Wonder Rankings (BTS)

[rah]

i value my units maybe too much

Yeah, that was my problem at first too, but I've gotten over it.

[wodan11]

ive been thinking of upping the level but i dont like having to give the ai such a huge advantage.

It's not that big of an advantage. Besides, the AI is already at a huge disadvantage and upping the level doesn't address that. All it does is give them a little bit of a compensation.

Analogy: Fred makes $100k salary while Bob makes only $20k. So we give Bob some bus tokens and food stamps.

[Garth Vader]

Yeah, that was my problem at first too, but I've gotten over it.

I still have that problem, except I don't care about siege units. So it's easy to get high kill ratios even at equal tech levels.

[Ming]

Not caring about losing siege units is a step in the right direction. And yeah, once you don't care about losing them, it sure is a lot easier not losing other units. But in reality, with "maybe" the exception of great general healers, no unit is really indespenceable. Units are meant to go to battle, and they will die. Even at 99% odds, you still have a chance of dying. The minute you lose your attachment to every unit you build, war becomes much easier and less stressful

It's kind of funny... when I lose a bunch of siege units, or more non siege units than anticpated, I now think... OK, less maintenance, and now I can build some more units

[rah]

I never care about siege units, except to having enough to continue.

[wodan11]

The way to cure the "care about my units too much" problem is to deliberately screw around in a game and then DOW an AI who is more tech advanced. Approach it as a challenge to teach yourself how to conquer someone using inferior units.

This will get over that "yikes my unit died" thing real quick.

[rah]

Yeah, but not the ohhhh "all my units died" thing.

[trev]

Even on a game that seems lost and your miles behind in tech, things can recover. Game now I have been behind getting to key military techs (further behind in others) but I am still surviving, capturing cities etc, finally made one formidable nemesis a vassal, he is about 10 techs ahead, so should be able to trade for them over time now. My enemies jumped me on guilds, military science (that I do not care about usually except hard to fight grenadiers with maces and knights) gunpowder, military tradition (not by much here, so had currasiers just after them). During this time in long wars against multiple opponents held my own with flanking knights, cats etc with stronger opponents while I slowly captured cities from less advanced civs, wiping one out and taking cities from another. It was a matter of using flanking units to weaken the stronger units (because I settled all Generals in a beauracratic capital I could build with flanking 2, combat1 initially then 2, every 2 turns on marathon), then mop up with maces, musketman later.
At one stage, Ragner who became very powerful also declared war on me with a SOD of about 50 units and I was going to give up, but persisted because i saw his stack had only 1 treb to go against a castle. Also did not have the grenadiers that Gilgimash was troubling me with. Ragner's closest city to me was poorly defended, so I advanced and took that while using 4 - 5 flanking units to trouble his stack. But he was far too powerful for me so I gave him a tech I had to sue for peace before he had my castle defence to zero (mostly he was ahead in tech but I still had one he had not learnt).
Ragner has now attacked and vassalised 4 AI's I think and working on one more now, he has left me alone for a while (all game because of shared religion he has been my 'best friend' despite that one assault). Meanwhile Gilgamesh prioritised Democracy and physics and others over Riflemen, so I got to Cossacks before his cavalry and Rifles turned up, so quickly took 8 or so cities at that point and vassalised him.
Now it has to be me against Ragner, ther is only one non vassalised AI left and Ragner is now taking his cities, soon I will be his only opponent. His strength is listed in demograhics at about 2800000, while mine at 2nd is 1200000. Gilgimesh, my vassal may be 3rd in strength but half mine again. When I resume the game I will build heaps more cossacks, I must use them along with cannons to decimate his stacks and hopefully survive the onslaught which must come. The Cossacks being so much more powerful than his cavalry is my only hope and therefore the fight must start soon while the advantage is mine before more advance units come into play. I now have most cities and most hammers although Ragner and vassals combined will be ahead there, GDP is 2nd to Ragner though and techwise he is ahead. But Gilgamesh (my vassal) is further ahead in techs still, so hopefully with Gilgamesh help I can stay in touch techwise.

[Ben Kenobi]

Cossacks are that strong?

[brandonjm8]

Cossacks are that strong?

yep, they have extra 25% bonuses against mounted units or gunpowder or both if i remember correctly, i think its against mounted but it could be both, cossacks are by far better than cavalry. goodluck with your war but if he doesnt have cavalry and riflemen the war wont last long

[brandonjm8]

Yeah, that was my problem at first too, but I've gotten over it.

im over losing units and i know it has to happen but when i build a SoD, its for total destruction, for example when i goto war and i start it for other reasons then clearing them from my land or taking a couple of cities on my subcontinent ect. my SoD will consist of at least 15 siege/30+ attacking units of 2 movement/30+ defensive units for newly captured cities/20+ other attacking units, my SoD's usually number at least 60 or more total units. in my current game i have 37 cavalry already and just started the siege (have 2 artillery with many more on the way) and 3 infantry thus far, my defensive infantry are staying put in my cities should anyone else think thats the chance to attack me while im killin 2nd. in 10 turns once i get the unhealthiness problem outta the way i'll have a SoD of at least 60, with drydocks building 15+ transports will only take 3 turns, because 2nd has many cities and the first ones have numerous riflemen/cavalry (probably because i started building on his continent but hes blocked by mountains im assuming thats his stronghold) i wont DoW on him til i got a SoD around 90 and have them close enough to DoW then land all 90 of them.

[Ming]

yep, they have extra 25% bonuses against mounted units or gunpowder or both if i remember correctly, i think its against mounted but it could be both, cossacks are by far better than cavalry. goodluck with your war but if he doesnt have cavalry and riflemen the war wont last long

The only difference between Cossacks and cavalry is that Cossacks get a 50% bonus against mounted units. Both have retreat percentages, and both can flank seige units up to cannons.

Cossacks and cavalry are countered by rifleman and other cavalry.

[trev]

The 50% bonus against mounted units is the real bonus, as AI's tend at this stage of the game to send more cavalry than rifles, that bonus will see me crush much bigger SOD's than I can put up, hopefully killing the siege units by flanking kills. Without siege units the AI tends to wander around and not do much. As my capital is currently producing units of 21xp points, the cossacks can be given gunpowder bonuses along with flanking as well, so even against rifles they will give a good account of themselves.

[One_more_turn]

In the plain vanilla Civ IV, Cossaks with a 18 str is almost unstoppable. Firaxis nerfed it back to 15 after Warlords, so that Riflemen can kill it.

Back then, Catherine used to be Fin/Cre!

[brandonjm8]

In the plain vanilla Civ IV, Cossaks with a 18 str is almost unstoppable. Firaxis nerfed it back to 15 after Warlords, so that Riflemen can kill it.

Back then, Catherine used to be Fin/Cre!

yep, i remember that. i was catherine once, built a bunch of 18 str cossacks and decimated my rivals, needless to say i kicked @$$