Copper and Iron

[Stageon]

Just a topic for discussion - How much do your strategies rely on copper and/or iron? If you're a rusher, do you switch gears and go economically if you don't have easy access to them? Do you try to rush anyway with what you do have? Or just re-start?

On the other hand, If you're not planning on rushing, but iron pops up right next to your best city, do you consider going into conquer mode? Do you scout your neigbor's lands to see whether he/she has access to these metals, and how does that influence your decisionmaking?

 

[Stageon]

Anyone?

 

[AndersenDK]

Of course if you for example play with the romans it would be a bit stupid not to rush your prateorians, so it really depends on the situation.

If I don't have either copper or iron, I would try to search for them and maybe try to flip a enemy city witch have copper/iron by culture.

But if its impossible to get it I just build my economy the best way I can and focus on getting a proper defence with archers.

 

[Glinka]

I've only encountered a single situation where I lacked iron or copper, and I was then attacked by waves of barbarian spearmen and axemen. (No, the enraged barbarians option was turned off.) I quit at some point. The inability to even see iron and copper when my scouts and warriors did their first sweep of my continent worked against me, but the barbarians were more lucky, once they learned the appropriate techs.

 

[Pvblivs]

It is most unlikely that copper and iron are missing. And it is not a problem. I like warmongering if I have a real neighbor. If the others are far away I usually build up my empire peacefully.

If I want war then I usually need 1 resource of iron, copper or horses. Catapults are for free. If I have got only horses (horse archers) I try to get better defenders before (longbows).

It may pay off as well to man a boat with settler and archer lacking an important resource and go for an island or other continent. Colonies...

A very effective "I only have archers" strategy if you are forced into a war is pillaging. Archers are very cheap and with barracks they first occupy any important hills or woods. And then slowly advance for the resources of the enemy.
What is this good for? If your opponent has no farms, mines and cottages he produces more slowly and most important, he cannot use his resources that are his advantage over you and he is teching very slowly.
Your goal in this war is then to outtech your enemy while pillaging and later come with longbows/muskets to steal some of his resources.

 

[Pvblivs]

I've only encountered a single situation where I lacked iron or copper, and I was then attacked by waves of barbarian spearmen and axemen. (No, the enraged barbarians option was turned off.) I quit at some point. The inability to even see iron and copper when my scouts and warriors did their first sweep of my continent worked against me, but the barbarians were more lucky, once they learned the appropriate techs.

I had this once as well but with raging barbarians in a one city challenge. What do you do if your military is weak because you lack resources? Build baracks! Fortify two archers on hills, in woods and behind rivers that you think to be important. Promote them accordingly. Chop forests that are nasty to defend (around cities etc.) to attack easily yourself.
And go as fast as possible to longbows. They are the first of many best-possible defense units that don't need resources. Barbarian attack units hardly have a chance from then on.

 

[ArtiC]

well in my opinion it is immposible to wage offensive war without either copper or iron till elephants, and if u dont get ivory, well its pretty screwed-up till gunpowder era...

in one of my games i had neither of thoose resources, and was kinda trapped by another culture luckally i had horse source and what i did, i got to liberalism as fast as i could, got nationalism, military tradition and gunpowder and shot all AI longbowmen like dogs... well in theory you cold do your warmongering (esspecially pillaging) with horse archers (eaven better with salandin) but my expirience shows that anyways AI is at longbowmen era at that moment and its not too far till cavalry gets to you... if you play with russians and get liberalism first... ohh your opponents ar very very screwed haha...

you can easily take enemy cities in ancient/classical eras with axemen an swordsmen if you got copper OR iron, just concentrate your attacks and dont enemies reinforcements get there... also if you have chairots... well with their withdrawal bonus its isnt eaven suiciding ;]

 

[MyOtherName]

I'm somewhat surprised that nobody is mentioning that chariots can do a decent job against archers... even if you're not Persia or Egypt! You don't need to wait an eternity for horseback riding (or military tradition ) before launching a war of conquest!

 

[obsolete]

Back in teh days of civ III iron was so dominant of a resource. It's been toned down a bit but yeah, it still can hurt.

 

[Jonny211]

I was next to Ceasar one time and he didn't have iron or copper... how my swordsmen laughed!

 

[obsolete]

A good move here, is to trade it to ceasar. He will be very gracious and pay you kindly, and it's always nice to have your big bad neighbour as your best ally. He will also be lest reluctant to be coaxed into war with you by another AI, as he knows you'll cut off that iron.

