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Argh! Still over 50 days left.The Lord Bude posted:I don't permit wussy archer units in MY Army. That's sensible, but what does that have to do with the most badass troop in the game?
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| # ? May 18, 2013 16:47 |
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| # ? May 19, 2013 16:51 |
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I actually like the American UA and don't understand why it's consistently gotten so much hate. +1 sight on every unit is useful for the entire game. It makes early game exploration pick up a few more goody huts, discover more city states first, more natural wonders. It can help keep scouts/settlers/workers safe by seeing barbarians early. It makes industrial era war a little easier because you don't need to have a unit spot for artillery. Granted, I think Japan is the most overrated civ in the game, so maybe I just have Incorrect Opinions regarding civ.
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| # ? May 18, 2013 16:57 |
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Japan, like Shaka is more terrifying to play against. Washington is underrated and minutemen and his UA are both good.
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| # ? May 18, 2013 17:04 |
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+1 Sight is deceptively good and lets Washington do goofy things with line-of-sight abuse. Guerrilla war! The bonus to buying tiles saves you an enormous amount of money early on if you're being aggressive with picking up tiles. It also lets Washington settle in strong defensive spots and still able to quickly grab further-out tiles for border or luxury control. Other civs would have to either sink twice as much money as Washington does to do that, gamble on maybe getting that far tile in time before a neighboring city gobbles it up, or settle in suboptimal spots so they can have access to a luxury or wonder without spending loads of money on it. He's not the strongest, but I really enjoy playing as Washington. I just wish his second UU didn't come so late that it's pretty much meaningless, same with Japan's Zero. Thal's GEM gives Japan the Dojo (Barracks that give +culture from Horses and Iron, +XP per turn for garrisoned) instead of the Zero, and Washington the Pioneer Fort (Walls that give bonus food) instead of the B-17 and I liked it better that way. edit: Here's a guide to playing America. My opinion on America did a 180 after reading that. Brannock fucked around with this message at May 18, 2013 around 17:12 |
| # ? May 18, 2013 17:09 |
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Well I don't think the argument is that Washington is bad, it's not like plus one sight and minutemen is a negative thing to have, but it does seem like every other civ is better unless you start your game in Industrial era or something.
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| # ? May 18, 2013 17:13 |
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Captain Fargle posted:The best thing to do as The Dutch is actually Lux for Lux trades. If you trade away your last copy of a Lux for something new you actually end up with +6 Happiness instead of +4. It's great. You would think but compare them to camel archers and weep.
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| # ? May 18, 2013 17:18 |
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Whew, Gustavus Adolphus's ability to gift Great People just saved my bacon. Sulemain, of all people, was going to conquer me (I was playing on Immortal!) but I had built the UN, so I was voted world leader with a few turns to spare before he either killed me or finished the spaceship factory. (Then again, maybe he attacked me BECAUSE I had built the UN and he wanted to make sure I couldn't win that way.)
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| # ? May 18, 2013 17:25 |
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Marketing New Brain posted:You would think but compare them to camel archers and weep. Because the 1 less speed makes it lose 10 times out of 10? Also doesn't it lack the +50% xp?
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| # ? May 18, 2013 17:31 |
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They are a dead end unit upgrades are pointless, camel archer have more attack and much more defense. Who needs extra movement on mounted units and I get enough great generals as is.
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| # ? May 18, 2013 17:49 |
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Poil posted:Because the 1 less speed makes it lose 10 times out of 10? Also doesn't it lack the +50% xp? Ayup. Camel Archers are great, don't get me wrong, but Keshiks are better. So so very much better. They get to Logistics/Range twice as fast and can move onto a Hill, fire twice and then move back behind it again all in one turn. Camel Archers can't do that.
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| # ? May 18, 2013 17:52 |
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Pretty sure Arabia's double resources thing beats the Dutch. Especially because you're going to be rushing currency anyways and getting bazaars early. Camel archers are just as dead end as Keshiks, and there aren't a lot of situations where +1 movement makes or breaks an attack.
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| # ? May 18, 2013 18:06 |
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I wonder if they'll change the Dutch UA. The namesake for their ability is now a National Wonder or something, and they've said they'll be making some changes anyways, though obviously probably not as drastic a revamp as France is getting.
