The Emperor Masters' Challenge 2 (on Warlords)

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

think about it this way. barracks is 3 +2 from theo +2 from general. 2 exp to level 1 five to level 2 nine to level 3 and so on.
your units starting with 7 exp are just short of level 3. if you put a 2nd general there they start at level 3. producing an infinate stream of city raider 3 macemen etc. 2 more and they START at level 4... (devestating)

Level 1 = 0 XP, level 2 = 2 XP, level 3 = 5 XP, level 4 = 10 XP, level 5 = 17 XP.

Disregarding the off by one error with the level nomenclature, there seem to be some other problems with your numbers above. The units with 7 XP are a little farther than you indicate from level 4, and a second Great General won't quite get them there. Two more beyond that would only be 13 XP each, which isn't really anywhere near the 17 required for level 5. Maybe you're thinking of Charismatic leaders where level 1 = 0 XP, level 2 = 2 XP, level 3 = 4 XP, level 4 = 8 XP, level 5 = 13 XP.

look at your army, if you have any level 3 guys you're close to the heroic epic anyway.

I haven't found that to be true in practice. Again, I'll assume that by "level 3" you mean what the game calls level 4, or 10 XP. That puts you 7 XP away from level 5. If you assume that the unit gets 1 XP for each city you attack, that means you need to attack 7 more cities before he'll reach the required level. That seems fairly optimistic, since it ignores the occasional battle where the unit might need to sit out to heal or to avoid bad combat odds. Realistically it might take 10 to 14 cities. Even so, attacking 7 or more cities before Literature and after you have a unit with 10 XP isn't always practical. It happens, certainly, but I think you need to evaluate the situation and decide whether that level 5 unit is really on the way. Even worse is if the one unit you've been nurturing up to 16 XP gets a bad dice roll and dies.

 

[pigswill]

My impression (certainly in vanilla) was that xp was related to combat odds; the better the odds the lower xp. e.g. 90% =1xp, 30%=3xp (illustration rather than hard figures). This makes rapid xp a risky business. Possibly the safestway to generate xp for a warlord would be to make them stack defender; they get 1 xp per attack succesfully defended; if they get too weak another unit takes over as strongest defender.

 

[Hey Joni]

Keep in mind that the game speed is Epic. In my experience that makes Great Generals somewhat more difficult to come by. The necessary points scale by the 1.5 factor, but the world has the same amount of land with roughly the same number of cities defended by roughly the same number of units. In other words, opportunities for combat remain about the same, but you need 1.5 times more experience before you get a Great General.

I understand this... Actually, I play marathon - so epic is really fast for me! Imagine how many GG's I get per game!

 

[voek]

Much too read after a weekend

About the use of a Great General. I just played a game being Ramses II this weekend. My experiences with the WW during wartime learned me I had no trouble getting level 5 (even 6) units. Just save your high level units to finish off units. Therefore a GG prob. is more useful seated in your military city. Good promotions for the WW. Combat of course, but also flanking. When you receive flanking 2, you are immune to first strikes, which isn't bad besides the extra odds to retreat. WW's are great, even more so in Warlords, since they eat axemen for breakfast.

 

[csarmi]

First of all, you won't see more than a few generals throughout the game. Did I miss something btw? You received one already?

If you need the level 5 unit for the heroic epic, I think you have two ways to use the promotions effectively.

First is creating a super-medic unit which will help you throughout the whole game (it won't die, since you won't do any more combats with him).

Second is turning it into a very good killing machine and act with him bravely. Yes, he can die. So what? You only need to keep him alive until HE is finished anyways. After that, he is just a regular unit.

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

Good promotions for the WW. Combat of course, but also flanking.

I think Flanking is one of the most useful promotions for chariots. As we discussed earlier, Flanking is more useful in battles where you have lousy odds. That isn't going to happen very often for your knights and cavalry who are finishing off collaterally damaged defenders in cities that you bombarded down to 0% cultural defense. With chariots, on the other hand, you'll often be facing situations like a fully healed, fortified, City Garrison archer on a hill with 20-40% cultural defense. You can ignore that city (not a bad idea) or send in some flanking war chariots and hope you get a lucky roll (not entirely different from the mentality of suicide catapults).

Flanking I also opens up the Sentry promotion, which isn't going to help you much against the AI, but it's fantastic for fogbuster units and for scouting/recon later in the game.

