Honestly, against longbows, I think I would rather just continue to use catapults and city raider axes for offense when sacking cities, over the muskets, if knights weren't already on the path to muskets. I generally already have a small stack of city raider III, high strength axes by then anyway that never die vs. longbows.
Musketeer Rush
- Thread starter aelf
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You can't upgrade axe raiders to muskets. That's why I would rather use axes/swords, so I'd have more raider grenadiers, which should be comming up next anyway.
I don't think you can upgrade anything at all to muskets, but don't quote me on that part.
I don't think you can upgrade anything at all to muskets, but don't quote me on that part.
aelf
Ashen One
You're ignoring what I said about the shortest path to Gunpowder and the fact that Musketeers give you the speed needed to choose where to attack with a concentrated force. No doubt cats with traditional city raiders take cities best, but consider - what if you send stacks of Musketeers to one side and those conventional armies to another? Once your city raiders have drawn enemy fire on that side, the Musketeers waltz in and overwhelm cities on the other, or vice versa.
While I am interested in hearing more about the unorthodox strat of rushing straight to Musketeers and bulding them almost exclusively, my style (as I've also said) leans towards a more balanced approach. Still, I'd bypass Guilds and get Gunpowder first since Musketeers are more versatile than knights anyway.
Well, I just finished that particular game. Although my Musketeer rush didn't work out the way it was meant to be, it was the best game I've had so far on Emperor - a diplomatic win in 1816 with more than 35% of world land and pop.
While I am interested in hearing more about the unorthodox strat of rushing straight to Musketeers and bulding them almost exclusively, my style (as I've also said) leans towards a more balanced approach. Still, I'd bypass Guilds and get Gunpowder first since Musketeers are more versatile than knights anyway.
Well, I just finished that particular game. Although my Musketeer rush didn't work out the way it was meant to be, it was the best game I've had so far on Emperor - a diplomatic win in 1816 with more than 35% of world land and pop.
lol, you're right. I think everyone ignored the education path to muskets. I probably take the "south path" mainly because I want quick forges. Seems like a waste to take a different path, since they are so cheap to build for Napolean. I'll try a game tonight after work going through Education.
I'm not really sure if a musketeer rush is possible on longer game settings, or even necessary.
My first gunpowder force is usually all musketeers who I send against an AI who is not all that powerful, usually because I've already attacked them once with axes.... Alot of the arguments against musketeers are done on the basis of assuming 1:1 odds. Hopefully not every AI is on 1:1 odds with you. If you get to musketeers early enough you can pick on someone languishing in the dark ages and use their speed and drafting to overwhelm them quickly. No need to rush them to take out the strongest AI, just maintain good diplomatic relations with them until you have riflemen. Perhaps you could just use macemen if all you are doing is picking on a weak AI, but I like to use the unique unit.
On higher difficulties, I don't really think it's possible to wage your first war with musketeers, since you'll let the other civs get too far in front.
Education path is not really that much of a waste for napoleon, since it does open up more wonders than the guilds path, and you can eventually go back and get the tech for forges, or just trade for them.
My first gunpowder force is usually all musketeers who I send against an AI who is not all that powerful, usually because I've already attacked them once with axes.... Alot of the arguments against musketeers are done on the basis of assuming 1:1 odds. Hopefully not every AI is on 1:1 odds with you. If you get to musketeers early enough you can pick on someone languishing in the dark ages and use their speed and drafting to overwhelm them quickly. No need to rush them to take out the strongest AI, just maintain good diplomatic relations with them until you have riflemen. Perhaps you could just use macemen if all you are doing is picking on a weak AI, but I like to use the unique unit.
On higher difficulties, I don't really think it's possible to wage your first war with musketeers, since you'll let the other civs get too far in front.
Education path is not really that much of a waste for napoleon, since it does open up more wonders than the guilds path, and you can eventually go back and get the tech for forges, or just trade for them.
I just went the Education path in an Epic, Continents Emperor game and it didn't go so well. Before I go on, I will readily admit I wasn't giving much thought to the game and played poorly. I had peaceful neighbors, so I just hunkered down with 6 cities, laid down a bunch of cottages, spread my religion, and went for the quickest reasearching I could. Hey, I was watching the news and eating dinner, so sue me. 
I did an Oracle->Theology to speed up the process, and also sidelined up to build the Great Library, but pretty much went straight for Gunpowder. I was able to use Theology to trade for stuff like Currency and Calendar, but nobody would give up Metal Casing, so I had to nab that myself. I was easily the first to get Paper, but I didn't trade it, so other than Theology I never really had any good techs to trade.
