Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Cyc]

Thanks Cyc. I don't really get the unit costs think as I was in Republic and you don't get any free units there, or am I mistaken about that. The reason I was heading for democracy is I read here that Republic>Democracy was the way to go for the English.

This screenshot is from the save you uploaded. It shows you get 32 free units. You get 1 for your towns, 2 for your cities, 3 for your Mets, whatever your Conquests.biq is set at. So you do get free units, just not very many. You have 14 cities and 74 units. 19 of those are MoWs. And you were probably building 20 more. My example above was just to show you what else you could do with your gold. You were not able to expand your nation, as you had a poor start location. In a standard game, 14 cities would mean you were just starting your 2 ring of your core. Of course, some people might disagree with that.

And don't always believe what you read.

 

[walletta]

Thanks Cyc

So my 74 surplus units were costing me two gold each. A better strategy would be to build a smaller fleet of Men 'o War and then augment them by enslaving enemy ships (which I believe are free?) which have a good bombardment ability but have only regular status. My fear is that having a small army will just tempt the all-seeing AI to pick on me.

I have also picked up that I should be doing a lot more upgrading than I generally do. I tend to lazily leave obsolete units all over the place and build new ones rather than upgrading. Presumably, this is not smart.

I notice with the English that warriors upgrade to swordsmen, which comes as a surprise. Is that the same for all Civs? You certainly can't get Legionaries from Warriors.

 

[splunge the 2nd]

The "best" tribe to play also depends on the map type. Seafaring offers advantages on archipeligo and continents with lots of water. Expansionist is more advantageous on a large continet or pangea. Agricultural may fall flat in a archipeligo map with absent fresh water. That being said, the Iroquois are very strong and I love the mounted warrior!

Regarding promoting units: warriors promote to swordsmen to mideval infantry to guerilla to TOW infantry. Archers to LB's to guerillas etc. Defenders: spears to pikes to muskets to rifles to infantry to mech infanrty. Artillary: cats to trebs to cannon to artillary to radar art. Horsemen to knights to cavalry. I beleive that if you skip an optional tech, but get the later tech, you can skip a step (don't learn nationalism so can't make rigfles, when you learn replacable parts, you can promote muskets straight to infantry). A unique unit will replace the unit in the chain (the Romans would promote a warrior to Legionary and then to Medieval Infantry) unless the unit it replaces is the same (Hoplites don't promote to pikes as they ahve the same stats). this can actually mess you up if the UU offers an advantage- the celtic UU, the gallic swordsman moves 2. it promotes to a MI with 1 move. once a Celtic player learns Fuedalism, I beleive he can no longer make that useful UU.
Sorry this post is wordy!

 

[walletta]

The "best" tribe to play also depends on the map type. Seafaring offers advantages on archipeligo and continents with lots of water. Expansionist is more advantageous on a large continet or pangea. Agricultural may fall flat in a archipeligo map with absent fresh water. That being said, the Iroquois are very strong and I love the mounted warrior!

Regarding promoting units: warriors promote to swordsmen to mideval infantry to guerilla to TOW infantry. Archers to LB's to guerillas etc. Defenders: spears to pikes to muskets to rifles to infantry to mech infanrty. Artillary: cats to trebs to cannon to artillary to radar art. Horsemen to knights to cavalry. I beleive that if you skip an optional tech, but get the later tech, you can skip a step (don't learn nationalism so can't make rigfles, when you learn replacable parts, you can promote muskets straight to infantry). A unique unit will replace the unit in the chain (the Romans would promote a warrior to Legionary and then to Medieval Infantry) unless the unit it replaces is the same (Hoplites don't promote to pikes as they ahve the same stats). this can actually mess you up if the UU offers an advantage- the celtic UU, the gallic swordsman moves 2. it promotes to a MI with 1 move. once a Celtic player learns Fuedalism, I beleive he can no longer make that useful UU.
Sorry this post is wordy!

It's very useful, thanks. Are you sure you can upgrade Warrior to Legionary? If so, I sure have been missing that one!

 

[Cyc]

It's very useful, thanks. Are you sure you can upgrade Warrior to Legionary? If so, I sure have been missing that one!

Do you have your Iron hooked up to your capital?

