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Post by mrsaturn on Aug 14, 2006 1:43:49 GMT -5
So now that Warlords has been out for a little while, how do people feel about ren teamer choices now? It seems like there's a lack of consensus on the best leaders, unlike before where you'd always expect the same pool of 5-6 leaders. Well, here's my few thoughts...
Gandhi is still a must. Now he fills Saladin's shoes, and can still expand fast... just not as insanely fast as before. He's a major threat on the front because of fast chops, and fast culture bomb.
Isabella is still very popular. Conquistadors are just such a huge threat until Military Tradition, and the spi trait is always nice in a pinch.
Huyana Capac is now popular for completely different reasons. His UB makes him creative, and he's now industrious. Prime backline civ, and fast forges makes him viable on the front too.
And for the newcomers... Charismatic IMO is by far the best trait now IMO. With barracks, stable, vassalage, and theocracy you can have 9 exp mounted units- that's enough for Combat II and Formation. That means every city will be churning out formation cavalry by the end, which will simply mow down everything from musketeers to other cavalry. Without charismatic, you'll be 1 exp point shy. You sacrifice bureaucracy, but the tradeoff is well worth it. I'm tired of seeing 50% odds when fighting cavalry.
So that gives us Brennus, Hannibal, Churchill, Washington, Cyrus, and Napoleon. Most people would say Brennus and Hannibal have the best traits (spi and fin), and Brennus can get guerilla 3 units and we know how important hills are. But I'm surprised at how much people are now trashing Napoleon and switching to Louis. Yes, he's slower to expand with no industrious now, and both leaders can no longer make triple muskets, but now nappy can make triple cavs. I'd like to see Brennus, Hannibal and Nappy on a team and see how well they run over the opponent's units.
I was wrong about Genghis Khan- I thought he'd be overpowering, but why use him to get triple knights/cavs when you can use a charismatic civ instead?
Mehmed's Janissaries go obsolete too quickly, and are countered too easily by opposing muskets. Once you get to military tradition, you probably wish you were making pikes instead of janissaries.
Ragnar is situational depending on the map. An extra move for inland sea isn't worth it, even though his traits aren't that bad.
Rameses is good for early expansion (not as good as old Gandhi) and is a solid choice.
So if I had to pick a 5-person teamer, it'd probably be
Gandhi Isabella Napoleon Huyana Capac or Brennus or Hannibal or Elizabeth in the last 2 spots
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Post by notagoodname on Aug 14, 2006 2:33:05 GMT -5
I agree janisaries are crap, they're a renaisance unit that counters ancient units They should have made a unique grenadier that got a 25% bonus vs mounted or something (could have made the tech path choice very interesting). I always play as Louis rather than Napolean. It seems to come down to score these days and with Louis i can outscore anyone. Formation cavalry are great but i can catapult and and kill cavalry on defense without the formation upgrade easily enough. I also can never bring myself to switch from beurocracy. When i can i build a bank, library, market and grocer in my cap and from that i am always leading in gold. The industrious trait also means i have a forge in every city, that means i can lead in production.
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Post by tommynt on Aug 14, 2006 7:17:12 GMT -5
Ramses is Gandhi with a super rush unit
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Post by mrsaturn on Aug 14, 2006 8:16:39 GMT -5
Have you or anyone else tested Rameses in a ren game? If you're in the front, would you just chop war chariots as soon as you hook up a horse? The window for them is extremely small... Saladin often didn't get camels out fast enough for the super quick rush. Granted chariots are cheaper, but I dunno how viable they are.
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Post by tommynt on Aug 14, 2006 13:21:51 GMT -5
very situation depandent, thier srength is their speed and their numbers, mainly pilage, steel workers and go into back should be their purpose, they also work great vs longbow on open field - 2 vs 1
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Post by churchill1 on Aug 14, 2006 13:52:24 GMT -5
Yeah pillaging has got to be the war chariots main use. A kill would be possible in fortunate circumstances, i.e. u got horse in cap and he can't find elephant or metal.
They are great for pillaging because of their cost relative to pikes and elephants.
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Post by notagoodname on Aug 14, 2006 19:29:21 GMT -5
On inland sea use your explorer scouting ahead a bit with you first 2 war chariots following behind to find a way around the front guy unseen for a quick kill on the undefended back line. I don't think war chariots are any good vs pikes at all though (when they have >2X your strength you wont even damage them most of the time). So as soon as the front guy trades iron with the back guy you have to give up on trying to pillage him. To be honest i think the best thing about ramses are his traits, having war chariots is just a nice bonus that will get you an early kill in the right circumstances. Also if you have a good player on your backline getting tons of gold build up 20 or so war chariots for upgrading later. Aztecs are another unexpectedly good civ. Aztecs have a courthouse that gives -50% unhappiness time from slavery as well as -50% maintainence costs. So build lots of small very densly packed cities (im talking 20+ cities when others build 10), farm around them and chop/slave a forge, courthouse and barracks in each one and start slaving triple upgraded pikes and catapults. Unhappiness takes 3 turns to dissapear from slavery with these courthouses so the unhappiness isn't a problem at all. You should be able to build a pike or cat every 3rd turn. Building 10-15 triple upgraded pikes every turn is easily done with this Aztec spammage and maintainence isn't too bad with the courthouses. I still leave my captial unslaved with this strategy though and i also build a bank+grocer+market there. This strategy also seems to work resonably well for Napolean. You just have to slave 2 pop every 6th turn instead of every 3rd. which works out just as well imho.
