Copper vs. Horses - Which do you prefer in the Ancient Era?

[AspiringScholar]

Following the release of 3.8, I decided to start a new game as Hungary, and rolled a start with lots of flat terrain and horses in my BFC, which prompted the question: which do you think is a better strategic resource at the start of the game, horses or copper?

While this question is somewhat dependent on the civ one chooses to play as (and in particular whether one is a "horse-centric"/historically nomadic civ), I personally am of the opinion that horses are stronger to start with, even generically, for the following reasons:

- They provide access to a powerful strategic unit from a first-tier tech with the Chariot which can be used very early.
- They offer a more practical source of from their improvement (3 or 4, depending on grassland or plains, which is equivalent to copper with an early mine but also may be buffed to 3 or 4 dependent on the same with Pastoral Nomadism and not be dependent on a farm or food resource to feed them, which is significant with pop caps at the beginning of the game being low).
- Copper allows access to Spearmen at Bronze Working, but their primary utility is in countering charge mounted units, and so they are more defensive than offensive, when Archers are already more effective at this for defense of cities, and their lower mobility when roads are rare makes them somewhat underwhelming as a defensive unit in the field in the opening.
- Unlike copper/bronze, horses are a vital strategic resource through the entire first half of the game without which you lack access to a broad category of powerful units, while iron is a viable alternative metal for the same strategic units as the former during the same span of time.
- Axemen, while dominant for the role of city conquest in their day, nevertheless share their debut tech with Warband, which are more cost-effective and arguably just as reliable in numbers.

What do you think?

 

[12090722]

Horses enable larger stacks through Mobility Aid.

The +12% Strength from Mobility III can offset two levels of the Logistics Problem penalty, and at Logistics Problem V, the stack size jumps up to 16–30 units.

The best Ancient army composition using Horses is:
19 Warbands + 3 Chariots + 3 Skirmishers + 5 Battering Rams

This setup provides Assault III, Mobility III, Recon III, and Siege III, and applies Logistics Problem V to the Warbands.

Which gives -1% Strength, +4 First Strikes, and +12% City Attack.

Extremely powerful, cheap to build.

Copper can't do these things.

 

[[Y]]

Copper, no doubt.

Chariots are still meh. They have great mobility, but they are countered off the bat by the default melee unit (militia), and that counter becomes felt even more when they upgrade to spearmen with copper. This reduces them to a mobility aid unit, which is effective, but very conditional. They are also expensive, costing 33% more than the militia, 50% more than skirmishers, and have their costs increase by 15% for each current chariot, whereas the militia and skirmisher only increase by 10%. Horses might become available with a first tier tech, but you still aren't likely to build any before hitting second or third tier techs anyway.

Ancient era combat is ultimately defined by skirmishers, which match the chariot for mobility and are at an advantage against the militia/spearmen. Having the mobility aid isn't typically necessary because the skirmisher's attack bonuses give you all you need to attack confidently. Spending hammers and upkeep on chariots is time and money you could have used to build more skirmishers, or deployed your military into the field to get things done.

The chariot is most useful when the skirmisher's attack bonuses are nullified, mostly when attacking cities, with its mobility aid now having more impact. But in this case, you still want to have axeman over warbands, which require both copper and a bronze smith to begin with. Warbands have decent strength and can be mass produced, but unless you have an extremely financially flurishing empire, sending out a big stack of warbands will devastate your economy. Axemen get more done while costing less, and that's the sort of value that secures a strong game. Empires are built on the back of a strong economy, always plan around that.

 

[Alekseyev_]

I would intuitively have answered copper for the ancient age and horses for classical, due to spearmen and axemen and the uniquitous forests/jungles making chariot usage harder at the start.

Getting Nataraja for bronze smiths is also a very nice early boon.

However, I do find @12090722 's post quite convincing. And from classical onwards, you can hope for iron. Cataphracts in particularly are extremely nice to have, both for general field combat (sometimes even city assaults after the walls have been brought to 0% due to their collateral damage) and also especially for softening huge slave/serf revolt stacks. If elephants exist, however, I would again pivot to copper, since elephants can be beelined quite well and provide some huge punching power early on.

