Beelining guilds?

[InvisibleStalke]

Lets assume you lightbulb philosophy and trade it to get feudalism. Can you also trade for machinery? If so you are one tech from guilds and still need to self research civil service before you can do any more lightbulbing. So you can definitely get guilds much earlier. You can also lightbulb machinery with engineers (and scientists if you don't have fishing I think).

But the AIs are only one tech from engineering so they probably will have pikes in a similar timeframe. So what can you do?

With Isabella you can pillage them into the stone age with impunity. The pikes will get eaten by conquistadores (esp with shock and terrain bonuses). They won't be enough to attack cities, but they can soften the enemy up hugely while you research engineering and send in your CR3 trebs. That seems like a pretty good plan to me. Try and get an engineer to lightbulb engineering and you are set.

With ordinary knights what do you do with a lot of knights if your opponent has engineering at most one tech away? I can't see this as hugely dominant.

 

[Arnesson]

Like most of the respondents, I have always striven to go the Phiosophy > Paper > Education > Liberalism > Nationhood route, usually after building the GL and lightbulbing my way through the rest with Scientists. Guilds tend to be an afterthought (usually picked up through trades), as I normally go after Gunpowder and Mil Trad to start pumping out Cavalry as quickly as possible. I have played many games without having built a single Knight (a significant portion of which I have lost)!

 

[InFlux5]

Spain is a cherry-picked example. Guilds/Engineering are obviously great techs for Izzy.

As for Liberalism -> Nationalism, I don't always grab Nat. My last game I was Peter, and I was isolated. I used Lib to get Astronomy so I could colonize, make contact, and build Observatories.

It all depends on the game, but as someone said, the Lib beeline takes less hammers and has a higher payoff. I've always found the Guilds line of research to be a nuisance; I usually end up back-filling it just to get Corporation.

Again, Grocers are great, but not worth delaying Lib.

 

[mice]

It's really that game specific situation where a hard fast mounted attack before pikes appear will net you more than being first to Liberalism.

If you read the map and see that a flood of knights will tip the balance your way for the rest of the game, then it is a good idea to do it, rather than robotically teching the same way every time.

As with Cyrus, Ramesses could be good. Your first war creates plenty of promoted chariots. Turn off tech and upgrade them, reek havoc and, later,win.

 

[Jet]

There's a "Spain Goes the Southern Route" game somewhere in Stories and Tales.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

I love guilds, reason? Because I have generally finished fighting for the game (unless someone attacks me) by then, have lots of enemies, and having knights just makes me feel that much safer. Grocers are a nice health and wealth addition too, when your bigger cities are starting to turn green pre astronomy trades.

And as Futurehermit said, Merc is next,not for the specialists (Im a cottage spamming / free market guy), but Merc of course enables Banks, and the forests I saved in my generally stolen holy city(s) gets chopped, and the resulting extra income often allows for 10% more science spending.

I don't think I've ever researched Eng myself either, and normally get it as a trade offer involving guilds. The ai always seems to favor Eng over Guilds, and then they all rush to build that Great White Elephant, The Hagia Sophia (ooh now my workers do stuff 50% faster, but oh yeah, they're all idle in my cap waiting for rep parts and something to do )

 

[futurehermit]

My thinking after playing with this a bit last night is:

1) Play as a philosophical leader

2) Chop out the GW to get a GE

3) Use the GE to bulb machinery

4) Use a GS to bulb philosophy

5) Trade philosophy for feudalism (keep machinery from the AIs for as long as possible)

6) Self research through CoL and CS

7) Use caste system to generate a GM for guilds

I think with a philosophical leader you can get 3 great people in a reasonable time frame. I'm thinking you could have knights ca. 300AD giving you a few centuries before the AI has pikes (at least on monarch) to do some damage.

When I use flanking II and combat II knights, yeah I lose some, but I don't notice massive losses, even in high culture cities.

 

[uberfish]

Knights are very good units in an extended medieval war, they can pick off stray enemy units and pillage well. Deny the enemy iron and you stop their pikes and knights. Shock promo also works quite well on these guys. In a domination game I think it's often better to take the south tech route for immediate military advantage than to try and race the financial AIs to liberalism with an economy that isn't that hot.

 

[Arnesson]

When I use flanking II and combat II knights, yeah I lose some, but I don't notice massive losses, even in high culture cities.

And don't they become the finest gunboats! They make Tanks and even Moderm Armour quake in their boots.

 

[futurehermit]

Yes, upgraded knights to cav and then gunships are great

 

[UncleJJ]

Knights are fast and they can take cities from longbows on their own (except maybe those with walls or high culture or protective) but their basic weakness is their high hammer cost (90 hammers). Maces, catapults and trebuchets are slower moving but because they're cheaper you should be able to start the war sooner and maybe run two SoD against weaker cities, thereby conquering as quickly as with a SoD of knights.

