Axemen over Swordsmen

[Oggums]

My swordsman are nothing but suicide city raiders. I use shock axemen to defend resources a shock axe + healer spear to defend my suicide sword stacks. If a sword gets a promotion, he doesn't go first. I soften defenders up with fresh suicide swords and clean up with my veterans.

Once I get catapults I have a few level 3 city raider swords and mostly I only need to pump out cats, and archers to garrison my newest towns.

If you bring a stack of city raider axemen, they wind up attacking the archers first so you lose them anyway. The AI always uses more archers.

 

[Shillen]

Usually, the objective of the first war is to grab the AIs 2 - 3 outer cities and then make peace.

My first objective is usually to eliminate him. I don't want an angry neighbor building up military after I made peace with hiim the first time. Quick and decisive elimination is best, IMO.

 

[Oggums]

My first objective is usually to eliminate him. I don't want an angry neighbor building up military after I made peace with hiim the first time. Quick and decisive elimination is best, IMO.

I agree, but sometimes taking those 10 archers holed up in the capital, with it's high cultural defense, just isn't feasible. Better to make peace and wait for catapults.

 

[Zombie69]

Agreed.

Also, you don't want multiple -1's for declaring war on somebody's friend multiple times. If you start the job, finish it, and as quickly as possible.

 

[Shillen]

I agree, but sometimes taking those 10 archers holed up in the capital, with it's high cultural defense, just isn't feasible. Better to make peace and wait for catapults.

Ahh, well lately I've been founding a city pretty close to his capital early in the game. Then when I build up for my war I station all my troops in that city. Their capital is the first city to fall. This works great because the AI expands outward from their capital. So not only do I take out his most productive city right away, but it's also in the middle of all his other cities so it's a great staging and healing point for the rest of the war. It also is usually the only city with high culture so it eliminates a lot of his territory in one swoop so it's easier to get at his cities. And lastly it moves his capital to one of his outlying cities, increasing his maintenance costs. Also, I find if you attack the capital first he doesn't have 10 archers in his capital. He only has that if you attack his outlying cities first then all his cities go into military production mode and by the time you get to the capital it has the 10 archers in it. For instance I did this to Mansa Musa on emperor difficulty just last night. I declared war in around 400AD and he only had 2 skirmishers, 1 spearman and 1 chariot in his city when I got there.

If you need catapults to take him out then you waited too long to declare war.

 

[Oggums]

I don't know if I'd call stealing his worker as soon as you find him, "waiting too long."

 

[DaveMcW]

Pillage their resources, then all they will build is archers.

 

[Shillen]

I don't know if I'd call stealing his worker as soon as you find him, "waiting too long."

Well like I said in my first post if you declare too early when your military isn't strong enough to eliminate him then that's bad also. It puts him in military production mode earlier so it will take you a lot longer to finish him off.

 

[anton_z1]

It seems to me that swordmen aren't much use until longbowmen come into the picture, especially if you have an archer killer like the immortal or even quechua. I'm wondering if it's even worth reseraching Iron Working unitl you need it as a prereq.

Warmomgering didn't excite me in past Civ games, so I'm not terribly experienced, but once early on, I noticed that swordmen didn't seem to do as well as axemen, and certainly are not as versatile.

You dont not research iron working (this is what alphabet is for ). Also 4 swordsmen builded with barracks get level 2 city raiding pretty fast, which in turn results in a civ grab. (They can kill anything until the logbowman come).