 

[AspiringScholar]

Interesting discussion! I really enjoy how several different angles can be taken with these questions and how the game allows for different playstyles without one necessarily being "objectively" better in some kind of obvious way.

With Chariots, I ought to have factored in the relevance of terrain, because like Alekseyev mentions, if you start with lots of hills and forests/jungles, their inability to receive the defensive bonus is a rather large liability, and this also blunts their movement advantage substantially.

To [Y]'s point, though, Militia don't actually counter Chariots outside of a defensive bonus (unless that is what was intended). They both receive 50% strength against each other, but the chariot's base 4 vs. the militia's 3 makes this 6 against 4.5, which is not competitive in flat terrain. If you use them early enough, you can often choose whether or not to give battle, and they are substantially stronger than anything else in an open field.

I've never made a huge stack like Twelve (I'm taking the liberty of calling you that ) mentions so early in the game. I feel like that would take too long to produce and tank my economy, even if I conquered extensively with it. What difficulty is that at, I wonder?

--

I guess I'm just a cavalry fan. I like Chariots and use them a lot early on. I like to station just one or two of them in border or choke point cities, and use them to protect the BFC and hunt barbs, primarily, but they also often score a kill or two on invading enemies when they march in with their small stacks (usually a couple of melee, an archer/skirmisher and battering ram). Often, the melee defends because it has the highest value, and then the rest are easy pickings after they turn around and run away. I find that just a handful scattered around allows for a flexible early game defense, where I often like to settle aggressively.

 

[12090722]

My settings are 3-player Multiplayer, Emperor difficulty, and Rollercoaster speed.

In the Ancient era, I usually prefer to compose most of my army with Skirmishers (plus a few Chariots for Mobility III if I have horses). Since Skirmishers have an inherent advantage when attacking in almost all Ancient era field combat situations, they are excellent for intercepting enemy stacks.

However, due to the nature of MP, there are times when you need to wage war beyond just stopping a neighbor's invasion. In these cases, I have always used Warbands.

I already have the most expensive components, the Skirmishers and Chariots, as a standing army. If I judge that war is necessary, I simply stop production in all cities and simultaneously produce only 5 Rams and Warbands.

19 Warbands is the maximum number fit for a stack, though in practice, I may produce fewer or more. I produce as many as I deem necessary to capture the target city. It is convenient because I can calculate this using the F5 deployment screen without counting them one by one. Any units exceeding the stack limit are formed into an 8-unit support stack and moved together. If I don't have horses, the siege stack becomes 5 Rams + 3 Skirmishers + 6 Warbands, resulting in more support stacks. Having horses is much more convenient as it allows for better consolidation.

This severely hurts my finances, but actually, I use Warbands precisely for that reason. Warband spam is a gold-fueled strategy that suits my commerce-focused playstyle. Although it burns through cash, I can leverage my strong economy to sustain the deficit just long enough to secure a quick, inevitable victory.

Since I produce a sufficiently large number, I end up with quite a few surplus Warbands after taking the target city, but personally, I don't consider this a waste. Since this is MP with other players, if a perfectly planned war goes wrong due to Bad RNG, we cannot reload the turn. It is better to prepare ample troops and treat them as an insurance premium against contingencies.

Also, I believe that military superiority turns an AI whose defense has been decimated into a compliant AI that easily agrees to peace negotiations. The 15 turns provided by a peace treaty is a very long time in Rollercoaster speed, so achieving the objective quickly and ending the war early is extremely valuable. The gold from capturing the city and the small amount received during peace negotiations are minor, but they cover this insurance premium.

Once the peace treaty is signed, I disband all but about 5-6 of the Warbands used in the war, and usually disband all Rams without exception. In version 3.72 which I used to play, if I used a General on a stack of 1 Skirmisher and 5 Rams to give them 5 XP, I could get Rams with the city bombardment promotion. I used to keep those reinforced Rams because it felt wasteful to disband them. In version 3.8, the City Bombardment promotion was changed to be easily obtainable, so I would likely disband all of them after the war.

Regarding the economy, contrary to concerns, there were no major issues. In the MP sessions I participate in, players don't wage war directly against each other; we play on a large map, and the session ends if one of the three takes significant losses or falls far behind (those who want to retire do so, and those who want to continue do so). I have never caused a session to end due to a failed war or failed post-war recovery.

