I think we should have a bit of a discussion on combat and unit upgrades. The turn taker (looks like Cav Scout) is going to be making these decisions in game and micro managing this on-the-fly as a team will be pretty much impossible. Therefore a discussion beforehand could be really useful in giving the turn taker ideas that best reflect the desire and intent of the team.
Combat
Santca was very effective in attacking us with weak units 1st and then killing our stack with stronger units. I my view, keeping our redcoats alive will be a top priority but this could get difficult as our redcoats will be the 1st units to take damage whenever Sancta attacks our stack. Our cannons will be most survivable as they take no collateral damage and are the last to be targeted in the stack. That should be used to our advantage.
Upgrades
With Theo we will start to have a bunch of options for upgrading our units.
Knights – C2 I think makes the most sense for all of them. Except maybe one medic.
Redcoats (also pikes & muskets) – Many options here. Pinch, Combat 2, woodsman II, Guerilla II. A few Guerilla II units will be really useful to defend hill top tiles and hilltop cities. These should be in the stack when we move to attack Dragon Tears. Woodsman II – useful once we have dragon tears and TKY. Great for harassing Sancta in the jungle to the north and east. Combat 2 – I think about 60%+ of our redcoats should have C2. Once these units reach 10xp they have a great # of additional options and can upgrade to amphibious, anti cavalry, C3, or anti siege. Pinch upgrades will make our redcoats essentially invincible vs. gunpowder units until Sancta has grenadiers and rifles.
-For the initial stack I think we primarily want C2 upgrades as the biggest initial threat will be from knights. Should probably include 1 pinch redcoat. 2 Guerilla II units could also be useful to deter Sancta from moving a counter stack onto a hill and threaten Taraz.
Cannons – city raider, barrage, bombard, combat 2, drill, withdrawal – huge # of options. A good number of barrage units are always needed to weaken enemy stacks (this should probably be the biggest component of our stack). After that I am not sure what is most useful. We may be fighting our biggest battles defensively or in the field where C2 would be quite useful. For that reason I think C2 is probably the 2nd most useful. A few city raiders is helpful to kill the strongest defensive units (CG3 LBs and later rifles) in Sancta cities. I am not sure if bombard units are a useful. It speeds the ability to bring down cultural defenses but we can also use C2 cannons and damaged cannons for this purpose. I also think we should avoid the withdrawal upgrade, at least for the time being. Once Sancta starts building cavalry and we face higher potential casualties for our cannons then these may be useful. The Drill upgrade is oft overlooked, and I think 1 or 2 drill cannons could actually be hugely useful to mop up severely weakened units. But again – barrage, C2, and city raider are probably the most important.
-I think it makes sense to give most of our existing 6 single upgrade catapults/cannons the barrage upgrade and promote our upcoming 6 new cannons as follows 2 CRII cannons, 1 drill II, and 3 C2. After that 60% barrage and the rest mostly C2.
Medics – we need a few medics. I think 2 makes the most sense. Once we capture a city we will need one to stay with wounded units and one to move forward with the rest of the stack. I always think mobile medic units are the best as they can quickly move to where they are needed most.
Great Generals
Also what do we want to do with the inevitable GG we should be receiving once the war gets going.
As I have only played vanilla I am not that familiar with how GGs work. Settling is probably best in the long term but as we will be at war I think we may get greater benefit from attaching it to a unit. But then the question is what unit? A redcoat is probably the most obvious, but I think a cannon might also be a good idea. Are naval GGs ever effective?
