MrGameTheory's breakdown of the Civ5 PDF manual.. :)

[Meneer Popken]

I wonder why you actually need archers, a bunch of scouts should be more than capable of taking a nearby capital, they are very cheap and move fast, so if the enemy makes the mistake of building a worker or a settler they would not be able to defend against a surround by scouts, the flanking bonus makes them far stronger than warriors, and if you have about 8 of them you should be able to destroy a small city in two turns, even when it is garrisoned.

 

[trogman44]

I wonder why you actually need archers, a bunch of scouts should be more than capable of taking a nearby capital, they are very cheap and move fast, so if the enemy makes the mistake of building a worker or a settler they would not be able to defend against a surround by scouts, the flanking bonus makes them far stronger than warriors, and if you have about 8 of them you should be able to destroy a small city in two turns, even when it is garrisoned.

I won't even bother explaining to you why this won't work. Instead I challenge you to a game and I encourage you to try either the tc's strat or yours.

Although lacking a challenge it will be a nice warm up to real games against real people.

 

[Schuesseled]

Since I am interested in this subject, where is the proof that there is a flanking bonus for ranged units? as far as the manual goes, I cant find any info that ranged units do get the flanked bonus.
again, I do not want to irritate people, just interested.

IIRC the first e3 videos showed a cannon recieving a flanking bonus when it shot.

 

[bjbrains]

I wonder why you actually need archers, a bunch of scouts should be more than capable of taking a nearby capital, they are very cheap and move fast, so if the enemy makes the mistake of building a worker or a settler they would not be able to defend against a surround by scouts, the flanking bonus makes them far stronger than warriors, and if you have about 8 of them you should be able to destroy a small city in two turns, even when it is garrisoned.

Getting enough scouts to take a city is going to take a lot of production (by which time player's should have a defensive warrior).
Remember that cities have a ranged attack, and a decent strength which only goes up over time, and have 20 hp. 6 scouts surrounding a city will only have 7 strength. A size 2 city has 9 strength base (no unit garrisoned, no buildings). By the time you can get that many scouts (6 scouts being 150 production), you won't be able to take their capital. Don't forget that the scouts standing in front of the city will be very vulnerable to counter attack. It's a highly risky gambit that probably will never work.

 

[iop]

I wonder why you actually need archers, a bunch of scouts should be more than capable of taking a nearby capital, they are very cheap and move fast, so if the enemy makes the mistake of building a worker or a settler they would not be able to defend against a surround by scouts, the flanking bonus makes them far stronger than warriors, and if you have about 8 of them you should be able to destroy a small city in two turns, even when it is garrisoned.

Yes, with the ability to move fast through difficult terrain, the scout rush is - like the Zergling rush - going to annihilate the enemy before they can churn out those turtle archers!

 

[iskar]

@ Schuesseled
thank, I'll take a look at them when I have more time

 

[MrGameTheory]

So where do I start? I guess I'll start with the completely wrong statements:

No, it means a city you've taken over via conquest. The manual isn't specific about this, but it's what courthouses do. There is no penalty for garrisoning a city (In fact, you get a benefit from it with honor).

Could you please provide a link to support this statement?

The manual. Read it more carefully. It says nothing about the strength being altered, only how HP reduces the damage the unit deals. Watch videos. Pay attention. Seriously. You make all these assumptions without paying attention to evidence. Instead, you spin off conclusions based on your own theories.

Could you please provide a link to support this statement?

No, no they don't. Read the manual. The attacking unit's ranged combat strength is compared to the defending units combat strength. They will defend at strength 3.

This is correct. But more importantly the whole function of the chariot archer is to finish off a retreating unit with higher than 60 hammer cost so it doesn't matter what it defends with unless you are planning on using a different strategy with it.

You aren't rushing calender in either build, so I don't think this makes sense at all.

You are mistaken. I have had calender in the second tec build the entire time and it is being rushed as fast as it should be without giving a strategic disadvantage.

Read what I said. I'm obviously talking about Germany. And you still don't address how you have any authority/knowledge to make a hard ranking system.

Germany is not a good leader in MP games unless they bring back advanced start options and players actually play those options.

 

[Meneer Popken]

I won't even bother explaining to you why this won't work. Instead I challenge you to a game and I encourage you to try either the tc's strat or yours.

Although lacking a challenge it will be a nice warm up to real games against real people.

Yay, insults instead of discussion, very useful. Are you so afraid to talk about your superior tactics and skills?

My numbers are:
Production bonus from city: 2
Palace production bonus: 2
Production from hill: 2
That means 6 hammers per turn and 0 growth.
I can make 8 scouts in 34 turns.
Moving them to a nearby city takes another 10 turns.

