question regarding Charismatic and GG emergence

[Groogaroo]

Just a quickie question regarding the charasmatic trait and Great General points.

As GG points are accumalated through the XP in battles (Atleast thats how I understand it) does the -25XP on promotions have any effect on GG points earned? or are they completley sepearate?

I'm thinking of playing some offline games to imporve my warring, particularly early wars (which I suck at ) and was looking at Cyrus as a possibility for my first game, I like the synergy of his traits.

Actually while I'm at it does anyone have any tips how to get the best use out of cyrus with war in mind? I'm already think of stonehenge because of the happy bonus to monuments and greatwall to boost the 100% GG emmergence. He seems like quite a flexible leader as none of his traits point towards a particular economy.

Thanks in advance for any tips, advice and awnsers.

 

[Zanttu]

As GG points are accumalated through the XP in battles (Atleast thats how I understand it) does the -25XP on promotions have any effect on GG points earned? or are they completley sepearate?

Nope. The only effect is that when you would normally need 5xp for level 3 unit, with charismatic you only need 4 (and when you normally need 10xp for lvl 4, now you only need 8, etc.)

 

[Groogaroo]

Oh well, thought that sounded to good to be true. Thanks.

Still... Any thoughts on thoughts on the best leverage/stratagies with Cyrus' traits/uu/ub? I don't think I really take full advatage of the abilities of the various leaders in my games and it always interesting to hear how different people use different ways of leveraging the traits and such.

 

[Catan_Settler]

Cyrus is an amazing early rush leader. His problem is more how to revive the economy afterwards. You want to research the animal husbandry first to see where the horses are-- if within range of capital, go straight for the wheel, otherwise detour to bronze working for some chopping. If you need a second city for horses, chop that settler out and research the wheel. If you already have horses, found your second city on a good production site as close to your first victim as possible. After that, you can grab a few stray worker techs if you need any but you want to prioritize Horseback Riding for early research so you can get stables built in your two cities. Spam immortals as soon as you have horses hooked up and the barracks in your two cities. Start the war before you have enough troops to take cities... I usually declare as soon as I see a worker or two within reach of an Immortal. Buy time for your main stack to arrive by running around pillaging the enemies tiles. Somewhere in here horseback riding comes online, so you can chop or whip your stables in... Just do it quick and get back to spamming Immortals. Kill one opponent with ease, the second will usually have some decent culture so you're going to need numbers. A third can be doable, depending on how quickly you handled the first two. Usually by the time of a third target though, your Immortals are facing Swordsmen and spears, so it starts getting pretty bloody.

That's the rush, now comes the hard part-- not going bankrupt. It really helps if you're able to capture the pyramids, then you can shift gears to a Representation based specialist economy. If not, well there's always cottage spam. Basically you have to do whatever it takes to get yourself to Currency and Code of Laws so you can get your economy back in the black while still researching at a decent pace. By this point you probably have popped 3-5 great generals which are settled as military instructors, which is why running Representation makes for the easiest recovery... At least you can keep the science slider slow while making some progress towards Cur/CoL. And usually you should have a decent pile of cash from all the pillaging and razing so you can actually run at a deficit for a while.

That's pretty much it. I focus most of the Immortals down the Flanking line to get mobility (at 8 xp, pretty easy with barracks+stables+settled generals), with a couple as medics, and maybe a third of them focusing all their promotions up the combat line. You want to have a good number of combat 4 or 5 Immortals to save for later in the game when you can upgrade them to knights/cuirasiers/cavalry and hopefully add promotions like blitz and commando. By and large though, the flanking Immortals are the ones who will be doing the dirty work of city attack and when they live, they barely scrape through, but get their XP and after healing up continue on. It's really all about numbers. You need tons and tons of Immortals to get through cities with cultural defense or built on hills. The good news is these troops level up fast as hell, and as the great generals pour in they are even coming out of the stables with quite a few promotions under their belt. Were it not for the fact that your troops have so many promotions, it would be near impossible to keep fighting with immortals after spears and swords start showing up.

 

[Groogaroo]

Thanks for your insight, its the early rush part actually that I struggle to pull of, they almost always fail, which leaves my game in a mess. I really love building the early wonders, guess I'll have to skip them and just conquer them instead!

Cheers

 

[Catan_Settler]

It's really all about speed, as the Immortals are really only good at killing cities defended by archers and axes. Although by the time you're fighting a second civ you should have big enough cities with tons of production, so you have enough numbers to tackle tougher stuff... Still though it's usually a ratio of 3 or 4 immortals per defender to take out those tough cities on hills or above 20% cultural defense. That's why I only bother founding one extra city on my own. Another nice thing with Cyrus is he starts with Fishing and Agriculture so you usually you are good to go with one high food tile as soon as that worker gets out, so you don't need to research any other worker techs to get your cities growing quickly. Then once their population goes up you have the food to start working a good hammer tile like a plains hill with a mine or even just a forest. He's a great early rusher, but remember that it's a rush so stay focused and only do what you need to get the immortals built and headed towards your enemy. The second and third victims tend to rely on sheer numbers though, so if you don't like watching your troops die you may want to wait for catapults.

