[BTS] Liberalism: Steel or Military Tradition?

[dontworryabouttsunami]

I play on Immortal. My default Lib tech always used to be Steel, but I see that Military Tradition is a more popular choice, speculated about the reasons why, and wanted to know if I'm on the right track.

I've taken Military Tradition a few times now, and I find it has some disadvantages compared to Steel. It seems much harder to maintain a tech advantage -- enemies get Cuirassiers pretty quickly. And they are somewhat harder to use. Cannons and Rifles are very straightforward, you just march in and take stuff, but with horses you have to be a bit clever and manoeuvre around and attack undefended spots. And since you'll be at tech parity eventually, if you're using your movement points and jumping around deep into enemy territory you can easily lose a stack. So for weaker players there may be an advantage to keeping things simple.

It's mostly Deity players I'm looking at, so is part of the reason because it's harder to get to Steel in time on Deity? Mil Trad is not far off the Lib path, but Steel is way out of the way. It's doable on Immortal but probably less so on Deity. Of course it's situational which one is going to be better, but I'm curious to know if Steel would be a more popular target on Deity if it were easier to get, or if Mil Trad is just plain stronger and would still be preferred.

Obviously there are other choices too like Astronomy but that's beyond the scope of this thread.

 

[lymond]

MT is quicker and my usual go to. Curs simply have the advantage of speed and tactics. If played right, you should have no problem taking out at least a coupla AIs, or capping them, with Curs in that timeframe. I'll usually just head right on to Rifling for Cavs. Occasionally an AI might not have one of iron or horses, which makes it even better as MT does them not much good. Regardless, you can look to take out one resource or the other asap.

Steel though is still quite viable, and cannons rock indeed. If you play your great person production right it really is not that far off, since Chem can take a bulb. So GS probably for Philo for Pacifism, then Edu bulb, a bulb into Lib, Printing Press, then bulb Chem....Steel. Cannons can be mixed effectively with older units for a time while you head to Rifling. It is slower moving units, but effective warfare.

I occasionally do the Steel thing just for something different or the off chance that I can't get horses.

 

[Fippy]

Biggest danger on deity is usually not losing my stack (one unit with visibility promo helps..good on chariots), but bribe & vassal mechanics.
Speed helps with making gains before nasty things can happen, as well as attack date and catching AIs while they have weaker units. Also reinforcements arrive quicker.

Cannons are usually preferred on Iso maps (or if you have only 1 neighbor), they work well with Galleons dropping them off next to cities
Often i also used mounted & cannons together for AIs who reached Rifling.

Cuirs line has a benefit of giving techs with good trade value.

 

[Fish Man]

I play on Immortal. My default Lib tech always used to be Steel, but I see that Military Tradition is a more popular choice, speculated about the reasons why, and wanted to know if I'm on the right track.

I've taken Military Tradition a few times now, and I find it has some disadvantages compared to Steel. It seems much harder to maintain a tech advantage -- enemies get Cuirassiers pretty quickly. And they are somewhat harder to use. Cannons and Rifles are very straightforward, you just march in and take stuff, but with horses you have to be a bit clever and manoeuvre around and attack undefended spots. And since you'll be at tech parity eventually, if you're using your movement points and jumping around deep into enemy territory you can easily lose a stack. So for weaker players there may be an advantage to keeping things simple.

It's mostly Deity players I'm looking at, so is part of the reason because it's harder to get to Steel in time on Deity? Mil Trad is not far off the Lib path, but Steel is way out of the way. It's doable on Immortal but probably less so on Deity. Of course it's situational which one is going to be better, but I'm curious to know if Steel would be a more popular target on Deity if it were easier to get, or if Mil Trad is just plain stronger and would still be preferred.

Obviously there are other choices too like Astronomy but that's beyond the scope of this thread.

If you lib MT around 600-800 AD, at least the first AI you attack should not have cuirs at all, on immortal.

At any rate, AI production is slow enough on imm compared to deity to the point where even if they get cuirs, it's no problem at all. Simply whip harder and spam more units than them, take formation promotions, and take civics/settle GGs to the point where you have more promotions than them (even just one extra combat promotion compared to the defender will give 62% instead of just 50% odds). Declare with 15-20 cuirs in the first war and just don't stop whipping (except maybe a GP farm or buro cap), and by the second you should have 30, 40+. A handful of AI cuirs on defense won't do anything at all to stop that, and don't make more of a difference than knights really.

