Grenadiers in BtS

it leads to both Monarchy and theology. So no.

 

theocracy and divine right and horseback riding and archery are dead end techs

 

Theology leads to paper and divine right.

Divine right leads to nationalism.

 

civil service is basically mandatory and philosophy is almost always preferable to divine right, so in my book they are both basically dead-end techs.

 

If you have a reasonable sized empire and can get DR fast enough, spiral is a really powerful wonder (as is sankore), making religious buildings cheap and ALSO incredibly powerful. I've had a couple games where I wasn't going for "religious economy" at all, but noticed I could found islam by taking DR with lib - which I did. The economic benefit of the wonder (and religion, should you be able to shrine it, but that discussion belongs elsewhere) is pretty high.

Take, for example, a modest 10 city empire. With temple/monastery, you are looking at a 40 GPT hike, before modifiers in their respective cities (though most won't have many gold modifiers typically). This is pretty good even without sankore/AP, although of course if you could manage all 3 you'll have a strong game on your hands. There aren't too many techs or wonders that instantly bump the slider up 1-2 notches, and those that do are considered strong...

Although CS is pretty mandatory, don't forget that you get a tech reduction cost on paper for theology, and that you may want theology early to get the AP or take advantage of the civic.

Finally, both techs trade incredibly well. INCREDIBLY well...you can hold them for a while and still get great value.

MS on the other hand IS actually a dead end tech, although it's still excellent trade bait in a lot of cases (assuming you can stomach trading someone a military tech). It's a war tech and that's that, but it is a very sound one. It unlocks the best wooden ship (which, by the way, OWNS on bombardment way more than frigates also, although unfortunately is slow), and is 1 tech away after you get your cannons. Grens are probably the best option vs rifles, although I find the presence of cuirassers and cavalry do weaken the gren/cannon combo. Therefore, as other players have stated I find the steel line to be of much more use on maps where naval power matters (this also does something to mounted troops mobility advantage as ships are faster, and you'll probably defend vs them in cities as opposed to the open as you can strike from the sea and go with city garrisons).

I wouldn't ignore grenadiers though. Niche unit though they may be, they do their job pretty well.

 

I consider Theology a useless tech and Monarchy can be attained without Monotheism.

Time to post points disagreeing with me that I will instantly disregard and not read.



Towards the midgame I might eventually trade for Monotheism and Theology from an AI at one point, but I dislike researching the tech myself.

The only techs I consider dead-end besides Monotheism are Horseback Riding (Not true if playing as Carthage), and Divine Right. Firaxis did a good job with trying to force you to research each tech, but the Monotheism hole can be exploited in lower difficulty levels, particularly if you're not playing a religious game. No Hagia Sophia for you? Aww. No Organized Religion? No Theology? No matter!

 

HBR is LITERALLY dead-end, but that doesn't make it bad (I'm sure you know my feelings on mounted troops plenty well already). It leads to no other techs, hence it is dead end. Only a very few select techs are actually dead end (archery is one also), but they're often useful regardless.

Mono/theo are, of course, useless without religion. If you have access to religion, avoiding mono is a terrible joke especially in isolation but even in general (and it's a weak tech beakerwise to trade for, if you have to worry about WFYABTA). Theo isn't as close to 100% every game but the access to a super wonder (and the ability to keep it from screwing you) and the ability to make 2 promo units without hampering bureaucracy are both pretty nice perks.

 

Move the scout to the hill NE of your current position and then make a decision. Only in this way, will you know which techs to research.

 

Beeline steel for cannons...with enough siege you can take cities with axemen

 

Unless you get cuirassers-raped, and the AI seems to love doing that . Having an otherwise backwards AI hit you with 15 cuirassers and flank all your cannons down to 7 str cannons just sucks . It's not like grenadiers help much unless they're stationed in cities with CG - Pikes do just as well vs cuirassers as grenadiers do outside cities, and to be honest that isn't very well - pinch or shock cuirassers own them both on flatland .

There are ways around this but IMO it's better just to draft rifles or use mounted yourself unless you're playing a water map, where you can use naval dominance/mobility/city garrison to your advantage, greatly strengthening the steel line. Flanking damage to cannons from large numbers of mounted just screws them, and while the AI doesn't utilize strategy the warmongers seem to like knight/cuirasser/cavalry spam regardless.

 

C2 Formation Grenadiers are useful for picking away Riflemen in a Riflemen + Mounted Unit stack. After the several Riflemen are destroyed, the mounted units can be dealt with easily.

 

I'm yet to remember when I last researched mil. sci.(wasn't in the last 30 games anyway - getting it from internet doesn't count ).

The combo is dreadful and plays the ai game; you're without counter to mounted, which the ai loves, and your work ponnie will be the cannon, which gets flanked because you don't have the hard counter to the mounted... Since going rifles, most of the time defending the stack with some pinch knights is enough to protect me from ai grens; ergo, I don't want to be in this situation and see ai pinch knights chewing my stack.

And the SoTL is just a bad joke... 3 movement; umm... you could fall asleep before it reaches somewhere; leaving aside that the ai will flee with his frigate when he sees your sotl, and mathematically you don't ever catch him(that supposing you build a navy).

Steel is a good tech; might pick it from lib. Might pick chemistry some times and go cannon/pike/musket/mace, but mil. sci. - no thanks.

To top an already dreadful combo, they ain't draftable... Plus, why would you want a str. 12 city raider instead of a str. 14 city raider... You should probably pay more or less the same for upgrade from mace(I guess, not using grens., so I don't know how much they cost, but probably it's in the same range as rifles).

