Some questions about a gameplay hurdle

[Andii]

Hey all, i have a few questions that I have noticed in my game lately.

I was playing as Russia / Stalin and had an amazing start, gold mine and river coverage of every tile -> insane GP farm. I wiped out both civs on my continent with ease and took the wntire thing over while running crazy GP scientist crank.

Soon I was victorious over my landmass, had lots of current troops, but little transport. Would have needed about 15 to get my troops overseas, about 1700s sometime.

Q) If you are trying to maximize great people, should you postpone getting techs (if you don't need them right away) in order to prevent an age change? I think this affects the rate at which you can amass GPs. Should you postpone and clean up all back techs (can't trade for them at all right now) for 1-3 turns each, or in general try and be the most modern age you can be, because I believe it makes earlier techs cost less. Which?

Q) No matter what even if I have a MASSSSSIIVE economy, science and military advantage, in the time it takes me to get a decent enough number of them overseas to start taking things over, the AIs always move from rifle-ish units or muskets to infantry, which obviously makes the takeover of their island harder. I ALWAYS have this issue, as soon as I finish my "early" war targets I usually have TONS of cavalry and some rifles, but the enemy seems to advance insanely while I struggle with the boat issue. Please, any tips for carrying momentum off island quickly besides the obvious (build boats earlier) :/

Q) I always play normal speed, standard size and this game is on prince. Even though I absolutely DESTROYED in military and technology I can't seem to win domination before 2000 when I need to use transports to wage warfare. If you want to win by domination and your map is continents based (not pangea) it seems extremely difficult to do this in the 1800-1900s.

I'm sure I can think of some more stuff that is stumping me, maybe later

 

[Andii]

Oh, and I guess this...

Q) What promotion line do you generally pursue for the following units:
Swordman
Rifleman
Tank
Destroyer / Battleship
Transport
Fighter

Thank you for any help

 

[Ghpstage]

Q) What promotion line do you generally pursue for the following units:

Swordman CR
Rifleman C->Counters or Drill or CG(rare)
Tank CR
Destroyer Sentry(if enemy subs) or C->Blitz and sometimes Drill (If techlead)
Battleship Barrage or C->Blitz. Purely to being able to do massive damage to a stack in 1 turn.
Transport Flanking->Nav1->Nav2 (Almost always) or medic. For transports speed>all else
Fighter C line->Range1+2 or sometimes Ace

These are general lines though, I rarely upgrade till I know what I need the unit for.

Q) If you are trying to maximize great people, should you postpone getting techs (if you don't need them right away) in order to prevent an age change? I think this affects the rate at which you can amass GPs. Should you postpone and clean up all back techs (can't trade for them at all right now) for 1-3 turns each, or in general try and be the most modern age you can be, because I believe it makes earlier techs cost less. Which?

Emboldened bit, Huh? No it doesn't slow GPP rate only number of GP increase GPP needed.
Underlined, mostly depends on how the AIs are teching. If they are keeping up then shoot ahead and backfill with trades, if they are slow then the bonus you get for researching all prerequisites will be more worth it, besides the parallel techs aren't as expensive as modern ones, and may provide comparable benefits.

Q) No matter what even if I have a MASSSSSIIVE economy, science and military advantage, in the time it takes me to get a decent enough number of them overseas to start taking things over, the AIs always move from rifle-ish units or muskets to infantry, which obviously makes the takeover of their island harder. I ALWAYS have this issue, as soon as I finish my "early" war targets I usually have TONS of cavalry and some rifles, but the enemy seems to advance insanely while I struggle with the boat issue. Please, any tips for carrying momentum off island quickly besides the obvious (build boats earlier) :/

Intercontinental invasions can be tricky, getting enough units and transports away quickly is tough. Drafting Rifles/Inf/Muskets, US gold buying transports/other units or the mass use of workshop cities are the best methods imo in the buildup phase.
Another possibility is to build previous generation transports and upgrade (galleys->galleons galleons->transports) if its tech thats causing the issue.

