Playing prince level. What do you do? When something like that happens.

Ocean to the west, ragnar to the east. 3 cities. No military resources. 1 horse way down south surrounded by complete artic tundra.

Would you restart?

No.

I'd play to the bitter end, you'd be surprised how much you can learn that way. Often, the most valuable lesson is that you will find a lot more success than you originally anticipated, often to the point where you come out on top.

One thing I've learned is that longbowmen and catapults together make an effective war machine, particularly if you're protective, and especially if you're Wang Kon.

what promos do you give the longbowmen, drill?

Suck up to Ragnar and stab him in the back later.

what promos do you give the longbowmen, drill?

Drill for the primary attackers (easy to get to drill III and then upgrade to IV from combat) with a few strength/cavalry upgraded longbows mixed in for dealing with horse archers... Also throw in a few heavily city garrison upgraded guys to watch your stacks as you move. Generally though, mostly drill with a variety of others to mix up stack variety - remember, your longbows basically have to fill in for spearmen, swordsmen, and axemen. The biggest strength of longbows is that they have no real counter, unless other units - you've jsut got to upgrade them smartly so that they can fill a variety of wells reasonably well.

The upside to this attack method is A) no resources, B) if you focus more on city hopping than field warfare, you will see enemies just smashing themselves against your fortified longbows. The downside is that it tends to take more catapults - of course, since your stack will likely be a bit of a defensive nutshell, you should be able to cut your losses at other points in the offensive.

Overall, it's not optimal, but it works much better than you'd expect.

One thing I've learned is that longbowmen and catapults together make an effective war machine, particularly if you're protective, and especially if you're Wang Kon.

wang kon of NA, of course...

wang kon of NA, of course...

I only play restricted leaders, but if I were to go unrestricted, Hwacha and those deliciously ridiculous longbows would make me forgot macemen existed :)

No iron either :(? I would strongly consider a restart then :p

Did Ragnar grab it or was the map just stupid?

Never ever give up, as already stated you will be surprised how much you can learn, also if you go to war and get some terriorty that can lead to other benefits.

Plus if you happen to hang in there and progress things seem to snowball, if things go badly then the end will be short and sweet

I only play restricted leaders, but if I were to go unrestricted, Hwacha and those deliciously ridiculous longbows would make me forgot macemen existed :)

How would you have Hwacha as Native America? :confused:
I also don't play with unrestricted leaders, it always seems like I'm cheating or playing with a mod, I love my good ol civ4 no gimmicks, even if it's flawed.

Playing prince level. What do you do? When something like that happens.

Ocean to the west, ragnar to the east. 3 cities. No military resources. 1 horse way down south surrounded by complete artic tundra.

Would you restart?

build some ships pack em with settlers and longbowman and make all ofyour cities produce longbowmen and then just send them to the best city leaving the other 2 empty that way you dont really have to woory about be eliminated.

How would you have Hwacha as Native America? :confused:
I also don't play with unrestricted leaders, it always seems like I'm cheating or playing with a mod, I love my good ol civ4 no gimmicks, even if it's flawed.

He he, oh yeah, I guess you wouldn't have Hwacha... Well, like I said, I don't play unrestricted, so it didn't occur to me that you wouldn't keep the special unit ;)

And yeah... There have always been "overpowered" trait combos in Civs... And there are "overpowered" leader/civ combos in Civ. If I'm playing unrestricted, it's probably to get a set of abilities above and beyond what is readily available regularly. If I want an easy game like that, I'll go down a difficulty, not put Darius with the Holy Romans or Boudica with the Romans or something...

yeah I'd go with drill archers and then try to get other fitting promotions that come after drill like cover and shock depending on the enemy. You'll have barbs to level up on soon so by the time you fight ragnar you'll be strong. Or you could just wait until gunpowder.

I've been in spots like this. I typically go for AH for an early chariot rush. Then I'll go for bronzeworking. If I don't have horse or copper, then slave/chop a dozen or so archers and try and get your nearest foe who HAS resources out of the picture.

