Cossacks!

[Continental Op]

Just finished a game where I tried a total nuke annihilation war as Sitting Bull, which was one of the funniest games I've ever done - built about 100 ICBM's and 50 tac nukes and used most of them. Some civ's I completely purged of all units with nukes and just walked in those empty cities with a pathetic stack of infantrymen, taking them one by one. I recommend trying that after a bad day at work!

Well, that's for that. Now I'm trying for something a bit different. Lately I've been interested in the idea of delaying my first expansive war for as long as I can to practice my diplomacy skills. So I opted for Peter and yes - again I got a decent junk of land to expand, room for at least 10 cities I think. So I'm thinking - you guessed it - cossacks! So I would like to know what is the optimal tech path to get there and what is the strategy for cossacks in the offensive? Just build a bunch of them with flanking and never mind the siege, or what? And I'm still afraid to try Prince, so it is Noble again.

Peter is philosophical and I know that philosophical should be played with lots of GP's. But I really don't understand all that CE/SE thing, the map is very food poor and I see a lot of rivers and green there, thus cottages. I really don't know what city I should make my GP farm, most of my cities won't get any natural food resources at all. What is the latest city to be considered a GP farm? So far there is already 3 religions, so it looks like I will have to stay a pagan for a while - maybe even till free religion. Any thoughts/comments?

 

[Silu]

Bulb your way to Lib and take, depending on how fast you are, Nat / PP / MilTrad / ReplaParts / Rifling. Attack Civs that don't have Rifling with massed Cossacks - you don't need that many Flanking ones depending on the strength of the defenders. Don't drag siege around, unless you somehow have tons of GGs to burn on Morale Accuracy Cannons. A supermedic Cav helps out a lot. So do C3March Cavs.

You don't need a dedicated GP farm, with PHI the buggers pop up left and right anyway, just run 2 scientists (+ Forge Engineer maybe) here and there. Just don't revolt to Caste just to run 3 scientists in 2 cities.

Lastly, don't enforce your plan if it starts looking like it's not viable. For example if all your neighbors are very fast to Rifling or attacking them would be disastrous for diplo (and AP repercussions, maybe) you might want to start thinking about plan B.

 

[Continental Op]

Hmm. I'm starting to wonder is this cossack thing such a good strategy after all? Actually this game is supposed to be an exercise in diplomacy, AI manipulation, gifting, backstabbing, bribing etc. I just don't feel confident unless I have a set plan for war sometime in the game, and thought that since I've already done the cannon/musket thing a couple of times in a row, it's time to try something different. How common is it to use cavalry in a war? There's still time to change plans if it seems like this is not an optimal unit for offensive warfare.

 

[Silu]

How common is it to use cavalry in a war? There's still time to change plans if it seems like this is not an optimal unit for offensive warfare.

For me it's the most common attack unit in an expansion war. Though if you play on slower than Normal then it loses much of its appeal and siegecrawl becomes better in comparison.

 

[pi-r8]

I don't really see any benefit in Cossacks vs. regular cavalry. Their only bonus is against other mounted units, and if you beeline them, you won't be fighting enemy cavalry enemy- it's pikemen, longbows, and muskets that are the problem. Also, maybe this is incorrect, but the unit description says that they only get a flank attack vs. cannons, whereas regular cavalry can also flank catapults and trebuchets.

 

[bestsss]

@Silu
I love cav/marathon, last time I played was Stalins LHC, though. Total crush.

@pi-r8
It rocks since it doesn't really need support. It has been covered, once, yet think of pinch cossacks, no way to stop those dudes. You own cav, gets eaten, your rifles get eaten.

 

[Silu]

I don't really see any benefit in Cossacks vs. regular cavalry. Their only bonus is against other mounted units, and if you beeline them, you won't be fighting enemy cavalry enemy- it's pikemen, longbows, and muskets that are the problem. Also, maybe this is incorrect, but the unit description says that they only get a flank attack vs. cannons, whereas regular cavalry can also flank catapults and trebuchets.

