Skorzeny's Commandos

[caralampio]

I imagine that this has been discussed before, but since I only recently figured it out, I'm posting it here. It's about the Explorer, which I have not found very useful in its intended role (exploring) since by the time it becomes available I've already discovered most of the world.
This unit can't attack or defend, but it has this little sword and it can "pillage". You can send a lot of explorers into the country of an enemy you plan to invade and place them on key locations--strategic resources, roads connecting the frontline cities with the rest of the enemy's kingdom, roads connecting with neighbors that might try to help him, etc. Usually AI opponents don't complain too much about these units' presence, or you can use right of passage (yeah yeah it's bad manners to declare war with right of passage in effect, but AI players do it all the time). On the turn you declare war, all the commandos pillage their locations, isolating the front and taking away their resources.
Most of the valiant guerrillas will die in the first turn, however if they are many the enemy can't take care of all of them and they can cause further mischief in the next turn. Also, before or after pillaging they can move three spaces, so they might try to move into some roadless haven like a mountain massif, desert or jungle (in true guerrilla fashion) and escape retaliation.
Explorers can help an offensive much like Otto Skorzeny's commandos did (well, tried) during the battle of the Bulge in WW2.

[Catt]

I agree. The "explorer" is a misnomer for this unit. I actually think it would be used more widely by Civ players if it were unchanged, but renamed the "saboteur." Mind you, I only actually use them once in every ten or so games, but I almost always build either a pair or two pairs of them in every game -- the gpt upkeep cost is often wasted; but, in those games where a key source of saltpeter, rubber, or oil lies 5 tiles into enemy territory, a pair of explorers . . . I mean saboteurs . . . can land a very powerful blow. Their ability to stay in enemy territory and observe during peacetime, well past the first "Your troops near Rome are annoying. Remove them!" warning, is just a nice little bonus that occasionally comes in handy.

Catt

[badams52]

hmmm, I do see the usefulness of saboteurs, but when I'm denying resources, I prefer the cavalry army approach. Moves fast, and the AI will leave it alone till he has tanks.

[Catt]

Originally posted by badams52
hmmm, I do see the usefulness of saboteurs, but when I'm denying resources, I prefer the cavalry army approach. Moves fast, and the AI will leave it alone till he has tanks.

But you need a cavalry army (and thus a leader or military academy generated army), and even the cav army can't move 5 tiles into enemy territory, whatever the terrain, and still pillage the tile, all in one turn .

Catt

[badams52]

sure, the saboteur is faster, but he can't hold his ground. Actually, I think the best way is the combination attack, send in the sabateur to destroy the resources, then back him up with the cavalry army knowing full well that resource won't be hooked up while you're defending it. Yeah that's it! Too bad I no longer play civ 3.

BTW Catt, you're letting this peace thing go to your head. Warmongering & UP will usually net me an army for HE sometime in the ancient era.

[Catt]

Originally posted by badams52
Yeah that's it! Too bad I no longer play civ 3.

You realize of course that you should just break down and play a few games, right? You could be using this 'Poly surfing time to play -- your civ addiction has only morphed into a "Civ discussion" addiction . I myself am perfectly willing to admit to both a Civ and a 'Poly addiction. After all, nobody's perfect.

BTW Catt, you're letting this peace thing go to your head. Warmongering & UP will usually net me an army for HE sometime in the ancient era.

But you still need an additional leader or a 100 shield unit (army) after the XX shield academy is built . . . that is unless you're keeping an ancient-era, leader-created army empty for future cavalry use . Nay, nay, sir -- don't discount the power of peace nor the shield-cost of army units -- the honorable explorer . . . er, saboteur . . . is a powerful investment. Long live the saboteur!



[Even if you don't break down and play, please stick around in the forums ]

[badams52]

Originally posted by Catt
You realize of course that you should just break down and play a few games, right? You could be using this 'Poly surfing time to play -- your civ addiction has only morphed into a "Civ discussion" addiction

I have a feeling that my poly surfing time...er addiction is about to be downgraded a bit. RCT is looking mighty good recently and I'm about to finish up this web project and applications that I've been putting off.

But you still need an additional leader or a 100 shield unit (army) after the XX shield academy is built . . . that is unless you're keeping an ancient-era, leader-created army empty for future cavalry use . Nay, nay, sir -- don't discount the power of peace nor the shield-cost of army units -- the honorable explorer . . . er, saboteur . . . is a powerful investment. Long live the saboteur!

