This, plus the free tech. Getting an expensive free tech for warring like Iranon mentioned means you can smack the bejeezus - to say it in TheMeInTeam-speak - out of your opponent. When this is done skillfully it can be so effective that the AI can really have no defense.Iranon mentioned its probable most valued asset - trade value along that route. The AIs don't do beelines well and they don't vary up their tech paths much, so we see them delaying this tech path in order to get longbows and knights all the time. The logical answer to keep up is to trade, but I wonder if this part of the game isn't a little bit stale because of the non-variety in AI tech path ----> later on at least some go for MT, some for democracy, some toward mass media, and some for chemistry/ms/steel first, and then follow down those paths to some degree...but almost nobody goes education early in terms of the AI, and that makes the lib path far stronger than it would be otherwise.
If so, then what is the best free tech to pick?
I always try for steel, its the games best tiebreaker tech. Cannons are amazing, they allow you to run over AIs easily for quite a long period capturing huge numbers of cities.If so, then what is the best free tech to pick?
Cannon - tchah ! I've just attacked a city with 20% cultural defence plus Walls, using cannon which are supposed to do 12% bombardment damage - against which Walls should apparently be ineffective.
Cannons still need to bombard the walls down too despite ignoring them in attack. I explained it wih examples in this threadCannon - tchah ! I've just attacked a city with 20% cultural defence plus Walls, using cannon which are supposed to do 12% bombardment damage - against which Walls should apparently be ineffective. True enough, with a cannon selected the original defence shows as 20%: the popup says "You have reduced the defence to 38%" on the first shot, which is 50% (for Walls) minus 12% (bombardment); the city bar shows defence down to 15% instead of the 8% I expected.
The bombardment resistance from walls doesn't apply to cannons, only the existance of the wall/castle defense.Willem said:That only applies if the Cannon were actually attacking the city. The Wall's bombardment bonus still applies however. IIRC, the bombardment bonus doesn't ever become obsolete either.
The bombardment resistance from walls doesn't apply to cannons, only the existance of the wall/castle defense.
Nah, its because the siege needs to bombard from 100% even cannons.I could very well be wrong but I don't think that's how it works. AFAIK, Cannons are still affected by the bombardment bonus of both Walls and Castles. That would fit in with Bushface's numbers. They just don't have any effect if the cannon attacks the city head on for the collateral damage. And I seem to recall reading somewhere that the bombardment bonus remains even after Walls/Castles become obsolete.
What happens is the reduction is spread between walls and culture proportionally. In this case as the walls have 50%, culture at 20% the culture takes 2/5 of the 12% reduction giving 4.8% defense drop on culture, rounded up to the 5% which bushface seesbushface said:the popup says "You have reduced the defence to 38%" on the first shot, which is 50% (for Walls) minus 12% (bombardment);
If walls 50% defense was being taken into account, then it would have been reduced by 6% and said 6% .the city bar shows defence down to 15% instead of the 8% I expected.
Noob question follow up. When I hit the free tech, everything says zero turns and I can't "see the big picture", is there a way at that point to tell what is the most expensive tech so I can guarantee I get that one for free? I am assuming I should have just been proactive and looked ahead of time, but I am usually so distracted I forget to do that.