Foundation and Empire #2

[VoiceOfUnreason]

That's a cute stack VoU, but why don't you have a medic in it? That should be straightforward enough for the beginners to get.

I don't know; not very many turns later, the stack does have a medic in it.

As for the other, I agree that medics are straightforward, but I'm not sure they belong. My feeling is that promotions are more a matter of technique than of strategy.

Essentially, I'm trying to be conservative about how many ideas I promote, to keep the thinking focused. Collateral damage, I decided that needs to be in place because it's not well understood by new players; but I'm not convinced that promotions need similar attention.

While playing this out, I also discovered that I had no good lesson to teach about Great Generals -- attaching them to cities as a specialist makes a lot of sense once you've decided to introduce the idea of a military city, but I'm still reluctant to do that.

 

[vanatteveldt]

Why not just say "settle the GG in the city with the highest production"?

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Why not just say "settle the GG in the city with the highest production"?

I think that's the wrong question: why say anything?

 

[ecuwins]

Maybe just say: "for further reading on this subject Link to War Academy article" and leave it at that.

 

[vanatteveldt]

Well, if you start warring you'll get a GG. You need to do something with him. Attaching him means thinking about whom to attach to. Settling him means thinking where to settle. The only two "simple" choices I can see are:

1) Attach him to your best unit in your main army group, which will give every unit in that group some experience
2) Settle him in your best production city.


BTW great concept for a guide, although you will need to create a "sanitized" version to avoid having all the noblesse confused by discussions on 'what is the best advice' / 'should we discuss X'. Great that you are taking this work on you!

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

BTW great concept for a guide, although you will need to create a "sanitized" version to avoid having all the noblesse confused by discussions on 'what is the best advice' / 'should we discuss X'.

Agreed - if this works out, there should eventually be a guide, which links to the demonstration games.

 

[coanda]

A great medic really is one of those simple concepts which is absolutely transformative in how strong you are. An army with a great medic moves about twice as fast as an army without a medic. I agree that promotions overall are an issue you don't need to get into for beginners, but creating a great medic is a basic piece of strategy that every player should be aware of.

 

[GKey]

Excellent guide VOU
That's what I was looking for when arrived here for a first time. Unfortunately I have found some complicated topics instead then. Some SE vs CE articles (had no idea what does it stand for), btw some were made by you VOU!

I think our moderators could kindly stick this guide for newcomers.

On topic: yes, super-medic first is kind of no brainer for me. Hardly can imagine better use for first Great General.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

A great medic really is one of those simple concepts which is absolutely transformative in how strong you are. An army with a great medic moves about twice as fast as an army without a medic. I agree that promotions overall are an issue you don't need to get into for beginners, but creating a great medic is a basic piece of strategy that every player should be aware of.

So first of all, I strongly disagree with the notion that great medics are strategy at all - that's a tactical idea. Quibble quibble.

Simply put, the scale is all wrong. For example, suppose you have to choose between two different ideas for warfare - you can have siege units, or you can have super medics. Is this even a choice? Couldn't you just as easily tell beginners to disband the Great General when he spawns, without much adverse effect?

Put another way - Sisiutil's beginner guide has 15 chapters; I'm essentially trying to pare that down to the seven plus or minus two ideas that a novice needs. How many different ideas do you suppose are in that guide that are the same size as the idea of a super medic?

Unless I'm gravely mistaken, Great Generals and super medics were introduced in Warlords - they aren't part of the core game. I find that to be a pretty compelling argument that they aren't central enough to the game to be worth discussing at this level.

 

[jammerculture]

VoU, great job so far. Your guides and posts have been so helpful to me over the years. I'm amazed that your still doing this kind of thing. I play at monarch (to win) or emperor (to lose mostly lol), but I still make a point of reading whatever you write, and still learn from every thread.

Just wanted to say thanks.

 

[coanda]

So first of all, I strongly disagree with the notion that great medics are strategy at all - that's a tactical idea. Quibble quibble.

Touche. I stand corrected.
I now assert that it is a basic piece of tactics that every player should be familiar with.

Simply put, the scale is all wrong. For example, suppose you have to choose between two different ideas for warfare - you can have siege units, or you can have super medics. Is this even a choice? Couldn't you just as easily tell beginners to disband the Great General when he spawns, without much adverse effect?

Put another way - Sisiutil's beginner guide has 15 chapters; I'm essentially trying to pare that down to the seven plus or minus two ideas that a novice needs. How many different ideas do you suppose are in that guide that are the same size as the idea of a super medic?

Unless I'm gravely mistaken, Great Generals and super medics were introduced in Warlords - they aren't part of the core game. I find that to be a pretty compelling argument that they aren't central enough to the game to be worth discussing at this level.

