Archery

[Danil]

Do you research that?
I never went for it. I thought it's a big waste of beakers especially if you need to research hunting first. But if you don't have horses or copper barbarians (sometimes even aggressive civs) might be a serious problem and I screwed up a lot of games because of them.
Opinions?

 

[ahcos]

Well, as you already said: on Deity, you might need it when you don't have horses or copper available. Starting techs and early commerce also matters here, as you'll have a hard time to research all the techs you need, settle the city, improve and connect the resource and then have out a unit in time before barbs enter your land ...

Up to Immortal you probably don't need it most of the time, but there are exceptions here aswell, such as: no strategic resource for a long time (the barbs will show up with Axemen eventually that eat your warriors alive), a very huge chunk of unsettled land or ice/tundra, semi-isolated with a civ that build the GW or generally starting positions close to a civ with GW..

Being close to an agressive leaders usually doesn't mean you will HAVE to tech Archery, a straight Alphabet beeline and bribing him on someone else is just as effective, and you can trade for Archery later.

 

[vanatteveldt]

Depending on settings it can be very tough even on immortal to avoid archery. Researching BW and AH takes quite a long time, so barbarians start knocking on the door not too long after that. On deity I believe you don't even really have time to research both BW and AH before they come. If copper or horses are not close by, you will have a problem.

Also, after warriors are obsolete, archers are a good city garrison unit; and sending one or two archers with an invading army can help a lot, either defending from a hill or garisonning a newly captured city.

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

Really it depends on how much you care about losing a game and facing having to start again. In the past I avoided archery more often than not as starting new games still had a charm to it. Now, however, I really enjoy grinding out a win, so archery is almost a priority tech assuming the early game is an uphill battle.

I mean even on immortal, for a non AGG civ, if you have a low commerce start and don't start with the wheel, relying on BW or AH can be a risk if there is ample open space and poor spawn busting places.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Being close to an agressive leaders usually doesn't mean you will HAVE to tech Archery, a straight Alphabet beeline and bribing him on someone else is just as effective

This is an issue of gambling the entire game on the hopes of "he won't declare before 1500 BC", and that's assuming you have someone they'll actually accept a bribe to attack. Let's face it; if you only have warriors and an AI hits you, even those 4 unit "stacks" of 2 axes and 2 spears/impi will kill you.

A couple archers on a hill, however, will consistently screw over early pressure. Even unpromoted, a fortified archer in a hill city has over 50% odds against a promoted sword...and that's before city defenses too. When you have AI that are a legit threat, hill city in their direction is a very big boost and a priority.

Having the units doesn't hurt for hereditary rule growth either.

 

[Nick Carpathia]

And if they do, you're screwed anyway

Come on, remember your lessons about events spawning barbarian Horse Archer? You can't hedge every bet, you can't garrison every backline city with paired longbows, because that would cost too many resources and cost you the game. The best way to win is to play to win, not to play to not lose. Make smart, measured gambles. And if this means you try to get way with no archers and no strategic resources, then so be it.

And Immortal barbs usually aren't that bad, but it does depend on jungle and if you have the spare hammers to dump into warriors.

 

[DMOC]

Well, I have researched archery before. From my latest game...

Here's an example of how archers saved me this game. 2 barbarian achers approached the capital, and my archer fortified in the forested hill was able to easily kill one. (The other one, shown wounded in the screenshot, was killed later.) I laugh when I see people say that archery is a waste of a technology. I'd have to start a new map if that were the case. One single warrior in a fortified hill might not be able to hold off 2 archers coming at once.

I probably should have clarified that it's generally a waste on levels below emperor.

 

[georgjorge]

I don't know if others share that opinion, but I find that on Deity you can get by with warriors more often than on Immortal due to the numbers of early AI cities and wandering archers preventing or killing spawning barbs...? Still need Archery a fair amount of time though, I'd say about a third of the time, mostly when there's some amount of desert nearby which doesn't only make for more barbs but also mostly prevents the use of defensive bonuses.

Nowadays, playing Deity I actually don't like AIs being too far away that much, as it means I'll spend the first time just making units to kill barbs while they will settle closer anyway.

 

[diagonale]

Archery is indeed an excellent tech. Of course as anything in this game it has to be weighted with the other options. I think the point of archer is being cheap hill defenders. I don't recommend to use them to defend cities, or even to let any battle happen in your cities. Placing a couple of archer at some strategic point near your border may save your game. In particular, it's the ideal unit to protect hills chain that link your border to your cities. By denying hill access to the attackers your force them to get down on plane square where you can destroy them.

Horse archer gambit:
In noble-monarch-emperor when you start with agriculture and have a cereal square an animal square you have the time to search hunting before animal husbandry due to the cost reduction.
Even when finding a horse resource it's good to go for archery for two reasons: defend against pike and early horse archers.

Great guerrero gambit:
Promote archers with guerrilla. Later use a great general to upgrade one of them to a guerrilla III / Tactics arbalester. You could join a few guerilla arbalester at attach time to make them guerrilla III too. Those are both good defenders and good attackers.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The best way to win is to play to win, not to play to not lose. Make smart, measured gambles. And if this means you try to get way with no archers and no strategic resources, then so be it.

