Value of early game UUs on Monarch+

[Mujadaddy]

Originally posted by Aginor
Immortals - Like the Skirmishers, a nice combination of aggression and defense. Again, you have the same problem as the Incans against the living - your efficiency comes out of stacking your army full of your UU, and one or two Spearmen in a stack can totally ruin your day. Fortunately, the AI is dumb and defends this poorly.

War Chariots - less of a fan here than I am with the Immortals...immunity to First Strikes is softer than the attack power bonus and defensive capabilities of the Immortals, and I don't feel that this is adequately made up for by the boost in overall power. I rarely find myself swatting marauding units outside of cities in the early game when on offense, or fighting much besides Archers in a city for that matter...YMMV if you tend to turtle in the early going.

I favor Egypt when I get to choose, and I *love*love*love* my War chariots for one reason --- they cost 25 hammers!! That's HALF of what a Horse Archer would cost me, for ONE less strength!! The kings of ancient economic warfare! Harrass until your catapults come online (defended by axes & spears) and you *WILL* absorb all your neighbors...

[eiseike]

Agreed >>>> War chariots are the best . I've used all UU , even Immortals many times....... believe me , 5 strength they stand up to axemen , plus immunity to first strikes helps alot. Plus they have a 20% withdraw chance to prolong survival.

[Diadem]

War chariots are so damn cheap it's insane. They have a huge power for their cost. The egyptians start with the wheel and agriculture, meaning you need just one tech (animal husbandry) to be able to use them. This makes for a scary rush.

Another unit I think you underrated is the Keshik. They have 2 movement points and they ignore terrain penalties. Pillage Frenzy! With 6 strength they'll be very hard to take out in the open terrain. And with just a few of these guys you can effectively eliminate someone by pillaging everything he has. And you're not gonna counter them with spearmen if you don't have copper!

[Drachasor]

I tend to play England, and I find a later UU can be much better than an earlier (I've played a lot of different civs, but I prefer England). Maintainance, especially on higher difficulties, can really kill a civilization. Once you have markets, libraries, banking, religion, temples, and a few wonders, however, maintainance isn't that big of a threat. Early on going 10% down in science hurts, but later it is just a little annoying. As such massive conquests are better done in the midgame. Most often, in fact, you will quickly increase your science and wealth through conquest in mid-game, rather than decrease it as you do early on. Larger cities can build basic improvements quickly, and you might also have Universal Suffrage to really speed things along. Most often I find my civilization growing ever more powerful with each mid-game conquest; the money from new cities is easily greater than the maintaince increase.

Even with a relatively short-lived UU, like the Redcoat, you can still make it extremely powerful. For the Redcoat, as an example, you should be near the lead in tech when you gain rifling. Certainly you should be getting rifling before anyone else, or at least before most of your neighbors. To capitalize on this, you merely need to have already built up your army -- new catapults, foot units from previous eras with city attack upgrades, etc. Then when the new tech is researched, upgrade 10-20 units. This can be a lot of money, and it might require that you keep your research very low (perhaps even 0%) for a few turns to afford it. Spend those few turns building more of the new unit and upgrading your old units, however, and you will have an army the enemy cannot beat. A quick upgrade like this allows you to easily maximize your attack power for the window of turns during which the AI is behind in tech.

-Drachasor

PS. One of the nicest thing about redcoats is that they are almost as good as infantry when you get them*. As such not upgrading them for a while is feasible.

*due to their higher attack and special bonuses.

[ghen]

I'm playing with the Keshik's now on a pretty forested map. They're nice to have around, but the mongols are aggressive which doesn't give mounted units a bonus. IMO thats an oversight, keshiks should start with combat I.

[Diadem]

Yes, that's a stupid thing about Keshiks.

[Aginor]

Some comments on your responses (glad we have some discussion going here):

Musketeers: If you compare the unit to the Knight, it does indeed look quite good. On a pure beeline, there is something to be said for this. However, if you tend to aggressively beeline the science techs as I do, and consequently compare them to Cavalry and Grenadiers, naturally they simply don't hold up.

War Chariot - While they are indeed cheap...if you're trying to crack a city early on you'd rather have the Immortal for survivability reasons. Certainly they are superior for pillaging in the early game.