 

[NaZdReG]

thx jiggle for the correction, I was going off of the civolopedia which is actually wrong (shame on firaxis)

looked at the file, and now there is no need for debate. SW of madrid is a unit with 14/17 exp. this unit MUST be kept alive and should be used for cleanup duty on weakened units only. he alone will get to levels 5 and 6 nessesary for heroic epic and west point later.

you have 21 of the 45 needed for a first great general. by the time you gather that your highest level chariot should have crossed the line to level 5 if he doesnt get killed. if he does you sadly might have to burn up the warlord to unlock the heroic epic.

also you have a while away from literature so there is plenty of time there.

other input.

i'd get a temple into the capitol, the extra happy means that cottage can get worked for commerce w/o additional growth.

if you need an extra worker go for it, inbetween wars you should spam some cottages and start building up your beaker production either that way and/or through libraries to run scientists instead of priests if you feel you need more than just the cottage commerce.

while literature is being considered, you also need to pick up iron working so you can begin clearing away the jungle that bogs down one of your cities and makes expansion into the south much more useful as it gets cleared away.

gotta get masonry anyway for the religious techs and for construction. cats will insure that your high exp chariot survives its fights.

and dont forget about that stack of hyuna's archers.. they're looking for an opportunity to catch a city unguarded. and his city to the west looks like it is in a tasty location

all I got for now, best of luck w/ the next round

NaZ

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

looked at the file, and now there is no need for debate. SW of madrid is a unit with 14/17 exp.

Oh, you're right then. There is no debate. That's your level 5 unit. End of discussion. Next question.

 

[Jet]

SW of madrid is a unit with 14/17 exp.

Oh, you're right then. There is no debate. That's your level 5 unit. End of discussion. Next question.

Yyyyyyyep.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Second is turning it into a very good killing machine and act with him bravely. Yes, he can die. So what? You only need to keep him alive until HE is finished anyways. After that, he is just a regular unit.

No you Don't... Once you have promoted a unit to level X if you attack and lose him as the next action you still get to build Heroic Epic/Westpoint 10 or 210 turns later. (you only need the memory of their legendary exploits, not the unit which did them)

As for the GG, the best is probably to check when you get him... does your High exp unit look like he will make it to 26 exp, or did he die at 22? Of course you will almost certainly get Heroic Epic (unless you get real unlucky with him) but getting West point is a possible failure. However, comparing a Great Instructor now to Westpoint later and a Warlord now, that is a bit of a trade off. Wheras Heroic Epic and a Warlord v. an Instructor, I think clearly favors the HE Warlord... although it appears That choice won't have to be made.

 

[Gnarfflinger]

I still say the extra 2 exp in a heavy production city will make a world of difference...

 

[aelf]

I think I'm won over by the idea of a Medic III warlord unit that will never die. My aversion for the warlord unit is due to the fact that it dies rather easily, but a Medic III warlord unit doesn't need to fight and can be big boon to us for the rest of the game. With fast healing we can fight more often, and can hence generate the 2nd GG more quickly.

Besides, I don't think we'll get a proper military city up and running when we get our first GG. That's another reason to go for the Medic III unit instead of the GMI. +2 xp won't benefit us much until we can really pump out more advanced units from the city quickly.

I'm less inclined towards peace after some thinking. No good gambling on them liking us enough to trade after we've converted. I think we are better off stifling them and extorting from them so that we can dominate our continent as early as possible. After that, spread our religion all over, build the two wonders and have a jolly good time!

We will finish researching CS and then research Masonry. Now that we are not going to trade, we may need to research IW soon, possibly after Masonry and before Alphabet. I hope we still stand a chance at building the GL in a city other than Thebes.

Well, I'm going to play the next round now.

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

I think I'm won over by the idea of a Medic III warlord unit that will never die.

I won't say it's a terrible idea (it isn't), but having done it, I'm not sure I'm thrilled with it. One thing I would suggest that might be counterintuitive is use it on a melee unit instead of mounted.

Mounted seems like a good idea, since I always like having extra movement on medics, but a mounted unit with 3 promotions in the medical path just doesn't get into combat very often until late in the game. Even a collaterally damaged spearman is going to offer fairly dangerous odds if he's fortified and has a combat promotion or two. I found that my unit, who started life as a horse archer, didn't start getting additional experience until he became a cavalry and started fighting totally outgunned opponents.

