March

[budweiser]

I’m going through a phase where I am especially interested in the march promotion as a priority for my ground pounders. I think it’s really smart play to allow your army to fight and heal during the same turn. Especially if you plan on making extensive use of your army. Also combine that with the medic great general for faster healing, but I sorta think that’s cheese. The general should be leading troops in combat, not leading the ambulance corps. Unless you think of it as an army structure.

Anyway, is it right to stress march, if so during what period of the game?

My current game is toku, standard continents, monarch. The age of the samurai is coming to an end. I am a few turns away from replaceable parts and I have eliminated 2 rivals on my continent, leaving only Monty. He has cav and he hates me, but that’s another matter.

My samurai, go straight to combat III, then choose march as their next promotion. They have taken many cities defended by troops as advanced as CGI longbows by direct assult. Losses are moderate, but I am playing overtly aggressive. I still have about 15 samurai with march and even some combat IV, but their time is over. The age of th erifle is coming.

So, do you priorotize march? Do you do it from the start, or do you wait until a certain time?

 

[Radarmaker]

I think the general consensus is to vary promotions based on your neighbors and your current military information. If Zuma has cavs you'll need something with the anti-horse promotion sometime soon, obviously - unless you've got pikes mixed in with those Samurai. Upgrading the Samurai to Grenadiers and having them with a support promotion like March will not help with you're against stronger units.

I almost never use March. I use my first GG to make a "Great Medic" and take him everywhere I go.

 

[DragonHawk]

I don't use march that much (maybe once on GG after he gets all medic+CR promo ?). It's too expensive, my army is usually more efficient with CR promo and 1 medic unit throw in anyway.
OP, did you still mix siege in your 15 samurai SoD ? I never play Jap so I do not know how good samurai is

 

[budweiser]

OP, did you still mix siege in your 15 samurai SoD ? I never play Jap so I do not know how good samurai is

A samurai is a maceman and when you are japan, you want to beline CS. I had CS by 500AD.

What I did first was run oscilating wars against Vicky, Monty and Izzy. So, I was charging border towns with samurai. No need for seige. When it came time to kill Vicky I built about 6 cats and used them up to knock down culture and then knock down the top defender. I was facing 75% culture or more.

Edit: Monty tried to dogpile on Vicky after I had her beat down. He actually did the heavy work on London and I waltzed in then all the culture was down and the defenders were at half strength. haha.

After that I attacked Monty and took a few towns, but culture pressure from Izzy was threatening my gains from her in the first war so she needed to go and I let Monty live. He was a tough fight anyway with his combat II knights.

Then I fought the war to kill Izzy, I had a stack of 20 samurai so I just ran her first towns over while I built trebs and sent them against the big towns. I was hurrying so I wasnt being as methodical as I usually would. But I still had a few trebs and would knock the towns down to about 10% before I sent in the assault troops.

I did lose some very good troops(combat 3+4 plus march), but i just kept building more. But, all of that doest have much to do with march except it feels nice to move your men and still know that you are still going heal that turn. It feels like you are getting away with something.