Ghandi (The Unreal Walkthrough Part II )

[VoiceOfUnreason]

My understanding is that if you build stonehenge and gw at the same time you'd have a 2:1 chance of popping a prophet instead of a ge.

You should modify your understanding to bring it into agreement with reality... civality... vogonity... whatever.

Unless, of course, it all got turned around by bTs.

 

[The Bowman]

Very interesting. In EVERY one of your walkthroughs, you were able to beat the AIs to GW and Henge, and get a GE from Stone Henge/GW (sometimes with Oracle too) combo to rush Pyramid. I guess you are just a very lucky player.

Ouch! You really have it in for him don't you?

My two cents here though before someone else corrects you. He said he chopped trees. In that insistance, I don't think there would be a problem in getting the Great Wall first, since he B-lines for it.

The AI also seems to be late on Stone Henge in all my games, so that isn't too odd that people could get this all the time. As for his Great Engineers, that is the 'expected' result. If the wall comes first, you have a much greater chance of getting one. The +2 points from the Henge isn't GP specific, it is a neutral point. So what happened here looks like it was supposed to happen just as it did, except for him missing out on the Oracle maybe.

If he had built Stone Henge first, yet kept geting Great Engineers, then maybe you would be right about him getting lucky.

 

[ABigCivFan]

Your chances only depend on the ratio of sources not on the ratio of points. So if you modded it so that Stonehenge gave 99 points towards a great prophet, and the GW gave 1 GE point, you'd still have a 50/50 chance of each (assuming you didn't have the GW earlier, which would tilt it even more towards a GE).

Thanks for clarifying that point, I always thought it was the # of gpps that contribute to the likelihood of what GPeople being generated(which I thought is more logical than the # of sources).

however statistically speaking, "lucky" is not an overstatement given he had the same wonder combo for several games and was able to get a GE EVERY TIME rather than a GP. the GW and SH were not built too many turns apart. It is nobody's fault that you can be lucky.

@Obsolete, I see you taking advantage of the early Cavs without any siege support, what were the winning odds those Combat2 cavs against fortified Longbows in a 60% cultural defense city? (i dont have the game for another week, can't run a test myself). I myself is a big fan of Cav based offensive player, and I often overrun AIs (defended by large stacks of rifles) with large groups of Cavs but with support of Trebs/Cannons. The collateral damage of the siege weapons is just too good to pass on.

Another thing I would do differently is I would never let a neighboring AI out power me more than 3 to 1 (no matter how pleased he is to me). It is just too dangerous. In your Insaine walkthrough, Nappy had so much more power than you yet you had an axe/worrior defending your border cities adjacent to him. All it takes is 1 unexpected war to end your game. Although you won the game, but it is just not the right message to send to new players who read these games that "you can win without any defenses, since the AIs are too stupid".

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Cavalry vs. longbows get pretty good odds I find even with cultural defence. You can always promote a couple for withdrawal/flanking to hit the top defender anyway.

It gets more tricky if your opponents get muskets online (as Isabella did to me on my first cav beeline try out - and my stack of catapults took ages to knock down the citadel defence too).

 

[Quornix]

What is "unreal" about this? OCC players have been winning with superspecialist economies for a long time.

This whole thing started in a totally different thread, where Obsolete said that he didn't lightbulb or build cottages, and everyone said "That's impossible!" After each of these examples, people have said "well, you couldn't do that on Emperor" or "That's just because you're Industrious". Hence all the different examples.

His arrogant style of posting is somewhat tedious, but also a "gotcha" at people who mocked him for building wonders and settling GPs.

 

[The Bowman]

Para, I am surprised you would have problems with cav against musketmen. Cav nail muskets. I think if you are going to attack a city with a fortified musketman hiding behind culture, a simple pinch upgrade is all that is needed (+10% + 25%) to still blast him away like sticks.

Do cav ignore first strike like knights do? The real issue is, who cares? Longbowmen (and god knows I love them dearly) just won't stand up to cav even in the best of situations. But they can still do some damage!

