Whats the big deal with immortal pretorians?

[DanielTorrence]

Please excuse the provocing title. I am sure they are great but I find them difficult to utilize on that level. I am playing through all leaders on Immortal pangea, dont micro-manage every detail, but aim for a finish date before 1700 A.D. (which I usually meet when marble is around ) and recently started with Augustus.

So I was wondering, why there is the opion, that Pretorians overrule everything? If I want to use them for an early rush, I need iron working. That means in most cases a serious delay. If there are no gems or gold nearby, the AIs around have bronze hooked up by the time I attack, and an aggressive axe is a serious problem for prets. Of course I could choke the AI and prevent it from getting metal, but this is nothing reserved for the romans. If I need catapults anyway, I could go with elephants as well.

Besides, it means getting something like alpha, aesthetics or currency before or while attacking to prevent going bankrupt, is mandatory as well.

So what are your experiences prets, attack dates, techs you research before starting the "rush"?

 

[JSS]

Immortal pangaea with praetorians almost feels like playing on Noble. They absolutely destroy. Beeline IW + Wheel, find iron, settle a couple of cities (Julius Caesar is the better leader for this as you can chop your settlers with 30 hammers per chop), build barrackses, and attack your nearest neighbour. They won't have built enough axes to stop you even if they have metal.

 

[JBossch]

^^^ This. Once your veterans start getting city raider 2 and 3 they are unstoppable.

 

[Fippy]

People rarely differ between game speed, if you play normal Praets are not very special.
You can do most things quicker with Keshiks or just regular HAs, WCs (all on Immortal)..

Only on Deity AIs can stand up against experienced rushers, that's why we see more and more play that diff. level
Immortal AIs are just nothing special, i always tell new players "watch what they do in test games with spies, and lose your respect instantly".

 

[DanielTorrence]

thanks for the advice...

okay, will try this. i guess CRII makes the difference, but I will loose some against the axes, right? with how many prets do you start, I guess six (2 enemy archers and one axe)...
and, important, how do you finance the expansion long term, besides capture gold? with a 2 city start there is not much room for cottages...

 

[Fippy]

That's why HAs are usually better, you lose slightly more but you also get replacements in quicker.
You start with as many you can whip/chop out fast, if you lose more you also pay less :b
nope it's not about losing units, it's about reaching your goals..and that's why HAs are better!

 

[JBossch]

HAs can certainly work for a rush but they have a shorter window and are more situational, especially on higher difficulties. The AI usually doesn't build as many spears as they should but even so, you will lose a lot to them. And you better hope they don't get WEs.

@OP: Six is a small number to DoW with. I suppose I would aim for more like 12? Once you have them available just whip/chop them out in a couple turns. You should have your 2-3 cities all set with barracks/granary already. If your biggest problem is the cost of expansion after crushing your enemies, you will be fine. Plunder will keep things going until you can get some cottages down.

 

[Fippy]

Well sure, if you want to kill them all..I was more thinking that you can take out 1-2 Immortal AIs with fast moving units, then go from there.
And if you can do that quicker, you can switch into recovery mode before going broke.

..but enuf of that, Absolute Zero among probably others has Praets rush video(s), you could watch a bit there. Some popular strategies are:
Small cities, getting production (Praets are cheap) from chopping + just some mines.
You can even skip some food techs, pottery and so on, and worry about all that later when you have your army while first increasing IW teching speed.

Or something else i can think of, threaten a city by killing all but 1 defenders, but do not capture.
They will now move reinforcements out of other cities, and your main stack goes towards those while a few units keep "emptying" that one city

 

[Doshin]

Old game, old quote:

Spoiler :

Yep, Praets are great on any land-heavy, normal speed Deity map:

Spoiler :

...becomes:

Spoiler :

Teching Iron Working isn't a problem as long as you can find one commercial resource, or heavily cottage a riverside city. Neither has to be in the cap.

/Duckweed mode, c. 2012

This was a slow win date, due to the quadruple backstab. Start was average, IIRC.

After you start to develop CRIII Praetorians (or better), only attack with these at 95%+ odds. Sacrifice the fresh troops against the top defenders. They will die, but your veterans can easily mop up. Don't feel bad about losses.

Settle Great Generals in multiple cities. This will let you pump out CRII Praets before switching into Feudalism or Theology.

When the AI gets LBs, you need lots of Catapults. Most of these can be suicided, although you can always bombard non-Castle cities as you build up a stack.

Don't upgrade Praets. Upgrade siege.

 

[DanielTorrence]

I rolled this start (save attached) and played only a couple of turns...I owned Wang Kon, and he is protective, getting all his four cities around 525 B.C., netting me seven cities in total. It helped to have a fish start, since AC has the proper starting tech, but man, was that cool.

Research: BW, IW, Agriculture, TW, pottery. I attacked with six prets around 1200 B.C. and WC had two axes, two archers and a spear when I reached his capitol. But the RNG was nice to me, it took only two losses. When he was gone I finished aesthetics and could start trading around for alpha etc, and I was not loosing money (not making any either, but thats okay for the moment).
I start to unterstand the beauty...Thanks for the advices.

