warpstorm
Yumbo? Yumbo!
Dracleath said:
You assume that they are willing to trade and that you can afford it.
Umm, Jaguar warriors?`This has to be a bug right?
- Thread starter Dracleath
- Start date
You assume that they are willing to trade and that you can afford it.
Another isssue is that people don't read and adquately comprehend posts and instead apply their own preconcieved notions without thinking things through.
I don't think you really get it.
It's not that the jaguar isn't as good as other units.
It's that the jaguar warrior is very much a specialist unit and would only rarely be used even if it were availabe normally to all civilizations.
It is a poor unit, and it replaces a good unit.
It is not a bonus, instead it's presence instead of the swordsman is a malus which in most games cripples the aztecs early city taking capabilities and which the player must actively overcome.
Name one other unit in civ3 or 4 which is inferior to the unit it replaces in its role for equal cost. There are none.
I don't think you really get it.
It's not that the jaguar isn't as good as other units.
It's that the jaguar warrior is very much a specialist unit and would only rarely be used even if it were availabe normally to all civilizations.
It is a poor unit, and it replaces a good unit.
It is not a bonus, instead it's presence instead of the swordsman is a malus which in most games cripples the aztecs early city taking capabilities and which the player must actively overcome.
Name one other unit in civ3 or 4 which is inferior to the unit it replaces in its role for equal cost. There are none.
Spatzimaus
Mad Scientist
Sigh, this thread AGAIN?
The fact that the Jaguars don't require Iron is HUGE. The key is that it's not only a resourceless unit, it's an early resourceless unit. It's not just for when you don't have Iron within your borders. Even if you have Iron:
> You don't need to spend time trying to get your Workers to hook it up.
> You don't have to found a town in a bad location near an iron deposit just to reserve it.
> You don't have to rush a culture building in some town just to get its borders to expand to include the Iron.
> You don't need to defend a wilderness tile from an invading army just to ensure you keep your resource intact.
> And if you weren't lucky enough to draw a local Iron source, you don't need to connect road networks to AI empires to trade for it. And remember that many AI empires in Civ3 neglected internal road networks, so you often couldn't connect to them even if you wanted to.
In Civ3, the resourceless bonus some UU's had wasn't as important, since they tended to fall later in the tree. If your UU was a horseless Knight (Japan!), did you REALLY have a hard time getting horses by that point? But this early, it makes all the difference. The "5 plus bonuses" is equivalent to the Swordsman's 6, in my opinion. I like a bit of flavor in my units, even if it costs them a slight amount of raw power. But the real strength is in the resource.
Don't believe me? From now on, in every game you play, make sure one of the AI players is the Aztecs, and set the AIs on "Aggressive". Then sit back and watch the carnage.
The fact that the Jaguars don't require Iron is HUGE. The key is that it's not only a resourceless unit, it's an early resourceless unit. It's not just for when you don't have Iron within your borders. Even if you have Iron:
> You don't need to spend time trying to get your Workers to hook it up.
> You don't have to found a town in a bad location near an iron deposit just to reserve it.
> You don't have to rush a culture building in some town just to get its borders to expand to include the Iron.
> You don't need to defend a wilderness tile from an invading army just to ensure you keep your resource intact.
> And if you weren't lucky enough to draw a local Iron source, you don't need to connect road networks to AI empires to trade for it. And remember that many AI empires in Civ3 neglected internal road networks, so you often couldn't connect to them even if you wanted to.
In Civ3, the resourceless bonus some UU's had wasn't as important, since they tended to fall later in the tree. If your UU was a horseless Knight (Japan!), did you REALLY have a hard time getting horses by that point? But this early, it makes all the difference. The "5 plus bonuses" is equivalent to the Swordsman's 6, in my opinion. I like a bit of flavor in my units, even if it costs them a slight amount of raw power. But the real strength is in the resource.
Don't believe me? From now on, in every game you play, make sure one of the AI players is the Aztecs, and set the AIs on "Aggressive". Then sit back and watch the carnage.
dh_epic
Cold War Veteran
You don't even have to build a worker or hook up your cities to get jaguars going. That's the benefit.
