The race to rifling: Cavalry are still a dominant unit

[futurehermit]

Well you obviously didn't read my post because I have yet to attack Monty, but only have attacked Shaka. And I used that as an anecdote for the overall strategy of going for rifling earlier than I normally do.

Also, how is this section for the vanilla game? Clearly it is a strategy forum for civ4 which includes all 3 versions and the majority of people on this forum have BtS because it is the FANATICS forum and FANATICS can't wait to get their hands on the most recent expansion

Discussing STRATEGY on the STRATEGY forum doesn't seem out of place to me Anyways, I'm going to stop rolling around on the ground in an elementary school fight now, brush myself off, and be all mature again

 

[carl corey]

The key is to get rifling long before the AI gets it so you have a tech disparity gap with which to ravage the AI. Although cav have been pushed back, the AI techs slower now, so the net result is still cav dominance, just that you can't do it as soon as you could before!

...

Net result: Cav wipe whole continent clean, just like before, just at a slightly later date.

To Handel: That's from his first post. Read it before commenting. He was pointing out that AIs tech slower, the part about AIs not prioritizing Rifling came in later posts.

Also, the forum is not about vanilla games, or common things, it's about 'Strategy and Tips'. Going for Cavalry for all the reasons listed by futurehermit and others can be included under either Strategy or Tips (ie: the Ai techs slower, the AI doesn't go for Rifling, etc). You are free not to read or reply to this kind of threads if you don't like them. But criticizing them for what they are not isn't in any way constructive.

Edit: this is the last off-topic post I'll make here.

 

[madscientist]

In my games so far I've been going for democracy and communism and delaying rifling. In this game I went for rifling first and am having success. I don't see how coming to talk about this experience as a strategy can be construed as boasting

I guess having Shaka and Monty as neighbors caused you to alter your usual tech path.

 

[carl corey]

Heh, having Shaka and Monty as neighbours makes me go all paranoid! In one Warlords game I had to continuously bribe Monty to go to war against others until I was prepared for him, as he was cheerfully marching huge obsolete stacks all over my empire. I finally backstabbed him, but I fought a war where most units on both sides were depleted in taking/retaking the same city.

 

[futurehermit]

Yeah, that's true. Normally I like to be done warring by the renaissance age so that I can adopt emancipation and grow cottages empire-wide. But I HATE getting into a war with these guys early because your whole empire has to be set to production, which really bogs down your tech pace. I prefer to attack them when I have a tech advantage so that my one SoD can take out their 3+ SoDs with minimal losses. At tech parity you would need 3+ SoDs yourself and that is hard on the economy.

 

[carl corey]

The best thing then is that Monty usually stops teching early enough. Especially if he's involved in wars. So you can get that tech lead on him even as early as Macemen. I'm not that familiar with Shaka's habits.

Me, I'm more of a 'production' guy. I like going for Rifle/Cavalry wars, using Constitution for Jails if still needed. Democracy usually comes after, as it's needed so that my people stop complaining about not being emancipated! That means I'm rarely first in GNP, but I'm nearly always first in production by that time.

 

[madscientist]

Palying as Qin in a warlord game with no horses on a Pangea map I had Monty and Shaka as neighbors. I was real proud of myself to bride one to attack the other and pretty much wreck each others territory. I was so proud of myself while I was working on a culture win that Kublai Kahn attacked me and I spend a very long time (3 different wars) putting him in his place. I got the culture win, horses, and vassalled all three by the end.

 

[futurehermit]

The best thing then is that Monty usually stops teching early enough. Especially if he's involved in wars. So you can get that tech lead on him even as early as Macemen. I'm not that familiar with Shaka's habits.

Me, I'm more of a 'production' guy. I like going for Rifle/Cavalry wars, using Constitution for Jails if still needed. Democracy usually comes after, as it's needed so that my people stop complaining about not being emancipated! That means I'm rarely first in GNP, but I'm nearly always first in production by that time.