Promoting to Flanking 1 then the Nav 1+2 promos for extra move speed is a no brainer on transports, circumnavigation bonus helps too.

If you have enough siege units you can still win wars at a tech disadvantage too. Also having OB with a third party thats at peace with the chosen target can give a safe buildup spot.

Q) I always play normal speed, standard size and this game is on prince. Even though I absolutely DESTROYED in military and technology I can't seem to win domination before 2000 when I need to use transports to wage warfare. If you want to win by domination and your map is continents based (not pangea) it seems extremely difficult to do this in the 1800-1900s.

It is hard without an enormous army and well thought out logistics line with many transports. When you get flight it becomes easy, abuse airports! But earlier on hit hard, fast and hit the core cities quickly, Capitulations are almost always the easiest and fastest way to win those wars.

 

[Ai Shizuka]

1- I'm not sure if I understand this correctly. There is no such thing as an "era penalty" on GP generation. Eras don't affect anything (well, the background music) and you can, for example, enter medieval era in the BCs with a Philo bulb, with no penalties whatsoever.

2- Pre-build transports. Dedicate a coastal city with Moai+Drydock to ship production. And you can invade with infantry and wooden ships, you don't need modern transports.

3- Can't say much without screenshots or a save. Usually if you want to wrap the game with an industrial invasion you just beeline infantry and artillery and ignore the other tech paths. 2000AD seems awfully late.

4- Swords: city raider with shock axes and C2-formation spears as stack defenders.
Rifles: drill line if I'm Pro. If not Pro, a mix of combat/pinch/formation.
Tank: city raider.
Destroyer/Battleships: usually combat line and a couple medics. Blitz if possible, but I rarely have super-high promoted ships. The AI fails at naval warfare and you usually sink their entire fleet in the first turn of war.
Transport: combat, but transport shouldn't be involved in combat.
Fighters: I don't know, I don't use them.

 

[FlyinJohnnyL]

Like Ai said, you don't necessarily need modern transports. Galleons only hold 1 less soldier than transports. So hit Astro and have 1 city that just starts building galleons for you-well before you want to launch your invasion. Then, when you have your tech lead, build Rifles or Infantry or whatever you're attacking with. You'll only need to build a few of the most up-to-date ship defenders, the galleons will work fine until you can build transports or upgrade them.

Speaking of which, don't be afraid to turn off tech for a few turns so you can spend the money to upgrade your galleons if you see fit to do so. Do this for anything you need to upgrade.

Conversely, rushbuying transports is actually pretty damn cheap, so you may want to do that as well.

The big thing to remember is, you don't want your cities building boats by the time you hit your military advantage-you already want them built! You want your cities cranking out the attackers at this point.

One last thing-don't be afraid to launch an invasion that is just to establish a beachhead on the other contintent. Taking a couple of cities and suing for peace for 10 turns to ship your military across the water can be helpful.

 

[Andii]

Now that I am thinking about my game, I noticed that I didn't really use draft that much, as much as I have in the past. I produced almost all my units from cottage cities with factories / forge. Tank about 4 turns.

Also, I didn't rush buy as much as I should have. It slows your turns down if you have to evaluate the buyout all the time at many of your cities. I spent a lot of gold upgrading old troops so I always had a decent military, but I lost more units than usual because the enemy was well fortified on their island.

Also, I don't know if you guys build nukes, sometimes I go for manhattan but if the comp builds it I always build nukes. The comp very rarely has opened on me with nukes, but I usually open on the computer with nukes to make conquest easier, or ICBM an enemy build of SDI, an important wonder, or their production base cities if I want to slow them down and just can't invade another country at that time. Do you nuke? Does it affect your score negatively? If you don't care about relations is there a serious downside to nuking? (besides the fact that once you have nuked a civ, they will almost always tactical nuke your stacks or their own captured cities if you are invading them.