It was going smoothly enough until I hit Education, which at that point was like hitting a wall as far as research time. I was still missing civil service, code of laws, construction and really just a whole bunch of techs that would have made things run more smoothly, but Education was a monster to research first. I used a great scientist to help it along (courtesy of great library), and once I had it I didn't trade this either, and pretty much every civ on both continents was demanding it by then. All the AI's caught up at this point, with the worldwide trading kicking in, and even though I had education first, someone discovered Liberalism before I finished gunpowder.
At any rate. I finally got my muskets (without catapults), collected around 15 and went to war. I had to whip them out, or at this point they would have taken just about as long to produce them as it would have taken just to backfill the techs for and also to research chemistry (where I would normally set 0% research and upgrade my existing raider III axe/sword/maces).
I was only able to take 3 cities before everyone else had gunpowder, and at that point I was falling quickly behind in techs and everyone hated me, due to religion (was using the theocracy exp bonus) and refusing demands for paper/education, so I just quit.
I'm gonna try another one and put some effort into it, and stay up all night!
I did an Oracle->Theology to speed up the process, and also sidelined up to build the Great Library, but pretty much went straight for Gunpowder. I was able to use Theology to trade for stuff like Currency and Calendar, but nobody would give up Metal Casing, so I had to nab that myself. I was easily the first to get Paper, but I didn't trade it, so other than Theology I never really had any good techs to trade.
It was going smoothly enough until I hit Education, which at that point was like hitting a wall as far as research time. I was still missing civil service, code of laws, construction and really just a whole bunch of techs that would have made things run more smoothly, but Education was a monster to research first. I used a great scientist to help it along (courtesy of great library), and once I had it I didn't trade this either, and pretty much every civ on both continents was demanding it by then. All the AI's caught up at this point, with the worldwide trading kicking in, and even though I had education first, someone discovered Liberalism before I finished gunpowder.
At any rate. I finally got my muskets (without catapults), collected around 15 and went to war. I had to whip them out, or at this point they would have taken just about as long to produce them as it would have taken just to backfill the techs for and also to research chemistry (where I would normally set 0% research and upgrade my existing raider III axe/sword/maces).
I was only able to take 3 cities before everyone else had gunpowder, and at that point I was falling quickly behind in techs and everyone hated me, due to religion (was using the theocracy exp bonus) and refusing demands for paper/education, so I just quit.
I'm gonna try another one and put some effort into it, and stay up all night!
I think it's impossible to do a musketeer rush on the higher difficulty levels, due to the importance of early war.
Usually I have used a warrior/axemen war to help slingshot my research efforts. This also slows down the AI target. If I can keep my neighbour fairly poor I can usually conquer them quickly with musketeers. By then I might have 14 cities, and are able to wait till riflemen before looking at attacking the next civ.
Usually I have used a warrior/axemen war to help slingshot my research efforts. This also slows down the AI target. If I can keep my neighbour fairly poor I can usually conquer them quickly with musketeers. By then I might have 14 cities, and are able to wait till riflemen before looking at attacking the next civ.
Dropped down to Monarch to make a rush work, and also so I can be lazy.
I've got another way to Paper that I just did that's better than through Theology. Skip Masonry/Monotheism and go Oracle->Code of Laws, then use Prophet for Civil Service. I'm still thinking Great Library to help spawn a Scientist to help with Education. Also if possible I'm going to shoot for another city with a forge specialist + Hanging Gardens to get an Engineer and maybe help with Gunpowder.
I've got another way to Paper that I just did that's better than through Theology. Skip Masonry/Monotheism and go Oracle->Code of Laws, then use Prophet for Civil Service. I'm still thinking Great Library to help spawn a Scientist to help with Education. Also if possible I'm going to shoot for another city with a forge specialist + Hanging Gardens to get an Engineer and maybe help with Gunpowder.
aelf
Ashen One
Yes, I think a CoL/CS slingshot is a better way to approach Education. Forges are good, but you don't need them in high production cities to be building Musketeers at the rate of 1 every 4 or 5 turns. You should ideally have 3 cities or more that can do this or better (esp. Heroic Epic city). I'd rather push my advantage and keep the forges for later if I have to choose.
This route allows you to balance your economy with courthouses at least, and you may be able to trade for Currency and Metal Casting with CoL or CS. Anyway, I don't think Musketeer rushing means you don't war early on. And Joh made a good point about not assuming a 1:1 odds with the AI you are rushing. Put a little more Sun Tzu into the math and one will do well.
If you are having problems researching Education, it means you haven't balanced your economy after the early wars or you simply do not have enough cities and population (i.e. you haven't been warring). I usually spend most of my medieval times consolidating the territory gained from eliminating one neighbour with axes and swords. That's when I build monasteries (for culture), markets and courthouses. This puts me in good position for another major campaign when Gunpowder comes. More importantly, however, this provides me the strong economy to research Gunpowder asap in the first place.