Keshik - You've definitely identified the right way to play with them - they operate much like the Mongol UU in Rise of Nations, designed to irritate and disrupt rather than destroy. IMO this makes them much more useful in a human vs. human situation than human vs. comp (as there's simply no way on the higher levels of difficulty that a pure economy disruption strategy is going to work against the comp). While you're correct that no Copper = no Spearmen, I would think that any competent human player would address that issue at contact, BEFORE the Keshiks show up. Where pillaging actually hurts is in denying the opponent the ability to actually *remove* the Keshik infestation, as properly placed Keshiks combined with other units should be able to pillage without fear of retribution if the enemy cannot manufacture additional Spearmen/high firepower troops.

Riflemen - I agree that they are a solid unit. I also agree that maintenance is utterly brutal - which is why Organized and Financial are so incredibly key. I find that Financial is more flexible for differing styles of play depending on the start, but that Organized generally does a better job of supporting empire building, particularly given that there is no time cost (cottages/Lighthouses to power your Financial take time to build). My usual strategy with Riflemen in general is to draft them rather than fork over the cash for heavy upgrades (I generally will upgrade 4-7 of my best units and draft the rest at this point). Slightly slower in time, but much more efficient in cash IMO, and early in a conflict you can suffer the happiness penalty with impunity if you've got decent luxuries going.

I get the feeling that a lot of you approach army building quite differently than I do...I remain an old-school Stack of Doom player, only difference being that I spread the stack out over 3-4 squares to minimize Catapult abuse rather than tossing everything in one stack. My idea of fighting a war is to either bring overwhelming force to the city and smash it, or not to bother at all (in which case I focus on protecting my own economy from depredations). As such I generally do not pillage much, as it is rare that I do not keep a city I capture, even later in the game (it has to be in terrible position for me to raze it as a rule).

Here's what I'm thinking vs. the comp: If a unit costs me X hammers to build, I need to do quite a bit better than disrupting X hammers of production and/or killing more than X hammers worth of units due to the AIs production advantages. Worse, since there are 6 AIs with production advantages in the game, screwing one rival out of a few hammers is pretty meaningless. If I don't get additional productive capacity out of the bargain, spending hammers to pillage one rival just leaves me farther and farther behind over time against the field, and the pillaging has to be insanely resource efficient to cripple even that rival. As a consequence - I take cities, not resources.

Against the living - pillaging becomes much more viable as a strategy, as each player is on an equal (and fragile) productive footing early. Consequently, X resources denied = X resources gained if the elimination of your unit costs a unit with the same resource cost.

Thoughts?

[Dominae]

On Emperor and Immortal, the early UUs are all definitely worth their custom art. I almost never rush the AI on those difficulties unless I have access to an early UU; if I do, it's an additional (rather strong) option. Looking at it this way, I cannot say that any of the early UUs are bad.

There's a tendency (for myself, at leat) to want to rush if you're playing a civ with an early UU, even though it's not the best course of action. I try remind myself that it's not always wise to use the UU just because I can.

Some ealry UUs you can build a strategy around, some not. Examples of the former include Keshiks, Praetorians and Quechua; of the lattter, Skirmishers, Jaguars and Fast Workers. The latter group complement an existing strategy, whatever it may be. For instance, Jaguars seem weak until you realize the amount of flexibility they give you. Praetorians, on the other hand, are a restrictive one-trick pony.

Quechua rushes work beautifully against the AI on Monarch and Emperor, but become a big investment on Immortal.

In SP, I find Immortals to be rather weak. I would rather have War Chariots any day. War Chariots can punch through the lone Spearmen in a city and have good odds against the remaining Archer defenses. Immortals, although slightly more survivable, lack in the momentum department, and so require more turns to accomplish the same thing. That's bad.

As defensive units, Skirmishers are less important in SP, although on Monarch and Emperor they allow an early "defend to win" attrition strategy against the AI which can sometimes work out (but sometimes flop).

Keshiks are just incredible, their mobility and thus flexibility allows you to do stuff that no other UU can. Woodsman II and Guerilla II are favored for their movement bonus (by me at least), and Keshiks essentially have both!

