Ancient Domination with Horses

[Mujadaddy]

Ancient Domination = Horses

Likely Candidates:
Persia (Creative/Expansive; Immortals; Agriculture/Hunting)
Egypt (Creative/Spiritual; War Chariots; Agriculture/The Wheel)
Mali (Financial/Spiritual; Skirmishers; The Wheel/Mining) (This one is questionable as to whether it fits with the strategy)

This strategy is for an ancient-era warmonger. It depends only on TWO things:

1. Having Horses
2. Proper Execution

#1 is random--I can't help you there; but #2 is what I'm here to try to expound upon. Comments and constructive criticism welcome.

The strategy is simple-- (one worker)+(HORSES)+(Roads)+(Animal Husbandry) and then you are ready to roll to victory.

No mussing about with tech after tech after tech to get rolling...no need to rush-chop (immediately--the option is still there of course) or make settlers right away---TAKE what you want

Step ONE--- 4000BC--- "W" your settler, move your warrior. Has your warrior found horses yet? If so, make sure the settler will create a city very near the horses (in order to create a camp, your worker must be inside your cultural border). No horses? Found your Capital, MAKE A WARRIOR, tech to Animal Husbandry.
Step TWO--- That first warrior is on a mission--- FIND HORSES.
Step THREE--- Once the warrior is finished, make a worker, then a barracks.
Step FOUR--- If you haven't found horses by now, it's time to ABANDON this strategy and go for something more traditional. Tech Bronze, chop rush a settler or something. Go find another guide (Note--- the rest of this assumes you found horses)
Step FIVE--- If you HAVE found horses, but they're way far from your capital, tech bronze & chop-rush a settler, OR just get a settler and tech to something else important to you (I like religions--good cultural foundation for your imminent conquests)
Step SIX--- By now, your worker has built a camp on some horses and has built a road to your capital, allowing you to build CHARIOTS and their UU equivalents.
Step SEVEN--- Once that first warrior has secured the horses, it's time for him to find your first victims. If you find multiple civs, this is the order in which to attack them:
Aztecs (no resource Jaguars), Greeks (Phalanx), Rome (Legions!), then everyone else...
Step EIGHT--- Make two Chariots; meanwhile, your Warrior has scouted around the victim's empire, paying special attention to resource locations. Your worker is BUILDING A ROAD toward the victim's empire.
Step NINE--- Once BOTH Chariots are finished, declare war (I always like to make an outrageous demand first...more personal that way ), have your warrior enter the enemy territory, preferably sticking to defensive terrain and continuing to look for enemy resources (Bronze, Iron, Horses, especially).
Step TEN--- Those Chariots are swarming toward the enemy down the road you built, right? Keep building them. Seriously. Don't stop until you run out of enemies on the continent.
Step ELEVEN--- The Chariots (initially) DO NOT ATTACK. They DENY resources to the enemy. Pillage his resources.
Step TWELVE--- Wait for 3:1 unit superiority (more if he built some spearmen before you spiked his bronze mine) before attacking his city. The strongest thing he can support is Archers without resources. Kill them all. Take his city.
Step THIRTEEN--- Make more chariots. Find more cities. Repeat ad naseum.

ADVANTAGES---

1. Chariots are fast--fast to build, fast to tech for, and have a move of 2, which means they can pillage two improvements per turn.
2. Horse Archers (and Horseback riding) take FOREVER to tech for--if you have yours out functioning first, they'll never get any horses. (Horse Archers also cost TWICE what chariots cost)
3. YOU CAN STILL TECH WHATEVER ELSE YOU WANT!! This strategy was developed so that I could tech to my offensive unit EARLY, and not have to spend lots of time teching military. This makes your empire MUCH stronger and more stable in the long run, after your military conquests.
4. It stops your enemy from playing on HIS terms and forces him to play on YOUR terms. He might have been trying for a wonder, or a settler rush. Who's going to send out a worker to chop-rush when you've got chariots pillaging across his country?