 

[Glinka]

I had this once as well but with raging barbarians in a one city challenge. What do you do if your military is weak because you lack resources? Build baracks! Fortify two archers on hills, in woods and behind rivers that you think to be important. Promote them accordingly.

I wasn't playing a one-city challenge; I was playing on monarch level against 6 computer opponents, none of them on my continent. The situations were not similar, much less identical. The time lost creating a barracks and a series of experienced archers would have put me too far behind in the tech race, not to mention I was dealing with two very small cities of my own versus a sudden influx of 9(!) spearmen/axemen from three directions at once. Even if I had survived, I wasn't about to awe my opponents--assuming I could get at them, soon--with archers, when they had both barracks and axemen.

Which is why the world creation AI is designed to deliberately place vital resources like copper or iron within general reach of your first cities, and why the AI's recommendations for city locations should be taken *at that point* pretty seriously. But just occasionally, you roll up a landscape devoid in iron and copper, and perhaps dead in the center of a jungle or tundra--even on noble or monarch. That's a good time to take a break, and maybe read a book.

 

[zafyro]

archers can hold out axemen, horse archers and swordmen but lack the possibility of counter atack or retaliate, so against IA you can lure it to atack you in your forested hill, but that´s not a great thing vs Human players [pillage, pillage and pillage], so run for those crosbows... but i wont bet on you as you will have a lack of medieval troops also.

 

[Grogs]

I've yet to have this happen, but I've had situations where I just *barely* got one resource (horses) hooked up. If you find yourself in a situation with none of the 3, I think you have 2 options: research archery in a hurry *or* restart the game. You're not going to take out another AI with archers, but the goal here is survival. Build enough archers to make the AI think twice about attacking you. If I survived until construction, I would build catapults, more catapults, and even more catapults (unless I had ivory, in which case I'd build war elephants too.) I would be running vassalage/theocracy so that each cat got 2 promotions from the time they were built. Some would get accuracy (for knocking down city defenses in a hurry) some would get barrage II (for max. collateral damage) and some would get city raider II. Once I had enough catapults, I'd send them off, accompanied by a few archers with useful promotions to help defend the cats against horse archers. Then I'd go out and capture a nearby city with the resource I needed.

As for the barbs, I've found that they do seem to vary from game to game. I've had games where I only saw 1 barb warrior for the whole game, and I've had games where I had axes/swords/archers popping all over the place. The best advice I can give is to send out fog-busters. Station troops on a hill (preferably a forest/jungle hill) outside your borders. You want to be far enough away to see as much terrain as possible (to lower the frequency of barb appearances) but close enough there's no fog between the borders and your fog busters. Positioned like this, warriors can hold off barb archers and archers can hold off barb axes/swords/spears. It's been my experience that, even when the odds are ridiculously in my favor (barb warrior vs. woodland II axe on a forest/hill) they still head for my fogbusters rather than bypass them.

 

[Stageon]

Yeah, I quite like the challenge of discovering what resources are close by, and tailoring your plan to that. I would never restart a game because I didn't get the right resources. I might lose, but it would be fun trying to overcome a handicap like that.

I've had games on smaller maps where either one or both were inaccessible (at first) and I had to just hold on till I could get horses or crossbowmen. Also, it would be nice to have UUs that don't require those resources if you were in such a spot.

 

[obsolete]

As I understand it, barbs are only supposed to pop out from the darkness. However i remember one space I observed barbs continously respawning infront of my units there.

 

[Smirk]

Barb units also "spawn" from barb cities.

I'd just restart if I lacked either and wanted to monger, why waste your time "overcoming" pixels? I prefer challenging my own games and doing better than the last time, but maybe because even without iron and copper you can still win the game in other ways so its not really much of a challenge, just slower.

 

[LawLessOne]

As I understand it, barbs are only supposed to pop out from the darkness. However i remember one space I observed barbs continously respawning infront of my units there.

Darkness does not mean the solid black region that you have never had a unit uncover. I often uncover the whole land area but that does not stop barbarians from spawning just beyond my culture border.

 

[NinjaGnat]

No copper or iron is workable If you get horses...

but without any of those 3 key military resources you'd better bee-line for Feudalism or you're screwed.

 

[Stageon]

Each to their own I guess, Smirk. I see where you're coming from, I just prefer to play the hand I'm given. Also it teaches me to win in ways other than what I'm comfortable with. But I'm not trying to say others don't have their own way to do things. That's what's fun about SP games... it IS just pixels, so do whatever is most fun for you.