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Post by zzZhenon on Aug 15, 2006 0:08:31 GMT -5
The sacrificial altar only works on slaved buildings, not units according to the civilopedia. But yeah I've been wanting to try Aztecs too, but I can't get myself to play anything but Gandhi and Brennus, hehe.
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Post by churchill1 on Aug 15, 2006 0:25:40 GMT -5
On inland sea use your explorer scouting ahead a bit with you first 2 war chariots following behind to find a way around the front guy unseen for a quick kill on the undefended back line. Now ur talking my language. I don't think war chariots are any good vs pikes at all though (when they have >2X your strength you wont even damage them most of the time). So as soon as the front guy trades iron with the back guy you have to give up on trying to pillage him. No of course they're no good v pikes (or eles for that matter). But when u have 10 or so and he has just managed to get his first pike out (and he wont have roaded everywhere), enjoy pillaging and worker grabbing. Aztecs are another unexpectedly good civ. I never thought aztecs were all that bad. Nothing wrong with those traits. And u can't beat jaguars, what a mighty fine unit that is in ren. Grab those jungles and laugh heartily as mace after mace doesnt inflict a single point of damage. ^^ Aztecs have a courthouse that gives -50% unhappiness time from slavery as well as -50% maintainence costs. So build lots of small very densly packed cities (im talking 20+ cities when others build 10), farm around them and chop/slave a forge, courthouse and barracks in each one and start slaving triple upgraded pikes and catapults. Unhappiness takes 3 turns to dissapear from slavery with these courthouses so the unhappiness isn't a problem at all. You should be able to build a pike or cat every 3rd turn. Building 10-15 triple upgraded pikes every turn is easily done with this Aztec spammage and maintainence isn't too bad with the courthouses. I still leave my captial unslaved with this strategy though and i also build a bank+grocer+market there. This strategy also seems to work resonably well for Napolean. You just have to slave 2 pop every 6th turn instead of every 3rd. which works out just as well imho. Interesting theory. Can't see myself trying it, but it might work (or are u saying u have already made it work successfully?) - if it did then it might change the way reni teamers are played. I dunno. but with 20 cities ur gonna miss serfdom. Also i'm not exactly clear on how slavery works. the more u slave the longer the amount of unhappiness (or something - i am searching civfanatics to get some clarity on this issue). whether u have the aztec UB or not a whole lot of slaving will eventually hurt. just really stock up on those warriors i guess. Also in spite of having -50% maintenace i have a feeling 20 cities would still hurt ur economy. I think u would need at least 2 cottaged cities. If it was just ur cap cottaged then every single tile would need to be cottaged , but i think even that wouldnt be enough. Oh and i noticed what Zhenon noticed, apparently the halved unhappiness only applies to slaved buildings. That doesnt make it useless, but it does effect ur strategy.
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Post by notagoodname on Aug 15, 2006 0:57:28 GMT -5
With salvery - yes the more you slave the longer the unhappiness provided you still have some unhapiness from the last slave. So if you slave once you have 6 turns of unhappiness, if you salve again before that 6 turns of unhapiness are over you now have 7 turns of unhappiness, slave again and you will have 11 turns. Often i get it up above 30 turns of unhapiness when i have monarchy (which counters the ill effects when you have a large stack). If however you let the unhapiness wear off completely before slaving again you can start from a clean slate. So with aztecs you can slave every 3 turns without any unhapiness building up. I used to slave rush all the time in the original and it always worked. If it only works on buildings then it isn't going to be an improvement from the old days but still a reasonable strategy none-the-less. Slavery with a granary ends up giving you ~4 hammers per 1 food in a small city so of course there is little reason to not slave (still start off with serfdom though as that is better than slavery at the very start). A few more advantages to many small cities that slavery causes - Small pop cities also cost less in city maintainence - No unhappiness or health issues - Towards the end of the game you can stop slaving and double your score - Each non-health resource you have gives all your cities a bonus of production or gold. So if you have iron, copper, stone, horse and marble connected (not in radius, just connected) all your cities will have 5 hammers before you even start working tiles. Not many people seem to know this last fact
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Post by MookieNJ on Aug 15, 2006 3:34:23 GMT -5
Have you or anyone else tested Rameses in a ren game? If you're in the front, would you just chop war chariots as soon as you hook up a horse? The window for them is extremely small... Saladin often didn't get camels out fast enough for the super quick rush. Granted chariots are cheaper, but I dunno how viable they are. I have seen this more than once recently from a couple of different players!
