Musketeer Rush

[Not.Bad]

Re cavalry and musketeers:

Musketeers make a good escort for cavalry. They are cheap, and so can bulk up the force, and move as fast as the cavalry. They also are good for protection against pikemen. They heal much faster too, so are good for taking out weak troops that would go down, but hurt your cavalry in the process. What you can do is build a force of musketeers, go on a pillaging spree, and as soon as you get cavalry bring them in for a knockout punch. You can't go on a pillaging spree with grenadiers which is why I like the musketeer/cavalry combo. Even if you can't take a city with musketeers you can do alot of damage because they're fast and so keep the enemy down so they can't get to riflemen.

You can of course just do the macemen thing but then you may as well be playing japan. The knockout unit for france is still grenadiers/cavalry, the musketeers just provide a dangerous pillaging unit that is a threat to smaller cities. Which is why I said this strategy is about a pillaging rush. The only medieval unit that can touch them are knights, so grab msuketeers o nthe way to cavalry, and isntead of wiating for cavalry or grandiers to attack, charge at their resources and smaller cities with the unique unit.

Re longbows:

Musketeers will beat fortified longbows unless those longbows are in a city on a hill. The key here is promotions. With agressive, barracks, and vassalage and theocracy, you will have level 3 straight away, and only 1 combat away from level 4. A musketeer with combat 1, 2 and cover, will get a +45% bonus against a longbowman, or strength 13 in other words. This is more than twice the longbow's base strength so you can see how the longbow will need to use a hill or some fancy promotions to beat the musketeer. Even if you go all general and take combat 3, you still have a strength of 12.

So, the moral of the story is, give your musketeers combat 1, 2, and then save the third promtion for just before you fight. You might need to promote them to cover, shock or whatever based on what you come across.

This is false, as someone kindly pointed out to me when I was trying to justify Conquistadors. The bonuses just cancel eachother out e.g. If two swordsman attack eachother, both with combat 1, it won't be 6.6 v.s. 6.6, it will be 6 v.s. 6. The combat 1's cancel each other out.

So the math actually works out like so:

Longbowman in a city with say 20% cultural bonus and city garrison 1.

6 Base attack
20% Cultural
25% Natural City Defence
20% City Garrison
1 First Strike

v.s.

Musketeer with combat 1, 2 and Cover.

9 Base attack
10% Combat 1
10% Combat 2
25% Cover

We are left with 6 x 20% for the lonbowman which is 7.2 v.s the Musketeers 9. The odds are not that good at all considering that doesn't factor in the first strike chance and that you can have 3 longbowman for every 2 Musketeers cost wise.

That's attacking in ideal circumstances, and ignoring things like higher cultural cities (easily 60% at that time), garrison 2 promotions, on a hill etc.

The musketeers rush, I am convinced just doesn't work out. They make great pillagers and defenders for knights, that's it. Taking cities with them just isn't cost effective unless you take catapults, which defeats the purpose of having musketeers speed bonus all together. Certainly not worth the aggressive pursual.

I'm not talking wind here either, I've tried it, mostly on Monarch and while you do get a small window, the pay off is not worth it. Difficulties higher then this and you find the A.I's have gunpowder before you know it. Heck even the pillaging scheme, probably only works out because the AI is too stupid to handle it, because mathematically, knights beat musketeers, for a similar cost, but arrive earlier, which in A.I. terms means they've already cash uggraded all their chariots and horse archers already.

 

[pi-r8]

That's alot of deviation. If you don't have copper, stick with archers for early defense. Trade for hunting, and try your best to trade for archery.

It sounds like you were trying to actually build a civilization, which is where you will really get bogged down. If you let those cities grow in population, civic upkeep will crush you.

Every time a city grows, break out that whip for more settlers, workers, defenders, and barracks.

I think you were the one who posted this strategy originally, right? I remember you saying you could get them out by around 1 AD. Can you explain how it's possible to tech so fast when you have nothing but small cities without improvements?

 

[Araqiel]

Actually combat promotions work differently than others. They add the bonus to a units base strength. (at least according to the strength calculator in the game, but last I checked the combat FAQ's this was still the case)

All other promotions and bonuses are added up as positive and negative and then applied to the defender.

Why is this important? Because it means combat promotions are stronger the higher your base unit strength. So muskets come out better than your calculations say.

