when to use cuirassiers???

[civvver]

I really don't understand this unit at all. Added to give another bridge unit between middle ages and renaissance units it makes sense, but the techs for it don't. By the time I'm getting military tradition I always have rifling a few techs away (like 2 tops) and sometimes even have rifles first. Is there ever a reason to beeline military tradition and gunpowder for the cuirassiers ignoring the economic techs (printing press, replaceable parts, etc, stuff that helps my economy a lot and leads right to rifling). Part of the reason might also be I'm usually at peace at this period in time, having wrapped up my macemen era wars.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Ask Rusten - he uses these things on deity even.

The answer is yes if you want a quick war vs someone near you - you want to beeline them. MT can often be taken with liberalism, then all you need is gunpowder.

Basically, if you prioritize them they are by far the earliest 12 str unit in the game. Combined with spies they will attack anything with 70% odds or better...usually a lot better.

And they move 2 spaces. Their only counter unit is still going to lose to them, especially if you give them shock.

 

[Single Malt]

Rifling makes more sense, followed by cavalry. Cuirassiers tend not to have the too much edge over knights, and the AI has a tendency to spam em, so cavalry makes for a more powerful mounted army. Mind you, the cuirassier path leads to steel...

 

[CivCorpse]

Ask Rusten - he uses these things on deity even.

The answer is yes if you want a quick war vs someone near you - you want to beeline them. MT can often be taken with liberalism, then all you need is gunpowder.

Basically, if you prioritize them they are by far the earliest 12 str unit in the game. Combined with spies they will attack anything with 70% odds or better...usually a lot better.

And they move 2 spaces. Their only counter unit is still going to lose to them, especially if you give them shock.

Well if you have rifles then you're building cavalry not curassiers. MT unlocks WP so that alone is a good reason to research it.
I usually take gunpowder with Lib and manually research MT. This allows me to build muskets to defend my new shiny cities while researching MT
If you are Mongolian then the Ger makes them quite nice. As well as upgrading keshiks.
If you're spain then beeline them. Conquistadors are absolutely incredible.
If you find yourself on the wrong end of cannons then they can be a life saver.
If you find yourself on the short end of Curassiers, the counter is grens not pikes. Formation grens eat curassiers for lunch. Possible with one civic or GG with either a protective (Drill2Formation) or agg(C2/formation) civ. C2/Formation being the optimum since Curassiers are immune to first strikes.

 

[civvver]

Interesting. I think if I start playing games on epic/marathon they might become viable, but for normal I doubt it. Thanks for the tips.

 

[huerfanista]

Basically, if you prioritize them they are by far the earliest 12 str unit in the game.

Cataphracts!

 

[CivCorpse]

Rifling makes more sense, followed by cavalry. Cuirassiers tend not to have the too much edge over knights, and the AI has a tendency to spam em, so cavalry makes for a more powerful mounted army. Mind you, the cuirassier path leads to steel...

Actually it delays steel while you research Music/Nationalism/MT. It is the Grenadier path that leads to steel through chemistry. grenadiers have no counter until Rifling AND MT if you are using an Agg or pro civ.

 

[Iranon]

It's the same problem with all mounted units past chariots: They are good, but beelining for them compromises your economy a lot more than beelining superior foot units does.

With cuirassiers, I usually find a hard beeline not worth it. This is very very different when I am playing Spain though; conquistadors are imo one of the best late UUs: fast units that can defend well and take out siege mean less unplesant surprises, and also effective relays - build a new unit in a core city and you will have a new unit on the front.

Spain generally encourages very very weird tech paths... not only is the Conquistador worth a hard beeline, they might want to keep their citadels in business.

 

[huerfanista]

I agree that a hard beeline for cuirassiers is not worth it. But if you're playing an early-knight guilds beeline, it's a cheap upgrade for all those uber-promoted knights (especially if the AI gets steel before you get cav).

 

[oyzar]

Actually double move units are stronger at normal than on marathon... They are obviously not that hot if you do a middle age war but most of the time you really don't want to fight in that period anyways... WP is in the wast majority of the games i play useless... Curassiers are not however... http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=285089 here is a great example of curassiers in action for example...

 

[Dirk1302]

A cuirassier/musket/treb stack is very strong and can be obtained very early (one tech from lib really if you take nationalism. Use trebs for bombard, maybe sac one and take the city with cuirassiers. Move the slow units onwards which are undamaged at that point, heal the cuirassiers and catch up for the next city while the trebs move/bombard.

 

[Rusten]

Cuirassiers are excellent at quick wars vs. peaceful and/or small civilizations. If the opposing AI doesn't make a lot of units you can move through his rich territory before he has a chance to counter your units. In the thread oyzar posted the target was Willem. Cuirassiers were chosen in Unconquered Sun's Justinian thread too for the same reasons (seemingly). His target was Roosevelt (which is similar to Willem) and within 4 turns he captured 3 core cities only to sign peace again. The main idea of cuirassiers is to sweep enemy cities before they have a chance to react. Once the initial strike is done and you'll have to start healing units and face a counter-attack it's usually time to sue for peace.