Nothing wrong with that at all. Myself, I've been using the following approach: Emphasize commerce a la DaveMcW then attack with superior units once I get to late renaissance/industrial era. With tanks/bombers vs. longbows/muskets for example I took out a 20+ city empire (he was world leader at the time) in a heartbeat on the replay. I prefer this to having to slog it out with say maces + catas/trebs vs. longbows, esp if those longbows are protective and with cities on hills and all that.

The pro of the latter approach is capturing territory sooner (good), but the con is that it costs far more hammers (imo) and hurts your economy more during a critical period of the game.

Palying as Qin in a warlord game with no horses on a Pangea map I had Monty and Shaka as neighbors. I was real proud of myself to bride one to attack the other and pretty much wreck each others territory. I was so proud of myself while I was working on a culture win that Kublai Kahn attacked me and I spend a very long time (3 different wars) putting him in his place. I got the culture win, horses, and vassalled all three by the end.

Well done! Diplomacy ftw!

 

[colony]

Flanking 2 Cavalry backed up with a fast Medic 3 unit will barely have to stop to take over a civ without Rifling, the speed advantage and withdrawal rate far outweighs not having CR promotions IMO. I do generally use both Cavalry and CR Rifles though, but separately, the CR Rifles go after the really tough cities (80% culture on a hill with 10 Protective Longbows in sort of thing). I keep drafted Rifles for defending new cities.

The best thing then is that Monty usually stops teching early enough. Especially if he's involved in wars. So you can get that tech lead on him even as early as Macemen. I'm not that familiar with Shaka's habits.

Shaka techs better than Monty in my experience, he doesn't spend as long getting the religious techs and manages to still have a massive army that's normally reasonably up to date. He's quite scary if he's next to you, but he doesn't care about religion either, so most of the time he isn't too hard to bribe. Just be careful you don't turn him into a real monster.

 

[futurehermit]

Flanking 2 Cavalry backed up with a fast Medic 3 unit will barely have to stop to take over a civ without Rifling, the speed advantage and withdrawal rate far outweighs not having CR promotions IMO. I do generally use both Cavalry and CR Rifles though, but separately, the CR Rifles go after the really tough cities (80% culture on a hill with 10 Protective Longbows in sort of thing). I keep drafted Rifles for defending new cities.

I really love the french because their city-defender, draftable UU can keep up with the fast-moving cavalry!

 

[carl corey]

Thanks. I think I probably contributed to turning Monty into a monster, as you said, since making him go to war is making him more likely to build units. But there was really no other option in that game. There were 3 AIs on the continent: Alex (backstabber supreme), Monty and Ramses. I attacked Alex early on to take a copper city. After we signed peace Alex attacked Monty but was getting a beating, so I joined in. But by the time the war ended Monty already had huge stacks of units going after Alex's last tundra cities. That's when I decided to bribe him against Ramses (who was mostly sharing borders with him, only a bit with me) and to backstab him soon after.

If Shaka is really near I try to kill him as soon as I can. If not, I'll have to watch out for him I guess.

 

[futurehermit]

If Shaka is far (i.e., not touching borders) it is possible to get him to Friendly. I've done that before. He makes a great attack dog. Just give in to ANY and ALL demands, share religion, gift him resources/techs, and go to war with him, etc. Once he's at friendly: you point, he attacks.

 

[Via]

I really don't understand your point... Is it that you can rush a specific tech to gain an advantage over the AI? Because you can certainly do that at some difficulty levels. But if you're suggesting that Cavalry are the best to rush for, I'd have to disagree. Especially as they need Rifling, which brings up the better (imo) alternative - Riflemen. Having a large stack of CR3 Riflemen is going to bring down a city faster than Cavalry are going to. And while, yes, Riflemen are slower to move around the enemy territory than Cavalry, you're likely to need to drag siege weapons around, negating the speed advantage.

Bh

Agree. Rifleman is now whole 2 techs earlier than Cavarly is. That's half of the long war alredy done. And healing rates are the same for both units, another factor slowing down fast cavalry beside siege units.