 

[Takhisis]

Do you have enough gold to pay for the upgrade?

 

[walletta]

Do you have your Iron hooked up to your capital?

Yes. But I am currently playing the English. Does it depend on where the iron is?

 

[walletta]

Do you have enough gold to pay for the upgrade?

It's not a question of cost but just whether it is possible to upgrade warrior to Legionary at all. I must admit I have played the Romans far more than any other Civ and never noticed an upgrade button when activating a warrior.

 

[splunge the 2nd]

Pretty sure. To upgrade, you need the unit to upgrade, the resource needed to build the new unit connected to the city where the unit is, the money to do it, the needed tech and a barracks there (harbor for naval units, I think). I've wondered why I couldn't make an upgrade and realized I've been trying in a city without a barracks! Sorry if you already know this- I still overlook it at times!

 

[walletta]

Pretty sure. To upgrade, you need the unit to upgrade, the resource needed to build the new unit connected to the city where the unit is, the money to do it, the needed tech and a barracks there (harbor for naval units, I think). I've wondered why I couldn't make an upgrade and realized I've been trying in a city without a barracks! Sorry if you already know this- I still overlook it at times!

I do know the barracks/harbour thing etc. (but no need to apologise for telling me). I just can't believe I have played the Romans dozens of times, with sword rush very much in mind (almost my only strategy TBH) and not noticed the possibility of upgrading to legionary.

 

[MysteryX]

I have also picked up that I should be doing a lot more upgrading than I generally do. I tend to lazily leave obsolete units all over the place and build new ones rather than upgrading. Presumably, this is not smart.

It depends. Upgrading can be very expensive. If you have established a few ultra-productive cities, you may be better off building new units and disbanding the obsolete units in cities that can use the extra shields from disbanding. Either upgrading obsolete units or building new units are good choices depending on your circumstances. However, when you are to the point of paying gold-per-turn to upkeep units, you don't want to be spending that on old units- upgrade or disband.

 

[walletta]

It depends. Upgrading can be very expensive. If you have established a few ultra-productive cities, you may be better off building new units and disbanding the obsolete units in cities that can use the extra shields from disbanding. Either upgrading obsolete units or building new units are good choices depending on your circumstances. However, when you are to the point of paying gold-per-turn to upkeep units, you don't want to be spending that on old units- upgrade or disband.

Thanks. It's not an easy calculation whether to build afresh and disband - or upgrade. Building costs shields and upgrading costs gold. What's the exchange rate?

 

[Cyc]

Thanks. It's not an easy calculation whether to build afresh and disband - or upgrade. Building costs shields and upgrading costs gold. What's the exchange rate?

I believe you take the difference between the base unit and the upgrade unit and multiply that times 3 (this can be changed in the editor).

So if the cost of an Infantry is 90 gold, and you want to upgrade that to a Mech Infantry (cost 110 gold) the difference is 20 gold. Times 3 is 60 gold. Upgrade cost is 60 gold.

 

[del62]

Quick question involving armies.

If you can only get one more army due to number of cities can you start a build in MA and also get one from a leader, or will the one from MA not complete

 

[Abegweit]

I'm pretty sure that you won't be able to build the army from the leader.

 

[MysteryX]

Thanks. It's not an easy calculation whether to build afresh and disband - or upgrade. Building costs shields and upgrading costs gold. What's the exchange rate?

I don't use hard numbers to make decisions like that. If I'm hurting for gold I avoid upgrading. If I have some excess gold, I'll start upgrading.

If you have excess gold, you want to ask yourself if you are researching fast enough. If you have some gold in the bank after completing one research project, you may want to research the next project running a deficit to get it done faster.

If you have a completely developed city that has nothing better to do but make Wealth- well, there is almost always something better to do than Wealth- then that city instead should be pumping out new units instead of Wealth, to replace your obsolete units.

If you have some fringe cities that you are still using for production, but are lagging a little due to some corruption, disbanding obsolete units in those cities for the extra shields can make a significant difference.

If you have Leonardo's Workshop- which cuts upgrade costs in half- then upgrading is almost always going to be the most attractive option.

Golden Ages make your cities ultra-productive- its a good opportunity to build a lot of new units.

