Crossbow vs. Trebuchet Rush for early aggression

Go melee(preferably knights):treb in 2:1 ratio is most effective. Castled cities take a long time to kill using xbows. Knights can be used to kill units and treb make quick work of cities. It is also better investment for the future because knights:trebs become Calv:artillery. Xbows becomes the useless gatlings. Only use xbows if you already have comps to upgrade into them. Never build xbows from scratch. There are better things to build at that moment.

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salocin097 said:

Mind you if you do it right farm 2 siege on barbs then use them with your army and you have some strong artillery. Idk if cats are a good idea for it but maybe trebuchets. Its the same reason you send a pair of archers early on to farm barbs and then on cities. I've also gotten into the habit of getting one 3 sight scout and a healing scout to make sieges really easy. B/c I like longbows haha. Also bringing a worker and having it walk one step fwd, shoot with longbows then bring it back under a military unit

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why farm trebs on barbs when treb tech is literally right beside armory tech?

Q: if I have armory, then can I get 30 more xp from barbs? Or no

salocin097 said:

Q: if I have armory, then can I get 30 more xp from barbs? Or no

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once a unit has 30 xp it can no longer get xp from any form of combat with barbarians

salocin097 said:

Like cavalry aren't usually used because people always build spears rather than swords.

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Swords suck. Most/all of the resource units suck.

Why build them when spears/pikes and archers/comps/xbows are at worst just as capable, and often are superior.

Such is the state of the game :/

Nares said:

Swords suck. Most/all of the resource units suck.

Why build them when spears/pikes and archers/comps/xbows are at worst just as capable, and often are superior.

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swords don't totally suck, and cost only 75 hammers (pikemen are 90, a 20% increase in cost, while only being 14% stronger). swords also come significantly faster.

...but they're off the beaten path on the opposite side of the tech tree from education (when education is probably the most important tech in the game), and pikemen are on a strong tech already (civil service=food) in addition to not needing to deviate whatsoever away from education. The bonus vs mounted (kinda niche, I can't remember the last time AI used knight spam vs me and pikes won't save you from stampy) is just icing on the triple stacked cake.

If the tech tree were rearranged such that beelining iron working didn't completely your science, and swords themselves were completely unaltered, swords would be significantly more viable.

So if swords and pikes were switched on the tree. Hmmm

salocin097 said:

So if swords and pikes were switched on the tree. Hmmm

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I wouldn't straight up switch them, a more drastic rearrangement would be necessary. Also, pikes are a medieval unit and swords are classical - that's an important distinction. Pikes are better because they require a significant amount of additional techs. If you simply open up the tech tree from agriculture and left click iron working, it's 3 techs; civil service is 11 techs.

I do think spears should go into pikes if we're being logical, but this game's tech tree has never been logical. If I had to make an initial plan for rearrangement I'd put bronze+ironworking as prereqs for civil service and move horseback riding elsewhere.

Medieval would need some work beyond that to make things still function reasonably, but I don't want to bother putting real thought into it when I'm just throwing out conjecture..

edit: also these ideas possibly make Rome way too strong because suddenly legion+ballista tech are both in line for civil service.. that's an issue lol

If you wait to build armory and then trebs, there's no way on standard speed to get range promotion in any respectable time before artillery. Usually I can build cats with 15xp and get 15 more just from incidental contact with barbs. Farming the remaining 70xp would take the pressure off of beelining dynamite. Beeline steam power instead.

Use both. why limit yourself?


Bows are great, you can xp farm to quickly get both logistics and range. Soon after comes march for super bowmen. Bowmen may not take cities as fast but they are often BETTER against units, so they're more versatile and don't have to setup--that's why players build them first--they are good defenders and can switch to decent offense. When you have a logistics CB's with that early range promotion you are pretty much unstoppable as long as the terrain suits it.

Siege are better against well-defended cities like those that build castles. They suck to take with a pure bowman assault and will kill many units due to their increased bombard power. Tradition gives them a 50% increase in bombard strength with a garrison on top of that. You'll lose way too many units if you sit there 5 turns whittling the city health down with archers. At minimum several meat-shields--at most almost all your melee fron-line and maybe even some of your bowmen due to knight rushes. At this point, siege are useful, as a few can end the same city, without logistics, in just 2 turns or so. So siege are more limited, but still great at quickly ending a powerful city (which is advised because they eat units quickly with a garrison and castle).

I usually have my standard 4-5 bowmen and early-on work to earn logistics (not range) first, maybe on a CS that I keep at war for years . Reason being double-xp after logistics. You'll have range too in no time just chopping through all the units the AI throws, and you don't need range to successfully defend a hill or city--the units come to you.

Then, when I am ready to start taking cities I'll build 2-3 cats (or trebs if I'm there) to accompany. Bowmen move in first with melee. Mow down defense. Take up position. Once I have meat shields to take heat, up march my siege the very next which will take down the city health in 1-2 turns. Archers can use their strength to destroy defending units which march up to try and rescue the city as they are much stronger used for this.

