Ancient war, not my specialty

[ArmoredCavalry]

I have gotten myself into on of those nightmarish starts again.
I'm playing on prince continents as napolean(my first agressive civ). Unfortunatly, my capitol hasn't a hill in sight and my entire continent is covered in jungle. I have recently discovered my happy, friendly neibours Isabella, Montezuma, and Alexander. I might ask, what did I do to deserve this??

But that's not it, oh no. Though I have great skills in the post medevil wars, I seriously lack ability in the ancient era. so I call upon the ancient warmongers for thier advice. BECAUSE THIS SUCKS!!!

 

[Zombie69]

Chop rush axemen, take over another civ's cities, and use them to fuel future expansion.

 

[jerVL/kg]

Swordsmen alone can take out cities that haven't built up too much of a cultural defense yet. Combine them w/axemen to fend off any counterattack.

In any early war, the objective is to strike FAST, and strike HARD. You'll need to beeline all the needed military techs (Iron Working, and later Construction) at the expense of founding religions and/or building Wonders; plus your cities will be primarily devoted to building military instead of infrastructure. However, when done right, taking out an AI civ before they can even get to their UU can be greatly satisfying and rewarding.

 

[Pantastic]

Ironworking is too late IMO, and swordsmen aren't that much better than axemen. A bunch of axes, some with melee promotions and a lot with city raider and/or cover will do the job just fine and can be made before you finish researching iron. Build them fast, prepare to lose a bunch weakening defenders, and hit those enemy cities hard. Speed is the key, you don't want to give them time to grow culture or build more units... though a big stack of axemen can still break down a 60% culture city.

I usually don't bother researching ironworking myself unless I lack bronze or horses, I go for alphabet first and trade for it.

 

[mutax2003]

Iron working would be important in this case since he started in a jungle heavy area, so he will need the tech in order to clear off the jungles.

 

[ArmoredCavalry]

Another thing about ancient war. how do you know what cities to raze and what to keep? right now I keep all cities that are on decent territory. but in this particular game, I seem to be losing money for no apperant reason, my GNP is 6th-7th even though I cottage spamed and have money resources(silk, spices). I've never had this problem when I warmonger with ghandi so where exactly is this money going?

 

[Zombie69]

More cities (and cities farter appart) cost more to maintain. The best answer i can give you is to cottage spam even more than you already do. Courthouses in your most distant cities would also help, as would the extra trade route from currency.

 

[ownedbyakorat]

I used to make lots of swordsmen... over time I realized that they really are nowhere near as valuable as they look at first. That 10% city attack bonus just isn't enough to make them really effective, especially when axemen shred swordsmen and are plentiful. Make lots and lots of axemen, stack them with an archer as a cheap stack defender. Concentrate on one target at a time. Make sure you outnumber defenders at least 2-1.

After axemen, your next good attack unit is the catapult... but that is no longer ancient era.

 

[Selous]

axemen axemen axemen .... that is what i say. train you city defencive troops and then just axemen ... hordes and hordes, all from barracks ... make a couple with defencive bonuses one with a medic bonus and the rest with combos of city attackers and +strength (obviously ones like the medics is after you start your war)

axemen have a str of 5 ....swordmen have 6 but get CARVED by axemen (7.5v6). archers have str of 3, so unless using defencive bonuses axeman is going to win, spears have str of 4 and get pwned by axes and horse archers got speed and str on 6 ... well they are quite good to (but get pwned by spears)

 

[StrideCollosus]

I have seen several threads on the axemen vs swordsmen / ancient war debate:

I am surprised that so many of the comments above suggest exclusively building axemen rather than swordsmen in this case. The start is in jungle which means heading for IW is a priority, so why not build some swordsmen as well? They are slightly stronger and have the built-in city raider bonus - they are made for the job and don't cost much different.

In any case you have to 'use up' a promotion just to get your axeman to the same city raider level, they are still weaker and any axemen defenders still gets the melee-v-melee bonus against them. Do the maths and compare an axeman against a swordsman both with the city raider promotion - no contest when it comes to city-busting.

The point about them getting mashed by axemen is valid, but only of relevance if your target has filled all their cities with axemen defenders (unlikely) or your swords get caught in open territory (so don't). Swordsmen are specialists that have a purpose in some situations - I would deem this to be one of them IMHO. If it was a different start then swordsmen would probably not be appropriate.

The above discussion just goes to show there is no correct 'strategy' that can be applied in Civ4, which is why it's such a good game.

 

[mutax2003]

If I have both iron working and bronze working, I would build swordsmen for city raiding, and axemen to defend the stack (with strength and shock promotion). It is much more viable to specialize, and use each unit appropriately for their purpose.

 

[onedreamer]

if you built only axemen as someone suggests and the enemies have access to horses, then you're fried. You loose and loose badly.
The "secret" is that you should build a balanced number of all units. They all have their use, as mutax2003 said. If you build only one kind of unit you have little hopes against AI and no hopes against humans.
Btw don't forget Catapults. If you're fast enough to get them quite before Feudalism, they will be devasting.

 

[cabert]

anyways, you need bronze working first
then you need to connect bronze or iron
so if you don't have bronze, you'll need to get iron
And, if your bronze is under a jungle covered plain, you'll need IW to build the mine OR to found a city on it.
IW is long to research. In my opinion, the best early war is to be fought before the AI gets masonery and walls.

edit : if i cannot go with a strong force of axemen before the walls are getting up, i wait until catapults.

