2 broken concepts: colonies and warlords

[oyzar]

Warlords work fine but imperialistic isn't very good...

 

[Refar]

It is like bribing the almighty. I cant see the rationale behind this one

Well a warlord - lets say Medic III, who never has to fight - living 4000 years is not that rational too.

So basicly the concept of attached warlord is a unit with long glorious history, which - by tradition - is concidered a elite force. Think of a todays militaries where many units carry a name of some old regiment. In that light it might make sense for a gouverment to 'revive' such a traditional regiment.

 

[noto]

I know that if your colony runs state property, your corporations do not generate income in your HQ for you. Someone posted that if the colony runs mercantilism, then you can still establish trade routes with it. Really? I didn't notice that. What about corporations? Does anyone have a quick answer to this? Do your corporations still generate revenue if your colony runs merc? I didn't think they did...

 

[Refar]

I dont think they do. But you can request your colony to swith out - to free market for example.

 

[Levgre]

Attaching the warlord to a unit may not be the best option, but it is a nice alternative to give an instant boost to your force.

Have 10 units with experience level 2? Attach a great general and make them all instantly level 3. Or make 4-5 units, instantly level 3.
The super unit is not necessarily the best choice. Just give the attached warlord the exp bonus and start the mopping up.

The attached warlord gives an INSTANT boost to your forces, unparalleled in immediacy by either of the other settling options. I suppose in lots of cases, especially against AI, you are not necessarily threatened. However, in the case of a close conflict, it can make the difference.

It can also make your forces more unpredictable. Want your opponent not to know what you'll throw at them? Carry along a GG, and add whatever promotions you need when they are not expecting them.

 

[redmosquito]

Well a warlord - lets say Medic III, who never has to fight - living 4000 years is not that rational too.

We somehow got used to that one. There wouldnt be a game if units kept dying. For reviving: it may take a while to get used to it.

 

[noto]

Okay, okay...yes, the warlord can give 20 xp to a bunch of troops in a tile. It's just that Firaxis dangled candy infront of my face and snatched it away before I could taste it! By giving a unit the leadership promotion, and knowing the unit could theoretically get to combat 6, drill 4, etc, it makes me want to build it up and create a super unit. The problem is I have never been able to do that, not once... just because it's so extremely difficult to do and mathematically improbable.

 

[Spaced out]

When you play with vassal states off there is ZERO colonial maintenance.

 

[civ4legs]

I will have to experiment with Colonies a bit, I haven't had the chance to use them much. To be true to a large chunk of historical colonialism in North America, it would be cool if you could force your colonies into Mercantilism, which would allow YOU to trade with them, but not other civs.

For Great Generals, you can attach a general to a tile with multiple units, and they will not only get an experience boost (the 20xp shared amongst them), but I *believe* that it will also completely heal them instantly. I have to say that I have never done that, so please correct me if I'm wrong and I'll edit this post

 

[madscientist]

On a similar note, one thing I have done in the past is attach a GG to a unit with 9 others present (non seige engines). If you do this to get all up to 9 XP (say a barracks, Vassalage, theocracy to produce 7 XP units) then march off to war. Give the GG attached unit Leadership. After 1 battle you would have accumulated ALOT of GG points to pop another GG fast and still have the attached one in the field. If you can pull this off as Imperialistic with the great wall and within cultural borders, GGs will be tremendous.

Settling teh GG is the safest thing to do, but there are other uses for a GG.

 

[futurehermit]

If you attach a GG to a tank that starts with blitz it can gain a helluva lot of xp in a short period of time.

 

[DarkFyre99]

Especially if you have a significant tech lead, and give the tank leadership and drill promotions.

 

[kniteowl]

5) Attaching a GG to a unit to get the leadership promotion can get yourself ALOT of additional GG points.

What did you mean by that? if you meant hat the unit will gain more promotions giving them better odds therefore they win more battles and accumulate more GG points, then you're right.

If you meant that the that your Unit gains 100% more XP which transfers over to GG points then it's wrong, you do not gain 100% more GG points with the Leadership promotion I've tested once before... sadly... although I wish it did.

I remember there was a Scenario in Warlords where all Fallen Warlords return to the Capital and can be used again on units for access to GG promotions but they no longer have the free 20XP.

I think Warlords should be changed, I find it strange that Warlords are either medics or only attack at high odds.

If I were to change the WL I'd make it it's own Unit therefore you can't attach it and it has it's own STR, which start at 2 and increases as you continue on through the ages

Eg- Ancient Age = 2 Str, Classical Age = 4 Str, Middle Age = 6 Str, Res Age = 10 Str... etc.

They can only defend (can not attack)

I'd Change all GG Promotions into Specializations for the New GG unit which affect all units within a Stack.

Eg
- Combat Specialization gives all units in the Stack 25% extra STR
- Tactics Specialization Gives all units in the stack a 30% Chance of withdrawal ( I MEAN ALL Units even units that can't normally withdraw)
- Leadership would give all units in the stack 50% more XP

There would be many more Specialization you could think of, eg - Morale would allow you to move your Entire stack faster, City Raider would give all your City attacking units an extra boost at taking cities, Medic would heal your stack faster, Etc Etc Etc.

I'd also make it that so GGs can never gain XP to get more Specializations (For balance Purposes due to the fact they affect an entire stack, imagine a GG with all those Specializations they'd be near invincible.

