Musketeer Rush

[Joh]

No need to avoid war with riflemen, as long as you build up enough during medieval, you can do both a musketeer and riflemen war.

Thing is to start early enough. I will start war in the ancient era, do a limited war in classical, then build it up during medieval.

 

[aelf]

Well, no word yet from Paeanblack. Basically, the big unresolved question I have about the Musketeer rush strat can be distilled to a few simple ones:

- First, for clarification, what are your typical game settings?

- How many cities do you typically have and at what size limit do you keep them? For example, do you have a capital at 4 population and roughly X number other cities at 2 population each?

- Do you conquer a lot of enemy cities early on or build most of them yourself?

- How do you research the more expensive techs with such a limited economy? I read that you would cottage spam early on, but you can't work those cottages with small cities, right?

- Do you trade any tech to the AI at all, and if you do up to which tech?

- Typically, what's the most advanced AI unit do you encounter when you are cranking out Musketeers?

Paeanblack, if you're reading this, I'd appreciate your guidance very much

 

[jimbob27]

No need to avoid war with riflemen, as long as you build up enough during medieval, you can do both a musketeer and riflemen war.

Thing is to start early enough. I will start war in the ancient era, do a limited war in classical, then build it up during medieval.

Thats the thing though. I see the medieval peroid as being one of my most potent city capturing phases. During this time I always wage a huge war against the strongest opponent I can. I just don't think its efficient to build my economy up during the medieval. Much better to gain cities with all the potent units of that era, and build my economy when the decidely average musketmen come around.

 

[pi-r8]

Thats the thing though. I see the medieval peroid as being one of my most potent city capturing phases. During this time I always wage a huge war against the strongest opponent I can. I just don't think its efficient to build my economy up during the medieval. Much better to gain cities with all the potent units of that era, and build my economy when the decidely average musketmen come around.

Sure, there's no question that midieval wars can be effective. Still, you really should give it a chance the other way. Just capture some cities early on with swordsmen/axemen, which will slow your economy down. Then spend your midieval period building markets, grocers, and courthouses everywhere. After that, you can pretty much go to war nonstop, as long as you can handel the WW.

 

[aelf]

Just one last bump before this thread goes to oblivion, just in case some person who can answer my questions might read them.

 

[aelf]

Well, although I've played as Napoleon too many times by now, I decided to try the Musketeer rush via a CS slingshot then Paper, Education and Gunpowder a.s.a.p. I did this strat with the intention of building an empire properly (not whipping all my citizens but putting in some effort to build an economy), and was quite liberal where I thought appropriate to reserach something to along the path to Gunpowder for long-term benefit. This usually happens when I need like 52 turns to research the next tech along the path, which I think is senseless to try.

Here's a summary of the game up to height of my Musketeer war:

Being Industrious really helps with the CS slingshot as it allows me to chop for both Stonehenge and Oracle with no risk of failing.

The Oracle obviously grabs CoL, and Stonehenge helps with early culture so my second city can quickly concentrate on building military. Both of them produce GPP towards a prophet, helping me research CS extra early.

I had to wait a while for the GP to arrive, and I spent the time researching Pottery and Alphabet (got AH earlier as my link to Writing). But I couldn't finish Alphabet first and I just had to switch to CS once Moses is born. Bureaucracy is too tempting.

Of course, I must then go for my first axe war.

The plan is to take Nottingham first, as I plan to sweep the English empire from the outermost point I want to conquer down and west towards my territory. Nottingham is on a hill and London has quite a few archers. It's going to be challenge, but once those fall the English will be doomed. The plan worked.

Anyway, fast forward a little, my 2nd GP went to Orleans to establish the Kong Miao.

Yes, that's 30 turns to Education. Earlier it was 52 turns. I decided to research Currency first since I am losing double the money at 100% than I make at 0%. War booty helped with that. Once I got Currency, though, I was ready to go for Education with a few marketplaces and shrine income. I traded my techs up to CS to catch up in the paths I haven't been pursuing. Quite necessary for the long run, I think. Anyway, fast forward again...

Yep, that's Gunpowder being researched during what is supposed to be the Dark Ages. I don't know if this isn't fast enough a rush.

I haven't been fighting any wars since my 2nd axe war to raze one English town west of my empire. I hunkered down, consolidated my territory and improved the economy. I think 7 cities way before 1000 AD were enough, and I am counting on Musketeers for further expansion. The map's a mess, though, with Alex and Monty whom I've been keeping friendly, boxing me in noth toward the eastern side. The only easy outlet is to the north on the western side, into Washington's lands, but notice the holy city of Pharsalos standing in the way.