I always prefer to Overexpand and grow many Cottages in the Ancient era. This is likely because if I have already Overexpanded, I stick to defensive wars without invading the AI, and I only wage offensive wars when I haven't been able to Overexpand.

The influence of Suleyman Kanuni, the leader I mainly play, also plays a part. Since he receives +1 Food and +1 Hammer in the city center, I can assign citizens to work more cottages instead of mines and farms. His Legislator trait also reduces Civic upkeep and allows for cheaper Courthouses, making him very powerful for this playstyle.

Also I personally consider the Axeman to be a unit with poor performance.

Even though Axemen have excellent odds when attacking cities, the reasons I think they are bad are as follows:

* They are expensive.
The base cost is double that of a Warband, and since they require a Bronze Smith as a prerequisite building, they are too expensive to produce in small numbers, and their scaling cost is also high at 15%, making them too expensive to mass-produce. They are pricey, but they only perform exactly as much as they cost.

* They are bad at receiving support bonuses.
For an Axe (Str 5) to receive the Tier 3 bonus, the total strength of the support class must exceed 10. Even if you gather the maximum limit of 5 Rams (Str 2), the total is exactly 10. It does not exceed 200%, so they cannot trigger Siege III.
Recon III also requires at least 4 Skrs (Str 3). However, composing a stack this way raises the logistics penalty by 2 tiers, meaning the combat strength lost is greater than the bonus gained.

* They are weak in Field combat.
If an Axe is attacked by a Chariot on flat terrain, its survival rate is 27%, and if attacked by a Skirmisher, its survival rate is only 23% regardless of terrain. They are too expensive to lose like that, so an Axe stack requires support troops to protect the Axes.

* In war, you already have Siege units to escort.
If the defender has sufficient troops prepared, it is impossible to capture a city without reducing its defense using Siege units.
Since the goal of an invasion war is to capture the city, failing to protect the Siege units results in an automatic defeat for the attacker.
However, Siege units have much lower combat strength than other units of the same era, requiring escort troops. In Field combat, they only take up supply slots and increase Logistic problems, weakening the stack's combat strength.

Using Axes feels like adding more baggage to protect, further weakening the stack's combat strength. Having to provide a separate escort force is also a burden.

Warbands are very effective for city sieges, but they simultaneously serve the role of protecting the Rams with their numbers. I think this is the biggest difference from Axes, which require separate escort units.

Utility of Warbands: If a Warband is attacked by a Chariot on flat terrain, its survival rate is only 9%, and if attacked by a Skirmisher, its survival rate is only 14% regardless of terrain. They are even weaker than Axes. However, Warbands are cheap, moderately strong, and good for mass production.

Although Doomstack operations have become trickier in RI, the core combat mechanism of Civ4 remains: attacking with a force that has a 30% win rate but double the defender's numbers ultimately yields a higher win rate than attacking with a force that has a 90% individual win rate.
Warband has a base cost half that of an Axe, and unlike the Axe which has +15% scaling, it has only +3%. The point is, replacing every slot an Axe would take with 2 Warbands is much more effective than using Axes.

The convenient thing about Ancient warfare is that once you have a sufficient army as the attacker, variables disappear, and all defending troops can be traded efficiently by paying with Warbands.

If the defender has no Composite Bows, you only need to pay 0.5 Warbands per defending unit, so you can safely suppress the city with double the numbers.

If the defender has Composite Bows, you have to pay 1.5 Warbands for each one, and 2.5 if the city is on a hill. It gets a bit more expensive, but if you have 'Melee Tradition,' you can handle it at a much more reasonable price.

One trick is that if you throw a skirmisher as bait into a forest 2 tiles away from the city during a siege, you can often lure out a Composite Bow.
Situations occasionally arise where this allows you to capture a city one turn earlier—a city that would otherwise require waiting for the support Warband stack to arrive.

Cross the border on the turn war is declared, move the stack adjacent to the city on the next turn, and on the third turn, remove city defenses, annihilate the defenders, and capture the city.
If you overwhelm the defender with numbers and start the war, this sequence of events is a fait accompli.

Afterward, negotiate peace and disband the useless troops. Depending on the AI, there were cases where they wouldn't agree to peace immediately even after their defense force was decimated. However, if I took action to heal the wounded Warbands and move toward the next city, they became compliant without exception.