DISADVANTAGES---

1. Requires total commitment. The price of failure is lots of p'o'ed neighbors.
2. Requires PATIENCE. Pillaging is Job #1---you don't want to have to face a bunch of Spearmen. ONLY WHEN STATISTICALLY ASSURED OF VICTORY should you siege the city. This requires waiting for the odds to be all on your side.
3. Chariots, and mounted units in general, DO NOT GET DEFENSIVE MODIFIERS (EDIT: apparently Immortals DO get defensive modifiers); therefore, they are ill-suited for garrison duty. "Stick and move."

LIMITATIONS--- OK, I've played enough to let you know this: Once you start seeing Longbows, Crossbows, Pikemen and Macemen, it's time to sue for peace and work on your infrastructure. The chariot rush is over; The raw strength of the enemy is now enough to blunt even Combat 5 Chariot's charges. Tech up. Bide your time. Consolidate your Empire---you've earned it.


Did I neglect anything? I tried to be thorough. Let's discuss this

 

[panzooka]

having worker building a raod to enemy border? may get ur worker hijacked
and very time consuming too

 

[Mujadaddy]

having worker building a raod to enemy border? may get ur worker hijacked
and very time consuming too

Well, obviously you're not just sitting your two chariots in your capital while the worker is building a road. Besides, you haven't declared war until you have enough muscle to distract the opponent from anything except defense and counter-attack.

Time-consuming? No, it's a shortcut for the chariots. And when you capture the city, you have most of a trade network already.

 

[DaveMcW]

The biggest disadvantage is the risk of NO HORSES. You're going to be significantly behind in getting your first settler out, and that worker is useless while you research bronze.

 

[Mujadaddy]

I covered that in step four, "No horses = Plan B" Plus, the worker is not useless, you can make farms...and pastures...and camps...while you look around for horses...

 

[Yoshua]

Well one thing which can mess things up a bit, at least from the point of view of denying resources, is the computer AI's can and often will trade resources. I've been in situations where I have tried to cut off resources to a civ, but it just trades for it.

An adaption I might try is to make friendly with any civs I can, then single out the one who is least cooperative for attack. Ask my buddies to quit trading with him (might cost you some resource or gold).

 

[Mujadaddy]

Yeah, hadn't considered Resource trading... What tech is required to trade resources? (Although, not many CIvs have resources to spare THIS EARLY---remember this is within the first 20 or 30 turns...)

 

[Arkanin]

I would give this strategy a big thumbs-up as a way to coordinate an ancient age rush. However, it does seem like rushing in the early game would stunt your expansion severely if not carefully done, so it needs to sufficiently cripple the other serious contenders if it doesn't buy you enough land to compensate for fewer settlers.

I like this strategy, though.

 

[Speciou5]

Ah, the classic zergling rush. Just a couple things to point out, make sure the distance to the enemy isn't too large (although your highway to destruction should help out against this, it is still something to consider), make sure the enemy doesn't have a superior infrastructure (it might be impossible to wait for 3:1 odds), and be wary of a counter-attack or another opponent booming while you are waging war. But nevertheless, .

 

[Mujadaddy]

I would give this strategy a big thumbs-up as a way to coordinate an ancient age rush. However, it does seem like rushing in the early game would stunt your expansion severely if not carefully done, so it needs to sufficiently cripple the other serious contenders if it doesn't buy you enough land to compensate for fewer settlers.

I like this strategy, though.

In researching the kinks, I discovered that the two Civs with the UU-chariots are BOTH creative---helping IMMENSELY with border stability...

Yes, though---I did cover that in the "disadvantages" section

@Specious5 --- I *DID* neglect to mention some basic strategic considerations that, while *I* might be thinking about, might be overlooked by some people.

 

[Dracleath]

Hmm, why Mali?

 

[Mujadaddy]

Hmm, why Mali?

Two reasons---they have a VERY early UU... Archer, with +1 strength and +1 first strike... I figured it could be useful for Mali to try, as their UU is very early.... I did say "Maybe not" tho'

 

[ongwin]

I would just like to point out that a unit with 2 movement can only pillage one square a turn (1 movement to pillage and 1 to move to next square), but 2 improvements on the same square.