If anything, cuirs are even better to face, because they're really not as tough as muskets or pikes or even pro longbows, and AIs teching MT that means they aren't going for anything nastier, like grens and rifles.

 

[Windsor]

If you can get MT or Steel directly with Liberalism the game is usually won either way. MT is without a doubt my go-to, but there are games/game-settings that favors Steel more. Cannons are better when you simply don't have a lead and just need to grind it out.

 

[sampsa]

It's mostly Deity players I'm looking at, so is part of the reason because it's harder to get to Steel in time on Deity?

Partly, yes, but mainly because cuirs just often leads to acquiring more cities faster. I think cuirs are even stronger on immortal, because AIs have smaller armies. Main trump of cannons is that they can wipe out big stacks with minimal losses.

Maybe I'll write an article on how to win with cuirassiers. It's been long-overdue.

 

[Mr_Trotsky]

My limited experience of deity is that there are another couple of factors in favour of cuirassiers compared with immortal.

One, you’re more likely to have some highly promoted horse archers lying around after an early rush. I’ve done this in two of the two and a half deity games I’ve played but only once in fifty or so immortal games. It never seems that appealing on immortal because you almost always have space to expand and often so much space that the nearest AI is too far away for a three city attack to be a natural play. Too much space is not something I’ve experienced on deity.

Secondly, the aesthetics-music line is better on deity. On immortal, unless you’ve got marble, you’re generally better off researching alphabet and it can be difficult to trade for even aesthetics in time for libbing MT. On deity it’s both a more worthwhile line as trade bait and easier to trade for if you don’t go that route.

Finally, I think there’s something about human psychology that pushes people towards cannons. Humans generally being more worried about loss than excited by potential gain fits with cannons, which can allow you to take the map with under ten losses. While cuirassiers allow you to end the game quicker, I wouldn’t want to be one. The losses are always hideous. A protective longbow on a hill is a protective longbow on a hill whatever difficulty level you’re playing. I think that’s why I almost always go cannons on immortal even though deep down I know it means a longer game.

 

[coanda]

If you have tech parity or (temporary) superiority, Cuirassiers are a faster and more reliable way of taking land. If you are pretty far behind on tech, cannons fight better into a tech disadvantage and Steel would be the preferable military breakout tech. But when your research is slower like that, you can't go Liberalism -> Steel because first-to-Lib isn't gonna be around long enough; you need to actually tech (or trade for, or steal) Steel.

 

[dontworryabouttsunami]

Another detail you're missing is that you can Lib Nationalism so you can build Taj Mahal while teching MT. I'd only Lib MT if the AI wasn't closing in on Lib and I didn't have marble or IND. To really capitalize on the rush you should get every city to *nearly* finish a HA as you finish MT so you start off with halfbuilt cuirs. More than that though you can finish building other HAs that you will upgrade with GM gold (perhaps from Taj) once you get MT. Stables also mean your units start with 2 promos out of the gate even without civics.

Good point. I never liked to Lib Nationalism because it feels kind of weak, it's like the lowest value thing you could take and it takes no effort, but it's actually not that much cheaper than MT, and having the Taj earlier is huge for sure. I played a game not long ago where I was waiting forever for the Taj to finish before I got out my units. It would have been better to just start producing weaker guys sooner I'm sure. The strong guys can lead the way and then the weak guys can take care of the wounded.

 

[Gumbolt]

Most immortal games should be winnable by just whipping cuirs. AI waste a lot of time on techs that don't matter. You have 1000ad-1500ad to abuse them. Take out the ones close to rifles and learn how to vassal quickly. That or reach land requirement quickest. Steel feels so slow. Very unlikely you could lib steel on deity.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Fully support @sampsa . The "Civ4 Strategy Articles" forum contains "strategies" that are not used and are missing some that are. If a full original article is too much work, you can just do a detailed written turn-by-turn analysis of a successful curaisser game on Youtube.

Brainstorm: for a complete strategy article, you need to include
- which game settings the strategy applies for
- when not to go for the strategy

*****

To answer the OPs original question, I think the real question is curaissers or cannons. The exact tech path depends too much on the map and what you are able to trade for. The RNG determines what the other AIs research. I go for the unit whose tech path opens tech trades.

Personally I cannot make curaissers work on deity unless there is some advantage. Sumeria can accumulate espionage points earlier to incite a city revolt. Aztecs can sacrifice population for more curaissers non-stop. Spain's conquistadors have roughly 50% chance against pikemen and macemen. A philosophical leader can squeeze out a great merchant to upgrade some horse archers or elephants. Otherwise I don't even bother.