Anyway, conquering both Gandhi and Hatty made me think how I could maximise the use of 5 shrines. It seems to me that any more than 2 is superfluous. Ah, the dilemma of a conqueror!
This route allows you to balance your economy with courthouses at least, and you may be able to trade for Currency and Metal Casting with CoL or CS. Anyway, I don't think Musketeer rushing means you don't war early on. And Joh made a good point about not assuming a 1:1 odds with the AI you are rushing. Put a little more Sun Tzu into the math and one will do well.
If you are having problems researching Education, it means you haven't balanced your economy after the early wars or you simply do not have enough cities and population (i.e. you haven't been warring). I usually spend most of my medieval times consolidating the territory gained from eliminating one neighbour with axes and swords. That's when I build monasteries (for culture), markets and courthouses. This puts me in good position for another major campaign when Gunpowder comes. More importantly, however, this provides me the strong economy to research Gunpowder asap in the first place.
Anyway, conquering both Gandhi and Hatty made me think how I could maximise the use of 5 shrines. It seems to me that any more than 2 is superfluous. Ah, the dilemma of a conqueror!
aelf said:
The fact that I was rushing straight to it is what caused the balance to be off. Populations were still low, and not having Monarchy yet was a big factor I think. I believe I was stuck at size 7 from just 2 temples per city for happiness. If you do more balanced research, you wind up with a lot more tech trades, as opposed to going straight to Paper for a relatively large number of turns, which you don't really want to give up.
Lord Chambers
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If you don't research masonry then the prophet cannot give you monotheism, meaning as long as you have priesthood, polytheism, meditation, and code of laws, you can spend him to partially reveal civil service.pi-r8 said:
Compared to the medieval troops that come just before them on the tech tree, Musketeers are generalist units which is both their advantage (in that nothing gets a specific counter bonus against them) and their disadvantage (because they don't get a bonus against anything either and can't get city raider.)
I personally find stacks based around maces/catapults for city taking with the appropriate support can be obtained earlier and do better on the offence mainly because of City Raider. However I will say that Napoleonic musketeers promoted with Formation are the best support units in the game for this, I basically use them as a replacement for knights since they have 2 move which is good for killing roaming enemy units and they can't be easily picked off by pikes or knights.
I personally find stacks based around maces/catapults for city taking with the appropriate support can be obtained earlier and do better on the offence mainly because of City Raider. However I will say that Napoleonic musketeers promoted with Formation are the best support units in the game for this, I basically use them as a replacement for knights since they have 2 move which is good for killing roaming enemy units and they can't be easily picked off by pikes or knights.
buh wah ha ha ha ha ha! I finally got this strategy to work. I built the pyramids, then built the oracle and used it to get machinery, and built forges everywhere. Then used my great engineer from the pyramids to get guilds, and another great engineer from a forge to get gunpowder (mostly). I got gunpowder around 500 AD, and most other civs are still using archers! (this is on prince level)
It's very amusing to walk over an enemy captial without even bothering with siege units.
It's very amusing to walk over an enemy captial without even bothering with siege units.
aelf
Ashen One
Oggums said:
Yes, happiness is one thing you can't help. But you can perhaps remedy it by conquering a neighbour or two and grabbing their early happiness resources. Getting to Education with the CoL/CS slingshot will allow you to improve your economy, so don't worry much about that. You may even be able to trade for Calendar or Monarchy with CoL to help with happiness. In fact, I'd trade CS to get me techs like Construction and Currency if possible.
uberfish, you're right in that I still use my veteran city raider stack and cats to capture cities, but they (the raiders) are so experienced by then that I always ensure I don't lose any. I will be spamming Musketeers since they are so mobile, can take hits and are expendable. It's easier to focus on building one type of unit. You don't need to balance the numbers and you'll probably get a plentiful supply of it.
I think musketmen come at a bad time for me.
I war like hell with axes and maces, and by the time musketmen/musketeers come around, my empire can't sustain any more wars. I always seem to enter a big building period after macemen... where I'm getting my newly captured cities up to scratch, and concentration on getting the techs for grenadiers and riflemen.
If I wanted to war with muskets, I'd have to sacrifice either my macemen wars, or my grenadier/riflemen wars....... and thats not something I'm willing to do.
I war like hell with axes and maces, and by the time musketmen/musketeers come around, my empire can't sustain any more wars. I always seem to enter a big building period after macemen... where I'm getting my newly captured cities up to scratch, and concentration on getting the techs for grenadiers and riflemen.
If I wanted to war with muskets, I'd have to sacrifice either my macemen wars, or my grenadier/riflemen wars....... and thats not something I'm willing to do.
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