WOTM 06: Ragnar Lodbrokhttp://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/wotm06civ.jpg

This game MUST be played in Warlords patch version 2.08. We will NOT accept any games played under any other patch versions, and you can't play it in vanilla (plain) Civilization4!

Further, it MUST be played using the latest version of HOF mod for Warlords. This is currently version 2.08.003 (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/mods/HOF-2.08.003.exe).



Game settings:
Civilization: Vikings (Leader: Ragnar Lodbrok; Traits: Aggressive & Financial)
Rivals: 6
Difficulty: Monarch
Map: Islands (map specific settings are not revealed)
Mapsize: Standard, Cylindrical
Climate: Cold
Water level: Medium
Starting Era: Ancient
Speed: epic
Victory Conditions: All enabled
Other settings: All default


Ragnar:
Ragnar is Aggressive and Financial; starting with Fishing and Hunting. Aggressive gives a free 'Combat I' promotion to all melee and gunpowder units, and gives double production on Barracks and Drydocks. Financial gives an extra :commerce: on all plots with atleast two :commerce: .

Unique unit: Berserker (civil service and machinery)
The Berserker replaces the Maceman. The Berserker has the same stats as a maceman, but get +10% when attacking cities and get a free amphibious attack promotion (no penalty when attacking across rivers or from boats).

Unique building: Trading Post (sailing)
The Trading Post replaces the normal lighthouse. It has same effects as the normal lighthouse, but in addition grants a free 'Navigation I' (+1 movement) to all naval units built in the city.

The starting screenshot is here (Click for larger version)
http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/wotm06small.jpg (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/wotm06large.jpg)

Adventurer Class bonuses:
Start with a free workboat

Challenger Class Equalizers:
All AIs play at Settler difficulty instead of Noble (They get higher health and happiness caps)

This should be a fun one coming off the GOTM 15 Deity challenge.

Looks good Gyathaar! :goodjob:

Anyone want to make a test game with the challenger settings and play it out for a while? I'm interested in how much it helps the AI. Would these challenger settings be comparable to Emperor difficulty?

Interesting. Nice to see we have a unique unit (and unique building) that could actually be very helpful on this map type. Especially so since the unique building is one that we'd probably have wanted to build in almost every city even without the unique bonus. And a civ that starts with fishing!

The challenger equalizer intrigues me. Are the higher and happiness and health caps really the only difference between settler and noble for the AI? If so, then I wonder if challenger could end up being easier rather than harder? My reasoning is that if you're going for fast conquest (and the map layout doesn't hold you up too much) then you may have won before the higher caps have any effect at all. OTOH if you're going for a slow victory, the challenger bonuses will help better players with their trading partners (it's not uncommon for me on monarch to find that towards the end I'm so far ahead in tech that I have no partners I can buy any techs off. If the challenger equalizers offset that, they could make a fast spaceship win easier).

Yet OTOH Gyathaar seems to have an extremely detailed understanding of the game, so it seems highly unlikely he won't have thought of the same things - so perhaps there's some other way challenger makes things harder that he's thought of and I haven't...?

The main way that it looks like challenger may make things harder is if the higher happy/health caps make the AI more reluctant to trade for happy/health resources. But I've never noticed any evidence that the AI takes its caps into account when deciding whether to trade for those anyway, so I'm dubious whether there'd be any impact there.

Short of someone looking at the SDK source code, a lot of this is going to be guesswork though - it'd be very hard to use test maps to test out what difference the challenger equalizer will make in practice.

The challenger equalizer intrigues me. Are the higher and happiness and health caps really the only difference between settler and noble for the AI?
No.. there are other factors too..
basically.. there are a certain factors that affects you as the player when you go from settler to noble (instead of boosting AIs).. changing the AIs level will give them all those bonuses that you get on settler difficulty (more free units I think, lower inflation, less civic maintainance, ...)

As for if it is a good or a bad thing for players.. I guess it may depend on your play style :)

Are the higher and happiness and health caps really the only difference between settler and noble for the AI?

My understanding is that they would get the production and research discounts for Settler, on top of the discounts that they normally get against a human at Monarch.

A reasonable start considering the cold climate setting. Fish, some production, four forests for chop rushing, and lots of grassland for cottages. Not brilliant but OK.

Settings scream for collosus to be built, islands + financial?? Starting city kind of sucks in all honesty, just one food recourse and two hills? Wouldnt be suprised if we get some copper or horses in the capitol.

