Archery - Do you use it?

TheMeInTeam said:

Times for archery:

- no strategic resources + lots of open land
- spawn near super warmonger and can abuse the hill defense to make them one of the best defensive options you posses
- Horse archers
- skirmishers
- HR garrison if you manage to hook metal and can't make warriors.

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And Babylonian Bowmen.


Archers, longbowmen, x-bowmen and their UUs with Hills2 are great at fortifing on your opponent's Strategic resourse, such as, Iron and depriving Rome of Preatorians.
The AI will waste production building units trying to dig yours out. If you are playing Celts, you can do this with a Gallic Warrior and Chariot.

And to the player who asked who has a good attack vs archers early, check Persian Immortals out again. They do very well, are cheap and move speed 2.

Only 2 times I get archery are:

1. Protective abuse
2. HA Rush

CHEESE! said:

Um, no. I suppose it's about 80-90% useless. When I start next to a warmonger, I will tech it. When I play as Mongolia or Mali, I will tech it. When I NEED to do a HA rush, I will tech it (but I rarely find myself doing that, perhaps it's a problem with my classical warfare .) I still war. And I still rush (usually with Axes or Chariots depending on my resources, but I don't rush mid-classical unless Mongolia or Rome/Aztec). I really don't see the connection there. I find Axes/Spears better for defence if I have Copper or Iron, when I don't I might tech Archery if I find my neighbours likely to attack me mid-classical.

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Without traits or promotions, an archer on a hill city is a stronger defender than an axe by a considerable degree, costs less , and has no hard counter. Hill archers and later longbows are objectively the best city defenders and fight at a strength above units 1 era later unless the attacker has considerable siege help (doesn't sound like an AI).

Even without a hill they're comparable on the defensive side although you can't break pillaging and whatnot.

If you play the latest version of BetterAI, not teching archery on Immortal = Death. The AI will kill you, even on Emperor it's a serious gamble. Not sure about base BtS, been far too long since I've played it. I should give diety a go; if you can get away with skipping archery and Rexing, it sounds like vanilla BtS diety is about as hard as Emperor with BBAI 1.02.


For those interested in a more challenging AI, check out Fuyu's Better Bug AI mod. All you do is download and install, and it's ready to play, and it's just BtS with a smarter AI and some nice interface improvements, but no gameplay changes:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=354019

phungus420 said:

If you play the latest version of BetterAI, not teching archery on Immortal = Death. The AI will kill you, even on Emperor it's a serious gamble. Not sure about base BtS, been far too long since I've played it. I should give diety a go; if you can get away with skipping archery and Rexing, it sounds like vanilla BtS diety is about as hard as Emperor with BBAI 1.02.


For those interested in a more challenging AI, check out Fuyu's Better Bug AI mod. All you do is download and install, and it's ready to play, and it's just BtS with a smarter AI and some nice interface improvements, but no gameplay changes:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=354019

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Bah, on immortal you can be dead from a DoW anyway with BBAI, all it takes is them having metal and you not having it. If they don't like their odds vs your city, they just run around pillaging everything. I've seen a BBAI AI blow by 3 cities on a pillage rampage until I whipped out enough axes. On monarch. I'm not sure how one could recover on immortal if they can't block that, aka don't have metal and put SERIOUS effort into unit production such that you can actually attack their stack in the field with success.

While archers are better vs axes and spears in the field than warriors, I do not see how a human can produce enough archers to reliably kill say 6-8 axes in their territory on flatlands, the cost would be enormous.

IMO that kind of play is a step in the right direction, given we see it from humans. However, it is not conducive to a fun game to stack stock BTS bonuses of that caliper onto BBAI, which actually knows how to plan for victories other than culture, manages tiles better, BURNS your cities, and is a lot smarter about taking vassals.

Well to be honest I've never beat the current BBAI version on immortal, and in my experience, unless you're a civ that starts with mining and you get lucky with copper close by, even on emperor level the AI will kill you on Emperor if you skip archery. But I know there are players that are far better then me, so I figure a top level player could probably get away with skipping archery below immortal. Not sure though, I just don't believe ANY player could beat BBAI on immortal by skipping archery, I just don't think it's possible. You're probably right that BBAI should also reduce the AI starting bonuses, but part of jdog's design phillosophy of BBAI is no rules changes, so it's kind of moot. I also know you can win without metal early on Emperor if you get archery (it's hairy, but certainly possible), I know because I have done it, and while I'm very good at Civ, I'm not one of the best. I suppose I just assume that a player of your caliber could tackle Immortal without early metal if you got archery, since I can get away with that on Emperor and I consider you to be a better player then me. You may be right though, it very well may be impossible.

I guess my point was that the whole skipping archery assertion in the OP requires stock BtS, and relies on holes in AI logic, holes that have been effectively plugged in BBAI. I've read some of the strategies for Diety play and whatnot, and most of the time when I read them I think to myself, "That would never work for me, since the AI will kill me". It's amazing how much the game changes with a few minor changes and bug fixes to AI decision making.

Actually this has got me thinking. TMIT, any chance you could do a strategy write up for an Immortal/Diety game using the current Better BUG AI mod? I'd love to see how Immortal+ can be tackled with BBAI, since I've yet to succede at it.

If you can set up a diplo scenario where you're not toast, then you can get by without it. The problem is that BBAI makes a weakness read more reliably.

Jdog has already changed gameplay "rules" via barb galley logic and a few others things IIRC, although IMO tweaking difficulty is not within the scope of BBAI - the whole point of the project (at least as I understand it) is to make a competitive AI without its bonuses (or to minimize its need for them).

I'm not sure it's possible to block a dedicated warmonger BBAI on high levels w/o metal, just because adequate city defenses cause it to avoid attacking you directly :/. Getting locked into 50 turns of tiles pillaged on immortal isn't something you recover from if it happens early...you lose out on city sites, tech rate (including ability to stay in the trade game), GPP window, and the ability to produce more units. Even if that DoW isn't a KO, if they actually just choke/pillage with a bunch of axes there's really nothing you can do without strategic resources or something like malinese/native america.

I was on the wrong end of that in a MP game with a friend who couldn't even beat monarch consistently when I was at immortal. He spawned BFC capitol copper and axe rushed me. If he didn't get antsy and attack too soon (losing all of his units) I'd have lost. There's just no way to cost-effectively deal with a row of axes using archers on flatlands, and once you're pillaged that's it...choked until catapults when you die. BBAI doesn't execute that PERFECTLY, but it could easily be enough to be an "effective gg".

phungus420 said:

Actually this has got me thinking. TMIT, any chance you could do a strategy write up for an Immortal/Diety game using the current Better BUG AI mod? I'd love to see how Immortal+ can be tackled with BBAI, since I've yet to succede at it.

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Just bumping so that you notice this post, which you ninjad.

Darth Fred said:

It's good for defense early on and can be upgraded to long bowmen. First strike is nice too.
F

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Well it's for early defenses for someone who doesn't have iron or cooper, and archery units have a defensiv bonus, but i dont actualy use them much at all!!!

I'll do it if I'm playing Native Americans or (sometimes) Mali. I suppose Babylonia, too, if I ever played as them, often if I'm playing a Protective leader. Otherwise it can wait a while, though it's helpful if you're having happiness problems.