Whereas a unit with only one movement, has either the choice to pillage one improvement on the square it is on, or move to the next square, wait a turn then pillage that next square.

 

[teoks]

wouldnt you be running into serious gold deficit with the number of chariots you are supporting outside your borders? not to mention the city distance maintenance after u capture the enemy city which is 20 tiles away.

but i like the strategy anyway

 

[Civ]

yes this strategy is good to look at it, but it has a big hole - money problem. To support so many units this early is very hard. But i believe that author somehow manages his financial situation. Also do not forget that you can wipe out one or max two civilization with this strategy. But the third one surely gonna have lots of spearmens, horse archers - i mean more advanced units. This strategy would work great in duel, but it is not so great in 4+ players games.
I myself prefer warmongering a bit later, when i have 2 - 3 quite good cities to support army i am going to create.

 

[Mujadaddy]

Well, I tried this out on Prince on the Ice Age Map/Scenario...

IT HAS WORKED LIKE A CHARM.

I got lucky, my settler was 2 squares west of some Horses (I hear the patch makes horses invisible until Animal Husbandry...hmmm...another drawback)... However, I didn't find any of my neighbors' borders until I'd built my THIRD city /doh... By that point, though, I was ready to attack!!

Two chariots & a warrior (the "Scout" who found the border in the first place) start pillaging----Persepolis had 8 pop at the time I found it. They had 3 cities total, like me ... My chariot machine starts pumping out reinforcements---at 25 hammers, ONE CHARIOT per TURN ...

I was patient---I didn't rush right into the cities, I took my time, killed all thier farms and mines... (Getting gold in the process!) and waited for my overwhelming numbers so I could be SURE to take the cities when I attacked them... The beauty of PATIENCE is that the AI can't stand being strangled, so it kept sending out "Raiding Parties" of archers...which my greater-strength chariots took out with 87% (or greater as XP mounted up) success... I capture all three cities, and Persepolis has starved/"slaved" down to 4 pop from 8 pop.

The above two posts ask about money problems---Yes, they exist. NO, they're not fatal---yet. I've had to dip to 80% for brief periods, but after conquering the three Persian cities, I have a BIG Gold cushion to run at 90% for the forseeable future...

I'm going for the Incas to the West next --- Genghis Khan is to the East and he already has Swordsmen, so I need to scout his territory really well for the Iron mines before I can go after him...

Oh, I just teched to Catapults, so I'm planning on sending stacks of 2 Chariots, 2 Catapults, an Axeman and an Archer for my next round of conquest! Wish me luck!

 

[Paradoxus]

I begin every game by Zerging the first Civ I find. Not just with chariots mind you , but with anything, constant harrassment and denial until they are eliminated.
I get a wee bit behind if it drags out but usually they cant make anything but Archers and have one city. I get tons of workers killing their Settler Escorts and usually change to a second city closer after working out a settler of my own between military.
Similar to your strat I guess but I always do this and always have, I am just a zerger at heart I guess.

 

[DaemonDivinity]

Classic. I noticed that fast in this game too, like the original Civ, Chariots are just nuts for when you get them! I'd just be a bit worried about retaliation, if for some reason a unit slips past and you can't see them, without defense you could be in serious trouble.

Nonetheless, I otherwise like it. Even if you only KO 1 or 2 civ's that way, if you aggressively settle and build cottages you can quickly make those cities profitable and you now have twice or three times the land area you would have otherwise. This is a good way to get a commanding lead I'd say. Just gotta be quick to adapt it once you find an opponent it won't manhandle.

 

[dh_epic]

I've been saying this repeatedly -- the worker-->bronzeworking-->chop-->settlers route isn't necessarily the best.

There's more than one way to win.

 

[Astax]

I've sued Mali recently, persia is awsome, never tried egypt thou. I also youse Mongolians, pretty deadly and ignores terrain cost!

However next patch will make it a bit more difficult