Finally, the problem is not so much in keeping obsolete units, as it is in keeping excess units (paying gpt for units that have no real purpose). Even if I intend to upgrade units, I might delay the upgrade to keep pumping my money into research. If I get hit by a surprise invasion, I can turn down the research slider for a turn to get money to do emergency upgrades for reinforcements and counterstrikes. Of course, by delaying the upgrade decision, the obsolete units are not providing as much deterrence to the AI (and sometimes, there are strategies in which you want to invite the AI to attack you first).

 

[Lanzelot]

You get 1 for your towns, 2 for your cities, 3 for your Mets, whatever your Conquests.biq is set at.

In unmodified Conquests, that would be 1 for towns, 3 for cities, 4 for mets.

 

[Cyc]

In unmodified Conquests, that would be 1 for towns, 3 for cities, 4 for mets.

Thank you, sir. I figured my numbers had been altered, as with the numbers you state (and I did verify them), it doesn't add up.

He has 14 cities. They are 1 Town, 10 cities, and 3 Mets. That makes for 43 Free units. The Military Advisor only grants 32. I didn't double check my work. Just guessed it was 1,2,3. But that would only equal 30. If he had Towns getting 3, it would come to 32. Huh.

 

[Lanzelot]

I counted 9 cities, 5 towns --> 9x3 + 5 = 32. So that would fit perfectly.
(He can't have Mets, as he has neither Sanitation nor Shakespeare's Theater.)

waletta, while I have the save open, I might as well try and give a few more tips:

• London is wasting 9 food per turn!! At the same time you have workers fortified inside London?! Hey, wake them up and show them where the shovel is... There are 6 grassland tiles which London is currently using that can be changed from irrigation to mine, netting 6 additional shields (twelve during golden age)!! That would basically double London's production!
• Your core island is small, so it's important that you utilize every single tile possible. But you are not. Many tiles are not utilized by any city. You can found at least two more very productive cities:
  
  
  
  The northern one can use a fish, a whale, two spices which are currently out of reach of any city, and also most of the tiles between York and itself. (York can then use a couple of unused tiles between London and York.)
  The southern one can use two fishes, one cow (if you let London work the other cow), a lake, many coasts and 2-3 mountains. Both would be highly productive for you. There is even already a settler which can be used for that: it's currently wasting its time in Canterbury...
• Canterbury has an aqueduct, but is running at size 5?? Bring it to size 10 asap!! (You could join some of the lazy workers, after they have mined the London areay...)
• Nottingham needs to be brought to size 12 asap as well. You are wasting a lot of potential due to your cities not being maxed out during golden age! Hastings, Coventry, Liverpool, Dover, Middleburg are all suffering from the same problem. (Some are even employing a taxman, which gives 2 gold and stalls growth, instead of working a coastal tile, which gives 4 gold and speeding up the growth??) I think that your income at this point could easily twice of what it actually is.
• That you should not waste your resources on Democracy, has already been said. Research Gravity instead, meanwhile build Knights where-ever you can, hope to trade Gravity to the Zulus or Scandinavia for Military Tradition, upgrade your Knights to Cavs and conquer the Netherlands. You have plenty of ships for a successful invasion. Just make sure to upgrade some spears for protection and land on the vulcano N of Haarlem. Haarlem and Groningen should fall in the first turn. Wait until a huge stack of their units has moved next to Groningen, then attack one of the other lightly defended cities and gift Groningen to a neutral AI (which does not have a RoP with the Netherlands). They will need to waste another turn to get their slow-moving stack back onto their road network, while your fast Cavs take the next city... Rinse and repeat until the last city is gone. Then the huge stack of units will go "poof" and you can take back all the Dutch cities from the neutral AI without any effort.

 

[walletta]

Wow! What a post Lanzelot. Thanks vey much. I have a problem with aesthetics in that I don't like building cities that overlap with others, but I am starting to glimpse that at the higher levels beauty must give way to what works. I did eventually build a city on the southern spot you highlighted, but not on the northern one. Your idea of the Netherlands assault I will think about. The spare settler you spotted was probably part of an earlier invasion force on an abortive mission to capture a Dutch city, abandon it and then found an English one.

Thanks.