Will my tactics change?

[zeeter]

I just got PTW, but haven't loaded it yet. Can you guys tell me a few things? How do the new units effect gameplay?

I almost always play the romans because I like the UU. For me, I use them up until cavalry. I stop building them when Knights are around, but will still use the legions to attack because I usually have so many of them.

With the inclusion of the Midieval Infantry, how will my tactics be effected? Will it negate the use of my legions and force me to build the new infantry?

 

[[GoD]Toxic]

Since midieval infantry first comes in the medieval period your Legions will still be good in the ancient time and can be used (to some extent) in the medieval period... So you can still follow your "old" tactic.

 

[Bismarck]

A general question to people who've played PTW:

How did your strategy/tactics change from v1.29? I'm thinking of purchasing PTW soon, and would be interested in your experiences.

 

[cgannon64]

Not that much different. Barbs are more dangerous; you can't just let them suicide themselves on your cities, because they won't.

Swordsmen can no upgrade to Medeival Infantry, which is huge.

They just posted a good article on the main page, you should read it.

 

[DiamondzAndGunz]

Originally posted by zeeter
I just got PTW, but haven't loaded it yet. Can you guys tell me a few things? How do the new units effect gameplay?

I almost always play the romans because I like the UU. For me, I use them up until cavalry. I stop building them when Knights are around, but will still use the legions to attack because I usually have so many of them.

With the inclusion of the Midieval Infantry, how will my tactics be effected? Will it negate the use of my legions and force me to build the new infantry?

Since you use them to attack, upgrading them to Med. Inf. when you enter the Middle ages will most likely help you more than hurt you. The only way it can hurt you is if you use your legions to defend cities, since when you upgrade them to Med Inf, their def will drop back to 2.

Since you said you stop building them by the time you get knights anyway, you don't have to build the new infantry if you dont want to. They are still better on attack then legions anyway, on par with knights.

 

[zeeter]

Originally posted by cgannon64
Not that much different. Barbs are more dangerous; you can't just let them suicide themselves on your cities, because they won't.

I noticed this last night. The barbs are not overly difficult to beat, but when I entered a goody hut and three of them showed up, only one or two would attack me and the other one(s) would wander off somewhere. This is troubling when I've a bunch of settlers and workers running around. I used to ignore the barbs, but now I have to pay attention to them.

 

[zeeter]

Originally posted by DiamondzAndGunz


Since you use them to attack, upgrading them to Med. Inf. when you enter the Middle ages will most likely help you more than hurt you. The only way it can hurt you is if you use your legions to defend cities, since when you upgrade them to Med Inf, their def will drop back to 2.

Since you said you stop building them by the time you get knights anyway, you don't have to build the new infantry if you dont want to. They are still better on attack then legions anyway, on par with knights.

This is an interesting dilemma. I've always thought about the legions that they are great because they can attack like a swordsman, then hold their conquests with their high defense. They eliminate the need for bringing spearmen or pikemen into the fray. This will no longer be the case if I upgrade them as I will need to send defensive units in.

Maybe a better strategy would be not to upgrade them, since I will be building mostly knights by that time anyway. I can use the legions as defenders in newly conquered...er...liberated lands.

Question: do the medieval infantry upgrade to anything?

 

[Astares]

Med Inf upgrade to Guerillas (6/6/1) if I remember correctly from reading the article.

I personally wouldn't upgrade them, the cost isn't really justified. And I definitely wouldn't upgrade them if they were the major unit used for defense.

You would eventually look at upgrading them to Guerillas, if you had any left by then, again the cost may make it not worth it and you just disband them or put them on barbarian duty and keep the elite ones for picking off crippled enemy units, hoping for a GL.

 

[Shabbaman]

Beware of the gorilla's! Err, you know what I mean
No, seriously, the guerilla unit changes 'everything', since it can be build without resources. This means that you won't face huge armies of longbowmen as soon as you've isolated the enemy and stripped him from his strategic resources. This means that industrial wars last longer.

It's not very much of a change though. In my recent game I'm exploring the radar tower. I guess it can be useful as well.

If you like to play as romans, you'll probably want to play as their adversary, Hannibal. Their ancient age UU is better than the pikeman...