It's true the siege take longer to get the useful upgrades like +50% vs. cities, because they only get used for a couple shots even on strong cities. This is why you want to start with them having the 2 basic upgrades. I usually build them after I've at least built a barracks and later in the game. farming on cities works but is slow and you have to wait for the city to recover so non-ideal. Honestly though, you don't need siege to be amazing. They frequently get targeted by cities even with a distracting unit or by cavalry and cover distracts from the best upgrade path. You're better off making an armory city and just shooting for the first +50% vs. cities which is the very next level. Then just replace your losses. having 3 average siege to move around will capture a city in less time than 1 awesome one and is all you need.

Not yet mentioned, but danaphanous implied it. Trebs get a massive bonus against cities, which means two things: First, you need less trebs than xbows to drop a city, and second (the point not yet mentioned), in 1UPT the amount of firepower in a given area of tiles is also something to consider.

Hence, like danaphanous said, why not use both? If you have 5 tiles you can attack a city from, 4 xbows and 1 treb is going to be more effective than 5 xbows.

Also, if you have a lower number of siege, they still keep pace with experience. 1 or 2 siege units only need a fraction of the total amount of experience a group of 6 xbows would need.

But in regards to the original question, I personally in that situation would just build 2 or 3 trebs (or more specifically, catapults and then upgrade them once the tech finishes), then take whatever I currently have along with. Likely spears and composite bows.

Instead of flooding cities with firepower and taking losses, try farming the weaker cities for barrage 3 promotion and then get Range promotion. You can take the turtle cities lossless then. The +50% siege and march promotions are the cheap stuff you get after Barrage 2. The killer stuff comes after Barrage 3.

Xbows are the best unit in the game until muskets. Make nothing but xbows and knights.
For ranged, make nothing but xbows until canons are available. Then it's canons, muskets and knights.

Siege weapons are garbage until canons, don't even bother with them unless you're Rome with the Ballista. If you don't have enough composites/xbows to take a city, you don't have enough of them.

you must be playing on prince

CraigMak said:

Xbows are the best unit in the game until muskets. Make nothing but xbows and knights.
For ranged, make nothing but xbows until canons are available. Then it's canons, muskets and knights.

Siege weapons are garbage until canons, don't even bother with them unless you're Rome with the Ballista. If you don't have enough composites/xbows to take a city, you don't have enough of them.

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In MP maybe. MP is more about field battles. In SP, its more about city sieging because AI build more defensive structures. AI field army is very easy to subdue even without xbows. So basically xbows are better in MP but trebs can get the job done faster in SP.

So basically supplementary trebs are good. And in MP I feel like cavalry could actually be used to counter the archers, but you'd have to draw out their spears b/c completely eat them.

Vitruvius said:

In MP maybe. MP is more about field battles. In SP, its more about city sieging because AI build more defensive structures. AI field army is very easy to subdue even without xbows. So basically xbows are better in MP but trebs can get the job done faster in SP.

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What's best in MP wars is what's best. The hammer cost and versatility of xbows makes them the clear choice. Why make something that's inferior just because the AI is stupid?

If you're aiming MP play, then I feel like there should be a better balance of units. Make iron units stronger? Lower combat strength of ranged? Give cavalry bonus vs archers? Idk. In reality a balanced army is best. In Civ V you field 2 meat shields and ranged.

In some sense, what is done in MP is best though I don't agree with CragMak that you shouldn't ever build siege before cannons. Cats are kinda vulnerable, but Trebs survive pretty well and a few can take down a castle/hill city in just 2 turns. XB's will sit there forever and get eaten unless you happen to have range, and even then cavalry will charge in to kill your nice XB's as you are taking all those turns unless you screen them. And if you screen them you need a good screen of at least 3 melee which are often eaten alive by the power of a castle city and enemy XB encamped. XB's are really more effective vs. units which they literally chew right through. I would use my melee and XB's to fight off the waves of units while I snuck in with trebs that I screened. So much easier. The XB/knight strat is nice and all, but if you don't have good balance you won't win a Deity domination. I've tried XB's, even logistics and ranged ones and it isn't the end-all. AI throws loads of knights at you. Builds forts. Hides cities screened by hills and forest. Then I snuck 3 siege in, lost 1 and the city fell. It was by far the better choice in that circumstance. If you give the AI or human 4 extra turns they'll just use them to reinforce the position. So siege is good for taking down strong points speedily, then it's your turn to camp and heal while the AI desperately throws units at you that your logistics XB's can mow through. See how that works?

Now, XB's are the most versatile and the best for defense as they chew up units better than siege. Siege are solely good for taking down strong cities. So build more XB's then a few siege later when you intend conquest, maybe treb time. No sense waiting for cannons if castles are already up in your enemy's lands, and they should be if you are playing a decent difficulty level. I don't understand why ppl are so averse to just building a couple of something that has limited, but extremely valuable use. War is about angles, speed, and quickness. Human players often skip walls and rarely build castles so XB's mow through their cities fine. In this respect AI are smarter in that they actually build decently difficult cities that take time to capture. The Deity AI can field 3x your military too and will be constantly producing more units and flanking your XB's with knights and the like if you don't kill their cities quickly. So it's not just about your hammers but about giving them less time to use theirs. If you haven't experienced what I'm saying then maybe you should try Deity or immortal level domination and see how well you do without any early siege. You want trebs for castles, and you don't want to wait for cannons. Cannons are awesome though, when they come, and you should build many to start xp grinding for arties.