Kanka Moussa owes me a mouse

[AnyKeyz]

Was playing on a fractal map, random civ. I had the frenchs, was sharing an island with Kanka Moussa.

Perfect situation. Share techs until gunpowder. The good thing about Kanka is that he is not aiming for guns until late in the game. My plan was perfect, attack him with a bunch of cavalries. But his weak army was still winning against all odds.

I slammed my mouse on my desk. Bye bye optical mouse. My first hardware casualty since I start playing Civ 4 a year ago.

Kanka owes me a mouse.

 

[Tatran]

You're not the only one. Be glad it was only your mouse.

 

[Verge]

My plan was perfect, attack him with a bunch of cavalries.

The bulk of your attack force should never be cavalry.

Sorry about your mouse.

 

[AnyKeyz]

I know, because of pikemen
I had some 'fusilier' as well (french word), but because I was not sure about the correct word in english, I haven't mentionned it (I guess it is gunman) I also had a bunch of trebuchets

 

[Jtownsend]

Wielders of both rifled and unrifled muskets have been called fusiliers. The 9 strength civ unit is a "Musketeer" while the 14 strength one is a "Rifleman."

 

[Charou]

and what would be a ¨tirailleur¨ then ?
other word for rifleman ?

 

[Il Corvo Bianco]

Fusilier is, in Italian, Fuciliere, so he is talking about the Rifleman, str 14. In fact losing against weak units is quite annoying, so that a lot of peaople say that AI cheats...but there are one hundred of factors which are visible but no one sees...like, sometimes, an health loss of "only" half a point, or the fact that your chariot doesn't gets defensive bonuses so your forest can't protect him...or the crossbowmen's bonus against melee units
Don't crash your mouse, start looking at all bonuses and maluses and learn to use a bit of suicide soldiers (not only trebuchets! Even low promoted and harmed riflemen, or so on).

 

[Refar]

Mansa is - despite his peacefull nature - one of the more annoying AI's...

As you had cavalry you probably had Rifleman. I think Muskete is a frensh word anyway, so Muketman will be called 'similar' to the english name...

 

[AnyKeyz]

Tirailleur isn't the UU bowman ?

Indeed, I was talking about riflemen. Usually, I wait until cannons to charge and build a larger stack (I had only like one 25 units stack), but Kanka was already aiming for the rifleman tech.

I underestimate Kanka military power. I am used to wipe him out quite easily.

 

[Charou]

Tirailleur isn't the UU bowman ?

As a matter of fact, it is.
But it is also a military word that survive in the french army until the middle of the 20th century.
I think, it is opposed to ¨voltigeur¨ who isn´t equipped with a rifle but with sub-machine gun and grenades.
but I am extremely careful with that statement.

 

[Jtownsend]

A "fusil" was a light matchlock musket; when I hear "Fusilier" I think rifleman also, but that's actually because units originally armed with fusils later became riflemen while maintaining the same title; thus the ambiguity.

"Tirailleurs" or "skirmishers" were originally skirmishers and marksmen named after their function; the term came to mean French colonial troops as the number of units of "tirailleurs Senegalais" (a very broad term encompassing much more than just Senegal) and similar units called "tirailleurs Algeriens," "tirailleurs Annamites" etc grew.

"Voltigeurs" (Jumpers, presumably as in 'very agile soldiers') were originally a type of skirmisher ("tirailleur.") But by the same process, the functional name for these picked skirmishers became a unit name.

"Musket" is originally from the Italian, although it was often spelt "French style" in English. 15th to 18th century military terminology is a fascinating little argot that often reflects who was militarily dominant in Europe at the time, be it Spaniards, their Italian allies, the French, etc. Often the word would pass through more than one language and/or be spelled in different language styles by English speakers. Grenade, grenado, musket, musquet, ambush, ambuscade, etc.

 

[AnyKeyz]

Thanks for the infos

Civ 4, always instructive, while being frustrating and addictive

 

[futurehermit]

i attack with primarily cavalry all the time, nothing wrong with that. of course if you are up against rifles and infantry, that is not good, but if you are up against pikes and longbows, no problem (assuming the ratio isn't 1:1 pikes to cavalry). add in spies to take down defenses and you're in even better shape.

 

[cabert]

Futurehermit is right, nothing wrong with a massive cavalry attack.
I think the problem may lie in the mixed stack and certainly in the low number of troops you used.

a 100% cavalry stack (followed by garrison troops, for after the battle!) will mow enemy LBs and muskets.
If you face grenadiers or better, with CG promotions, you'd better wait for siege weapons. I usually have one half "flanking" cavalry and one half combat cavalry, but you really need a load of flankers, because cavalry doesn't do colateral damage.

and fusillier is the french word for rifleman (or is it rifleman the english word for fusillier? )

 

[AnyKeyz]

This is what happened in this particular case (the broken mouse)

I was attacking with cavalries and trebuchets and Kanka was defending with muskets (the non UU), pikemen and catapults.

He was able to upset me against the odds a couple of times and becausehe was horonzontal (had to conquer this city in order to proceed with the other), he was able to receive backup each turn.

I knew if I conquered this city, I would have to face about 3 units per city after this one, but it took me so long he was about to reach riflemen tech and he was way ahead in tech.

Kanka almost always aim for Cultural victory wuthout having a decent army and I thought as usual I would be able to wipe him out easily, but things have not turned out the way I expected.

 

[cabert]

with cavalry only (= no 1 move unit), you could have conquered the next city / killed the reinforcements without caring for the "fortress"

 

[AnyKeyz]

Indeed, that makes sense