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Nope, cavs are vulnerable to first strikes. Flanking II gives them immunity though.

I agree that cavalry with pinch beats muskets hands down (combat 3 cavalry with pinch kill infantry too, since they don't get the bonus vs. mounted!). In an early rush I just go for combat or flanking though and only start handing out pinch when I see rifles.

The only thing my cavalry fear are artillery and rifles. Time to get grenadiers then.

 

[The Bowman]

Pinch on cavalry also works against grenadiers, so I would upgrade them witih this even before rifles first come around

I never did use the flanking much on units myself, and not many people seem to talk about flanking strategy much here, but maybe I should study into that some more. I guess if you have a LOT of units, then flanking does become a very strong route to go.

You would think marines should get a bonus vs cav too!

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Flanking makes cavalry alot like siege (without collateral damage). Suicide them against the top defender, like obsolete said in his posts, even against rifles. Cav have 30% base withdrawal chance anyway and I forget how much extra flanking 2 gives them... but they have at least 50% withdraw chance and you knack the rifle and finish it off with your combat cavs.

Make sure you build stables in your cav pumps so they get flanking 2 or combat 2 (or combat/pinch). By that time you should have some settled GGs in that city too.

EDIT: Cavalry doesn't need pinch against grenadiers unless they are in a city anyway, and the AI doesn't seem to like getting them early (after rifles, which is daft... but not when you are doing a cav beline I suppose!).

 

[The Bowman]

Ok, I will definitely look more into this upgrade trait. That is, if I am sure I will have an excess number of units. If I only have a few mounted units, I think it's best to go after strength upgrades for the big punch first, as I wouldn't have that many units free in reserve for the follow-up CRACKS.

Particularly, when I have to worry about other stray enemy units always around me. I never get to quite hit a city with the full group of units I originaly plan to.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Don't you like playing as Egypt? Flanking on a couple of war chariots is good training for the cavalry strat. Flanking war chariots can attack even spears and let the combat ones finish them off. They're not nearly as good since you don't have stables yet (although barbarians help with xp), and they have a lower withdrawal chance.

EDIT: The whole point with a cavalry beeline is that the AI has nothing that can touch the cavalry anyway until rifles. They hardly ever attack a stack of cavalry. You don't really need anything but cavalry for this to work. The AI normally gets rifles pretty fast though after the initial attack (but you can normally take 3+ cities in the first couple of turns especially if you upgrade a lot of mounted to cavalry as soon as you get MTrad).

 

[The Bowman]

I believe I have had the AI go after my cav numerous of times with pikes. I think this is one of the smart things it does, and why you should always have some of those units upgraded with a meele bonus. It seems silly to upgrade modern cavalry with meele, but once again we see that this game favours the use of 'mixed' units. Or maybe I should say mixed promotions.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Lots of pikes can be a problem, yes, but they mostly sit in cities and they don't tend to build too many I find.

The worst thing about flanking is that it only works when attacking, which sucks. Your flanking cav won't defend if you have combat cav anyway. If you are worried about pikes stick a few macemen/crossbows in there, problem solved (they are too slow moving though, this strat works best for a lightning surprise attack).

EDIT: I'd take flanking over melee bonus when attacking though any day of the week. As you say shock quickly becomes useless post gunpowder. Maybe 1 shock cav for your early assault?

 

[The Bowman]

Wow, are we taking over this thread or what?

Too bad you couldn't get cover promotion because that would make it even so much sicker. I think we both agree that getting cav early means the main unit you will be against is the bowman (by numbers). So cover would be even more deadly here. But two strength promotions are already good enough. And the nice thing about strength, is it is an all-around purpose promotion. But there is a lot of macemen by this time too, so again shock promo makes you come across with even less damage against these units in both the field and cities. That means less healing time, and more battling.

Back to the shock, one thing that has surprised me is in the late game, when you keep promoting your mechanised infantry. Eventually you'll get the added +10% meele bonus. I think that comes after a few strength upgrades, or so.

