War!

[ainwood]

Every good General loves a war. Its our only real means of justifying our existence. For me, as a Military Advisor coming to the end of my term, posting my first poll is an attempt to show something concrete from my term.

Our fledgling civilization is all alone on our big island, but yet we hear rumours of far off lands. Stories of wonderous cities across the sea, peopled by strange inhabitants talking in strange tongues.

In true xenophobic style; "They've got to go". Question is: do we prepare now, or later?

Our current technology does not really provide many military options. The current thinking however should lead to elephants and crusaders. Fuedalism will allow us to build Sun Tzus war academy, and train veteran armies. In the upcoming times, what do you think we should be doing?

 

[ainwood]

Damn! It unchecked the "multiple options" box when I changed the number of poll options. Duke: Please fix!

 

[GaryNemo]

Yes! The Multiple options box is good chaos! And how about this for another choice:
Research Map Making, so we can go get them!

btw, I love war -- all of these cities and settlers are merely preparation for WAR! And Infinite City Sprawl is too!

 

[MajorGeneral2]

Well, before anything else, we must get map making, so we can actually DO something with these units. After all, we can't rely on the AI to find us, so we must find them. Afterward, I suggest heading for feudalism and Sun Tzu's. This way, we'll have vet units without having to build barracks, which also means less "unit replacement," since the units will last longer.

 

[MonkE]

I vote for bribery and subversion. The foreign advisors job might be more interesting. Of course we'll need a strong economy to raise funds ....

 

[Octavian X]

If we are to go to war, Mapmaking and triremes should be a research goal. As I'm sure we're all unfortunately aware, there aren't an AI's for us to bully on this continent If any attack is to be made, we should reseach mapmaking!

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

I can't edit poll options once it is posted, just like I can't add a poll to an existing thread. You'll just have to start a new one or live with this one.

 

[Ren]

?

On vbulletin forums I moderate, it's possible to add options...

 

[Dell19]

But he would have to change the style of the poll to a multi poll which is probably something that cannot be done.

 

[mordhiem]

I say Knights/Dragoons/Cavalry is the best option to go down. A raging army of move 2 units can be devastating to an unprepared (as they always are ) AI. You only need 4 or 5 knights and you can quite comfprtably mop up 2 cities a turn, 3+ before gunpowder.

 

[duke o' york]

But we can get crusaders so much sooner. Can I point out at this early stage that we do not want to pick on the civ that has built the Great Wall, whoever ends up doing that.

 

[Dell19]

Crusaders are better than Kinghts anyway, as they have an extra attack point, at least they seem to in my games.

 

[duke o' york]

Crusaders are basically mobile catapults, while knights are legions on horseback:
Crusader 5/1/2
Knight 4/2/2

 

[Dell19]

Which makes Crusaders far better, with Pikemen for defence.

 

[mordhiem]

But Knights upgrade to Dragoons very quickly and then into Cavalry soon after (Asuuming we get th absoulutley crucial Leo's workshop of course). Whenever I build Crusaders they always fall quickly out of date. By the time a get a reasonable sized army of them, I can always build dragoons.

And they are not replacements for catapults by any means, they don't ignore city walls, which is vital. Nothing can replace the catapults/cannon/artlliery/howitzers line.

 

[duke o' york]

I don't know which sequel to Civilization you've been playing, but in Civ 2 the only units that ignore city walls are planes, howitzers and boats. (and spies! )
Crusaders are better than catapults in that they have two movement points. this allows them to stand just outside of the AI city radius, so they can't be expelled, and then still attack next turn. You have to move the slow catapults up to the city where the defenders can just pick them off at will. You've done it to the AI and they will do it to you! The best defenders we have at the moment have 2 defence points. Not inspiring really. In the ancient and medieval eras the warfare is definitely biased toward the attackers. A vet crusader has an attack of 7(and a half ) and with a big gang of these then you'd better have built your city on a hill with walls or you won't stand much chance.
Besides, crusaders grow up into knights and then cavalry anyway but they pack more punch in the medieval age!