Maybe I don't get it, but the archers are attacking cities with daggers? If that's the case they seem to get O\/\/\/ned fairly easily.

What's the good early game move to get some civ off your side early? Horse archers might be the new rush unit?

Archers are now defenders in Civ4, spearmen are probably the new early rush unit, although I don't know about horse archers.

Horse archers work VERY well against Archers. In my first game(just finished), I had an early series of skirmish battles with a rival border city sitting on MY Iron. 3 archer units met with a minor case of dead after my horse archers came to them. Immune to first strike!!! Its a good thing.

Promote Axeman or Swordsman(barracks first, then a barb fight), and problem solved. Thats how I took out Spain by 200BC.

You can easily check whether a unit is considered as an offensive or defensive unit by looking at the type of experience points that unit can get. Macemen, swordsmen for instance can get the "city raiding" bonus which makes them more offensive type whereas archers can get the "city garisson" or "first strike" bonus which makes them more the best early defensive unit.

Of course you can bypass these rules but at your own risks !

I could be wrong, but don't stock warriors get a city raider promotion? If so, they _might_ be a candidate for early rushing. Horsearchers and swordsmen sound doable as well. I don't have a lot of experience with the game yet, but it appears that "rushing" in Civ IV won't be nearly as fast as it was in Civ III -- but that could change w/ experience.

I wouldn't use horse archers to rush. I tried that and got a nice little reminder- spearmen have +100% defence vs. mounted units, i.e. they slaughter horse archers. Swordsman with the city raider upgrade work pretty well.

Archers are for defending yer cities, not attacking, use other units to
attack (for warmongers this is a no brainer).

read Sulla's guide; more catapults and mix of different units would be alot better in this game then rushing with only one type of unit in this game.

Basically, every unit has a unit that can kill it. Swordsmen beat most city defenses, but lose to axemen. Spearmen beat horsemen, but lose to axemen and swordsmen. Archers beat most everything if sitting in a city, and kind of suck otherwise. Jaguars just suck. Chariots haven't been useful yet, but horse archers are decent at skirmishing everything except, you guessed it, spears.

Or, if you're lazy, you can do what I did and throw four horse archers at a city defended by archers and longbows. All of them lost, but they weakened the defenders enough for my melees to clean up.

They really needed to make a standard unit that was good vs archers (but weak against all other types). In Civ III I loved to wage early wars to basically take my entire continent for myself (and make friends with those on the other landmass). With archers, I can't mount an ancient era attack at all. I can't effectively take out cities until i get a catapult. I miss the catapult coming with mathimatics, not construction.

the only time i took out a city and a civilization early on was with an unpromoted warrior who strode into an undefended city. (The opponents warrior was out exploring, we spotted each other at the same time.)

I have not figured out a way to do early rushes at Emp level. AI is going to have comparable or better then you (at least for awhile) and that tends to spell doom when they are outproducing you 2 or 3 to one. When it takes 8-15 turns per warrior in the beginning (on normal) and longer for each archer, you do not get more then a handful to rush with anyway before its just suicide whether you win one particular fight or not. You can quickly get that down to 3-4 turns per warrior if you neglect other aspects, but you will pay for that later. I am still looking for a happy medium between early war for gain and long term empire health.

Micromanging unit experience to have any chance whatsoever is already getting tedious. At the higher levels, I suspect in the long run we will see alot more culture etc victories then domination or conquest. Unit balance seems a bit off to me, I can use units that are usually an era (or 2) behind promoted and fortified to wipe out the AI's units. Each city trypically ends up with 2 or 3 defenders but they can (and have) wiped out 20+ computer units in a turn or 2.

And siege... do not get me started. The AI loves cats, cannons, and artillery.... and loves showing you if you put more then 1 unit in a stack... once they get roads in, its bad, once they get railroads hang it up... cannons from all 4 corners of their empire will show up to pummel any stacked units to uselessness... that is probably my biggest complaint.... 4 catapults reducing 2 stacks of 3 ea knights to 10-30% strength is just...just....frustrating heh. The best luck I have had... so far... is to get someone on the other side to declare war on them with you, you go defensive a few turns while they chew each other up and you eat up anything AI sends with solid fortified units... then run in and do a smash and grab and gank 2 maybe 3 cities.