 

[Ghpstage]

Once nukes start flying and fallout appears tiles randomly start turning into deserts due to erm.... global warming
It doesnt affect score directly... but it can lead to this

 

[Andii]

Oh, thank you so much for the promotions advice too. I was actually wondering about submarine / artillery as well. I assume flank / range for subs, and the barrage stuff for artillery...

Oh and about the GP thing, I think I phrased it badly. I was thinking that once you advance your age, the number of GP points needed to pop a GP is more, therefore is it better to try and milk your easier GP-pops by not advancing, or should you always try and leap to the highest age you can get to asap.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Q) If you are trying to maximize great people, should you postpone getting techs (if you don't need them right away) in order to prevent an age change? I think this affects the rate at which you can amass GPs.

No, it doesn't. The number of points required to generate a GP is a function of the number of GP you have already generated, and nothing else. Costs go up by 100 for the first 10, then up by 200 for the next 10, then up by 300.... The rates at which base points are collected are constant across all eras.

 

[Andii]

Hmm, well, I just finished on Prince which I can usually beat, but went back down to since I was not succeeding very often at Monarch and wanted to hone my game. Only got 17K score but Augustus Caesar rank , despite having finished domination in 2016 and having used about 30 nukes.

I noticed later in the game that my tanks sucked harsh against battered, nuked, airstriked mech infantries :/ The tank obviously has a strong counter (anti-tank) so.. how do you guys roll a small/medium sized city busting stack such that your tanks are protected from being AOE'd with artillery and then gibbed? If you don't have mech infantry, nothing synergizes well with tanks that defends them but doesn't slow them down. I guess mobile sam...

I hate it when I research a tech like composites thinking hey, i want modern armor, only you can't make them because you are missing some other tech. This is a shortfall of the game UI IMO, it should tell you when you are making tech decisions what you need for the unit, not the other way around (what the tech allows). When something says it lets you build a unit, it can often be a partial truth and you would never know without complete knowledge of the entire workings of all tech tree elements and units.

Also, QQ, I want them to add a waypoint to send units when they are produced automatically so I don't have to order every unit to my coastal town where they will board transports. Make it so Sid Meier!

 

[Andii]

No, it doesn't. The number of points required to generate a GP is a function of the number of GP you have already generated, and nothing else. Costs go up by 100 for the first 10, then up by 200 for the next 10, then up by 300.... The rates at which base points are collected are constant across all eras.

Makes me want to try philosophical again but I just had soooo much fun with Stalin. I was using what I thought were OP traits before, SPI and ORG etc, but a straight up warmongering leader is awesome if you want to kick people's butts. Cossack, didn't like them so much, infantries came shortly after :/ I really Don't have a favorite UU yet but for UBs I always liked Stock Exchange, Mausoleum and Seowon.

 

[Andii]

Actually, its probably Redcoats. They look cool and i believe they are not countered by grenadiers? Thats strong right there, especially since they also cut up mounted units.

Have you ever played a civ just because you wanted to be their color? I wish you could choose colors.... maybe there is a way to edit some XML file somewhere where you can change RGB values for team colors.... going to look for that. I hope it exists.

 

[Ai Shizuka]

Tanks vs mech inf isn't pretty. You want mobile artillery at that point to capture cities. Or bombers, but probably he has jet fighters.

In the last Immortal Uni I killed with standard infantry and artillery a civ with mech inf and modern armor, but he was very small and weak. No way to kill a big civ with industrial stuff vs modern stuff if you don't have a huge production advantage over him.

And you can set waypoints for new units. Select a city's name (the bar with name, pop, current building) and shift+right click where you want the waypoint.

 

[Andii]

Wow, epic tip, thank you!!!

