Archery

[vranasm]

1760 BC is late for deity imo, but I didn't play many deity starts to have exact timing on Oracle.

it actually is borderline ok on Immortal and when we're at it I saw Emperor AI's which would beat the date too occasionally.

 

[shakabrade]

Oracle is a funny wonder. It can go from 2400BC to 1200BC on deity. If there is no Huayna Capac on map, 1760BC is ok date. If there are no AIs that start with mysticism, it's fantastic date. You might want to check this thread although you have posted in it (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=451645).

Posting at 07:48 AM, lol, you are a true civfanatic, vranasm

 

[Manco Capac]

I'm here at 06:11 AM lol. What am I then?

Now where's the counter-argument from the other party?
I've seen a 800 BC deity oracle with all typical HoF peacemongers...that surprised me for sure. If it was a bunch of warmonger, I would understand, but techers and peacemongers on an inland sea map, that is quite surprising.

 

[shakabrade]

I'm here at 06:11 AM lol. What am I then?

Now where's the counter-argument from the other party?
I've seen a 800 BC deity oracle with all typical HoF peacemongers...that surprised me for sure. If it was a bunch of warmonger, I would understand, but techers and peacemongers on an inland sea map, that is quite surprising.

I know vranasm and I are in the same time zone so I don't have to calculate. I don't know whether it is more fanatic staying awake on civfanatics until 6AM or to get up at 6AM only to check civfanatics.

Maybe people are just not sure about my sarcasm

Spoiler :

I was sarcastic

so they are not rushing with reactions.

 

[bhavv]

c) Beeline construction and go archers/catapults?
Far more likely to succeed, in my experience, and easily doable with about 3 cities (on Emperor, at least). Better hammer ratio, and much smaller variance.

Good luck defending against barbs with warriors (Hint, ideal situation for Pro archers - you have no copper or horses and can't rely on warriors until you get to iron.

People have no idea because they never think outside of the box, they can't use their own common sense / brain, and just copy paste what everyone else on this forum believes (ignorance is bliss?).

Then when people like me attemt to play the game game differently because we are fed up of doing the exact same thing over hundreds and hundreds of games, oh noes, its the end of the world on Civ Fanatics forum, how dare anyone even attempt something as bad as teching archery or religions first even if they are successful with doing so? BURN THE HEATHENS!

Its a fricking VIDEO GAME!. There is absolutely no single 'set in stone' kind of way to play Civ IV. Most of the things that people think are bad because they have never tried them / refuse to try them are actually vastly better than they ever get credit for. Archery first or religion first is absilutely not a disadvantage in 100% of games you will play. Delaying archery will definitely harm you in many more games than it would ruin, because you get a map with no copper or horses (does anyone ever even read or understand this game breaking crucial point?), and without a magical resourceless UU like Holland or dogs, your only option in that case is either restart the map or try with Archery.

The number of games that Archery saves far outweighs the number or games it could somehow ruin, nit that it will ever ruin or negatively impact anyones game unless barbs are turned off and you don't get DOWed before 2000 BC.

P.S yes I completely misread the post I quoted, I just realized that you still would have needed to tech archery first. By the time I have Catapults, stacks of archers and catapults are easy picking on the open map, and you can easilly have iron connected by then (when you start without copper or horses, you are guaranteed to have iron instead). So archers and catapults makes no sense, especially when I can get longbows long before catapults too.

 

[bhavv]

1760 BC is late for deity imo, but I didn't play many deity starts to have exact timing on Oracle.

it actually is borderline ok on Immortal and when we're at it I saw Emperor AI's which would beat the date too occasionally.

It is absolutely not 'occasional' for the AI to build the oracle that early, even on Immortal, iris actually a rare occurance. AIs can be handpicked in any game as well, for a lot of people who feel like wanting to try out a specific strategy before even creating the map, there's nothing bad about handpicking your opponents. If you think that this is cheating, then IMO so is playing games without all of Shaka, Toku, Monty, Alex, Cathy and Napoleon selected. Have fun with such a game, I know that I enjoy them (I was dogpiled by Alex, Shaka, and Toku in my current game, and beat them all off with longbows, then conquered Alex with longbows lolololol. Oh right, according to people here that should be impossible? Erm no).

 

[K.Murx]

There is nothing wrong with teching archery in many games, I think nobody argues that. It is you proposition of *attacking* with unsupported archers which is... dubious.

