Jun 22nd 2011, 22:23:53
Chaoswind - you don't make a casher unbreakable during the FS (unless its a FS against a smaller alliance), but you can make them unbreakable a week or two into the war once you've killed off all the dangerous enemy breakers.
And you are right that they are best as midbreakers, which is why they can become unbreakable once all the enemy breakers are gone. They go into a war with less stockpile than a techer, but since techers and indies tend to be the breakers that use the most jets & oil, and cashers have a better economy than indies or techers during war (assuming none of the countries get hit), which means that a week or two into the war it is possible to become unbreakable, especially when you give them the 25% dictator bonus.
In closer wars, the ability to keep enough breakers is essential to winning the war. If your alliance ends up with 20% original countries that are unbreakable and 80% are restarts, then those 20% will be lemminged down and you'll lose. In these type of wars, dictator cashers are stronger than tyranny farmers and tyranny techers.
If you are FSing an alliance that isn't war-prepped, then tyrannies have a huge advantage of being able to use their missiles in a FS, whereas if you're FSing an alliance that is ready for you, or you're the alliance being FSd, missiles aren't a huge advantage. Having normally been in the alliance that gets FSd, I've realized that missiles are helpful, but they aren't nearly as important. When all the dangerous enemy countries have 75%+ SDI, its not a big deal to have 4% warfare tech so you can get 3 missiles a day and most of the time get 1 missile to hit the enemy.
In situations where you get to FS an alliance that isn't warready, then yes, cashers are the weakest, because tyrannies with missiles will put out such a devastating FS. But if you aren't blindsiding people, then tyrannies aren't nearly as good.
You seem to keep changing your mind about what portion of a war you are talking about, and what types of wars you are talking about. So let's get this clear, when you say casher is not a good strategy for war, that means that it can't be good for any common type of war. So wars with FSs during week 2, or wars with FSs during week 5, your statement applies to both those types of wars. It also applies to the first 72 hours of a war, as well as two weeks into a war. It applies to original countries, as well as restarts.
If you make a blanket statement like "casher is the weakest strat for war", make sure you don't later have to attach a ton of conditions to it. A properly setup alliance will have a mix of cashers, techers, and farmers (and possibly some indies and oilers, but they aren't necessary).
I've fought in many types of wars, both winning wars and losing wars. I've stonewalled with pretty much every type of country, and casher is much stronger than farmer for stonewalling. Cashers tend to have more tech than farmers, thus they can generate cash better than farmers in a pinch. If you start getting GSd or BRd, the first thing you do is sell 25% of your tech. When that money comes in, you have a nice chunk of money to stonewall with. Heck, cashers have more tech than techers, so they can go from no cash to lots of cash better than any other strategy. No other strategy keeps as much tech on hand as a casher, thus when selling 25% of your tech, no strategy gets as much cash as a casher.
For doing restarts in a losing war where your big countries can't afford to send much FA, dictator cashers work better than tyranny farmers. Tyrannies can spend lots of turns growing, but they're also going to get farmed every day because they will get fat. A dictator casher will not grow to the point of being farmed the way a tyranny will, and not spending money on buildings, and not losing military while being farmed will allow them to do a better job of being a breaker when your alliance has been so badly beaten that restarts have to be breakers. I've been a breaker as a restart dictator casher breaking original countries. Its easier doing that than it is to do that with a tyranny farmer or tyranny techer.
Cashers were great four years ago, and they're still great now. Mid to late set, military prices are very low, and tech prices are also well under 2k. If there are big alliances netting, tyranny farmers can do well for a little while, but if there are a lot of big alliances having countries dropping food stockpile, or there are a lot of farmers in war alliances selling food, then food prices will make farmer much weaker than casher.
Just because you don't know how to play a good farmer for war doesn't mean that they don't have their uses.
<--MSN