Location of starting circles suggests that there are other food resources nearby. Scouting with both units would probably be useful.

Location of starting circles suggests that there are other food resources nearby. Scouting with both units would probably be useful.

Yeah... I think that the scout goes N, then depending on what he reveals most likely NE. The settler goes SE, then depending on what he sees, back to the starting position or onward to the better location.

Yeah... I think that the scout goes N, then depending on what he reveals most likely NE. The settler goes SE, then depending on what he sees, back to the starting position or onward to the better location.

Would it not be better to send the scout SE then south to see whats down there? If the settler must go south east we will lose turns. And I hate that.

Anyway, looking forward to this one. I have never played the Vikings so I will try a small game tonight.

Scout NE, Settler SE to have a peek around seems prudent. Losing 1 turn for the settler is likely the worst case scenario here. The starting spot is just ok... not really ideal. Hopefully there are more health/luxury resources nearby.

It looks like water just E of the SE blue circle. Wonder if it's ocean or another lake? Ragnar is curious... :)

Flying to Europe this week for a business trip... 4 hours of battery on the plane, plus 5 hour layover in Frankfurt should easily get me to the first spoiler criteria and beyond :D

Nice settings. At first, I thought islands=archipelago, but after looking closer, I found out that they're different map scripts. And by not disclosing map specific settings (those would be # large islands and # of tiny islands), as requested in other threads, it gets even more interesting.
From what I understood, each player will have its own island. Other large islands may or may not be available for grabbing.
"No tiny islands" would mean "get Optics/Astro ASAP!", while "many tiny islands" would allow early island hopping. There are intermediate settings inbetween.
Also interesting to notice jungle to the east, even with cold climate, meaning we're near the equator. I'm tempted to settle in place even with the lackluster start area. Inclined to move scout to hill SE (as The Mad Swede suggested - he should know better, being a Viking himself ;) ) to get to know better what looks another coastal area - 1S3E from settler is a coast tile, isn't it?

Would it not be better to send the scout SE then south to see whats down there? If the settler must go south east we will lose turns. And I hate that.


Moving the scout SE will only allow him to move one square (on to the hill). While this would open up some tiles, another alternative would be to move him SW then SE (where I suggested moving the settler). Better yet you could move directly S from the settler's position, showing more coast tiles. This would leave the settler free to found on the first move if nothing better is visible.

My hunch is that it is more likely to have more water food tiles than land (but I could be mistaken) so I would prioritize opening up more coast for viewing.

The original thought was to accept the one turn loss on the settler, but open up a lot more of the map in the first turn (moving scout N).


1S3E from settler is a coast tile, isn't it?

Unless it is a lake...

Interesting maybe with the island start, rather easy start level, and reading week next week I may survive until the first spoiler. Until this point GOM's have done a good job of humbleing me. :(

No.. there are other factors too..
basically.. there are a certain factors that affects you as the player when you go from settler to noble (instead of boosting AIs).. changing the AIs level will give them all those bonuses that you get on settler difficulty (more free units I think, lower inflation, less civic maintainance, ...)

As for if it is a good or a bad thing for players.. I guess it may depend on your play style :)

Interesting, thanks for the clarification! Evidently there's much I have yet to understand about the levels and the civ4handicapinfo.xml file. I didn't even realize you could set AI difficulty levels separately from the player. That seems to me to run counter to how the handicapinfo.xml file is set up, given that each level contains settings for the AI not just the human player. For example I assumed the presence of things like eg. iAIInflationPercent =50 meant that playing on monarch level meant the AI only suffered from 50% inflation - that doesn't seem at first sight to give much scope to adjust the AI difficulty separately.

This does seem a rather resource-poor start location, although we don't know where the iron/copper/horsies are. On the information there I don't see much point moving the settler though. I tend to strongly dislike delaying my start by more than a turn or so, and the settler's current spot is the only tile that gives you the fish AND the freshwater lake, which between them with lighthouse amounts to a +5 food bonus (as sompared to standard +2-food tiles). And it has hills too, and easily enough food to work them.

But I may change my mind. Right now I'm debating whether to move the scout NE-SE (which will reveal at least 6 extra tiles) or straight SE (which will probably reveal only 3, maybe 4, tiles, but closer to the settler and so more likely to impact any decision about settling in-place).

