How Useful are Crusaders

In one game, I had too many armies too handle, that I just made an army of crusaders. They continued to win every battle they fought in, even in the modern ages. because of this, crusaders are one of my favorite units.
 
Crusaders are good for breaking well-defended AI cities. (i.e., the AI has a size 12 city on a choke point on a hill, with an elite, fortified musket). That 4 defense becomes more like 9. You'd need a stronger unit to atleast break through (after using trebuchets).
 
denyd said:
Armies get a movement bonus of 1 and an attack & defense bonus of the sum of the attack or defense values divided by 6 if no military academy & 4 if you have one.

Ok, so by your calculations, a 3-unit crusader army with no military academy gets a movement of 2. I agree with you here, BUT...

The attack value will be: {(5+5+5)/3} + 15/6 = 7.5; rounded down is 7.
The defence value is: {(3+3+3)/3} + 9/6 = 4.5; rounded down is 4.

Giving a 3-unit crusader army stats of 7-4-2. BUT in your previous post, you said it was 6-3-2, so which is it??

In any case, I have never experienced the increase in A/D values you suggest. Can somebody clear this up please!
 
I'm playing with crusaders for the first time right now. I must say they are slow to get to the frontlines and are usually not needed by the time my treb/knight stacks do thier thing. But because of their great strength and defense they can really hold their own without artillery. So I sent them as a secondary force deeper into enemy territory to mop up the small fringe cities while my trebs and knights are busy attacking the major core. So my bottom line is while they don't mix well into the main battle force, but they are great for a distraction or a 2-pronged attack.
 
Denyd got the maths wrong, but his formulas are correct.

15/3 + 15/6, rounded down is true. (3 Crusaders = 7.4.2)

How to prove that? Test it. Attack with a lone unit, reload, and attack with an Army composed of the same unit (preserve random seed on). The Army will do much better.
And the formulas leaked out from the c3c beta testing, and nobody ever disagreed...
 
Thanks Doc - I had the math wrong (should have used a calculator) :blush:
 
They aren't any slower to get to battles than trebs, longbows, pikes, muskets, or medieval infantry.

5 turns seems like a long time, though.
 
Does this mean that the army stats are given in the game are wrong? When i highlight my Crusader Army, it says 5-3-2, so is it the case that these figures are wrong? Are the true stats hidden? Seems pretty weird to me! Anyway, I'm not complaining if i receive a higher stat unit!
 
Pirate said:
I'm playing with crusaders for the first time right now. I must say they are slow to get to the frontlines and are usually not needed by the time my treb/knight stacks do thier thing. But because of their great strength and defense they can really hold their own without artillery. So I sent them as a secondary force deeper into enemy territory to mop up the small fringe cities while my trebs and knights are busy attacking the major core. So my bottom line is while they don't mix well into the main battle force, but they are great for a distraction or a 2-pronged attack.

I agree about 2-pronged attack ;) . They are very useful for holding onto
captured cities too, very tough on defense for a long time.
 
One other tiny nit to pick with denyd...

In the 3 cavalry example with the military academy, everything is right except for the final addition -- 4+6=10, not 9.

This was announced by a member of Firaxis and verified in tests by a number of individuals to be correct. The exact details of mixed armies in C3C has never been tested to my satisfaction, to my knowledge (that is, it's been tested unsatisfactorilly to me). Best guess is that the bonus is calculated as per denyd's post and then applied individually to each unit, as the army fights as a series of individuals, not as one unit. (The fact that an army fights as individuals was pretty conclusively shown to be true in PTW but not re-verified in C3C.)

The displayed stats of an army were often wrong in PTW and are essentially always wrong in C3C. You have to do the addition yourself. :(

Arathorn
 
thestonesfan said:
They aren't any slower to get to battles than trebs, longbows, pikes, muskets, or medieval infantry.

They are slower for me because the Knights Templar was built in a high-shield producing core city that is capable of building wonders. Thus the crusaders start out embedded deep in my own territory. I rush trebuchets and other slow units at the edge of my empire for quick deployment while my core cities farther away produce knights and cavs that can get to the edge quickly.

<edit> (I've been in OT so long that it is refreshing to actually talk about civ again)
 
Doc Tsiolkovski said:
Yes, they're not displayed (see it like terrain boni, those aren't displayed either).
But the terrain boni(Mr. Latin Lover:)) are in the Civilopedia at least. IMO removing the hidden army boni would be the correct army nerf. The armies do need a nerf, and most people would not notice it, except indirectly.
 
9x pillaging... wow. Well, the Conquistador is not valued too high by many players, perhaps this offsets that it is seen as a bad UU in general.
 
I think that maybe its down to my style of play. I Rely on the speed of mounted units and they also have the advantage of withdrawing so loses are not so apparent. A healing mounted unit is able to get back into the fray in no time. As for the point about Crusader movement being the same as treb, pike, musket and longbowman,
...I don't usually build longbow in favour of mounted units. Pike and musket move in to fortify new cities so they benefit from not having to move over enemy teritory and the treb which are effectively moving at the same pace as the crusader are worth wainting for because they will give you the city. After a barrage from the artilery stack, I'm more likely to use a unit which might produce a leader such as cavalry which have by now seen more action than the crusader.

Some good points for the unit but I still strugle to use it. Interesting point about fortresses on the border. I thought about it a long time ago, probably pre conquest but it did't seem cost effective compared to heavily defended border cities.

Seeing as we are also doing calculations, Has any one ever seen a cavalry army 20/20 Hp but with just 3 cavalry units loaded. In this game I had military accademy and the pentagon. I tend to load elite cavalry but in this game I had a military accademy that at its peak was producing an army every three turns so a surplus. I wasn't paying attention and couldn't tell you what was loaded.

peace.
 
quick question; can the crusader keep building fortresses all the way through the modern ages? If so I'll never waste worker turns again!
 
Pirate said:
quick question; can the crusader keep building fortresses all the way through the modern ages? If so I'll never waste worker turns again!

Yes. Crusaders can keep building fortresses for the whole game.
 
One of the best games I've ever played started me out on a small island. This island had a grand total of one strategic resource - horses. Throughout the entire game, that was the only strategic resource to ever appear.

Let me tell you, when you lack Iron, the Knights Templar is a massive help. An attack with Crusaders and Longbowmen, always with at least one Crusader on each stack, makes a big big difference. The Knights Templar bought me the Chinese island, and all the resources I needed. Without it I would've been dead meat.
 
Back
Top Bottom