Great General Strategy/West Point

[Solo4114]

Interesting GG strategies from TMIT. I don't think I'll be using those, though, because they're addressing a problem I don't usually have. I don't usually go for Domination wins and am only a semi-warmonger (i.e., I never go a game without an aggressive war or two, but intersperse them with long periods of peaceful building). And I usually go for either Space Race or Diplomatic as victory condition.

What that means is that usually when I do open up all-out I have a lot of units to play with, and I'd rather have large numbers of level 3 units than 1 uber-unit and many level 2s. For one thing, I'm seeing more than one highly-promoted defender usually.

I'll have a war in the Ancient Age once in a blue moon when the conditions are right for an axe rush and I don't say, "Screw it, I don't want to axe rush, I'm starting over." I'll have a war (other than just defending myself against some crazy AI attacking) in the Classical Age maybe half the time. When I do, it's often like what happened in my last game, playing Hatshepsut, Isabella hated my guts 'cause I was a filthy heathen, and some friendly AI was at war with her and wanted me to join in. I was sending War Chariots against the barb towns that direction anyway so I said sure, and captured a few of her cities with them. I didn't plan that one, it was a conquest of opportunity purely. Unless I'm playing the Romans, or sometimes an Aggressive leader, I never go all-out for conquest pre-medieval.

So my first really big war is usually in the middle ages, with Maces/Knights/Trebuchets/Pikes/Longbows. I may or may not have gotten one GG before, very rarely more than that. Running Vassalage, I pump out level 3 units from my production cities. I make about 8-10 Trebs. I bring my stack to a city. I use the Trebs to reduce its defenses. I check the odds with my best attacker. If it's less than 50%, I'll attack with a Trebuchet. If not, I'll just go for it. With CRII on the maces, usually I only have to attack with a Treb if the city's on a hill, and I seldom have to use more than one or two. Plus, I have CR II on the Trebs as well, which increases their survival rate. Sure, I lose some maces that way, but not huge numbers, and the rest get nice promotions; I come out of that war with lots of CRIII/Combat I or II maces. Meanwhile, I'm settling GGs in all my top production cities, starting with my Heroic Epic city, so they can continue putting out level 3s after I switch civics.

I'll try to get 3-5 cities with 1 settled GG, and then concentrate on my HE city until it gets up to level 4 units. The goal is to have 3-5 cities putting out level 3s, and the HE city producing level 4s. Usually my medieval war will generate enough GGs to meet the first of those goals, and I have another big one using Rifles/Cavalry/Cannon, continuing with Infantry, which will often give me enough to meet the second goal. Only after that do I start building MAs.

I guess as only a semi-warmonger I don't feel I get enough GGs to use one to make an uber-unit.

I tend to be closer to this approach, really. A peaceful builder who'd rather turtle up and out-tech and/or out-culture everyone else, but who'll maintain a standing army to avoid being harassed. I also tend to only go to war when I believe I can eliminate or permanently vassalize the enemy. I've been trying to be more warmongerly lately, though, simply because I know it's a liability if you don't fight every so often.

At any rate, when it comes to the "one uber unit vs. many level 3 units" issue, I see it as allowing me to have many advanced units later in the game when theocracy and/or vassalization aren't that useful. If you spend the GG to build a level 6 or high level 5 unit, then you can be assured you'll get west point later in the game, which will mean more highly trained units from that particular city. Throw in future GGs as instructors and you're in even better shape.

 

[6K Man]

First GG: Settled.

Subsequent GG's (depending on how many I have) are usually settled in the HE city, until MA's are enabled. After that, I'll try to build MA's in my top 2 or 3 production cities.

I rarely attach GG's to units, other than the super-medic. I'm sure that there are plenty of good reasons to make Warlords, but they're too mortal for my tastes. Even at 95%+ odds.

I try to match HE and WP and settle GGs there. WP and IW are a good combo too.

 

[mirthadir]

situation dependent.

All of these are for war mongering games (ones where I expect to war heavily throughout):

If I'm going to have to make a substantial amount of offensive military before I can use theo/vassalage -> settle the first always. +20% across the board is just too valuable when you have to throw away half your units. Due to the law of n-squared a settled GG when you are doing an ax, sword, or whatnot rush is almost effectively doubling your combat potential. Second is either settle again (in my newly acquired cap location or back with the other general) or MASH (my ideal early being Combat I/Medic III/woody three/morale).

If I'm using mainly mounted forces (catas, knights, phants, curis, etc.) then I normally settle them in each of my military cities so I can run 3 promos out the door. Early CII/Shock phants are uberownage.

If I'm charismatic -> settle all the buggers until I can get 3 promo units out the door. Then settle a second production city to also get three promos. MA's sprinkled in as needed. Charismatics don't need an early uber mash unit; just make a woody III/C1/medic.

