PTW gripes and caveats

[GusSmed]

First, a warning. The stack movement no longer works in PTW as it did in 1.29f. If you have units with different amounts of movement remaining, the entire stack will only move as far as the slowest.

That sounds fine, except that the command sets the movement of all the units to zero afterward. Which means that if you had a stack with 1 horseman with 1 movement left, and 10 with 2, the entire stack loses the extra movement point.

This means you should be careful not to use it if you're moving stacks around in the back area, where keeping them together is less important, or if for any reason you want to move some of the units farther.

Second, maybe I'm misunderstanding this, but the Outpost doesn't seem to work as advertised. I built one on a hill and got only a 2 space visibility, not a 3 space one. However, the hill was surrounded by jungle, so perhaps jungle is considered "harder to see through."

Of course, it's unlikely you're going to want to build an outpost in the first place. Spending a worker anytime before your railroad net is finished hurts is more expensive than just plunking down a spare warrior leftover from the ancient era.

Third, I've been playing the Scandanavians, and after playing with the Berserk, I have to wonder where the beef is. Why do people here think the unit is unbalanced? It feels about as unbalanced vs. Knights as the choice between swordsmen and horsemen. Like swordsmen, Berserks trade the extra movement point for 50% more attack strength, at the same cost.

After building a few to trigger my golden age, I went back to building knights. Knights get to the front much faster, march through enemy territory to reach enemy cities in 1-2 turns instead of 2-3, and can retreat from a losing battle. I can't see building a massive Berserk force for the same reasons I don't build massive Swordsmen forces unless I don't have horses.

- Gus

[punkbass2000]

I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but at the very least you didn't acknowledge that the Berserker has amphibious assault in addition to the other marits you mentioned

[GusSmed]

Yes, I know the Berserker is amphibious. Whether that's useful depends on the map. On a lot of maps, it's not. Amphibious is useful when attacking someone who is on a different landmass. On most maps, the landmasses are separated by deep water, which means that you can't reach them until Magnetism. At that point Cavalry has rendered Berserkers obsolete anyway.

If you happen to start on a map with several landmasses separated by shallow water, I can see it being a useful trait, but not hugely so, since it just saves you a turn, typically once or twice.

At least the Berserker has reasonable stats for its era, unlike the Marine.

- Gus

[ducki]

Originally posted by GusSmed

If you happen to start on a map with several landmasses separated by shallow water, I can see it being a useful trait, but not hugely so, since it just saves you a turn, typically once or twice.

At least the Berserker has reasonable stats for its era, unlike the Marine.

- Gus

I recently read a post on the usefullness of the marine, so in light of that thread...
(found it, http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=53028 )

It seems like you are really missing the true advantage of amphibious.

No counter-attack.

Imagine sending a dozen or more of these guys at your neighbor's coastal cities. Imagine things don't go greatly for you. You don't crack the nut, you don't take the town.

Normally, you now have to fear counterattack from his most powerful, fast-moving, mounted units.

Guess what?
With marines(and now beserk), he can't attack your guys - they're on a boat!


That, I feel, is the true usefullness of an amphibious attack - denying your enemy the opportunity to counterattack.

And, thinking back to my viking history reading, is entirely fitting as a UU trait.

Each civ must be played to it's traits and it's UU to get the full effect of them both. If you use a Beserk like anyone else would use a Swordsman/Medieval Infantry then you are denying yourself half of the strength of the unit.

At least that's how I think.
Then again, I, too, am not overly fond of early amphibious wars - Galleys just don't hold enough guys - so you need lots of em.

[GusSmed]

Originally posted by ducki


I recently read a post on the usefullness of the marine, so in light of that thread...
(found it, http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=53028 )

It seems like you are really missing the true advantage of amphibious.

No counter-attack.

I read that thread, and tried the Marine as descibed. It's OK, provided you've got enough bombardment to make life easy for the Marine. Given that the Marine is contemporary with Tanks and Infantry, my experience was you needed about 3-4 carriers worth of bombers, or a city in bomber range.

However, there's an important point in that thread: Marines come well after Railroad. Which means that you can expect any landing force to have to weather everything the AI has.

Not so of the Medieval era. Typically, the AI's going to be lucky to have 2-3 Knights in range.

In my current Viking game, I don't have any opportunity for amphibious landings at all. I chose random map traits and got continents, which is pretty typical.

In other games, I've done landings in the Medieval age, and generally had very little trouble from counterattacks. As you said, it's a pain having to shuttle an army at 2 units per galley, but typically the distances are very short so 4-5 galleys can do the job over a few turns.

- Gus

[ducki]

I didn't really emphasize this bit very well, but just because it's an amphibious attack doesn't mean it has to be transoceanic.

You could use these guys to hit a civ next to you on your own continent without exposing them to counterattack. Could be a really interesting diversionary tactic or a great way to cripple an enemy from behind.

I haven't tried them yet, so I'm just working on theory.
What's their attack rating again?

[nbarclay]

At least in MP, the idea that amphibious forces are not vulnerable to counterattack has one enormous flaw: they CAN be counterattacked by ships. What happens to the Vikings if their galleys loaded with Berserkers run into enemy galleys on the way to the target? If an empty enemy galley loses, it's not all that expensive, but if the Viking galley loses, it takes two expensive UUs with it! I don't know whether Soren thought to have AIs near the Vikings boost the priority of their own naval power or not, though.

Question: If two veteran ships travel together, one empty and the other loaded, is the game smart enough to always have the empty one take the first attack? If not, there might be an advantage to using regular galleys as transports and veterans as escorts!

Nathan

[Catt]

Originally posted by nbarclay
Question: If two veteran ships travel together, one empty and the other loaded, is the game smart enough to always have the empty one take the first attack? If not, there might be an advantage to using regular galleys as transports and veterans as escorts!

Very insightful

[Mongoose]

Pity you can't designate one or the other the defender.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Mongoose
Pity you can't designate one or the other the defender.

If I were designing the game, when two ships are equal but one is full and the other isn't, the empty one would always be the defender. But since I'm not the one who designed the game and I haven't run any experiments, I have no way of knowing for the moment whether the same idea occurred to Firaxis or not.

Nathan

[Mongoose]

The point was that the designate defender option exists in Alpha Centauri.

[Soren Johnson]

Originally posted by nbarclay
Question: If two veteran ships travel together, one empty and the other loaded, is the game smart enough to always have the empty one take the first attack? If not, there might be an advantage to using regular galleys as transports and veterans as escorts!

all other things being equal, the unit with less cargo will defend...

[alva]

this is very welcome info, Thanks Soren

good to see you still come here

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Soren Johnson Firaxis
all other things being equal, the unit with less cargo will defend...

Aircraft Carriers included, I presume (e.g., Destroyer & Carrier of equal hitpoints).

[Theseus]

I was just telling my fiance, I think it is UNBELIEVABLY great that 1) we are still figuring out game mechanics, and 2) someone like Soren is still hanging around, on a Saturday no less...

[alva]

She was asleep when you were telling here, wasn't she

but are right, beeing saturday and all

[vmxa1]

Well if she was actually listening and understood, then maybe you should go ahead and get hitched. Althought it hurts me to advocate marriage.