Playing on Emperor level, huge map, marathon speed, I was humming along doing quite well. As Washington, I had strong finance, strong science (not the leader per se but at least on par and did reach liberalism first). The year is about 1300 AD. I had an adequate defense and had fought some minor wars. The most serious was against Isabella back in the classical era but was able to fight her off with my combo of spearmen, archers and axemen.

However I had bronze but not iron (and also didn't have horses or elephants).

Saladin, a weak Civ started a war against me but he was merely a pest and I didn't take the threat seriously. But then several turns later, Huaya of Incan Empire (next door to me) declared war with two massive SoDs each about like 15 units each full of elephants but mostly knights! Perhaps sensing I was tied down by Saladin he decided it was a good time to pile on.

I scrambled to draft (I switched to nationalism upon DoW) pikemen but then saw the greyed out pikemen logo and suddenly realized that pikemen required iron. So instead I drafted the best units I could, musketman. I couldn't draft enough of them and in any case draft musketman are nevertheless inferior to knights anyway.

Now keep in mind that being on marathon speed, there is a LOT OF TURNS between
gunpowder and rifling. If you have no iron, you're defending with musketman at best against elephants and knights and this threat lasts quite many turns!

My conclusion from this is that iron is quite critical resource, much more important than bronze or horses. Iron builds everything bronze can but is needed specifically for swordsmen (not that big of a deal if you're not on the offense) and critically pikemen! Without pikes, there is no way to counter elephant and especially knight SoDs without having large SoD of mustketman yourself (assuming you even have gunpowerder tech, otherwise you're defending with macemen!)

(Needless to say Huaya overcame my attempt at a defense and I surrendered the game).

Do you need iron for grenediers? Just one tech past gunpowder.

Do you need iron for grenediers? Just one tech past gunpowder.

You bring up a good point. I had forgotten about grenadiers which you can get before rifles. HOWEVER, in marathon, that's still a 30ish turn to research even once you have gunpowder (assuming you can research chemistry right after that which seems to be the case according to you). So you're not gonna survive two SoDs with a couple dozens knights across the border for over 30 turns. Anyway, in my game, I had gotten gunpowder just recently and knights had been available for a while before that.

I'll keep in mind chemistry but you're still talking 30-50 turns (in marathon) where if you don't have iron, you're completely helpless against elephants and especially knights and the only solution is to have hordes of inferior defenders yourself since knights slaughter anything other than pikes.

The only other solution, of course is to use diplomacy to avoid wars during this time of vulnerability. But its pretty hard to please everyone so this isn't that easy of a solution especially when my neighbor Hyuana was Buddhist, Napo next to me was Confucian and Isaballa just next to him was Jewish and Frederick were Hindu!

You play on emperor so i assume you're a pretty good player, i can almost always avoid being declared on by people like Saladin and Huyna. Check the diplo screen sometimes and you'll know what's going to happen. Making a diplomacy effort will almost always help to keep these guys in check. Shakas and Montys are another story altogether and these have to be dealt with soon or be kept as good dogs for the future.

Catapults and lots of them. I'm not sure if they'll retain their usefulness against knights, but I've won wars where I didn't even have iron against humans. Just made a 20 unit stack of cats. Then again your playing marathon so its probably too late to try to out produce the enemies stack.

Wow a whole paragraph that means absolutely nothing.

I agree that Iron is an important midgame resource, and that what you're describing is a feature of Marathon - but once you know the ropes, it's greatly to the advantage of the human.

You wouldn't be able to draft Pikemen. The draft list goes Maceman -> Musketman -> Rifleman.

(partial duplication of rabidveggie):

I think No Iron = No Chance might be a little extreme.
If you had Drama, you could crank up the slider and draft really quite a few Musketmen, using the first ones to defend cities and the rest to suicide on the attack stacks.
If the enemy stacks are large, Catapults are good. But it's harder with no Iron when you get into the age of Cannon.
If they're poorly balanced as you suggested, hammer-for-hammer, Spearmen are still good. Maybe no time for that in an emergency on Marathon, though.

All true but diplo goes first here, getting involved in a war that you didn't (want to) start yourself is always hugely detrimental, it'll always cost you hammers while you get nothing in return. It should be avoided at considerable cost.

This is a very interesting point about how close to the truth CIV comes to reality. I just finished Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, and it talks about how, among other things, metal really is absolutely vital in a military setting. Think about how the Spanish Conquistudors in mexico, numbering only about 200 at most, were able to defeat 80000 wooden and stone club wielding Aztecs. O.O

This is a very interesting point about how close to the truth CIV comes to reality. I just finished Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, and it talks about how, among other things, metal really is absolutely vital in a military setting. Think about how the Spanish Conquistudors in mexico, numbering only about 200 at most, were able to defeat 80000 wooden and stone club wielding Aztecs. O.O

Hey cool, I'm reading that book too (for school).