It's true that in the normal pre-rifling-blitzkrieg-bash Cossacks aren't really much better than normal Cavs. If the enemy has Cuirassiers then it has some effect, and if that enemy is Spain then normal Cavs start to have some troubles while Cossacks just run through. Their bonus is more useful when mixed in Rifle/Cannon/Cav parity warfare, they're great support units and stack defenders.

Civilopedia (and experience) shows that Cossacks still flank Treb/Cata, probably an oversight in the CFC unit stat list.

@bestsssssssssss:

I said better in comparison (relatively), not necessarily better in absolute terms Ultimately the choice always boils down to the situation.

 

[Agramon]

Dedicate more Esp to your enemy and use spies to support city revolt in order to have less culture defense. Might be worth to go Const afterwards to accumulate more Esp-Points for your next enemy. ;-)

 

[Continental Op]

I don't really see any benefit in Cossacks vs. regular cavalry. Their only bonus is against other mounted units, and if you beeline them, you won't be fighting enemy cavalry enemy- it's pikemen, longbows, and muskets that are the problem. Also, maybe this is incorrect, but the unit description says that they only get a flank attack vs. cannons, whereas regular cavalry can also flank catapults and trebuchets.

I know that cossacks in BtS aren't that much different than regular cavalry, I just thouhgt that if I'm playing as Russia, might as well make use of their UU. It might be a slight advantage, perhaps not an advantage at all, but still. If cav war is doable with regular cavalry, then certainly it can be done with cossacks too. I'd like to see them in action. And of course the situation dictates if I'm going to wage war at that period at all, but it helps to have a preliminary research and action plan to follow.

 

[Continental Op]

Dedicate more Esp to your enemy and use spies to support city revolt in order to have less culture defense. Might be worth to go Const afterwards to accumulate more Esp-Points for your next enemy. ;-)

Of course, I almost forgot about the spies! A good idea also. I did use them once, but decided that siege is much less complicated. In this case they will be great.

 

[bestsss]

Better than spies: silu mentioned it. cannons w/ attached great generals, 2 of them will make huge difference.

 

[Continental Op]

Better than spies: silu mentioned it. cannons w/ attached great generals, 2 of them will make huge difference.

Cannons with horses? I thought the whole point of horses was to utilize their movement bonus and skip siege altogether. Cannons are of course good with any units, but then why would I need cavalry when I could do the same thing with muskets?

 

[bestsss]

You missed the attached great generals, well you get morale promotions and the cannons are effectively 2-moves units, handy, accuracy and the defenses are no-more.

One more: past cav, going for cannon->artillery is a very decent choice. They dont have hard counter, artillery is basically not flanked, throw in the support of airships and before industrialism, there is nothing to stand on the path.

 

[pi-r8]

I know that cossacks in BtS aren't that much different than regular cavalry, I just thouhgt that if I'm playing as Russia, might as well make use of their UU. It might be a slight advantage, perhaps not an advantage at all, but still. If cav war is doable with regular cavalry, then certainly it can be done with cossacks too. I'd like to see them in action. And of course the situation dictates if I'm going to wage war at that period at all, but it helps to have a preliminary research and action plan to follow.

Yeah sure, it's definitely some advantage. But from reading the OP, I thought it sounded like you just wanted to try waging a war with an army of cavalry, and thought that Russia would be best for this. Personally I'd rather have Lincoln, Cyrus, or Kublai Khan, even though they only get regular cavalry.

 

[Continental Op]

You missed the attached great generals, well you get morale promotions and the cannons are effectively 2-moves units, handy, accuracy and the defenses are no-more.

One more: past cav, going for cannon->artillery is a very decent choice. They dont have hard counter, artillery is basically not flanked, throw in the support of airships and before industrialism, there is nothing to stand on the path.

I see. After doing some war with cav/spies, I should get some of those GGs to be attached to cannons that will later get upgraded to artillery. Sounds like a possible plan, although I'm not sure how much I am going to wage war in this game. I think I will go for diplomatic victory this time, one way or the other (in my case, almost certainly the other, so I'm expecting a lot of late-game warfare again, but I will at least try to do it the "proper" way first). This might make me change plans at any point of time if the situation dictates it.