Hmmm, I hadn't thought of the shield implications for army building, but often I have gotten the super city, IW city near FP or Palace, where the MA is built. Armies in 4-5 turns

[Even if you don't break down and play, please stick around in the forums ]

Don't worry Catt; as a fellow Californian (but transplanted in North Carolina for another few months) I won't disreguard my duty of handing advice and lending a word to interesting discussions about the finer points of civ strategy. And on that note, maybe we should give caralampio his thread back.

[Tattila the Hun]

Too bad they can't kidnap Hammurabi for me...

(read "The Eagle has landed" to understand...)

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

On a related, but not entirely "on", topic, I wish that the map generator placed cultures close together, esp. the Europeans... this would represent "real life" a lot better and make the "colonization" phase of the game... well, make it happen PERIOD. That would give use to Explorers, whose stats I feel are "realistic". It's just that, er, well, the Iroquois were never really THAT powerful in real life... the Americans didn't even, um, START in America...

[Master Zen]

Explorers are much better than Cavs at sabotaging if only becuase the enemy will surely have an effective counterattack waiting to take out your cavs (which at 3 defense ain't much). Explorers, on the other hand, are expendable.

Yahweh:

you could add culturaly-linked start positions. When this is on you'll usually have say, Germany Russia and France as neighbors.

As for colonization well, I think Civ3 is a poor game to model that precisely. There should be perhaps an incentive not to conquer a city completely

[badams52]

Originally posted by Master Zen
Explorers are much better than Cavs at sabotaging if only becuase the enemy will surely have an effective counterattack waiting to take out your cavs (which at 3 defense ain't much). Explorers, on the other hand, are expendable.

Which is why the cav army. 3 cav's in an army and the AI will only attack it with tanks. If you're up to tanks, then use a tank army...etc.

[Master Zen]

yes but a cav army can only pillage one tile per turn, whereas an equivalent swarm of scouts will pillage like madmen, sure, some will be taken out but its helluva more bang for the buck.

[badams52]

That's fine if you want to pillage everything, but while I'm taking cities, I like to leave the improvements alone so my workers will have less to do once they arrive. Except for the resources which I may pillage.

And you may have noticed from what I said earlier, the 2 pronged attack is king. Use explorers to pillage, reinforce with armies.

[Dominae]

If the battles are Cavalry against Musketmen, there is really no need for Explorers; you should roll over any opposition. But if you're already in the Industrial age and Cavalry are less potent due to the presence of Riflemen and Railroads, Explorers become quite useful. In this second case you'll want to cripple your opponent instead of doing a head-on Cavalry assault (assuming you do not have a huge production advantage, where you can afford to lose many Cavalry at every turn). So pillaging, and therefore Explorers, are very good. Conveniently, at around this time you should have enough Workers with nothing to do that the pillaged tile improvements get rebuilt rather quickly. If the war progresses into Infantry and Artillery, you're still better off using Explorers for pillaging, as Cavalry are best reserved for getting that last HP off of bombarded units, and counter-attacks.


Dominae

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by badams52

And you may have noticed from what I said earlier, the 2 pronged attack is king. Use explorers to pillage, reinforce with armies.

Instead of wasting your armies protecting pillagers you can have those armies with defensive units used to protect your massive artillery stacks. I would think it more useful for that role, after all it's not like they are easy to make.

[badams52]

*sigh* Why do I have to keep repeating myself!? I use the cav armies to hold the pillaged resources, denying iron, saltpeter, sometimes oil (if he's behind in tech). The armies are not used to protect the explorers, though one could return explorers to armies once they've pillaged.

And by that point in the game I usually have many armies from an IW+MA city that will produce armies around 1 per 5 turns or so. If it's to the point where I do have artillery (not cannons) then an army will be used to protect the 1 or 2 artillery stacks I'm using to gain the AI cities. But usually when I go to war in this era, my sheer number of units or technology superiority has won the war for me, just a matter of mopping up.

[badams52]

Originally posted by Dominae
But if you're already in the Industrial age and Cavalry are less potent due to the presence of Riflemen and Railroads, Explorers become quite useful. In this second case you'll want to cripple your opponent instead of doing a head-on Cavalry assault (assuming you do not have a huge production advantage, where you can afford to lose many Cavalry at every turn). So pillaging, and therefore Explorers, are very good. Conveniently, at around this time you should have enough Workers with nothing to do that the pillaged tile improvements get rebuilt rather quickly.

Dominae

Actually, when I played my NIC game, I was completely surprised at how well my cavarly could win battles against riflemen, even in cities. I guess it was the stacks and stacks of them I created that was the real force behind the war.