I agree, in real life, metals (iron, steel) have been some of the most decisive resources when it comes to combat. And that also applies to Civ. Games without iron have been very hard to play military-wise.

Muskets are not inferior to knights. Use them defensively. They will win most of the time.

Er, you used liberalism to get nationhood, I assume. Chemistry or military tradition.
Catapults should work fine against knight stacks. War elephants? Walls?
If I'm playing carefully, I'm thinking of who I'm going to pit against whom.

Think about how the Spanish Conquistudors in mexico, numbering only about 200 at most, were able to defeat 80000 wooden and stone club wielding Aztecs. O.O

yeah Cortez had metal, that and zounds of Tlaxcala elite fighters :lol:

Perhaps get a friend to declare and hope that he will go to destroy him instead, if that could of been done. Perhaps also whipping with slavery some Spearmen and sending them in nice, fortified terrain and cities? That, combined with Musketmen, might of been able to help a little. Was anyone willing to trade you Iron?

Muskets are not inferior to knights. Use them defensively. They will win most of the time.

I agree. Muskets are pretty darn good general defenders, but also importantly, they perform well attacking cities that have been softened with catapults/trebuchets.

And, of course, they are draftable.

Why do people have so little love for muskets?

I agree. Muskets are pretty darn good general defenders, but also importantly, they perform well attacking cities that have been softened with catapults/trebuchets.

And, of course, they are draftable.

Why do people have so little love for muskets?

Mainly because most Civ players go on the offensive and use Macmen for their City Raider promotions. Though Musketmen are better defenders and Musketeers get that great 2 Movement.

Though Musketmen have one great advantage, they cannot be pillaged away and can be built even if you never had iron/copper to begin with.

However I had bronze but not iron (and also didn't have horses or elephants).

This here explains your problem. It wasn't just the lack of iron, but the lack of ivory and horses. These could have given you a chance.

But yeah, having to wait until Chemistry is most often way too hard without those three resources if you are on a continent with other civs. Bronze is quite useless when Iron is just one tech away (even though it is quite expensive early in the game). Swordsmen are useful in many instances in the game early on so I barely even build axemen and research Bronze and Iron in succession if I can.

Mainly because most Civ players go on the offensive and use Macmen for their City Raider promotions.

I do that too. Thing is trebs do such a good job taking down defences in Warlords that it doesn't really matter if you attack with maces afterward.
Also its good to have a bunch of muskets in your offensive stack, so that it doesnt get eaten by crossbows/shock elephants etc.


Musketeers get that great 2 Movement.

Musketeers are fabulous :) You forget about janissaries, though, which are the best medieval unit.


Though Musketmen have one great advantage, they cannot be pillaged away and can be built even if you never had iron/copper to begin with.
They have two: They can also be drafted and a drafted musket is more versatile than a drafted mace, since macemen have counters (crossbows etc.) in that age.

This may seem like a stupid question, but why didn't you go get them? If I'm missing one of those 'necessary' resources, I would have completely focused on getting them.

I haven't been able to play the turtle game in Civ IV.

Aoxo

I do that too. Thing is trebs do such a good job taking down defences in Warlords that it doesn't really matter if you attack with maces afterward.
Also its good to have a bunch of muskets in your offensive stack, so that it doesnt get eaten by crossbows/shock elephants etc.

Yeah, Muskets help there. Though War Elephants can help to stop Crossbows

Musketeers are fabulous :) You forget about janissaries, though, which are the best medieval unit.

That I did.

They have two: They can also be drafted and a drafted musket is more versatile than a drafted mace, since macemen have counters (crossbows etc.) in that age

Macemen can also be drafted. Very few people attack with Crossbows and when your drafting your usually on the defence. Though Muskets get those yummy City Garrison promotions, so it evens out. Point, Muskets.

People always forget the main advantage of muskets... Your Muskets could be given Formation, while your opponent would not have Pinch available.

Wodan

Iron is of course important. But so is diplomacy, as has been mentioned!!!

If you have copper and no iron, as I see it you have a couple of options.

1) Conquer an early opponent with axes/spears (add catapults if necessary) and hopefully that will give you iron

2) Build/conquer a mid-sized empire, use diplomacy, and tech to gunpowder units (you said no horses, so that means grenadiers!!!). Muskets/grens/cannons/rifles can handle pretty much any threat and I would suggest teching them in that order.

But, definitely, you cannot neglect diplomacy as someone else mentioned, you should not be getting DoW'd on by saladin and hc (could it have been a holy war??? that's the only thing that makes sense to me here). It's not like we're talking about Shaka (aggressor) and Bismark (dogpiler).