Originally Posted by Bebekija View Post
So in order for this to actually work, each participant in this competition would have to put enough time, effort and good will in trying both options : Praets VS something else (HA rush, Cats+Phants, whatever).
But I doubt it will happen....
Starting to read the earlier posts...
Anyways, I completely disagree with trying both ways given you have map knowledge.
That is why I gave up praet #1 (now I think about it, perhaps I gave up way too early); knowing map forbade me to try again. Map knowledge is helping way too much.
I agree with
Duckweed's results are not a proof. With him, there's isn't any UU as all UU's look awesome under his control.
Still, I have felt from my attempt preats are cheap and quite useful.
Someone else should give a shot to give a bigger sample though...
There were some strong facts already shown in my report to demonstrate the power of praets.
1. Had to fight 3 deity AIs at the same time. No other classical era unit could do better.
Praets, especially level 3, smash everything in the open field. Mao was forced to leave the war very soon. I also killed the counter-attack SOD from Alex in the open field without loss.
Level 3 praets (CRII, they only need to won 1 battle, moreover, with JC, it's easy to have 2 GGs very quickly to settle and have 2 cities pumping level 3 praets from barracks) are also killers for anything inside the city. That's the main reason why I only suffered trivial loss before 475BC.
Praets are excellent defenders, better than CGII archers on hill city. Players who played the Roman deity AW game should have an impression of them. As you can see from my 475BC screenshot, how could other offensive units (many of them were severely wounded) survive the Zulu attack.
2. No other classical units could do better than praets against medieval units.
Thanks to Shaka, I had to delay the war progress on Alex for more than 10 turns and Alex also had LBs when I resume the war. However, whether AIs have LB does not matter, LBs are similar as Axes when facing praets, as you could find from my war with Mao, usually you only need 1 level 3 sacrificing praet to would it and then use you level 4+ praet to kill it, that's what I said about 1:1 loss ratio. Most important, using praets, instead of cats, has the major advantage in such a war, it's swift. You don't need to wait for the bombardment. Remember, every turn of delaying of taking a deity AI's city means 2~3 more reinforcements.
3. Praets are cheaper amd more powerful compared with other classical era units as HAs, Cats, and WEs.
Production is the major factor affecting the early rushing, in deity level, numbers are absolutely needed. I'd never complain about the RNG, if you lose a war because of bad RNG, the only thing to be complained is the player himself since you have to consider the situation of bad RNG. As you can see from my 500 and 475 BC screenshot, I gathered ~ 2 dozens of praets to take Sparta.
Praets>>>WEs simply because of
1. CR promotion
2. earlier availability
3. cheaper
Had to go back, and check but no BUG in custom assets so you were using the normal UI which I can barely use anymore
Be interesting to know if Duckweed did anything to combat peacevasselling (iirc he could declare on, or bribe Shaka to war, demand/beg for peace treaty, have a high power rating from units surviving as Shaka makes some sort of war check to see if takes the vassel). Now I may have to code dig to remember, or hunt from threads/guides here to see if i remembered peacevasselling correctly
There was nothing magical. Shaka was at war with Charley in the beginning so he will never take vassal while at war. When Charley capitulated to Shaka, I immediately bribed GK to join me and then Mao bribed Shaka to DOW GK as GK was a LT of Shaka. So the situation was back to the beginning, Shaka will not peacefully vassal Mao since he was at war already.
On re-reading, I'm not at all sure what they do mean. However, I'm pretty sure that they don't apply to BFCs as the map generator treats that as a special case.