I agree with it being harder to attack against riflemen, but I generally don't go to war in those cases if I can help it, and when I do, I amass numbers to take out cities and protect my cavalry with riflemen. Makes for a slow war, but losses are minimized.

I guess I don't have as many workers as you do, cause at this point, my workers are busy still building railroads. And if I can help it, I don't want to rebuild what was built before.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by badams52
Makes for a slow war, but losses are minimized.

I love slow wars against the AI, because it just cannot deal with tough defenders and bombardment. In such wars I've found Explorers very useful. In the "Power of Expansionism" AU, I used this strategy against the Greeks. If you can deal with the WW, slow wars of attrition in the Industrial age are (I think) more cost-effective Shield-wise than Cavalry assaults, and get the job done far before Tanks.


Dominae

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Originally posted by Master Zen
you could add culturaly-linked start positions. When this is on you'll usually have say, Germany Russia and France as neighbors.

I do play with this on, but they're still not close ENOUGH.

I mean, come on, France and England were never as big as they get in some of these games...

But, no game's perfect, eh?

[Arrian]

I sometimes use explorers for pillaging.

In fact, I'm using them now, in AU207. I've knocked out 1 of Japan's saltpeters, and am preparing to cut another (they have a total of 3). The last one is next to Kyoto, which is upcoming military target.

-Arrian

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Originally posted by badams52
And by that point in the game I usually have many armies from an IW+MA city that will produce armies around 1 per 5 turns or so.

Wow, well, I think this is not the typical case for most of us. I get IW about 50%-60% of the time. Armies, for some reason, I seem to rarely get, even attacking pretty much for the entire game with elite units... even as a militaristic civ... in games where I do get leaders, I seem to get many, but I can be at constant war and only get 2-3 leaders per game... I wish someone would examine the "math" of getting leaders... I wonder if there's something I'm missing?

But I digress.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

BTW, this is off-topic, but can someone point out to me a good thread dealing with the use of artillery?

I never use it now, and I get the feeling that that's a mistake.

[badams52]

Originally posted by Yahweh Sabaoth
Wow, well, I think this is not the typical case for most of us. I get IW about 50%-60% of the time. Armies, for some reason, I seem to rarely get, even attacking pretty much for the entire game with elite units... even as a militaristic civ... in games where I do get leaders, I seem to get many, but I can be at constant war and only get 2-3 leaders per game... I wish someone would examine the "math" of getting leaders... I wonder if there's something I'm missing?

But I digress.

Well, I think most worlds will have 1 or 2 IW cities in them, depending upon the spread of resources. The reason I get it often is cause I play Arrian style and war early and often. The more cities you take, the more likely you will wind up with an IW city.

How do you try to get leaders? Some of the strategies people employ is to only use elites in easy battles, i.e. that pikeman is down to 1 hitpoint, time to attack with my elite knight. Also units that can retreat make better attackers for gaining elite units as they are harder to kill. I've gotten leaders from elite swordsmen, but knights, cavalry and UUs with 2+ movement are big helps.

In the AU206 game, being celts and militaristic, I ended up with maybe 9 leaders by the game's end. Of course, the celts are perfect for elites and leaders. Militaristic = faster promotions, a 2 movement UU in place of swordsmen, and an early UU which is the best time to create leaders. If your first leader is in the industrial age, then his usefulness is much less.

Also, the Heroic Epic is quite important for generating leaders. A 1/16 chance for an elite victory becomes a 1/12 chance.

On the use of artillery (link to a useful thread), artillery becomes important once city sizes become large and you are using cavalry vs. riflemen or esp. infantry. And let's make this perfectly clear, if you don't have a large stack of artillery, say 30 or so, then they won't be much help. The more artillery you have, the faster your bombardment will knock down that size 12+ city to size 6 (or 2 - 3 if you really want the city to have little chance for culture flipping back). Moving 30 artillery into range for a city is not unheard of. Depending upon how many units are inside and how large the city is, it may take 1-3 turns to sufficiently knock the city down to size and be able to grab a cavalry vs. infantry attack.

Artillery is also good when the AI moves his troops into your territory in counter attacks. I often use artillery on the fast moving railroads to knock those riflemen or infantry down to 1 HP then mop up with elite cavalry/tanks/whatever unit is handy.

Artillery can also be used to keep the AIs navy from bombarding yoru coast, esp. frigates and ironclads. Often the AI will leave some ships within bombard range of the artillery and once you knock them down to size, your own navy can finish the job. This I believe is also the best use for bombers, to destroy the AIs navy.