Not much to say about Fast Workers - they provide a nice jumpstart to your economy in the early-game. Their movement bonus does not always come into play whenever they move, compared to normal Workers. So they're slightly less powerful than they first appear (but still pretty darn good).

Generally, early UUs are better than their later counterparts for the sole reason that they help you to "make your move" earlier, which is better because it pays therefore pays off economically earlier too. On the higher difficulties, however, it's not always the best course of action to "make your move" with your early UU. So uniques like Cho-Ku-No are "better" because they come online when you're ready.

I would say that on Monarch and Emperor, early UUs reign supreme, while on Immortal they're not as dependable. On Immortal you always have to think about those civs that are not involved in war, because they will eclipse you economically if you falter. From experience, let me say that you can definitely falter with early UU rushes on Immortal.

In short: the key is knowing when to use your early UU, and when not to.

[Mujadaddy]

Originally posted by Aginor
Some comments on your responses (glad we have some discussion going here):

I get the feeling that a lot of you approach army building quite differently than I do... My idea of fighting a war is to either bring overwhelming force to the city and smash it, or not to bother at all (in which case I focus on protecting my own economy from depredations). As such I generally do not pillage much, as it is rare that I do not keep a city I capture, even later in the game (it has to be in terrible position for me to raze it as a rule). since there are 6 AIs with production advantages in the game, screwing one rival out of a few hammers is pretty meaningless. Thoughts?

I don't (and would expect most other players to agree) pillage the city I'm going to capture... I pillage the little satellite cities that I'm going to raze. The pillaging gets two things accomplished --- stunted growth/resource denial AND distraction. Distraction is the name of the game... sure, SEND all your units around to eliminate my pillagers.... I've got a stack of City-Attack-Catapults comin' for your capital while I harrass your other towns...

Other thoughts --- I generally like to capture the capitals, raze the neighboring cities for the purpose of eliminating the cultural pressure.... "No, you may NOT revolt and rejoin your former master!"

[Diadem]

I generally don't pillage cities I want to capture and keep either. Unless it's strategic resources that I want to remove my enemy's access to. Those are hooked up again quickly enough after the war.

However i usually raze most enemy cities. And I pillage as much as possible around those cities. It gives me money, and makes rebuilding cities there again (by my enemy, or another AI) less attractive.

[BigWilly1974]

For all the talk of razing cities...why?

I understand that too many cities too fast, and your economy goes down the tubes. But my philosophy is to keep all cities I capture unless they are in a bad spot (e.g. poor land around it, too close to another city).

First of all, it soon becomes another city from which to produce and grow. Second, it expands my cultural borders, bringing me closer to the heart of the enemy thereby providing a staging point. Third, if I raze the city, you know you'll have to take a city there again down the road as an AI will settle in/around where the previous city was razed.

So, in short, unless my economy is really struggling to keep up with expansion, which isn't too often the case except maybe very early, I keep all but a handful of cities that are just in bad locations.

[Aginor]

I'm with BigWilly on this one. The big thing about the raze is that the AI is preprogrammed to found cities in the spots with the little blue circles that you see when pushing the Settlers around...so if you take a city out and don't cover that spot with cultural borders (which takes, oh, 100 turns or so) another city is going to spring up like a weed, which must again be pulled.

It makes sense to raze IF your rush has stalled and you can't keep it, or if you're already pushing beyond the capped city and can refound it swiftly. Otherwise, it's a fairly simple thing to slam up a cultural improvement first turn after disorder ends (Slavery is a beautiful thing) as this will generally solve the culture problem if backed up with hammer-built culture-generators.

Perhaps my methods are a bit unsubtle for this game (certainly I am unsubtle in comparison with my play in Rise of Nations), but I see Civ not so much as a feinting wargame as the exertion of productive capacity on productive capacity. Massive horde cracks city -> wounded rest -> rest of horde moves to next city. If the methodology falters for some reason, request peace at the earliest opportunity and move on to someone that it will still work against. Repeat until all civs on same continent are gimped or buffered, or until tech lag means it's time to turtle-build.

I have to concur with the Quechua issues on offense at the highest levels of difficulty...there's just no way to hit hard and fast enough. While Immortals are (granted) lousy against Spearmen, they just dominate the AI's Archer spam. Pillage the Copper -> good game.