Using the Great General

It's a good idea to use instructors on coastal cities early, then work inland to the production cities. It's just that naval units don't get many promotions otherwise.

 

I generally make my main production / military city to be coastal.

 

Yes. I do this too.

Theo and Vass grant a ship 4 xp. With 2 GGs that's up to 8xp.
For a CHA leader that is a Combat3 Trireme, Caravel or other Naval unit.

This topic makes me want to play Cyrus [CHA/IMP] and build the Great Wall.

 

As soon as I can get West Point that goes into a high production coastal city. Add it to Ironworks and the output of tough military units can rocket. Or pair it with Red Cross.

The other pairing I really like is Heroic Epic + Red Cross for the high production of all my medical needs!

And I almost always put a GG with a unit. My reasoning is that;

1) I want a unit that can cut through almost anything - rather like having an ace in the hole.

2) I almost never go to war until late (that is, after an early war or two to knock out near neighbours). A war may be forced on me, but I generally keep my military quite small until after I can get decent Siege, Cavalry and Rifles, so a tough unit in there is useful. As for late war... by that time my production should be quite sufficient without settling a GG. In fact, I usually try to win peacefully then go to war afterwards just for the fun of it/for practice.

3) I enjoy seeing how many promotions I can get with a GG unit.

4) I respect the GG Super-medic theory but I never use it. Having a Super-medic is great, but with a GG I want the unit to get progressively stronger. The temptation with a Super-medic is to keep it out of combat. I prefer my medical needs to be paired with a good stack defender (and I never rely on one).

5) If I do lose a GG unit it is usually because the AI has thrown so much into a counter-attack against my strongest unit that I've racked up a load more GG points towards another warlord. That said, I find that it's rare to lose a GG in combat (although it does happen of course; and if it was too easy and we won all the time we'd get bored).

 

Red Cross is overrated. Reason being that you only really need ONE unit with medical. So, I'd rather pair Heroic Epic with just about anything else but Red Cross.

I don't have your problem with not being able to grow a super medic. With collateral, it's quite easy to get 99% odds in every battle.

 

I disagree. I prefer two medics (good to have a spare just in case), and then of course there's the situation with multiple stacks - each one needs medics.

Also, when garrisoning a captured city I always prefer to have medic enabled garrison troops. Helps the healing rate for detached units from city busting stacks, and gets them back into action faster. Also heals the garrison faster in the face of counter-attacks.

My view is that the more medics I have the fewer overall units I should need to build, therefore a lower resource and maintenance cost for the military

 

Ok, so you need two, then.

They're not cumulative, you understand that? You're choosing to have a non-cumulative bonus versus having to spend fewer resources to build your military, or having fewer bonuses for your military.

 

I think we're getting off-topic, however, I understand they're not cumulative. I'm writing about, say, a situation in mid/late game where I have two or three City Busting stacks of varying types. In such a situation I can reasonably expect, if I'm winning a war, to be capturing to or three cities every two turns (or more in a very late game war). This means finding garrison troops for my new acquisitions (presuming I don't raze them). In such situations I prefer a medic enabled garrison unit in each new city to a) heal damaged units from my city busting stacks, and b) heal any other garrison troops which may have been damaged in a counter-attack. I think this second part is perhaps the misunderstanding; I don't want ALL my garrison troops medic enabled. That would be unnecessary. However, this still means perhaps a dozen medic enabled units, and Red Cross is a convenient way to achieve this.

But it's all horses for courses because the beauty of Civ is the number of different strategies that can be used...

 

Totally agree on your conclusion! And I don't mean to be critical.

To put your comments in context, and yes this IS on topic... we're talking about setting Great Generals. So the question is whether to use Red Cross in a city where you have expended your settled GGs. IMO that's suboptimal.

Using Red Cross in a city where you are churning out garrison troops is a terrific idea, and I totally agree with your approach there. In your example, what I would do is have one production city with Red Cross (and NO settled GGs) making garrison troops. In my GG settled cities, I would be making my top-of-the-line assault troops. I would also have a very small handful of TOTL defense troops, which would NOT be used for garrison but would hold the newly conquered cities just for a couple of turns while they are at risk of counter attack.

So, it would go like this: TOTL assault troops take a city. 1-2 TOTL defenders move in, along with the garrision which is going to stay there permanently. The TOTL units rest for a couple of turns, aided by the garrison which was produced in the Red Cross production city (no GGs). Rinse and repeat.

This all assumes your scenario, where a super medic isn't used and the strategy is to be assaulting multiple cities across a broad front.

And, as you said, YMMV. There's nothing wrong with a different way of playing. OTOH the point of the forums is for everyone to learn new ways of playing from everyone else.

 

The "super flanker" is one of my favorite units. Melee units with the additional movement point are fantastic as well.

I always pair the Heroic Epic with West Point, they were made for one another. Throw in a couple of settled GG and it's time to bring the pain.

Red Cross always goes in a coastal city if one is available. Medic carriers (as well as a destroyer or two) are nice as healing at sea can be agonizingly slow. Really no need to put it in a primary producer as a handful of medic units are typically sufficient.

 

I agree with everything except the super flanker. Melee or otherwise, I do like the morale promotion. If you put it on something like an impi, you have the world's greatest pillager.

Heroic Epic and West Point does sound like the best. At slower speeds, a military academy can be nice too.

Definitely agree regarding Red Cross.

 

My games don't usually end in a late-game war, but I thought the point of the Red Cross was so that you could have march?

It seems to me that I'm often wishing that I could have boats that could heal on the move, especially on the turn that they attack.

Has anyone tried attack subs with Flanking I, II, Medic, and March? That sounds a lot more potent than adding warlords to ships

Edit: Apparently, you can't give your navy medic promotions

 

Military academies frequently, maybe even usually, generate more hammers than great engineers.

 

1 GG goes to Warlord with a scout/explorer or better with a chariot for medical duty.
All others settle in the miltary city.

 

Warlord on scout/explorer is a waste. Chariot is useful with a heavy mounted strategy. That aside, Warrior/Axe is best medic in almost all cases.

 

I can't see why an axe is better medic than a charriot.
The last is faster to change stack if needed; and is the weakest so never gets attacked.

 

Woodsman III.

The "getting attacked" is a slight negative, but still outweighed by the healing benefits. Plus, it means you probably stretched yourself too thin. The point of having a super medic is that you attack, kill some of the enemy, preserving your units which then then heal up and do it again. If you don't save (choose not to attack with) some strong defenders of your stack, then you get counterattacked and some of your healing units die. That defeats the purpose of the strategy.

 

To rebut on a point made some time ago - the nice thing about a mil academy is that you don't have to spend hammers on it, like you do a factory, and it doesn't create unhealthinesss that you have to overcome, like a factory does. You can just keep building units.

Another thing you can do is settler GG in your science city, for the 3 beaker rep bonus. No, I'm not saying you SHOULD do this, but if it's late and you dont' really need it for anything, beakers are beakers....

 

You could, but whats that, 9? If its late its not going to take a lot of turns of your next tech

 

I am starting to rethink the Military Academy, in the context of military buildings in general... mainly because it offers a production boost without shutting down unit production for several turns.