Axes Still Rule
- Thread starter bastillebaston
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Firefight
Chieftain
i really dont understand those people who always play on pangea, beeline to axe men and have a difficulty level lower than Noble on every game they play, they say how boring the game is!
I can't help but chime in here. It's seems like the whole discussion is centered around two truisms:
1. The AI weakly defends their cities, esp. early game
2. In order to have a more varied gameplay, you HAVE to play by some house rules
In other words, you see two nearby civs. Why in the name of Sid would you let them alone and have them grow??? That is a house rule because you can and should easily take them out and get their capitals. The AI will NOT rush you so why play down to their level?
The game, as great as it is, should not force you to play soft in order to get the benefits of the game. The AI should not be so weak in defending their cities in the early game, that is an AI flaw, just like you have to NOT do certain things in order to have a more-rounded game experience.
1. The AI weakly defends their cities, esp. early game
2. In order to have a more varied gameplay, you HAVE to play by some house rules
In other words, you see two nearby civs. Why in the name of Sid would you let them alone and have them grow??? That is a house rule because you can and should easily take them out and get their capitals. The AI will NOT rush you so why play down to their level?
The game, as great as it is, should not force you to play soft in order to get the benefits of the game. The AI should not be so weak in defending their cities in the early game, that is an AI flaw, just like you have to NOT do certain things in order to have a more-rounded game experience.
bastillebaston
Chieftain
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If you concede me that much, you have already conceded a lot to my argument. In fact, you have conceded almost everything I need to rest my case.
The conditions that make the axe rush dominant are only two, and are fairly common:
- Availability of copper.
- At least one close neighbor.
As everybody will agree, many types of starting locations will frequently meet (1) and (2). Therefore, in at least a large set of starting conditions, the axe rush is the one dominant strategy. This is already very bad news for the game. In any sufficiently complex game, no set of starting conditions should determine a uniquely best course of action.
(To those who say: “but nothing forces to play warmonger! You can always go for diplomacy, culture, etc.” I answer thus. Sure, one may chose for whatever reason not to purse the strategically best course of action, but this is one’s own personal choice which has nothing to do with my argument.)
What if you have no copper? Then the cat rush is nearly always the dominant strategy. Bad news again. As far as I can tell, the only cases were no form of SoD rush is a dominant strategy (e.g. you'll better refrain from attacking at all stages of the game) are certain kinds of isolated starts at monarch and above. But this is not good news either. Isolated starts generally narrow your strategic choices, they certainly don't make them broader.
That is true. When the AI demands that you attack them for being too close and too defenseless, then not doing so (to pursue something different), then that becomes a house rule - which are set up to make yourself purposely weaker. The solution isn't NOT to do a SoD but to strengthen the AI so it would not be so inviting to attack.
bastillebaston
Chieftain
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Let's stipulate a definition of "overpowered" to make the discussion clearer. Let's say that a war strategy is overpowered just in case it becomes the unique dominant strategy whenever the starting conditions allow the player to pursue it. Now, the axe rush is clearly overpowered in my sense. Whenever you have copper and a close target nearby, a unique strategically best course of actions (e.g. the axe rush) will be dictated by the starting conditions. That alone makes the axe rush an overpowered strategy.
Who ever said that you should keep rushing even if your economy is crumbling? Who ever said that you should start rushing before you have any decent production? The SoD rush does not mean: "be constantly at war" or "wage war even when you don't need to". The Sod rush says: "rush your opponent with SoDs as soon as the conditions are favorable" (generally speaking: good enough economy and production, tech parity). Consider the following statement:
Rushing at least one opponent at some stage of the game is nearly always better than never rushing any opponent during the entire course of the game.
Try to object to that and perhaps you will have produced a relevant objection.
Clearly, conquering 1-2 enemy capitals in the early game is a huge boost on all game settings. Capital cities are usually very well placed (good city cites with plenty of resources, on top of that they may be holy cities and house wonders). Owning enemy capitals from the early days will permanently cripple the defeated rival and put you in a stronger position to compete with the distant civs. And the best way to conquer nearby enemy capitals asap is the axe (or the cat, when copper is lacking).
pigswill
fly (one day)
Having read through the thread I'm actually going to agree with you. The AI is not currently programmed to respond effectively to overwhelming concentration of force.
Firaxis could in principle fix this by programming AI civs to concentrate their initial production on an axe rush. Given production advantages the AI would then rush your cities before you'd got your axe-stack finished and you lose! Every game! Would that be boring?
Firaxis could also fix this by eg giving walls +200% defence, getting AIs to build walls early and rush archers to the city your axe-stack was approaching. You'd then be forced to adopt a different strategy. However if you got yourself boxed in by the AI you'd still lose.
Firaxis could in principle fix this by programming AI civs to concentrate their initial production on an axe rush. Given production advantages the AI would then rush your cities before you'd got your axe-stack finished and you lose! Every game! Would that be boring?
Firaxis could also fix this by eg giving walls +200% defence, getting AIs to build walls early and rush archers to the city your axe-stack was approaching. You'd then be forced to adopt a different strategy. However if you got yourself boxed in by the AI you'd still lose.
Those are good solutions. The AI, in the early game, does not expect you to attack when in reality, that is when they are most vulnerable to attack and should be protecting against it.
I don't come to CFC often but seeing how many posters in this thread knee-jerk to wrong conclusion, it is no wonder.
It's quite simple. You have a finite amount of hammers per turn. If you spend them on Axemen and take cities, you've just reaped the same benefit you would have reaped had you spent them on Settlers (i.e. more cities) but you also have a stronger military, more population, and pre-built tile improvements.
