Okay, heres the situation:

I'm playing as Cyrus, Marathon, Continents, Standard, 6 people on my continent. I have horses near me and have already gotten Wheel and Animal Husbandry. My Question is, do I need to get bronze working ASAP to chop immortals to kill Gandhi and Lizzy. I'm assuming yes.

Advice please now that the save is up.

The answer to the question "Should I get Bronze Working?" is always yes.

The attachment feature is sufficient to post a save.

The decison to go for Bronze Working first depends on your starting location and starting techs.

If you have enough forest around, it is often a good thing to get first. It helps to speed up getting your 2nd city founded by chopping the 1st settler.

Usually, I build a worker first, then a warrior or scout to grow the city to size 2 and to have a 2nd unit out exploring the area before the settler is built.

One other nice benefit of researching BW first is knowing where the copper is so you can hook it up ASAP for Axemen.

Okay, heres the situation:

I'm playing as Cyrus, Marathon, Continents, Standard, 6 people on my continent. I have horses near me and have already gotten Wheel and Animal Husbandry. My Question is, do I need to get bronze working ASAP to chop immortals to kill Gandhi and Lizzy. I'm assuming yes.

After Pottery, I would think. You probably gain more by whipping out Immortals than chopping them. That will also give your worker(s) something useful to do while BW is researched.

Also, how do I post a Save?

If you look at the Additional Options section of the post/reply form (underneath the Submit/Preview buttons), you'll see a section labeled Attach Files with a button labeled Manage Attachments. click it.

The answer to the question "Should I get Bronze Working?" is always yes.

So very true.

Anyway, I got Bronze working and choped in a Barracks and got Writing. I got one Immortal from my second city while my first city was finishing it's barracks. I used my first one to scout Lizzy and then took out 2 of her cities with 4 immortals and captured London and razed one of her other cities.

You'll need axes to finish off the opponents, won't you?

^^yeah, bronze is such an incredibly powerful tech (chop- AND pop- rushing AND reveals a military resource :S)

And then lets you build the dominant early unit with that resource, to boot.

Axemen are superior to swordsmen(not praets!) as they are slightly cheaper and are just as effective with city raider. I am, of course, usually an aggresive leader so I can get city raider with a barracks.

City with an archer defending. I am pretty certain swordsman with citty raider dominates over axeman in that attack.

City with an archer defending. I am pretty certain swordsman with citty raider dominates over axeman in that attack.

True, against a single archer in a city, a single swordsman is better than a single axeman. But, axemen have at least three advantages that aren't being utilized in this scenario:


They can be brought to battle sooner, when the opponent has fewer defenses.
They are cheaper, allowing for more to be brought to battle.
They can better handle opponent's spearmen, swordsmen, and other axemen.


Consider this: An axeman's early game counter (Horse Archer) costs almost 50% more than the axeman, and requires over 150% more research. A swordsman's counter (axeman) actually costs 12% less and requires about half the research.

I prefer to conquer cities early ( and throughout the game). I much prefer swordsmen. I know when the AI attacks my cities, a simple 20% defence with basic archers can hault a bunch of axemen dead in their tracks.

As has been said, I'm struggling to think of any situation where you should go for anything other than bronze working at the start.

I ALWAYS go for bronze working. The real question should be "why wouldn't you?". Just the ability to build axemen is worth the tech. I agree malekithe about axemen v swordsmen. I can crank out stacks of them and take more advanced units. I had a few who got pretty tweaked out with promotions fighting barbs. Later in the game I was behind badly in techs but still managed to wipe out some invading Persian musketmen with my axemen. The Persians agreed to peace shortly after and I went on to win a squeaky time victory.

in this situation you don't NEED bronze working immediately. But without it you won't be rushing anything.
Rushing isn't in 50 turns. It's now!

You'll need axes to finish off the opponents, won't you?
Immortals have +50% vs. Archery Units.
Anyway I rushed Lizzy with 4 Immortals and Captured London razed a second and couldn't find her third. Then I went to war with Ganhdi and took one of his cities.

