, especially if Pro.

Say no more. Yeah, the others I get, especially the wonders. In my game, Louis built a shrine, had the ToA and had a nice capital.

That said, I could have taken Wang's land easier.

I just don't get why LB are so strong. It seems wrong that there isn't a counter at that stage, except to beeline steel.

 

[kossin]

Because they get a 25% extra for cities and another 25% extra for hills.

If you ever get a chance, try Samurais against LBs... they eat pretty much everything alive, except maybe XBows.

 

[vicawoo]

Longbows not on hills are reasonable. With bomardment, they can go as low as a 50% bonus - reasonable for a cr2 sword.

Longbows on hills, even with collateral they're still horrible to take out.

It's kind of like trying to take out archers in a city on a hill with chariots, only with worse odds.

 

[huerfanista]

The window for attacking PRO civs is after you have construction and before they have lbows. This can be a big window for someone like Bull, and a small one for someone like Wang. This changes somewhat if you have WEs - I've done many a cat/ele war vs longbows, you just have to build a ton of cats. Medieval war is doable, but it's a slog - bring lots of trebs. I'd probably wait for cavalry. In any case, Zara is usually much more of a threat than Wang - you really don't want to be going up against oromos unless you have cavalry.

 

[yanner39]

The window for attacking PRO civs is after you have construction and before they have lbows. This can be a big window for someone like Bull, and a small one for someone like Wang. This changes somewhat if you have WEs - I've done many a cat/ele war vs longbows, you just have to build a ton of cats. Medieval war is doable, but it's a slog - bring lots of trebs. I'd probably wait for cavalry. In any case, Zara is usually much more of a threat than Wang - you really don't want to be going up against oromos unless you have cavalry.

Thanks Can you elaborate on this? In my game, War Elephants came on line just after I took out Louis. I could mass produce WE and this could help vs. PRO LB? What kind of promos would I give them?

 

[kossin]

Combat of course. The thing with WEs is they have 8 base str so they do fairly well against LBs. Also they come fairly early in comparison to Maces unless you do a gambit/bulb.

 

[yanner39]

But combat only gives +10% STR, so 0.8. I guess it could compete if they're promoted a couple of times.

 

[kossin]

Read the next sentence also... you need a bunch of catapults. WEs do get better with more promos yes.

 

[ColossusXXIII]

elepulting is great for the middle ages, but it's really slow. For me the ultimate combo is elepults+praets vs early lbs, again super slow... waiting for curis is often better than middle age wars, and faster.

 

[Amao]

The more troubling factor is what you gain in the medieval wars. Unless there is a lot of wonder/shrine to grab, most likely nothing much. And you have to deal with the high city/civic maintenance fees, high military upkeeps, adding straws to your already troubling economy. plus, the cat -> cannon upgrade is very expensive. so are you going to disband those cr3 veterans or not? If facing some tough opening where I had to wage a war in mid age, i'd rather have a limited war where I stop and rest after one or two key cities are taken, or maybe intentionally destroy a cities to leave enough space for the grabbed city to have enough culture border. Sometimes, it's good to have a settler go with your army and settle right after some city is destroyed and settle in the nearby empty place.

 

[yanner39]

The more troubling factor is what you gain in the medieval wars. Unless there is a lot of wonder/shrine to grab, most likely nothing much. And you have to deal with the high city/civic maintenance fees, high military upkeeps, adding straws to your already troubling economy. plus, the cat -> cannon upgrade is very expensive. so are you going to disband those cr3 veterans or not? If facing some tough opening where I had to wage a war in mid age, i'd rather have a limited war where I stop and rest after one or two key cities are taken, or maybe intentionally destroy a cities to leave enough space for the grabbed city to have enough culture border. Sometimes, it's good to have a settler go with your army and settle right after some city is destroyed and settle in the nearby empty place.

Great point about what is there to gain. I guess for me, it's always about getting more land.

What do you mean about the bolded part?

 

[Ataxerxes]

Great point about what is there to gain. I guess for me, it's always about getting more land.

What do you mean about the bolded part?

What he means is that after you've invested in the Cats for the Medieval war, will there be anything of benefit from those cats? They get promos but the upgrade to cannons is expensive. If you prefer building new units to paying the fees for upgrading, will the Medieval war be worth the hammers you pour into it? You might do better with city improvements to get to cannons faster.

Bottom line - will those catapults, if you don't upgrade (costly) - be worth what they capture? More land is nice but is you economy ready for the increased maintenance and the hammer investment in a war now?

