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I haven't really seen any good discussion of mobilization. Most people seem to think it's rarely useful, generally when you're in a massive war to raze the rest of the planet.
Well, I like mobilization. The stages of my most successful games have been:
1) REX
2) fighting on my continent, mostly looking for a leader for building Lighthouse
3) building, exploring, looking for ideal FP location
4) fighting to conquer my continent & trying to get a leader to rush FP (or relocate capitol) to new continent
5) building on main continent, ferrying settlers / workers / troops to new continent
6) heavy research and rushing improvements on the new continent, establish tech lead
7) mobilize & build
In step 6, I will have my best city prebuilding for ToE, then another one prebuilding for Hoover. I want to get ToE in one turn as soon as I get Scientific Method, then I will get Atomic Theory & Electronics, which are expensive techs that the AI will often not get for a long time. Then, I will be trying to trade and research my way to Mass Production, trying to keep the AI happy without giving Atomic Theory & Electronics to anyone. This will generally get me Motorized Transportation before any of the AI's have Electronics.
When I'm close to getting tanks, I'll mobilize. By this time, I generally have a core of fully developed cities.
Let me now give a common example of a mid-Industrial problem. Say you're done building improvements in a central city, but you've got an outlying city that desperately needs a Courhouse, which costs 80 shields. What do you do? Most people already know that Wealth is pretty much worthless, but let me break it down:
- Wealth converts shields to gold at a 4:1 ratio.
- Disbanding converts units back to shields at a 4:1 ratio. That is, an 80-shield Cavalry will become 20 shields.
- Rushing converts gold to shields at a 4:1 ratio (if there are already shields in the box)
- Setting cities to Wealth then using gold to rush improvements in other cities imposes both the 4:1 Wealth penalty and the 4:1 rush penalty, meaning that you are suffering a 16:1 loss.
- Building fast military units then disbanding them in other cities to rush improvements imposes only the 4:1 penalty for disbanding, because you are not rushing. Therefore, building units to disband is 4X more efficient than Wealth.
- Mobilization gives you a Golden Age-like production boost. Cities producing 30 shields will go up to 50-60 shields.
- Mobilization can be started at any time, and actually takes place on a per-city basis. That is, cities producing non-military improvements will continue until done, and then they will get the shield boost and be forced to produce military units.
- If planned correctly, Mobilization can help you develop all your cities 2X as fast as regular disbanding and 8X as fast as Wealth/Rushing.
In the later game, I will generally Mobilize once, building an invasion (Veteran) force at cities with a Barracks and a disbanding (Regular) force at other cities, then take out an enemy civ and quickly sue for peace if there was someone they had an MPP with. Then I can end mobilization and rush improvements with non-Elites. Rinse & repeat.
This might not be as useful to people who prefer to just raze everything ASAP, but I like to have developed cities with massive culture (even if playing on a small map where I won't actually win by culture).
Well, I like mobilization. The stages of my most successful games have been:
1) REX
2) fighting on my continent, mostly looking for a leader for building Lighthouse
3) building, exploring, looking for ideal FP location
4) fighting to conquer my continent & trying to get a leader to rush FP (or relocate capitol) to new continent
5) building on main continent, ferrying settlers / workers / troops to new continent
6) heavy research and rushing improvements on the new continent, establish tech lead
7) mobilize & build
In step 6, I will have my best city prebuilding for ToE, then another one prebuilding for Hoover. I want to get ToE in one turn as soon as I get Scientific Method, then I will get Atomic Theory & Electronics, which are expensive techs that the AI will often not get for a long time. Then, I will be trying to trade and research my way to Mass Production, trying to keep the AI happy without giving Atomic Theory & Electronics to anyone. This will generally get me Motorized Transportation before any of the AI's have Electronics.
When I'm close to getting tanks, I'll mobilize. By this time, I generally have a core of fully developed cities.
Let me now give a common example of a mid-Industrial problem. Say you're done building improvements in a central city, but you've got an outlying city that desperately needs a Courhouse, which costs 80 shields. What do you do? Most people already know that Wealth is pretty much worthless, but let me break it down:
- Wealth converts shields to gold at a 4:1 ratio.
- Disbanding converts units back to shields at a 4:1 ratio. That is, an 80-shield Cavalry will become 20 shields.
- Rushing converts gold to shields at a 4:1 ratio (if there are already shields in the box)
- Setting cities to Wealth then using gold to rush improvements in other cities imposes both the 4:1 Wealth penalty and the 4:1 rush penalty, meaning that you are suffering a 16:1 loss.
- Building fast military units then disbanding them in other cities to rush improvements imposes only the 4:1 penalty for disbanding, because you are not rushing. Therefore, building units to disband is 4X more efficient than Wealth.
- Mobilization gives you a Golden Age-like production boost. Cities producing 30 shields will go up to 50-60 shields.
- Mobilization can be started at any time, and actually takes place on a per-city basis. That is, cities producing non-military improvements will continue until done, and then they will get the shield boost and be forced to produce military units.
- If planned correctly, Mobilization can help you develop all your cities 2X as fast as regular disbanding and 8X as fast as Wealth/Rushing.
In the later game, I will generally Mobilize once, building an invasion (Veteran) force at cities with a Barracks and a disbanding (Regular) force at other cities, then take out an enemy civ and quickly sue for peace if there was someone they had an MPP with. Then I can end mobilization and rush improvements with non-Elites. Rinse & repeat.
This might not be as useful to people who prefer to just raze everything ASAP, but I like to have developed cities with massive culture (even if playing on a small map where I won't actually win by culture).
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