6 X 1.40 versus 9 X 1.20 which is 8.4 versus 10.8

 

[Older than Dirt]

I rarely build any musketmen, because Chemistry with grenadiers can be researched so soon thereafter. I hate paying the exhorbitant upgrade costs. The few musketmen that I have built usually wind up doing guard duty that could be done as well by a longbowman or even an archer.

 

[Araqiel]

I rarely build any musketmen, because Chemistry with grenadiers can be researched so soon thereafter. I hate paying the exhorbitant upgrade costs. The few musketmen that I have built usually wind up doing guard duty that could be done as well by a longbowman or even an archer.

I hardly ever build muskets either. But I play on normal speed and very rarely play as either French leader. If I played a slower speed or used Napoleon I'd use them more. Two move infantry would be very useful if you set your tech path to get gunpowder early.

 

[Not.Bad]

Actually combat promotions work differently than others. They add the bonus to a units base strength. (at least according to the strength calculator in the game, but last I checked the combat FAQ's this was still the case)

All other promotions and bonuses are added up as positive and negative and then applied to the defender.

Why is this important? Because it means combat promotions are stronger the higher your base unit strength. So muskets come out better than your calculations say.

6 X 1.40 versus 9 X 1.20 which is 8.4 versus 10.8

Learn something new everyday, still the difference is marginal.

The diffence of attack with my calculations was 1.8, your's is 2.4.

.6 of a difference all together, and again it's ignoring hill bonuses, garrison 2 bonuses, higher cultural defence, catapult spam etc. etc.

Also, when attacking, the defender gets best odds, and the PC will likely have knights stationed in his town, meaning you are going to have to divide your promotions a bit. So if your cover promoted musket attacks, it will get taken out by the knight (13.75 v.s 10.8) or if your formation promoted musket attacks, it will face off against the knight again (11 vs. 10.4) then have to face against the longbowman (9.90 v.s 10.4). Overall, bad odds all around.

Even taking out key resources is difficult. A knight or longbowman covering any resource on a hill is decently defended. Flat land, is better with a knight over a longbowman though.

Now this is of course ignoring the stupid A.I, who just won't have the competence to properly promote units and defend tiles, but then the whole argument is moot, because if you are clever enough, you could tackle the A.I with a different stack all together, equally as succesful.

 

[Araqiel]

Learn something new everyday, still the difference is marginal.

The diffence of attack with my calculations was 1.8, your's is 2.4.

.6 of a difference all together, and again it's ignoring hill bonuses, garrison 2 bonuses, higher cultural defence etc. etc.

Remember though that its the ratio of your strengths that seems to matter. Regardless I used one of the handy combat calculators that people have developed.

In the situation you described, accounting for the longbows first strike, the musket will win 71% of the time. In the end the difference due to how combat promotions are handled is only about 1%.

Not great but the muskets are still winning. Many cities will have more defensive bonuses that will make Longbows the favorites of course. Thats why you should have some seige train even if you're using Muskeeters to zoom across your enemies territory.

 

[Not.Bad]

Remember though that its the ratio of your strengths that seems to matter. Regardless I used one of the handy combat calculators that people have developed.

In the situation you described, accounting for the longbows first strike, the musket will win 71% of the time. In the end the difference due to how combat promotions are handled is only about 1%.

Not great but the muskets are still winning. Many cities will have more defensive bonuses that will make Longbows the favorites of course. Thats why you should have some seige train even if you're using Muskeeters to zoom across your enemies territory.

I feel silly bringing up these points, because I think you are already well aware of them, but playing the devil's advocate. Basically though, what reason would there be to pre advance your muskets, only to have to wait for your siege to come in? It's just more time for your enemy to prepare.

71% odds are terrible for any war going to last more then a few turns. By all descriptions of this strategy, the state of your economy isn't super. A few dicey rolls and you have war weariness rearing it's ugly head awfully fast, destroying whatever backbone your fragile economy is running on as is.

All I am saving is, it's just more efficient, more sound, to tech more gradually, and use a more combined arms, 1 movement approach, that is well planned, then to gun ho to gunpowder all for the desperate sake of trying to give some value to a sub par UU, which can blow up in your face.

The reason 2 movement strategies work for units like cavalry in sieging towns, is because of the way the computer prioritises techs (rifling is less aggressively researched then gunpowder, they will come, but usually when they do, it's just to late) and the overwhelming number odds it gives you. You don't get this with muskets.

 

[Oggums]

I haven't seen any compelling argument against taking that next little step for Grenadiers. You're already there, so why not just go for the money shot?

