Dumb questions part II

[Colm]

- I noticed you only get a General when you're at war. What determines this? The amount of troops you have, how many turns at war or something else?

- Some units are free to upgrade. How come?

- One certain tech gives you Bridgebuilding. Other then the graphic on the map, what benefit does it give?

- Why can't catapults be upgraded to trebuchets?

- Is cavalry classified under a gunpowder unit? (So I can determine upgrade options on units).

- footsoldiers get barracks. A horse gets stables, but do the tanks profit from anything?

[Julian Delphiki]

Great General points are accumulated from actual battles, you can see them on F5 screen.

Free upgrades are available to units that have Great General attached to them.

You don't lose movement when crossing rivers.

Catapults/trebuchets .. well dunno really. Balance or something.

Cavalry is mounted unit.

Tanks get XP from barracks, civics, Pentagon, settled military advisors & West point.

[Baldyr]

The Trebuchet is an ad-hoc unit added in the latest expansion pack (like the Trireme) and doesn't really fit the structure of the game. I try to reason that the Catapult can be used as a field weapon (as it causes more collateral damage, or something), while the Trebuchet is a dedicated siege engine. That's why it wouldn't make sense to upgrade all your Catapults to Trebuchets anyway (although it would be nice to have the choice).

Barracks give experience to ALL units, including Melee/Gunpowder and Armored units. The Stable is another ad-hoc addition to the game and makes no real sense. (It would really supply the city in question with the Horse resource, since most Civs shouldn't have to use wild horses anyways.)

[TriMiro]

Stables were added for balancing issues. Consider Cavalry vs Rifleman, that is raw starts 15 vs 14. Both get a barracks promotion, but Rifleman also get terrain defense bonus and city defense bonus. Without Stables, the odds would be strongly in favor of the Rifleman. Tanks (28) vs Infantry (20) do not have that issue.

Knights (and to lesser extent Cavalry) were usually of noble birth and thus they could afford extra training then the regular army. I am not sure if stables is the right name for the building that would give that effect, but it serves a good purpose.

[Julian Delphiki]

Weren't stables also warlords addition, other civs got them when Mongols got Ger.

[ColdPhoenix]

To clarify on the Great Generals. You get a point for each battle you win against a rival civ (not barbarians), when you reach the required total a general emerges, the counter is reset to zero and there is a new (higher) total to reach for the next general.

[patcon]

Actually, you can get a Great General without being at war. If you are the first to discover Fascism (I believe, but maybe something else) you get a GG. There's also a special event (dynasty change?) that grants a free Great Person, which could (maybe) be a GG.

New question brought up by this: Does the granting of a Great Person by discovery or special event reset GPP to zerp and raise the threshhold for the next GP? I wouldn't think so, but that doesn't seem to always matter to the game mechanics.

[jbp26]

Originally posted by patcon
New question brought up by this: Does the granting of a Great Person by discovery or special event reset GPP to zerp and raise the threshhold for the next GP? I wouldn't think so, but that doesn't seem to always matter to the game mechanics.

nope it does not. i was playing last night and got a great engineer from fusion, and another one from GPP on the same turn.

[Supr49er]

Construction enables bridgebuilding.

If you build Privateers, you can attack anyone without declaring war and get a GG or two before they build Frigates and sink your Privateers.

[sowings]

Originally posted by patcon
There's also a special event (dynasty change?) that grants a free Great Person, which could (maybe) be a GG.

That one is settled in the city, iirc, and you don't have the option to use the GP's special ability (like rush production).

[Blaupanzer]

Prior to Consruction and its accompanying bridgebuilding, each unit pays a full movement point to cross a river in addition to terrain entry cost across the river. So a unit on a road gets slowed down by the river. Post this point, units on roads ignore the rivers on the tile-edges as long as they are on the road.

[Theben]

Originally posted by Baldyr
The Stable is another ad-hoc addition to the game and makes no real sense. (It would really supply the city in question with the Horse resource, since most Civs shouldn't have to use wild horses anyways.)

That's what I've always felt.

Stables were added for balancing issues. Consider Cavalry vs Rifleman, that is raw starts 15 vs 14. Both get a barracks promotion, but Rifleman also get terrain defense bonus and city defense bonus. Without Stables, the odds would be strongly in favor of the Rifleman. Tanks (28) vs Infantry (20) do not have that issue.

Generally you're not going to send cavalry to seige a city, so rifleman should have the better odds. IMO mounted units should have a bonus in open terrain.

[Colm]

Thanks for the replies.
You know, I'm getting pretty disapointed in mounted units. They are useless in city attacks and open-field battles are just too few to make them really useful.
I more or less use them now as a glorified catapult; to weaken the defenders a bit since they have a fairly good retreat option.

Too bad really since in real history, mounted units were powerhouses and (even according to the civilipedia) were the dominant force in any battleground.

[okblacke]

Actually, they're pretty awesome against siege weapons.

[Unimatrix11]

Field battles should be more frequent, not cavalry stronger. But thats a matter of difficulty level, i guess: When most of the military action is you taking enemy cities, it is the difficulty level, that makes field battles rare and cavalry almost useless. But when a big enemy stack with lots of siege and city-raider promoted foot-soldiers enters your turf, i guess it pays off to have some mounts around. (But i too almost never build any - so this is a mongol teaching sailing kinda)