Anyway I rushed Lizzy with 4 Immortals and Captured London razed a second and couldn't find her third.
:lol:
didn't want to search, did you?
with 4 immortals, you can explore a lot!
I advise you to find (and raze !)the 3rd, before it's a whole new empire at war with you.

As has been said, I'm struggling to think of any situation where you should go for anything other than bronze working at the start.

Spain on a lake (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=133492)?

Egypt with Pigs /Cows (http://realmsbeyond.net/civ/c4tourney/adv4.html)?

Tiny Islands (http://realmsbeyond.net/civ/c4tourney/epic2.html)?

@Voice of Unreason

On any of these three maps I would still go for bronze working. All have at least some forest present, and I would want to make use of those (and slavery) as soon as possible. Out of interest, what would you have gone for on each of these maps? Animal Husbandry?

I play huge maps / monarch mainly, and to go against the grain, virtually never chop (definitly not early on) and really only ever pop rush for defence..yet I still win most of the time.....

If you are Persia, and have immortals, and you are sure your opponents only have archers, then immortals should be completely sufficient to defeat said opponents..

Axemen are incredibly overpowered early on and with an aggresive trait Civ, a barracks trained axemen is even better than a barracks trained praetorian eg. Axemen (Com I + Shock) vs Praetorian (com I) is 5.50 vs 4.84...

Except in the Persia example, the immortals' 50% bonus vs archers negates the archers' city defence bonus, and therefore makes them excellent at conquering "non-metal" early civs...

Persia are in interesting early civ to play, as their creative bonus means you can completely avoid the "religious" tech path if you so choose, and concentrate on other techs, as well as if you have immortals, then bronze working can take a back seat for a while too....recently I got Alphabet in around 1000BC,which lead to a very interesting game...

Anyways back to your original question, if they only have archers as best, then you only need your immortals, if they have copper, then you can probably still take them out if you make a beeline for their copper resource, and destroy that before you attempt to assault any cities..

If I get horses with Persia my main problem comes from having to reign in my early expansion to a tolerable limit science wise..

On any of these three maps I would still go for bronze working. All have at least some forest present, and I would want to make use of those (and slavery) as soon as possible. Out of interest, what would you have gone for on each of these maps? Animal Husbandry?

Nothing particularly useful - I focus attention on those games because they were players much better than me (I didn't play Cuban Isolationists; the other two I put in a sad showing).

For the Frozen Jungle, I like Sulla's reasoning a lot (though I have to admit I wouldn't have had the stones to try for Buddhism - I'd prefer to get to Priesthood via Polytheism, to further exploit the Marble. I wasn't good enough to think all this through at the time, of course). You certainly don't want to be chopping the forrests with the deer, and in any event not right away (because the surplus food is a higher priority, and what are you going to chop anyway?)

For Hatty's Heiroglyphics, all the good players secured War Chariots first, which makes a lot of sense to me, especially with pigs available. Whether you then kick over to Mining, or wait until after Pottery (my preference) is a matter of taste. My guess is that on this map, you are better off getting the cottages up right away, because you are going to be growing in a hurry.

For Spain on a Lake... that one I think is questionable. Sirian and Sulla caught a lot of breaks in that start. But Isabella needs to run up the religion tree to be effective, and those religious techs are urgent (as opposed to Bronze Working, which is not) - the Hydra strategy not only requires founding religions, but founding them before your second city is settled.

Here's another position where the beeline to Bronze Working might not be your best choice (http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthread.php?t=964&page=2&pp=10).

Or maybe this one (http://realmsbeyond.net/civ/c4tourney/epic4.html) (go ahead and give it a try with Bronzeworking first - I don't expect to see any reports with that strategy when the game closes next week. Remember not to post spoilers).

If I were playing MM, I might get Hunting and Archery first, because Skirmishers will nerf an opposing Axe rush...