I'm probably going to have to make a post with a save game file posted. I just cannot beat monarch, no matter how awesome I think my strats are, the stuff I read, tutorials, etc. The AI is unfair. If you get someone like Cyrus who gets his own island and just powers to infinity, you absolutely cannot compete. The AI techs so fast I literally had an entire empire of 20 cities loaded with max cottages all building wealth to afford research, couldn't even catch them, its absurd. Thinking about uninstall i'm so choked. Anyone consistently claiming to be winning on Emperor or higher is literally beyond my current comprehension.

Long sigh

 

[Andii]

Holy mother of...

I just added a great general to a single SAM Infantry unit on his own tile, which usually gives me promotions, especially great ones that are not normally reachable / available.

*nerdrage*

I took my greatest war hero, a guy with Combat I, City Garrison I, and Drill I, II, III, IV, and made him general, only he got no promotions for it. It looks like eveything the general had was absorbed before Level 7 was reached, CRAP. OMG this sucks.

The Units stats are:

Strength 18
Movement 1
Level 6
XP 30/37
3-6 First Strikes
10% Strength
20% Defense
-60% Collateral Damage
40% intercept chance
10% vs Mounted Units
75% against helicopters

 

[UWHabs]

It's the XP. When you upgrade a non-general unit, they lose all XP down to 10. So if your unit was at 26/37 before upgrading, after upgrading, he turns to 10/37. If you then attach a general on to him, then he only goes to 30/37, so no more promotions.

If you attach before, generals keep their XP. So if he was at 26/37 before, attach a general and he's now at 46/37. Then, you can upgrade him for free, and he's still 46/37. So yes, it's pretty much useless to attach a general to a guy who's at like 10/37.

This is why often if I have a unit at 16/17 or 25/26, I won't upgrade them until they get that last mop-up battle to be able to get the extra promotion out of them.

Don't give up, though! Yes, it might seem hard to tackle Emperor+, but it doesn't take too much to refine your game. Learn how to use diplomacy, learn how to specialize cities, and learn what to focus on, and it's not too bad to move up a level.

 

[Ghpstage]

A GG gives 20xp to the 'tile' spreading it equally across units there (even air units ) but only gets attached to one. To maximise new promos you will have to use it on a low level units alone on a tile.

Also GGs on units expected to fight are rarely a good idea, they die way too easily, I limit GGs to Medic 3 + Morale super medics, the odd Privateers and sometimes a 5 move galley, every other one gets settled or builds a military academy

I was actually wondering about submarine / artillery as well. I assume flank / range for subs, and the barrage stuff for artillery...

For artillery the CR line is the best for a first few attack units, barrage works well when the top defender is damaged a bit, and dominates field stack combat, so using both lines is wise imo. I use the same method with all siege, though I do use accuracy on some siege units up till cannons.

Subs I find, can benefit a lot from many different promos and are very flexible.
The invisibility makes sentry handy for scouting (needs flanking 1), nav helps too.
High withdrawal (50% at start!) works well with flanking 2 for a total of 80% withdraw .
Missile carrying capacity of standard subs benefits a lot from sentry and Nav 1+2 for nuking/cruise missile attacks. Similarly attack subs *may* go the nav route to carry spies. (I don't do this often tbh)
Drill does well if your using subs to mop up after missiles, battleship collateral or withdrawal subs softening up ships.
Combat works very well for countering enemy subs (you want a sentry sub helping though!). It also works well for mop up duty especially as it opens up Blitz.

And don't worry about struggling on Monarch, it isn't the softest move up from Prince. You get landed with the first noticable AI production bonuses, first free techs and free units all at the same time, not nice
Reading the forums can be hard to put into practice, but once you get it right you'll know and it'll fall into place quickly

 

[henrebotha]

As regards your frustration with the tech tree: if you point the mouse at a specific unit under a tech (like, say, Knights under Guilds), it'll show you in red text what techs and resources you would need to build that unit (in this case, Horseback Riding and Iron).

I've made this kind of mistake once or twice... Mostly with getting Feudalism without Archery and wondering why I can't build Longbows.