How can I up my power rating?

[Inspector Dex]

Hi guys, I have a couple of questions related to power rating:

1) Is power rating game-difficulty dependent? I.e. is it harder to raise your power level on monarch than on prince?

2) In my current game as Isabella (prince/vanilla since I'm on my mac) I drew an isolated start. As I am trying to specialize my cities, I made my second a production one, and have been cranking out axes for centuries (no access to horses). I finally met two other civs, and I lead them in score and tech, but I'm way below them in power. This surprised me a bit, and I was specifically trying to avoid this since I was neighbors with Monty in my last game and had the same power related problem (needless to say I resigned that game was I was flooded by the Aztecs). What am I doing wrong? I'll survive here because I'm on my own island, but I want to know how to deal with neighboring aggressive leaders in the future.

Cheers!

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

1) No, but the higher you go in difficulty, the more units the AI will build. So the AI Power Rating will be higher the higher you go, but yours is dependent on you.

2) The computation for power rating includes # of cities, city size, walls, barracks, castles, and units. Swordsmen (jaguars) have a higher power rating than axeman. Also, if they have higher production cities, they can push out units faster. IF on noble or higher, there are no production penalties against the AI. I'm not sure if promotions count towards power rating, but it can't hurt either.

Build walls/barracks, and whip out some units early if you just want to up your power rating. Expanding well also helps with this.

 

[madscientist]

Power numbers are querky things. A lead in tech does not matter much if the AI has certain military techs which you do not.

A few comments

1) Regarding isolated starts and power numbers. Read the Lonely Hearts Club games to learn some tips on playing isolated starts. Being isolated with lower power numbers is not so bad providing you defend your coastal cities adequately, and keep it up to date.

2) Add Walls and castels to each city. This helps to overall power numbers. BArracks and stables help a little but not as much.

3) Keep your cities defended with current "Defender". Axes don't help power numbers as much as strong defending longbows.

4) Power numbers do not mean that much! An AI will frequently over defend in all cities thus overexagerating their numbers. Likewise, do not fear to attack an AI with a slightly higher power rating as your Stack of Doom can typically destroy everything in it's path (again the AI defends all cities).

5) Promotions have no effect on power numbers. So a city defended by 2 CG II Longbows with a wall may get you lower power numbers than a dozen Horse archers yet better defend the city.

As far as power numbers versus difficulty, yes it is indirectly related to level. The AI will gain more land earlier and tech faster, thus they will produce more up to date troops. I do not think the level directly translates to power thopugh (your 25 axes versus 25 AI axes will give you equal power numbers at settler or diety if I understand it).

 

[JTMacc99]

Exactly. There are a lot of factors in power rating, but if you want yours to go up, build more units, and as soon as you can, build more advanced units. They work both as a deterrent, and as effective defenders should you live next to a nutjob who will attack you regardless of your power rating.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

4) Power numbers do not mean that much! An AI will frequently over defend in all cities thus overexagerating their numbers. Likewise, do not fear to attack an AI with a slightly higher power rating as your Stack of Doom can typically destroy everything in it's path (again the AI defends all cities).

PERFECT! Exactly. Also, do not fear to go war simply to destroy every improvement you can find. You can completely halt a cottage based civilization without taking a single city. Destroy all towns, luxury resource improvements, mines, and farms. Starve the citizens and obliterate their economy.

This allows you to stop them dead in their tracks without having to assume new maintenance costs, defend taken cities (which forces you to build and supply MANY more reinforcements), and forces worker production as you may have been able to grab a few that are trying to fix your devastation!

The AI will over emphasize workers after you sue for peace. Now you can surge in economy and units. Be sure to return to finish the job, however, since the AI will not forget the declaration of war.

Marathon game: I've reduced a civ from having a score of 2100 (and researching SciMeth in 23 turns) to having a score of 1650 and researching SciMeth in 65 turns without taking a single city. I brought 1 stack of 14 units and never had to bring city garrisons or reinforcements. Just a medic will do

 

[ShannonCT]

This article from the War Academy explains exactly how power (soldiers) is calculated. In the new BtS patch 3.17, units are weighted more heavily. So if you want higher power, build more/stronger units.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

I refuse to update to 3.17. Tanks deserve barrage WAY more than city raider. I refuse to do away with it. The unofficial patch doesn't work with my D2D version of BTS. It can apparently still be done, but it requires working with various core files and I don't like to mess with those too much.