My first Musketeer, built the traditional way in Paris. Now I am researching Philosophy to get at Liberalism. The Musketeers went on to raze Philadelphia, shocking the world with their (comparatively) advanced weaponry. Something like Guernica maybe.

Pharsalos appeared to be too juicy a target to ignore. It's been nice knowing you, Alex, but it's time you get a whiff of grapeshot - I mean, of gunpowder. I switched to Nationalism (yup, Lineralism gave me the tech Nationalism) to draft some more Musketeers and seized the chance when Alex was busy fighting a bloody war with Washington.

Then it was Delphi's turn to be razed. It had too many deserts and peaks, even though it also had copper and corn. It was also going to be overwhelmed by Washington's culture. I will build a city of my own one tile north, closer to Washington after I conquer the latter. Anyway, the battle soon came to Athens' doorstep.

That's right, NO catapults whatsoever. I decided I could dispense with my city raider axes. Don't really need them anymore since I am focusing on Musketeers and, soon, cavalry. Maybe I could upgrade them to grenadiers later, but the cost put me off and I am not sure they are going to be able to keep pace with my fast-moving armies. So, anyway, the axes went to fight their way to Valhalla, paving the way for my Musketeers to parade down the streets of Athens.

So this is how the world looks like now:

9 cities so far, 0 catapults ever and a few turns away from MT, which will help me grab a few more. Maybe if I am strong enough I'll even take on Monty after turning him against Saladin. I think not a bad rush at all. The only worry I have is Saladin, who seems to have been able to expand like crazy since early on. It's very frustrating to have someone still larger than you at this point. I will really need to take care of him. Maybe I'll go for him first with my cavalries and with Monty's help and deal with the Aztecs later when they've become very backward compared to me. I could use a little advice at this point, and for that I am putting up my latest save.

My goal is to get ahead in territory and tech and win by space race. However, my GNP has dropped significantly from being the first earlier (switching to Nationalism from Bureaucracy no doubt had a lot to do with this). The good news is Saladin's isn't much better and Toku (the leader), being who he is, isn't likely going to out-tech me. The biggest challenge is to clean up the map and balance the power of the Monty and Saladin until I can defeat them successively. Of course, I must watch out for Hatty in the space race.

 

[aelf]

Any idea why some of my images get resized so badly? I tried reducing their size but it doesn't work.

 

[Oggums]

That's a nice musket rush, similar to what I was going for, but for the impressive fact that you've hit LIberalism first as well. Problem is, and I think it's really unavoidable, is that everyone else already has muskets too, by the time you've got your army of them.

My question now is whether one would have been in a better position at the same date, with a more typical approach. For example, if you had used catapults and swords to get more land sooner, rather than waiting on musketeers to push inland. If you look in the world builder at the tech tree, Saladin will surely have cavalry soon, and Alexander is working toward Rifling. You don't exactly have the supreme advantage that the musketeer-rush proponents would claim you should have, even though you did pull off an impressive start.

At this point I'd rather be looking at upgraded raider swords to grenadiers, rather than building up those muskets. Which is sort of the whole issue with muskets. Are they really in a place that makes it feasible to get a good use out of them? We could just be forcing the issue, just because they're there.

I don 't suppose you still have the 4000BC save? Would be interesting to play it going for the Oracle->Metal Casing route and see where I end up at the same date.

 

[aelf]

I still haven't figured out why my screens are resized. Something wrong with Photobucket. Anyway, should I move this to a new thread? This thread seems to be dead and there's no one else popping by to offer comments or anything.

I didn't quite encounter musketmen much to trouble my own Musketeers. And I guess like any rush on Emperor or above, the significant thing is to get enough numbers of them against worthy opponents rather than finding them actually a tech or two behind, not that it's not possible. In fact, that was what happened for my cavalry for the next few hundred years.

Continuing the game, I got MT and started to mass cavalry (well, maybe not a HORDE of them). The AIs took their time to get MT and my cavalry reigned for a long, long time. I mean seriously. It was cavalry vs. longbows until the last of Alex's city remained to be captured, only at which point rifles appeared.

Washington was the first to fall to them. Musketeers and cavalry ARE an excellent combo. They give you fast wars and more cities within a shorter period of time. I guess that's their advantage vs a normal catapult and city raider army. And with at most 2 or 3 losses per city captured in this game, they're quick to replace. Musketeers do the job alone pretty well too for a time.

After the Americans are no more, it's Alex's turn again.

After I finished off Alex, I started consolidating my empire and preparing for a war against the Aztecs. I am not bothering to keep any friends in this game. In the meantime, I got myself the Kremlin.