An early rush is to me an option that I consider if I have an opportunity - strategic resource, close opponent, land I can defend, etc. However, you seem to treat it as a necessity, as you want to attack with archers, which is a large risk compared to going for construction.
And while archers on a flat tile are easy pickings, the AI usually does a poor job of tactics like these, and almost always there is a way to get to an AI city on forests/hills - where archers have good odds against almost anything. And the cats actually do a decent job of defending against axes/swordsmen in a pinch.

Why not set up a little test game? Pick PRO leader, reroll map until you get a "rushable" opponent closeby, refrain from building axes/swords and settling more than three cities (pretending we're boxed in), and try once with archers, once with archers+cats, and once with longbows. Post your initial and end saves here.
Should not take more than three hours at most.

Btw, you are not guaranteed to have iron, I am sure of that.

 

[Htadus]

Ok, lets try and re-school your method of logic
Which method of logic would that be? That Pro Archer rush is a weaker strat than most other rushes?. Lets look at it this way:

1) I start right next to an AI and want to do an Axeman rush.Good start
2) I open with teching BW. This reveals no copper, and no nearby copper that I can settleopps a bump in the road
3) My Civ has Protective as one of its traits.Yay time to prove how awsome protective is.
4) My options in this game are:
a) Restart the map, I haz no copper so its the end of the world oh noes!Aren't you glad you are not playing xOTM
b) After researching BW, tech Hunting > Archery and attempt a Cover promoted archer rush instead.Good for you, some of us not as brilliant out of the box players such as myself may try horses next, and before you go into this barb threat i am using the same small map you are using and since I play within the box, I am going to be using spawn busting to make my life easier. Then I am going to go into expansion mode since I find many play options inside the box, i know that the game does not start and stop at early rush. This method is called playing the map. So what am I going to do next if no horses are available? I head to Alphabet in Emperor and below, i know it has no creative elements to it but now i can trade for that all powerful tech called archery and likely Ironworking and who knows what else....math? As you can see my pea brain does not stop at damn, i can not rush. i use the ideas in the box.....too.

Attempting b) first instead of just rage quitting like in a) gives me a decent shot at recovering from such a start. If it fails, then I do what I would have done anyway, and simply restart the map.

I had no idea that not being able rush early was a game breaker. However, you could do what K.Murx suggest below. having done that in a GOTM, I can assure you it works. However, that game was in Monarch level and had no resources...none..and all the AI did not need resources for its UU.

c) Beeline construction and go archers/catapults?
Far more likely to succeed, in my experience, and easily doable with about 3 cities (on Emperor, at least). Better hammer ratio, and much smaller variance.

It is a better option.

. The best part is that you can probably win from that.

Did we have this conversation recently?

1760 BC is late for deity imo, but I didn't play many deity starts to have exact timing on Oracle.

it actually is borderline ok on Immortal and when we're at it I saw Emperor AI's which would beat the date too occasionally.

Oracle date is hard to gauge even at Monarch. Give marble to Ai and even AI who are never supposed to want to build wonders build it. Of course, you can stack the game in your favor with lunatic AI's.

I'm here at 06:11 AM lol. What am I then? having trouble sleeping and been playing Civ all night long?Now where's the counter-argument from the other party?
I've seen a 800 BC deity oracle with all typical HoF peacemongers...that surprised me for sure. If it was a bunch of warmonger, I would understand, but techers and peacemongers on an inland sea map, that is quite surprising.

There is absolutely no counter arguments for this oracle thingy. It seem to be completely outside the box.

 

[Bandobras Took]

Maybe people are just not sure about my sarcasm

Spoiler :

I was sarcastic

so they are not rushing with reactions.

No; it's just that your sarcasm completely failed. It would have worked if you had done something that bhavv had actually suggested in this thread; as it was, all you ended up making fun of was your own level of reading comprehension.

 

[shakabrade]

No; it's just that your sarcasm completely failed. It would have worked if you had done something that bhavv had actually suggested in this thread; as it was, all you ended up making fun of was your own level of reading comprehension.

__________________


First, thank you for your ad hominem attack.

What I did was setting fairly early rush with twice as good archery unit with one more promotion totally exaggerating every aspect of what he said, dah. You can see I even have gems along with gold on part of the map where there should be no gems making fun of my own attempt.