The following do not assume large amounts of combat:

Alone on an island (after killing the other guy(s)) - settle if I need a substantial number of units to take total control. If not save it for a MA late game.

Late game defensive wars. Attach a GG to a CG LB or nade, promo to Machine gun. CG III/maybe Csomething/Drill IV/leadership machine guns on a hilled fort/city just decimate the AI horde. Two uberpromoted Japanese machineguns held off a horde of German tanks and infantry for me once (CG III/CI/leadership/ambush/pinch/drill III or IV). Also worthy of mention are Privateers, if you get them with enough advantage (normally semi-isolated with bulbing astro/lib and taking chemistry with lib) I love leadership privateers. The buggers can rack up obscene amounts of GG points in peacetime and with enough promos can even poach frigates.

If I'm running a SSE, settle them all until late. Science is worth it.

 

[Bird Brain]

@TheMeInTeam
Early GG swordsmen are fantastic, I admit, but I'm hesitant to make them these days since I once suffered a devistating loss of one at literally 99.9% odds. I was so mad I just quit that game. It was his very first combat too . . .

Anybody ever tried tank generals? Yeah, the game is usually won by then, but tank generals are so fun, and with blitz they get XP very quickly. I make sure to give them the double XP ability and the +1 moves ability for maximum effectiveness.

Oh, I usually use the first GG for the super medic. Subsequent generals are settled or build military academies depending on the timeframe. Tank general late game if I want to have some fun . . .

 

[Waraddict]

Hello everybody,

I recently played a very war oriented game:
I played Bodicea (AGG/CHA) on a small pangea, OOC, always war , prince difficulty.
The UU and UB of the celt were also quite usefull.
Similar tactic might be used with Cyrus probably (IMP/CHA). (Replacing 80% widrawal infantry by 80% withdrawal mounted units, require horses rather than iron)
Unfortunatly the map didnt spawned horses in my city control which could have been even more fun. Well i cannot complain i had stone, iron and a couple food ressources.

I was lucky enough to built the GW which really helped.

I researched archery first, built casern, dun and produced 2 archers in my hill city.

Those 2 archers received the guerila II promotion and were fortified in town. It wasn't very long until the AI started sending waves on my city. This resulted in two very fast promoting archers:

guerilla II, garrison I, at which point my first GG spawned (due to the combined effect of the GW and (possibly) CHA leader). I suddenly had a GG archer with guerilla II, garrison III, and leadership.

I strenghtened my defense with a couple guerrila II gallic warriors (surprisingly good in defense on a hill city for a swordman ... guess guerilla II played a role ) and a medic spear (which barely saw any fight).

This setting allowed my GG archer to VERY rapidly evolve into a monster with leadership, guerilla II, garrison III, Drill IV and later in the game power VI along with all the specific counter promotions and medic III. I conveniently upgraded it as longbow, rifleman, infantry and mechanised infantry.

Feodalism was a high priority research in that game so i could upgrade my GG archer to a long bow at which point he could succesfully defend the city all alone (i realised that after my defensive stack went down from a siege assault and my general belisaire still susscefully defended Bibracte (thanks to Drill IV).

My later GGs were all attached to gallic warriors and also evolved into monsters.

In the late game my "stack of doom" consisted solely of VERY HIGHTLY promoted GG units ( i mean 300-500+ exp struggling to find further promotions ...).

I basically won a conquest game with an army of less than 10 units in the late game.

Two very handy bonuses of attaching a GG to a unit i found out during that game:

- unit attached to a GG upgrade for free.
- and most important, when upgrading, the current experience of the unit attached to a GG is NOT depleted meaning this unit keep getting promotion at a mad rythme.

On the course of the game i lost only two attached GG (they were really mourned).

With such a small (and efficient) military i could focus on a specialist/spy economy to keep on with research.

The early phase of the game was an all defensive war with units fortified in my city, not even bothering to defend the tiles in the BFC (exept that mined iron hill of course !).

In a second phase i kept a mobile group of gallic/maceman in my BFC for defensive purpose. I found out that having the promotions guerilla III and tactics (80% withdrawal chance). My first promotions went guerilla III>leadership>tactics>forester III (the fool AI kept fortifying on that forested hill i conveniently left next to my city ... with guerilla III and forester III my units actually had a bonus attacking them here !!!)>strengh. For stack purpose i also "specialised" my GGs: one went medic III first, one had early shock promotion ect ...

In a third phase i turned on the offensive and send my highly promoted GG units assaulting the AI. They basically assaulted AI cities with 99,9 win chance (thanks to a spy collapsing the cultural defenses)

I attached a couple GG to tanks but found them less effective than my seasonned infantry. Actually i lost one of them.

