Partisan partisans

[tonic]

From the reference in the alpine thread, I was wondering if there are any fans of guerilla warfare who fancy the tactical capabilities of the Partisan unit? Granted it's somewhat weaker than the Alpine but is there sufficient compensation in the ZOC advantage? It seems the Barbs use this well when GW is discovered.
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Edit: Dropouts - should do a Rural Ranger and add my own: "I've got a perverse keyboard" as sig.

[This message has been edited by tonic (edited November 05, 2000).]

[Drago Sinio]

The advantage of the Alpine Troops is survivability. In order for pillaging tactics to make sense, they have to cost the enemy more than they cost you. If it takes a given number of shields to produce an Alpine troop or a Partisan, then that unit has to be able to deprive the enemy of at least that same number of shields for the tactic to make sense. If the Alpine troop lives long enough to destroy three or four railroaded mines, that is a lot of shields you have deprived your enemy of.

[Seeker]

Useless Note: partisans get a hidden bonus to attack zero strength units.

[Bohlen]

I usually use Alpine Troops for all defensive/pillaging purposes unless, due to the lay of the land, I need reinforcements in areas where I need to ignore ZOC. In those cases, Partisans are perfect. If I'm temporarily unable to clear all AI defenses in a bottleneck and can only move through that bottleneck by ignoring ZOC, then the Partisan unit becomes more valuable than Alpine Troops. However, this is a somewhat rare situation for me.

[East Street Trader]

In a game some time back, I overlooked the vulnerability of a sizeable city and the AI took it. Lots of partisans appeared (a unit I don't normally build so have little experience with). They were all "none" units and I used them to pillage.

Boy were they tough to destroy! The havoc was most satisfactory.

A few games later I wasn't in democracy so when I decided to do some pillaging, partisans were the guys for me.

But the partisans I built dropped like flies. Not so satisfactory.

As far as I could remember the attacking AI units were of similar strength in each game so I started to speculate that partisans generated by enemy conquest have some inbuilt advantage - all vets, or something.

I have read of more than one tactic in which the player intentionally allows a city to be taken so I wonder whether anyone else has noticed this or knows the explanation?

By the way - another case of disparate combat results is definately barbs -v- human, barbs -v- AI. On the (rare) occasions that the barbs pick on the AI and not on me I am cheering the barbs on only to see some lowly AI warrior escape without a bruise when I know that my phalanx would have been creamed. I suppose the barb bonus in deity doesn't apply against the AI. Annoying that.

[Bohlen]

Doesn’t seem fair, does it? Let me bribe some partisans and I’m moving them way from enemy territory ASAP. They defend well enough inside city walls, but outside of the city, even in forts and on hills, they bite it big time. Using them for city defense is great as it allows those city capturing, high attack/low defense units to move sooner because they don’t have to defend the city they just captured.