What's the Civ 6 equivalent of National College? (The OP thing to rush ASAP)

[Customgoban]

Military wise, field cannons are completely broken if you are ahead of the curve militarily. This doesn't really matter at all vs. the AI since it is so incompetent, but vs. humans a field cannon mass rush (upgrade) is very difficult to beat if not doing the same.

Cavalry are better.

 

[A+ombomb]

Cavalry are better.

Against human opponents, I prefer field cannons. Against AI...well a ham sandwich is good enough to beat it. But the reason cannons excel, is they are better against units of earlier eras, and in large clusters. Cavs are sometimes better if your military consists of less than 10 units, and you have alot of open area to work with so they don't get bottlenecked.

 

[Customgoban]

Against human opponents, I prefer field cannons. Against AI...well a ham sandwich is good enough to beat it. But the reason cannons excel, is they are better against units of earlier eras, and in large clusters. Cavs are sometimes better if your military consists of less than 10 units, and you have alot of open area to work with so they don't get bottlenecked.

In my multiplayer experience, military power is all about horses, and any game that makes it past the classical era ends when the game leader reaches cavalry and starts murdering everyone with em. They are fast enough (5 movement) to reach cities before ur opponent can move produce troops. They destroy ranged units ez cus they can run to you and attack you without getting shot. Also, ranged are weak vs melle. They can zone of control cities quickly, setting up flanking bonuses and putting the city under seige, preventing health regeneration.

Range units are good for defence, and can help if your having a massive battle with a front line of melees in front of them, but those battles rarely happen. Most attacks are 'suprise' attacks, going for vulnerable cities, with an army that seems to appear out of nowhere (military score is low until u upgrade). You cant suprise anyone with field cannons. You upgrade them in your territory, and then your would be victim has tons of time to prepare for battle as your lowly 2 movement units crawl towards them.

 

[A+ombomb]

In my multiplayer experience, military power is all about horses, and any game that makes it past the classical era ends when the game leader reaches cavalry and starts murdering everyone with em. They are fast enough (5 movement) to reach cities before ur opponent can move produce troops. They destroy ranged units ez cus they can run to you and attack you without getting shot. Also, ranged are weak vs melle. They can zone of control cities quickly, setting up flanking bonuses and putting the city under seige, preventing health regeneration.

Range units are good for defence, and can help if your having a massive battle with a front line of melees in front of them, but those battles rarely happen. Most attacks are 'suprise' attacks, going for vulnerable cities, with an army that seems to appear out of nowhere (military score is low until u upgrade). You cant suprise anyone with field cannons. You upgrade them in your territory, and then your would be victim has tons of time to prepare for battle as your lowly 2 movement units crawl towards them.

Critical mass is important. You need a wall of units, then the support bonuses get out of hand. That's the critical component that makes ranged units good. If you just have a few, they are easily overwhelmed by horse units. Add in the bonuses, and suddenly every horse that tries to attack immediately dies, and rarely kills its target. Horse units must be able to surround or their drawback of being melee is too severe. The 5 moves doesn't matter much when there aren't any tiles to place your units on.

Think about it like this - why aren't there any archer UUs that haven't had some sort of restriction put on them? I am sure that a few were around in game development, but having a mass of them proved way too overpowered. So we got hopelessly expensive chariot archers, and 1 range chinese crossbows. Units that don't take return damage are fundamentally broken, if it can be leveraged.

 

[Chibisuke]

In the past I would have said great library is nearly impossible to get on Deity, and it was. Prior to last patch I only got it three times out of dozens of starts. 2 of those times was Gorgo who I think has a big advantage at getting it. 1 time I got it on some totally random fluke. All other times the AI had it way early.

However, since last patch I have noticed that the AI seems to ignore great library a lot. I don't know if it was a stealth nerf to AI priorities. It might now be viable on many other civs playing on deity. If you can get it early enough, it is pretty huge. But if you can't get it until later, it sucks. So assuming that rushing it everytime doesn't severely gimp you elsewhere, it might now be a strong option on deity.

 

[Tabarnak]

Against human opponents, I prefer field cannons. Against AI...well a ham sandwich is good enough to beat it. But the reason cannons excel, is they are better against units of earlier eras, and in large clusters. Cavs are sometimes better if your military consists of less than 10 units, and you have alot of open area to work with so they don't get bottlenecked.

In my multiplayer experience, military power is all about horses, and any game that makes it past the classical era ends when the game leader reaches cavalry and starts murdering everyone with em. They are fast enough (5 movement) to reach cities before ur opponent can move produce troops. They destroy ranged units ez cus they can run to you and attack you without getting shot. Also, ranged are weak vs melle. They can zone of control cities quickly, setting up flanking bonuses and putting the city under seige, preventing health regeneration.

Range units are good for defence, and can help if your having a massive battle with a front line of melees in front of them, but those battles rarely happen. Most attacks are 'suprise' attacks, going for vulnerable cities, with an army that seems to appear out of nowhere (military score is low until u upgrade). You cant suprise anyone with field cannons. You upgrade them in your territory, and then your would be victim has tons of time to prepare for battle as your lowly 2 movement units crawl towards them.

