Triple Threat - The Joys of Being a Bloodthirsty Barbarian

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Civ 3 has a lot a bad starts. I dont see how those bad lands are conducive to learn irrigation, mines, or roads. I always restart, or then head to my friends house to use his PC editor.

[Alkis]

What are we talking about here?

Are we talking about Monarch level? Where almost anything you play leads to victory? Or are we talking about Deity?

If it's a Monarch level game it's easier and better to build your civilization up and attack later (if you like, not absolutely necessary). Just have some Jags in order to trigger your golden age the time you want to.

If it's on Deity this strategy will probably fail. And of course, in order to have a chance to even try you have to choose specific settings. If you play random settings, you may start on an island. An island on Deity is an almost certain defeat.

The strange thing is that the same scenario wins on Emperor. I won almost every game I played alone on an island on Emperor.

So what are we talking about here? That it's fun to attack with Jaguar warriors on Monarch or Regent level? What I can answer to that, is that it isn't necessary.

Of course, if you like that style of play, go for it. But I wasn't convinced that there is any virtue in being a bloodthirsty barb. I used the Aztecs (On Emperor) but I play them differently. I take advantage of their cheap barracks, temples and harbors. The juguar warriors, I only use for exploration and to get a GA at the "right" time. I think Aztecs are good and their special unit is ok because it's cheap and early and can be used for exploration but that's all about it. As soon as I get my golden age I start thinking about disbanding my few juaguar warriors. The only reason I may keep them is to appear stronger in the military screen. What? Keep them till the Industrial age to pillage with them? Oh, come on, you can do that better with cavalry.

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[Gen.Dragolen]

Alkis,

Vel's strategy to "get there firstest with the mostest" is more than valid, you just need to make sure you are going to attack around 2000 BC, before the other CC's have a chance to get established with more than two cities.

Using the jags in hunting packs has merit in that you maintain security and a presence in an area. Prevents those annoying CC cities at your next buildng site. Knocking off a settler is a major blow to the CC and a nice boost to your workforce. It also forces the CC to produce troops instead of building more settlers.

I'm not sure if the CC's can see what kind of units you have as opposed to all the details. It would be nice if the CC's were as much in the dark when they assault a town as we are. But since they can see what we are using, they will try to attack with stronger units like archers. The jags can be used as an active defense, but again, you better have 10 to 1 numbers, because they only knowhow to do one thing: a human tide in a full frontal assault. No subtlety, just overrun them with numbers.

The level you are playing at will only affect how many units you have made when you start your assault.

[vulture]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
I used to always play Americans, but then yesterday I tried out the Greeks for the first time. All what I can say is "D@mn" Two hoplites in your city will stop anything (even a Schwarm of Fa.. I mean Jag warrios . The only problem I see is slow road construction and hardly any exploration.

1 jag warrior = 10 Shields
Jag Warrior = 1.1.2
1 hoplite = 20 shields
Hoplite = 1.3.1

It will take more than 2 jag warriors to take out a hoplite in a town with barracks. Therefore, it seems that it will cost you more to take the town.

Using my recently finished combat calculator I looked at the odds of Jag warriors trying to take a hoplite-defended town. Using your example of two veteran hoplites (and assuming a size 1-6 town, no city walls and veteran Jag warriors) I find that 8 jags will give you a 50% chance of taking the town, and you only have 3 of them getting killed on average. 10 jags brings the odds up to 2/3, and 12 jags gives you a 78% chance of success (at the average cost of 3.6 Jag warriors). Considering the (AVERAGE) losses for both sides in the 12 Jag warrios scenario, the Aztecs take 36 shield to replace their little monsters, while the Greeks take 31 and have a 78% chance of losing a town (with barracks) into the bargain (78% chance of losing settler plus barracks is another 55 shields, not including anything else in the town and the hard-to-calculate damage you your development and the benefits to the Aztecs of a new city). Yes, Jag warriors have a large initial outlay to get the swarm up and running, but they will make up for it by not requiring many replacements once you have a big enough stack of them.

