Help on a 1675 AD Napoleon game(Monarch/Normal)

[GGracchus]

I'm playing a game on Monarch/Normal as Nappy.

I'm on my own continent with Willem and Sal. I just capped Willem in a Cavalry war, date 1675 AD.

I have no idea how to proceed. If you'll see in the images, Sal has a slightly larger power rating than I do. Should I build up for another cavalry war, wait for tanks, or tech for space?

Screenshots in spoilers to keep down space.

Spoiler :

Here's my empire

The heartland(i.e original land)

Diplo situation:

Tech situation

Excellent tech lead

Civics:

Power graph

Comments and advice welcome

 

[Smwat]

I'd not take on Saladin as he has Rifles already. You could wait for infantry with Assembly Line, but I'd go Space with good production cities. BTW, you should post a save.

 

[GGracchus]

I'm stupid, sorry .Fixed

 

[yuchai]

I'm a Monarch player myself. In this situation, I would probably go Assembly Line and try to cap Saladin with Infantry + cannons/artillery, and then go for space. Would be interested in what others think as well.

 

[GGracchus]

I'd rather go for tanks, as they are better attackers and have more movement than infantry. If I do it right, I can get bombers and use that. The thing is, should I kill Sal and try for Dom, kill Sal and go for space, or just go for space as it stands?

 

[lymond]

GG - You have everything you need right now. A lot of land, a ton of gold, a strong military tech lead, cannons or calvary. Buy up a bunch of 1 or the other and Sal is yours for the taking. No need to wait for tanks/infra. Just hit him with numbers.

edit: You can even gift units to Willem to make him more effective. Gift him old units and he will upgrade them. Gift him Rifling too.

 

[GGracchus]

I'll definitely give him a bunch of old longbows/archers and Rifling. Should I build up some more cavalry, or keep the offensive going without waiting for reinforcements?

 

[lymond]

I have not looked at your save so I don't know what forces you have in place. I assume you are not already in war. If not, I would build up a good size army always to hit with reinforcements in queue. Don't attack if you don't have enough units to do some damage and defend. Cavalry are much faster, of course, and in numbers can still be effective against Rifles. Don't forget spies as well for city revolt missions. Rifles/Cannons will be a bit slower but reduce your overall losses. It's really your call as I think either will be effective. Just don't forget to use US if you are in the civic. You have tons of gold. Don't rush buy on first turn of build though.

 

[GGracchus]

I haven't rush-bought much, any good strategies? Should I go for space or dom? I have roughly 20 experienced cav, medic III woodsman II explorer, and about 10 other cav in reserve

 

[Golden Hawk]

I'm starting on monarch nowadays, so take this with a grain of salt, but personally I'd get Free Speech running(quite a few towns), build gold multipliers and rushbuy myself to domination/conquest. I'd probably go for cannons and infantry since it'll take a while to set the gold multipliers up, in which time you're better off researching. Other option would be tanks. I trust lymond is right about cavalry and cannons being enough but I'm not quite that confident yet... Alternatively, looking at your land you could easily win space, though it takes more optimization and personally I prefer blazing guns over blazing engines... Anyway, looks like a win game to me.

EDIT: Oh and remember to get Kremlin, skyrockets your production with rushbuy.

 

[lymond]

I haven't rush-bought much, any good strategies? Should I go for space or dom? I have roughly 20 experienced cav, medic III woodsman II explorer, and about 10 other cav in reserve

Kremlin helps rush buy/whipping a lot. However, you are in a position to rush buy now. Queue all your cities up with cav and rush buy on turn 2. Keep slider at 0 for a bit to max out gold. Send all your cavs into war and keep them coming. Keep rushing buying every other turn. You get overflow into the first turn of each cav from the rush buy, so they should be a bit cheaper as you go along.

Keep the pressure on Sal and don't wait to long for healing. As you take each city you will continue to lower his overall production so you will find cities get less and less defenders as long as you keep the pace up.

Space/Dom are both reasonable here so choose what you will. You can rush buy and armada pretty quick after taking Sally.

 

[GGracchus]

OK, I'll finish this game tomorrow, rushbuy cav, and see how powerful Justy is before deciding to kill him or go for space.

