Tile improvements and slaughtering villagers

[DMOC]

Almost 80% of my seige goes down the City Raider line... it stills does plenty of collateral damage and it has a much higher survival rate than anything else. If the city is on a hill or at tech parity I'll send in a barage or two to soften it up... but these don't usually live very long.

For attacking cities I would go CR but not for attacking forts.

 

[Cashew]

Forts are noob, don't build them. I remember one game a guy forted 3 hills in front of his capitol and I simply walked around them and claimed his city. He had no mines as a result and garbage production.

Pillaging anything except for war resources is generally useless. The one exception to this is in duels/teamers or similar settings where you're essentially going to be focusing on one enemy for a long part of the game.

 

[Cashew]

Almost 80% of my seige goes down the City Raider line... it stills does plenty of collateral damage and it has a much higher survival rate than anything else. If the city is on a hill or at tech parity I'll send in a barage or two to soften it up... but these don't usually live very long.

Bombard bonuses are a little more versatile though, and are easier to use defensively. I haven't bothered running the numbers, but I'm fairly certain that there's no advantage to using CR bonuses against large stacks as far as overall damage goes.

 

[mirthadir]

Why would you want CRII/III siege?

Mostly I'm talking about cannon here. CRIII cannon vs say CIII infantry in a fort results in more cannon surviving to thwack again later. Even better if the AI is running mainly mounted units. I haven't done much of this since barrage changed, but CR siege into forts is hands down better than any other promo for siege. Certainly though for pre-gunpowder fight vs a balanced SoD, CRII melee into a fort is the best you can get until after you pick off all the stack defenders.

Remember this is mainly a cheapass defensive trick against AIs. AI SoD tend to be predictable so you run a few suicide workers up next to them and get the fort up at whichever tile(s) they are reasonably sure to move toward. I like doing it mainly if I'm running HR (I tend to never research HBR so I can have cheap garrison troops until AdvF) as an alternative to flanking down the siege. I haven't run the numbers, but off the cuff I think this should be competitive in terms of spent (particularly if you intend to go to war before your highly promoted surviving siege go obsolete) with flanking away the siege. Also this is an alternative to defending against the SoD before it pillages down some key resources (i.e. Marble or Fe)

Bombard bonuses are a little more versatile though, and are easier to use defensively. I haven't bothered running the numbers, but I'm fairly certain that there's no advantage to using CR bonuses against large stacks as far as overall damage goes.

It is a question of survivability question. Yes on a per basis I think the new barrage rules work out against CR fort trapping for siege (I honestly haven't spent enough time in the details here to know), but the more battles you have planned for that siege era, the more cost effective CR gets. For instance if you've just teched steel and shaka sends in a horde of muskets, maces, trebs, and knights your options to take down the SoD are to quick build some knights (if you have guilds) to flank away the trebs and then let your CG units kill the SoD; build some barrage cannons (drill cannons being useless here) and then mop up the SoD with muskets/maces, or fort trap and mop up in like manner. Fewer of the barrage cannon will survive, particularly once you hit a few more cities; however CRIII cannon are like the Energizer Rabbit, they just keep going and going.


The other major case is for an incoming SoD you want to kill (perhaps for no other reason than to load the XP onto your offensive rather than defensive units). If the SoD is balanced, then you best promos for killing it are CRII/III as opposed to CI/specfic counters. This also makes the XP earned go towards good offensive rather than defensive promos.

 

[DMOC]

Mostly I'm talking about cannon here. CRIII cannon vs say CIII infantry in a fort results in more cannon surviving to thwack again later. Even better if the AI is running mainly mounted units. I haven't done much of this since barrage changed, but CR siege into forts is hands down better than any other promo for siege. Certainly though for pre-gunpowder fight vs a balanced SoD, CRII melee into a fort is the best you can get until after you pick off all the stack defenders.

