Incoherent Mounted Warrior Strategy

[Divaythsarmour]

I decided to continue with exploring horsemen strategies with the Iroqois, Monarch, Large Pangea Map.

Since the Iroqois are agricultural, I built a granary early to try and pump out settlers as quickly as possible. My first tech choice was wheel and I found horses about a dozen tiles away from capitol.

Things became incoherent when I chose to research writing before horseback riding. It was a mistake, but I just rolled with it. During that seemingly endless period of getting back on track I did manage to expand nicely. Where as if I had been more focused, I probably would have been building an army of mounted warriors vs. expanding.

In all those new cities, I built barracks, so by the time I had HB I was able to pump out a huge army of mounted warriors. I declared war and gained about 6 of the Maya's best cities and the Greeks had a similar fate before I saved the game at around 70 BC.

I looked at the victory tab and now see that the English are my greatest rival with statistics that look very similar to mine, but my score is a lot higher then theirs.

During all that conquest, I chose the Republic route rather than the Monarchy route. I'm not sure how that's going to work out, or whether I'll be able to leverage it. I think I would have been better off with monarchy.

I figure my goal is clear. I need to continue my conquests by really taking it to the English. I'm thinking that even if a conquest victory were possible, the size of the map would dictate that it's not going to happen with Mounted Warriors. They'll soon have pikemen and my warriors will "break like waves on the rocks."

 

[Raliuven]

I'm a recent convert to Republic. Unless it is going to be a very long, drawn out war with many losses, or I intend to fight one battle after another in a semi-AW, I go republic. Another exception might be if there are not enough (any) luxuries around. On Monarch the AI is really in no position to put up much of a fight, so republic warring shouldn't be too rough, particularly if oscillate your wars or drop the hammer quickly.

With that said, I still get scared on Deity and run to Monarchy for protection.

 

[del62]

The great thing aout those MW is they can upgrade to cavalry, one thing I recommend if you go the wheel, writing the HBR route is build chariots in towns with barracks to updgrad and then shut of research until the chariots are upgraded

 

[Divaythsarmour]

I should spend more time learning the benifits of republic and how to leverage them. I notice that as soon as I go republic, I have to adjust my slider way down (i.e. less reseach). I'm pretty sure that even in that scenario, I'm not losing any tech research. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm gaining. I just need to spend more time figuring this out...

 

[Theov]

I should spend more time learning the benifits of republic and how to leverage them. I notice that as soon as I go republic, I have to adjust my slider way down (i.e. less reseach). I'm pretty sure that even in that scenario, I'm not losing any tech research. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm gaining. I just need to spend more time figuring this out...

If you go from despotism to republic, you gain 1 more commerce on any tile that's already making commerce. Sometimes even more.
So you gain a lot of money.
Also, with marketplaces the luxuries gain more happy people. So that often means more tiles to work.
In my sig you see a link to govs in civ3 complete.

 

[del62]

Not only do you gain plus 1 commerce but you also gain more commerce through reduced corruption.

 

[Divaythsarmour]

I spent some time studying the governments. Thanks for the link. I put it in my favorites. I have a question about unit costs. What do the 3 numbers mean? For instance communism is 6/6/6, monarchy is 2/4/8 etc.

 

[Sparthage]

Unit Support for: Town/City/Metropolis

 

[del62]

yep one of the tricks in republic and monarchy is to change most of your towns to cities

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Actually, a reasonable strategy for Iroquois is to get the wheel, find horses, expand and build barracks/chariots, research to get the philo sling to republic, then do a mass upgrade and ride a republic fueled GA further build of MW to total domination.

 

[King of Anshan]

mounted warriors just rock, they have the same stats as celtic swordsmen (except minus 1 def, but who needs that when attacking) and are cheaper (i thought). Atleast horses don't get exhausted but iron does. So nothing can go wrong as long as you have MW...

 

[AutomatedTeller]

They are cheaper. They take longer to research, and once you have HBR, you can't upgrade anymore (with Celts, you can disconnect the iron, build a bunch of warriors, then upgrade those, making building them a little easier), but they rock completely.

 

[Raliuven]

I should spend more time learning the benifits of republic and how to leverage them. I notice that as soon as I go republic, I have to adjust my slider way down (i.e. less reseach). I'm pretty sure that even in that scenario, I'm not losing any tech research. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm gaining. I just need to spend more time figuring this out...

One area you get hit on is that if you go from despotism to republic, you lose the use of MPs for happiness - the immedidate effect is a bump in the luxury slider - at this point you only have 2 options - luxury slider or clowns - of the two evils, I'll take the luxury slider most of the time. Also, because of the despotism penalty, growth is slowed considerably so you won't have many large cities yet - in a republic, your income is directly tied to the number of citizens in your empire.