 

[vranasm]

I can't check the save but couple points.

build at least 8 airships and place them for overlap in attack (you can even use willem's cities, but be sure they don't fall to saladdin).

nationhood is very nice civic which gets often ignored - those 2 happy can be good to mitigate WW and it's no upkeep. I would check if somehow you wouldn't be better then with running bureau with such big empire.

You are out of religion, but if you plan military buildup theocracy is good too.

Justy will be problem, he already vassaled 2 AI's and there is good chance he will be big techer and I think it's possible if he gets AL he will vassal Monty, watch him, don't trade with him and his pets!

You should be clear what kind of victory you want. You ask us, that is not good sign . Domination will be tougher then space race.
For space race you will need industrial transition, that means change land to watermills, workshops and build factories, coal plants asap, coupled then with grocers and supermarkets (which mostly nullify the unhealth).

I would redirect Willem to something more useful then Democracy.

I see you build theaters in new captured cities, it's better to start with building straight culture then theater (which is too slow).
For assimilating new cities it's usually better to be in slavery. I actually think if you went State Property you should be in Rep+Caste+slavery and not US+Eman. US+Eman doesn't click with me.

you get Great Person in 1T, if you didn't run GA and could, you should, make big civic switch and make your cities even more productive.

 

[GGracchus]

OK, so flip to castes or slavery? But aren't they in the same column? I'm using US for rushbuying, I might switch out once I get fascism. I'll flip to Nationhood and Castes, because Castes give workshops a +1 hammer. Is it really worth it to screw my hamlets/villages for workshops? My first instinct was quickly cap Sal and stay peaceful with Justy and hope he dosen't get diplo, although now I see a way to screw him out of diplo(hopefully). After watching TMIT, I think what I should do is gift Willem/Sal to Mass Media, have them build the UN, and get Justy to +8. I'm asking you guys because I want to know the best way of capping Sal and whether or not Dom is viable in this scenario.

 

[Agramon]

@vranasm

Could you elaborate on the culture vs. theatre decision. I almost always build theatre first and it seems pretty solid to me. There will be immediated happiness from the culture slider, which is usually up from whipping, drafting and ww. + you can hire artist specialists, even if your starving. I don't really see how culture is superior?

 

[vranasm]

@vranasm

Could you elaborate on the culture vs. theatre decision. I almost always build theatre first and it seems pretty solid to me. There will be immediated happiness from the culture slider, which is usually up from whipping, drafting and ww. + you can hire artist specialists, even if your starving. I don't really see how culture is superior?

well as always it depends .
if you use culture slider then the theater build is doubtful imo from beginning (would you really prefer building theater over granary/courthouse?.

if you are in caste you can use artists instead.

The point is to get the border pop asap and it's better to use other ways then building theater.
In my lately praxis the best thing is build culture directly since in a lot of times after going after revolt I get the culture pop like in 1-2 turns max.

 

[ahcos]

Cavalery vs. protective Rifles is a pain in the ass ~ even with cannons it would be a HARD war because you'll have nothing other than rifles yourself to protect the stack, so you'll have to build up some more forces. I'd tech for infantry, build 5-6 of them and then attack, that way it should be incredible easy and alot saver. Ofc you can attack right away, but then again there's really no use in relying on rifles for stack defense when you can have infantrie in ... 6 turns? 100% slider and then rushbuy some of them along with some cannons, that should do the trick. And switch to Free Speech asap, should outweight the advantage of bureaucracy already by far.

Also not quite sure why you haven't settled the fish in the NE, it's an excellent spot with tons of grassland, horse, hills and even some forrests x x

Feed Willem with Chem and let him research Mil. Science

 

[Jaybone]

lymond is right, I would just start building cavalry, rifles, or cannons in every city and just pile on. Make sure you have a force of about 10 cannons prior to attacking. Ideally, you want to get most of his defenders into a single city and then cannon rape them and then go knock everybody else off. Even if you only take 2-3 cities you will cripple him

 

[NuttyPenguins]

I agree with many of the above.

As a Monarch player myself, I love Infantry + Artillery. Nothing can really stop it until Mech infantry, and even then it's kinda workable.

You seem to have somewhat of a tech lead so space is an option if you have good production (which I can't tell by the screens)

 

[oranje willem]

You have to pick a victory condition to go for. I don't really like dom/conq if I have to go intercontinental for it myself, so I would probably go for space or diplomatic.