I agree with Priah about the colossus. 4 commerce from each coast tile is pretty big.

Can someone please clarify something for me... On these map settings... are we GARANTEED to be alone on our island?

Can someone please clarify something for me... On these map settings... are we GARANTEED to be alone on our island?

No, not guaranteed.

No.. there are other factors too..
basically.. there are a certain factors that affects you as the player when you go from settler to noble (instead of boosting AIs).. changing the AIs level will give them all those bonuses that you get on settler difficulty (more free units I think, lower inflation, less civic maintainance, ...)


SO do those settings actually, well, work? I thought that they were included but internally disabled. :blush:

What are people considering for beginning builds/techs? I'm thinking of going Worker > Work boat > Warrior > Settler
Does it make sense to make the Work boat first?

For techs, starting with Mining so the worker has something to do and then probably Bronze Working afterwards. Maybe Sailing then Wheel and Pottery. I'm not really sure if I'll go for AH for a while unless I see some pigs, sheep, or cow nearby. I'd like to get Iron Working (nearby jungle) and Metal Casing (Collussus) soon. If I can get the Oracle, maybe spend the free tech on Metal Casing rather than Code of Laws if I can find some happiness hookups nearby.

I'm guessing the start won't leave us completely isolated from neighbors as that wouldn't give us much of a chance to use the UU.

No, not guaranteed.

From reading Sirian's guide to map scripts (http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/reference/map_scripts_guide.php#islands), I think it is guaranteed we'll have an island for ourselves, even though we might be reached by galleys (or not). If this month's map were "Archipelago" instead of "Islands", then it we couldn't be sure about it. Unless the map was hand-modified to that point, which wouldn't make sense to me.

it is Gyathaar....nothing is guaranteed except it will be interesting

Unless the map was hand-modified to that point, which wouldn't make sense to me.

it makes perfect sense....hand modify it so that inside knowledge of the map scripts won't necessarily give you a huge advantage over the others.

From reading Sirian's guide to map scripts (http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/reference/map_scripts_guide.php#islands), I think it is guaranteed we'll have an island for ourselves, even though we might be reached by galleys (or not). If this month's map were "Archipelago" instead of "Islands", then it we couldn't be sure about it. Unless the map was hand-modified to that point, which wouldn't make sense to me.

Oooh, ta for the correction! You're right, looks like we are guaranteed our own island. I didn't know there was a separate 'islands' setting and so assumed 'islands' meant 'archipelago'. I would've had a real surprise when I opened the game and started exploring :crazyeye:!

*goes away to completely revise strategy*

I think I will move the Scout sw/sw since that seems to be the most likely alternative founding tile.

SO do those settings actually, well, work? I thought that they were included but internally disabled. :blush:
I am not sure on all of these settings.. but the AIs certaining get higher health and happiness bonuses (I checked this)

Looks interesting, I haven't tried Ragnar before. I'll settle on place and try to grab both Great Lighthouse and Colossus, shouldn't be too hard on monarch. Two hills means not so much production, but we have growth potential to whip trading post early. And I think we can find some metals or horses to speed things up a little bit.

Moving the scout SE will only allow him to move one square (on to the hill). While this would open up some tiles, another alternative would be to move him SW then SE (where I suggested moving the settler). Better yet you could move directly S from the settler's position, showing more coast tiles. This would leave the settler free to found on the first move if nothing better is visible.

Hmm, that is exactly what I meant. I just didn't write it. I always confuse east and west for some reason...:p

I have been looking around for information regarding drafting (could be useful in this game), but I couldn't find anything, so I spent some time with worldbuilder and came up with this list:

Units you can draft with Nationhood:

1 population
Warrior
Axeman
Pikeman
Maceman (Berserker)
Musketman
Rifleman

2 population
Infantry

3 population
Mechanized Infantry

Anyone want to set up a test game? I'll do one tonight...

Units you can draft with Nationhood:

1 population
Warrior
Axeman
Pikeman
Maceman (Berserker)
Musketman
Rifleman

2 population
Infantry

3 population
Mechanized Infantry

Very interesting. Drafted Berserkers will be very useful, much more so than Muskets. I guess the Berserkers still get combat I and Amphibious even when drafted?

It would be fun to try a Nationalism beeline and set up a Globe theatre city for drafting Berserkers like crazy. Berserkers get to keep the Amphib even when upgraded, so all those drafts will continue to be useful.

