Yes, of course, there are counters for these units, such as catapults to lower their defenses and certain units good against archers, but seriously, I find archers on hills in cities to be extremely annoying and too powerful. It's nearly useless to attack with 4 strength units that have +50% against archers. It'd take 3-4 of these units to bring one archer down, and if a city has 3 archers, I'm looking at aprox 12 units with +50% against archers to take a hill city down, and that's not even counting city walls.

Maybe I'm simply not a very good player or I'm just not fond of the combat system in Civ4, but when an AI has a tendency to spam build units like nuts it's a bit insane how many units it can take to bring a city down. Archers are so easy to build, for example, and on a hill they are like machines. In my current game my civ is 4 times as large as my enemy, but just because they have their 3 cities all on hills, I can still barely touch them.

Am I missing something here or is it really supposed to take 12+ units to bring 3 archers down?

Yep. War of attrition, my friend. Pillage all improvements around cities, slowly grind their defenders down as well as their population (since they'll be whipping new archers) and eventually the cities will be yours.


EDIT: Forgot something else very important: foment unhappiness with spies. That'll bring their defenses down to zero in an instant and they won't be able to whip new defenders.

Lots of suicide catapults is the only answer :p
Try having Sitting bull building cities on a hill with longbows.... :( (that is a nightmare :cry:)

Yep. War of attrition, my friend. Pillage all improvements around cities, slowly grind their defenders down as well as their population (since they'll be whipping new archers) and eventually the cities will be yours.


EDIT: Forgot something else very important: foment unhappiness with spies. That'll bring their defenses down to zero in an instant and they won't be able to whip new defenders.

It's incite city revolt, not forment unhappiness.

Oh "Archer class" units, and terrorist spies in consecutive threads. I'm in pet peeve heaven (or hell);)

A CGII Longbow, fortified on a hill city with ZERO defence, has a winning chance of 40.8% vs a combat I Rifle....

Against an Rifleman!

Archers and Longbows were evidently originally designed, so that cities were easy to defend for a "builder" player, who wanted to keep a smaller army. Imo opinion, this was way over the top for hill cities from the start, and this has been exacberated be Protective civs, and many game changes.

A CGII (which is a very basic barracks built, one barb earned promotion) Archer, sitting fortified for 5 turns on a city / hill with 30% culture def, has his basic str of 3 PLUS 200%. That makes him better than a CRI Maceman. A CGII longbow in the same situation but with a rather basic by that time 40% culture def, will completely outclass a Rifleman (he'll win 74.3% of the time), and will beat an Infantry almost 3 out of 10 times.

An Infantry!

Don't misunderstand me, Im quite a defensive player, and use all this to my advantage too.

Doesn't make it right..............

well they are improving a little bit, at least you don't lose a tank to them anymore. You may be close to as well off, depending on promotions even better maybe, if you never promote your longbowmen.

That's what catapults are for!

A CGII (which is a very basic barracks built, one barb earned promotion) Archer, sitting fortified for 5 turns on a city / hill with 30% culture def, has his basic str of 3 PLUS 200%. That makes him better than a CRI Maceman. A CGII longbow in the same situation but with a rather basic by that time 40% culture def, will completely outclass a Rifleman (he'll win 74.3% of the time), and will beat an Infantry almost 3 out of 10 times.


As much as I hate to say this if you are expecting any unit that is not at least two era's ahead to be able to beat something that is fortified without taking the defenses down with a siege unit first you realy get what you deserve.
I say this while frequently getting what I deserve in games mind you :mischief:

On the other hand if you hit them up with fully promoted city raider siege units after taking the defenses down you can clean up the city defenders with units that are one or two era's behind the unit in question loose few siege units and keep your city killing stack rolling easily.

I make the same mistake all the time I underprioritize the siege units all the time but they are the key. Build more siege than you do attacking units or at least as many.

I was using cannon against grenadiers, muskets and entrenchecd longbows and then cleaning up with maces and even swords, the promotions are key and siege is key.

Again I hate to say it but the system is fair for the most part.
I want the wins with out needing to take down the defenses as well but it is just not the way the combat model works.

Riflemen and Infantry aren't supposed to attack cities

a fortified CG 1 Musket on a hill city with no defense has str = 1.7 * 9= 15.3 stronger than a Rifleman

You need to use Melee/Siege/Tank units to attack cities

or a Riflemen/Grenadier/Infantry that was promoted from a CR unit

a CR 2 Rifleman v. that CG 2 longbow in a hill city with 40% defense is
14 v. 12.3

much better than 74% odds (although still not good because you didn't knock down the defense)
remove the defense (with a catapult even)
and its
14 v. 9.9

Actually, when you played Mansa, no need to delete those CG2 skirmishers and don't bother to upgrade them. Those little spear-throwing buggers (and they called them archery units) can handle any cold-weapon units and can still put up a decent fight vs riflemen when fortified on hilled cities. For a handful of hammers (25), you've got something on par of musketman when used as city defenders. This is the best buy in the game IMHO.