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Post by MookieNJ on Aug 15, 2006 3:44:48 GMT -5
As for Ren Teamer civ choices in Warlords, here are a few thoughts -- I think Imperialistic is by far the best new trait, not Charasmatic. Faster Settlers and Generals are great. Now if only more than a handful of players understood how to properly play Imperialistic in a teamer ... the triple promoted mounted units from Charasmatic are nice, but unless you have about 6 really awesome fully grown cities, leaving Bureaucracy is going to kill your GNP and MFG. I think Louis is definitely better than Napoleon. If you want to take advantage of the Musketeers during their window of usefulness, you're better off with quick forges. If you want to pick a Charasmatic civ, there are better choices than CHR/ORG. I miss the old Napoleon . I don't really like the Ottomans. The Jannissary is certainly an interesting unit to play with, but unless they are on the front with hills or forests to use to harass and choke, I think they aren't so great. There are a few civs that could be interesting based on having decent traits and unique buildings -- Mali, Rome, and Korea come to mind. In the end, I think the only "must haves" are Ghandi and Louis. After that, Isabella, Victoria, Cyrus, Brennus, Ragnar, and Ramsses are all really nice.
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Post by Atomation on Aug 15, 2006 4:03:13 GMT -5
Gandhi is just plain overpowered on the front...and brennus is amazing. I don't really care much for any other civs for whatever reason.
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Post by mrsaturn on Aug 15, 2006 4:08:48 GMT -5
Once you get mil trad, which is more important- having 4+ cities churning out combat 2 cavalry with fast prod and gnp in capital, or having 4+ cities churning out formation cavalry with the cap producing slightly slower than before? I just think having a 25% bonus to the unit you're most likely going to face is well worth it...if your stack attacks the enemy's stack, your units will all survive and be injured. If it's 50-50 odds, both your armies will disappear. Even if you get catted down to strength 12, you'll still have even odds with combat 2 full strength cavs.
Without lvl 3 musketeers anymore, I see them in a reduced role as hill and forest guarders. Formation muskets used to be able to act on their own, but now that that's not possible I don't see a huge penalty for not having fast forges. Build a few to guard key places like front cities and key terrain points. Also, a minor point by with Nappy's organized, your GNP won't take as big of a hit by going vassalage.
As for imperialistic, I am still unsure how generals are produced. Is it better to fight in your own territory? Is it best to do small scale harassment, where you exchange unit for unit with your enemy? I suppose with Cyrus, you don't have to even go vassalage if you have enough generals giving +2 xp in your cities... and immortals are just as good if not better than war chariots for early harassment since they have same str as longbows...
I really really do like fast forges, but once you're in the home stretch where it's down to whoever can build more cavalry faster, wouldn't you want the formation cavs?
And here's a random thought- why not have Aztec build very few workers, keep slavery, and have a teammate make additional workers in serfdom and have them improve the Aztec's land? That way you keep serf workers while still having massive slavery?
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Post by knupp on Aug 16, 2006 14:59:31 GMT -5
If switching out of Bureaucracy is going to slow down the support you're giving me when I'm getting triple teamed then please don't leave it Mr.Saturn!!!!
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Post by tommynt on Aug 16, 2006 20:09:15 GMT -5
why dont gandhi build workers for all team? why dont build luis triple up muskets only?
why are there players building libraries in 3 bakker ciites
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Post by Atomation on Aug 16, 2006 22:59:09 GMT -5
Building fast workers for the team is great in theory but in practice the walk time between india and allies prevents it from being viable. Walk time is time not used working tiles, and india is much slower as a result of that.
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Post by zzZhenon on Aug 17, 2006 21:55:17 GMT -5
I'm glad I don't have to debate with anyone over picking Brennus.... I used to get one of the last civ choices in Ren teamers. Someone would make me do Alex or Liz or Huayna. With WL, I pretty much pick what I want these days....
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Post by churchill1 on Aug 28, 2006 13:05:01 GMT -5
why dont gandhi build workers for all team? why dont build luis triple up muskets only? why are there players building libraries in 3 bakker ciites LOooooooOL Why don't we gift every sing unit to a charismatic civ for promos?
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Audrien
Settler
Administrator
Posts: 74
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Post by Audrien on Aug 28, 2006 17:54:12 GMT -5
Hey Churchill,
the idea of gifting units to a charismatic player is not that funny and i have already played Ren Teamers with ppl that like that. So dont laugh at it. It's a pretty good way to get mounted knights and mounted cavs.
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