Research milestones of my strategy were:
archery
masonry
iron working
scribing
feodalism
construction (i thought i would need catapult... which i didnt not)
bureaucraty
mechanic
assembly line

I built the GW, the pyramids, the parthenon and the GL.
National wonders i built were globe theater, national park, national epic, siderurgic (not optimal with the national park but still usefull, i didnt bothered with westpoint or the heroic epic.

Having a religion would have helped with the civics, but my early focus on military let the AI found those and with the "always war" setting, no religion ever spread to Bibracte ... theocratie, pacifism and OR could have been useful sometime.

I had a lot of fun in that game. Having named units you recognise on the spot add some spice "Your Belisaire successfully defeated a swordman (Elisabeth) while defending" make more fun as "your archer successfully defeated a swordman (Elisabeth) while defending". Infantry units having access to guerilla, drill AND CR promotions are really amazing (thanks to the celt UU).

I never built Westpoint in this game btw

 

[UncleJJ]

Welcome to the forums, Waraddict. An interesting tale, thanks for sharing it.

 

[ikee]

That was totally awsome!

Excuse my noobiness, but what:

I played Bodicea (AGG/CHA) on a small pangea, OOC, always war , prince difficulty.

What does OOC mean? is it something in BTS (which I don't have) or did you mean OCC?

I'm considering this for a one city challange next:

To settle as many great generals and great merchants in a city as phyiscally possible!

The great merchants would add a LOT to the economy, also considering heavy use of slavery due to the massive food that the great merchants supply with, but then you can't use Caste system to get loads of merchants ;D

Also, am considering, after Waraddicts great story, to have a couple of super generals, mainly archers/anything with first strikes...

A couple of questions though, how does slavery EXACTLY work? does it add to base production, or what?

The reason of asking is, would slavery stack with Iron Works? and the Militrary Acadamy? And Police State? ;D That would make slavery MASSIVE and enough to consider having it instead of cast system.. You'd want nuf food to have max merchants and still grow pop... Adding Globe Theatre, slavery wouldn't have ANY draw backs... The idea is to have a little stack of doom, and keep popping out units to gain exp, and settle a lot of things in the city and run representation when not producing units to gain huge amount of beakers...

Also wondering, what would be easiest to spawn, GG or GM? Wondering if one should go for Imperialistic or Philosophical really.. Or neither.. Chines Chuks with loads of first strikes comes to mind...

Also, does slavery-overflow effect a city that then switches to "build Science" or whatnot?

Confused post, I know, I'm sorry about that... )

Well, if we can sort this out, this may be my new playstyle ;D I usually only play peaceful usually.. >_> most of the times ;D

 

[Waraddict]

Thank you for the welcome.

May i add a question?

During that game i wondered if building the Statue of Zeus was worth it in a "always war setting".

I finally though that war weariness must also be disabled for AI and didnt bothered. Anyone can confirm my guess?

edit: OOC should be understood as OCC as you guessed. I probably played Everquest for too long ...

Globe theater and slavery indeed make a great combination in a food heavy city. Slavery allow you to sacrifice population points to finish your current production. It also add some unrest in your city (irrelevant with globe theater)

GG are silly easy to spawn with the GW with a CHA or even more an IMP leader, provided you keep a defensive war (in your borders).
In my game i think SPI would not really have helped me because the civics changes were not that many (mostly no religious civics). I think i sticked with representation (from the mids), bureaucratie, free religion and mercantilism.

I learned a lot from the guides for OCC in the War Academy, Miscelaneous. GM are certainly a good asset for OCC. I though about using Sushi but my ressource supply was too low (not really surprising in an all out war setting).

 

[MusX]

I used to settle them as instructors but after I started to play Boudica I learned to attach them to gallic wariors I remember a game where 4 gallic wariors were above 100xp, one was about 140xp.
But I don't use them for saving siege units, I use them more for fun and explore highest promotion for units. I always try to sacrifice as much siege as necessary before I attack city with my general to be sure he will survive. I think thats why I've got those 4 gallics settling is kind of boring for me, I always use vassalage and theocracy in middle age, while playing some Chm or Agg is quite enough.

edit:
read spoiler D in that thread and I think you will be interested of attaching GG
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=307864

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Wow, Zombie-Thread DELUXE!

This one made it 16.5 months without a post.

As to your post, MusX, if you've ever settled 3 GG in your West Point / HE city with a barracks while having Pentagon and running Theocracy, you'll see how NOT boring it is . 4 promotions right out of the door (5 with AGG or 6 with PRO) every turn (even on marathon sometimes) adds up to a lot of action in my book (and much less siege needed).