A player who has a growing city will have about 4 hammers per turn and conventional strategies I have seen on the forum build two workers and two scouts, which takes 48 turns, so before you have built 4 units your capital is under siege.

After 44 turns your capital will be size 4. The capital might have two scouts protecting it and a warrior as garrison. My scouts can set up flanking by using their first move each, and after all scouts are in position attacking with flanking bonus. I assume they're next to the capital so the capital may fire upon one of my scouts (but they might just as well be exploring and do nothing). My units would have at least 30% flanking bonus and will destroy the enemy scouts with about 1 loss, leaving 7 of them around the city. One more gets destroyed by city attack. 6 Scouts with 75% flanking bonus attack 4 (size) + 2 (palace) + 3 (garrison) = 9 combat strength capital. 4 + 75% = 7. Six times an attack only two less strong will do at least 3 damage per attack. I might lose one or two more scouts.
Capital has 4 health left. Capital heals 2. Capital kills one more scout. 4 scouts attack capital for a second time, each does two damage. Capital is taken over, you lose.

 

[Schuesseled]

Getting enough scouts to take a city is going to take a lot of production (by which time player's should have a defensive warrior).
Remember that cities have a ranged attack, and a decent strength which only goes up over time, and have 20 hp. 6 scouts surrounding a city will only have 7 strength. A size 2 city has 9 strength base (no unit garrisoned, no buildings). By the time you can get that many scouts (6 scouts being 150 production), you won't be able to take their capital. Don't forget that the scouts standing in front of the city will be very vulnerable to counter attack. It's a highly risky gambit that probably will never work.

The palace also provides +2 strength according to the manual. Attacking a capital with a bunch of scouts is beyond foolish.

 

[Schuesseled]

Could you please provide a link to support this statement?



Could you please provide a link to support this statement?

Take our word on it, courthouses can only be built in annexed cities. Strength does not decrease with damage, damage does.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I would say in this case, it's better to trust that we got this information through following game previews for a long time. It has been mentioned that the point of Courthouses is to deal with the unhappiness to your empire caused by annexed cities. It doesn't deal with overall happiness.

 

[Meneer Popken]

A size 2 city has 9 strength base (no unit garrisoned, no buildings).

That doesn't match with what I've seen in videos, not even close. A size 2 city does not have 9 strength, not even a size 2 capital has 9 strength.

 

[bjbrains]

I don't have to provide a link if I say it's in the manual! Read it yourself!
Also, where are all these other units coming from? You are talking about rushing chariot archers in your tech build/your talk about them. What is wounding other units or protecting them? You keep trying to change your argument around in order to sound 'right'.
Also, why is the only civ that gets free land units bad in non-advanced start games? Surely a civ that can get free warriors is good for rushing?
Finally, getting calender that late isn't rushing it. Rushing implies ignoring the disadvantages to get it first. If you are getting to it when you feel like you can, you aren't doing a real rush.

 

[trogman44]

Yay, insults instead of discussion, very useful. Are you so afraid to talk about your superior tactics and skills?

My numbers are:
Production bonus from city: 2
Palace production bonus: 2
Production from hill: 2
That means 6 hammers per turn and 0 growth.
I can make 8 scouts in 34 turns.
Moving them to a nearby city takes another 10 turns.

A player who has a growing city will have about 4 hammers per turn and conventional strategies I have seen on the forum build two workers and two scouts, which takes 48 turns, so before you have built 4 units your capital is under siege.

After 44 turns your capital will be size 4. The capital might have two scouts protecting it and a warrior as garrison. My scouts can set up flanking by using their first move each, and after all scouts are in position attacking with flanking bonus. I assume they're next to the capital so the capital may fire upon one of my scouts (but they might just as well be exploring and do nothing). My units would have at least 30% flanking bonus and will destroy the enemy scouts with about 1 loss, leaving 7 of them around the city. One more gets destroyed by city attack. 6 Scouts with 75% flanking bonus attack 4 (size) + 2 (palace) + 3 (garrison) = 9 combat strength capital. 4 + 75% = 7. Six times an attack only two less strong will do at least 3 damage per attack. I might lose one or two more scouts.
Capital has 4 health left. Capital heals 2. Capital kills one more scout. 4 scouts attack capital for a second time, each does two damage. Capital is taken over, you lose.

When I see a discussion of superior tactics and skills I will happily discuss them. However, mass scouts is not it.

 

[bjbrains]

That doesn't match with what I've seen in videos, not even close. A size 2 city does not have 9 strength, not even a size 2 capital has 9 strength.

