Iron comes late. Too late.

In vanilla Civ 4, you can research iron at a decent speed if you don't have bronze. This isn't an option here: the difference in cost between the two is just prohibitive. You're stuck with archers and adepts. When you do get iron, it's not even *that* good, because mass warriors with bronze can overwhelm iron axemen if they're numerous enough. On that note, warriors feel too cheap, or axemen are too expensive.

The cost should be cut down significantly. It's about 10x more expensive than bronze now, and the benefits aren't so great.

Ah, but you forget the Mines of Gal'Dur. As Runes of Kilmorph is a perfect "helper" religion (in that it helps you pay for early expansion and arete is a good boost to get set up, even if you don't plan on staying Kilmorph in the long run) it is something I often head towards, especially if I do not have copper. Founding Runes of Kilmorph and creating the shrine allows you to get a great engineer quite early in the game, which can be used to rush the Mines of Gal'Dur (chances are the Kilmorph player gets that tech early on anyways for Bambur and Arete civic).

Early, easy to find Iron cheapens the impact of the Mines of Gal'Dur and weakens the Runes of Kilmorph religion.

Edit: As for the mass Bronze Warriors vs Iron Axemen... so let us assume that it is turn 100 on a standard speed standard size map, two players have equivalent empires. Further assume that 2 Bronze Warriors = 1 Iron Axemen (an arbitrary choice, it could be different). The player that builds the huge stack of warriors might be able to produce them slightly faster, but will be paying twice as much upkeep costs. Player A has 40 warriors and Player B has 20 axemen. A 20 gold per turn difference translates into a notable tech lead for the player with the axemen.

Pulling that off means planning for it early in the game. You should at least have a chance to adjust on the fly instead of being forced on desperate defense for 100 turns.

EDIT: Yes, masses of warriors cost a bit of upkeep, but 20 gold/turn is peanuts. 60 gold/turn is peanuts. Getting iron is something like 6000 beakers, so the iron army needs 100 turns to break even; that's a very poor return compared to using 6000 beakers elsewhere. Iron axemen are very underwhelming, but it's something you have to grudgingly go for if you're stuck without bronze, unless you're planning to turtle for half the game.

The Mines of Gal-Dur is the budget solution for iron access.

The "high" cost of Iron Working is mostly due to the fact that it unlocks Champions. Potential access to Iron weapons is a smaller part of the cost of researching the tech. (To illustrate this, consider that Bronze Champions are stronger than Iron Axemen.)

Weaker units always have the potential to overwhelm stronger units if the weaker units are numerous enough.

And finally, I don't understand why no access to Copper would mean that you are stuck using Archers and Adepts. Swordsmen/Axemen can still be built without access to Copper. There are other units more effective than Archers and Adepts (on the offense) in the Mounted and Recon lines, which do not require any metal promotions to be fully effective. It may even be possible to trade for access to Copper; the trade doesn't even have remain in effect in order to keep the weapons upgrades, so you can make a very uneven offer to get the AI to agree, and then cancel the offer after the minimum turns have passed.

Just try to make metalless axemen to deal with a mass of bronze warriors. It doesn't end well. Champions at iron working is fine, but they should require an additional tech. Making iron working extremely expensive because of champions isn't fair. Iron is too important to have a single unit determine much of its value.

It's notable that axemen are 60 hammers, for a pathetic +1 strength over a 25 hammer warrior. They get +10% city attack and lose +25% city defense, so I'll call that even, being an aggressive player. They're slightly better for upkeep purposes, but that's almost irrelevant because they cost so much to research. The warrior is the better unit in the bronze era.

The most notable use of axemen is their ability to use iron and later mithril. Even if you have bronze, the warrior swarm is a superior strategy. 4 vs 5 strength isn't a big deal, especially with siege and magic considered; a more than 2 to 1 numbers advantage is a VERY BIG DEAL. However, iron axemen turn the odds to 4 vs 7, which is enough to favor them.

I make axemen before iron just to prepare for that tech. Interestingly, I don't think champions are so notable unless axemen lost their mithril use. They cost twice as much for only 2 strength and some melee power, which just doesn't amount to much; being a more advanced unit, they should be noticeably better, not inferior when numbers and time are considered.

The metals branch is simply a very imbalanced part of the tech tree.