I've smoked the AI using Jaguars. They're an "early rush" unit.
Keep in mind that they start with the combat 1 promotion (since Montezuma is aggressive). You can promote them to all kinds of things with a barracks.
I've smoked the AI using Jaguars. They're an "early rush" unit.
Keep in mind that they start with the combat 1 promotion (since Montezuma is aggressive). You can promote them to all kinds of things with a barracks.
Sullla
Patrician Roman Dictator
The fact that the Jag is a resouceless unit is huge. Iron is a relatively scarce resource on the map. Not only do you not need iron to build Jags, you don't even have to spend 4-5 turns hooking up a source you might have anyway. Rush for Iron Working right at the start of the game, and go kick some butt. If you don't believe me, you haven't faced a human opponent in MP who's using the Aztecs.
Montezuma is Aggressive, so all Jags start with Combat I already. With a barracks in your city, you can grab a second promotion and take the very-useful Cover or Melee promotions as well. These make a very big deal! The Jag had 6 strength at one point in time in testing, but it was so monstrously overpowered that we pushed it back to 5 strength, where it's pretty nicely balanced. Please keep in mind that the developers are not idiots, we did run some tests on this, and determined that this was the best outcome. Of course, you are also free to disagree.
Montezuma is Aggressive, so all Jags start with Combat I already. With a barracks in your city, you can grab a second promotion and take the very-useful Cover or Melee promotions as well. These make a very big deal! The Jag had 6 strength at one point in time in testing, but it was so monstrously overpowered that we pushed it back to 5 strength, where it's pretty nicely balanced. Please keep in mind that the developers are not idiots, we did run some tests on this, and determined that this was the best outcome. Of course, you are also free to disagree.
Point 1: Keep in mind that those easy promotions only come with theocracy and vassalage. These come MUCH later than iron working, and by that time people will have much more well developed armies. If you're waiting for theo or feudalism to attack you're enemy you've missed the window, especially as lbows become available about that time.
Point 2:
You're horribly underestimating the ability of other civs to rush.
You can smoke the AI with jags? Fantastic. I can have preats out by the same time those jags are out.
Don't beleive me?
Start game as Aztecs. Research mining. Research Bronze Working. Research Iron Working. Jags.
Quick right?
Start game as Romans. Research the wheel. Research Bronze working. Research Iron working. Build Iron mine. Total time? Same as jags +4 turns to build the road and mine.
So by the time your jags have walked over to my civ I have praets.
I know this because I've done praet rush games.
But wait, what if I don't have iron?
Oh wait I can put out axemen which hammer for hammer will outperform those jags. Which likely I've already been building if for the past 10-15 turns while iron is reasearching while you've been sitting on your hands waiting for IW, because you haven't bothered to build your road network. Or if you have and you have copper, then you too are better using axemen instead of jags, as you'll be putting them out quicker for the same performance, and you can easilly have dropped a mine on a copper by the time your first jag will be out.
Oh wait, but its not just romans that can do this, but it's pretty much any civ that starts with either mining or the wheel. And there are aggressive civs that start with the wheel.
So yeah I'm sure you've started your games with aztecs and played to IW popped up and rushed a few jags at an opponent that probably had just bothered building archers and said OMG THIS IS THE WINS STRATEGY, NERF JAGS.
But in the hands of a competent player preats or swordsmen or even axemen will do better, and if you're the one who's trying the jag rush you better hope your target isn't a competant Rome, Greeks, Japanese, Mongolians, etc player with even a single deposit of copper or iron around because you are about to get your jags tail feathers handed back to you so badly that you'll look up to france's defence in WWII as a heroic holdout.
ED: Look, I'm not saying jags should get 6 attack or anything necessarily.
I'm just saying for the love of god let the aztecs build swordsman so that their entire early game strategy isn't tied to some pie in the sky magic resourceless rush that may not even work and even if it does work requires either one of not building a worker or second city to pull off totally wrecking their economy
Point 2:
You're horribly underestimating the ability of other civs to rush.
