acluewithout
Deity
- Joined
- Dec 1, 2017
- Messages
- 3,470
At bronze working you discover if you have iron.
If you do have iron, you can then head from bronze working to ironworking, which gives you swordsmen to make out of the iron you just found (cue swordsman rush). Mining the iron you’re going to need for swordsmen also gives you the boost for iron working, which gets you to swordsmen faster – nice. The boost for bronze working is also kill three barbs, so it may be you have already built warrior-line units to do that, which you will then upgrade into swordsmen.
Or, you head for stirrups to get knights, which you can also make out of iron (cue knight rush). Mining the iron you’re going to need for knights also gives you the boost to the wheel tech, and it’s the wheel tech which gives you the chariots which you will build to upgrade into knights – nice (again).
The downside to heading down the two bottom tech trees is that you’re not putting science into the infrastructure tree (writing, currency, apprenticeship). But two iron mines, plus another mine, at least gives you the boost for apprenticeship, so you get a slight leg up there. And working iron gives you a little science too, which also helps.
Only one iron? No problem – bronze working gives you encampments. Build one, and you can build swordsmen or knights with only one iron (leaving aside upgrades of course).
No iron at all? A sad situation. But bronze working gives you few interesting choices there too…
First, bronze working lets you build the Jebel Barkal wonder, which gives you two iron. A fairly drastic solution. (…and, while admittedly not the most efficient strategy, if you were going for a culture victory, then (1) building Jebel Barkal would also boost the theatre civic (the boost is “build a wonder”), (2) the Jebel Barkal’s faith can be used to purchase great people, and (3) if you do build some encampments after researching bronze working, then encampment specialists give culture).
Second, you can still build encampments. Provided you also get walls, your encampments will provide some additional defence against the hordes of iron-rich swordsmen and knights you’ll be fighting off (and, again, note the point about encampment specialists above).
Third – and the option I find most interesting - bronze working gives you a spearman. Spearman don’t require iron. That’s key.
I think the idea here is to enable turtling. Basically, you build spearman, and fortify your cities using them. When you do that, I think that makes your cities more defensible – spearman have slightly more combat strength than warriors, and that combat strength is inherited by your city’s defence when a spearman is fortified in the city. Importantly, a spearman’s weakness to melee is not inherited by the city (I think that’s right – sorry if I’ve got that wrong). Spearman can also more safely fight melee in their own cities notwithstanding their inherent weakness, because they heal faster within friendly borders and can hide (or is that cower) in city centres / encampments.
With no iron, but defended by your loyal (if terrified) spearmen, you might then focus on the infrastructure techs (to get campus, commercial hub and IZ). I think this is why the upgrade to spearmen (pikemen) is a leaf along the infrastructure tech tree (military tactics) – because it’s players bee-lining infrastructure who are going to have spearmen and need to upgrade them.
Two conclusion from all this. First, spearman (and pikemen) may be intentionally a little weak and pikemen may be intentionally in an out of the way part of the tech tree. They’re designed for defensive play, and are probably a little underpowered to make defensive play more risky / challenging.
Second, civs that have UUs at military tactics (Hilariously Haranguing Harold / Berserkers, and Hojo / Samurai) may have them there so they can focus on the infrastructure tree – i.e. they can focus on the infrastructure techs, because their units are on the way to IZs (albeit with a small detour), and they won’t need bronze working / iron to build those units anyway.
TL;DR: spearman aren’t terrible (or, if they are, are terrible on purpose); berserkers and samurai aren’t out of the way at military tactics, instead they’re “on the way” for infrastructure play.
[edit for formatting]
If you do have iron, you can then head from bronze working to ironworking, which gives you swordsmen to make out of the iron you just found (cue swordsman rush). Mining the iron you’re going to need for swordsmen also gives you the boost for iron working, which gets you to swordsmen faster – nice. The boost for bronze working is also kill three barbs, so it may be you have already built warrior-line units to do that, which you will then upgrade into swordsmen.
Or, you head for stirrups to get knights, which you can also make out of iron (cue knight rush). Mining the iron you’re going to need for knights also gives you the boost to the wheel tech, and it’s the wheel tech which gives you the chariots which you will build to upgrade into knights – nice (again).
The downside to heading down the two bottom tech trees is that you’re not putting science into the infrastructure tree (writing, currency, apprenticeship). But two iron mines, plus another mine, at least gives you the boost for apprenticeship, so you get a slight leg up there. And working iron gives you a little science too, which also helps.
Only one iron? No problem – bronze working gives you encampments. Build one, and you can build swordsmen or knights with only one iron (leaving aside upgrades of course).
No iron at all? A sad situation. But bronze working gives you few interesting choices there too…
First, bronze working lets you build the Jebel Barkal wonder, which gives you two iron. A fairly drastic solution. (…and, while admittedly not the most efficient strategy, if you were going for a culture victory, then (1) building Jebel Barkal would also boost the theatre civic (the boost is “build a wonder”), (2) the Jebel Barkal’s faith can be used to purchase great people, and (3) if you do build some encampments after researching bronze working, then encampment specialists give culture).
Second, you can still build encampments. Provided you also get walls, your encampments will provide some additional defence against the hordes of iron-rich swordsmen and knights you’ll be fighting off (and, again, note the point about encampment specialists above).
Third – and the option I find most interesting - bronze working gives you a spearman. Spearman don’t require iron. That’s key.
I think the idea here is to enable turtling. Basically, you build spearman, and fortify your cities using them. When you do that, I think that makes your cities more defensible – spearman have slightly more combat strength than warriors, and that combat strength is inherited by your city’s defence when a spearman is fortified in the city. Importantly, a spearman’s weakness to melee is not inherited by the city (I think that’s right – sorry if I’ve got that wrong). Spearman can also more safely fight melee in their own cities notwithstanding their inherent weakness, because they heal faster within friendly borders and can hide (or is that cower) in city centres / encampments.
With no iron, but defended by your loyal (if terrified) spearmen, you might then focus on the infrastructure techs (to get campus, commercial hub and IZ). I think this is why the upgrade to spearmen (pikemen) is a leaf along the infrastructure tech tree (military tactics) – because it’s players bee-lining infrastructure who are going to have spearmen and need to upgrade them.
Two conclusion from all this. First, spearman (and pikemen) may be intentionally a little weak and pikemen may be intentionally in an out of the way part of the tech tree. They’re designed for defensive play, and are probably a little underpowered to make defensive play more risky / challenging.
Second, civs that have UUs at military tactics (Hilariously Haranguing Harold / Berserkers, and Hojo / Samurai) may have them there so they can focus on the infrastructure tree – i.e. they can focus on the infrastructure techs, because their units are on the way to IZs (albeit with a small detour), and they won’t need bronze working / iron to build those units anyway.
TL;DR: spearman aren’t terrible (or, if they are, are terrible on purpose); berserkers and samurai aren’t out of the way at military tactics, instead they’re “on the way” for infrastructure play.
[edit for formatting]
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