Can someone elaborate, as to how one can make any use of a meele bonus when we are fighting modern wars?

 

[ParadigmShifter]

We've taken over the Oracle thread too

Flanking is good when you start facing rifles or lots of cultural defence. You have a low chance to win but do alot of damage and then often retreat. Bring along a medic 3 chariot and you only need a couple of flankers and if they retreat you can promote them with more useful things as they get xp.

 

[The Bowman]

My reasoning has always been that since you get to retreat anyway without flank, it was best for POWER promotions, as you get to increase the chances of killing, and if that fails you still get the retreat rolls.

With just flank, you still don't have any assurance you will get to retreat, and you certainly have much less chance of killing or doing as much damage as the former.

But as I said, I will experiment some more. However, it would be nice if someone had a simple simulator where we could just spin up the numbers and catch the probability output.

But now that I think of it, I am sure that Firaxis has already run through those numerous times by now to ensure all the promos are well balanced. I guess you really can't go wrong at this point if you just mix all the promos.

 

[cabert]

I didn't read though the game (I guess it's another cav rush, saw enough of those already), but I wanted to say that there is a need for correctness in those threads.
I wanted to point out that you don't need Animal Husbandry to improve the deer tile.
It's hunting that allows the camp improvement...

EDIT : and about the GW / stonehenge combo, I don't understand you FH. You used this kind of trick in your gandhi opening too. It works quite well.
You have a number of turns (20?) with 100% GE points (even if it's 1 /turn), then a smaller number of turns (10?) with 1 GE flavored GPP and 2 GP flavored GPPs, from only 2 sources = 50% odds.
In the end you have
20 turns at 100% engineer
10 turns at 50% engineer and 50% prophet,
giving a 84% for GE and 16% GP probability.
No wonder he gets more engineers than prophets !

 

[UncleJJ]

Flanking 2 is particularly good for cavalry versus longbows as it makes them immune to the first strikes. Comparing a Flanking 2 cavalry to a Combat 2 cavalry against a Protective longbow in a city on a hill and you'll see the difference The longbow gets 1-2 first strikes, has the CG 2 promotions (= 45%) and gets the inherent bonusses for hill and city plus fortification (= 75%) and then add the cultural defence (typically 40% or 60% and 80% for capital). That longbow is strength 6 * (1 + (45% + 75% + 60%)) = 16.8. A combat 2 cavalry would be 15 + 20% = 18 and still stronger but have 1 to 2 first strikes against it.

The cavalry with 15 strength and 60% chance of withdrawl and immunity from first strikes is usually better than 15 plus 20% strength and 30% chance of withdrawl against very tough targets. The flanking cavalry could even do more damage before it gets killed since it avoids the first strikes that protect the longbows for the first 1 or 2 rounds of combat compared to the strength promoted version. But in truth it doesn't matter a lot anyway since the cavalry are so much stronger than longbows. As long as the attacker has 2 to 3 times the number of defenders he should win at some cost in dead and wounded.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

It matters a great deal against riflemen though (they get first strikes too). Otherwise you have to wait until grenadiers.

My rule of thumb is - if you have good odds against units go for combat otherwise go for flanking, especially if you don't have a lot of siege (move slowly anyway) or it is out-of-date (cavalry backed up by all my old catapults [10 or more sometimes] is common in my games - I tend to skip engineering until late beelining so don't have many trebs). Us ethe cats to bust the defences but they are fairly useless for suicide attacks against rifles.

EDIT: Specific counter promos are still best though. I never promote my cavalry until they are about to attack, maybe a few perhaps to combat 2 or 3.

Another advantage of attacking with flanking is you can upgrade your high level combat cav to blitz finishing off more than one defender a turn!

 

[The Bowman]

Ok ok I am getting more sold on the flanking issue now.

A small core of pinch will still be used though as I can't always prevent from getting attacked/counter-attacked by units, despite when on a great offensive.