 

[chipix]

I never wait until iron working. I use my axemen and 1-2 archers per stack to strike. AI tends to have in the border cities 2-3 archers with city defender + 1 spearman or axeman.
So it's rather easy to conquer him starting with 6 axemen+1-2 archers.
Of cousre u should keep creating axemen to replace your casualties

 

[luckynick]

if you play roman, you can skip axemen except for a very few number, mainly to defend newly aquired cities (supposed you skipped archery to get IW faster)
typical legion counted 6000 men in ancient roma, so a stack of 5 preto + 1 axe fit well i think
also make sure you add catas to your stacks when your opponent hit longbowmen, some dedicated to bombard, and the other to suicide soften defenders with collateral damage

 

[Pantastic]

Even on a jungle map, Ironworking isn't that big of a priority for me. Bronze working is an early tech and either my first or second goal. After that, though, I need to get some other techs, like the wheel if my resources aren't conveniently on rivers, one of agriculture/fishing/animal husbandry for my food resources, mysticism for city borders, masonry if I want to try for an early wonder, etc. If a city needs jungles cleared to be productive, I don't want to pay for it this early anyway.

If I find bronze that I can get a settler to, then there's just no way that I'm going to gamble on ironworking next; I might not even find iron where I can get to it. My cities can get their obilisk, barracks, and start pumping out units for the rush very early, with chop-rushing as needed and possible. The key to early war is to "get there fustest with the mostest", not to try to get a carefully balanced army of specialists. It's not a choice between whether to build axes and swords or just axes, but a decision about whether or not to even get swords.

Obviously, if you don't have bronze you can't axe rush, so you'd have to switch over to another plan. And other circumstances or UUs might affect this too; as the Romans you'd just go for iron, as Mansa you might just get archery and go with skirmishers, the Kahns would go for horseback riding (keshiks move 2 in all terrain, very nice for jungle), and so on.

Plus to whoever said you'd die if the enemy has horses and you build all axemen - building swordsmen don't help with that either, you need spearmen. Spearmen only require bronze, like axes, and come from a tech that's not on the way to ironworking. Plus you're probably having trouble with horses because you're giving your opponent time to research, connect, and build horse units by researching to iron, connecting it, and building swordsmen. I can have my axemen chopping at someome's capital before they can have enough horsemen to slow me down (though I usually mix in a few spears anyway if I have hunting).

A typical early tech path for me would be something like Mining, Bronze Working, mysticism, the wheel unless rivers cover it, Agriculture/animal husbandry/fishing, pottery, hunting-archery if no bronze, writing, alphabet, trade for stuff including ironworking.

 

[Zombie69]

if you built only axemen as someone suggests and the enemies have access to horses, then you're fried. You loose and loose badly.
The "secret" is that you should build a balanced number of all units. They all have their use, as mutax2003 said. If you build only one kind of unit you have little hopes against AI and no hopes against humans.
Btw don't forget Catapults. If you're fast enough to get them quite before Feudalism, they will be devasting.

Charriots are no match for axemen, and the entire civ should be anihilated long before it gets horse archers. I think you underestimate how early axemen should be attacking.

 

[Zombie69]

I have seen several threads on the axemen vs swordsmen / ancient war debate:

I am surprised that so many of the comments above suggest exclusively building axemen rather than swordsmen in this case. The start is in jungle which means heading for IW is a priority, so why not build some swordsmen as well? They are slightly stronger and have the built-in city raider bonus - they are made for the job and don't cost much different.

In any case you have to 'use up' a promotion just to get your axeman to the same city raider level, they are still weaker and any axemen defenders still gets the melee-v-melee bonus against them. Do the maths and compare an axeman against a swordsman both with the city raider promotion - no contest when it comes to city-busting.

The point about them getting mashed by axemen is valid, but only of relevance if your target has filled all their cities with axemen defenders (unlikely) or your swords get caught in open territory (so don't). Swordsmen are specialists that have a purpose in some situations - I would deem this to be one of them IMHO. If it was a different start then swordsmen would probably not be appropriate.

The above discussion just goes to show there is no correct 'strategy' that can be applied in Civ4, which is why it's such a good game.

The point is that you're supposed to attack long before you get iron working. Otherwise the cultural defense will be too great. I too used to swear by iron working and swordsmen, but i've seen the light.

I'm not saying he shouldn't research iron working and make swordsmen. With lots of jungle, he certainly should! But his first war should be fought and won before the arrival of swordsmen.

 

[StrideCollosus]

I'm not saying he should research iron working and make swordsmen. With lots of jungle, he certainly should! But his first war should be fought and won before the arrival of swordsmen.

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't advocating one approach over the other, but merely observing that ruling out a unit, or strategy, or building, etc. on purely dogmatic principles is daft.

I would agree with you, if you can total one of the civs using axes/archers before IW then that's a good strategy too (esp as IW has a long research time). And maybe you could then move on to swords to finish them off and/or take on someone else before everyone starts to move towards horse-riders, catapults, etc.

 

[atreas]

Charriots are no match for axemen, and the entire civ should be anihilated long before it gets horse archers. I think you underestimate how early axemen should be attacking.

Agree 100%.

If you wait for swordsmen the danger is extremely big: axemen inside a cultured city will make it extremely costly - that is what you should try to avoid (not to mention again the fact that the defending cities will gain culture in the meanwhile).

For me it is axemen and then catapults (unless, of course, I have Praets).