Are archers tough defenders?

[Distraction]

Right now I'm about to attack a city. I have a swordsman, an axeman and a spearman. The defenders arew two archers and a warrior. Judging from the alt-mouseover, the one with the highest chance of victory is the swordsman, with 6 againts the archer's 6.4. Are archers really this strong at defending?

 

[mrlaze]

Archers are city defender, the have a +50% City defense bonus, as well as +25% hills and first strike.

 

[Vosje]

Yes. Archers enjoy a nice +50% to defense when they're in cities. Count in walls and you can count on a few good losses if you try to take cities too early with them in it.

 

[Distraction]

Wow. Well, looks like I'll need to reinforce my offence.

 

[Divi Filus]

If you promote your swordsman/axemen, you will be in MUCH better shape; try to get City Raider II on both of them, you should them be able to handle most archers easily.

BTW: when attacking a city without catapults... have at least 2:1 odds, meaning; have 2 units for every one in the city, usually in bronze age I will use lots of swordsman with CRII.

 

[Pinstar]

For me, pre-catapult wars involve only pillaging, no attacking. It's just not worth the unit cost to try and take a city until you have catapults.

 

[Fieryphoenix]

Pretty much, yes. Plus they have a first strike (or two) thrown into the mix.

 

[MSTK]

Archers are to Civ IV as Spearmen were to Civ III.

 

[Gufnork]

I disagree. Early wars are when you can take cities. Unless the city is on a hill with more experienced troops you have great odds, unlike later in the game. Once you get Longbowmen and Pikemen things start getting rough and better tech or vastly superior numbers is the only way to win wars.

 

[TLHeart]

Early taking of a city, not on a hill can be accomplished with warriors, against warriors. I have done it when France tried to settle his second city where I wanted to settle. This did put me at eternal war with him, but that is all good.

To take archers out, is much more difficult, and takes two to three times the number of attackers, as defenders, until the advent of catapults.

 

[Mujadaddy]

I disagree. Early wars are when you can take cities. Unless the city is on a hill with more experienced troops you have great odds, unlike later in the game. Once you get Longbowmen and Pikemen things start getting rough and better tech or vastly superior numbers is the only way to win wars.

This is all true... but, YMMV... (I prefer the Ancient Wars, myself )

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

There is a promotion for swordsmen of +25% against archers, IIRC. Works better than the city raider for attacking cities garrisoned by archers.

anyone having success on early war?

Keshiks have a nice anti-seige promotion that does wonders against cats.

 

[MSTK]

Many ancient-age UU's have anti-archer traits that are really useful.

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

I must be playing the wrong civs. which ones are anti archer?

 

[MSTK]

I can't name them all off of the top of my head, but I'm pretty sure that the Incan UU is anti-archer. There's at least two or three IIRC.

I wish there was a Civilopedia in the manual. I mean, 200 pages and not a single, whole list of units and their stats?

 

[Mujadaddy]

Yeah, Quechas get +100% vs. Archers, in addition to the warrior city defense bonus.


You don't have an appendix? Pg. 204?

 

[MSTK]

Yeah, Quechas get +100% vs. Archers, in addition to the warrior city defense bonus.


You don't have an appendix? Pg. 204?

Ah, yeah, didn't see that

So, yeah, the Incan UU has a 100% bonus, which is the biggest bonus. Compare that to the Archer's 50% bonus and it evens up the odds a bit.
And I found the Persian UU (Immortal), which has a 50% bonus AND it's mounted. There's probably some more that I'm missing.

 

[Yao777]

I usually don't go to war until I do have catapults since archers with their own city defense promotion make fighting them while they're garrisoned near impossible without bombardment first. I generally use a stack of 2 swordsmen, 2 horse archers, 4 catapults to take cities that are heavily defended with archers. Catapults bombard the city defenses to 0% then the catapults kinda sacrifice themselves by just causing collateral damage to everything in the city. Then the swordsmen and horse archers clean up the weakened archers without too many casualties.

 

[Mujadaddy]

I usually don't go to war until I do have catapults since archers with their own city defense promotion make fighting them while they're garrisoned near impossible without bombardment first. I generally use a stack of 2 swordsmen, 2 horse archers, 4 catapults to take cities that are heavily defended with archers. Catapults bombard the city defenses to 0% then the catapults kinda sacrifice themselves by just causing collateral damage to everything in the city. Then the swordsmen and horse archers clean up the weakened archers without too many casualties.

That's exactly how to do it .... unless you get Swords/Barracks VERY early and can buld up some extra Swordsmen to throw at the enemy...

 

[Arkalius]

Strength of 6 vs 6.4 with 1 first strike gives the swordsman a 28% chance of winning, so not that good. Without the first strike the swordsman would win 34% of the time... still not that good.