Help me decide.....

[Lord Kid]

I'm playing as Cathy on Noble Terra map, and I've already taken out Louis. It is 18xx and I have rifles, grenadiers, cossacks and cannon as my main units. My research is set to 90% and I am making 100g a turn, with Moscow being size 20 and the rest being 14-17.

When Louis declared war on me the first time I took it to him good and was just about to raze Rheims when Genghis declared war on me, so I offered peace and swung my troops over towards Mongolia and took Turfan, and he offered peace.

Things went on and Louis declared war on me again, but this time the invasion force was already at the border waiting for him to do it so I razed Rhiems, Marsailles, and kept Paris and Orleans, destroying the French civilization.

So it went for awhile upgrading my units til their current status and now I have to make a choice. Asoka is on the west of my empire and Genghis is on the north and east. Everyone is annoyed with Asoka and he is actually technologically superior to me. A few are annoyed with Genghis, but he has 1-2 pleased, 1 friendly, and the rest annoyed or cautious.

Should I send my troops after Genghis or Asoka? I'm leaning towards Asoka, but I'm afraid of Genghis growing to powerful and also declaring war on me while I'm otherwise engaged with Asoka.

 

[cabert]

bribe genghis on someone else and go for the leader of the pack

 

[carl corey]

Look at the power graph too. With the army you have chances are you can go after Asoka and hold off any challenge from Genghis too with a few defensive units here and there. Not sure about your civics, but you could go to Slavery and Nationhood if you ever need to hurry up the defenses. Your economy seems pretty good. Do you have any shrines? How long does it take to research a tech on average? (what speed are you playing on?) You can actually continue to build units and organize them in order to invade Genghis after the Indian campaign without losing too much in terms of economy.

Some more key questions:
- does Asoka have any units that are better than yours? Is he about to get them? Same for Genghis.
- any Defensive Pacts around?
- any AIs that are already annoyed with you that could use your wars with Asoka & Genghis to backstab you?
- what kind of victory are you aiming for?
- what's the status of the new wolrd? Anybody settled it or is it still barbarian?

 

[Lord Kid]

Look at the power graph too. With the army you have chances are you can go after Asoka and hold off any challenge from Genghis too with a few defensive units here and there. Not sure about your civics, but you could go to Slavery and Nationhood if you ever need to hurry up the defenses. Your economy seems pretty good. Do you have any shrines? How long does it take to research a tech on average? (what speed are you playing on?) You can actually continue to build units and organize them in order to invade Genghis after the Indian campaign without losing too much in terms of economy.

Some more key questions:
- does Asoka have any units that are better than yours? Is he about to get them? Same for Genghis.
- any Defensive Pacts around?
- any AIs that are already annoyed with you that could use your wars with Asoka & Genghis to backstab you?
- what kind of victory are you aiming for?
- what's the status of the new wolrd? Anybody settled it or is it still barbarian?

Civics: Universal Suffrage, Free Speech, Emmancipation, State Property, Free Religion
Research: Between 7-10 turns
Shrine: Confuciousism
Speed: Standard

Asoka's units: So far I have seen 1 rifle, the rest (that I have seen) are macemen and longbows.
No defensive pacts.
The only AI that would attack is Genghis and Tokugawa, but Tokugawa doesn't share a border with me and is not on good terms with Saladin who does.
Victory: I didn't really plan for this, so I'm thinking this late in the game I am going to have to go for Space Race, though I turned off the time victory so this could actually go anyway.
New World: Barbarian settled with thriving cities.

This is the first Noble game I have had that I have been able to actually "keep up with the Jones'", and I am really happy with how it has turned out. Though Saladin, who was friendly now pleased, refused to trade techs because "We fear you are becoming too advanced." That is a first for me. My civ score is right around 2k, so I'm not a master leader by any stretch of the word.

 

[Lord Kid]

There's something else I noticed, I think. I had a knight that had 14/17xp, and I upgraded him to Cossack. After that he had 11/17. Did I lose the 3xp or was I tripping and saw 14 when it was 11? Do units lose xp if they are upgraded?

 

[Sparta]

Yeah, they will go back to 10 XP (or retain their previous XP; whichever is lower) upon upgrades (but will retain all promotions). It's annoying, but it kind of makes sense so that you can't build uber units by upgrading them throughout the ages (well, sans warlord at least, these days).

So if your unit was at 14/17, the upgrade should've put him back at 10/17, and then he may have won a really easy battle to get that extra one experience. Likewise, if you have a unit at xx/28, it would go back down to 10/28 upon upgrade, and therefore still be shooting for 28 XP for its next promotion. Because of this it can sometimes make sense to upgrade units right around 10 XP when plausible, simply to avoid having to 'duplicate' experience points. If you are within a few points of a new promotion though, it can still make sense to hold off until you acquire it (IMHO).