I guess the Berserkers still get combat I and Amphibious even when drafted?

Yes, they do.

First a question...

What is "safe" for certain events in Monarch on such a map? Are:

Great LIghthouse in 500BC
Alpha in 250BC
Collosus in 250 AD

Safe, or not?


Also, a file is attached... Generated with the correct parameters (non-disclosed paramters set to random). Regenerted until I saw Jungle close-by to try and match lattitude. Edited start location a bit in worldbuilder. It is not identical to the start, but if you settle in place, you will get the same 21 squares as if you settle in place in the actual game (assuming I am reading the fog right).

Note that there are no hidden resources within the fat-cross in this test. I still suspect that there will be one in the real game, but I wanted to test without any.

Ran some test games to get an idea of when the AI pops wonders. I ran 10 games with random island settings and got the following average and (minimum/maximum) turns for the AI to finish the early to mid wonders.

Buddism 25 (13-49)
Hindu 43 (20-69)
Judism 85 (65-105)
Confu 135 (114-162)
Christ 172 (150-197)
Tao 203 (173-244)
Islam 243 (220-265)

Stonehen 106 (75-148)
Oracle 106 (92-132)
Gr Wall 140 (87-195)
Gr Light 161 (137-197)
Pyramids 172 (109-272)
Temp of Arm 155 (129-205)
Parth 196 (138-260)
Hang Gard 197 (172-216)
Great Lib 215 (201-236)
Colossus 220 (161-239)

Circumnav 251 (220-273)

Ran some test games to get an idea of when the AI pops wonders. I ran 10 games with random island settings and got the following average and (minimum/maximum) turns for the AI to finish the early to mid wonders.

Would you be willing to run the same test with the Challenger settings? I'd really be interested in the difference.

Would you be willing to run the same test with the Challenger settings? I'd really be interested in the difference.

Sure ... that would be interesting but I'm not sure how. On the custom game settings it shows the AIs at noble but it's greyed out and I'm not sure how to change it to settler. Let me know how to do it and I'll give it a shot.


An unrelated question ... do the free combat I and Amphibious promotions count as level 2 for purposes of needing a level 4 for the Heroic Epic?

Sure ... that would be interesting but I'm not sure how. On the custom game settings it shows the AIs at noble but it's greyed out and I'm not sure how to change it to settler. Let me know how to do it and I'll give it a shot.
can't help, sorry

An unrelated question ... do the free combat I and Amphibious promotions count as level 2 for purposes of needing a level 4 for the Heroic Epic?

no
but this is more of a good thing : next promotions are not far away :)

Question regarding trade routes ... when you meet a new civ and can get the associated foreign trade routes, do you have to reveal their cities to have access to trade routes with those cities or can you just meet them tangentially and move on to meeting other civs?

Question regarding trade routes ... when you meet a new civ and can get the associated foreign trade routes, do you have to reveal their cities to have access to trade routes with those cities or can you just meet them tangentially and move on to meeting other civs?

The requirement is not only that the city be known, but that a PATH along the coast is known that connects the cities... I am not sure if YOU mush know it, or if either you or your trading partner knowing it is good enough.

Regarding my trade route question I went into worldbuilder and found the following:

When you meet a new civ you don't have to actually "see" a city to establish a trade route with it. That is assuming that you have open borders and there's a unblocked connections and you have sailing, etc.

In my test game once I met a new civ and established open borders I started getting trade routes with some of their cities I hadn't seen yet.

This may seem a little off topic but I was thinking pre-game strategy regarding an aggressive "meet the neighbors" approach and wasn't sure how completely I needed to explore their territory before moving on to more searching.

I don't know how to create test games with the challenger settings, either. Maybe Gyathaar will help us?