 

[[Y]]

To [Y]'s point, though, Militia don't actually counter Chariots outside of a defensive bonus (unless that is what was intended). They both receive 50% strength against each other, but the chariot's base 4 vs. the militia's 3 makes this 6 against 4.5, which is not competitive in flat terrain. If you use them early enough, you can often choose whether or not to give battle, and they are substantially stronger than anything else in an open field.

This is correct, but it's not just about relative strengths, it's investments and hammers lost. I can afford to lose 1 militia to take down 1 of your chariots (while having a second militia or a skirmisher finish the chariot off) more than you can afford to lose 1 chariot to take down 1 of my militia. You can try, but I'll get better returns on my hammers than you would.

A key difference between axemen and chariots is that the chariot's ideal situation starts on empty terrain, and only gets worse as hills/forests/cities contribute to the defender's bonuses. Axemen, however, are okay at empty terrain combat (though not a good use of them, typically), and get better when facing off a unit in a city. So if you're challenging me with chariots, I can strategize to your disadvantage and either get opportune strikes, force a stalemate where you're wasting gold on support costs, or travel fairly safely through forests and hills. You could risk your chariots with an attack, but you'd be much better off, both for hammers and odds, using skirmishers. On the other hand, if I invade you with axemen, I can support them with other troops and hide in hills and forests all the way up to your city, and they'll be in an advantageous position.

I'm not saying people shouldn't build chariots, just that they aren't a great unit to build as a default. They are at the whims of the landscape and enemy movements, and that makes them a liability relative to their costs.

 

[AspiringScholar]

This is correct, but it's not just about relative strengths, it's investments and hammers lost. I can afford to lose 1 militia to take down 1 of your chariots (while having a second militia or a skirmisher finish the chariot off) more than you can afford to lose 1 chariot to take down 1 of my militia. You can try, but I'll get better returns on my hammers than you would.

A key difference between axemen and chariots is that the chariot's ideal situation starts on empty terrain, and only gets worse as hills/forests/cities contribute to the defender's bonuses. Axemen, however, are okay at empty terrain combat (though not a good use of them, typically), and get better when facing off a unit in a city. So if you're challenging me with chariots, I can strategize to your disadvantage and either get opportune strikes, force a stalemate where you're wasting gold on support costs, or travel fairly safely through forests and hills. You could risk your chariots with an attack, but you'd be much better off, both for hammers and odds, using skirmishers. On the other hand, if I invade you with axemen, I can support them with other troops and hide in hills and forests all the way up to your city, and they'll be in an advantageous position.

I'm not saying people shouldn't build chariots, just that they aren't a great unit to build as a default. They are at the whims of the landscape and enemy movements, and that makes them a liability relative to their costs.

Thanks for the thought-provoking reply! Touche, I can't argue with much of that, though I'll caveat that my championing of chariots is in the context of starting with horses in the BFC. While I think that they remain relatively good through the ancient era (Mobility Aid 3 is very nice to have, for instance), the appeal of the unit in the context of my original post is that you can build them extremely early. Horses don't require a technology to be revealed, and teching The Wheel and then Animal Husbandry while going worker first on your build order often allows for a chariot to be the third thing built. Granted, militia are universally available and comparably early if you don't research for food improvement first, but in comparison with axemen, they come much, much later at the very end of the ancient era, when I'd definitely be looking at cataphracts, horsemen or horse archers at that point.

 

[AspiringScholar]

I already lost my professional tech job to the expectation of AI takeover and I'm no fan of it with respect to this prospect, but this summary was interesting. I was curious to see how much insight it would have on the actual game mechanics specific to the mod, and with maybe a single exception or two, it seemed to either know already or gather from our context plenty enough to reply meaningfully:

Spoiler :

Me: "I will pivot briefly. Using the rules of the mod for Civilization IV, Realism Invictus, please weigh on in this question I posted in the thread whose text is pasted below: [top-down copy/paste of this entire thread's text, without clipping usernames or anything, and manually editing nothing...]

GPT:
This is a very RI-specific question, and the thread you pasted actually surfaces something important: both sides are “right,” but they are optimizing for different constraints—and Realism Invictus brutally rewards clarity about which constraint you are playing under.