 

[Groogaroo]

I think Cyrus actually starts with Aggriculture and hunting (atleast in BTS anyway) but even still two worker techs, so yes I can focus on getting immortals up and running straight away, providing the start is nice to me, plus I think aggriculture and hunting are the two techs that lead to Animal husbandry making it a bit cheaper to tech.

As for second or third victims? I think I'll start out with just getting one rush successfully under my belt, can't imagine rushing several opponents in a row, so would definatley wait for cats.

Thanks again

 

[Catan_Settler]

Yeah you're probably right, I just know he has 2 of the 3 food techs which is perfect for getting your capital sized up and spamming Immortals with minimal side treks on your tech path.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

Still... Any thoughts on thoughts on the best leverage/stratagies with Cyrus' traits/uu/ub? I don't think I really take full advatage of the abilities of the various leaders in my games and it always interesting to hear how different people use different ways of leveraging the traits and such.

Everything about Cyrus in BtS screams of cracking heads: settle Horses early and beat the crap out of your neighbour(s).

The traits are a perfect complement (better than Cha/Agg, IMO) because more GG's means more XP (whether settled or attached), and Charismatic means more promotions from those more XP ... which then leads to more victorious battles ... which then leads to more XP and GG points ... which perpetuates the vicious cycle.

EDIT: Even the starting techs are a complement to the package. Agriculture and Hunting means Cyrus starts with both prerequisites to Animal Husbandry, which makes the logical 1st tech choice that much cheaper (read "quicker").

In addition to the Chariot's +100% vs Axemen, Immortals also have +50% vs Archers, so both copper-neighbours and non-resource, turtling neighbours (even Protective but to a lesser extent) are at a disadvantage against you.

Immortals have +10% withdrawal, so leveraging 2 easy Charismatic promotions (Stables) for Flanking II means 40% withdrawal chance and immunity to 1st strikes -- making them even more hellacious against Archers and high culture cities (kind of an early Catapult substitute, if you will).

As an added bonus (same as that of any mounted unit, really), the Immortal has 2 -- making it that much easier to roll over even distant neighbours in quick succession before their economic and cultural traits can get the better of you.

The UB is in perfect synergy with Charismatic, because the +2 from Charismatic & a Monument are balanced by the +2 from an Apothecary. This means more tiles and more power (which IMO helps to counteract the lack of a 'real economic trait').

The UB is also in harmony with the UU, because the same Guilds tech that opens up the Apothecary also opens up the Immortal's first real upgrade to a Knight -- opening up yet another era of domination.


By the time you've exploited Cyrus' ability to conquer everything in sight, you should be well on your way to a Domination Victory. On one hand, you can keep it going with Cavalry and Cannons. And on the other, you can put your massive land lead and retired units to good use under HR/Free Speech/Emancipation.


-- a lot of my 2

 

[ese-aSH]

with cyrus I always put all my GG on immortals (going command -not sure of the name-, combat 1, 2, 3, 4 march, combat 5, 6)

i think the best use of the charismatic trait is to move to high promoted units, not only 3 or 4 promotions, but 7 to 10.
the special command promotion (only available through great generals) is the perfect synergy with charismatic, so why would you bother settling as instructor : the +2xp wont give you additionnal bonus -compared to a non charismatic leader- so it seems a real waste to me.

edit : you would need +5 xp to reach lvl3 (xp = 8). so if you run vasselage + theocracy then ok settling 1 instructor makes sens. but i rarely run both.

 

[Groogaroo]

Thank you for your helpful tips and info, I managed to pull off a couple of successful early rushes and continue warring early without crashing my economy. After playing as him Cyrus seems actually slightly overpowered at war, atleast at lower levels. But I think all I really needed was to be a bit more confident and aggressive in my gameplay.

I don't plan on using rushes as a fixed strat but now I know I can pull them off I can use them when appropriate.

thanks alot

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Actually something fun to do with Cyrus, get one Realy good production city, EVERY Great General Settle there (one as a Military Academy), get Heroic Epic and West point, and pump out super units fast.

I was getting Level seven Marines (28 exp)(Barracks + Pentagon + West Point + Theocracy + Vassalage gives 13 exp and I must have had 8 Great Generals settled)

 

[Gwynnja]

I love the charismatic trait and I love the immortal rush, but the thing is it has to be done EARLY!!! It doesn't take most ai's very long before they've got spears. I actually prefer the Ramses egyptian war chariots. Egypt starts with roads so you only need one tech to get the war machine rolling. Ramses is industrious so he can quickly chop out sh the happy cap then go right back to whipping out war chariots. Just got to remember, only keep the capitals and holy cities , but if one of your new capitals has stone, get pyramids and SE it up.