Speaking multiplayer, i recently played games where i warred with these both strategies. Both are quite primary strong but i still prefer going for field cannons as well as A+ombomb.

Field cannons can be reached earlier than cavs. Also, they cost less gold for upgrades.

Humans love to play defensively and will abuse defense system combined with insta heals. A large group of field cannons can let you kill a unit before they can have time to heal. I stumped in some players who love building pikemen(cavs hate them). Also, cavs can lost a lot of hp when attacking well defended cities.

Of course, if your opponent is rather weak some cavs can be enough or when distance matters. Still, it's not rare for me to rush cavs right after cannons especially if i know that it's gonna be a long war.

In resume, if i'm going to war against an opponent at par in term of cities and overall evolution i would prefer to rush cannons and get these extra turns with stronger military and kill their units before he can get better ones.

Personnally, when i talk about a rush, it's all about getting the same type of unit in a large number AND as fast as possible. When i rush field cannons it's usually 8 or more, around the turn 80-85(online speed) if have peacefully developped enough cities without crippling wars. I add some knights for support.

 

[Customgoban]

Field cannons can be reached earlier than cavs. Also, they cost less gold for upgrades.

Not really. Upgrade cost is based on the diference in production cost between units. Crossbows are Renissainse era, so they have a smaller upgrade cost then horsemen (Classical). However, you already had to pay the 100g to upgrade them into crossbows, and will have to pay 1g more per turn to maintain them.

Tech wise, It takes 21 techs to get cav (assuming i also get universities). I skip universities in half my games, and only go up to industrial, so could be 19. To get Field cannons, it takes 20 techs (assuming you first get crossbow tech).

Humans love to play defensively and will abuse defense system combined with insta heals. A large group of field cannons can let you kill a unit before they can have time to heal.

Cav can do this just as easily, and its easier to get in position to do this, since they can come in from 5 tiles away and ignore zone of of control.

In resume, if i'm going to war against an opponent at par in term of cities and overall evolution i would prefer to rush cannons and get these extra turns with stronger military and kill their units before he can get better ones.

Thats fine, but who declares war vs their equals? The whole point of horse units in general is to kill weaker players in quick wars and absorb their empires.

In summary:
Big/Painful war= Field Cannons
Small-Medium war= Cav.

 

[Tabarnak]

The crossbowmen building part is easy to achieve if most of your cities can produce them in 2 or 3 turns. You are right about number of techs needed for both units but you forgot eurekas. It's easier to achieve them for the cannon path, making cannons faster to reach.

 

[A+ombomb]

Not really. Upgrade cost is based on the diference in production cost between units. Crossbows are Renissainse era, so they have a smaller upgrade cost then horsemen (Classical). However, you already had to pay the 100g to upgrade them into crossbows, and will have to pay 1g more per turn to maintain them.

Tech wise, It takes 21 techs to get cav (assuming i also get universities). I skip universities in half my games, and only go up to industrial, so could be 19. To get Field cannons, it takes 20 techs (assuming you first get crossbow tech).



Cav can do this just as easily, and its easier to get in position to do this, since they can come in from 5 tiles away and ignore zone of of control.



Thats fine, but who declares war vs their equals? The whole point of horse units in general is to kill weaker players in quick wars and absorb their empires.

In summary:
Big/Painful war= Field Cannons
Small-Medium war= Cav.

Pikes and walls counter cavs extremely well. Field cannon war might be slow, but its only painful for opponents.

 

[WTFspaghetti]

Personally I think the NC equivalent is the good old great library. Its relatively easy to get it, even on deity.

- Start off with a monument to get culture going, chose a culture pantheon, and find city states, then beeline for the civic.
- Try to keep your cap able to produce it when it is avaliable, so don't build more then one settler in it to let your cap grow
- Build the campus and library in good time
- Remember you need a flat land next to campus to build it
- Don't spend science to finish that many ancient and classical techs, since you get boosts for every tech from the wonder
- Research the three first, and the science tech, then beeline for tech for industrial zone or something

If/when you succeed in building it, you will most probably be on par (or close to) in science with the AI, even on deity.

This strategy is OP with China, but works for every civ.

Thought this sounded fun and played a few games going for it. Earliest I got it was T97 as Kongo.

I can't imagine going for it on Diety due to it leaving my military on the light side. Is my timing good? Around what turn should I be aiming for?

 

[FornaxTorak]

Thought this sounded fun and played a few games going for it. Earliest I got it was T97 as Kongo.

I can't imagine going for it on Diety due to it leaving my military on the light side. Is my timing good? Around what turn should I be aiming for?

Didn't really check turns, but checked techs researched earlier then I used to, and was almost on par on deity. The time between finishing the monument and when you need to start building your campus usually gives you enough time to fend off the worst of the early dows and barbs. Keep your warrior close and clear scouts and camps as early as possible

Did you get it at every attempt?

 

[goodolarchie]

On the science side I would say Currency. Getting Comm hubs and trade routes up quickly has been central to every Deity victory I've had, regardless of the type.