I’ll give you a clean synthesis, then a verdict framed the way RI actually behaves.

---

1. The core mistake people make in this debate​

The horses vs. copper question is not primarily about unit matchups.
It is about:

• Timing
• Stack logistics
• Economic shock tolerance
• Terrain determinism
• Whether you plan to project force or merely deny it

Once you frame it this way, the disagreement in the thread resolves cleanly.

---

2. Horses: what they are​

Your argument (and Twelve’s) is strongest where RI diverges most from vanilla Civ IV:

​

• Mobility Aid III is real power in RI, not a luxury
• It offsets Logistics Problem penalties earlier than any other resource
• This directly enables larger, earlier, cheaper stacks

This is why Twelve’s stack math is correct within RI’s system:

• Warbands + Rams are weak individually
• But logistics-optimized mass beats quality in Ancient warfare
• Horses let you cheat logistics earlier than copper can

​

You’re absolutely right that:

• Horses are usable immediately
• A chariot as your third build is uniquely possible
• They give you:
  • Barbarian control
  • BFC policing
  • Stack interception
  • Choice of engagement

This is not about killing militia efficiently.
It’s about denying the enemy initiative.

​

This is an underappreciated but correct point:

• Horses gate entire unit classes
• Copper is functionally replaced by iron relatively quickly
• Losing horses later is catastrophic; losing copper is often survivable

From a strategic continuity perspective, horses are objectively higher-leverage.

---

3. Copper: where its defenders are correct​

[Y] and Alekseyev are not wrong—but they are arguing from a different risk model.

​

RI terrain matters a lot:

• Forests, hills, jungle massively blunt mounted value
• Defensive play favors metal infantry
• Axemen scale better as terrain worsens

If you start in:

• Forest-heavy
• Hill-dense
• Jungle-blocked terrain

Then chariots stop being tempo tools and start being liabilities.

​

[Y]’s hammer-efficiency argument is sound if:

• You don’t plan to spike deficit spending
• You prefer smaller, higher-quality armies
• You don’t want to disband post-war

In other words: copper is better if you hate volatility.

Axemen specifically​

Here, Twelve’s critique is devastating—and correct in RI:

• Axes are expensive
• Poorly optimized for support bonuses
• Awkward with siege logistics
• Overkill for what Warbands already do cheaper

Axemen are good units, but bad RI units unless the terrain or tech context strongly favors them.

---

4. Multiplayer context changes everything​

Twelve’s explanation clarifies something crucial:

This is MP, no reloads, and wars must end decisively.

Under those rules:

• Overbuilding is rational
• Warband spam is insurance
• Gold-burning is acceptable
• Logistics dominance > unit efficiency

In single-player, copper looks stronger.
In multiplayer with humans and no reloads, horses gain enormous value.


This is why the thread feels split: people are implicitly assuming different game modes.

---

5. Final verdict (RI-specific)​

​

• You have flat or semi-open terrain
• Horses are in the BFC
• You are willing to run deficits
• You intend to wage initiative-driven wars
• You understand logistics math and post-war disbanding

This is especially true for Hungary-style starts and Suleyman-style economies.

​

• Terrain is restrictive
• You expect defensive wars
• You value economic smoothness
• Elephants are available
• You dislike disbanding units

​

They are:

• Not bad
• Not useless
• But rarely optimal compared to Warband-centric approaches unless terrain or tech forces your hand

---

6. One sentence summary (forum-worthy)​

In Realism Invictus, horses don’t win fights—they win logistics, tempo, and initiative. Copper is safer, but horses are stronger when you’re willing to play aggressively and exploit RI’s stack mechanics.

If you want, I can:

• Rewrite this as a polished forum reply
• Break down terrain-by-terrain optimal resources
• Or map this debate onto difficulty scaling and AI behavior

Just tell me how deep you want to go.