Melee units, on the other hand, tend to have fewer and less effective counters. Once a longbow gets collaterally damaged or slivered down by an unsuccessful raider, you'll usually get a few 98% combat opportunities that you can use to improve your medic.

Besides, I don't think we'll get a proper military city up and running when we get our first GG. That's another reason to go for the Medic III unit instead of the GMI. +2 xp won't benefit us much until we can really pump out more advanced units from the city quickly.

That may be true, but if it's based on the assumption that you'll get another Great General eventually by the time you do have that military city working, don't forget that you could instead have +4 experience if you use both as instructors. With no other benefit that would be 7 XP for every unit (not substantially better than 5) and 9 XP for mounted units (fairly useful). With Theocracy or Vassalage, you'd be getting 9 XP for every unit (nice) and 11 XP for mounted units (excellent).

You're probably right that using the first general as an instructor doesn't pay off quickly, but once it does pay off, it pays off big.

 

[aelf]

Mounted seems like a good idea, since I always like having extra movement on medics, but a mounted unit with 3 promotions in the medical path just doesn't get into combat very often until late in the game. Even a collaterally damaged spearman is going to offer fairly dangerous odds if he's fortified and has a combat promotion or two. I found that my unit, who started life as a horse archer, didn't start getting additional experience until he became a cavalry and started fighting totally outgunned opponents.

I thought the whole point was to keep it alive? Why should a medic unit fight?

You're probably right that using the first general as an instructor doesn't pay off quickly, but once it does pay off, it pays off big.

That's true. A city with barracks GMI can build a level 3 unit right away. But consider the fact that a Medic III unit can technically help generate the 2nd GG sooner.

 

[voek]

I don't think a super medic helps that much in the progress in a war. A level two medic unit, like a warchariot, would do the job just fine. Once in a while you always need to regroup and wait for reinforcements.

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

I thought the whole point was to keep it alive? Why should a medic unit fight?

I guess I just have an aversion to having my most experienced unit stand around and watch everyone else fight. Of course, he's presumably helping indirectly by making the other units more useful, but it just feels wrong. But you're right that if his purpose is healing, then there's really no particular benefit to additional promotions.

In that case, I'd recommend using it on a mounted unit instead of melee, since if he never fights again you won't be able to get the Morale promotion for additional movement.

If you have additional promotions available, it would probably make the most sense to use them for defensive or other secondary skills like Flanking, Sentry, or Mobility. Sentry and Mobility always seem like a waste on a combat unit, but if this guy is a spectator, then they could be useful.

 

[Hey Joni]

I think flanking only works when you attack. Sentry makes sense.

However, you can promote such units once you have the instructor in place, and get the exp bonus to combat units too.

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

Right, but you need Flanking for Sentry and Flanking II for Mobility. I was just thinking that if you're not planning on using this guy for fighting, then the standard promotions like Combat II or Shock won't really do much for you.

 

[RobertTheBruce]

I think the whole super-unit discussion doesn't fit very well with war chariots. The idea of the war chariot rush was you could produce lots of cheap, expendible but powerful units. Producing a high promotion war chariot doesn't make a lot of sense. Even with combat 4, it will have trouble with CG archers or archers in hill cities. It makes sense to protect the one chariot for the H.E. but its too early to worry about West Point. Either you will fight a lot of wars and get an eventual level 5 unit honestly or you won't and will be only a small amount of experience from the second warlord which can be used for West Point. If you use the great general for a chariot, it will still be a unit which is primarily used for cleanup battles.

In my experience, the experience cutoffs for the first two warlords are relatively low especially with Medieval and Napoleonic combat. With large battles, the first two or three warlords come at reasonable times. The forth warlord is very slow and I've never got a fifth on epic speed.

Producing shock chariots in a high production city is probably too valuable now to use the GG for West Point at a future time that may never arrive.

 

[Hey Joni]

You're right about flanking. But I still believe it's better to have GG join the city, then get one medic and one sentry and a lot of promoted fighters.

Aelf, have you thought about what to do after you eventually get the two targeted wonders? If you're planning on going for the other continent, then Westpoint sounds good. But if not, you might even go without a Heroic Epic. I would like to see if those wonders will help for a space race, or at least another diplomatic...