Industrial Age military buildup; draft/slave/build/buy?

[dorkynorky]

I'm getting my first experience with a food/hammer based economy in the industrial age and I'm looking for help figuring out the most efficient way to build troops during a military phase.

Since I'm looking at a hammer based economy I'm assuming 'buying' is out since it requires building wealth, which precludes building units the old fashion way. So which is the most efficient way to build troops with cities size 10 to 15 which are primarily farms and mines/workshops? How about in filler cities size 6? Does the Kremlin tip the scales in favor of slaving?

 

[oyzar]

Slaving/drafting is better with lot of small cities with some food but workshops is better if you have somewhat larger cities(10+), especially after state property workshops/windmills get a lot better... Usually what you are attacking with depends on what you are using though. If you are attacking with currasairs you can't draft too much(though you might want to draft some muskets or something for holding cities). You likely don't have guilds/chemistry and as such the best option is likely whipping/use mines where you can. If you attack with grenadiers and cannons you likely have fully operative workshops and as such that might be the best option. With rifles 110 hammers per pop is hard to pass up as such you'll likely want to add some drafting if you can afford it. If the rest of the rifles(and other units) come from upgrades/rushbuy/workshops/slaving really doesn't matter much... With cottages it can work to draft but it seldom works to use workshops in those cities. As such some combination of draft / rushbuy when they are avilable might be best.

In general, general ideas are bad. There is no single best thing all the time. Back before bts slinging military tradition + gunpowder for cavalery in the BC's was a popular strategy that worked in most intercontiental situations. Fortunatly that was nerfed and there is now not really any too overpowered strategy. If you have a good research base heading for rifles or even infantery before you go to war is not too strange. In such long tech paths drafting can often help you get up your numbers once you do get there...

 

[TheMeInTeam]

If you've mostly got farms/food, the draft is untouchable in efficiency (probably need to slave the siege or spies though). Buying is only efficient if you have the kremlin, although it CAN help you raise an army very quickly to take advantage of a tech window, so it can be worth it.

Building is completely viable too, especially with state property/workshops. For size 15 cities, it's almost impossible to make slavery more efficient w/o the kremlin. Even around pop 6, working mines/workshops starts to take over w/o kremlin...with it slavery is better, but only in the smaller cities (not sure where the cutoff is, somewhere around 10-12 possibly?).

BUT, if your improvements are currently set such that you have just enough food to work all your hammer tiles, you're not going to beat just building things except possibly with drafting.

 

[Dirk1302]

I assume you have AL since we're talking industrial age. I've warred quite a lot post AL on deity, i rush buy/slave/build factories/plants. I mostly just build the units subsequently. If you have 10 cities it should be possible to get 3-4 units/turn this way.

Draft isn't that efficient for infantry
Rushbuy is expensive but i do that sometimes especially if i'm in a hurry
I almost never slave in industrial era. But if you have a really good food surplus you can do that as well, still build the hammer multipliers first for better hammer return.

 

[Artichoker]

I'm getting my first experience with a food/hammer based economy in the industrial age and I'm looking for help figuring out the most efficient way to build troops during a military phase.

Since I'm looking at a hammer based economy I'm assuming 'buying' is out since it requires building wealth, which precludes building units the old fashion way. So which is the most efficient way to build troops with cities size 10 to 15 which are primarily farms and mines/workshops? How about in filler cities size 6? Does the Kremlin tip the scales in favor of slaving?

I have just one word for you...Military Academies.

Try to gain more great generals pre-Industrial, and you can then leverage the +50% bonus in all of your best production cities. If you wisely allocate your great generals, you can easily have 3 or 4 available for Military Academies. With Imperialistic, that number will be even higher.

 

[Skallagrimson]

Yep, hammer multipliers, high growth caps, lots of hammer tiles worked, infs in 2 turns across about 6 to 7 cities, that gets 3 or 4 per turn.

The challenge under this strategy from what I've found is that at a certain point you have to actually cool off the unit production because you're in an overkill range and hurting the economy unnecessarily. That's when I start shopping around in hybrid cities for more multiplier buildings, national wonder preps, or wealth/research.

 

[dorkynorky]

Thanks for the feedback.

It sounds like for the way I've set things up (basically, farms/workshops/mines with food set to max city pops around 15) that building units normally is the best after AL. I'm looking at settling filler cities to adsorb the unused city tiles and I'm not sure whether they will get working most quickly by having to build all the production buildings or just by getting a forge and granary to make slaving more useful. (I'll probably end up with the Kremlin because it is in my neighbors capital, just one city away)

 

[Crusher1]

And I disagree with what Oyzar. In my Hammer economies I have tons of small overlapping cities working nothing more than 6-7 tiles but they all have forges, factories, and coal plants able to produce 45-60 hammers per turn.

 

[dorkynorky]

Crusher1, I've seen that figure you've given for the hammers from size 6 cities in other threads and in part that's why I'm giving this hammer heavy economy a try. Hopefully I'll figure out how to get the right filler cities. By the way, I got a lot out of your recent threads on warring and rexing as well. Thanks.

 

[Iranon]

Farms channeling food into Kremlin whipping > SP/CS workshops until size 12.5 (during regrowth; for example they're equal if you're whipping from 14 to 12). Note that whipping will only give you a mixed output - some food will feed marginal citizens instead of being converted directly into production.

Drafting is king if you're still at Rifles or want to strike before you build factories (doesn't care about hammer multipliers).

Under ideal circumstances, towns and rushbuy can be very strong as well: 7 gold+100% channeled into Kremlin-assisted rushbuying turns into 7 final hammers. The 3 hammers SP/CS workshops have on them would need more than a +133% bonus to outdo them.
This is definitely possible (national wonders, Police State, Military academies) but doesn't have the flexibility.

 

[Dirk1302]

^I probably agree with you on the third point. But the MM is killing. On deity a late kill is often the safest way to go (i wouldn't do it on levels below since it's not necessary). But to keep on whipping/drafting, timing it well is an enormous effort. Also it's often not possible to get the kremlin. And without just building is probably just as good.

 

[SnowlyWhite]

nat/caste/sp - build.

drafting aint' so sexy at inf.(at rifles, nothing beats it).

slaving would be better with abit smaller cities; but beware, that requires solid micro for a not so great increase in production while plain building them takes little time(real life one).