Or to look at it another way, the Greeks invest 110 shield in a settler, barracks and 2 hoplites. The Aztecs invest 120 in 12 Jaguar warriors. When the dust settles after the first round of combat, there is a 78% chance the Greeks are left with nothing for their investment, while the Aztecs still have 9 Jag warriors, and possibly a town and barracks to boot. That's good odds for the Aztecs.

[Alkis]

Ok I will explain it better (and more politely).

Civ3 has many difficulty levels, right? Something that is true on Monarch may be not true on Emperor. I took the time and loaded a save just before space victory just to see the replay. By 2000 BC the Iroguois had 5 cities, the English, the Chineese and the Persians had 4 cities, the other two had three cities but their next came just a little later. By 2000 BC there was only one Civ with two cities, me.

You see, on Emperor and Deity the computer not only needs less shields to complete a unit or a building, but it needs less food to increase a city in size. Since you compare an AI civ with yours on equal terms, then I have to assume that you are talking about Monarch level. That's my point.

I didn't mean to say that an early juguar rush is invalid on Monarch level, all I said is that it's one of many valid plans. In other words you don't have to play in this way in order to win. There are many other ways to play (and win).

Now, if we talk about Emperor or Deity the computer will build a hoplite in the same number of turns as you build a juguar warrior. Or even faster, because his cities will be bigger in size.

To conclude, on Monarch level, sure you can play like this, but there are many other plans, some of them more attractive. On Deity level well, go ahead and rush the AI with juguar warriors. You won't succeed.

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[Arrian]

Yikes.

Did your calculation include the chances of a hoplite getting promoted due to killing a jag or two? If 3.6 jags, on average, are killed, at least one hoplite is gonna get promoted once.

-Arrian

[Velociryx]

That's the beauty of strategy games...always more than one way to skin a cat.

Is this the only way the Aztec can be played? Nope. But even on Deity, it can crush the AI (mostly on account of the fact that, even if the AI outpaces your production, you, as the human player, are vastly better in terms of force concentration).

Different strokes for different folks tho...if you're looking for a fast paced, get in there and rend and smash style game, the Aztec are well-suited to stand and deliver....

-=Vel=-

[Nakar Gabab]

Singleminded brute-force production never goes out of style. I think people are missing the point Vel is making... he wants to make Jags. A *lot* of Jags. Think of the biggest number of Jags you can imagine, and make it bigger. At some point that's gonna start hurting.

As to the rapid expansion of the AI on Deity... well, the computer gets to cheat. When MP rolls around, we (human beings, which I presume we all are ) won't have that luxury.

Will a human being lose to a Jag rush as a Monarch AI might? Probably not. But I bet it'll be more effective than the numbers might have us believe. Especially if those jags lay waste to your improvements first - and against a human, THEY WILL.

As to "every path taken on and below will lead to victory," well, no. You're good enough that any path may lead to victory, but a lot of people don't have the patience for bad starts, isolation, or superhuman AI production. If it's the challenge, that's one thing, but I prefer it for the experience. Though admittedly I should probably ramp up the difficulty level I'm playing at soon, myself...

Another side benefit here: Even if you have jags where they have, say, Pikemen, if you have 80 and they have 20, they'll be quite receptive on almost any difficulty level. Suddenly it doesn't look so bad!

[Alkis]

Just a remark, regardless of the quality of the unit you pay the same maintainance. 80 jags have the same upkeep as 80 pikemen. Although jags have their uses I would prefer an army with other units too. Jags would capture workers attack archers etc while horsemen, for instance, would attack cities.

I even played a pacifistic game as the Aztecs on Emperor, taking advantage of their cheap buildings and used jags to get a GA when I was ready.

