Cavarly overpowered?

[PaulusIII]

Normal speed makes speed even more crucial therefore rush is even more potent. War takes as much turns as on epic, but research, production and war weariness are faster. Rushing with 2-move units is less effective on marathon since you have time there.

Someone posted a deity game few months ago (Snaaty?) here which ended in carefully done Cavarly rush on normal. War lasted about 10 turns. That game changed my style of play. Obsolete in his WE games also made his first war with cavarly alone I believe.

Are you referring to this playthrough by Rusten? That was a pretty damn impressive game.

 

[Mizar]

- Very high survival rate (min. 60%). Maces upgraded to rifles with CRII will have only 30% chance against a fortified longbow with full culture bonuses.

First, my military city usually produces CR III maces which are later upgraded to rifles, really powerfull. If for some reason I didn't fight an earlier war (so no GGs) and get just 2 promotions from rax+civic, I will only upgrade maces that earned the third promotion in the field.

Second, if you are using a 1-move SoD without siege, you are doing something wrong.
Even a mature 60% cultural defense is knocked down by just 4 accuracy trebs, CR troops have a high survival rate afterwards.

 

[oyzar]

Normal speed makes speed even more crucial therefore rush is even more potent. War takes as much turns as on epic, but research, production and war weariness are faster. Rushing with 2-move units is less effective on marathon since you have time there.

Someone posted a deity game few months ago (Snaaty?) here which ended in carefully done Cavarly rush on normal. War lasted about 10 turns. That game changed my style of play. Obsolete in his WE games also made his first war with cavarly alone I believe.

Obsolete's first WE games were all with cavalery rush, however they were warlords...

@ CR troops, they are only good against the AI because it is stupid...

 

[StuntedAzrael]

Are you referring to this playthrough by Rusten? That was a pretty damn impressive game.

Yes, thanks. This still is impressive game.

First, my military city usually produces CR III maces which are later upgraded to rifles, really powerfull. If for some reason I didn't fight an earlier war (so no GGs) and get just 2 promotions from rax+civic, I will only upgrade maces that earned the third promotion in the field.

Second, if you are using a 1-move SoD without siege, you are doing something wrong.
Even a mature 60% cultural defense is knocked down by just 4 accuracy trebs, CR troops have a high survival rate afterwards.

CRIII maces? You'll need vassalage, theo, 2 GGs for that. pretty expensive to get. Trebs are diminished by castles which AI happily builds.

Obsolete's first WE games were all with cavalery rush, however they were warlords...

@ CR troops, they are only good against the AI because it is stupid...

We're all exploiting AI weakneses here on higher levels. Perhaps Civ V will feature adaptive neural net for some serious butt kicking. We can only hope.

 

[Mizar]

In a typical game, I have 3,4 settled GGs in my HE city in the medival age, thats (usually with 1 war civic) level 4 (CR III) with a standard civ or even level 5 (CR III CI) with charismatic or aggressive.
Since this city is pretty much nonstop producing units, this is very effective.
Mounted units are trained in another city with rax+stables.

 

[Iranon]

Cannons are further down the tech tree. Your stack of rifles and cannons are slow. You will win ofc. but more turns have to be involved in the war. More war weariness, much more. AI is building units in the other cities while you're moving and taking down defenses.

Points taken about the speed and corresponding War Weariness... but further down the tech tree? Steel is likely to be faster than Rifling with a hard beeline.
Cavalry requires Nationalism and Military Tradition on top of that. If we have cannons, the type of cleanup unit is pretty much irrelevant so there is no reason to wait with the war until we also have Rifling.

Despite the ponderous movement speed, the first civ could be down before we would have had Cavalry available. Now Cuirassiers can be had faster than cannons, but those require some spy support at least...

 

[StuntedAzrael]

I admit I have never tried rushing cannons before rifles or grens. Grens demand mil. science. Using muskets and maces means that cannons will be first defenders. Steel is pretty expensive tech.

Is there any posted game showing this kind of strategy?

 

[PaulusIII]

I admit I have never tried rushing cannons before rifles or grens. Grens demand mil. science. Using muskets and maces means that cannons will be first defenders. Steel is pretty expensive tech.

Is there any posted game showing this kind of strategy?

Look through the old immortal university threads. You'll see plenty of steel slingshots in there. It's an effective strategy on immortal.

 

[oyzar]

I admit I have never tried rushing cannons before rifles or grens. Grens demand mil. science. Using muskets and maces means that cannons will be first defenders. Steel is pretty expensive tech.

Is there any posted game showing this kind of strategy?

Cannons doesn't require feud/guilds/banking/printing press/replacable parts, however it does require chemistry and engineering. Those two techs are likely to be easier to get than the 5 techs you are skipping(or 7 for cavs). Once you have chemistry grens are also just one tech away. There are probably posted some games using this, but it might be hard to find .

 

[Roxlimn]

Cannons require Steel, which requires Chemistry which requires Gunpowder. With those techs, you can field a Musketman/Cannon army with respectable punch and defense power, coming off from a production boost from Caste/Guilds/Chemistry Workshops.