 

[zeeter]

I must say that PTW is a lot more difficult than Civ3. I was playing on Regent for the last month or so and pretty much having my way with the oposition and was thinking about moving up to the next level. Not now, though.
I wonder if they did something to the AI? It just seems a lot more difficult now - and I haven't even made it to the Industrial age yet.
The other civs refuse to trade with me no matter what I do. It seems that I broke a treaty with the Ottomans a long, long time ago and everyone holds that against me. I wish I knew what the treaty was, but if it was when I broke a peace treaty, that was in BC and we are in the 1700's now. I can't imagine that they'd hold a grudge for this long.
Harbringer? Last night I was playing a game as the Romans against the Chinese, Germans, English, Egyptians, Japanese, Ottomans, Arabs, Carthaginians, Babylonians, and Persians. I was winning, but not by much. The Persians and I were well ahead of everyone else, although the AI's refusal to trade with me kept me two or three techs behind. It would have been worse had I not used a GL to build the Great Library. Anyway, for no apparent reason the Persians declared war on me. Then they made an alliance with the Arabs. Then the Ottomans (who are on my continent), then the Egyptians (I laughed because I had whittled them down to one exiled city far away). Then the Babylonians. Isn't it interesting that all of these civilizations either in the Middle East now or having been there long ago would gang up on me? None of the non-middle eastern cities joined the battle - either on their side or mine.
Anyway, I think I may have to downgrade myself to level two again. What is it, Chieftain, Monarch, then Regent? Whatever it is, I play the third one and will now go back to the second one until I learn any new tactics that the AI uses.

 

[Shabbaman]

Warlord, you mean.

I just beat the AI with a diplomatic victory, and my play was even fouler (or: more foul) than usual. So, it is possible. I did find it a lot harder to get gpt deals out of the AI. One way to get around it was to counterpropose when they proposed some stupid map trade.

Oh: major difference between vanilla and ptw: regicide, capture the princess... and so on.

 

[zeeter]

I tried that counterproposal tactic a few times. They'd take the deal off the table every time and I couldn't even get his original offer.

 

[sparty44]

I have also found that in PTW if another civ comes back after the 20 turns of a trade have expired and that deal is again in the trade dialogue box, they usually will accept the same deal if you immediately repropose it by clicking "Will you accept this deal" (the other leader also usually says something like "Why are you hear Hammurabi" or "Why are you bothering me now"). On the other hand, if I reopen the dialogue box and try to change the deal, usually by seeking more gold for the luxury/resource, the other leader invariably rejects the new deal and will reject the prior deal. I don't know if there is a rhyme or reason to this, other than that the "renegotiate all trades" setting is on. I believe I had success in rejecting the deal when the other leader appears at the end of the 20 turns, then contacting him/her later to propose a better deal involving the resource/luxury.

 

[Shabbaman]

That happened in vanilla also, but you probably didn't had the 'always renegotiate' option toggled...

 

[JMK]

Zeeter,
You can keep the same way to play, however when the Medieval Infantry comes, I suggest you to upgrade 66% of your Legion to MI (4-2-1) keeping 33% Legion (3-3-1) so you will have a mixed of attack 4 and defense 3, this will work perfectly until you get knights.

 

[Reagan]

Originally posted by sparty44
I have also found that in PTW if another civ comes back after the 20 turns of a trade have expired and that deal is again in the trade dialogue box, they usually will accept the same deal if you immediately repropose it by clicking "Will you accept this deal" (the other leader also usually says something like "Why are you hear Hammurabi" or "Why are you bothering me now"). On the other hand, if I reopen the dialogue box and try to change the deal, usually by seeking more gold for the luxury/resource, the other leader invariably rejects the new deal and will reject the prior deal. I don't know if there is a rhyme or reason to this, other than that the "renegotiate all trades" setting is on. I believe I had success in rejecting the deal when the other leader appears at the end of the 20 turns, then contacting him/her later to propose a better deal involving the resource/luxury.

I'm not sure if this is a bug or what, but I think what happens is that they propose the continuation of the deal only if it's in their best interest and despite the fact that they may not actually have the money to make the gpt payments they are offering. When you go to renegotiate the deal, then the program figures out the other side doesn't have the money to pay you, so you can't get the same offer from them, let alone more. The moral of the story is, if the AI offers to renegotiate the deal and (1) it's acceptable to you and (2) you reasonably fear they may not really have the money to pay you if you try to renegotiate, then you should accept the deal as originally proposed by the AI. I hope this helps.

 

[zeeter]

Are you sure that it's not just a matter of they didn't like the fact that we turned down their first offer?

 

[Reagan]

@zeeter - I'm positive that's not it. How do I know? Well, I often renegotiate deals that are proposed to me interturn. Usually, the commercial civs are more likely to have the bucks to pay for a deal. If (on the high levels) you are dealing with the tech/power leader, it's a much safer bet that you'll be able to renegotiate than if you're dealing with one of the low-tier civs.

 

[cavemanf16]

This renogitiation thing isn't a bug. It's simply that if your civ is gaining more power by trading, then the AI becomes less likely to trade with you again, and having the 'always renegotiate deals' option ticked simply means you see this behavior more often than in vanilla civ3. I've seen it in both in most all of my games, so I know that's a 'by design' decision by Firaxis.