Yes, except that you can afford a few archers in troubled border hill cities. They're not a lot of hammers. If the AI actually declares, whip a few more and they'll need 10+ units to break it. I started losing less and less games by making that simple investment, and it only nerfs the development of 1-2 cities tops and not so badly.

My IU 78 videos, once they're out, will show a good example of this in action .

 

[plasmacannon]

You can research or Trade for Archery.
If you plan on using Horse Archers, you will need Archery tech.
If you have a UU that is Archery based (Mali, Babylonia, China).
If you have a PRO leader.
As Wang Kon of Korea, one might fill their cities with PRO archers, tech to Construction and attack you with Hwachas.
If you scout around and find Inca and Persia as your closest neighbors, then Archery won't do much good. Better to have an Axeman or a Spearman respectively.
If you have 'Raging Barbs' turned on, you will want your cities guarded by archers and have a few axemen or Chariots out on point to intercept the incoming xp.

Think about your upgrade paths too, when promoting them.
MachineGunners can't get City Garrison or Guerilla promotions, but you can build archers that way and they do promote to Crossbowmen and Grenadiers then finally MachineGunners.
A MachineGunner with Guerilla2 makes a great stack defending unit on hill.
Airporting in a City Garrison3 MachineGunner into newly captured cities means you will hold that city.

 

[MilesBeyond]

Depends on your start. You're better off trading for it, but if you want to do an HA rush, you'll probably want to get HR before Alpha, which means you'll need to pick up Archery on your own.

 

[vranasm]

as was said on Deity it usually is worth the effort after seeing layout of map and no horse/copper after AH/BW.
Important thing here is that on Deity you usually won't have enough time to check for BOTH resources and have to decide after first strategic resource

On Immortal it's a question of map...you can use it, but there are situations you don't need it. You definitely have more time and probably can afford to check for both strategics if there is good chance to land strategic in your capital BFC (for example there is suspicious land tile between forests cleared)

On Emperor- it really isn't worth the time...you have so much time to check for both resources and build first better units to fight off barbs.
You will tech archery only if you go HA rush and even then you tech Archery after HBR.

 

[vicawoo]

Guerilla 3 is not a good archer upgrade, unless you're fighting classical units with _bows.

If you're trying to trade for archery to ward off a rush, you're probably already dead.

Another problem with teching animal husbandry and bronze working is that it diverts too many beakers from non economic techs, and without a commerce resource you can easily tank your economy expanding.

 

[Nick Carpathia]

Which means hunting-archery is even worse, because those techs are even less likely to improve your food/production/commerce situation.

Key reason why I avoid archery wherever possible, and gamble for copper/horse.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Which means hunting-archery is even worse, because those techs are even less likely to improve your food/production/commerce situation.

Key reason why I avoid archery wherever possible, and gamble for copper/horse.

Hunting/Archery is still faster than BW. Pre-granary whipping isn't exactly amazing and when your commerce isn't that good, early game chops are going to go into units (when your best option might be warriors) and have a tendency to slow down that initial tech pace. If you don't have archery or copper and an AI decides to attack you at that point on emp or especially immortal +, you're dead.

It's possible for deity AI to declare before 2000 BC, but even immortal AI can pull the attacks off by 1500 BC. That's the range of a couple cities + workers usually, which means that if you dally on getting decent defenders there's no time.

In hall of fame, by all means gamble and if it doesn't work just start a new map, but if one's playing with the intent on maximizing the odds of winning on a given map, the "gamble" isn't worth it. You take a comparably enormous risk (instant loss) for quite modest benefit (getting to skip techs that are frankly not expensive, and one of which will be desired eventually anyway on a lot of maps).

 

[Heathcliff]

I don't use to tech archery even if I dont have copper or horses nearby. Instead I try to go for an early alphabet.
Instead I build several extra warriors.
I think warriors 3 are almost as good barbdefense as 2 archer, they cost about the same hammers. But no research.
The key to defend with warriors is to get a feel for when an AI archer will attack you, and when it will move around to pillage instead.
So try to move your warrior to a square were the AI archer will attack your warrior and you still get defensivebonus. Even if you lose, keep extra warriors to attack the wounded archer.
Early warriors are never wasted as they provided happiness when you get monarchy.
I've played alot of Fall from Heaven 2. There you get alot of training of holding off barbarians with warriors xd

 

[DMOC]

To everyone who advised trading archery -- I would be cautious about doing this for WFYABTA reasons. I find that in my games I either research archery very early, or I never research it at all (unless it's provided to me for free via the Internet).

 

[Um the Muse]

Warriors won't hold off barb spearmen or axemen, though. They also are a horrible waste of hammers when you sacrifice two of them to kill that barb archer who is about to pillage something important.

I heard that advice about having time to research one or the other of AH or BW and get archery if your gamble doesn't pay off. That works OK, but I still prefer Archery.

A bit off topic, but I find that scouts work out more or less as well as warriors as spawnbusters; cost the same amount; and have more late-game uses. Of course, the advantage is minor, but if you're going to get the technology anyway, you might as well get some use out of it.

 

[i_imperator]

A couple archers on a hill, however, will consistently screw over early pressure. Even unpromoted, a fortified archer in a hill city has over 50% odds against a promoted sword...and that's before city defenses too. When you have AI that are a legit threat, hill city in their direction is a very big boost and a priority.

Especially if you are protective, Protective Hill Archers are very tough for the AI to deal with.