View attachment AutoSave_Initial_v. Chr.-4000.CivBeyondSwordSave

View attachment AutoSave_v. Chr.-0575.CivBeyondSwordSave

BTW: AZs pret rushes were on Deity, something I am not mastering yet

 

[DanielTorrence]

Old game, old quote:

After you start to develop CRIII Praetorians (or better), only attack with these at 95%+ odds. Sacrifice the fresh troops against the top defenders. They will die, but your veterans can easily mop up. Don't feel bad about losses.

Settle Great Generals in multiple cities. This will let you pump out CRII Praets before switching into Feudalism or Theology.

Thats definitly better then what I just did, building a super medic and sacrificing my CRIII guys, but I see how it can work just great with these advices. Thank you...

 

[Doshin]

You do want a super-Medic, for sure. But with Julius, especially, the temptation is to have one super GG city or a few super-heroes, and I don't think this works as well.

Before Vassalage/Theocracy, settle no more than 1 GG per city. After Vassalage/Theocracy, try to develop two or three cities (the Heroic Epic site first) that can pump out CRIII troops.

 

[VSarius]

You can still rush with Praets on Deity, which says a lot for their power. I think a lot of the time people just take too long getting them, which obviously hurts their effectiveness. 2 worker techs into IW, with maybe 2 cities, 3 if you have crazy food. Depending on how many forests there are anywhere from 10-15 Praets is a good DoW #.

 

[blunderwonder]

they are overpowered for sure when human controlled. Ive won 2-3 deity games with them on pangea, and i dont really micro great or stick it out when trouble comes my way, and i usually play Imm. 3-4 cities with barracks, pushing out nothing but praets with chops etc, and with high seas you can probably hit domination before you even get to philo.

I think thats the beauty of it, your economy doesnt matter, once you hit IW and food techs, you can put ur slider at zero for basically the rest of the game, construction is nice ofc but you can probably get it for making peace.

 

[sinimusta]

"If I need catapults anyway, I could go with elephants as well."

Praets are cheaper than elephants and get cr promos so they're better than elepult.

 

[Seraiel]

Read "Replay #6" to see the might of Praetorians on Deity.

I think I achieved 1:10 killrates or even higher with them.

S.

 

[paulcarri]

That's why HAs are usually better, you lose slightly more but you also get replacements in quicker.
You start with as many you can whip/chop out fast, if you lose more you also pay less :b
nope it's not about losing units, it's about reaching your goals..and that's why HAs are better!

Surely spears will be in quite quickly?

Im only an emperor player (although ill move up after this game)..but even on emperor when playing darius i faced spears quite early and only took 4 or 5 cities before it ground to a halt.

Obviously HA are stronger, but they are also later?. So ive not really used them much myself.

Not saying its wrong, more that i havent learnt how to utilize them well i guess, would like to be educated though!

 

[Seraiel]

Horse Archers have decent chances if promoted to Shock and fighting non-hills non-walls cities, preferable only cities with 20% cultural defense. They're good for sniping away some cities in a really fast war. A Horse-Archer with shock against a Spear with Combat is something like 6.6 against 7.8 including 20% cultural defense, so if one manages to lure them out of the cities, and with 20% withdrawl, one has about 1:1 chances, which again is ok, but not really good.

Praets anyhow live until Rifles are available and can be devestating together with Cannons, and that's a really large argument against them being bad on normal speed. They're actually the strongest and cheapest unit there is, also nobody argues against Elepult, and Praets are the stronger and cheaper Elephants.

When playing them, I'd prefer Augustus though, as he can get Oracle a lot simpler, and the tech-tempo on Deity is so high + Deity AIs are coded to tech IW asap, so that Oracle CoL -> trade against Alpha -> trade against IW is not really slower, and leaves one with a lot more opportunities.

 

[Qactus]

When I did another random leader-shuffle map on Immortal yesterday, I got Augustus Caesar and remembered this thread here. I thought "Let the Praets roll!" and they rolled.

And since it was so much fun I attached the initial save here.
So just in case anyone is still questioning the power of Preatorians: This map is perfect to give it a try!
You are boxed in, so you'll have to go to war anyway, you'll get your iron, so it's pretty straightforward. And just as JSS stated in the beginning, immortal really feels like noble here...

Spoiler :

 

[paulcarri]

Horse Archers have decent chances if promoted to Shock and fighting non-hills non-walls cities, preferable only cities with 20% cultural defense. They're good for sniping away some cities in a really fast war. A Horse-Archer with shock against a Spear with Combat is something like 6.6 against 7.8 including 20% cultural defense, so if one manages to lure them out of the cities, and with 20% withdrawl, one has about 1:1 chances, which again is ok, but not really good.

Praets anyhow live until Rifles are available and can be devestating together with Cannons, and that's a really large argument against them being bad on normal speed. They're actually the strongest and cheapest unit there is, also nobody argues against Elepult, and Praets are the stronger and cheaper Elephants.

When playing them, I'd prefer Augustus though, as he can get Oracle a lot simpler, and the tech-tempo on Deity is so high + Deity AIs are coded to tech IW asap, so that Oracle CoL -> trade against Alpha -> trade against IW is not really slower, and leaves one with a lot more opportunities.

No that makes sense, i think quechua is the easiest rush ive done (plus his traits and starting techs are dine for oracle). But i need to give rome a go.