 

[Araqiel]

I jumped into the thread only to correct the error I saw in your post regarding combat odds. I personally have never tried to use muskets or muskeeters in this way. I've rushed to Cavalry and Grenadiers in more conventional fashion. I too prefer a more balanced approach as you've termed it.

71% odds isn't bad in my opinion though. If you're not using seige weaponry to reduce city bonus then you're going to lose some units taking cities. I personally play on Prince/Monarch at normal speed and I don't find that war weariness is that bad if you're wining 7 out of ten fights while taking your opponents land from them.

 

[aelf]

But the fact is even on Emperor Musketeers don't have such a small window as to be ineffective, as I've said. It all depends again on your research path. Given that you need a more balanced research as a regular player, you can still arrive at Gunpowder before the AI and even before the AI gets Guilds (who says Guilds always come before Gunpowder? In my last game I was first to get Guilds after Gunpowder while the AI goes haring after Liberalism). Even if they have knights, I have Musketeers who can get Formation immediately. This will counter even knights with Pinch as I still have an extra Combat II, not to mention defensive bonuses (which knights can't get). If capitalize on them once you get several of them, Musketeers can leave your enemy dreaming of grenadiers that will never come.

I concede I play on Epic, not Normal. But in Marathon they'll be even more useful. I really appreciate mobile infantry (that gets the Aggressive bonus). They're like the Prussians in the Six Weeks' War against slow-moving Austrians (i.e. enemy muskets), if you want some illustration (though not a corresponding one) in real terms. Even if it often has to move in step with siege units, I still have the option to pillage along the way or pick out enemy units beside my stack.

If you're saying the use of Musketeers is reliant on AI stupidity, consider the fact that in MP you can beeline to Gunpowder much more effectively as you don't have to contend with faster-researching enemies. And the fact that Napoleon is Agressive will help you in early wars so that you have the means to get there fast and to pillage whoever is cottage spamming to out-tech you.

Paeanblack, I know you've written some sort of a guide for your Musketeer rush strat. But can you provide a more detailed write up with (as much as possible) a step-by-step account on how exactly you arrive there w/o deviating at all? Thanks a lot!

 

[Araqiel]

I haven't seen any compelling argument against taking that next little step for Grenadiers. You're already there, so why not just go for the money shot?

Depending on your opponents military strength and tech level I can envision sitituations where you will not need the stength 12 grenadiers to win. In which case you might as well shore up your other tech deffiencies (which you have due to the bee-lining necessary for this strategy) rather than go for chemistry.

Personally I think this sort of situation will only come up on lesser difficulty levels, or against weak opponents whom you could just beat to death with maces.

 

[aelf]

I haven't seen any compelling argument against taking that next little step for Grenadiers. You're already there, so why not just go for the money shot?

Because Chemistry can actually be quite expensive to research and you can get at least 10 Musketeers with which to pummel the enemy 10 turns earlier even if you go straight for it. Not to mention you have to wait for the grenadiers to be built and to arrive at the war front. Besides, with Musketeers I can forgo Chemistry and shoot for MT. Watch the eventual enemy grenadiers die to cavalry.

 

[Araqiel]

Because Chemistry can actually be quite expensive to research and you can get at least 10 Musketeers with which to pummel the enemy 10 turns earlier even if you go straight for it. Not to mention you have to wait for the grenadiers to be built and to arrive at the war front. Besides, with Musketeers I can forgo Chemistry and shoot for MT. Watch the eventual enemy grenadiers die to cavalry.

Their ability to compliment cavalry is the only strong reason I've heard for the use of musketeers.

You know what I'm going to fire up a game with Napoleon so I can experiment myself.

 

[aelf]

Their ability to compliment cavalry is the only strong reason I've heard for the use of musketeers.

You know what I'm going to fire up a game with Napoleon so I can experiment myself.

I think they come in handy with large empires and distant war fronts too, which is essentially what I've been trying to say a few times. Forget your grenadiers being able to get there before many Musketeers do.

 

[Oggums]

I've played Napolean a few times, and I'd still rather use Knights for offense, with Musketeers used for quickly filling in on defensive duty. I don't usually get more than a few muskets before grenadiers come in. Chemistry isn't much more expensive than muskets to research, so I just don't see why you should stop.