They aren't always a good choice though. If the cities you're aiming for are on hills and the AI has a lot of units you'll get into trouble. They are a little nerfed in 3.17 due to espionage changes, but if the setting fits they are the best choice available (at least on normal speed).

 

[mirthadir]

Regarding your economy while beelining Mill tradition. One word:

Taj

If I have marble it is trivially easy to take nationalism from lib, and its possible to take MT with lib directly sometimes. Having built or captured the MoM makes it even more insanely powerful. Add to that the ability to draft without having to trade techs (or possibly take a turn in revolt) and you have a pretty decent war economy setup.

Against longbows, you can just spy down the defenses and roll. Against muskets or even infantry you need some weakening units and the attack will slow.

The real value of MT, IMO, is not the units or the national wonder. Its the unlocking of DPs. This allows you to fight a quick war against someone with LBs, and then when you consolidate your gains you can rely on someone elses power score to protect you and let military slide (a bit). At least for me, just after lib is the last time I'm going to have an innate edge on the AI militarily, ceteris parabis, until biology/medicine or maybe even superconductors. Hitting hard and quick followed by securing the peace with a DP works well.

Play the map, but don't sell a jaunt down the MT line short.

 

[civvver]

Actually double move units are stronger at normal than on marathon... They are obviously not that hot if you do a middle age war but most of the time you really don't want to fight in that period anyways... WP is in the wast majority of the games i play useless... Curassiers are not however... http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=285089 here is a great example of curassiers in action for example...

I didn't mean viable as in their strength of use, I meant that on a normal game I'll probably have rifling researched before getting to use the curassiers much.

Thanks for the link, I'll check it out.

 

[oyzar]

Civ is not about most of the time though... It is more aboud adapting to the situation and in alot of situations(peacefull neighbour, midgame war) curassiers are better than the alternative.

 

[AndrewN]

I didn't mean viable as in their strength of use, I meant that on a normal game I'll probably have rifling researched before getting to use the curassiers much.

Thanks for the link, I'll check it out.

Currassiers were introduced in Beyond the Sword, before this Cavalry didn't require rifling and people were rushing to cavalry and then using it against AI cities defended by longbows, with the obvious result Delaying Cavalry gives the AI a chance of getting a better defender before being swamped.

As for only needing 2 techs for rifling, this is true but there are a lot of nice techs available around this time and rifling is not a tech that leads anywhere and can be missed until much later when it is needed for other units.

 

[Dirk1302]

^ And compared to having only mil trad which is easy to get from lib it's more than 2 techs,

guilds/banking/pp/rp/rifling (maybe even feudalism but i have to draw the line somewhere)

You can often get the first 3 in trade but that may take a while. The other 2 often have to be self researched.

 

[mirthadir]

Currassiers were introduced in Beyond the Sword, before this Cavalry didn't require rifling and people were rushing to cavalry and then using it against AI cities defended by longbows, with the obvious result Delaying Cavalry gives the AI a chance of getting a better defender before being swamped.

As for only needing 2 techs for rifling, this is true but there are a lot of nice techs available around this time and rifling is not a tech that leads anywhere and can be missed until much later when it is needed for other units.

Rifling leads to artillery. Which is far enough out not to matter most of the time, but rifling is not a true dead end.

As far as the numbers of techs needed; the AI rarely researches RP early and that is also an annoying tech to try to snag in trade. Worse is the fact that you may have to use lib for pp (much worse trade bait than early nationalism, late MT, astro, DR, or Sci Meth).

Lastly on normal speeds by the time your rifles (assuming you aren't using mass CRIII rifles) start dropping cities with trebs, the AI is likely to get out to Mil Sci and then you bog down something fierce. Running up MT allows you to snag lots of territory quick and once the AI does get rifles/nades you can already be looking to snag cannons or leadfrog out to infantry.

It is situational, but don't overestimate the ease of getting rifling, it is further removed from the lib beeline than either of the other two alternatives. Likewise don't overvalue the utility of getting stronger units if you won't have as long to use them.

 

[silverbullet]

I find that spies/siege are sometimes unnecessary.
If your opponent is a builder, most of his cities are not on hills, and most of his units are unpromoted, you can combine flanking curassiers("suicide" troops with 45% chance of survival) with combat2 and shock curassiers.
Usually they will have only 1 tough defender (Pike or CG3 longbow), and the rest will be really easy to overcome, even with cultural defence.

For example a CG longbow in a 60% culture city gets 25% fortify, 25% city, 20% CG promotion for a total of 130% bonus, which brings it to 13.8 strength. A combat-2 cuirassier has 14.4 strength, which I think leads to greater than 60% chances of winning.

Sure, you will have more losses without siege/spies, but just build a few more units and the war will end really fast. It's especially effective if you have enough espionage points to 1 city only. When the AI brings his SOD you kill it with no defence bonus, but for the rest of the cities you just let your army rush through them.

Alternatively just make them vassals quickly and rush the next target while they still have longbows only.

 

[D_almighty]

Another advantage currys have is they ignore first strikes. Watch a Cavalry attack a fortified Drill 4 musketman, and see why it's not always good to upgrade...