My latest game on Noble as the Romans was an abysmal failure - I started out on a peninsula and was quickly blocked from my main landmass by Gilgamesh's first two cities. I couldn't take them because I never found any copper or iron, although I ended up with about 7 or 8 cities and a fairly developed infrastructure. The map size was 'tiny' so I could not prevent my neighbor from wanting to take over my land pretty soon. By the time I was invaded around 1000 AD, I knew it it was over (my warriors, longbowmen and catapults vs Gilgamesh's chariots, horse archers, vultures and warriors).

What should I have done? I forget whether or not macemen require metal - that was my next hope. If that is the case and I had bee-lined for those, I might have been able to build up enough defense to take a city or two on the counter-attack even without swordsmen. Other than that, I'm stumped.

Also, I built mines everywhere but never discovered copper or iron.

P.S. I'm also confused as to the point of a navy prior to the Renaissance era - I can't cross oceans, carry settlers or bombard cities, so what do I do, pillage sea improvements and use triremes to stop my enemy from doing the same? I could have built up a navy but I'm not sure what I would have done with it as I had no decent land units to transport.

Since you're playng on noble I assume you're approx my skill lvl in this game.
I'd look for horses and/or elephants.
If none of those were available I would also have failed.
With horse only it's a tough gamble going with HA, chariots and cats.
No I don't use bows as offense (and seldom as defence).

If you get no copper, iron, horses or ivory (which is quite rare), you can still use lbows+cats. They are vetry good defenders and you can even go to offence with them. I really don't see how "chariots, horse archers, vultures and warriors" can beat lbows+cats. Either you was hopelessly outnumbered (in which case the metals wouldn't help you much anyway) or your war tacticts need some serious improvement.

Well, longbowmen are a very solid defense. If your cities didn't have so much culture, you could have built some walls near border and catapults. Catapults are not only good for offense but for defense as well, you can damage his stack and with longbows clean it up. You said you had good infrastructure, did you had good military too? With longbows (and my capital on a hill) I could survive on an OCC, immortal game, small Pangaea, high sea level, 18 AI. I lost because the AI launched but they could not take my city. Just forget about cottages on the border, build them inside your territory.

If metal was near your border but on Gilgamesh territory, you could have tried to take his city with cats/archers or cats/longbows. The alternative is get Gunpower ASAP, and then attack.

Since you had 7 cities already you could have teched to rifles then fight your way out. In the meantime defend with longbows, best defender in the game till muskets/rifles.

Gilga is a tough AI to take on when he gets a block on you. His UU is early, and being PRO makes his garrison units strong, and CRE makes it very hard to out-culture him.

I make BW a massive priority, and generally want my 2nd city to claim the Copper. If there is none, then its AH for horses, and if I draw another blank, IW must be teched ASAP. If you get truly unlucky, then you may be forced to use a Galley with a Settler and Archer on it to find a resource.

If I had no horsies or cooper, i would had never betted on iron ( even with Preats ). a lot of investement and your empire defended by warriors :rolleyes: .I would had asssumed that I had no specials and gone directly to construction: enough cats with something ( even archers ) to mop up kill anything in the way. LBows + cats work extremely well as attacking units , even with tech parity.

Mass catapults beat anything, as long as you protect them from counterattack by those pesky horse archers.

Trebuchets will take a city slightly faster than catapults.

Yea no iron, copper or horses is very rare indeed. Im pretty sure in 95% of my games I get either copper or horses in a reasonable spot to settle, and I've never had a game where I didnt get horses/copper/iron/ivory at all.

Im pretty sure Id flat out lose anything Immortal or above given those conditions (or restart out of frustration). That being said, muskets/longbows + catupults/trebs should be able to reasonably deal with most enemies on noble (all they really build is tons of archers in their cities?).

Maybe try Monarchy + Oracle = Feudalism -> Vassalage + Longbow Gambit? :confused:

Tech to gunpowder. Though 7 cities on a tiny map sounds like enough.

Mass catapults beat anything, as long as you protect them from counterattack by those pesky horse archers.