You can smoke the AI with jags? Fantastic. I can have preats out by the same time those jags are out.
Don't beleive me?
Start game as Aztecs. Research mining. Research Bronze Working. Research Iron Working. Jags.
Quick right?
Start game as Romans. Research the wheel. Research Bronze working. Research Iron working. Build Iron mine. Total time? Same as jags +4 turns to build the road and mine.
So by the time your jags have walked over to my civ I have praets.
I know this because I've done praet rush games.
But wait, what if I don't have iron?
Oh wait I can put out axemen which hammer for hammer will outperform those jags. Which likely I've already been building if for the past 10-15 turns while iron is reasearching while you've been sitting on your hands waiting for IW, because you haven't bothered to build your road network. Or if you have and you have copper, then you too are better using axemen instead of jags, as you'll be putting them out quicker for the same performance, and you can easilly have dropped a mine on a copper by the time your first jag will be out.
Oh wait, but its not just romans that can do this, but it's pretty much any civ that starts with either mining or the wheel. And there are aggressive civs that start with the wheel.
So yeah I'm sure you've started your games with aztecs and played to IW popped up and rushed a few jags at an opponent that probably had just bothered building archers and said OMG THIS IS THE WINS STRATEGY, NERF JAGS.
But in the hands of a competent player preats or swordsmen or even axemen will do better, and if you're the one who's trying the jag rush you better hope your target isn't a competant Rome, Greeks, Japanese, Mongolians, etc player with even a single deposit of copper or iron around because you are about to get your jags tail feathers handed back to you so badly that you'll look up to france's defence in WWII as a heroic holdout.
ED: Look, I'm not saying jags should get 6 attack or anything necessarily.
I'm just saying for the love of god let the aztecs build swordsman so that their entire early game strategy isn't tied to some pie in the sky magic resourceless rush that may not even work and even if it does work requires either one of not building a worker or second city to pull off totally wrecking their economy
warpstorm
Yumbo? Yumbo!
Okay, why don't you duel? Sullla take the Aztecs, Dracleath take the Romans best out of three.
dh_epic
Cold War Veteran
Dracleath, in your formula you forget that you might actually end up with a city without iron at all. Not to mention that you can build a city right next to the enemy and begin spamming jags, without having to hook it up to your empire.
But I think you do have a point. Jaguars are LIFE-SAVING without iron, but disappointing WITH iron. I think the Aztecs need to be able to build the regular swordsman as well, in these cases.
But I think you do have a point. Jaguars are LIFE-SAVING without iron, but disappointing WITH iron. I think the Aztecs need to be able to build the regular swordsman as well, in these cases.
I actually just did a rome duel vs aggressive AI on noble. Not a human of course but you were mentioning the AI running over other civs because of jags...
AI aggressive noble. Got lucky as the iron was by my first city but I still finished the settler and founded the second city rather than going directly to praets so it didn't speed me up more than 2 or 3 turns it would have taken to walk out the settler and road to it.
Achieved conquest victory in 1520 BC. AI had 1 jag out, I had 4 preats, though only 2 had managed to actually walk over there as I built a barracks after the 1st two.
Killed 5 archers or so in the enemies 2 cities. Aztecs didn't even get a single jag out.
I've got screens.
Ed: if someone will host them of course or will tell me how to actually post them here.
Edit 2: And I'm contradiction man. After going back and looking I was right the second time. Save will be posted below.
AI aggressive noble. Got lucky as the iron was by my first city but I still finished the settler and founded the second city rather than going directly to praets so it didn't speed me up more than 2 or 3 turns it would have taken to walk out the settler and road to it.
Achieved conquest victory in 1520 BC. AI had 1 jag out, I had 4 preats, though only 2 had managed to actually walk over there as I built a barracks after the 1st two.
Killed 5 archers or so in the enemies 2 cities. Aztecs didn't even get a single jag out.
I've got screens.
Ed: if someone will host them of course or will tell me how to actually post them here.
Edit 2: And I'm contradiction man. After going back and looking I was right the second time. Save will be posted below.