As Vel said there are many ways to skin a cat (is that a fact? )

-

[King of Rasslin]

If you are playing as an industrious civ, you shouldn't have problems stopping Jags because you will have a road network established by the time they get to you. Your warriors will be a little bit faster than the Jags. Retreating is weaker than before, and they are a dead end tech tree path.

The horseman will upgrade to samurai, and later cavalry. The advantage of the horseman is that it is more useful in most situations. Jags are only good if you start next to a dumb multiplayer opponent or and AI and you get lucky and catch them off guard. Horsemen have more stopping power and they can be upgraded.

A horseman or samurai is going to be useful in more situations than a Jag. I just don't like the gamble you take when you choose Aztecs. They are great sometimes, sometimes they aren't. All civs are like that, actually, but Japan is well rounded and suits my playing style best.

[King of Rasslin]

Another note. Early in the game, Jags are effective because you can have 4 units supported for every city. That's a lot. After you hit monarchy, you can only support 2 units per city less than size 7. And if you are focusing on war, that will lower the amount of units you can support effectively. If you choose republic, unit upkeep will hurt bad. Jags are good units, but they don't have a long life span.

The interesting thing is that an early aggressor in mp is going to be tag teamed. When the early power of the Jags diminishes, he is going to be crushed by the upset people he tried to mess with. Because units cost much more in the upper governments, you need a strong unit. Knights are great because they have a high offence, defence, the benefit of retreat, and they can upgrade to cavalry. They rule the midgame, the most important era in the game. That's why I like China, Japan, and India a lot. Their UU's are at the perfect time in the game. I would really love China if they were only religious.

But I think a cheesy Aztec rusher is going to get punished if he tries something like that in mp.

[vulture]

Originally posted by Arrian
Yikes.

Did your calculation include the chances of a hoplite getting promoted due to killing a jag or two? If 3.6 jags, on average, are killed, at least one hoplite is gonna get promoted once.

-Arrian

It doesn't include promotion chances. As a worst case scenario, consider a swarm of veteran jags attacking elite hoplites (fortified in a size 1-6 town without walls). 14 Jags are needed to give a 75% chance of winning, with 4.5 Jags dead (c.f. 12 vs veteran hoplites). The promotion chance is 1 in 4 for non-milatiristic civs I believe. So assuming one defender gets promoted, we are looking at 13 Jags to give you pretty close to 75% chance of taking the town, and probably 4 of them killed. Work out the shield investment - it still heavily favours the aztecs.

Incidentally, if the cunning Greeks build a town on a hill, or invest in city walls (much maligned by everyone normally), you will need 22 Jags to have a 75% chance of getting the town, and almost 7 of them will be killed on average. It begins to look better for the Greeks.

[Alkis]

Vulture,

In your calculation you don't take into account that the Aztecs have to invest in a barracks too. And a town. You take it as if towns and barracks are free for the Aztecs. Sorry but you are oversimplifying.

Also the part you don't risk losing a town isn't exactly true. You don't risk losing a town in that particular battle only. Suppose there are some AI warriors nearby, normally set to fight barbarians. These warriors, and archers sometimes, will probably attack one of your own towns and you will be the one at risk of losing a town.

The shield investment is also misleading. Suppose you have a town with 3 shields production. It needs 4 turns to produce a jag. That same town will need not 8 but 7 turns to produce a spearman (or hoplite). If a town has 4 shields production then it's 3 and 5 respectively. With more expensive units (or even spearmen) you can rush them sometimes. Don't tell me that you will rush jags too. In all, jags are maybe ok but not devastating.

-

[vulture]

Originally posted by Alkis
Vulture,

In your calculation you don't take into account that the Aztecs have to invest in a barracks too. And a town. You take it as if towns and barracks are free for the Aztecs. Sorry but you are oversimplifying.

Also the part you don't risk losing a town isn't exactly true. You don't risk losing a town in that particular battle only. Suppose there are some AI warriors nearby, normally set to fight barbarians. These warriors, and archers sometimes, will probably attack one of your own towns and you will be the one at risk of losing a town.