 

[mirthadir]

Pro LBs are annoying, but they can be dealt with in a few situations:

1. Knights. Knights are FS immune, have a very high base strength, and can rip through the AI quick before they can heavily reinforce cities. The downsides to knights are that: you need to get rid of cultural defenses (spies are good), pikes can crush them, and they come off a deep, trade poor beeline. If the AI lacks Fe you can overrun them much easier this way. Often this will let you take everything but the cap with quick two move warfare; sending in a slow stack of siege to hit the cap is almost always worth it.
2. Phantapult. High base strength, slow, and needs ivory. On the upshot this is a pretty quick beeline with decent trade potential. Phantapult is even weaker vs pike, but you can reliably hit between feudalism and engineering.
3. Your own LBs with pults. This is rather dicey but you can pick off a lot of territory just seeing their LB and raising them two. I wouldn't suggest it without some increase in LB efficiency, but there are a few civs that can pull it off: Both of the Celts (GIII from the dun works well for those annoying bastards on hills), Churchill (if you can get DIV from settled GGs/Civics on the HE this can be really good), and SB (totem can give you an easy DIV lb). LBs cost the same as HA, but can pile on FS which can give a better return at damaging those few heavily entrenched wonder units.

One thing you will notice on all of these is that you are avoiding melee troops. CGIII comes with a +10% vs melee and that can significantly decrease damage. Worse, because Pro LBs have 1-2 FS, swords may not even do any damage to the top defender.


Some things you can do to make your life easier:
1. Get the target out of bad civics. Your enemies are V, Slave, Theo (with PS possibly being another no go if they have the mids. The big thing that makes PRO lbs nasty is the easy CGIII promo, depriving the AI of the ability to get easy promos and of the ability to quickly whip in new defenders makes life much easier. Trading and spying can both change civics and make life MUCH easier.
2. For a long LB war, starve the sucker down. A few well promoted Triremes can starve coastal cities via blockade and drastically cut LB production. Also, if you can control the coast you can use chain galleys to deliver siege directly to the front.
3. Get a buddy to help. You can either have a pack of knights/HA waiting to pounce on wherever your ally weakens the target or you can get your ally to declare first, draw off the big stack, and then poach everything on your side.
4. Leave the AI horses. The AI is more likely to build LBs if it has no other options. Chariots/HAs are both much easier to kill so try to leave the AI horses until the very end.
5. Don't be afraid to accept partial victory. Liberating half the enemy's territory and leaving him a big stack of LBs in the cap is perfectly fine. Those can be killed later (though he may cap to someone else), you want productive land, total victory is not needed all the time.

 

[yanner39]

What he means is that after you've invested in the Cats for the Medieval war, will there be anything of benefit from those cats? They get promos but the upgrade to cannons is expensive. If you prefer building new units to paying the fees for upgrading, will the Medieval war be worth the hammers you pour into it? You might do better with city improvements to get to cannons faster.

Ah, ok. Well, whatever catapults I have in the medieval era were carryforwards from my axe/swords-cats warring. The only way I would bring cats to a medieval war would be to reduce city defenses.

On the subject of medieval war, the cost of upgrading a treb to a cannon seems to be better. So would it be a good idea to "pre-build cannons" ie: build some trebs in anticipation of teching steel and then mass upgrade the trebs to start the war sooner?

 

[mirthadir]

Ah, ok. Well, whatever catapults I have in the medieval era were carryforwards from my axe/swords-cats warring. The only way I would bring cats to a medieval war would be to reduce city defenses.

On the subject of medieval war, the cost of upgrading a treb to a cannon seems to be better. So would it be a good idea to "pre-build cannons" ie: build some trebs in anticipation of teching steel and then mass upgrade the trebs to start the war sooner?

That depends on how easy your empire can produce relative to . Some cases make it a pretty strong gambit, i.e. you get a "free" GM during the beeline that you can ship off to Timbuktu and pay for a lot of upgrades without slowing your time to steel. On the other end of the scale running a FE/SE Glib and NE with say Gandhi and having the mids makes it a pretty lousy idea; the time it takes to acquire the cash is longer than researching and just quick whipping them in. It costs 3 gold per hammer of difference plus a premium (40 gold per era?), so it is slightly more expensive than rush buying the suckers (say you have mids, are SPI, and can flip into US for a turn), but you can often generate enough bonus to make it a a good swap. E.g. At that point you have B, HE, and the forge to modify unit hammers (and PS if you get the mids). It is quite possible to having the full MGB set of gold multipliers, possibly more bonuses to gold via things like FS, B, and PP. 10 (two towns) can easily be 20 while 4 (a fully stoked, non-SP WS with non-bio farm) will only become 5

The big thing to avoid is prebuilding a bunch of trebs, and then nerfing your gambit by taking to too long to upgrade and having to burn huge amounts of on upkeep.

Pretty much an upgradeable siege or main attacking unit can benefit handily from save up cheap units and mass upgrade if the circumstances warrant. HAs -> knights is even viable with some creative GE bulbing.

 

[Ataxerxes]

Ah, ok. Well, whatever catapults I have in the medieval era were carryforwards from my axe/swords-cats warring. The only way I would bring cats to a medieval war would be to reduce city defenses.

On the subject of medieval war, the cost of upgrading a treb to a cannon seems to be better. So would it be a good idea to "pre-build cannons" ie: build some trebs in anticipation of teching steel and then mass upgrade the trebs to start the war sooner?

As Mithrandir said, it's situational. One case where it's a good idea is Spain. Citadel-built Trebs will have three promos on the go quite often. I agree the cost of upgrading Trebs instead of Cats is better. I never upgrade Cats but often upgrade Trebs.