I think it misunderstands or didn't account for free unit support with respect to going for early chariots if you start with horses in your capital's ring, since you can obviously build a handful of them at the immediate beginning of the game and not suffer a GPT (how ironic of an acronym here ) penalty the same way you would if you built a huge stack of warband in the ancient era with a primitive economy and supplemented them with aid-providing units, but otherwise, this is a somewhat surprisingly "RI-astute" answer, presumably just from our context in this thread (since I've asked it other strategic questions pertinent to the mod and it clearly didn't have a grasp on what the actual parameters of this mod were in such a way to make cogent and plausible strategies, and instead just garbled generic stuff that didn't make qualifiable sense). Were it not for the "free unit" aspect, I'd say that [Y]'s point about the quality of axemen vs. warband is exactly diametrical to his own about chariots' inferiority vs. militia, but therein lies the meaningful difference, because at that moment of the game's timeline, everyone is operating within the "free units" allowance, which makes all the difference...

 

[[Y]]

Horses don't require a technology to be revealed, and teching The Wheel and then Animal Husbandry while going worker first on your build order often allows for a chariot to be the third thing built.

I guess this is where more playstyle comes in. I don't typically research Animal Husbandry until towards the mid/late ancient era, so needing to research it earlier (along with a precursor tech) is a disadvantage. Especially when I can build militia in all cities without having to worry about connecting them. Not a big deal if you only have one city for a long while, but I usually have 3 cities by turn 80, and want units available to build without concern for paths and roads.

if you don't research for food improvement first

Ever since pigs can be improved with camps, toolmaking has become the #1 food tech for me.

presumably just from our context in this thread

That and AI chatbots being prompted to agree with you.

It basically just summarized everything said here without adding anything new, sprinkled with some inaccuracies/gibberish.

I'd say that [Y]'s point about the quality of axemen vs. warband is exactly diametrical to his own about chariots' inferiority vs. militia, but therein lies the meaningful difference

Just to clarify, are you saying that my point about militia vs axeman hammer efficiency is also an argument for axeman over warbands?

 

[AspiringScholar]

I guess this is where more playstyle comes in. I don't typically research Animal Husbandry until towards the mid/late ancient era, so needing to research it earlier (along with a precursor tech) is a disadvantage. Especially when I can build militia in all cities without having to worry about connecting them. Not a big deal if you only have one city for a long while, but I usually have 3 cities by turn 80, and want units available to build without concern for paths and roads.

Ah, that is a big difference in playstyle, then! I took it as given that most everyone (outside of really unusual starts or when one is intending to found one of the early religions for roleplaying or some specific reason) prioritizes food improvement first. When I used to play with raging barbs in 3.55-7, I would go Toolmaking -> Woodworking first most of the time to get militia and next-tech archers before the onslaught began, but my rule of thumb is to improve my food bonuses immediately as a first priority. That is admittedly a leftover from vanilla which I haven't thoroughly questioned. Maybe that's due.

Ever since pigs can be improved with camps, toolmaking has become the #1 food tech for me.

Yeah, and I believe you had something to do with that, too. Sometimes the camps even remain more lucrative than the pasture, if one needs another health from keeping a forest, for instance.

That and AI chatbots being prompted to agree with you.

It basically just summarized everything said here without adding anything new, sprinkled with some inaccuracies/gibberish.

That's fair. I've noticed that it does tend to do this, even if what it says usually isn't insubstantive. I've played a lot of War Thunder this year, and I have noticed that it will get some specifics of vehicles quite wrong if the conversation thread gets longer than a few exchanges back and forth, for instance.

Just to clarify, are you saying that my point about militia vs axeman hammer efficiency is also an argument for axeman over warbands?

No, I was saying that if we omit the fact that your first handful of units are free from a financial standpoint, then your own argument for the axeman's superiority over warband owing to quality ("Axemen get more done while costing less, and that's the sort of value that secures a strong game") also applies to the chariot, which you argued against from a cost-basis standpoint. I follow and find your reasoning solid within the pale of differing playstyles, but was just saying that the fact that by the time you're getting warband, the free unit support is usually exhausted already and investing more hammers in financially free chariots at the opening of the game instead of militia doesn't present an economic opportunity cost due to the fact that both options won't cost you gold at the very beginning, whereas a huge amount of warband will, when building a measured few axemen will be much cheaper financially. I mentioned it to your point since GPT seemed not to account for this angle, and I was saying that that one factor makes all the difference in the argument you were making, not inherently disagreeing with it. I hope that makes sense.