Trebuchets will take a city slightly faster than catapults.

Neither of those do much good without units that can actually kill the defenders as of BtS. :)

Neither of those do much good without units that can actually kill the defenders as of BtS. :)

Eh after you've used cats to take them down to 25% health pretty much anything can kill them. Even warriors, maybe.

No metals is not that drastic of a problem IMO. As has been said, enough siege means death to any AI units. I recently did a skirmisher rush with mansa musa even though my opponent had hooked up iron. With about ten cats, nothing could stop the skirmishers (it would have worked just as well with archers). I would maybe lose 1-2 cats then the rest would easily retreat. I never lost a single skirmisher.
The same thing can be done later with a steel beeline. Just crank out an SOD of cannons backed up by muskets. You will not lose units, even if opponent gets gunpowder.

To answer the OP's other Q's:
Yes, macemen require copper or steel.
Yes, a navy can be useful early on as galleys can transport any 2 units. This might have helped you find metal. Also, pillaging workboats can be extremely helpful in some situations. (eg. enemy capital is far, don't plan to take it right away, or just want to prevent an enemy city from whipping too many defenders while your troops march in. Also, don't forget to defend your own workboats.)
I am fairly certain that you only have a chance of discovering stuff (gold, gems, metals) with mines if they are currently being worked. Building them in places where they are not being worked does nothing (I think, can anyone confirm?).

If you post a save perhaps we could give more advice.

As has been mentioned above, Cats plus longbowman should have been good enough for Defense until you get gunpowder. Once you hit gunpowder your lack of metal is no longer an issue.

Also keep in mind that longbowman will destroy the other guys defenders if you soften them up with catapults. There is no hard counter to longbowman, so feel free to use them offensively, as long as you soften up their defense stack by bombing their defenses then reducing the stack to 25% health you should be fine.

To see how really effective this can be try a game where your sitting bull and do an oracle slingshot to feudalism. Then go on the attack with your 2nd lvl first strike longbowmen (they also get City Defender because your defensive) and see how effective they can be offensively. All this on a unit that requires no resources. Also if you do the slingshot early enough, you don't need to worry about

If I had no horsies or cooper, i would had never betted on iron ( even with Preats ). a lot of investement and your empire defended by warriors :rolleyes: .I would had asssumed that I had no specials and gone directly to construction: enough cats with something ( even archers ) to mop up kill anything in the way. LBows + cats work extremely well as attacking units , even with tech parity.

It's a gamble that can be compared to buying a lottery ticket...

The advantage of Horses and Copper over Iron is that the techs used to find them are far more versatile. Bronze Working not only finds Copper, but allows Slavery and chopping. Animal Husbandry not only finds Horses, but also allows Pasture building.

Iron Working, on the other hand, besides finding Iron, has the very specialized role of clearing jungles. In most cases it's not a justification of the cost of the tech. At that point in the tech tree, there are usually far better options. If you have Gems buried in the jungle, on the other hand, you might want to give it serious consideration.

^^I was clearly stating this situation ( the OP one ):

BW researched: No cooper

AH researched: No horses.

I'm bottlenecked = I've a chokepoint in which defending gives me a advantage.

IMHO it is a far better move to get archers, defend in the chokepoint if needed and tech towards construction for cats ( collateral damage pwns anything in this game ), a path that gives me some good buildings to make than betting on the resource lottery ( you can win big time if you have iron ( OP is roman ) , but you're probably screwed if you don't have it, because you don't have nothing to attack and no city infrastructure )

Mass catapults beat anything, as long as you protect them from counterattack by those pesky horse archers.

Trebuchets will take a city slightly faster than catapults.


That's why the offensive power of a Protective-based army cannot be underestimated. It's an army that moves slowly but surely.

The Catapult is arguably more cost-effective than both Axemen and Swordsmen. Charismatic is the only trait that can enhance Catapults, but it would need a few successful battles before a concrete advantage is gained. However, their power is not based on winning battles, but sacrificing themselves to help the next attackers win their battles. Therefore, everyone gets equal Catapults, for the most part.