Greetings,
About AI difficulties, you can generate a map then edit the file using wordpad and change the AI difficulty to anything for each player. It's pretty self explanatory after you open the file.
What I know about Difficulty levels, at least for the human player:
-Significant health and happiness bonus for every couple levels difference
-Significant extra archers/workers/(?settler) for easier levels
-Research bonus/penalty (I think 10% per level change)
-Production bonus
-Barbs are tougher/easier to kill ( I think 10% combat bonus per level)
-Upkeep bonuses/penalties
-Free techs at lower levels...
-AND THE KICKER: ON settler or chieftan huts FREQUENTLY yield workers/settlers. I think on settler it may approach 30% or more of the time. So... are there huts? If so... Huge bonus for AI's on epic...
However: This all depends on how the programmers scripted the AI's difficulty rating, compared to the level the human selects. If congruence is the rule, I suspect the programmers themselves may not even know how the AI responds to difficulty adjustments. Setting them to chieftan could potentially even make your game easier... So it warrants testing. I might add though, if it works properly then the CHALLENGER will be a HUGE STEP UP from normal. I"m up for the challenger version only if several of you will join me. I think it would be fun since island AI really sucks at fleet usage, except for in one area...
--------
As for the starting area, an equatorial island is very good for the settings used. We'll probably be a high tech/low production civ compared to other civ's starting islands, so that will add an extra twist, and I bet there's no iron on our home island :-P I hope not, would make it more interesting. Do the moderators here ever use smartmap to make maps? They would be much more unpredictable, and if used properly generate some fantastic maps.

Let me know who's up for the challenger class after we ascertain whether AI will get free settlers/workers from huts, in addition to other bonuses.

Bigben34

Did anyone ever create & upload a test game in the end? (just regular contender is fine) Thanks

I might add though, if it works properly then the CHALLENGER will be a HUGE STEP UP from normal.
I've done a bit of testing and it seems that this is indeed an enormous advantage to the AI. They can easily have five cities by the time you have two. It must be possible to catch up though. Anyway, I'm willing to give this a go.

Haha, we'll probably get nuked, but challenger sounds fun!
-----------------------------
(Edited out most of my earlier comments. from my 1v1 AI vs human testing on duel solid grass maps there seems to be no connection between the human difficulty rating and the AI's difficulty rating. The Ai gets a bonus to the first tech it researches, and the first of each type of unit it makes, but after that the research advantage seemed to be comparable to standard Monarch settings, so the only way is to test more fully a full blown test game. I posted one below, if it works properly)
-----------------------------
-I dont think AI will get anymore production bonuses or freebie starting units compared to usual monarch game (except from huts). I think these are adjusted based on the player's difficulty setting, not the AI's.
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Attached is a Test map, with settings of the game, and AI's set to Settler. I used extra large and various tiny islands. Rename the file extension as civwarlordswbsave, put in worldbuilder save folder for warlords, Then load Ragnar up and take a look...

Bigben34

I don't know how to create test games with the challenger settings, either. Maybe Gyathaar will help us?
Save the game as a worlbuildersave, then open the worldbuildersave in notepad and change NOBLE to SETTLER for the AIs..
Alternatively, if you make a game without HOF mod, you can use my saveconvert program (found in util programs dir in modding forums) to convert the AIs difficulty level.

Did anyone ever create & upload a test game in the end? (just regular contender is fine) Thanks

I did, at post #33.

Would you be willing to run the same test with the Challenger settings? I'd really be interested in the difference.

Save the game as a worlbuildersave, then open the worldbuildersave in notepad and change NOBLE to SETTLER for the AIs..
Alternatively, if you make a game without HOF mod, you can use my saveconvert program (found in util programs dir in modding forums) to convert the AIs difficulty level.

I'll give this a try tomorrow (Friday). If I can do the first one, the others will be a little time consuming but easy to do. I'll post my progress or lack thereof tomorrow either way.

(Edited out this note; see previous comment)

After a restless night of reflection, I would like to ask if you'd be willing to post a special mid-challenger difficulty level with AI set to Warlord instead of Settler?

That sounds like an idea for future GOTMs, after we see how this one works out.

Here are the average and (minimum-maximum) turns based on running 10 test games on the challanger settings. They are a little faster than the contender settings and interestingly the AI sometimes seems to blow off Stonehenge, the Prymaids and Colussus finishing very late if at all.


Buddism 15 (8-30)
Hindu 28 (12-39)
Judism 54 (37-69)
Confu 90 (72-105)
Christ 125 (112-147)
Tao 154 (141-180)
Islam 186 (151-202)

Stonehenge 156 (67-225+) >225 5x
Oracle 122 (77-157)
Gr Wall 144 (67-225)
Gr Light 157 (114-187)
Pyramids 202 (159-225+) >225 4x
Temp of Arm 152 (115-221)
Parth 201 (159-225+) 5x
Hang Gard 179 (134-220)
Great Lib 162 (131-2100
Colssus 205 (159-225+) >225 6x