I can't really disagree with you, warriors are very costeffective. If a am going to throw in some cannonfodder, and there isn't a highstrength opponent with many first strikes on the other side, warriors are an excellent choice.
The only objection i have to your statement is that the game favours highexperience units, and you wan't to do whatever you can to keep them alive, meaning that you seek to upgrade them as much as you can. Sure, in a "throw all you have agianst all i have" battle they might get overwhelmed, but i usually find that in those cases i cannot set the terms of the battle the vets take a few sure win battles, then lesser units take the highrisk battles and my vets end up alive, with e few more XP to make them even better.
In games where i ignore teching for better units, my vets die quicker and the waves of green warriors i replace them with just becomes heavy contributers to war wariness.

I don't see how these statements can both be true:

Higher Game said:

When you do get iron, it's not even *that* good, because mass warriors with bronze can overwhelm iron axemen if they're numerous enough.

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Higher Game said:

Iron is too important to have a single unit determine much of its value.

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If Bronze Warriors are so great, then don't even bother with Swordsmen/Axemen or with Iron weapons. Send some Adepts with Entropy I (cheaper to research than Iron Working) with your Warrior stacks and take over the world. If your opponents are foolish enough to bother with Swordsmen/Axemen then Rust will take away their metal weapons, and you'll win thanks to your cheaper Warriors, right?

Nationhood/despotism isn't much worse than other options, and yields a hefty -75% war weariness at the very beginning of the game. In vanilla Civ 4, it takes quite a bit of effort to reduce WW, but it's extremely easy here, making swarm tactics more viable.

One thing I forgot to mention is that axemen require training yards, that's another 100 hammers. Assuming a city makes 6-7 axemen after the yard (before emphasizing something else, or a more advanced unit; I think this estimate is reasonable), the effective cost of the axeman is 75 hammers. Forget 2:1. The warrior has a 3:1 numbers advantage over axemen, only 1 less strength, and is available from the start without requiring any techs. This isn't right.

The warrior should probably cost 30, and the axeman 40 (making his real cost about 50-60, when you factor in the yard and playing style). When you consider the cost of the training yard and research path, the axeman is currently a very poor unit until iron, when it becomes decent but still a bit soft.

Emptiness said:

If your opponents are foolish enough to bother with Swordsmen/Axemen then Rust will take away their metal weapons, and you'll win thanks to your cheaper Warriors, right?

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Correct. On that note, rust shouldn't take away iron unless a proper mage casts it, not an adept. Iron is still important for more than just the axemen/warrior era, but much of this importance is from more advanced units, like many naval units. Its benefits should be more pronounced earlier.

yeah, if you want to swarm and numbers advantage is what you want, then go for the warrior.

Personally i prefer to protect my vets, and advance them as much as possible to axemen... and then later champions. the extra strength might not be much if an all vs all sacrifice, though it does mean a LOT for the survivability of your vet. next thing you know they will be C5+march and they can take nearly anything on with 95%+ odds. this dozen units end out being the core of my forces for the whole game.

I'm happy to pay the extra tec/gold upgrading my vets, as their increase in base strength gets multiplied by all their promotions, making it a significant improvement.

yes, if someone did a 3:1 warrior rush on them before they get their promotions then they might die, though normally I am not confronted by 12*3=36 wariors all at once in one battle, but by several per battle. meaning the AI just feeds my vets more exp.

I guess it's all about how people want to fight, some people like fighting with swarms of cannon fodder, and others prefer fighting with a handful of godly vets.

generally my vets can crack early cities, then with cat support they definutly win(im talking about wars at turn 100 etc, so before mages). if confronted with unfavourable fights then warior cannon fodder is often good for softening the opponent enough to get high enough offs that i'll use my vet.

Quality is for heroes, mages, and late units.

I also like quality in my axemen.
I've often won games from my first warriors gaining C5+march early on, upgrading to an axeman early, and then totally owning everything. getting these units Iron weapons before the opponent gets Iron weapons makes them unstoppable. the advantages of promotions is phenominal in this game. the key is surviving battles, thus i would prefer a slightly stronger unit than 3x weak units(with 3X upkeep).

If you don't have bronze in the early game you can look to units outside the melee line. If that's not satisfactory then it's more a comment on the alternative units or your play style rather than the speed of iron.

Higher Game has found the reason the Doviello are better than people think. A Mahala Doviello Axeman is a warrior +20 gold. A Doviello Champion is an Axeman +40 gold. They also don't require training yards. You begin with hordes which cheaply upgrade to the better units.

IIRC you can't upgrade to Doviello axemen.

Higher Game said:

IIRC you can't upgrade to Doviello axemen.

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The Sons of Asenia (sp?) have an entry in the 'pedia that says you can't upgrade to them because the Doviello use a special upgrade mechanic. Beastmen have a "spell" they can cast, which costs gold and upgrades them to Sons of Asenia. They don't even have to be in a city to upgrade.

