LK96 - RaR, Polynesia, Island Hopping

[romeothemonk]

Hmm, I used slow defenders, but they got eaten up faster than 1 defense units.
I like Jumbo's for the extra HP. I have found that a HP with ignore forest and jungle terrain to be more useful than 3 move. That wouold be personal preference though. The Roading just tips the favor, as I have a tendancy to not build enough workers, and jumbo's have a dual purpose in my mind.
With Cavalry I see no need for horse archers. They are 4-1-3 4 hp, with defensive bombard. Cavalry are 8-3-3 7 hp with defensive bombard. Cavaliers are 6-2-2 with 5 hp, no bombard.
I am coming around on colonial marines, but for the most part I find the window to use them to small without proper setup. Bez1 is perfect for marines. I do not like explorers or pillaging. I hate pillaging.
While Archers/MaA/Arques are nice, A slow moving stack versus a fast moving stack is not really a hard choice in my mind. Speed kills, and you must have speed. That was the first lesson I learned on CFC, and I am sticking to it almost religiously.
I am really liking building a spear/pike army with an early MGL, and using it as a walking cover.
I think the big difference is I have played ~20-30 RaR games, but over 150 c3c games. The ability to refine strategy comes with time and experience and we are all learning. I learned more from this one setback than I did from my first 3 RaR SG wins. I still favor really bold opening military moves, but now I am learning the appropriateness of military in different situations. We were in one of the few situations where military wouldn't help IMO.
I will post my thoughts on military when I am at the lab later today.

 

[romeothemonk]

Warring properly requires 3 different Questions to be answered. 1. When. 2. How. 3)Where. (Whatfor gets lumped in here as well)
I break the game into 3 periods; BB (Before barracks), Mounted Warfare, Modern Warfare. There is a little bit of overlap between these era's but the definiton should be pretty clear.
I have modern warfare starting with Automatic Weapons.
First the BB age of war.
Before barracks, your capitol and your FP, if it is constructed, are the only 2 cities that can produce veteran units. This is important as an extra HP is vital to the way I war.
In the BB era, to go to war, I must have my capitol able to 1 turn offensive units, champs if militaristic, archers if not. In addition, I must have 1 town able to do 3 turn TG's or Spears that is not my offensive town. If I cannot do this I will not try to fight a BB war. I will focus on science and economy to get to the next age and get a local superiority. I want to have local superiority over anything I may face, so I want ~6-8 Offensive units and 2+ defensive units. Ballistae/cats are optional at this stage, unless dealing with either the Aztecs or the Iro. If either of these civs are in play, you need defensive bombard of cats or archers. In fact, I like to war against these 2 civs early, as I have noticed that they tend to run over other civs in the early game but I can trim them with judicious warring.
In the BB era Length and location of war are very important. In the BB Era there is almost always still some ungrabbed land and the AI seems to be in full expansion mode at the time. When the war starts, you can expect very few extra units lying around, unless they still have their free starting units. This will quickly change as the units are very cheap to build in this era, and almost every AI city can at least build 2 turn units, and every AI city can whip 1 turn units. I use warfare at this point to trim luxury cities, resource cities, or wonder building capitols. To take a Diety capitol in the BB Era you need ~10 vet champs/archers, along with some defensive units. The assualt works better if they are building a wonder at that time. In the BB Era, I like to take/raze 2-3 cities, then sign peace for tech or cities. I have found that oscillating warfare in the BB Era is very productive. In my mind the BB Era is officially over at the end of the first age, as the tenats of the strat still work till the advent of pikes. However at the end of the BB Era, the ER is introduced and this signals the beginning of the next era, the mounted era.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

Horse Archers upgrade to Cavalry, that's not the unit I refer to. Cava=Cavaliers. HAs mix perfectly with Knights/Cavas. They're faster, and the defensive bombard means the AI will subtract one HP from their unit when calculating odds. And often enough that means they won't attack at all.
And I do not build Explorers for pillaging. I use them as cheap, move2 ATAR defenders...

In general: A move=2 unit is a fast unit for retreating etc.
But, a move=3 unit has a huge additional benefit: The AI can only "think" 2 tiles far .

 

[romeothemonk]