Anyway, fast forward (my main point was to show my Musketeer rush and by now it's over), I captured or razed Aztec cities near my territories with plenty of cannons and grenadiers. And this is what my continent looked like subsequently.

I got too lazy to fight anymore wars and the point of razing some of the Aztec cities was so that I didn't have to fight to keep them, and also to maintain my no 1. GNP in preparation for the space race ahead. If you play from the save I put up, you can choose to conquer the Aztec empire and then fight a bloody war with Saladin to claim domination. It's possible. I already had more than 30% of world land and population. I just can't be bothered with much more after my rush.

Unfortunately, bother did come to me in the end. Saladin finally conquered the Aztecs with tanks, no matter what techs I gave to the latter to help. And when I'm pulling ahead in the space race and about to win within 20 turns, both he and Tokugawa declared war on me. Tokugawa gave me a lot of problems with his battleships and kept sending huge raiding parties. My bribing Hatty to fight him (they've fought before) didn't stop him. God knows how many he would've sent if he wasn't fighting Hatty too. He managed to raze the city I captured from the Aztecs in the east below Thermopylae as most of my gunships and mech infantries were holed up north to deal with Saladin's massive modern armour army.

Each turn is taking me forever. But I'm now 10 turns away from winning the space race. The war can go on, I couldn't care less. My navy and army have eventually prevailed anyway. My spies haven't seen any real action. But the year is approaching 2000 and I'm anticipating a low score at the end. The tech pace seemed to have crawled. Maybe it's got to do with the many wars fought? It's either that or somehow rushing to Gunpowder does not promote faster research (maybe cause of late Alphabet and economic techs). Any thoughts on that?

Well, here's the 4000 BC save. I am still playing the game so it's still there. You can give it a shot and I'm certain you'll do better. The silver near Paris helped me a lot, so maybe we ought to try this in a game without precious metals nearby. But I don't think not using catapults to fight after the early axe wars made significant difference as I captured more than enough cities already without encumbering my economy and research until Gunpowder. You can try it your way, though. I am interested to know the results.

 

[Oggums]

Well, here's how my version went...

First of all, the bottom line is that we aren't really that far apart, except you probably have better researching in your save, while I have my Greek cities better off for having had them much longer. I'll probably be picking up quickly on techs after I get around to Universities. I didn't look, but I assume I'm generating more cash, which is really what I would be needing to upgrade raider grenadiers.

Here's the story part, skip to the screenshots if you don't care about this.

I also went for both Stonehenge and Oracle, then grabbed Metal Casing with it. The silver gave that a double bonus, giving me another happy face with the forge, and allowing for 2-3 turn axes in my two starting cities. I hit Alexander first, just because I hate him, then went after Elizabeth. I left her with a couple of cities, because she's one of the few leaders that will still happily trade techs after you jump her.

Great People use:
I researched Code of Laws the long way, then used my first Prophet to nab Civil Service. The second one popped out and for lack of a better use, I just stuck him in the capital as a super specialist. I put Colossus in London, which also had Pyramids and hindu shrine, then used prophets and engineer specialists there. Got a Merchant- added to London (I'm a lazy GP user), and a Engineer I'm sitting on to help with a wonder. I thinK I put some other wonder in there too, gotta love industrious.

After trimming back Alex and Lizzy, I built up infrastructure a bit, then had to attack Washington when I got around to Iron Working, because he already settled all the convenient iron. My diplomacy this game was mostly, "I refuse your demands", so I didn't get much tech trading in, aside from with Elizabeth. I never gave up my Civil Service or Metal Casing advantage, at any rate.

While I was at war with Washington, Monty and then Alex decided to dogpile me. This meant peace with Washington and playing on the defensive for a time, and mostly just constant pillaging missions against Monty. I was at it with him the whole game, leaving him quite backward. I didn't let him off the hook until Saladin started going after his cities with camels, at which point I decided to take him for what cash he had left.

Anyway, on to the screenshots...

1292 AD: I finally start researching Gunpowder. I had already been at war for a long time, with cats and axes, elephants, and knights. Consequently, I picked up Engineering first for the road movement and pikes, which is more useful when you're coming from the angle that muskets suck for raiding cities (see the further screenshots for why I'm in this camp).

1376 AD: My first Musketeers come out. Notice how easy it is at this point to just grab Grenadiers next, when you're not forcing the musket rush.

And now, a comparison between muskets vs. maces when used to roll over a backward civ (which is supposed to be the musketeers high point, or so I've read).