 

[Not.Bad]

But the fact is even on Emperor Musketeers don't have such a small window as to be ineffective, as I've said. It all depends again on your research path. Given that you need a more balanced research as a regular player, you can still arrive at Gunpowder before the AI and even before the AI gets Guilds (who says Guilds always come before Gunpowder? In my last game I was first to get Guilds after Gunpowder while the AI goes haring after Liberalism). Even if they have knights, I have Musketeers who can get Formation immediately. This will counter even knights with Pinch as I still have an extra Combat II, not to mention defensive bonuses (which knights can't get). If capitalize on them once you get several of them, Musketeers can leave your enemy dreaming of grenadiers that will never come.

My argument is that there really IS no effective window for musketeers specifically that any other aggressive civ could do. Hammer for hammer, I I think 3 longbowman can beat 2 muskets, can be replaced faster (your in their territory, speed 2 or not) and the odds aren't astoundingly incredible. As I said, the A.I. is too stupid to recognise this ratio, and won't build accordingly. A human (since you brought up MP) won't be. They don't need Grenadiers, when they can just build 3 longbowmen for every 2 muskets you have. This is against towns with only 20% culture bonus and not on a hill and ignores catapults.

I concede I play on Epic, not Normal. But in Marathon they'll be even more useful. I really appreciate mobile infantry (that gets the Aggressive bonus). They're like the Prussians in the Six Weeks' War against slow-moving Austrians (i.e. enemy muskets), if you want some illustration (though not a corresponding one) in real terms. Even if it often has to move in step with siege units, I still have the option to pillage along the way or pick out enemy units beside my stack.

Epic does make a huge difference, do you increase your map size as well? If so, it kinda balances out (tech window is bigger, but it takes longer to get there). If not, and playing on a normal sized map, my stance still stands that you can take ANY tech lead and plow through the A.I. It's nothing special to musketeers.

If you're saying the use of Musketeers is reliant on AI stupidity, consider the fact that in MP you can beeline to Gunpowder much more effectively as you don't have to contend with faster-researching enemies. And the fact that Napoleon is Agressive will help you in early wars so that you have the means to get there fast and to pillage whoever is cottage spamming to out-tech you.

It is, the A.I doesn't react to death stacks well at all, a human does. A human will be able to better match a large stack of musketeers then a A.I. I've seen the A.I move troops OUT of their town, on a incoming attack.

I can take any stack, with proper scouting and blitz & hold a few taken towns, but if I want to crush my opponent, without ruining myself, I will bring catapults to levy out the odds, which nulls any two movement advantage for anything other then pillaging (which I've said, musketeers are good at) and any aggresive civ can do this, it doesn't have to be Napoleon.

When thinking about it, this could be a product of my playstyle, I can admit that. When I start a war, I usually plan to finish it, because too often I've run into trouble from left over angry civs attacking me just at the wrong time, so I don't usually pillage the land, because I plan to own it pretty soon. I recognise that the point of most mounted units are not for sieging, and more for open field combat and pillaging. So I can recognise that if you don't plan to take a civ over completly (because of say economy reasons, practicality) it would certainly be better to send an advance group of musketeers, over say knights to pillage the backlines while advancing a atack of pults and maces/grenadiers. Then as you capture towns, your pillagers can move in as defenders, allowing you a much faster advance.

 

[Lord Chambers]

You can't really use Musketeers to escort Calvalry because if your stack is attacked the Calvarly will defend.

 

[Xerol]

While the odds may be 71% on a unit-to-unit basis, someone pointed out that the longbows are also 2/3 as expensive, which basically wipes out that advantage right there - taking 100 muskets, and 100 muskets worth of longbows (150) and a 71% winning rate means you've got 71 muskets left, most probably not at full strength, facing 79 longbows (of which 50 are still at full strength) on the next turn.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that you can't boil a situation down to a number, and really, everything is situational.

 

[pi-r8]

While the odds may be 71% on a unit-to-unit basis, someone pointed out that the longbows are also 2/3 as expensive, which basically wipes out that advantage right there - taking 100 muskets, and 100 muskets worth of longbows (150) and a 71% winning rate means you've got 71 muskets left, most probably not at full strength, facing 79 longbows (of which 50 are still at full strength) on the next turn.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that you can't boil a situation down to a number, and really, everything is situational.

That's really not how warfare works though. It's more like a large stack of muskets facing a few scattered groups of 3 longbowmen. Attacking 3 longbowmen with, say, 10 muskets, it's very unlikely that you'd lose more than 2. There's a good chance you'd lose only 1, or even none, and the winners would promote and become stronger.

That being said, cities on hills are a problem. But then, they always are.