Valid points, and I was oversimplifying, but I'm not sure it's as 'bad' as you make out. I was considering the resources needed to get a new town. Okay, lets be fair and assume the existence of a barracks in an older city, which sends out two hoplites and a settler to form a new town. That's 70 shields worth of units. The Aztecs can either build their own town defended by 2 spearmen for that price (or 4 Jaguar warriors to be a more useful comparison), or 7 Jaguar warriors.

At this point I must guiltily admit to having messed up the previous calculations. I foolishly went from '4 Jags have an X% chance of beating a hoplite' to '8 Jags have (approximately) the same chance of beating two hoplites'. This is not true, and not even particularly close most of the time.

Doh!

Anway, my best guess now is that these 7 Jags have about a 33% chance of storming the town. You'd need 10 to have a better than 50% chance, and would lose 3.7 of them (but if you do take the town you have a pretty good garrison in it straight away to defend against other AI units in the area).

14 Jags will give you about 90% chance of taking the town (with 4 warriors killed), and without reinforcements will give you about 50% against a second such town. A quick and dirty calculation suggests that for 140 shields invested on both sides, there is a 5% chance the Greeks end up with two cities, 50% chance that the Greeks and Aztecs have one each, and 45% chance that the Aztecs get both. If the Aztecs build their own cities rather than invading everyone elses, then then both sides up with 2 cities each for the same price. Make of that what you will. The more cities you want to capture, the more the balance tips in favour of the Jags, since each city captured only costs them 4 Jags worth of replacements on average.

The shield investment is also misleading. Suppose you have a town with 3 shields production. It needs 4 turns to produce a jag. That same town will need not 8 but 7 turns to produce a spearman (or hoplite). If a town has 4 shields production then it's 3 and 5 respectively. With more expensive units (or even spearmen) you can rush them sometimes. Don't tell me that you will rush jags too. In all, jags are maybe ok but not devastating.

-

Agreed, producing jags involves more wasted shields. I'm not someone who believes that Jags are an unstoppable force. Two veteran hoplites behind city walls probably have a better than 50% chance of holding off 15 Jaguar warriors. The point is merely that compared to the cost of building your cities, Jaguar warriors can capture them - at a greater cost admittedly - but with the fringe benefits of capturing workers, exploration and denying your opponents cities. It's a sensible stragegy for the Aztecs because their Jags are fast.

If another civ tries it with normal warriors it doesn't work anywhere near as well because, although warriors have a slightly better chance of taking the towns, they take roughly twice as many casualties, and replacing them tips the balance against this strategy. Plus you don't get the rapid exploration.

[Txurce]

Originally posted by King of Rasslin
Knights are great because they have a high offence, defence, the benefit of retreat, and they can upgrade to cavalry. They rule the midgame, the most important era in the game.

Did somebody just say there are many ways to skin a cat?

I almost always favor mounted units, and yet tend to skip chivalry altogether in my games. That's because I find the ancient era to be the most important; I build mounted units (or JWs) and take control of the game. In the medieval era, I then build infrastructure for my #1 land-mass in the all-too-brief period before cavalry arrive. I might feel differently if I had the money at 100 AD to upgrade to knights, but... I don't.

[King of Rasslin]

True, there are many ways to skin a cat. I tried to win a game with marines and infantry, no mobile units at all. Swordsmen, longbowmen, riflemen, marines, I used them all. I used artillery. I didn't use mounted units at all, not even tanks.

I had fun. It was weak, but it was fun. I think mounted units are still very strong compared to what is supposed to be the main component of an attack. The little guys.

[Txurce]

I agree about the lack of verisimilitude. And your ground game sounds like a blast.

[Nakar Gabab]

Infantry are pretty good. Same attack as cavalry, massive defense, slow and no retreat. You'll deal the same amount of damage, but will progress through wars VERY SLOWLY.