If he already has axemen, you waited too long.

If I was in such a scenario, where I waited too long, and Ragnar was near me, I'd butt kiss him to friendly. Wait until rifling, and then start making military moves. Even if you're defensive, you can still stay high enough on the power graph with just archery units to stave off attacks.

Chariots aren't that useful because the enemy usually sends a few spearmen to protect his axemen, and archers perform just as well against axemen when defending cities.

When I have no copper and I'm facing an impending axeman rush I beeline Iron Working and hold out with archers until then. A couple of spare chariots are nice for picking off unprotected axemen, but my enemies -even AI controlled ones- have virtually always been intelligent enough to stack axemen with spearmen. So you won't be able to rout the enemy with them.

Personally, I have never thought the mounted units were that great with the sole exception of cavalry.

why would cavalry be any better than the other mounted units? Seems like cuirassiers are the best because you could get them before anyone else gets rifling. catapracts are even better.

Anyway, i find it hard to keep up in the power graph with only archers, is that thing based on the strength of your units, or just the number of them?

If you're playing as Native America (I think somebody said you were) then you've got dog soldiers - which don't require copper or iron to build. No need to stick with archery and siege units only.

Myself, I'd try to placate Ragnar as much as possible and beeline for gunpowder.

no iron, copper, horses, ragnar is 12 squares away (with axes)

Is it monday, just coincidally?

Chariots aren't that useful because the enemy usually sends a few spearmen to protect his axemen, and archers perform just as well against axemen when defending cities.

When I have no copper and I'm facing an impending axeman rush I beeline Iron Working and hold out with archers until then. A couple of spare chariots are nice for picking off unprotected axemen, but my enemies -even AI controlled ones- have virtually always been intelligent enough to stack axemen with spearmen. So you won't be able to rout the enemy with them.

Personally, I have never thought the mounted units were that great with the sole exception of cavalry.

If you wait long enough for them to train multiple axes, archers, AND spearmen, then you've waited too long.

My goal is usually to have the first AI I destroy to only have one city, and at most two archers. My hopes for the second AI I kill is to have no more than three cities, with archers only in the first city, perhaps one or two archers in the second city.

If I get things wired up right, I'll go after a third civ if it's close enough with war chariots or immortals.

Anyway, i find it hard to keep up in the power graph with only archers, is that thing based on the strength of your units, or just the number of them?

I believe strength of unit is a factor. Doing batch upgrades to redcoats or similar seems to generate a pleasant spike in the power graph.

B

My goal is usually to have the first AI I destroy to only have one city, and at most two archers. My hopes for the second AI I kill is to have no more than three cities, with archers only in the first city, perhaps one or two archers in the second city.

If I get things wired up right, I'll go after a third civ if it's close enough with war chariots or immortals.

Just out of curiosity, how many chariots do you build for your initial assault?

And how on earth do you manage to get a dozen archers (plus at least one worker) built up before the AI has already loaded his cities with axemen? Do you not build cities (Guess not if you're conquering them)?

Question do you have Ivory? If you do Elephants should Suffice but you require the HBR and Construction tech to build them.

Well it's a lesson for next time make sure you beeline to the key military techs when appropriate so you know where the key military resources are so you can settle them before the AI.

If you're just plain unlucky and have no Copper/horses/Iron/Ivory. Attack weakness & nearest Opponent who has the resource, generally only 1 resource that you can quickly pillage.

The other option is to kiss up and beeline gunpowder.

I'd probably kiss up, turtle and tech up. IME, a small empire can tech really fast if it's done right.

Possibly squeeze in another couple of marginal cities to get what you need for national wonders.

I'd probably try to grab the pyramids and run Rep - lots of specialists. Get a GPP farm up and running, bulb and settle specialists, go beurecracy and get an edge over him.

If necessary, wait for rifles and do him over with them. But muskets/longbows and siege gear could work if you get them early enough.

Just out of curiosity, how many chariots do you build for your initial assault?

Typically I'll start with 8. This is usually more than enough. Especially if you do it quick enough.