Higher Game said:

Emptiness said:

If your opponents are foolish enough to bother with Swordsmen/Axemen then Rust will take away their metal weapons, and you'll win thanks to your cheaper Warriors, right?

Click to expand...

Correct. On that note, rust shouldn't take away iron unless a proper mage casts it, not an adept. Iron is still important for more than just the axemen/warrior era, but much of this importance is from more advanced units, like many naval units. Its benefits should be more pronounced earlier.

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If you're winning games with Warriors then there's no need to even research combat techs. Get the economic techs you need, maybe Rust and Catapults, and then go to 100% to support your army.

So then why is the cost of Iron Working a problem? If you never need to research it then why does it need to cost less?

My suspicion is that you're actually not winning games with just Warriors, but rather are trying to use the low cost of Warriors and talk of swarm tactics to convince us that Iron Working is not important enough to justify its cost. In my games I never have numerical superiority over an AI (except after certain point in the process of defeating it, of course). I've seen an AI with one city that had more units that my 12 city empire. Perhaps others are having a different experience. In my situation, swarm tactics are something that is used against me, not something I can use. I need my units to be technologically advanaced in order to stay alive, and the cost of researching techs that allow me to upgrade my high-level units to a stronger base power level is well worth the investment.

Even if you want quality units your best off building a swarm of warriors, when a couple of them win low odds battles and get 20-30 XP in one shot you can send them home to upgrade to whatever is available. The best plan is still going to be to spam warriors because they are much much more cost effective than Axe men out of the gate. If you where to the point where you got level 3 units out of the gate (or 3 star units anyway about it) then axeman extra .2 str per combat level starts to add up and shift the odds, but if your producing level 0 or 1 units warriors are the way to go.

If they where 40 hammers that would make the transition a little better, or even if they where 35 so you couldn't 2:1 with them. It would cut down on the early warrior spam a bit too, though it would make things tough against barbarians. Scouts could still be 25 hammers though, I don't see why they cost the same as warriors, even for Svart.

I personally do not see a broken system, however I usually only play on quick-speed so my opinion is kind of skewed towards faster unit production anyways.

what I would like to see is an over-flow mechanic for FFH (multiple production, whatever) ... where if you have enough hammers to make two units, you make two units in the same turn (or with warrens 4). It just keeps track of overflow, and when it reaches 2X, then that unit is produced twice. If its a world unit, or the 4th of a national unit, that extra instance will just return a null (hopefully) and those hammers would stay as overflow.

My experience is more like Emptiness'. I've tried swarming but it rarely works. (I usually play on immortal). If there are two archers in a barbarian city on a hill, it takes a LOT of warriors to take them down and if you fail you've given them zillions of XP's. But the main issue is that I'm always way behind on units until later inthe game where the quality and lower maintenance is important, I'm usually fighting SoD's with three times my size with quality.

I also don't think iron is crucial. Without metals, work the recon line, the horse line, and especially catapults, they can be great equalizers.

I actually think the most important use for iron is in SHIPS - without iron, your navy will be very poor. So on any map with lots of water, you need it. Unlike land units, you cannot make up for the lack of iron at sea with weaker ships so easily.

Best wishes,

Breunor

That's my experience too: Swarm tactics are almost always an AI strategy - especially at the Deity/Immortal level, but not uncommon (iirc) at the easier levels either. The AI's ability to outproduce and outpromote humans makes trying to compete against them on numbers an unattractive early strategy most games. So the inexpensive warrior swarm is attractive for the AI, not so much for the human.

In a human vs. human competition, the warrior swarm has its attractions. If one can carry it out, of course. Most players aren't indifferent to a fellow human building up a bunch of warriors - 'cause unlike the AI, the human is going to use them and not simply pay the bankrupting maintenance costs for nothing. So if you see your human neighbor gearing up, then you're likely to do the same. If you can't match 'em in numbers, well then you're in trouble anyway because he's likely to have other advantages like more cities and resources.

The Iron Working tech, to get back to the original post, is expensive and I understand how once one has paid the thousands of , one might expect the military to be greatly invigorated but instead finds that it's an advantage but not a game changer: wars go on as before. However, this is something all the techs share: you spend beaucoup beakers researching some school of magic and your enemies still survive. I don't think it's because of an overcostly tech or an underpowered advantage.

The real culprit is the lowly warrior: he happens to be the best "bang for the buck". He's a beast, a brute, the scum of the taverns and docks, the ignorant peasant from the fields - but he's the "Saviour of the nation" when his people need him. You don't have to pay much to train or equip him - just give him a pointy stick and point him in the right direction.

He makes other units look too costly. It's his fault.