Oops, it looks like a size 2 capital has 8 strength (With no garrison). A size 4 capital has 9 strength with no garrison. With a garrison, you're getting to the point where scouts won't be able to do enough damage to kill a city, especially since your scouts will be vulnerable to a ranged attack/counterattack for a turn before they can attack (since cities have a range of 2).

.
Still, by 44 turns, I should have a warrior garrisoning, especially if I see a nearby human. And you've sacrificed all your growth/economy for this, so good luck if it fails.

 

[bjbrains]

Hmmm. You've underestimated the strength of the capital slightly, but thats no big deal. What I do question is your ability to move all your units into position around a city and then charging in quickly from all the various sides without the defender noticing before hand (and buying a warrior, or quickly building one). You need to do this in order to minimise the amount of time the city will be shooting at you for.

However, I would not rule this straight out. Might just work. But if it does it will feel dirty and horrible and would be patched out quite soon I imagine. Still, could work...

Don't forget the issue of positioning: In multiplayer, I am going to be scouting out any players close enough to rush me. If I see a horde of scouts, I'm going to immediately build some extra military. Remember that his calc does not include the impact a single garrisoning warrior would have, not to mention what would happen if he got a scout caught on open terrain by a warrior (Instant death or close to it). Also, you can't hide units any more. Any player who comes past your capital and sees 3 scouts hanging around, and no workers is going to get suspicious. And again. If the rush fails, the player who attempted it is completely sunk. He's been pumping into production and not food/gold. He's been skipping a worker, and not exploring as much as he could since he wants his scouts available. It's far too conditional and easy to counter to be a viable strategy, if it could ever work.

 

[cccv]

His turtle archers strategy is no match to the amphibious elephants strategy.

Please God, don't let "turtle archers" be the next asinine CFC in-joke that the devs turn into a real asinine unit =/

 

[bhavv]

lol England = Bad, lol.

(Longbowmen are easily one of the strongest units in the games, most powerful ranged unit, 3 range. The bonus Naval movement also applies to embarked units).

 

[TheMystic]

As someone that played the media built pretty extensively before writing my preview I can comment on some stuff here.

I tried using a scout once to finish capturing a city since all my other melee were killed and all that was left was a scout and my ranged, and even though the city had been worn completely down the scout died while attacking the city. Thinking back to that game I really question if scouts are even capable of even capturing a city unless it's by pure luck. Even with a great general nearby they'll only do 1 damage at best, and can even die while they're attempting to attack. See next paragraph for more details on how this happens.

Cities automatically attack first when they are attacked by melee, and can do some pretty nasty damage. Only ranged can get away with pegging cities from a distance without retaliation (unless the single player controlled city attack is used on them that turn). If you surround and attack with multiple melee units, expect to see the city attack each of them first.

I can confirm that only melee units benefit from flanking bonuses because I remember trying to study the bonuses as I played and noticing that ranged never really received it. Melee attacking ranged can get the flank, whereas ranged never can on melee. This goes for melee horse units as well, and of course muskets / rifles / etc. Anything that attacks spaces immediately next to them essentially.

HP does reduce effectiveness yes, this is why sometimes it's best to use the insta-heal promotion and continue with your push instead of pulling back and healing up. The exception is the Japanese, they always fight at full strength, and this is why Bushido is so powerful.

Finally, last point I'm going to make before heading off to dinner is that yes, courthouses only apply to annexed cities. You will never build a courthouse in a normal city because it simply isn't an option. If you want extra happiness, you're going to have to go about gaining it with the designated happiness related buildings, resources, policies, etc.

 

[Meneer Popken]

The scouts could simply fan out as soon as they're built and only return to my capital by the time the last one is finished or even organize to meet at the enemy capital. Then only buying a unit would be an option, which is somewhat expensive, the enemy should have just enough money to buy one more warrior.

I don't think a warrior is a great threat to a scout, a scout can move faster over much of the terrain, so to avoid being caught out you simply lumber through the hills and the woods. A warrior is more likely to be walking on plains/grassland, which means if it gets caught by a scout it will suffer a big penalty, and if there is a hill or some fellow scouts nearby the advantage lies squarely with the scout.

The lack of exploring I disagree with, all you have to do is remember that the first scout can go about 14 turns/28 tiles in the wrong direction before it has to head back, and each successive scout a bit less. I think with all the scouts going different directions and then returning I could explore far more than a single scout could.

The lack of growth, science and gold is of course true. Gold is partially compensated by improved exploring, the other stuff means a swift end for the attacker, unless the attacker switches plans and uses the scouts to harass instead of taking out the capital. The scouts should be able to destroy any military unit outside the capital and then keep harassing the enemy until the attacker has switched his economy around, but the lack of science might be impossible to overcome.