Would you rather have these odds?
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=127478&stc=1&d=1148255831

Or these?

That's not even against longbows, although it is on a hill. Seems like you'd have to waste an awful lot of hammers to use the no-cats speed advantage. I'd rather move slower, with minimal losses, and use those hammers to build something else. I'm not saying a musket rush isn't fun, just that a stack of raiders, with good support, seems more efficient.

 

[Mutineer]

I would try to play with this save to, when I have time.
Will be interesting to compare. My route useally sligtly different, so we will see.

 

[Oggums]

Finished up the map. I took the same dozen raider grenadiers around and conquered the entire continent. Researched cannons, but didn't really need them.

I'm actually hoping they fix the city raider upgrades in the expansion. I think it's seriously overpowered to have it on gunpowder units, especially with grenadiers that will own everything up to infantry with only needing 4 catapults to lower defense to 0%.

 

[aelf]

Phalanxes have +25% hill defense, which on top of the culture and hill defense and fortify, would really jack up the odds against you. The screen's pretty clear on that.

There's got to be a reason why my Musketeers, as you can see from my screens have so many promotions. Remember, I didn't build a single catapult. And I'm still a builder deep down and don't relish having my cities pump out units all the time. I always get this inner calling to start on that Market, that National Epic or that University in my core cities. That can only mean I choose my targets so that I don't have to lose more than 2 Musketeers per city. Also, where do you think my ancient army went while all my gold went to research? Once my Musketeers get stronger, they become better and better at conquering.

And they take the cities more than twice as fast. Once I had them, and later cavs to go along, it's a clean up job without all that WW. To take 4 or 5 cities not strung along the same path would take ages with a catapult army.

Of course, I have to say again, that your research path determines the best strat for you. I am not FORCING a Musketeer rush. It's a viable strategy (which I've proven if anyone hasn't) and I chose to use it, which explains my extra-intensive (by my own standards at any rate) ancient campaign against one neighbour and medieval recovery period. This recovery period was essentially what allowed me to tech quickly to Gunpowder and Liberalism. With a conventional strategy, I can almost never get to Liberalism first safely (even if you give me 3 gold mines at the start), which means no super early cavalry that I had so much fun with. When you are constantly fighting (which was what indeed you did), those Guilds, Engineering and the like become much more necessary, (not using Oracle for a CS slingshot is the most glaring example) causing you to deviate a lot, on top of the extra maintenance you are paying. The advantage of this is you've probably gotten more cities by the advent of Gunpowder. But my Musketeer rush allowed me to expand just as much later on and nab Liberalism and its free tech as well.

You did admit I teched faster than you. And by the time I took on the rest of the world, my economy was already strong (of course, with the aid of my own shrine, which I don't think you had as you didn't use Oracle for CoL) so I can't be losing out much on gold. So, you see, it's an option. I am not saying it's a better one. It can go either way, depending on the situation.

I'm really interested in your version, Mutineer. Hope you get round to doing it very soon. Any other takers? The debate's not closed. Oggums probably has more to say and so might I. Anyone can chip in.

 

[Oggums]

By the way, the Musketeers are still awesome in a support role, even though I didn't use them to attack cities. That continent was pretty big, and new cities were all tied up putting in courthouses, banks, markets etc. to afford the constant war (I think I had 22 war weariness before I finally put Saladin down and was running at least 50% on the culture slider, and 0% science). So as I captured cities, I had to fill in with city garrison muskets from way at the bottom from my core cities. Regular muskets would have slowed me down.

I also used formation musketeers quite a bit to chase down Saladin's camel archers. Mounted pillagers are usually much more of a pain.

 

[aelf]

Congrats on your winning. That's a great victory. Now I wish I was more dillegent and went on to claim domination myself. I had a shameful Winston Churchill rating at the end to mar my other Augustus ratings with Napoleon. Well, I really am not much of a warmonger.

Now, if they do fix the city raider upgrades, I'd be glad I learned an alternative method.

 

[aelf]

By the way, the Musketeers are still awesome in a support role, even though I didn't use them to attack cities. That continent was pretty big, and new cities were all tied up putting in courthouses, banks, markets etc. to afford the constant war (I think I had 22 war weariness before I finally put Saladin down and was running at least 50% on the culture slider, and 0% science). So as I captured cities, I had to fill in with city garrison muskets from way at the bottom from my core cities. Regular muskets would have slowed me down.

Yeah, that's one of the things I was touting in the past.

 

[Oggums]

If they fix the city raider upgrades, then you just build cannons.

 

[aelf]

Which needs steel, and Gunpowder would be way earlier then.