Manco Capac
Friday,13 June,I Collapse
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2010
- Messages
- 8,051
I found forts to be a great way to help with defense. Rather then dropping units into cities, and praying they can hold out as resources get pillaged, a few well-set forts can provide defense bonuses rivaling a castle with additional offensive bonuses as well.
With forts sat up, I normally leave my cities with one defender, and leave the active defenders inside forts on the borders around mountains, on hills, and bordering rivers. This works really great defending the rear of the empire, or for turtling up during peacetime.
Of course, it all depends on the cards you have and the terrain your left with.
Another thing about archers...
Archers may be crappy defenders, but they do additionally provide a ranged defense bonus to the other defenders. I don't play the beta stuff, so if thats no longer true. too bad.
I'm surprised that worked because it shouldn't with K-mod AI and perhaps even BTS AI.
Unless the game was really coding that forts are literally cities, stacks target cities, not random forts and once a city reached, if too well guarded, then it enters in pillage mode around it.
At least, I know for certainty (code backed) that AI units only target cities. Yeah, sometimes, one individual targets one easy prey (opportunity frame), but at the most abstract level, stacks target cities. One reason barbarian units can be fend off by blockading a closed region with units...because when pathfinding, it can't reach a city.
And as Joker.ru dude said, god blesses his soul, barbs simply deviate from well-garded unit spots to go to cities. It's the same for AI stacks. The code isn't that different between both barb team and AI teams.
Now, do you have grounds of what you said or is it an hypothesis?
Anyways *I know tl;dr about the huge text wall; I understand *, but my point was about quick counterattack against K-mod AI's. The way it is now, if the standby stack supremely fails at 60% chance of win, the consequences are rather big.
In BTS, we often say the best defense is by attacking; in K-mod, it is the absolute truth!
And good point Phoenix! I forgot about slave markets boosting mines, slave farms, etc. Ok, maybe it's not as weak as I pretend, but it's still the same...how to deal with cities with lotsa food and no production since slavery is weak when it comes to whip. Slavery was implemented mainly for that, not for anything else in the base game. And also quick emergency defenses. Let's imagine a scenario one starts on a peninsula with almost no hills, cows, flat copper, etc. Ouch! That's gonna be unwinnable. I haven't checked yet, but I suspect the conversion rate between food to hammers for a whip is rather bad. In base BTS, it was ~24-26 food for 30 hammers. Doing justice, it should be 30-30 or a ratio of 1. Now, it fells less than 1, which is no good because it penalizes those civilizations in hammer poor areas.
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Now about another point:
Nazca Lines and Angkhor Vat. Both wonders give +1 hammer to priest specialists. While the Angkhor Vat is useful to near the end of the game at least, Nazca line is rather expensive and furthermore useful only until medieval times (may delay the obsoleting tech though, but not indefinitely).
The problem is specialists cost a lot in the early game. In the base game, it was 2 for an output of 3 (2 for engineers) and 3 . With prophets, the use of a GProphet is rather limited. One would prefer either a GScientist or a GEngineer for good reasons. And given the gains to a boosted prophet (Nazca Line) isn't the end of the world, especially for the investment cost, it feels the wonder is weak.
As I played, I saw the most powerful wonder to get early game is the Mids. Not because it gives +1 and +1 to pagan temples, but for the engineer . It gives the chance of wonderwhoring early without much investment while disallowing any AI to get that GEngineer to do the same.
My typical strategy, which avers pretty strong (and that means other paths should be buffed), is going Mids (if failed, at least fail gold is welcomed and the rate is one hammer for one gold, which is better than building wealth!!) and wait for the GEngineer. While doing so, I beeline for Polytheism and get one of the best early religion. For one, the cows give +1 and one wonder built giving +1 happy +1 health empire wide for no cost. Immensely powerful. And at the same time, you get the GEngineer and rush the ToA, which means +5 from the priest and wonder. That can get very far if lucky in successive GEngineers without much more cost than Mids. Anways, the point is, the Mids have proven strong path for 400 hammers (halved with stone!) while Nazca Lines gives few for 360 hammers and it obsoletes fast and too early for correct use of priests.
My way to boost it is to make bonus extended to GProphets! Yes, imagine wonderwhoring and settling a bunch of GProphets, allowing +4 +5 with Nazca Line and Angkhor Vat (same bonus for that wonder too). Since GProphets are prevalent with early wonders, that should enable a new strategy, which is Great People Economy. Imagine 3 GProphets settled giving a whooping +12 hammers and 15 gold! Wow, that would lead a new strategic pattern!
My motion is to allow GProphets to be included into the Nazca Lines/Angkhor Vat bonuses.