Circumnav 190 (177-197)
Liberalism 212 (198-231)

Regarding the wonder times, I dont' think the production values change any in the challenger setting, and I think your statistics confirm that. I suspect they just start them a bit sooner with better developed cities. I don't think there's much of a statisctically significant difference for the wonder times between the classes.
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OK: I edited an all grass challenger test map, putting 150 huts for the AI to explore. Almost half of the huts yielded workers/settlers for the AIs, 2/3 of them being settlers. This alone would account for most of the differences in the religious teching times slowrider found.
So the only major category left to test would be if the Challenger AI gets extra bonuses for maintenance costs, which could be a significant factor. But I'm starting to like this months challenger class :-)
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Edit: Saturday 5:00 pm EST. Well, for better or for worse, I'm going in!!!

Regarding the wonder times, I dont' think the production values change any in the challenger setting, and I think your statistics confirm that. I suspect they just start them a bit sooner with better developed cities. I don't think there's much of a statisctically significant difference for the wonder times between the classes.
---------------
OK: I edited an all grass challenger test map, putting 150 huts for the AI to explore. Almost half of the huts yielded workers/settlers for the AIs, 2/3 of them being settlers. This alone would account for most of the differences in the religious teching times slowrider found.
So the only major category left to test would be if the Challenger AI gets extra bonuses for maintenance costs, which could be a significant factor. But I'm starting to like this months challenger class :-)
---------------
Edit: Saturday 5:00 pm EST. Well, for better or for worse, I'm going in!!!

It does look like the main benefit to the AI with the Challenger settings (regarding religions/wonders) is related to a faster tech pace. All of the religions are founded significantly faster as is circumnavigation and liberalism. Only two wonders, the Great Library and Hanging Gardens, are done faster (on average) and they rely on more advanced techs than do the other wonders. It is interesting that Stonehenge, the Oracle and the Pyramids are finished significantly slower (again on average).

Just a question found from last WOTM.

Can you take a civ with longbow man with an army made up of maceman/catapults? I find I wait too long to attack and find out that longbowman are with my enemy. What woudl peopel use to attack with a civ with longbowman

Cats and Maces can almost always take down a bunch of longbowmen.

That was what fueled the end of my WOTM5 conquest...Maces and cats against Saladin and HC's longbows.

Can you take a civ with longbow man with an army made up of maceman/catapults? I find I wait too long to attack and find out that longbowman are with my enemy. What woudl peopel use to attack with a civ with longbowman

Use the best units you have to hand :)

Seriously, cats and maces are fine against longbows, provided you are prepared to sacrifice the first few cats that attack. Heck, on numerous occasions I've taken longbow-defended cities with cats and swords before now. As long as you're willing to lose a fair proportion of your units, it works. Sometimes you don't have a choice, especially if the AI is teching faster than you and therefore will get even more advanced if you wait. In warlords, if you can realistically hang on till you get trebuchets, they'll be able to tackle longbows with smaller, but still significant, losses. CG-promoted longbows are powerful though. Until you get grenadiers (or lots of CRIII promotions) whatever you throw at them will take significant losses.

Use the best units you have to hand :)

Seriously, cats and maces are fine against longbows, provided you are prepared to sacrifice the first few cats that attack. Heck, on numerous occasions I've taken longbow-defended cities with cats and swords before now. As long as you're willing to lose a fair proportion of your units, it works. Sometimes you don't have a choice, especially if the AI is teching faster than you and therefore will get even more advanced if you wait. In warlords, if you can realistically hang on till you get trebuchets, they'll be able to tackle longbows with smaller, but still significant, losses. CG-promoted longbows are powerful though. Until you get grenadiers (or lots of CRIII promotions) whatever you throw at them will take significant losses. I have only played two warlords games so far, but I find that trebs are the antidote to longbows. I bring a mix of trebs with CR promotions and cats with barrage promotions, sac the cats (2 or 3, they are cheap), by which time the longbows are hurting enough that the CR trebs take them out without losses in most cases, and the foot mop up.

The barrage cats are also good if you encounter an enemy stack in the open field.

dV

In warlords, if you can realistically hang on till you get trebuchets, they'll be able to tackle longbows with smaller, but still significant, losses.

I used trebuchets against Riflemen (fortified and garrison promoted on hills) in WOTM3. I had to sacrifice a couple though ;) but I got the cities :lol:

I hope there are some more resources that pop up later!