 

[sampsa]

you can just do a detailed written turn-by-turn analysis of a successful curaisser game on Youtube.

Yes, I thought about exactly this. Lain has played some excellent games and with some extra insight maybe people could understand better what is happening and why. Isabella-game was a massive stomp , though admittedly the improved cuirs helped a bit.

Looking through Henrik's games also to see if there is an immortal cuirs game.

 

[SittinDown]

That would be good to see. I'm pretty comfortable with Immortal Cuir domination wins. I have watched Lain's games, but I don't play well enough to be able to translate that to my own Deity games.

I'd like to see a better guide too on military.

Spoiler Henrik's Video :

I saw Henrik's recent video with Grenadiers (which I never think to use), and a mixed military combined with cannons, and him just rolling through AI's without losing any units. I realized I had a lot to learn with military.

In a recent game I had (immortal, small inland sea) - I had kind of bad land, and I was playing Korea, and I had ivory, so I decided to Elephant + Hwacha an easy target - Washington, plus he had built GLB. After taking that land, I bulbed and got to LIB and took MT in ~1050 AD, and was able to roll the rest of the map more or less with that. I'm curious to replay the map to see if I can get a faster date without attacking Washington first with elephants. Also curious to see if I can get a faster date with using elephants + cats to see if I can snowball another AI or two. In my original game, I chickened out after killing off Washington, and regrouped for Cuirs, and then took out another AI and then capitulated another before getting a domination victory in the ~1500's right before the AI's started getting rifles. I did get to cannons, but I wound up never using them, as I tripped land % before I needed to DOW again.

 

[Texas03]

On Immortal with any decent land and not Mansa Musa and his crew some place else I tend to try to Lib my way to Cavalry. If I can't get that, I'll go for MT. The bonus for me is the speed of attack. A few violent turns and the war is over, and onto the next. With Cannons you are too slow on Immortal imo. Cannons is what you go for if remaining AI are getting Rifling, then you can hit them with Cannons and Cuirs or Cavs or Rifles. Often, if you give back cities to conquered AI, you can also get trades to keep advancing in tech, getting Military Science and Communism or Physics and such.

 

[LincolnOfRome]

I like cavalry and spies. Move 2-3 spies into each city a few turns before the attack. Courthouses, jails, castles, and TGW generate enough points to keep an attack going or you can put 10-20% into spying. You have the spies make the city rebel the turn of the attack. It is so much quicker than siege weapons.

 

[ArchGhost]

Cuirs should be able to take on anybody not at rifles yet with sheer production advantage on Immortal as long as you start attacking before 1300ad. Attack dates below 1000ad will absolutely just wreck the AI's horsehocky. Either dodge the main stack and cut away territory, or crush it out in the open early in the war and it's free run (AI cannot mass quickly at all below Deity and will fumble for the rest of the whole war). Pick your weakest target that you can kill/cap the fastest first to gain land/a buffer and then start looking at diplomatic/tech speed moving forward when choosing the next.

The next step up is Cavalry instead, a little later attack but with Spies and leading with Flanking retreaters (or Airships) they can blow through even Infantry on flat ground. Rifles are scary to Cuirs but not to Cavs with a little support, so this is just a bit delayed mounted push with a higher success against resistance. You can even use Cuirs to take 1-2 AIs, stop for Rifling, then continue on with a Cav push for another AI or two that would grind you to a stop if using Cuirs.

Cannons are so powerful you can take on Infantry with just them and Muskets, anything less is completely toast. Waiting for Rifles too is overkill. You can even take rough losses and take down Marines with cannon+musket. It's a much bigger logistical undertaking though, and aggressive AIs will suicide into you a lot as you grind forward if it's a land route map. With the time involved getting to Steel for a first attack though I usually just skip over to tanks instead (assuming I am in a land position to do so, it has happened a lot in semi-iso when killing my buddy early on), which is endgame as the AI sucks at using nukes. I do think cannons are more preferable for a map requiring lots of overseas landing though, they let you force the way forward much more easily.

Tanks can just win the game by that point that you are pushing them out. Nothing stands up to tanks + spy revolts, though gunships are super rough if you aren't massed already.

My (short) experience with Cuirs on Deity is that it's even easier to reach an early attack date (ALL of my best Cuir times were dicking around on Deity) due to the increased power of tradebacks (like Nationalism when you Lib it), but AIs move on to tech that stops it much more quickly after that.