On the upshot, you won't lose much to counterattacks... err... well.

[King of Rasslin]

Infantry are ok. Marines need a serious power overhaul. Paratroopers are nearly worthless. Swordsmen shouldn't be a dead research path, and neither should longbowman. Chariot to Cavalry is too long, I think. I noticed that the 1 unit war depends heavily on artillery and cannon support. I also noticed how weak artillery and cannon are. I would rather have 12 more units than some artillery. It is good against a comp but it will be useless in multiplayer.

[T-hawk]

Has anyone tried coupling a Monarchy rush with the jaguar rush? The Aztecs are unique in starting with the two techs towards Monarchy, and can revolt to it right away being Religious. It's a good government to stay in for a while, too, using the cheap jags for police. A jaguar rush doesn't need any other techs, either - and when you do want them, take them in a peace treaty.

Is it possible to get to Monarchy early enough to spend most of your golden age in it? That would result in truly frightening numbers of jags, or a sizable infrastructure buildup.

[King of Rasslin]

T-hawk, I always wait for republic or monarchy for the golden age. However, the # of cities you have and their size is more important than the government type. You need plenty of fair sized cities to take advantage of the extra shields you get. Government type just reduces the waste a little.

The reason people wait for republic or monarchy to get the golden age is because you will have plenty of cities by the time you get the higher governments.

[punkbass2000]

It also has to do with the despotism limit of -1 food/shield in every tile that has three or more.

[Txurce]

It's an interesting idea. You need to research three techs, and would max out science (for what it's worth). But a delay in starting the rush could prove fatal, since you may not reach a tough civ in time, and won't have the gold to upgrade your JWs to swordsmen. And if you don't delay it, you'll likely waste most of your GA in despotism (which you are seemingly trying to avoid). This may be the sort of strategy that you play circumstantially - trade early enough for mysticism, and it might be worth it.

[Nakar Gabab]

I mod swordsmen and longbowmen to both upgrade to riflemen. This leaves them obsolete for a LONG time (though still marginally useful), then lets them keep upgrading.

I figure, by the time of Nationalism, they're shoving a gun into anybody's hands.

"You guys used bows? Uh, yeah, real nice, here, have a rifle and go stand in line with the other guys."

"Swords? Swords are so primitive, we're in the *19th century* here! Please, get these men rifles and a decent pair of pants!"

Once, I also let cavalry upgrade to mech inf. Not doing that currently, no particular reason.

[dawidge]

I decided to take Vel's advice and test drive the little green mean machine. All I can say is "WOW". Standard, continental (middle setting) all random on age, etc. Just started cranking out the jags and didn't build a settler until I hit 5 pop (built a barracks after the first three or four were out exploring). By that time I'd already captured Babylon and razed Ur (they deserved it, they took offense when I accepted the peace offering of two slaves that were wandering around ). A goodie hut popped a settler smack dab in the choke point to France so I decided to wall them off and save them for later. A few turns later, Moscow is mine (buh-bye). Sack an Indian city, sue for peace to steal all their tech, all their gold and one of their two remaining cities (in another choke point). I got a GL out of the deal and built the pyramids. The French don't offer enough incentive to me to give them contact with the Indians, so I capture Delhi and wave goodbye. Shift all but minimal defensive troops over to the France chokepoint (which has iron, which the French thoughtfully taught me how to use even though they have none themselves) and convert them all to swords. Take all the cultured French cities, sue for peace, all their tech and cash. A GL gives me my FP in the heart of France. Wait a few turns for the inevitable settler border violation, and steamroll them into oblivion. The largest landmass is mine by 350 AD. Use the last GL I'll get for a while to build the Lightbouse and start looking for the rest of the world.

I guess it's time to move up from Regent. The Aztecs are just too easy

[Velociryx]

Glad to hear it was a smashing success!

