Is Leo worth losing veteran status?

[Hawkx9]

I've been comtemplating this question for some time. Because my strategy is one of the perfectionist (especially early in the game), I rarely have a ton of units lying around, waiting to be upgraded. I cherish my vet Pikemen/Knights. Really, the only reason I like to get Leo is for the settler to engineer upgrade, but having only 6-8 cities, I really don't have that many setters to improve. Instead, I think I prefer building Sun Tzu to get the vets right out of the gate. That way, the few units I DO produce will remain vet until I feel the need to replace them with newer, veteran units. (ie. Pikemen - Musketeer - Alpine.) ST lasts quite a while before becoming obsolete, and by that time, you should be well on your way to victory.

Another arguement against Leo might be the versatility of vet Knights. Wouldn't you rather have 10 vet Knights than 10 rookie Dragoons? Aren't vet Knights 6/3/2 vs 5/2/2? or am I missing something? The same goes for most other units. With the exception of a firepower/hitpoint upgrade, wouldn't you rather have the slightly-older vet unit?

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Peace

[Ming]

I'll take the upgrades. Even with a small military, the settler to engineer upgrade is almost worth it by itself. Plus, conscription is pretty easy to get, and I'll take non vet rifleman over vet pikeman any day

[Paul]

I'll take the settler -> engineer upgrade.

[cavebear]

I would certainly go for Leo's. First, I usually have a fair number of settlers, so that makes it worth it right there. Second, I usually get several generations of upgrades for my military units, so it's not just knights to dragoons. Third, I'd rather that my militaristic opponent with his 50 cheap horsemen not come storming at me with 50 cavalry all of a sudden.

Anyway, with the second upgrade of units, your gain over the older vet units is assured.

[Aurelius]

Leo's is great for defensive wars. You can ignore upgrading units and while pursuing city improvements. I always build fortresses on defensively enhanced terrain at strategic points, sometimes it take awhile to get a upgraded defensive unit to these fortresses...leo's does it for you.

Might not happen often, but seeing warriors and phalanx go to pikeman is nice in a world of full of four legged creatures regardless of vet status.
[This message has been edited by Aurelius (edited June 10, 2000).]

[rah]

The multiple updates make up for the lack of vet status. I like to build Sun Tzu along with it to get the best of both worlds. Alphine units are better than vet pikeman.
RAH

[Steve Clark]

Absolutely. Along with what the others have said, if your units are in the mist of attacking or defending against the AI, they will most always gain vet status soon after they get upgraded. Therefore, the only disadvantage to Leo becomes moot.

[Scouse Gits]

Stick with Leo's - but I hate my vet ironclads becoming green destroyers.
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SG (2)

[Paul]

rah, I don't think you can get Alpines from Leo's. At least, I don't remember ever getting them.

[geofelt]

I say build leo's for the convenience, if nothing else. It saves a ton of management to keep your units updated. I like magellan's, and hoover's for the same reason.

[Smash]

I'm not sure if its worth it or not.Early units to muskets is good.Boats are good.Engineers are great.Horseman are pretty good to upgrade also.After that I don't think so.

Vet musket is as good as or slightly better than a non vet rifleman defensively.Cannon>artillery is good but 1 movement units can be tricky to get into position.At least in MP.

Ironclad>destroyer is awful but The Library must be neutralized if don't have it.

Definitely want Sun Tzu's combo if conducting offensive wars.

I guess it is a very good wonder

no panic if it is missed though.

[Hawkx9]

The fact that you can't get Alpine troops from Leo is one big reason I think it may deserve a lower rung on my priority list. Alpine are sooo much better than Riflemen it's insane. I'm a big fan of vet Knights and, later, vet Cavalry/Alpine so my tastes are biased (because they're mine) . I hate it when all my lovely 6/3/2 Knights turn into the lowly 5/2/2 Dragoon. Although, I do have to note that Dragoons have 2HP compared to the Knight's 1HP; however, the Knights' higher attack rating will give it more survivability. Also, Knights are intended to be expendible to a certain extent. They are attackers, not defenders, so they don't rely on HP as say a defending unit. "But what about the Cavalry upgrade," you ask? Yes, having green Cavarly is better than having vet Knights, but Tactics is a far shot off from Chivalry.

Now, with that said, the converstion of Warriors and Phlanx to more modern units puts Leo's over the top. It's just plain nice to have those first few units turn into Riflemen, and a pain in the ass when the opponent's do the same.

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Peace

[War4ever]

The problem i have with the leos upgrade is the vet pike to non vet musket especially when vet knights or crusaders come knocking in hordes while muskets will usually beat knights or crusaders in a one on one fight, in MP i rarely see just one four legged jackass at a time..... therefore there is a time when you are vulnerable... however once you have riflemen, your safe until calvalry.... its a small window but i have used it like the vet iron clad one to perfection on more than one occassion but suffered from it as well

Also barbs seem to come knocking in droves with their units too....... i swear the game knows it's me playing
but i say yes to leos in MP if you are isolated or want a few hundred years of infrastructure building in peace

[Jim W]

Leo's is a crutch for the weaker player.

Ooops! Did someone already say that?

Actually, I go for Leo's as soon as it's available, just because if I don't have it, someone else will, and it's a great advantage.

I still figure, some day in the future, I will diaable Leo's, forcing myself to pay a cost to change my legions into musketeers and so on. At present, though, with my great skill, it's still too valuable to give up.

Jim W

[Genghis Al]

Simply not to let the opponent have this is enough for me. I don't play very offensively so the lose of vet status doesn't effect me at all, I usuallt don't build barracks until tanks. Satisfy me and the gods, build Leo's.

Alex v4.6

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See you in court.

[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)