Last, if you want infantry fast, you need rifling, not mil. sci.; and who doesn't want infantry fast

p.s. - and if you're working actively on denying an ai horses, it's as sure as the sun and the moon that he'll just trade his silk for the other guy's ponnies which will totally get on your nerves

 

I guess that's because you don't play on all available map types. You clearly don't play using the same tactics and strategies that I've found useful. There are certain games where Military Science is a useful tech and that can be researched for the grenadier or the SotL or the Military Academy, all of which I've found can be strong improvements.

There are many ways of dealing with the big stack of cuirassiers. If you're playing on a water map just invade a civ that doesn't have them (perhaps no horses). Otherwise land on a hill or wood next to a city with a big stack of defensive troops and weather the storm of his counter attack. As long as you don't get hit by a lot of collateral damage a mix or grenadiers and pikemen can win against cuirassiers if fortified in favourable terrain. A woodsman 2 grenadier sitting in a wood is a pretty tough stack defender. If the opponent is bringing a load of collateral then just get back onto your ships and sail away and find another target. That's the beauty of this naval approach, the ability to chose the battleground for the decisive battle.

The SotL has its uses. It is vastly superior to enemy frigates and can attack them with great confidence when your own frigates are usually a 50 - 50 dice roll. They also deter enemy frigate attacks even if they have superior numbers.

If I go with a strong navy as part of a maritime strategy then I try hard to win the circumnavigation bonus. So my SotL move as fast as the enemy frigates. Also they'll be built with drydocks so I often make a fast sailing variant with flanking1 and navigation1 (needs 1 exp). They sometimes make it to navigation2 and get 6 movement, which ain't tardy for the best ship of their age. I like to rename them to something like HMS Speedy or Rapid if they achieve that; and it's not difficult once you start ploughing through the stacks of galleons and caravels the AI provides for target practice.

But the grenadier adds so much to the cannon led SoD. And it's available much sooner than riflemen can be researched (given that you've beelined to Steel). It has strength 12 and gives the best stack defenders. It also gives the best attacker for use against those extra tough top defenders that frequently kill your leading cannons! Upgrading a CR3 macemen gives a very useful city raider. Upgrading a CG3 crossbow gives a supreme city defender that later becomes a great machingun stack defender. To defend in terrain choose a guerilla or woodsman promotion. Since cannons provide the firepower for your SoD the grenadiers main role is a defensive one and their 12 strength is very useful compared with the 6 of pikemen and 8 of macemen, promotions and terrain bonusses have more effect with a larger strength. Muskets are useful in the SoD but they only have 9 strength and older troops with good promotions can't be upgraded to them. My cannon based SoD will have drafted muskets (for bulk and garrison duty) some pikes, maces, axes and other rag tag troops that can exploit the cannon's firepower and a few specialist grenadiers (upgraded and fresh built). Grenadiers add great flexibility to the cannons.

Muskets are draftable but not upgradeable. Grenadiers are not draftable but can be upgraded. So I see them as complimentary. I outlined a few of my favourite upgrades to grenadier above. A 12 strength CR3 unit does the job nearly as well as 14 one, and I can't affort to wait. As long as I still have built enough macemen before researching rifles then I can have both types of CR. And do you know what? Later in the game when the AI has its own rifles defending the CR3 grenadiers make a comeback

Any upgrade to grenadier costs 30 gold less than to rifleman (since they cost 10 hammers less).

Infantry are Ok but if I go this tech route, because it's a water based map, then Flight is much more important. I rate Combustion and Flight way above Assembly line (needs Corporation) in that case. Who needs infantry when you have air superiority? And with Rifling just research Artillery for a useful upgrade to cannons; and that gets rid of any fear of cuirassiers or cavalry flanking damage. Infantry and tanks and battleships are completely superfluous when you put that group of techs together.

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So for me, grenadiers are a very useful unit in the middle of the tech tree and I frequently research Military Science and refuse to trade it away early. We clearly play very differently

 

Lately, I've been taking the short path to liberalism a lot, meaning mostly just top half techs, which in turn leads to me not having techs like machinery on my hands by lib(Yes, I know there's a thousand and another reasons not to do this), which makes rifles a much prettier choice, but having to pair them with cats is a bit meh... The gren path is a nice option if I have the medieval military techs, and with the cannon+ship bundle it's a much nicer package overall.

 

You can often backfill a lot through trades though, so in many cases even if you go the "top" path you aren't very far from either. Which I'd choose depends a lot on the map and that's pretty much what UncleJJ is saying too. Keep in mind that on land maps cavalry and potentially just cuirassers are very good options besides rifles, cannons, or grenadiers. They beat pikes with the correct promos and will hold up against everything pre-rifles, and do very well when mixed with spies. This is of course strength on strength as the AI tends to spam them too, but if you get there first it's cuirassers or cavalry vs knights - and that's pretty favorable.

 

For me grens lost a lot of their former appeal, they're typically an anti rifle unit but you don't face rifles that early nowadays and cannons take them down anyway. A cuirassier is stronger (more promos) and much more versatile than a gren, mt can be reached earlier than ms. Basically where the human used to have grens, the ai rifles it's often the other way around nowadays.

 

It's your choice to be wrong and ignorant. No skin off my back.

 

^^yeah, but he's still right...

 

i like the way you guys arguing on which is the dead-end tech.... hahaha

 

I don't think I've ever created a single grenadier in BTS.