Anyway, that's a good start for you. Maybe others will pick up where I left off.

[Arrian]

Yahweh,

Artillery can help, indirectly, with leader generation. You can use it to ensure than your elite units will win, by pounding AI units to 1hp prior to attacking with your elites. Arty hits enemy units out in the open pretty well, it's the cities that are tougher.

The Heroic Epic is indeed a key. In AU207, I used my first leader on an army & built the HE. Since then, due to the nearly non-stop warfare I've engaged in, I've generated six more:

1 - Army
2 - Palace move
3 - Bach
4 - replacement Army (first one died)
5 - Smiths
6 - second Palace move
7 - Army (mmm, Cavalry army, mmm)

I fully expect to get more. Which is nice, since there are three wonders coming up (Univ Suff, ToE, Hoover).

In conclusion, I think if I played Huge or even Large maps more, I would downgrade the Militaristic trait (on standard maps I put it at #3), since the sheer size of the maps guarantee enough battles (if you play like me) to generate plenty of leaders.

-Arrian

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

I do it too... I guess I just don't get lucky!

And, I also don't build the heroic epic if, say, 5 other civs are also building something I definitely want... say, Bach's... and I don't know where I stand in the race, and I've got this leader...

Early in the game though, HE is a great improvement, I agree.

[Arrian]

Yahweh,

Maybe your luck is that bad. Or maybe you think you're doing a lot of fighting, but don't really know what I mean by "a lot of fighting." Or perhaps there is something else we're both overlooking.

-Arrian

p.s. I would say my AU207 represents a lot of fighting. 3 empires wiped out, another in the process of falling, ~60 Cavalry in the field... that's a lot of fighting.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

60 cavalry is quite a bit, but it's certainly not above my limit. I would say I average 45 or so by the MT era, but that's quite a bit still, don't you think?

With knights, I have about 25-30...

With horsemen or swordsmen, 15-20.

Sometimes I get a great leader, build the HE, and get 5-6 more that game. Other times, even as a militaristic civ, I finally get one after incessant attacking in the early industrial era, and use it for Hoover, or something, figuring it's a little too late at that point (not that it is, but hey, I settle for cultural victories)

I wish some Firaxian could shed some light on this subject.

I >don't< bother with field opponents that often, I must admit, unless they threaten my cities or approaching troops themselves. Otherwise, I let them pass, and watch them all disappear when the AI is destroyed... unless I happen to have a random Elite Knight around to take on that errant archer from an isolated size 1 city.

[Catt]

Originally posted by Yahweh Sabaoth
... I wish someone would examine the "math" of getting leaders... I wonder if there's something I'm missing?

Originally posted by Yahweh Sabaoth
I wish some Firaxian could shed some light on this subject.

It's been done several times, actually, and there's really no mystery to it. Without the HE built, an elite victory has a 1/16 chance to generate a leader. With the HE, the chance moves to 1/12.

There are some further complexities.

What is an "elite" for purposes of leadser generation: (1) must be "elite" , (2) must not be "elite *" which is to say must not already have created a leader in its present form, (3) must not be in an army, and (4) the player must have no other leaders available.

What is an "elite victory" for purposes of leader generation: must actually win the battle by destroying the opponent -- retreats don't count as victories or defeats.

Within these guideliones (and I've no doubt forgotten one or two twists on the theme), the odds of leader generation are straightforward -- there are no special bonuses for specific types of units, for attacking on different types of terrain, for attacking "outside" versus in a city, etc. -- it's just 1/16 or 1/12. It can be frustrating when you go well past 16 victories without a leader, but not terribly mathematically unlikely.

EDIT: Check out this thread Getting the most out of your elites from the "Must Read" threads at the top of the forum.

Catt

[Arrian]

One thing Catt left out is that on defense, the leader generation chance is halved (to 1/32 w/o the HE, 1/24 with it). Better to attack, obviously.

From what you said, Yahweh, I think I know the problem. You just go straight for the jugular: take the cities, ignore the AI's units in the field it possible. That results in you fighting less battles. I kill every AI unit I see. More battles = more elites = more chances for leaders.

Speaking of which, since my post in which I listed the 7 leaders I got in AU207, I've generated two more:

8) Universal Suffrage
9) Unused as yet - probably will hold for Hoover.

-Arrian

[GarP2]

It certainly seem like, when attacking cities, I get more leaders on the attack that finally captures the city, compared to the (more numerous) successful attacks that dont wipe out the last defender. I havent heard this mentioned. Is a promotion more likely when the attack captures a city? I havent kept stats and maybe should start.