And it still proved to be too costly. The problem with rushing with lesser units isn't just will it work but more importantly will your economy ever have chance to catch up. You see 8 captured cities. I see ruined economy and ruined trade partner for both techs and trade routes. If you can have 3-4 cities peacefully, renaissance breakout with bulbing is always better. Some things are dogmatic here on Civfanatics, I agree, but this game came out 7 years ago and so many high level players have played so many games that it would be stupid not to take an advice from them. I do also experiment a lot with this game with skill much higher than many people proposing stuff here, but it almost always comes to that that dogmatic approach makes better results. I have made archer rushes, holkan rushes, skirmisher rushes, axe rushes, medieval wars on deity and won those games and still would advise against them. Almost all of those games would have ended sooner with good ol' cuir/cav rushes aka boring old strategy (simply cause its best).

 

[vranasm]

@shaka

you're mostly right. People here lately don't do comparison to playing map in "so called better strategy" and thus don't properly analyze their proposed strategy and influence on end date and overall difficulty of such approach.

One thing I wanted to mention though is Engineering bulb strategy on land map which was demonstrated by AZ in some videos when he begun streaming and in forum game made by (I think) Zx Zero which ended as 1190 AD conquest (or was it domination?) which certainly is spectacular even for cuirs rush and definitely the strategy proved to be viable (you can't do it with every leader though, you need someone without fishing) on certain map types.

 

[shakabrade]

^^
I find engineering bulbs sexy. Didn't know how to set up one until I started reading SGOTMs.

That is viable strategy for all levels below deity and it can work on deity too (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=11500525&postcount=70), although it always seems to me that should be your last resort cause treb wars are slow.

Hell, treb war works even on deity if tech pace is slow (many religions and religion fanatics, agressive AI).

 

[Bandobras Took]

__________________


First, thank you for your ad hominem attack.

What I did was setting fairly early rush with twice as good archery unit with one more promotion totally exaggerating every aspect of what he said, dah. You can see I even have gems along with gold on part of the map where there should be no gems making fun of my own attempt.

And it still proved to be too costly. The problem with rushing with lesser units isn't just will it work but more importantly will your economy ever have chance to catch up. You see 8 captured cities. I see ruined economy and ruined trade partner for both techs and trade routes. If you can have 3-4 cities peacefully, renaissance breakout with bulbing is always better. Some things are dogmatic here on Civfanatics, I agree, but this game came out 7 years ago and so many high level players have played so many games that it would be stupid not to take an advice from them. I do also experiment a lot with this game with skill much higher than many people proposing stuff here, but it almost always comes to that that dogmatic approach makes better results. I have made archer rushes, holkan rushes, skirmisher rushes, axe rushes, medieval wars on deity and won those games and still would advise against them. Almost all of those games would have ended sooner with good ol' cuir/cav rushes aka boring old strategy (simply cause its best).

That's what I'm here for.

The point needs to be made in the circumstances in which he's advocating an Archer rush -- no nearby early strategic resources and a map that dictates rushing an enemy. Since he's not advocating a longbow rush, that doesn't suffice to counter his point, any more than teching to Drama and running 100% happiness would disprove or even sarcastically poke fun at somebody's argument for Hereditary Rule as a Happiness mechanic.

Run a game under the aforementioned conditions doing the Archer rush and then doing something other, post the results, and I will be first in line to applaud any sarcasm you choose to use. There's just not much to respond to in irrelevant posts, no matter how high the level of sarcasm.

Edit: Or to take another example, if somebody is arguing that an axe rush can be a good choice, posting a game in which I don't attack until Rifles really doesn't do anything to comment on an axe rush one way or the other.

 

[vranasm]

bandobras:

I take the assumption of not getting any of horses, copper, iron a bit misleading... to me it would mean only 2 things

1) someone removed all strategics from reachable distance
2) player delibirately decided not to expand

I can't speak of unusual map scripts of course, but this is my assumption based on typical map types.

Going archery for selfdefense has some merit on Deity and Immortal level, but forming strategy when you not see horses/copper automatic archer rush is just silly to me.

when we're at it I remember AZ video where he bought surplus Iron from neighbor for his XBow rush (the Iron has to be somewhere, would be silly to claim otherwise)

edit:

as for your edit, actually you're wrong. Showing different strategy is very good and i used it here in some shadows for Noble players so they understand they don't need axe rushing on Noble and I think I even had much better saves then them without rushing anyone.