But I still think this is interesting and I'll try using knights sometime soon; the same old trebuchet + maces versus longbows is efficient but tedious after the you've done it so many times. Hopefully BtS will adjust the tech tree so that alternatives to the Liberalism race and trebuchet dominance versus longbows (new siege method might help) are worthwhile.

 

[Norvin_Green]

wanted to get back to you about how i did with cyrus . . . well, i didn't. here's the story. i downloaded the hotseat patch for warlords (tech screen always shows player # 1's choices) and installed it. well, i went to load my cyrus game and it won't load (i was playing using the hof mod)because it detected that i "tampered" with my assets. very frustrating as i was off to a solid start.

 

[futurehermit]

wanted to get back to you about how i did with cyrus . . . well, i didn't. here's the story. i downloaded the hotseat patch for warlords (tech screen always shows player # 1's choices) and installed it. well, i went to load my cyrus game and it won't load (i was playing using the hof mod)because it detected that i "tampered" with my assets. very frustrating as i was off to a solid start.

that sucks

 

[InFlux5]

In a domination game I think it's often better to take the south tech route for immediate military advantage than to try and race the financial AIs to liberalism with an economy that isn't that hot.

I agree. However, playing on Monarch I don't feel it's much of a race. If I want Liberalism first I can get it, even if I'm isolated.

The problem is, the sooner you get Liberalism the fewer options you have for the free tech. Nationalism is overrated. It doesn't give enough short-term benefit to justify choosing it in most cases.

I recently had an isolated start on a fractal map, as Peter. I was able to grab the pre-reqs for Astronomy and choose it as my free tech after getting Liberalism. This probably isn't something I could pull off above Monarch, but the Galleons allowed me to take over a nearby island and win the game.

If you read the map and see that a flood of knights will tip the balance your way for the rest of the game, then it is a good idea to do it, rather than robotically teching the same way every time.

I agree completely, with the caveat that a Lib "leap frog" is the best choice in a majority of my games. I wish I had more incentive to go with Guilds and have wars with Knights. But, sadly, at that stage of the game I'm usually fairly inward-looking, having conquered my land mass and aiming for Astronomy.

 

[futurehermit]

Nationalism is great actually. A Taj Mahal golden age really helps separate you even further from everyone else after you lib leap frog. Plus drafting can be very helpful at that stage of the game depending on what you want to be doing.

 

[InFlux5]

In a game earlier I was considering whether to head towards Guilds, when I realized why I never do this.

Mounted units are too easy to counter. I try to avoid using them in a siege. Spears, Pikes, Rifles - they all counter mounted units. You pay a heavy price for the mobility of a horse.

To my mind, mounted units are defensive units. They are best at swatting down an invading stack in the open terrain. For taking cities give me infantry any day.

 

[UncleJJ]

InFlux5 is right, I use mounted troops and later gunships as counterattacking troops. They can finish off the last troop in an enemy stack and then retreat back into their city. They are good for running down pillagers and fast reinforcements. Maybe 20% of my troops will be mounted but the main defenders and attackers are grunts ( axe, swords, maces, muskets ...) or seige (cats, trebs ...) depending on the age.

The Knight-rush is just not as viable as the Cavalry-rush as it can be stopped by pikeman which are much easier to get than the riflemen which are needed to to halt the Cavalry. The failed Knight-rush leaves you nowhere in the tech race as you still have to go towards Education, Liberalism, etc for Cavalry or whatever your follow up plan is. The Cavalry-rush via Liberalism leaves you with Education (and hence Universities and Oxford) to boost research in future. It is a critical point in the tech tree that allows a host of directions for war, diplomacy, tech trading and research. If the Cavalry- rush wins it is devastating, if it fails (mainly due to riflemen) you're still in a good position.

 

[futurehermit]

In a game earlier I was considering whether to head towards Guilds, when I realized why I never do this.

Mounted units are too easy to counter. I try to avoid using them in a siege. Spears, Pikes, Rifles - they all counter mounted units. You pay a heavy price for the mobility of a horse.

To my mind, mounted units are defensive units. They are best at swatting down an invading stack in the open terrain. For taking cities give me infantry any day.

Knights > spears. Hit your opponent before engineering. Cav > pikes. Hit your opponent before rifling.

Get guilds and military tradition by beelining. The techs that counter them come AFTER them, so if you beeline them and then whip/upgrade units to get 2 mid-to-large stacks of the unit before your opponent gets engg/rifling then you can take out their whole empire in less than 10 turns.

Give me that scenario any day of the week.

 

[Arnesson]

Knights > spears. Hit your opponent before engineering. Cav > pikes. Hit your opponent before rifling.

Agreed. I have NEVER lost a game where I had the tech (and the gold) to upgrade my mounted units to Cavalry ahead of the other Civ's. Remember too that, for all three levels, mounted units have limited if any defensive attributes. They are offensive weapons, and should be employed that way.

 

[UncleJJ]

That means you need some defensive troops to hold the cities, if you keep your them (i.e. domination rather than conquest victory) and to hold the tile your knights / cavalry heal on. Otherwise counterattacks can be expensive and damaged troops can soon be overwhelmed.