KrikkitTwo
Immortal
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2004
- Messages
- 12,418
Sullla said:The fact that the Jag is a resouceless unit is huge. Iron is a relatively scarce resource on the map. Not only do you not need iron to build Jags, you don't even have to spend 4-5 turns hooking up a source you might have anyway. Rush for Iron Working right at the start of the game, and go kick some butt. If you don't believe me, you haven't faced a human opponent in MP who's using the Aztecs.
Montezuma is Aggressive, so all Jags start with Combat I already. With a barracks in your city, you can grab a second promotion and take the very-useful Cover or Melee promotions as well. These make a very big deal! The Jag had 6 strength at one point in time in testing, but it was so monstrously overpowered that we pushed it back to 5 strength, where it's pretty nicely balanced. Please keep in mind that the developers are not idiots, we did run some tests on this, and determined that this was the best outcome. Of course, you are also free to disagree.
since jags are a cheap rush unit, have they considered dropping the cost a bit (say to 35 shields to give them a bit of a bonus v. regular swords if Iron is present)
dh_epic
Cold War Veteran
Extend the experiment, Dracleath. A noble AI is pretty easy to deal with, and they never ever anticipate a rush, let alone try to do one of their own. You need to try a rush with both, and under a variety of circumstances.
1) Play Aztecs and try for a Jaguar rush. (Again, the AI won't do it, so you have to.)
2) Play Rome and try for a Praet rush, but without iron in your first city. (You may have to play multiple times. And don't cheat.)
I think it will show you this: you'll be thankful for Aztecs when you don't have iron, and kicking yourself when you have to scramble to find iron with Rome. BUT, when you have iron with Rome, you'll be laughing yourself silly, and when you have iron with the Aztecs, you'll be severely disappointed.
1) Play Aztecs and try for a Jaguar rush. (Again, the AI won't do it, so you have to.)
2) Play Rome and try for a Praet rush, but without iron in your first city. (You may have to play multiple times. And don't cheat.)
I think it will show you this: you'll be thankful for Aztecs when you don't have iron, and kicking yourself when you have to scramble to find iron with Rome. BUT, when you have iron with Rome, you'll be laughing yourself silly, and when you have iron with the Aztecs, you'll be severely disappointed.
Dracleath said:Yes.
BUT
Praets can get those promotions too
Also any aggressive civ can with vassalage or theo take both those upgrades off the bat, not just aztecs, and no other aggressive civ is penalized with a unit inferior to the one it replaces.
Alex kublai or genghis can not only rush raider/cover swordsman, but their swordsmen are clearly superior to the jaguars once they are made.
Now you may say "yeah but you need a source of iron to be superior to jaguars".
But again, looking at the numbers this doesn't hold up.
Lets take a look at jaguars vs other early age normal units:
Jaguar
5 strength
+10% city attack
+25% jungle and forest defense
40 hammers (8 hammers/strength unit)
availible at Iron working
uses swordsman promotion list
Swordsman
6 strength
+10% city attack
40 hammers ( 6.6 hammers/strength unit)
requires iron
availible at Iron working
Axeman
5 strength
+50% against melee units
35 hammers ( 7 hammers/strength unit)
requires copper
availible at Bronze working
uses swordsman promotion list
War Elephant
8 strength
+50% against mounted units
doesn't get defensive bonuses
60 hammers (this seems like a disadvantage, but compare 5 strength at 40 = 8 hammers per strength unit vs 8 strength at 60 = 7.5 hammers per strength unit. Still more cost effective than the jaguar)
requires ivory
availible at construction (comparatively iron working is 3 techs in, construction 4)
uses mounted promotion list (can't get city raider but can get ignore first strike and withdraw from combat, both excellent for attacking cities)
Horse Archer
6 strength
+50% vs catapults
Immune to first strike
50 hammers ( 8.3 hammers per strength unit, only one in the list so far more expensive than the jaguar)
availible at horseback riding
uses mounted promotion list
I'd argue all these units aside from perhaps horse archer are better units for attacking cities (even the axeman is equivalent in cost effectiveness fighting archers and superior if your enemy has any melee defenders at all), and even the horse archer isn't that far behind and is much better at attacking units in the field.