Were I outlining (in my own humble opinion) basic warfare strategy in Civ4, it would be this:
1. Make about half your stack siege units, and the siege should bombard and attack first.
2. Include one great medic with your stack, who should never attack.
3. March your stack straight at the enemy's strongest point, crushing everything you pass on the way, then pause until your stack is healed.
4. Repeat step 3 until you win.

I admit that things usually look simpler once you've learned them, but that doesn't look like an overly complicated strategy to me.

As for the relative importance... while I agree that great medics are not as important as collateral, I would argue that they are as important as things like early scouting patterns or settling blocking city locations. Maybe it's just the warmonger in me that makes me see this as such a powerful concept though.

 

[Um the Muse]

I suppose you could have a "tiny tips" blurb. Have something like a two sentence explanation to introduce a super important, yet fine detail:

Tiny tip:
Early armies lost more soldiers through sickness and disease than through actual combat. If you get a great general unit, you should promote 1 of your soldiers to Medic III.

 

[jammerculture]

Perhaps you should set up certain games to highlight different areas of the game, i.e use a charismatic leader to go over promotions, a spiritual leader to detail civics etc.

With that being said, I understand why you feel the need to keep these types of strategies or tactics out of your narrative in an attempt to distill Civ 4 strategy into its most basic components.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Perhaps you should set up certain games to highlight different areas of the game, i.e use a charismatic leader to go over promotions, a spiritual leader to detail civics etc.

Not a chance - if ALC didn't deliver enough of that already, I want no part.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

A final look at things as my army turns towards Carthage...

The catapults die that the attacking pieces might live. The top two phalanxes were just about 10XP, so they got cash upgraded to maces, just to make sure that the top defenders didn't present any problems.

And yes, I'm finally starting to construct buildings in my cities...

At this point, you've got a few options

1) You can turtle up and win
2) You can capture Hannibal's four nearby cities, then turtle up in win
3) You can capture Hannibal's cities, then take all of the land from the Aztecs and the Mongols and win
4) etc.

 

[Um the Muse]

And they all lived happily ever after, or died

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

And they all lived happily ever after, or died

Or, trapped in a Sisyphean Hell, loaded up a new map....

 

[Tinmonkee]

Many thanks VOU, speaking as a Noble player I have found the series very instructional. I have won a few times on Noble, and read the series with interest.

Last night I decided to put the general guide to the test and compared it to my usual (haphazard) starts. I played several games with different leaders, following the worker first/tech order that you outlined and all I can say is it made a massive difference to the start of my game. I always considered that it was better to get some pop up first before going for the worker build but I'd have to say this approach of worker first was far better.

Another noob thing I never realised was that the city only needs to use a tile yield at the start; I have tended to prioritise The Wheel in the past thinking I had to hook up the resource. I now realise that they are two different things; the city can start utilising that corn yield automatically long before it needs to be hooked up to gain the other benefits (happiness/trading, etc).

I'd be interested to see you discuss in more depth the idea of city placement and resources; again, previously I tended to place cities to maximise use of resources, regardless of whether thay also had access to food resources (ohh, that shiny copper n the tundra is a must have city site, even though it will never actually be able to grow into anything). In playing the games last night, I was tending to be more careful to include a food resource first and then hopefully other resources secondary (copper, stone etc) and this worked far better as well.

Many thanks for your time and effort VOU, much appreciated.

 

[Um the Muse]

Or, trapped in a Sisyphean Hell, loaded up a new map....

Thanks for the guide

I know I've heard the advice that catapults are disposible, but I guess I never realized just how disposable they really are. You'd seriously throw a well-promoted catapult at a single defender? Is this assuming no horses/ elephants/ nothing else that is abnormally strong or high chance of withdraw?

Also, you said that the question usually simplifies to "Do I have enough catapults to turn the battle [into] a rout?" How do you know if the answer is "yes"?

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

I know I've heard the advice that catapults are disposible, but I guess I never realized just how disposable they really are. You'd seriously throw a well-promoted catapult at a single defender?

That's a bit overboard - they are disposapults, not disbandapults.

In a one on one situation, catapults are essentially axes (strength, CR promotions), but a bit more expensive, so you should normally prefer to use an axe.

However, catapults can't kill. So in a two on one, the catapult has to go first.

In a three on one, the catapult can go second, which is what you would prefer from a preserving hammers perspective, although you might decide you prefer the XP generated another way.

Also, you said that the question usually simplifies to "Do I have enough catapults to turn the battle [into] a rout?" How do you know if the answer is "yes"?

Instinct, math, or just eyeballing it. For most practical situations, one catapult per defender is about right, although you can get away with fewer when the catapults are attacking with favorable odds.