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| # ? May 18, 2013 18:09 |
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:Camel archers are just as dead end as Keshiks, and there aren't a lot of situations where +1 movement makes or breaks an attack. That +1 move is awesome for getting in or out of a position and is quite valuable for a hit and run unit that can easily pick up an extra attack.
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| # ? May 18, 2013 18:43 |
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Woo, Barbary Pirates achievement unlocked. I had to turn off all the DLC and play in Vanilla Mode with Raging Barbarians on, but I had forgotten that Vanilla Suleiman just had to move his ships next to Barbarian ships--not even attack them-- to capture them and get gold. Easy money.
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| # ? May 18, 2013 19:14 |
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Keshiks are the best unit in the game, man. They're extra overpowered if you can get logistics on them but it's usually both unnecessary and impracticable, as with six Keshiks and two Khans you're probably going to conquer the world before they gain enough XP to get that fourth promotion.
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| # ? May 18, 2013 22:25 |
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Having a much higher base strength on your mobile archer unit is way more important, especially since you basically cannot upgrade them. I'm not at all worried about how effective they are out of the gate, because both of them completely dominate same era units. Camel Archers are incredibly effective going long, your window with Keshiks is shorter and therefore they aren't as good a unit in my eyes.
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| # ? May 18, 2013 23:51 |
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Marketing New Brain posted:Having a much higher base strength on your mobile archer unit is way more important, especially since you basically cannot upgrade them. I'm not at all worried about how effective they are out of the gate, because both of them completely dominate same era units. Camel Archers are incredibly effective going long, your window with Keshiks is shorter and therefore they aren't as good a unit in my eyes. I guess this is a valid point if you're playing Huge and Quick. Otherwise if you haven't conquered the world by the time Keshiks go obsolete, you're probably doing it wrong.
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| # ? May 19, 2013 01:03 |
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 Welp, guess it's time to move from King to Emperor now. 
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| # ? May 19, 2013 01:51 |
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Marketing New Brain posted:Having a much higher base strength on your mobile archer unit is way more important, especially since you basically cannot upgrade them. I'm not at all worried about how effective they are out of the gate, because both of them completely dominate same era units. Camel Archers are incredibly effective going long, your window with Keshiks is shorter and therefore they aren't as good a unit in my eyes. Hahahaha. You're talking as if you're going to be upgrading your Keshiks any time before Dynamite. That's cute.
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| # ? May 19, 2013 01:56 |
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Captain Fargle posted:Hahahaha. You're talking as if you're going to be upgrading your Keshiks any time before Dynamite. That's cute. No, I'm pretty explicitly stating I'm never upgrading my Keshik or CA, even when I hit Calvary, because I would rather gift them or delete them when they are ineffective. I do however continue to use CA later than I do Keshik.
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| # ? May 19, 2013 02:13 |
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Marketing New Brain posted:No, I'm pretty explicitly stating I'm never upgrading my Keshik or CA, even when I hit Calvary, because I would rather gift them or delete them when they are ineffective. I do however continue to use CA later than I do Keshik. Why in the hell would you do that? Their ranged promotions become useless but stuff like Logistics and March still applies. You're throwing away good units there.
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| # ? May 19, 2013 02:23 |
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The problem isn’t that cavalry is bad; it’s that they’re strictly inferior to Keshiks with logistics. Keshiks are ranged and have two extra movement points They can do the same damage in two attacks as cavalry does in one and still come out one movement point ahead. They’re more flexible because they can attack two targets instead of one or choose to attack once and use the other point to move. Cavalry are better on defence, but if your horse units need defence, you’re doing it wrong. It doesn’t make up for the Keshik superiority.
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| # ? May 19, 2013 03:05 |
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drat! I was doing really great as Korea, expanding early into two nice cities with multiple luxury resources on either side of my starting city. The three cities were in an "r" shape along the right-side coast of the continent (the capital itself was not coastal but was on a nice river), my right-most city could reach across the ocean to reach salt on an island. Unfortunately my two nearest neighbors were George Washington and Hiawatha. I spend just a few too many turns focusing on infrastructure and not enough on a "keep away from my stuff!" army. Washington decided I was too tempting a target to ignore and attacked my south city, conquered it, but I had just teched to composite bows and managed to build a couple of them just in time to wipe out his invading army. I built a couple of catapaults, got myself a spearman or two and prepared to re-take my southern city...and George was sweating because he was offering me peace deals... I managed to re-take the southern city, since it was still shaky and weak from having been conquered once already. But Hiawatha chose that exact moment to attack from the north with a horde of Mohawks and composite bowmen. It seems he'd teched deep into war technology. Just before he took my captial, though, Washington decided he'd give me a "I'll pay you EVERYTHING!" peace treaty even though my army was in shambles (guess he didn't know that!) and I got a ton of money, but my capital was sacked, and my one good right-most city just didn't have the capacity to keep up. I decided that I'd given it my best shot but my best was not nearly enough. Next time...next time, I MUST devote more time to building up an army. Jeez.
