Washington strategies

[travlake]

Washington of America:
Charismatic (+1 in all cities, +1 from monument and broadcast tower, 25% less XP needed for unit promotions).
Expansive (+2 in all cities, +100% for granary and harbor, +25% for workers).
Starting techs: Fishing, Agriculture
Unique building: Mall (Supermarket that provides +20% and +1 from musicals, singles, movies).
Unique unit: Navy SEAL (Marine that starts with 1-2 First Strikes and March).

To me, the synergy in Washington's traits is that they all allow high pop cities (vertical expansion): your heathly/happy caps are high, you can more easily build workers to improve tiles, and granaries come in faster.

That's the easy part, but I'm not 100% sure what vertical expansion means in other aspects of the game, or how to best leverage it to win. I know the map, opponents, situation, etc all matter more, but:

1) Do you think Washington leans towards any particular victory condition more than others?
2) Do you think vertical expansion points to farms/rep/specialists or cottages/US? Or do you use the promotions and fast start to kill enough that economic structure is unimportant?

More broadly speaking.. How do you play Washington?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

He's very balanced. He has an expansion game (very fast city setup with granaries and can afford extra tiles right away!) and can war effectively (especially with mounted which reach high promos quickly, or alternatively cr III siege) on both land and sea.

People would probably use him more if playing as America wasn't cherry tapping.

 

[Keilah]

what is this cherry tapping you speak of, sounds dirty

 

[mtr12]

It describes the purposeful use of suboptimal strategies in a videogame.

Granted, I'm pretty sure that on games posted online, people play with everything randomized. Otherwise I sure as hell wouldn't play a food-poor capital with a mediocre leader like Isabella.

 

[Keilah]

ah. Yeah honestly it annoys me that late-game UUs / UBs even exist. Has anyone, EVER, gained an appreciable edge from malls/seals?

 

[guspasho]

You mean cherry picking? People don't play him because he's too easy to play?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'm not going to define cherry tapping for you, but tvtropes will do it.

 

[obsolete]

The one thing I love about the Americans, is they always bring out the rookies on the forum who not only mention they can't win their games without his super-duper UU, but also on how over-powered it is...

I really gave up finding a way to call it for what it is... without getting accused for sounding condescending again.

Lets see which kiddies come out the woodwork again here in this thread...

 

[travlake]

Yes, the UU and UB stink, so Washington is probably below average despite an above average trait combo and starting techs.

So, if you random him, sounds like the consensus is get off to a quick start and play the generic map/situation strategy from there. Maybe leaning towards conquest a bit more frequently.

 

[vranasm]

I like this traits combination, makes for easy rexing start.

The starting techs are also reasonable.
What I don't like is UU and UB, but that should not be surprise.

And I mostly play the washington according to map of course... as almost always. His traits just make several aspects of my gameplay a lot easier.

He's in a sense "generic" leader for early game (no UU/UB OP/UP nonsense)

 

[Ataxerxes]

I like this traits combination, makes for easy rexing start.

The starting techs are also reasonable.
What I don't like is UU and UB, but that should not be surprise.

And I mostly play the washington according to map of course... as almost always. His traits just make several aspects of my gameplay a lot easier.

He's in a sense "generic" leader for early game (no UU/UB OP/UP nonsense)

This is actually a pretty good summary of Washington. Many of my best games have been with him. The traits have some synergy in premitting larger cities.

 

[Tristan_C]

I always beeline pottery and then industrialism when playing Washington. I just can't seem to win any of my games without that imba UU and the double speed granaries. Awesome combination.

 

[GGracchus]

I agree with everyone else, Washington is a good early-game leader. The only thing that is bad is his UU/UB.

 

[LeftAdjoint]

The one thing I love about the Americans, is they always bring out the rookies on the forum who not only mention they can't win their games without his super-duper UU, but also on how over-powered it is...

I really gave up finding a way to call it for what it is... without getting accused for sounding condescending again.

Lets see which kiddies come out the woodwork again here in this thread...

There's a thread in the Articles section where I think I adequately demonstrated in a Monarch game that marines(EDIT: SEALS I mean) are completely OP against longbows.

 

[mtr12]

The one thing I love about the Americans, is they always bring out the rookies on the forum who not only mention they can't win their games without his super-duper UU, but also on how over-powered it is...

I really gave up finding a way to call it for what it is... without getting accused for sounding condescending again.

Lets see which kiddies come out the woodwork again here in this thread...

I don't really understand what you're trying to say...that most people think America's UU is OP, but you don't?

 

[LeftAdjoint]

I don't really understand what you're trying to say...that most people think America's UU is OP, but you don't?

I don't know who exactly thinks that SEALs are OP, but anyone who thinks they're a good unique unit probably has very weak gameplay overall. Marines are so high in the tech tree that the game will be decided before then in 99% of cases—unless the difficulty level is set too low and you can just sit and tech to your heart's content and do whatever you want all game anyway.

Additionally, marines really only shine in naval warfare, which the AI is terrible at in the first place.

That said—having played the Civilization series since I was a little kid, I'm aware of the extent to which this game affords passive teching at the lower difficulty levels. So I'm sure there are indeed plenty of players who are used to going for Industrialism every single game before they start any wars. Such a player might indeed think that the SEAL is an amazing unit.

 

[Gooblah]

There's a thread in the Articles section where I think I adequately demonstrated in a Monarch game that marines(EDIT: SEALS I mean) are completely OP against longbows.

I can't tell if you're being serious or not...literally every single unit after Musketmen are "completely OP" against Longbowmen.

That being said, I like industrial era wars, so the SEAL is an excuse to wait until then when I'm playing as America.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Is there an era start where you can build SEALS instantly and avoid mech inf for a while or something? It's the only way I can picture the SEAL even being decent. I'd take it over the panzer (AI tank use is crappy and infrequent anyway), probably over the ballista elephant (though I'd trade away both SEAL and BE for the simple matter of having any ivory, mind you), and possibly over the ubercrap HRE landcrap. After that, it gets hard to come up with a way the SEAL can possibly be better than other UU, which come in time to be meaningful and are on a more commonly used unit.

 

[AbsoluteZero]

The problem with marines is if I get to industrialism, I wont be using marines, I'll be using tanks.

 

[obsolete]

The problem with your comment Absolute, is there is always some rookie defender who has to come back with something like "What if you don't get any oil!".