Remember this is mainly a cheapass defensive trick against AIs. AI SoD tend to be predictable so you run a few suicide workers up next to them and get the fort up at whichever tile(s) they are reasonably sure to move toward. I like doing it mainly if I'm running HR (I tend to never research HBR so I can have cheap garrison troops until AdvF) as an alternative to flanking down the siege. I haven't run the numbers, but off the cuff I think this should be competitive in terms of spent (particularly if you intend to go to war before your highly promoted surviving siege go obsolete) with flanking away the siege. Also this is an alternative to defending against the SoD before it pillages down some key resources (i.e. Marble or Fe)


It is a question of survivability question. Yes on a per basis I think the new barrage rules work out against CR fort trapping for siege (I honestly haven't spent enough time in the details here to know), but the more battles you have planned for that siege era, the more cost effective CR gets. For instance if you've just teched steel and shaka sends in a horde of muskets, maces, trebs, and knights your options to take down the SoD are to quick build some knights (if you have guilds) to flank away the trebs and then let your CG units kill the SoD; build some barrage cannons (drill cannons being useless here) and then mop up the SoD with muskets/maces, or fort trap and mop up in like manner. Fewer of the barrage cannon will survive, particularly once you hit a few more cities; however CRIII cannon are like the Energizer Rabbit, they just keep going and going.

I must have missed something here but CR is only for attacking cities, right? In that case I would prefer bombard or drill over CR as Shaka's stack of doom isn't in a city, but that's just my opinion.

 

[mirthadir]

I must have missed something here but CR is only for attacking cities, right? In that case I would prefer bombard or drill over CR as Shaka's stack of doom isn't in a city, but that's just my opinion.

No. CR is for cities or forts, just as CG works for either.

The logic of it is this. A fort is +25% defense, CRII is +45% offense. A barrage cannon has 40% odds vs a rifle draftee on open ground (it has 28% vs a fort). A Drill II cannon has 54% odds on open ground against the same draftee (40% into the fort). A CRII cannon has 76% odds going into the fort (40% odds on open ground). Thus the highest survival rate is going to be CRII into a fort. Once you get to CRIII, the +10% vs gunpowder pretty much makes it a done deal to fort trap. The case is even more compelling for trebs. Send up suicide workers to build a fort for the AI to waltz into, watch the stack enter, and then maul it with CR siege and CR troops.


The only time this isn't one of the best tradeoffs is when you are facing a number of CG units, thankfully must AIs don't bring loads of CG troops in their SOD and very few protective AIs tend to need this type of treatment.

 

[dankok8]

I've never tried this fort exploit, but wouldn't the AI pillage the fort regardless, rendering the strategy useless?!? It can't pillage if the city is on a hill, but then their stack gets another +25% bonus. It only works if the AI has no mounted units which can move and pillage in a single turn.

 

[mirthadir]

dankok: I could be wrong, but I don't think the AI ever pillages forts, perhaps I've just gotten lucky, but when the AI is sitting in a fort, why would it give up what it sees to be a +25% defensive bonus?

This is just another example of the AI being simple and stupid that you can abuse.

 

[DMOC]

I did not know that City Raider and City Garrison promotions work on forts. This is interesting, albeit almost never gamebreaking.

 

[mirthadir]

I did not know that City Raider and City Garrison promotions work on forts. This is interesting, albeit almost never gamebreaking.

The only other use I have for it is to get a de facto "cities on hills" or "cities behind rivers" at chokepoints for Shaka, Monty or whomever to beat his head against. without having to build a crappy city right next to their cultural borders. When I have surplus worker turns (normally right after railroading everything) I will often drop forts on all my useless tiles (either empty space, desert, or perhaps tundra) so I can use paratroopsers, planes, CG, and CR there if I need it.

 

[Skallagrimson]

In border cities I usually like to clear forested land and road it all around the 8-box, so that counter-attacks against enemy units will allow my unit to run back into the city to heal. Inland, in the back cities, roads aren't as useful as long as you have good direct transportation routes for units.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

A cheap use of forts is as a kill zone for an enemy SoD. Place one or several forts along a path the AI needs to transit to reach its target. Using CRII/III seige overcomes the defensive bonus and gives you better odds. Likewise before gunpowder or after industrialism your best all around attacks are CRII/III axes/maces/tanks. It seems a bit odd but if you have the enemy SoD in a fort they are actually easier to kill.

Naglimund. I believe the AI will prefer the route through the fort to the alternative.