With Gunpowder under your wing, you can then proceed to tech Nationalism-Mil Trad for Cuirassers to add to your war effort, while building Taj after teching Nationalism for the post-war GA. It's a strong line of teching to go for, IMO, if you're interested in military conquest at the point in time.

Rifling + Mil Trad takes significantly longer to acquire.

 

[J-man]

Cannons require Steel, which requires Chemistry which requires Gunpowder. With those techs, you can field a Musketman/Cannon army with respectable punch and defense power, coming off from a production boost from Caste/Guilds/Chemistry Workshops.

With Gunpowder under your wing, you can then proceed to tech Nationalism-Mil Trad for Cuirassers to add to your war effort, while building Taj after teching Nationalism for the post-war GA. It's a strong line of teching to go for, IMO, if you're interested in military conquest at the point in time.

Rifling + Mil Trad takes significantly longer to acquire.

Seems like a good strategy for Spain

 

[Skallagrimson]

Just whip cavarly, put C2 promotion and kill something.

Sounds good to me!

 

[Skallagrimson]

Vast numbers in general will beat anything of superior tech and firepower, in Civ.

You bring enough warriors, that elephant's dead. Bring enough spears, those cavs are dead. They bring enough chariots, your mech infantry is dead. It's absolutely stupid, but that's the way it is.

 

[PopHut]

Normal speed makes speed even more crucial therefore rush is even more potent. War takes as much turns as on epic, but research, production and war weariness are faster. Rushing with 2-move units is less effective on marathon since you have time there.

I do not think that any experience player will argue that units with double movement get more popular on quicker turn-set games and larger maps. But at the same time, those units will still have a much harder time in a standard game.

As has been mentioned earlier throughout this discussion, it seems you may be jumping the gun a little bit though on how over-powered cav. may be. You should be playing a fair game first before touting OVER-POWERED, ZOMG!!!!

If you are still wining by a landslide without your crutch settings, then maybe people would be more willing to see your viewpoint. Of course, at that point you should be wondering why you are not moving up to the next level.

 

[GeorgeF]

I was turned onto Cavalry by playing the Earth 18/34 civs maps a few times. Its really the fastest way to conquer. Hope for the Horse Whispering quest, build stables everywhere, war with HAs and Knights and Cuirassers for some experienced troups, then when Cavalry hit, upgrade and just war with everyone simultaneously. C3 + March, plus some 2-move GG healers, and your Cavalry never stop. I usually take Blitz for the 5th promotion, Pinch for the 6th.

 

[CivCorpse]

I admit I have never tried rushing cannons before rifles or grens. Grens demand mil. science. Using muskets and maces means that cannons will be first defenders. Steel is pretty expensive tech.

Is there any posted game showing this kind of strategy?

Here is a game I posted not too long ago. During the game I did not build a single CR promoted unit other than siege. C2 Formation Grens make a suitable counter for Curassiers.
I also did not build a single mounted unit the entire game.

After you have taken out whatever civs you can, It might be advisable to go the steam->railroad route rather than rifling after replacable parts. Not only are machineguns the best city/stack defenders in the game until you get to mechs. They have no counter until artillery/gunships/tanks.
Plus the added benefit of levees and railroads. I play on huge low sea level maps lately and getting railroads down is crucial to getting troops to the front lines in a timely manner.

If I had chosen to manually research steel rather than trade for some of the Lib prerequisites. If i had gotten a GE instead of a GS I would have just bulbed a nice chunk of steel instead.
Against the AI siege is the more overpowered of any unit class in the game because the AI neither knows how to properly use it or defend against it.
Cavalry is only over powered if you have a significant tech lead as it needs rifling AND military Tradition while it's counter merely needs rifling.

 

[CivCorpse]

Vast numbers in general will beat anything of superior tech and firepower, in Civ.

You bring enough warriors, that elephant's dead. Bring enough spears, those cavs are dead. They bring enough chariots, your mech infantry is dead. It's absolutely stupid, but that's the way it is.

Actually it is fairly realistic. The German's learned just how realistic in WW2 when they attacked Russia.

 

[Iranon]

That happened at parity in civ4 terms (at least where it counts) though... some of the Russian military hardware was among the best in the world at that time as well.

From another time... there were quite a few defeats of British colonial troops at the hand of technologically backwards but well-organised foes with superior numbers though.

 

[StuntedAzrael]

2-move units are very valuable as support units to quickly reinforce dwindling SoD, reinforce conquered towns, quick deployment to enemy territory, defend against attack and take out raiding units. Healed units quickly rejoin battle. During cavarly rush I often end up having more Cavarly at the end of the war than at the begining. Rusten game mentioned above is clear example.

1-move SoD after venturing into enemy will start to lose units due to losses. New units could be far away considering 3-move in friendly and 1-move in enemy territory. Wounded units still take 1-2 turns of healing provided you have super medic there. How can you maintain your SoD? Either by waiting for reinforcements or by initially creating large enough SoD to keep moving. Both options require additional turns in your campaign.

 

[Belisar]

From another time... there were quite a few defeats of British colonial troops at the hand of technologically backwards but well-organised foes with superior numbers though.

Like Isandhlwana where the Zulus armed with spears eradicated a battalion redcoats.