One of the oldest truisms of military strategy is that mobility trumps raw firepower. The Aztec, played in this fashion, excel not because they have units of superior strength, but simply because by being faster, sooner, they get the benefits of knowing the lay of the land before the opposition, and the ability to dictate precisely when and where combats occur.

That advantage is....huge.

-=Vel=-

[dawidge]

Absolutely. I switched to the swords against France because they had had time to put two spears in every city and were sending archers against me. I'd rather have my defender kill them than run away hurt. Besides, I had such numerical superiority by that point, that I had to pace myself to allow their cities time to build up enough culture.

Throughout the game I've practiced the "It's mine! I earned it" policy of not razing any cities intentionally. It probably slowed me down a little bit, but as it is I'm on a pace for my earliest ever victory. It's currently 1500 AD and my cavalry should secure enough of the Persian countryside by 1600 for a domination victory (Speaking of mobility advantage... Persia just achieved Knights, which cuts out my retreat, but I seldom need it). I stopped tech development after Nationalism+RR at about 1350. I'm not sure, but that may be the earliest I've ever made it to RRs, too (which is strange consider the number of times I've played the Babs in builder/hybrid).

Yowza!

[King of Rasslin]

Power always wins over finesse. Watch someone like the Undertaker absolutely murder someone like Jeff Hardy in the ring. See what I mean?

Fast little 1/1/2 jags are not very good at all after the first few turns. Cossacks are useful for so long, it isn't even funny. Cavalry is used longer than any other unit, in most of my games. They are one of my favorite UUs, but I don't like Russia enough to get them.

I love bowmen. They have the raw power early in the game, but they defend so well too. They are just plain tough.

[vulture]

Originally posted by King of Rasslin
Power always wins over finesse. Watch someone like the Undertaker absolutely murder someone like Jeff Hardy in the ring. See what I mean?

Wrestling? I'm not sure how a scripted and carefully choreographed bit of dancing compares to an actual confrontation...

Fast little 1/1/2 jags are not very good at all after the first few turns. Cossacks are useful for so long, it isn't even funny. Cavalry is used longer than any other unit, in most of my games. They are one of my favorite UUs, but I don't like Russia enough to get them.

I love bowmen. They have the raw power early in the game, but they defend so well too. They are just plain tough.

Jags have a reasonable shelf life. At a time when I had about 10 cities, I was trying to take the French capital defended by 4 spearmen. A stack of 20 Jags did the job pretty well, with men to spare. And with several cities producing 5 shields and turning out a veteran replacement every 2 turns, the stack was just getting bigger. Of course, I still upgraded to swordsmen at the first opportunity.

Never tried Cossacks, since I've never played the Russians. But I agree that medieval UUs are useful for a long time (apart from Indian war elephants and French musketeers, which are hardly useful at all).

I remember that everyone thought that the attacking UUs with beefed up defense were stupid when the game first appeared (a la legions, bowmen, samurai). In practice it seems that most people have found them to be much stronger units that their stats would suggest. I'm still not sold on the cossacks though, since their beefed up defence (ADM of 6/4/3 IIRC) is still that much weaker than than the usual attack values of their era, while those of the legions, bowmen, samurai have defence values equal to the best attackers they are likely to be facing for a while. Anyone have any good experiences of using cossacks? (Aside from the benefits of a late medieval golden age...)

[dawidge]

I was actually mad when I was forced to start building Swords instead of JWs. After all, I had gold to burn in upgrades, I could crank out a JWs every couple of turns, and they had 2 move points to reach the front quickly. I seriously considered pillaging a road or two.

1560, BTW. A record best for me. The only reason it took that long is that I had toi decide to declare peace to get out of mobilization so I could grow culture in captured Persia. Declare peace, rush temples, wait 5 turns, I win. I probably could have gotten a conquer victory by 1600. I was poised to go through the Zulu like grass through a goose.