The Mounted Era is more characterized by a number than a unit. The number is 4. That is the max defense that will be seen in the mounted era. Pikes, Halbadiers, line infantry etc, all have 4 defense. This only changes when rifles appear on the scene which is very late in the age. On the other hand, there is a wide range of offensive units; Jumbo's (4-1-2) Crusaders (4-1-3), Knights (5-2-2) Cavaliers (6-2-2) Imp Guards (5-2-2 Blitz) Hussars, (7-1-3) Horse archers (4-1-3) cavalry (8-3-3) and others that I know I am forgetting. In this age before I will even gear up to go to war I need two things, knowledge of local superiority, and 2 towns that can make vet offensive units in less than or equal to 4 turns. Without that, building offense at this point is throwing away shields that should be in your economy. I would build cheap defenders and walls and let the AI Suicide their shields away, while you tech like mad to the next age and the gamebreaker of artillary.
The local superiority can be had by having 2X the hitpoints of the opponent with equal attack to defense values, i.e. an elite jumbo vs reg pike, or by having a higher attack value than defense value. Using Jumbos or Crusaders to assualt a city with pikes is suicide, they should be used for counters against low defense units. I like using jumbos to take out spears and TG's in cities, as they are very good at that and generate a large number of slaves in the process.
Whenever I can, I build jumbo's as I always underbuild my worker force. Jumbo's can road, clear forest, and seem to generate a slave on every third attack. I leave Jumbo's as they are until well into the modern age. Personal Preference only here.
As DocT pointed out, horse archers and crusaders are move 3, and horse archers have defensive bombard. I rarely use them however, as for the same shields I can build Jumbo's which have an extra hp. The defensive bombard to the horse archers is very nice, and should be considered to have 1 or 2 in your fast stacks.
Once 6 attack units come about, they are the primary offensive weapons of the age, as they should beat a defense 4 unit 1 on 1. Of course having a stack of 6 attack fast movers is important, and I like to have 10+ before beginning a campaign. They must have defensive support as they have almost no natural defense. I like to take a border city and cover the new city/stack with 2 to 3 pikes. The AI will then counterattack driving almost all of their fast movers at you, allowing you to pick them off with older units like jumbos and Crusaders. I like to attack, gas an opponent quickly, take 3-4 cities, sign peace and oscillate with a different neighbor. The AI will be able to outproduce you at this point, so unless you have more cities than them, do not use extended wars.
I like to use the McArthur strategy of hit them where they ain't and ravage a key city early, then play defense and eat their shields up. This works especially well if the AI is fighting another AI at the same time, as their fast movers should be 4-5 turns away.
Colonial Marines can be very useful in this era as well. A ship with 5-6 of these bad boys can raze a key enemy coastal city. However the casaulty rate of Marines is high, and I use them in very specific instances.
Keeping a stack of Mobile offense or if you are teching like crazy, Mobile defense is very important in this age as the AI will toss lots of expensive fast moving units at you. You kill the units and retreated to your well fortified towns, generating slaves and wasting AI Shields.
Knowing when to fight in this era is the most important. If you are committed to fight, try and to the best that you can, but Defense is more important than offense as the modern era fits the humans strenghts the best.

 

[romeothemonk]

The modern era has 2 game breaking units. Artillary and Armor are both game breakers. Semi-effective use of either one allows for complete domination even against much larger empires on Diety. (See LK-88 or LK-94 for proof).
On Diety once MkIv's roll around, I calculate that the AI has ~1 extra attacking unit for every city they own, and defense should be planned accordingly. You should only begin a war in this era if you have artillary equal to the estimated number of spare attackers. A spy can really help in this decision.
In the Modern Era, I never strike first!! I let the Enemy come to me, chew up their offense then contend with what they build. This works well when there is a chokepoint that can be barricaded or a Salient City that you know will be attacked. Let the enemy attack towards you, and then bombard all of his high offense units with your artillary and bombers. Occupy the high ground if at all possible, as the extra defensive bonus to you is very useful, and hard to overcome if the AI gets it. If the AI advances 10 MkIV's and 30 Marines and 20 machine gunners, the MKIV's are your target unless the Marines can attack a city the next turn. I would use all availible arty on the MKIV's and try and destroy them utterly, then worry about the slow movers next turn.
Armor is game breaker due to it's high Offense, Defense and 3 move. Armor is the first unit that doesn't need defensive cover on the attack. When MkIV's become availible, I never build foot units again unless I need paratroops or marines. I use MkIV's then Armor for offense defense and special teams. Armor only needs artillary support attacking other armors fortified in a town. Then the Heavy artillary really shines as the 3 range bombard to move allows them to fully support their tank buddies.
In the modern age the human should always beat the AI, the trick is having enough artillary and preplanning to do so. At this point the Human should have built the Military Academy, and have several armies. I like to use a full strength army to cover the main artillary stack, then use armies as the primary city capture units, and have non army units clean up the AI units.

 

[romeothemonk]

Hopefully this helps explain how I think on war and how I make the decisions that I do. It is too late for this game, but not for the future.

 

[Bezhukov]

lurker comment: Well, I for one just wait for Eurocopter Tiger armies.



The coolest looking unit in civ.

"2 towns that can make vet offensive units in less than or equal to 4 turns. Without that, building offense at this point is throwing away shields that should be in your economy. I would build cheap defenders and walls and let the AI Suicide their shields away, while you tech like mad to the next age and the gamebreaker of artillary."

Unless one is a mil civ, defense is king until production is boosted (this paradoxically requires irrigation, as this allows sufficient high-shield tiles to be worked).

Hope these comments are of a sufficiently general nature to avoid offense.

 

[LKendter]

Well this game had the "honor" of putting the LK series in double digit losses.

LOSS - 10 = LK44, LK58, LK74, LK78, LK79, LK80, LK83, LK89, LK92, LK96

 

[microbe]

ONLY 10?

I've had 13 losses out of 55 games I played.