 

[shakabrade]

@bandobras

I chose LBs and put them in a date far before their normal date only to show how far more superior unit compared to date doesn't fare well against metal units and arhers on hills. That cost is just too high. Archers are weak and you need much more of them to kill fortified archers in cities or even swords and axes since they start appearing quickly, not to mention in cities on hills so the maintenance and opportunity cost counted in population, workers, forementioned maintenance or even city or two already ruins your game. Archer rushing anything but warriors doesn't pay off. It might work, but anything else is almost always better. I attacked with LBs early and it didn't go that easy. Archer rush in that same period would've been a disaster.

So basically I wanted to say that if unnaturally early LB rush doesn't work well, archer rush against same units would not work at all and even worse if it did cause your economy would be just too backward.
And on top of that, it is NOT necessary. There's no way you'll have no space for at least 2 cities, or will not have any normal resource, or any other AI will not trade it.


Edit: xpost with vranasm

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Hell, treb war works even on deity if tech pace is slow (many religions and religion fanatics, agressive AI).

Best if you want to cook it is to mix guys like shaka and guys like hammurabi/asoka/etc so they start the game hating each other, then set AGG AI. That'll slow the tech rate a bit.

Since he's not advocating a longbow rush, that doesn't suffice to counter his point

A fundamental defense point of this archer rush drivel is that "it can work". You can parody that with virtually any nonsense strategy that happens to succeed but still leaves you behind standard play.

Going archery for selfdefense has some merit on Deity and Immortal level, but forming strategy when you not see horses/copper automatic archer rush is just silly to me.

Especially because you need to commit to that archer rush before you can truly discover what resources you (or the AI) have...or the archer rush winds up coming as late as an axe rush and is much much more likely to fail.

 

[Bandobras Took]

shakabrade:

You oracled Feudalism at turn 56, if I'm reading the pictures right.

1) How many Archers would you have had at turn 56 if you'd been really working at it?
2) How many cities would the AI have had at turn 56 if you had been cranking archers from the get-go instead of sitting there letting the AI expand?

TMiT:

A fundamental defense point of this archer rush drivel is that "it can work". You can parody that with virtually any nonsense strategy that happens to succeed but still leaves you behind standard play.

Sure, you can parody it with a game of strip solitaire if you want, but it isn't even remotely relevant. Nor does it count towards evidence, which would be actually doing what he says in a sample game, instead of doing things he doesn't say.

People have brought up the idea now that you're always going to have the strategic resources through trading, the idea presumably being that he's advocating an archer rush by the time you have trade routes to opposing Civs whom you have let hook up their strategic resources, which I must confess I'm not seeing in anything he's said so far, which is "when AIs are close and you don't have resources, Archer rushes work with Protective leaders."

If anybody would like to post a game that tests this statement, I'm all ears, and if it is shown to be false, I'm still all ears.

On a private but tangentially related note, I'm laughing at the idea of Engineering Bulbs. Does anybody remember how stupid that sounded even a year ago, when the "mass of high level play" proved it wasn't viable without any actual posted games to that effect?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I've tried many archer rushes in the past. Some succeeded, many failed. If I had thought anybody would actually cared for postings about such a weak strategy that in my personal trials I couldn't get it going 50% of the time on random maps, I'd have posted the screenshots here. Alas, I didn't do so.

But I'm not about to grind out a bunch of losses on standard map size vs speed (IE slower speeds on bigger maps, faster on smaller) for the hell of it again...and cooking the map with slow speeds + small maps *also* isn't relevant, because doing that opens the doors to a whole lot of strategies that would otherwise fall flat.

 

[vranasm]

btw if anyone wants to see a game run without strategic resources, be our guest

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=457622

scenario generated by Cam_H, you can even replay that one ;-) you're guaranteed to not get any copper/horse/iron/ivory unless lucky pop from mine

we completely crashed the AI's, but not with archers we used cats which we aimed for from T0

Was fun ride, but as we all agreed too easy for us even if this was done on Immortal.

 

[Htadus]

On a private but tangentially related note, I'm laughing at the idea of Engineering Bulbs. Does anybody remember how stupid that sounded even a year ago, when the "mass of high level play" proved it wasn't viable without any actual posted games to that effect?

Laugh all you want, but it is for real and extreamly useful. Go to the current immortal university tread (Mao-china) and see what Lerner_Game is doing. I messed up my game by doing a silly fishing trade by accident and since reload are a no no, I am dealing with it. If you think the AI in that Terra game is easy to get along, come and do a demo.

So take it from a couple of non high level players, it is doable with good results.