In other words, it's better to let your rivals do your early expansion for you. Not to mention that (1) cripples your opponents whereas (2) does not.
So basically, (1) gives you all the benefits of (2) plus a lot more. The only potential drawback is sub-optimal city placement. But most cities will be razed anyway, and capitals are always on great city sites.
The only time this doesn't apply is when you're isolated. If there's even one civ on your landmass, early war will nearly always be preferable to early Settlers and Archers.
It does make for pretty stale gameplay. Either you start isolated, which is quite boring, or you work to isolate yourself by eliminating all rivals on your continent. I do enjoy civ as I actively pursue sub-optimal strategies for variety's sake. But the truth is, if you go for the fastest win every time the game becomes extremely predictable.
Perfectly said.
This would of course depend on how close your neighbors are. If your neighbors are very close by and expanding close to your cities with their early initial cities then yes those cities are well developed and it is better to take their cities than develop your own especially as they are well developed, especially if their capital which is always well developed and is close by. In fact this is usually necessary because it means that you are boxed in and have no choice. I sometimes find myself in this situation and there is no other way out other than early war.
However if the neighbors are NOT close and those cities are excess cities built far from their capital then these tend to not be especially well developed. Those excess AI cities that were built will not be especially well developed, nor welll populated and generally have no improvements and are usually poorly placed in relation to ones own cities due to bad overlap. Nor does it especially cripple opponents because as I have pointed out if these are EXCESS cities, they are cities that the AI wouldn't have built if you had gotten to those areas first with your own settlers.
As for having a stronger military earlier, my archer army is more than enough against any early wars and I do try to hook up bronze/iron quickly as well but its just not the very first thing that I need to do as I am not trying to do an early rush (unless I absolutely need to). If I want/need to my later built metal-based armies can conquer any cities I need, no need for any early rushing.
As for archers, the main reason I research archery is because it is the only way that isn't dependent on access to military resources, esp copper or iron and is a cheap tech to research. It allows me to play a successful game regardless of access to copper/iron or not. (I don't count horses as the basic chariot is a very poor defender and more powerful horse units take a while to research, not counting UUs of course).
bastillebaston
Chieftain
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This is worth quoting in full: brief, cogent and to the point. I agree with everything in the above post. It's pretty much what I have been trying to argue all along. Thank you, Influx: you have said it better than I could have ever done.
mythmonster2
BEC NOIR! RUN!
Yeah, but 1 never lets you experience the joy of making things go BOOM with tanks! Also, 2 can actually stunt your growth by making your OWN infrastructure weak because you decided to spend it on axemen. Besides, if 1 happens, think about it. This also means that the AI has expanded and has an even better infrastructure then before.
I would argue that the gains (in gold, land, resources, etc.) from capturing a nearby capital far outweighs the costs of building Axemen.
mythmonster2
BEC NOIR! RUN!
But come on! Taaaaaanks! You know you want to!
Öjevind Lång
Deity
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The point was that there are many ways to play and enjoy the game; "winning" through an axe rush and dismissing all other playing styles as boring and then complaining about the game's lack of variety is just stupid. Especially when one also dismisses wins that can't easily by gained through an axe rush as boring. Furthermore, some of us aren't even that interested in winning, or in milking the game for the maximum number of score points.
Your infrastructure is hardly stunted. A Worker will be built early, and that's all that's needed for 2-3 cities. (Sometimes 2 Workers.)
The AI doesn't utilize its infrastructure as well as the player, so the fact that it may have a few more improvements really doesn't matter. The difference is marginal and inconsequential.
mythmonster2
BEC NOIR! RUN!
Well, I still think it's waaaaaaaay more fun to just roll over everyone with guns and tanks and stuff. That's pretty much what BTS is about, the late game. If you use an ancient strategy, then what's the point in even buying BTS?
InvisibleStalke
Emperor
I don't think anyone disagrees that this can be effective. But I think a lot of us disagree with the idea that this is better always than all other strategies.
If there is a close enemy capital then I will definitely rush it if I can. Its too dangerous to me otherwise and getting an enemy capital gets me a good site. But apart from eliminating an enemy opponent and possibly a good city site, its not a huge win. I save the cost of a couple of settlers in exchange for the cost of the axes that I lose. I come out ahead, but not hugely so - the main advantage is the elimination of a threat - hardly gamebreaking.
Attacking a distant enemy capital is rarely worth it to me, unless I am playing by some kind of house rules where I want to try out an unusual UU or suppress and pillage multiple enemies rather than capture land. The cost of distance maintenance and having a large army in the field early on outweighs for me the benefits of peaceful expansion and locking in key resources and land.
I find a later war much more effective and important. If I attack when I have catapults, I have the potential to score a lot more land, a lot more cities and often capture wonders and developed cities. But this is exactly what has been made significantly more difficult in BTS. By the time you get catapults, its no longer a rush - its full scale war and the AI will fight back. (If they don't then go up a level - you are playing below your capabilities).
War at that point in the game carries risk as well as reward - particularly on higher levels where you have to deal with AI superpowers and blocks of allies. If rushing is your only trick, it isn't going to cut it - your warfare needs to be a lot cleverer and your strategies for peacetime and diplomatic skills are just as important.
As I see it the complaint in this thread is that you can still axerush on moderate levels if you have copper and a close opponent. Nothing about how much harder a later rush now is. So we have a strategy that is mildly useful in certain situations and thats it. You might spend slightly fewer hammers on your initial city grab and you might get a slightly better city. You might also gain some enemies and you lose a trading partner.
Sure you can do it - but it isn't really the sure-fire super strategy thats claimed.
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