So though it may seem like you take an immediate hit, in short order you should see a dramatic change. More citizens/growth=1 more gold per tile worked. If you are looking for a long game VC, that 1 gold per tile = many 100's of gold to off set unit support and the luxury slider. Add in marketplaces, etc and you'll have a roaring economy that can take advantage of all the additional gold.

In my experience, Monarchy is good for early warring - you don't have to worry about war weariness and you can use MPs to control happiness and suppress unhappy citizens in captured cities. Though unit support is tied to the # of citizens via city size, it is fairly week IMO. Even research isn't so bad in the MA. By the IA, however, you'll start to feel the lack of gold and a slower research pace, particularly if the AI is slacking off and doesn't have any good tech trading deals.

 

[Divaythsarmour]

Actually, a reasonable strategy for Iroquois is to get the wheel, find horses, expand and build barracks/chariots, research to get the philo sling to republic, then do a mass upgrade and ride a republic fueled GA further build of MW to total domination.

And here I thought it was totally incoherent. What does GA stand for? It's probably obvious...

 

[Sparthage]

Golden Age.

 

[Divaythsarmour]

In my experience, Monarchy is good for early warring - you don't have to worry about war weariness and you can use MPs to control happiness and suppress unhappy citizens in captured cities.

I assume MPs are military police. Does this mean that each military unit stationed in a city is an MP? If so, does that mean that each MP results in more unhappy suppression? If so, is there a cap on that?

Sorry for all these questions. It's probably hard to believe I've been playing this game for 8 years. I'm very slowly working my way up in difficulty.

 

[Raliuven]

I assume MPs are military police. Does this mean that each military unit stationed in a city is an MP? If so, does that mean that each MP results in more unhappy suppression? If so, is there a cap on that?

Sorry for all these questions. It's probably hard to believe I've been playing this game for 8 years. I'm very slowly working my way up in difficulty.

MP=Military Police - what it means is that each unit, up to a limit, adds to the populations overall happiness. Each government will tell you the limit - representative goverments are 0, nada, nothing. Despotism is 2, Monarchy is 3 - that's per the forum but for some reason I thought Monarchy was on a sliding scale - 2 for a city size 6, 3 for a city size 7 & up. Maybe I'm wrong on that - tells you how often I play with Monarchy these days. I never play with communism and the forum says a maximum of 4 per city. That's PTW, I don't have C3C so I don't know about Fued or Fascism.

Anyway, the units in the garrision will 'force' the population to be happy. For a city in rebellion/resistance, MPs are a quick way to calm a city down - you get double bang for your buck - you quell resisters and make some happiness. Also, if you go to war against their mother country later, though same citizens will get upset immediately, and MPs and help quash them early on.

 

[Theov]

I assume MPs are military police. Does this mean that each military unit stationed in a city is an MP? If so, does that mean that each MP results in more unhappy suppression? If so, is there a cap on that?

Sorry for all these questions. It's probably hard to believe I've been playing this game for 8 years. I'm very slowly working my way up in difficulty.

In my C3 Complete governments (see my sig) you see how many military units can be used for military police.
MP = the number of military units stationed in town that make unhappy people content.

Anarchy
Military Police Limit: 0

Despotism
Military Police Limit: 2

Feudalism
Military Police Limit: 3

Monarchy
Military Police Limit: 3

Fascism
Military Police Limit: 4

Communism
Military Police Limit: 4

Republic
Military Police Limit: 0

Democracy
Military Police Limit: 0

 

[Theov]

One area you get hit on is that if you go from despotism to republic, you lose the use of MPs for happiness - the immedidate effect is a bump in the luxury slider - at this point you only have 2 options - luxury slider or clowns - of the two evils, I'll take the luxury slider most of the time. Also, because of the despotism penalty, growth is slowed considerably so you won't have many large cities yet - in a republic, your income is directly tied to the number of citizens in your empire.

how do you know how much lux slider you need?
Just under the resistance levels??
I'm bad at the lux slider. No idea if you should up or down it.

 

[King of Anshan]

Well, the funny thing of the luxury slider is that it works on the commerce the city produces. If you raise it you can put more people to work. Those people will work more tiles and thus make more commerce allowing again more hapiness from the slider. A self-repeating process.

I have the auto-manage hapiness on, and sometimes a city still falls into disorder. This is so because a citizen did not work a "commerce" tile (a.k. one coin less) but a "production" tile instead. That 1 coin less made the difference between 1 more or less happy faces.