Edit: Oh yeah, and as to the bigger picture, without full knowledge of the situation I'd be inclined to agree with cabert's suggestion and attack Asoka while ideally getting Genghis mired down in a war of his own through bribery (if possible). Otherwise Genghis will be tempted to dogpile you as soon as he realizes you're at war with someone else. If you can get Genghis to war with Asoka, all the better, but regardless, getting him involved in any type of war would make him less apt to attack your flanks while you are warring with Asoka. IMHO, tech leaders become more of a threat than aggressive civs in the late game anyway, as you could probably just wait out Genghis and face technologically inferior units at some point in the future. Asoka's the one that'll ruin your day by grabbing all the good techs first ...

 

[Lord Kid]

Yeah, they will go back to 10 XP (or retain their previous XP; whichever is lower) upon upgrades (but will retain all promotions). It's annoying, but it kind of makes sense so that you can't build uber units by upgrading them throughout the ages (well, sans warlord at least, these days).

So if your unit was at 14/17, the upgrade should've put him back at 10/17, and then he may have won a really easy battle to get that extra one experience. Likewise, if you have a unit at xx/28, it would go back down to 10/28 upon upgrade, and therefore still be shooting for 28 XP for its next promotion. Because of this it can sometimes make sense to upgrade units right around 10 XP when plausible, simply to avoid having to 'duplicate' experience points. If you are within a few points of a new promotion though, it can still make sense to hold off until you acquire it (IMHO).

I thought the whole point of veteran units was to keep them around for long periods, so why take their experience. The only reasoning behind this I can see would be if they are trying to simulate training a unit on new weapons or tactics.

 

[Sparta]

Theoretically, I think it is meant to force the player into decisions regarding upgrades - if experience didn't reset to 10, then upgrades would of course be a constant no-brainer. This way, you are forced to consider augmenting your troops with newly produced units in each new era, rather than just upgrading the same axemen from the bronze age through the rest of the game.

It is kind of frustrating, but if it were the converse, producing early units and nurturing them throughout the game (while ignoring current military production thereafter) would be too powerful a strategy I think. I didn't like it at all at first either, but you get used to it, IMO.

 

[Lord Kid]

Edit: Oh yeah, and as to the bigger picture, without full knowledge of the situation I'd be inclined to agree with cabert's suggestion and attack Asoka while ideally getting Genghis mired down in a war of his own through bribery (if possible). Otherwise Genghis will be tempted to dogpile you as soon as he realizes you're at war with someone else. If you can get Genghis to war with Asoka, all the better, but regardless, getting him involved in any type of war would make him less apt to attack your flanks while you are warring with Asoka. IMHO, tech leaders become more of a threat than aggressive civs in the late game anyway, as you could probably just wait out Genghis and face technologically inferior units at some point in the future. Asoka's the one that'll ruin your day by grabbing all the good techs first ...

That's what I was thinking. Asoka hasn't taken any military action against me but he is up there in the tech dept, and I think the reason he really doesn't like me is because I cancel my deals with him whenever one of my Friendlies ask me too, which has been about half a dozen times. Plus I'm mad at him cuz he settled in the area where Rhiems once stood, which I had a settler en route to. I would have kept Rhiems for the copper mine, but it was one square off the coast (usual AI piss-poor planning) so I was going to move the city.

I have units stationed on the borders for defense, so I'm not throwing everything I have at Asoka. When Genghis called me out, I was on really good terms with Bismark, so I asked him to go to war and he went without taking anything in return, and he was behind Genghis, so he ended up fighing on 2 fronts.

 

[Thomas G.]

Go slavery/nationhood, draft/whip an unbeatable army, and kill them all.

 

[cabert]

one more thing (tm sirian) :
If asoka as 1 riflemen, that means he can upgrade every single bow/lonbow to a rifleman (the AI has a large bonus on upgrading, so it's basically upgrading everything). You're gonna need grenadiers or infantry or cannons.
Do you have those units?
Cavalry won't do the job, since riflemen get a bonus against mounted.

 

[Lord Kid]

Here's an update. I bribed Bismark and Isabella to go to war with Genghis, and what a righteous routing that was. While that was going on I invaded Asoka with my companies of Rifles, cannon, Cossacks, and Grenadiers. I took 3 cities and was getting ready for the next push when I see INFANTRY coming my way. So I offer peace for all the gold he has in his treasury and he agreed.

So then I build Scotland Yard and start producing spies, only to find out that Asoka is building tanks. So I have a spy heading over to take out his oil well, but he has cities on 3 other islands and in the new world, and I couldn't get Mao to declare war on him because "We have our hands full right now", meaning I think he is going to stab me in the back because he won't declare war on anyone and isn't in one currently. I fear I am not long for this game.