Defensive units, on the other hand, are greatly enhanced by the Protective trait. In this thread we're discussing resourceless units, which include the Catapult and the Longbowman. Catapults are clearly the offensive units and Longbowmen the defensive units.

Longbowmen are not offensive, per se, but they can protect the Catapults that are in the same stack. And that's why the Protective trait elevates the status of the Longbowman unit to an offensive unit.

If you get no copper, iron, horses or ivory (which is quite rare), you can still use lbows+cats.

I believe that crossbows require iron, do they not?

As for the OP, I would think that without any strategic resources, you'll want to beeline to gunpowder to get muskets/grenadiers/rifles up as soon as possible.

siege + whatever or tech to rifles if you don't have horses or ivory. if you have horses or ivory you can still be alright.

The same thing can be done later with a steel beeline. Just crank out an SOD of cannons backed up by muskets. You will not lose units, even if opponent gets gunpowder.

.

Cannons require iron iirc

7-8 cities on a tiny map is definitely enough. You could have just massed longbows and catapults to get your power rating up. That would have kept the AI from attacking or at least given you a fighting chance against whatever it sent your way. With that many cities you should have been able to out-tech the AI and then it's up to you what victory to go for.

I'm not too keen on early 'navies' so much as a couple galleys or triremes. Two early ships per isolated coastline (ie one for your east coast and one for your west coast on a continent that stretches to both poles..) are enough to keep barbarian galleys from pillaging your seafood. You want two in case one dies. Workboats are also really useful for discovering other civs early on since they're available so early and move relatively quickly.

I think Daedal sums up the majority of the responses pretty well. It seems that if I had built about twice as many units (within my power, but I used too much time to tech) I could have crushed Gilgamesh's offensive with few losses and counter-attacked to seize iron.

I don't think I had horses either (just pigs, cows and LOTS of clams) but I probably would have been OK with a ton of catapults and longbowmen until I got rifles. I'll try that next time I have the misfortune to miss both axemen and praetorians :(

:rockon: Make your own metal. :rockon:

Playing for a resource-dependent UU is very risky. I'd suggest that it is worthwhile to go for Iron Working early, but not at the expense of early economic/worker techs. How good was your early scouting? If you found some unclaimed iron on the coast (though unlikely on a tiny map) or even up a river from the coast, it would be a good idea to send a settler with an archer on a galley to settle on top of it, even if it is a long way away. Praets are definitely worth a bit of extra maintenance cost. If there is none to be had then you'd better change your plans ASAP. I would agree with Daedal - cats and longbows until you get gunpowder.

Other than that, I'd say you did pretty well to get as far as you did after getting boxed in by a CRE/PRO leader with no metal. That's harsh.

LBs with specialized promos (shock/cover) can be quite effective on offense.

Get on good enough terms with Gilgy to buy Iron from him then kill him with with catapults and praetorians.

Also keep in mind that longbowman will destroy the other guys defenders if you soften them up with catapults. There is no hard counter to longbowman, so feel free to use them offensively, as long as you soften up their defense stack by bombing their defenses then reducing the stack to 25% health you should be fine.

To see how really effective this can be try a game where your sitting bull and do an oracle slingshot to feudalism. Then go on the attack with your 2nd lvl first strike longbowmen (they also get City Defender because your defensive) and see how effective they can be offensively. All this on a unit that requires no resources. Also if you do the slingshot early enough, you don't need to worry about

I agree, but I would add that in sufficient numbers and a tech lead, you can take out AIs with just longbows -- catapults aren't strictly necessary if you move quickly. I did this recently with Liz against Willem. I was building 5 xp longbows (usually with Combat I and Cover, or Drill II). I would lose a couple here and there, but was able to mow down everything Willem had (archers and mixed infantry), even in hilltop cities.

As you say, doing the longbow strategy as Sitting Bull is even better as you can get to 10xp with barracks + totem pole + vassalage + theocracy.

Having some suicide cats would probably make the longbow stack go faster, but then again you have to research masonry + math + construction to make that happen.

http://elliottback.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2006/11/in-your-base-04.jpg

Get on good enough terms with Gilgy to buy Iron from him then kill him with with catapults and praetorians.

