Watchers, Barbary Corsairs, and Privateers

[TrippedOnACloud]

Watchers (2 strength, 30 Law Enforcement) can be trained for as long as you do not build the upgrades to the Sentry Post that allow training of later Law Enforcement units. However, they still have access to the full line of Policing and Build Up (Crime Fighting) promotions, so a Watcher still gets most of the anti-crime effect of later Law Enforcement units for a minuscule fraction of the production cost. Admittedly, their low strength makes them nearly useless for city defense or criminal arrest purposes.

Barbary Corsairs and their later upgrade, Privateers, have the Wields (Distance Cannonball) combat class, which allows them to take the Rolling Thunder promotion line. This makes them capable of bombarding city defenses, albeit at a very low damage rate. This can be used to allow your bandit-type units to conquer even heavily fortified cities without declaring war. Also, bombarding city defenses gives Great Admiral XP, and here the low damage can actually be used to prolong your "training". A sufficiently fortified city being bombarded by Pirates that have only the first Rolling Thunder promotion actually does not take damage, but still grants Great Admiral XP, and thus can be used as a target to effectively farm Great Admirals without all the bother of going to war or hunting down enemy ships. Farming Great Generals using weak land-based artillery may be possible in a similar fashion, but to my knowledge there's no HN land unit capable of bombardment.

 

[stachnie]

Watchers (2 strength, 30 Law Enforcement) can be trained for as long as you do not build the upgrades to the Sentry Post that allow training of later Law Enforcement units. However, they still have access to the full line of Policing and Build Up (Crime Fighting) promotions, so a Watcher still gets most of the anti-crime effect of later Law Enforcement units for a minuscule fraction of the production cost. Admittedly, their low strength makes them nearly useless for city defense or criminal arrest purposes.

I use this trick in my present game Recently I produced dozens of Watchers in my main military city, moved somewhere else and upgraded to Medieval versions. For free - I have both The Art of War and Seti Pir.

S.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Watchers (2 strength, 30 Law Enforcement) can be trained for as long as you do not build the upgrades to the Sentry Post that allow training of later Law Enforcement units. However, they still have access to the full line of Policing and Build Up (Crime Fighting) promotions, so a Watcher still gets most of the anti-crime effect of later Law Enforcement units for a minuscule fraction of the production cost. Admittedly, their low strength makes them nearly useless for city defense or criminal arrest purposes.

Have the tech prerequisites for those promotions not been enforced? That would be a bug. If that's not what is to be implied from this comment then this is accurate and perhaps a decent and clever strategy, particularly noting the downsides enforcing that more modern law enforcement units be supplied from other cities that have built their sentry post upgrades. This would then not be all that unlike how differing types of law enforcement units are intended to work together later in the technology progression.

 

[TrippedOnACloud]

Have the tech prerequisites for those promotions not been enforced? That would be a bug. If that's not what is to be implied from this comment then this is accurate and perhaps a decent and clever strategy, particularly noting the downsides enforcing that more modern law enforcement units be supplied from other cities that have built their sentry post upgrades. This would then not be all that unlike how differing types of law enforcement units are intended to work together later in the technology progression.

The tech prerequisites are working fine, I only mean that Watchers can grab all Policing/Build Up promotions once unlocked via research.