Warlords still keep the Free 20XP to units though.

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

Attacthing a GG to a privateer to make a superpirate to go off and help generate "peacetime" gg points is also fun And if you think tanks with blitz and leadership get points fast try helicopters hehe plus ships can get blitz in BtS too now

Kaytie

 

[MyOtherName]

But it gets worse - even if the colony did run free market, you aren't the only one to benefit! Any civ could trade with it, any civ could win those lucrative overseas trade routes, and any civ can plant a corporation in your colony.

In what way do your opponents benefit any more than if you kept those cities? And if you really don't want your colony trading with others, then ask it not to.

 

[noto]

Wow, I didn't expec this thread to get over 1000 views and I can't believe it's so high up on the list still. I guess I should have worded it differently. The term broken isn't really the best term. If the Zulu barracks doesn't give a happiness bonus under nationalism because the programmers forgot to add that function, as it's a UB (but I think this was fixed?) that is indeed "broken". Warlords and colonies aren't broken in that sense of the word. I suppose what I was complaining about was the fact that they didn't add to the game in the way I had hoped them to. It would be nice if you could extract more from a vassal or colony, like if you could force it to add beakers to your research, or if you could extract a % of its GNP in gold per turn, etc. Also, with the warlords unit, as I said before, it would be nice if you could actually use it to fight and gain levels over time. In any case, neither of these things will change, so we have to take them as they are. I don't see the further use of this thread except maybe to generate ideas for Civ 5 - but there is another forum for that.

 

[vicawoo]

Warlords: it's a free upgrade, and you don't revert to 10 experience. Warlords have the same problem as high exp units, only they can get combat 6. I think if you're building a super unit, you want to gear towards enormous strength differences.
That first warlord splitting experience can let you take out that early enemy. In the mid game, you might have enough generals to city raider 3 macemen or combat 3-4 knights their cities away. Armies are basically a) seige to knock down defenses and weaken enemy stacks b) basic unit killing units c) high level tough unit killers. Your great general either does b) if it wants to become a monster late game or c) if taking that city has a huge benefit.

Your heroic epic city is a very important city midgame, and that instructor will get you accuracy seige or cr2 or 3 will get combat 3 horsies. Then later on, the more generals you have, the less you have to spend to upgrade your city raider 3 macemen or axes to grenadiers or knights to cavalry to gunships.

Colonies, they count partially for domination, so you can seed a bunch all over the place without crashing your economy. Not so useful for space racing or cultural.

 

[MMMI]

We are playing for fun, right?
so, even if GG are not that useful, its still fun to see them appear in your city

btw. does anyone know (in fact Iam pretty sure someone knows)
how does it exactly work with exp. needed to get them?
I guess it works similarly as with other GPs (I mean the tresholds)
but does all XP your units get count, even if they die?

 

[TheDS]

For Great Generals, you can attach a general to a tile with multiple units, and they will not only get an experience boost (the 20xp shared amongst them), but I *believe* that it will also completely heal them instantly. I have to say that I have never done that, so please correct me if I'm wrong and I'll edit this post

Dunno where you heard that, but as far as I know, that's not been true under either version (Wrlds/BtS) or any patch. It only grants XP, and if that gets a unit a promotion, then it will heal normally with that promotion.

- - - -

I have heard that Woodsman 3 and Medic promotions stack if they're on the same unit, but not if they're on different units. Haven't gotten the chance to try it yet, but that'd be awesome, I think.

- - - -

I'm not totally in love with colonies, and I think a little mor work needs to be done on them. Essentially, a colony become a vassal with a +10 attitude adjustment that never seems to go away. I believe that this diplo bonus should melt away like most other diplo effects do, so that at some point, if you haven't been treating them nicely, they might decide to leave you; why should they be any different than anything else?

I have also noticed that making colonies is not always to your benefit, and you must do so intelligently. If you're just grabbing a bunch of land and not putting a lot into it, you will be spending a fortune to pay for that far off land while you develop it, so making a colony and gifting to it some extra cities you grabbed land for will save you a lot of money in the short term. The downside is that it's a very weak nation that can't help you for a long time, and may fall victim to your enemy if you don't defend it.

OTOH, if you've developed these cities with banks and courthouses and all that, then you will take a serious hit if you free them. Not only have you invested a ton of time and money and effort into making these cities a productive part of your empire, but now your income and science and production take a hit, and if you're dropping 10 cities, the increase in the time it takes to get your next techs can become substantial. How much your income changes will depend on the pervasiveness of corps in the colony's cities.

Colonies SHOULD get the international trade bonus, and definitely get the overseas bonus. I have noticed that having single-city islands does wonders for my trade on my main land mass even under Mercantilism, but there are so many possible bonii I can't remember which is which or why each comes up. 3.13 made a lot of changes to things too, I'm sure.

As to your Warlord problem, you could use them defensively, but yeah, I agree that they seem to die too easily. My suggested solution would be to give the Warlord an automatic 90% retreat chance, and have the Tactics promotion apply to the stack. Any other retreat bonii would be divided by 10 and added to the 90%, so a Warlord with Tactics would have a 93% retreat chance, for instance. (I don't think this would allow a 100% chance for any unit, but we could get awfully close. Maybe subs.)