 

[slobberinbear]

Don't forget the amphibious shock elephants. Instant power rating equalizer.

 

[Gumbolt]

I was playing against sumerians today. When Gilgas upgraded to LB his power rating shot up a huge chunk. Scary stuff.

Heroic epic really can help keeping up in power. A LB produced in 2-3 turns on epic feels great.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Don't forget the amphibious shock elephants. Instant power rating equalizer.

He's playing Vanilla. To get shock amphibious elephants, your looking at Combat 1 and 2 (Level 3 => 5 XP), Amphibious (level 4 => 10XP), and Shock (level 5 => 17XP).

That's a lot more than you can usually get when still using elephants.

 

[Inspector Dex]

Guys, thank you for the advice. I didn't realize that land/population also figured into the power rating. Since my soldiers number in the demographics screen was also low, I figured that was what power was entirely based on.

4) Power numbers do not mean that much! An AI will frequently over defend in all cities thus overexagerating their numbers. Likewise, do not fear to attack an AI with a slightly higher power rating as your Stack of Doom can typically destroy everything in it's path (again the AI defends all cities).

It's not so much that I'm worried about attacking other cities with my stacks. It's more that I was under the impression that civs like Monty decide to attack you if your power level is much lower than theirs. That's why I was trying to keep it up.

@ ShannonCT: Thanks for the link. I couldn't get it to work however, so I'll head to the War Academy and search around.

 

[Mantic0re]

I'm working on a cultural victory at a new difficulty level with the Warlords expansion and had to ask the same question. My overall production in this game is pretty low compared to my past experiences so I was concerned with the cheapest way to get "power" to the DoW deterrence level. By using the info in that link and in game civlopedia info on unit costs I opened a spreadsheet and calculated each units "power number" / hammer cost. This is a gambit really, because if I fail to avoid war this game is lost because I won't have enough military capability since this type of consideration leads to a less mixed offensive force.


Either I have a poor conception of the term defender or that rule starts to fall short after gunpowder units are available. In the mid game, where I think wars are more likely, it seems the most efficient way to improve your power with units is to build longbowman, followed by rifleman, then cannons as these units become available. I tried to compare the choices I usually have at different points in the games since I realize we all tech differently. In general, naval, anti-mounted and mounted units are less efficient to build than archer and siege units.

At higher difficulties most of this becomes irrelevant since the threshold is unattainable and don't even know if this info will help me. At least it feels good knowing something about the relative cost and benefit of this type of mechanic.

 

[ppciv4]

walls and castle... I always forget their existance.

 

[ShannonCT]

walls and castle... I always forget their existance.

Not really. Castles only give power in Vanilla - none in Warlords and BtS. Walls only give 2000 points, compared with 6000 for a single axeman in BtS.

 

[DMOC]

Researching certain technologies also increases your power rating. I believe techs like Rifling can cause this, although there are some other weird cases of techs helping your power rating when they seem to have nothing to do with military or warfare.

Building barracks (or ikhandas) are another cheap, easy way to increase your power.

 

[dankok8]

Surprisingly, unit promotion level is NOT part of the Power Rating!!

Kind of funny since a we'll promoted army equal in size and technology as it's enemy's will have a significant advantage. What comes to mind is 30 Churchill's Redcoats which you can pump out with 6 promotions easily (need 8XP) against 30 1-promotion Riflemen. Power graphs are the same, but Churchill will win easily most of the time.

Alternatively, your units may not be better promoted, but they can be counters to and/or have promotions that give them an edge over the enemy; for example, if you are the one attacking, you can destroy 20 Axemen with 15 Chariots rather easily, especially if they have CI/Shock promotions. Likewise, a few X-bows will eat a pretty large group of Axemen/Swords.

Another thing not on the Power Rating is strategical considerations. If you are defending, you can get by with a weaker army. If you are fighting on a narrow front, you can get by with a smaller army. If your enemy is fighting other people ... You get the point.

Power rating matters in a sense that it influences the AI's decision to attack you or not, but it does not mean the game is over for you if you are attacked by a "strong" AI.