Is Leo worth losing veteran status?

[Sieve Too]

I'll take non-vet Dragoons any day over vet Knights. Dragoons must lose 20 rounds of battle vs. 10 for the Knight before they are killed. This more than makes up for their slightly lower ADM value. Another thing to remember is the Pikeman bonus - it only applies to units with 1 HP. Knights are affected, Dragoons are not.

[DaveV]

Green musketeers are better than vet pikes, and green dragoons are much better than vet knights. Because they have twice as many hitpoints, their stats are effectively doubled compared to the primitive units. And they can become vets if they win; then watch out!

Edit: Sieve Too was faster on the trigger, but "he's right, you know"!
[This message has been edited by DaveV (edited June 12, 2000).]

[SCG]

In games where you are capable of inciting a lot of cities to riot, such as with Fundy or Democracy, Leo's is a very powerful weapon. Often you will find cities supporting 4-5 (or more) units, and if you can get that city to join your glorious empire without a fight, you can often very quickly reequip the garrisons (steal a tech or discover one) and allow quick consolidation of control of the area. And in any case, the ability to upgrade settlers to engineers is more than worth it. going from diplomats to spies ranks up there as well

[cavebear]

Having recently gained a more thorough understanding of Hit Points, Firepower, and the multiple round aspect of battle calculations, I can only say that my opinion of Leo's is enhanced.

Sure, there are specific situations where there is a temporary loss in basic Attack/Defense (knight to dragoon), but it is more than balanced by the Hit Points or Firepower of the newer unit.

As far as trying to guess *when* to get Leo's (based on when your opponent might attack with specific units), I'd say that, overall, it is best to just get Leo's and look at the big picture. Those pikesmen/phalanx can become marines some day (possible if you work at it), equal to the benefits of Mike's and Hoover's.
[This message has been edited by cavebear (edited June 12, 2000).]

[Paul]

Sorry, but your pikemen and phalanxes will not become marines. Leo's upgrade works from warrior/phalanx to pikemen, musketeers and riflemen.

[rah]

Paul, yes you were right on the alpine, slip of the tongue so to speak. I was thinking of the Sun Tzu vet creation status. I believe there is even one tech path where you can build mobile infantry before it becomes obsolete if you're really paying attention. Of course, like before, I could be wrong.

RAH
shouldn't post after a few beers

[SCG]

Rah, I think you may be thinking of artillery. Leo's expires with the automobile - kind of hard to have mobile infantry without discovering the automobile first.

Now, back in civ I, there was that really neat error in the tech tree where if you avoided discovering electricity, you could keep finding new techs in the huts I will forever remember a diplomat of mine finding a small village on an isolated island and reporting back to me about the the wonderous knowledge they possessed in reguards to splitting the atom I personally took it as a sign that we had been visited by aliens in our past, to be able to find ancient scrolls of wisdom detailing nuclear fission

[jpk]

Leo upgrades diplomats to spies.

[Ming]

SCG... Rah was refering to Sun Tzu's vet creation status. It is possible to get mobile infantry without mobile warfare.
He wasn't saying that you could get the upgrades, just that you could still build vets without barricks.

[SCG]

Ah, my mistake. I tend to miss out on STWA a lot since i concentrate on enlightening wonders over military wonders with the exception of Leo's. I do occasionally capture STWA before it expires, but haven't really experimented with it too much Since i tend to enlighten my fellow AI opponents and use Leo's produce large modern militaries (i might be off timewise, but i tend to call post-leo's military post-modern a lot), I tend to delay discovery of the automobile through various tactics. I might look into putting STWA to work sometime

[Ming]

If you like Leo's, you will just love the combo of the two. You can upgrade your ships back to veteran status by just hunting down easy targets Any defensive unit will be back to a vet after the first attack against it... so if you have a good defensive position, the first attack is usually doing you a favor

[East Street Trader]

I rarely play blood lust and am most at ease with a defensive rather than an offensive military style. So I love to see those riflemen appear behind my walls and in my mountain fastnesses knowing that I've now got a good long time to work on my infrastructure before the AIs slow research get them up to anything as worrying as a howie or a cruise missile.

And how I love to see the AIs production expending itself against my walls, knowing in my miserly heart that all it has cost me is the wonderfully cheap price of those underpriced early warriors!

But latterly I've tried not building Leo's as an experiment and a surprisingly pleasant aspect of the change has been the benefit you get from using the disband order. One use is to get you over the moment when you have just completed one unit/improvement and are keen to rush the next. Alternatively the small boost to the shield count from, say, disbanding a warrior may also allow you to complete production or get to the next convenient incremental stage for rush building with greater economy. (not EVERY city can produce in neat multiples of 10).

Now of course nothing says you can't employ disband just cause you've got Leo's. But all I know is that I don't. I suppose that it feels wrong to disband a warrior when he's going to turn into a rifleman one day. And by the time he transforms I've probably treached the point where I am operating on the minimum number of units.

Using disband well though does take effort, and has slowed my game down a good deal, so I suppose an exponent would be expressing the opposite viewpoint to Geophelt. In the end - commited micro-manager though I be, I think I'm with him that faster paced games are more fun. Having just tried OCC for the first time I certainly loved that.

So I doubt I've seen the last of Leo's (surprisingly tatty) workshop in my cities.

East Street Trader

[East Street Trader]

Ouch - if I'm going to refer to your post, Geofelt, I might at least spell your monicker right.

By the by, can anyone tell me where this "edit" thing lives.

East Street Trader

[SCG]

quote: By the by, can anyone tell me where this "edit" thing lives.

right on the top line of the post, next to the date and reply with quote among others
(well, 2nd line, below the topic)

[DaveV]

EST - the "edit" button is in the line atop your post (beside the date)