^ they are NOT on per with a Musket

For a fortified unit in a city on a hill, (no defense/promotions)

Musket= 15.75
Longbow=13.5
Skirmisher=10
Archer=7.5

additional promotions favor the Musket > Longbow >Skirmisher>Archer because it has more base strength

Riflemen and Infantry aren't supposed to attack cities

a fortified CG 1 Musket on a hill city with no defense has str = 1.7 * 9= 15.3 stronger than a Rifleman

You need to use Melee/Siege/Tank units to attack cities

or a Riflemen/Grenadier/Infantry that was promoted from a CR unit

a CR 2 Rifleman v. that CG 2 longbow in a hill city with 40% defense is
14 v. 12.3

much better than 74% odds (although still not good because you didn't knock down the defense)
remove the defense (with a catapult even)
and its
14 v. 9.9

this exact thing is what lead me to formulate my current warfare stratagey.
I was going to upgrade all my CRIII maces and swords to infrantry so and I was tyring to get ust a few more made so was holding off on Military science and Rifleing when I finaly had an epiphany, that it is better to prioritize the siege than it is the next era infrantry (ie axes, swords, maces, grendadires, rifles, infrantry are not nearly as important as Cats, trebs, cannon, airships, and artilery)
I think you are better off with older era infratry type units collecting the CR promotion for eventual (and it really can be a long ways off) upgrades to newer infratry, and more advanced and promoted siege tools. IE a CRIII treb is grat when teamed with even CRII or III wariors, as the trebs can take things down such with colateral damage that they will still win.. :cool:
You may still loose a few (it really only needs to be a few if you promte them enough) siege getting the initial stack defender down but *new tech discovery sound* you have discovered the Steam Roller :D

^ they are NOT on per with a Musket

For a fortified unit in a city on a hill, (no defense/promotions)

Musket= 15.75
Longbow=13.5
Skirmisher=10
Archer=7.5

additional promotions favor the Musket > Longbow >Skirmisher>Archer because it has more base strength

I was comparing a CG2 skirmishers to an unpromoted musketman in my previous post. I think it's around 12.5 vs 15.75, and additionally the skirmisher has 1-2FS. still not equal, but much closer. You may claim this is an unfair comparison, but in real game situations most people built skirmishers and draft muskets. So my point is if you play Mansa and run into a mid-game war and need some defenders just for border city protection, you don't have to automatically delete this "obsolete" units and waste a pop and 3 unhappiness to do this job. These primitive units can still be able to put up a good fight vs maceman, knights and even attacking muskets. Or you can move your muskets into the attack stack because they are much better field units. But the fact that a 25-hammer units can even compare to a unit more than 3 times as costly in a certain aspect is already amazing enough.

The following strategy works for me in the classical age when playing on Emperor.

1. Settle all your Great Generals in the city with the heroic Epic. Your best production city in the early era is your Capital, so that means building the Heroic Epic in it, along with the usual barracks + stable.

2. The units from your capital will therefore have higher promotions than units built in your other cities, and you must treat this elite group differently to your other units.

3. You must create a "mixed" force of elite attacking infantry troops. In other words just having 6 elite axe/sword is suicidal, if you don't have 3 spear to protect them when they are on the move. Concentrate on infantry until you have a reasonable sized force, before adding elite chariot/horse at a later stage.

4. Combine your elite units with those produced by your other cities. You can afford to lose these weaker troops, but you must not lose your elite units. Losing two elite troops in a city attack, is a very bad trade. Losing one is acceptable, (just).

5. The first thing to do is to locate and only attack those lowland cities that do not have walls. You won't have cats yet or spies, and walls are just to strong to attack without them.

6. Kill enemy units you bump into in the open with your elite units, and obviously pillage any bronze / iron / horses you discover.

7. Once you arrive at an unwalled lowland city, there may be one or two enemy defenders with high promotions inside it. Soften it slightly, by attacking them with the unprompted cannon fodder, before attacking the city with your elite units.

8. Leave defender type units in the captured city, (preferably a mix of elite defenders built in your capital and cannon fodder defenders built in your other cities). Do not leave any of your attacking army in the captured city.

8. Reinforce the attacking army, and repeat with another lowland unwalled city and your elite force will still be alive, and starting to gain promotions. Most of the cannon fodder in your attacking army that survive will also gain promotions.

9. Once you run out of easy unwalled lowland cites, move to the unwalled cities on hills, and repeat. Your attacking army will now be very specialised, and should be able to handle unwalled cites on hills, with relative ease.

10. Because you are keeping your elite attacking force alive, your capital city can happily churn out elite defenders for the cities you have captured, and you will only rarely need to produce a new elite attacker.

10. You basically have three choices with walled cities.
a) Spies = Very useful if you have the Great Wall, but they are less dependable than cats because spies are lost if discovered and they can fail their mission.
b) Cats = Guaranteed to do the job. Suggest you switch your capital to cat production, and concentrate on giving them collateral damage promotions.
c) Crossbow = Bit of a WTF moment for some of you, but if you tech straight to crossbow, they massively outclass all enemy units in the classical age. A small attack force of elite crossbows combined with your now elite attacking army will eat enemy walled lowland cities for breakfast on a 1:1 basis, (lose one elite attacker or crossbow per one defender sitting behind a wall). The loss ratio is almost the same for walled hill cities, as these are the very last cities you attack, and by now your few surviving elite troops and elite crossbowmen have gained so many promotions, the extra hill defence is not a problem. Needless to say, you will lose nearly all your elite attacking army by the time you are done, and you won't be able to field many crossbowmen at any one time.