So now the jaguar is more useful than the alternatives for the intended role of the swordsman (city raider and generalist combat unit), the unit it replaces if:
You don't have iron.
You don't have horses.
You don't have copper.
You don't have ivory.
You don't have a civilization nearby with extra iron.
you don't have a civilization nearby with extra copper.
you don't have a civlilization nearby with extra horses.
you don't have a civilization nearby with extra ivory.
That's an awful lot of ifs.
This post goes a long way in proving that effort alone isn't always enough.
dh_epic said:
Ok I'll try 3 or 4 games like that then.
But then the question comes up, if the romans have iron (or copper) about 50% of the time within settler distance of their cities, which has been my experience, then the early game is even.
So why does the aztec have to have a crippled early-->mid game military as a response? Surely the fact that non-aztecs can often out-rush them (though certainly not always) means that they shouldn't get a penalty and should still get normal swordsmen so they aren't hurting when opponents are using axes, lbows, and the like.
That's just mean 
2nd game. Aztecs vs Rome. I get mining,Bronze working, iron working, build one warrior and a settler. IW came 3 or so turns before my settler finished, I immediately go for a jag after the settler finished.
I declare war on caesar, walk in with my first jag and find his first expansion city. Well, I think, perhaps I should wait but one swordsman should be able to pretty easilly handle 1 archer in a city with no culture bonus.
Nope, oops it was a jag not a swordsman. Jag dies.
My second 2 jags come quickly behind him and take the city. Now I've got the ai bottled up on a peninsula and I'm sending jags in. I fortify one of the two outside his city while the other one defends (he has 3 archers in rome so I'm not going to try to assault with just what I have so far).
I wait a bit, and now have 5 jags vs his 4 archers. Unfortunately rome is size 8 now.
I assault. 4 jags go down to his 2 archers...
So I wait to build more units and start the road to cats.
Right now (eh 400 bc or so)I've got maybe 6 or 7 jags, am just starting to get out cats, and will almost certainly take the city but will do it much much later than I did as rome.
What was all this about then?
I declare war on caesar, walk in with my first jag and find his first expansion city. Well, I think, perhaps I should wait but one swordsman should be able to pretty easilly handle 1 archer in a city with no culture bonus.
Nope, oops it was a jag not a swordsman. Jag dies.
My second 2 jags come quickly behind him and take the city. Now I've got the ai bottled up on a peninsula and I'm sending jags in. I fortify one of the two outside his city while the other one defends (he has 3 archers in rome so I'm not going to try to assault with just what I have so far).
I wait a bit, and now have 5 jags vs his 4 archers. Unfortunately rome is size 8 now.
I assault. 4 jags go down to his 2 archers...
So I wait to build more units and start the road to cats.
Right now (eh 400 bc or so)I've got maybe 6 or 7 jags, am just starting to get out cats, and will almost certainly take the city but will do it much much later than I did as rome.
What was all this about then?
warpstorm
Yumbo? Yumbo!
Did you upgrade your Jags with Cover?
I upgraded with city raider which should be a superior bonus when attacking cities. I wasn't fighting archers in the field. (And by superior I mean I wouldn't be screwed if he still had a few spearmen or warriors still lying around.)
I hadn't yet gotten theo or feudalism as feudalism had just become availible when I stopped playing and would have taken another 20 or so turns to build.
I waited until after my first wave to build barracks. If this is a mistake so be it but if I'd waited that would have given my opponent 8-10 more turns and he'd probably have reinforced his second city by then.
And also keep in mind that my first wave of 3 praets wiped out the enemy in the first game, which weren't even upgraded at all.
I hadn't yet gotten theo or feudalism as feudalism had just become availible when I stopped playing and would have taken another 20 or so turns to build.
I waited until after my first wave to build barracks. If this is a mistake so be it but if I'd waited that would have given my opponent 8-10 more turns and he'd probably have reinforced his second city by then.
And also keep in mind that my first wave of 3 praets wiped out the enemy in the first game, which weren't even upgraded at all.
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