Good point, but AFAIK the AI won't trade such an important resource unless they have some spare. And since the OP is playing on a tiny map, the chances of anyone having 2 iron are slim.

I agree, but I would add that in sufficient numbers and a tech lead, you can take out AIs with just longbows -- catapults aren't strictly necessary if you move quickly. I did this recently with Liz against Willem. I was building 5 xp longbows (usually with Combat I and Cover, or Drill II). I would lose a couple here and there, but was able to mow down everything Willem had (archers and mixed infantry), even in hilltop cities.

As you say, doing the longbow strategy as Sitting Bull is even better as you can get to 10xp with barracks + totem pole + vassalage + theocracy.

Having some suicide cats would probably make the longbow stack go faster, but then again you have to research masonry + math + construction to make that happen.

That's a nice thought, but unless you have a much better starting location than your rival, or are a Financial leader (which he isn't unless it's unrestricted, while you are in your example) then you are unlikely to have such a tech lead this early. Even if you do, you certainly won't have it for long enough to do any real damage, and for the cats you're teching Construction too. Plus the OP was up against the best defensive trait combo (CRE/PRO) which means you will need far superior numbers, even with longbows vs archers.


Jet - very funny, but not helpful.

By the time I was invaded around 1000 AD, I knew it it was over (my warriors, longbowmen and catapults vs Gilgamesh's chariots, horse archers, vultures and warriors).
Obviously he could have had an army ten times bigger than yours, but otherwise you aren't at any particular disadvantage here. Longbows aren't worse than either of those units.

I would have disbanded any Warriors (except one per city) pronto (they cost maintenance, and unless heavily promoted not worthwhile to keep around for when you do get your hands on a metal), building Longbows instead that I'd give various promotions to better combat any attacking units.

As has been said previously, with Construction you have everything you need. Yes, Longbows & Catapults are fine conquerers.

Axes and Swords are just icing on the cake - having metals is nice, but not essential like Oil.

Neither of those do much good without units that can actually kill the defenders as of BtS. :)
Yes, once you've thrown, say, 10 Catapults at a city and every single defender is in the red, then you can simply take that city with whatever escorts you have at hand.

One mistake often made by beginners is not bringing along a big enough army. This means the war drags on longer than it has to: too few catapults mean longer bombardment times, and possibly that some defenders escape relatively unharmed, thus you risk losing attacking units to them, and too few city invaders (macemen, longbows, spears, what have you) often means you can't take a city in a single turn because there's more defenders than attackers, which is bad because remaining defenders will gain XP and heal up, and you give the AI room to send reinforcements.

So if you set out to conquer three cities, two smaller ones with three defenders each and one capital with six defenders; your invading army should consist of around ten-twelve escorts (that double as city attackers) and probably around ten Cats/Trebs.

Why twelve attackers and not six? Because the AI will have time to whip more defenders (and move in reinforcements)!

Once you have "enough" Cats or Trebs you will realize that your escorts are seldom attacked. That means, once the war has started, you should ideally find that you only need to build Cats/Trebs to replace those that die (and die they will!).

Civ is perhaps surprising in that regard - almost all your casualties in a (good) war are siege units!

To see how really effective this can be try a game where your sitting bull and do an oracle slingshot to feudalism. Then go on the attack with your 2nd lvl first strike longbowmen (they also get City Defender because your defensive) and see how effective they can be offensively. All this on a unit that requires no resources. Also if you do the slingshot early enough, you don't need to worry about

Even better, try that with a Civ with an unrelated UU (such as India, or Germany).

Otherwise you might miss the point: Catapults plus anything can conquer any civ!

(...that's approximately as advanced as you! For example, due to the new use of Flanking, once he gets Knights, your siege units start taking unacceptable damage unless you can properly shield them, such as with War Elephants)

http://elliottback.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2006/11/in-your-base-04.jpg

:rotfl:

I never thought I would see the day when something would make me stoop to using that smiley, but... I really had no choice. :lol:

Bostock