Creating Great Leaders

[Theseus]

It's in one of the other recent threads, but damn, I feel the same way about Legions... (Samurai too).

They are just cool, mofo, all-purpose bastards, and deserve an honor guard role till the end of the game. Prolly the only units I will NOT upgrade when *-ed and too late for an Army... "Maximus*" stationed in Theseusium is just too satisfying.

[Stuie]

And that's why I always go back and play the Romans - practically every other game.

On Topic! In my current game with the Romans, I've created six or seven GLs. That's getting close to an all-time high for me, and I'm just starting the Industrial Age.

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by Arrian


Heh, speaking of luxuries, I hang on to those elites. Even if I'm fighting with Industrial Age units against a relatively advantaced foe, you better believe they will trot out some longbowmen and/or medieval infantry (defense 1, defense 2). Elite horsies can kill those units, especially if I've pounded them to 1hp with arty (which I do). I've gotten a lot of GLs that way (mmm, instaHoover).

If I was in a difficult fight (playing on Emperor instead of Monarch, let's say), it's different. Not that the AI doesn't still bring those longbowmen and med infs to the party, but they have more of the good units and I will need all the Cav I can get.

-Arrian

Wether to upgrade elites depends upon the amount of elites you have and your strength compared to your foes. Certainly I would not upgrade an elite Horse or Knight if I only had a few elites, but after I had a few campaigns and start to get a growing number of elites then I feel its better to upgrade (they are only one promotion from elite status after all) Also if I was fighting a strong opponet then I would have to upgrade and could not afford the luxury of waiting to attack a crippled unit. Finally, what good is an elite horse when I have 20 elite cav to enter the fray?

[GhengisFarb™]

The only times I've generated more than 2 GLs in a single turn have been done with Modern Armor. Those are some Leader generating machines.

[Arrian]

MA are the ultimate leader generators, definitely. Tanks come in second.

Honorable mention, however, to the bombard units that often make it possible. Truely babying your elites involves blasting their opponent with cats/cannon/arty first, and then attacking. I often don't bother with cats & cannon, and need to remind myself every so often to take time to build a couple of cats early on... you only need 2 or 3 of them to make your elites practically invincible (when attacking units in the open. Cities are different).

New game last night, messing around with Japan. 3 leaders so far. 1 from a warrior (GROG!). Grog died the next turn, though 2 from archers. Pyramids, FP, Hanging Gardens. Clearly, on can question my third choice. Using a leader on the HG? What is Arrian thinking. Well, I'm thinking I've only got 2 luxuries hooked up so far and I have several large cities that could really use that +1 happy face. Plus, the Library has been built already. Also, I've got a reasonable number of elite horsemen now, and as soon as I get them into position, I will begin war #3. The problem is that I'm a Monarchy and am clearly behind the other continent in tech. I got the barb uprisings while researching currency. I still need construction to hit the middle ages, and I also want to get my hands on republic. At least I've finally managed to get some cities built around my FP location (friggin' barbs slowed me down - I had to make sure my settlers were protected properly).

-Arrian

p.s. Grog, in this game, was one very lucky warrior. I was attacking Karakorum with a stack of archers, and got a tad unlucky - losing several archers after redlining the defending spearmen. After redlining 2 or 3 spears, I assumed I had chewed through all the healthy defenders, and now would be mopping up vs. 1 hp spears and/or an archer. So, without waiting to see for sure, I ordered my elite warrior to attack... a regular spearman. My warrior lost 4 straight rolls, and then came roaring back to win 3 straight, killing the spear and generating my first leader. I had just been cursing the RNG for my archer losses, but was then forced to shut up.

[nuther]

I have been obsessing over Civ a little too much this week, but it occured to me while driving to work today that if you bring a few catapults along with your early fighters, then a cataplut hit can reduce the the amount of battle turns it takes to your elite kill the enemy. This we all know. But what happens next? well your victorious elite in not as DAMAGED as he would have been with out the catapult. The result is he can heal quicker and get back into another battle that much faster. In the end, you will be fighting and survining more battles per unit of time, than without the catapult.

[Arrian]

The main purpose of the catapults is to weaking the unit you're trying to kill with your elite, thus ensuring victory for the elite. If your elite archer attacks a regular spearman on flat ground, there is a reasonable chance that your elite archer could lose. But if that same spearman is beat down to 1hp first, the odds of your elite surviving the battle skyrocket. And yes, this also means that your elites will, by and large, spend less time healing up.

Part of the problem is getting mathematics. I'm often beelining hard for a new government (republic or maybe monarchy) and the AI doesn't tend to research math for a while. I'm often in the thick of battle by the time I get math, and then my mindset is usually "troops, troops, more troops!" and I forget about cats.

-Arrian

[nuther]

If not expansionist, I go for pottery at 100%. Then I research along the alphabet/writing/construction line. I often end up getting math first. You can trade it for big money, then go on to currency from there. After that I start to look at governments because I have often acquired everything else through trade. So, catapults are avaialbe to me early enough, but I often do not build more than one or two and almost never invade with them. Until now.

[Arrian]

I've been playing Rome a lot, so I start with the alphabet. After a quick detour for pottery at 100%, I'll go writing, CoL, philo, republic. Despotism sucketh monkey balls.

I have used as tradebait in the past, and if I'm willing to wait for the AI to get around to researching philo for me, maybe that would be a good option instead of researching philo myself. But most of the time the AI will go grab Mapmaking (which is important and all, but not as important as republic, to me).

-Arrian