11. Assuming you don't go the crossbow route, then the elite attacking force you nurtured and created in the classical age will still be alive and can be upgraded as you move into the medieval age. Needless to say, your cannon fodder in the medieval age is obviously cats and trebs rather than infantry troops.


Regards - Mr P

Nice guide, thanks!

Why does it seem they ALWAYS build their cities on hills? You need a pretty big stack of Quechas (long before catapults) to take one hill city with archers. :sad:

Riflemen and Infantry aren't supposed to attack cities
...
You need to use Melee/Siege/Tank units to attack cities


Except there is a long gap between melee units going obsolete and the arrival of tanks. Then you have nothing except siege units which can get the CR promotions. (Yes, its nice if you have old CR melee you can upgrade, but you can't count on basing your whole strategy around that).

Oh "Archer class" units, and terrorist spies in consecutive threads. I'm in pet peeve heaven (or hell);)

A CGII Longbow, fortified on a hill city with ZERO defence, has a winning chance of 40.8% vs a combat I Rifle....

Against an Rifleman!



Depends what you consider is the defination of a Rifleman, An american civil war rifleman would eat a longbowman alive due to the greater range of the rifles, however a redcoat era rifleman would most probably have been beaten into a pulp as the effective range of the weapons were approximately the same but the rate of fire of a longbow was at least twice that of a rifle (actually of course a musket) of that era.

Why does it seem they ALWAYS build their cities on hills?

Don't you? :D

Honestly, I've been feeling more and more that in Civ 4, quantity > quality. Don't worry about trying to create an attack force that will win with 0 losses, just create so many units that it doesn't matter if you lose a few. That strategy seems to work pretty well for Monty, anyway...

CATAPAULTS!

Take 3 Catapaults with collateral damage promotion 1 and two swordsmen with city raider 1, with 0% defenses you will take down any city with 2 archer defenders in one attack, and 3 or 4 defenders in two - nearly every time.

Ranged Artillery Matey! That's what you need!

Don't you? :D

For my secondary cities I will try to. But it seems hills are always 2+ moves away when I start. :mad:

Except there is a long gap between melee units going obsolete and the arrival of tanks. Then you have nothing except siege units which can get the CR promotions. (Yes, its nice if you have old CR melee you can upgrade, but you can't count on basing your whole strategy around that).


But you can base your whole strategy around Siege. Riflemen, Infantry, etc. are just there for stack defense, mop up, and reinforcing your new city

Oh "Archer class" units, and terrorist spies in consecutive threads. I'm in pet peeve heaven (or hell);)

A CGII Longbow, fortified on a hill city with ZERO defence, has a winning chance of 40.8% vs a combat I Rifle....

Against an Rifleman!

Archers and Longbows were evidently originally designed, so that cities were easy to defend for a "builder" player, who wanted to keep a smaller army. Imo opinion, this was way over the top for hill cities from the start, and this has been exacberated be Protective civs, and many game changes.

A CGII (which is a very basic barracks built, one barb earned promotion) Archer, sitting fortified for 5 turns on a city / hill with 30% culture def, has his basic str of 3 PLUS 200%. That makes him better than a CRI Maceman. A CGII longbow in the same situation but with a rather basic by that time 40% culture def, will completely outclass a Rifleman (he'll win 74.3% of the time), and will beat an Infantry almost 3 out of 10 times.

An Infantry!

Don't misunderstand me, Im quite a defensive player, and use all this to my advantage too.

Doesn't make it right..............

LOL I guess not but I think the game is fine the way it is especially into you also the collateral damage of Siege units, maybe we should give Archery units a 25% disadvantage vs gunpowder units (except Muskets) if it's still that bad.

Quechas, A Lot, FTW!

I think I did this the other day, but I can't remember if it was on a hill or not. It was against a protective leader so they all had city defense I and drill I. My Quechas were mostly from a Barracks so they had Combat 1 + Archery +25% (total vs. archers 125%).

I think my first one attacked with a combat success chance of 4.6%? It wasn't pretty but once those first strikes went by, when my Quchas got that club moving in close they eventually could wear them down! I think I lost 7/10 of my early rush Qeuchas against 2 archers....but it was worth it! ;)

I quickly realized that you never have too many artilleries. Build as many as you can, you basically only need the other units to guard the artillery, mop their damage and guard cities. Sent them all to attack first but expect to lose two or three of them for each cities, which is why you need to keep producing them. On the flip side, you'll never lose a regular unit. It is insanely powerful.

^^you should put them in separate stacks. 4-5 flanking horse archers can kill all the siege units.

Yeah but that is true for any stacks anyway, you're always better splitting them, if only to prevent collateral damage.