Playing as the Americans

[JohnM2433]

I think they fixed the problem with the military advisor in a patch, or so I heard. I think your military advisor uses the same routine as the AI to determine military strength.

Maybe you are using an old patch, CivilopediaCity?

[TacticalGrace]

Originally posted by punkbass2000
Yes, you will likely have twice as many warriors as you would horsemen.

and hence maintenance costs will be double...

[punkbass2000]

Yeah, but the AI would have seen you as twice as powerful.

[TacticalGrace]

Yeah, but the maintenance costs will be double.

[Jethro83]

The main problem with using warriors to build up huge numbers is that they only upgrade to swordsmen, who are then dead-end units in the tree (until PTW of course). Also, they tend to be too slow, particularly on larger maps (even on standard maps, I find them too slow).

The main problem with using horsemen to build up huge numbers is that they are too expensive to be able to crank out quickly until the late part of the ancient era (sometimes not even until the start of the middle ages).

Hence, I say again that the chariot is the perfect choice for building up an army based on numbers, as they later upgrade to horsemen, knights and cavalry. And they aren't so prohibitively expensive to boot.

And as for the argument of maintenance costs, that isn't really a problem when you're under despotism (and later monarchy) if you've founded plenty of cities, which is of course what the Americans are supposed to be very good at.

And about the AI judging your strength, it hardly matters anyway since they'll always at some point demand tribute, even if they lack the power to back their words. And even if they do perceive you as more powerful (having warriors left, right and centre), what happens when they do decide to go to war? And they send spearmen.

I've had situations where I outnumbered the AI with warriors and they declared war anyway. Most of my warriors got slaughtered while attacking archers that had entered my territory before I could finish researching Iron Working, hook up the iron and start upgrading them.

I'd much rather have chariots to counterattack the invaders than warriors while waiting for the crucial upgrade necessary to turn the tide, as they can retreat when losing.

[LionQ]

Originally posted by LordAzreal
...swordsmen, who are then dead-end units in the tree (until PTW of course)...

I didn't know that. Are they going to be replaced by the Pikeman or MusketMan?

Originally posted by JohnM2433
Maybe you are using an old patch, CivilopediaCity?

1.29

[vmxa1]

A new unit. I forget the name something like medival infantry.

[LionQ]

Oh, yes. Indeed that's called the Mediaeval Infantry. So that's going to replace the Swordsman? Well, that's OK with me, because it's a good replacement (Swordsman=3.2.1 and Mediaeval Infantry=4.2.2, if I've remembered correctly). And the most important: the Swordsman isn't a dead-end unit anymore! So you can't build them anymore in the ModernTimes! And that's very good and realistic!

[laissez-faire]

No, I believe the Swordsman will upgrade to the Medieval Swordsman, not be replaced by it.

[Konquest02]

Since 1.29, the advisor counts relative strength of the armies before making a judgment. It may not be perfect, it is still better than in the original version.

As said previously, sowrdman will upgrade to Medieval Infantry which will then upgrade to Guerilla (i'm not sure of the last upgrade).

--Kon--

[LionQ]

I hope you're sure, because I'm thinking that would be excellent.

[JNL]

Just finished a game as Americans (I always play a random civ, for the fun), with French & Iroquois (!) as neighbours (I've just read they are considered a tough civ to play with : that's true !).

After a long, long war for "lebensraum" against the French, that lasted until the end of middle-ages, I had to face repeated massive attacks from the Iroquois. A large frontier, no montains of hills to establish a good "Maginot line", and no oil (!) in my homeland for all the games except the last 20 turns, even though I had a huge territory (more than 100 cities). I still can't believe it. Did I say that s***ed :-) ?

What saved me :

* Withdraw : I moved back 10/12 tiles to mountains and big cities ; I didn't try to defend the frontline cities, which were destroyed and rebuilt several times. Anyway, I didn't really have time for it...

* Republic : perfectly balanced for both war and peace times ; I didn't experienced gov overthrowing, but to be honest I must admit I checked some key cities at the end of each turn to detect massive revolts

* Luxury rate. Got up to 40 %, finished at 30 % (I had all the Wonders that have impact on happiness, and it clearly wasn't enough, even with temple/colosseum/cathedral/police station)

* Draft ; I know, many people prefer mobilization, but I really didn't have time to build units. Drafting was the only way to get fast those 200 or so defensive units I needed to stop the Iroquois. I decided to draft only on cities crippled with corruption (1 shield) : those cities can only produce population (which, IMHO, should be consider as a resource), and that's just fine. I didn't mobilize, since I usually wasn't implied in World Wars (ie, since I couldn't easily switch back to normalcy, I didn't want to take the risk of getting stuck in mobilization).
I never build granaries or the Pyramids, for my pop increase fast enough as far as I'm concerned - the opposite of what I was doing while playing Civ I & II.

* Artillery : I've come to the idea that catapult/cannon/artillery/radar artillery are the best units of the game, not only for attack against big, well-defended cities, but even more for mobile defense, to crush the offensive enemy units

- Mobile Defence : artillery was useful for that, and so were the veteran infantry units I produced ; yeah, I did attack cavalries with riflemen, tanks with Infantries, all the time, after massive artillery fires. That was simply bloodsheds.

* Trade ; and science, that gave me interesting techs to propose in exchange for oil ; I couldn't have survive the Iroquois modern armours without it

* and, in the end, the possibility to make peace with the Iroquois each time I destroyed their offensive units (as a "blitzkrieger" I consider that the first goal of war is to destroy the enemy army, and only after this has been done, to take cities/land)

Tough experience, especially when the WW started all around. But I did learn a lot (and finally won). Can't wait until I start another game (so, what will it be this time ? Trapped in a desert oasis for my starting location ? No coal ? I'm ready for the next challenge :-) !)

[LionQ]

Originally posted by laissez-faire
No, I believe the Swordsman will upgrade to the Medieval Swordsman, not be replaced by it.

You're right! With replacing I ment upgrading, but that's not the good word for that.

[Inverse Icarus]

i usually found a few "settler cities" early on, with some wheat or floodplains, pop a granary in there, and build settlers nonstop,

[LionQ]

A good strategy, but there lots of them.