My early to mid game was pretty good, but the end game is starting to catch up with me. My biggest mistake was getting bogged down in the fervor of war, and neglecting to plan ahead for victory, so now I am stuck with trying for the UN if I can.

Oh, and I was talking to my wife last night about some of the differences between the different civs (we're both military, so we tend to notice military aspects more than anything else) and she brought it to my attention that a fort on a hill can be seen from afar and becomes a target, whereas a forest on a hill provides natural camoflauge and the trees will absorb artillery barrages, which could account for why a forest has a higher defense bonus than a fort.

 

[Thomas G.]

Cannon+rifles are still decent against infantry. This game favours overwhelming numbers. You attack, die but hurt the enemy. Then next attack take him out. Net loss:1-1. Just have higher production amd you win out. Cannon against massed enemies will lead to net gain in war due to collateral damage.

Get infantry yourself and youll be fine I think. AI isnt good enough at war to hurt you even if he has tanks.


You are very lucky to have a wife you can discuss CIV with, mine thinks of it as a great waste of time and a thing not to be talked about.

However, for early ages (all the way up to industrial era) a well-designed fort will beat a forest. Classical age good defensive installations (Krak-des-Chevalier is a good example) could be held by tiny force against overwhelming odds. Walls of constantinople couldn't be attacked until gunpowder. And after that fort designs changed, becoming flatter and more durable. And they include armored gun emplacements for counterbattery action which is a good defensive move. The Maginot line of WWII would have been quite an obstacle to the Wehrmacht, even though it had no camouflage. So they went through Belgium instead.

I think the reason why forest has higher defensive bonus than forts is all due to game-balancing issues. In the words of Metallica: "Sad but true". But I can somehow tend to agree, as creating high-powered defense terrain is a much much more useful tool to humans who have the brains to use it, than to the near-sighted AI.

EDIT: One thing that could have worked, is make forts good, but give them construction fee and upkeep cost and long construction time. So they can be used if you feel certain an attack will come from a certain direction. But it will cost you, you have to plan long ahead.

 

[cabert]

if you feel stuck, build cannons
if you still feel stuck build more cannons!
You just need a few riflemen/grenadiers or better to defend your cannons.

 

[Lord Kid]

You are very lucky to have a wife you can discuss CIV with, mine thinks of it as a great waste of time and a thing not to be talked about.

Yeah, she was also asking if it could be played online and when I told her it could she said that sounded like a lot of fun trying to beat other people.

 

[Lord Kid]

Well, Mao ended up declaring war on Izzy, not me. I wiped Asoka out of the old world and am settling down to consolidate my empire when I get the message that Mao has completed the SS Casing - 3 times. So I bribe Bismark to attack Mao, and a few turns into it he comes asking me to attack Mao as well. Since he's done so much for me and I really want to cripple Mao, I agree, and start sending tanks, infantry, arty, and gunships by land with destroyers swinging around to hit him in the coasts and spies sabotaging production. That is where we stand. Bismark, Saladin, Mao and myself are the only ones left in the old world, as Tokugawa got hit hard by Bismark as well. Hoepfully Mao will be too busy with a war on 2 fronts to finish building the SS and we can capture the majority if not all of his cities.

 

[cabert]

don't worry about the ss casings! it's a long way after those before they launch!
Just kill Mao, and you'll have a better sight of the next issues.
Are you in the space race, or is it out of range?
Is domination possible?
Is backdoor diplomacy possible (= 66% of world population, build the UN, vote yourself the win)

 

[carl corey]

My general advice for a perfect Space Race: get Laboratories and Space Elevator first and nothing can stop you. Casings don't matter, there's a lot to go until they get all the techs and the rest of the parts are much harder to build anyway.

Also, as you too have thought, AIs halt pretty much all SS production during wars to concentrate on units. I once went for a Conquest victory (I disabled Domination to make it harder) and one of the AIs was waaay down the Space Race path. He never finished another part once I started the war, and I wasn't that good at the time so it took me a while to destroy it.

 

[Lord Kid]

I'm still in the race as only Mao has a tech lead on me now that Asoka has lost most of his empire. Domination may be possible. I have 40% pop 20% land, or vice versa, and will have more after taking out Mao's old world holdings.

 

[carl corey]

20% land is pretty hard to translate into Domination. What's the exact percentage you need? If it's population you might be able to do it by farming a lot of tiles, but you might be better off going for the Space Race anyway at this point. Oh, if by chance you get a Great Engineer, save him for the Space Elevator. That's one hard to build wonder...