 

[axident]

Agree. Rifleman is now whole 2 techs earlier than Cavarly is. That's half of the long war alredy done. And healing rates are the same for both units, another factor slowing down fast cavalry beside siege units.

Spies to create revolts right as the cavalry arrive, can help with a cav rush, though honestly I don't even attempt cav rushes unless I KNOW I can mass lots of them before the AI can get/trade for Rifling. I don't mind losing another couple of cavs if it means hammers going cavs and not spies that might die before they can revolt a city.

 

[futurehermit]

Agree. Rifleman is now whole 2 techs earlier than Cavarly is. That's half of the long war alredy done. And healing rates are the same for both units, another factor slowing down fast cavalry beside siege units.

no way. i start with one huge stack of cav. if some get injured enough that i feel they wouldn't survive another battle they stay behind with a medic 3 unit and the rest continue on to the next city.

there is no slow down because i constantly move my medic 3/injured troops up to the nearest conquered city and replacements are healed up in time to move on to the next city.

in the game in question i wiped out shaka no problem and went on to a space race win (i was hurting really, really bad for war weariness and was also starting to get emancipation unhappiness so i needed peace anyways and it was getting late in years so i decided to just shoot for the win since i had the largest empire)

 

[Bhruic]

I dunno, to me this thread seems more about highlighting the slow tech speed of the AI than anything else. I mean, yeah, if you get Macemen while the AI is defending with Archers, it's a cakewalk. If you get Tanks when the AI is defending with Riflemen, it's a cakewalk. And if you get Cavalry when the AI is defending with Longbows, it's a cakewalk. For a decently competitive game, however, you shouldn't be in a position where you are massively ahead on tech - if you are, there's either something wrong with the AI, or you're playing on too easy a level.

Bh

 

[futurehermit]

Getting to rifling while the AI is defending with longbows/muskets doesn't mean you're massively ahead on tech, especially if you are factoring in the liberalism launchpad. Beelines are SUPPOSED to put you ahead on a given tech line. The drawback is that you are missing tech horizontally in other (often key) areas.

Rifling is needed for cav. It's also needed for the primary counter. That's why I call it a race to rifling. If you win that race then it's a matter of being able to put it to use. If you've been playing well + if the AI has different tech priorities or is a warmongerer and doesn't have a fast enough tech pace (both perfectly valid scenarios) then you have the opportunity to do a lot of dmg.

That doesn't mean necessarily that you are on too low of a difficulty level. Heck, even Snaaty reported having great success with cavalry on DEITY difficulty level...

 

[Handel]

I still see no use of this whole thread besides someone explained how he attacked with upper hand and won. No big deal.
Actually if you know how to attack with obsolete troops and to win this will be a real thread.

 

[JujuLautre]

I still see no use of this whole thread besides someone explained how he attacked with upper hand and won. No big deal.
Actually if you know how to attack with obsolete troops and to win this will be a real thread.

Well, I'm not sure, but isn't the main point contesting that, as lots of people said, cavalry has been seriously nerfed?

 

[Lurking Liu]

I still see no use of this whole thread besides someone explained how he attacked with upper hand and won. No big deal.
Actually if you know how to attack with obsolete troops and to win this will be a real thread.

Will you just go back to composing operas while the rest of us talk about games, okay? There was talk before BTS that Cavalry might not be viable as a strategy anymore because of the increased tech required to use them. All he's saying is that you can still use the old strategy. Wait, what was that word? Strategy? Isn't that... OH! Right, yeah, that's the name of the forum, isn't it? Gorsh. What a coinky-dink.



At any rate... You can increase your edge if you take the time to build Cuirassiers pre-Rifling. They're really not that bad a unit, and have built-in immunity to First Strikes, as well as only costing a few more hammers meaning that upgrading to Cavalry is relatively inexpensive. If you need another reason to use them, then since they're about the same strength and a little cheaper, you can use them as quick fodder to soften up the defenses.

Y'know, really, Cuirassiers aren't half bad. People give them a bum wrap because they're not Cavalry, though. *shrugs*