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| # ? May 19, 2013 03:22 |
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Well, cavalry aren't great either. I don't normally use any default mounted units. If they aren't my UU they feel pretty pointless since the resourceless meatshield line gets a bonus against mounted. The hexes are so large and the AI so clumsy that flanking takes longer than just waiting for them to blunder into your hail of arrows. Come to think of it I seldom get much use out of swords/longswords either. They're only slightly stronger than spears/pikes and you have to gamble a ton of beakers to find out if you have iron; then they're hardly on the map on standard before it's time to upgrade them.
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| # ? May 19, 2013 03:26 |
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I try to use the great library to get iron working for free.
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| # ? May 19, 2013 03:47 |
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Captain Fargle posted:Why in the hell would you do that? Their ranged promotions become useless but stuff like Logistics and March still applies. You're throwing away good units there. I'm actually a bit unclear if logistics works for melee units at all, but lets just assume for a second it does function like blitz. Why would I want to pay gold to upgrade a unit that is strictly worse than a unit I can produce from any city, much less one with barracks and useful promotions? I would much rather my allied city states pay the upkeep, especially since I do not use a lot of cavalry. I'll just produce a modern unit instead from my production city with barracks if I need one. A billion useful promotions in exchange for March, on Cavalry of all things, isn't really worth it to me. I'm trading good promotions and essentially forfeiting future promotions for March? I'm barely a fan of Blitz as it is, the only reason Logistics is so good is because you don't incur damage, my melee units almost always get Cover first. The Lord Bude posted:I try to use the great library to get iron working for free. 185 Hammers ain't free. The iron gambit is actually a huge problem, I've definitely mentioned it before in the thread. Unless you have a UU along the warrior upgrade path you are basically forced into swinging around after education if you are on a difficulty that is challenging to you. Marketing New Brain fucked around with this message at May 19, 2013 around 03:59 |
| # ? May 19, 2013 03:55 |
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If you're banking on the GL, I think it's a far better strategy to fill out the mid or bottom tree manually while it builds, then use the free tech for philosophy- you don't need philosophy before you get that free library, and you can seamlessly move from building the GL to the national college. If you can pull off that tech catapult you're laughing, because you have great science generation while also being able to stand on your feet militarily (if you filled out the bottom tree) or jump to more wonder spamming (filling out the middle tree should give you access to some great wonders by the time the NC finishes). After the NC, you should be in a position to shoot for education/observatories without having to worry about being too far behind in the military/wonder game. Use money to pump out military or settlers. I find this strategy works well up to emperor even on Pangaea, and can work on immortal if you're playing islands or small continents and you can forego military prep in early game. If you successfully manage be above strategy with Babylon there's basically no way for the AI to catch up in science on anything lower than immortal.
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| # ? May 19, 2013 14:26 |
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| # ? May 19, 2013 16:51 |
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Poizen Jam posted:If you're banking on the GL, I think it's a far better strategy to fill out the mid or bottom tree manually while it builds, then use the free tech for philosophy- you don't need philosophy before you get that free library, and you can seamlessly move from building the GL to the national college. If you can pull off that tech catapult you're laughing, because you have great science generation while also being able to stand on your feet militarily (if you filled out the bottom tree) or jump to more wonder spamming (filling out the middle tree should give you access to some great wonders by the time the NC finishes). Or to have Alexander and Monty nearby and decide to go to war with you. I still won, but between that and Mysteriously Good Espionage I was barely staying ahead of Persia on King. Also, you can't fill out the bottom of the tree too much if you want to free tech into Philosophy because you need to get Calendar.
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| # ? May 19, 2013 14:59 |
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