 

[12090722]

Ah, that is a big difference in playstyle, then! I took it as given that most everyone (outside of really unusual starts or when one is intending to found one of the early religions for roleplaying or some specific reason) prioritizes food improvement first. When I used to play with raging barbs in 3.55-7, I would go Toolmaking -> Woodworking first most of the time to get militia and next-tech archers before the onslaught began, but my rule of thumb is to improve my food bonuses immediately as a first priority.

Prioritizing food is certainly reasonable, since extra yields are needed for building Workers and Settlers.

However, if I may share my perspective, a critical factor in the early RI economy is the Tribal Union civic. As it carries significant penalties, rushing a new Government civic is often the optimal play.

So, even though I voted for Horses, Animal Husbandry is a tech I really dislike researching early. I personally only research Animal Husbandry early if pasture resources are my only available food source.

Since early beakers are scarce, the research spent on AH delays reaching new government civics, which means paying higher maintenance for longer. If researching AH took 6 turns, check how much you are paying during the final 6 turns immediately before unlocking the new government civic. I consider this extra payment as a deferred cost of AH, which is... substantial.

Copper, no doubt.

I would intuitively have answered copper for the ancient age

I have to admit, I seem to have underestimated the Axeman.

I think the main reason Copper gets overlooked is simply that Skirmishers and Warbands are already so useful. Since you don't need Copper to field a competent army, it's easy to write off what it actually unlocks.

As I mentioned, I personally didn't consider Axemen a viable option before. Since nobody in my MP group builds them either, I ignored them for a long time. But after seeing these other perspectives, I decided to give them a try in a recent game, and realized they are quite nice. A raw 5 Strength is handy on defense, especially after Iron Working when the AI starts pushing with Composite Bows and Spears.

Also, I noticed that if you have the Militaristic or Conqueror traits, you can build a much stronger stack relying solely on Copper, even without Horses.

City Raider II Axes are nice, but more importantly, the extra Logistics given by those traits allows you to build a solid stack that actually keeps your vulnerable Axes and Rams safe.

The setup might be:
3 Rams + 2 Skirmishers + 3 Axes + 1 Spear

For a Conqueror leader, you have one spare Logistics slot, so you can add another Ram (for Siege III on the escorting Skirmishers), or just another Skirmisher or Axe.


One more thing about Copper is its naval utility. Unlike Horses, which are strictly for war, Copper provides a production bonus for The Colossus and allows for cheaper Galleys. Honestly, I’ve probably used it more for these purposes than for using Axes or Spears. For a coastal start, lacking Copper feels disappointing.

 

[[Y]]

Ah, that is a big difference in playstyle, then! I took it as given that most everyone (outside of really unusual starts or when one is intending to found one of the early religions for roleplaying or some specific reason) prioritizes food improvement first. When I used to play with raging barbs in 3.55-7, I would go Toolmaking -> Woodworking first most of the time to get militia and next-tech archers before the onslaught began, but my rule of thumb is to improve my food bonuses immediately as a first priority. That is admittedly a leftover from vanilla which I haven't thoroughly questioned. Maybe that's due.

I used to do the same but that's changed over the years. Part of that is camps on pigs making common food improvements available with toolmaking, and part of it is warbands moving to a later tech and relieving the need for massive food output extremely early in the game. Now I just need enough food to get my cities to max happiness, and then the cities can concentrate on commerce/hammers and less on food until I do get warband access.

Yeah, and I believe you had something to do with that, too. Sometimes the camps even remain more lucrative than the pasture, if one needs another health from keeping a forest, for instance.

I did, but I've since also suggested reducing the pig camp output and Walter said he thinks it's fine as is. So I'm not taking responsibility!

No, I was saying that if we omit the fact that your first handful of units are free from a financial standpoint, then your own argument for the axeman's superiority over warband owing to quality ("Axemen get more done while costing less, and that's the sort of value that secures a strong game") also applies to the chariot, which you argued against from a cost-basis standpoint. I follow and find your reasoning solid within the pale of differing playstyles, but was just saying that the fact that by the time you're getting warband, the free unit support is usually exhausted already and investing more hammers in financially free chariots at the opening of the game instead of militia doesn't present an economic opportunity cost due to the fact that both options won't cost you gold at the very beginning, whereas a huge amount of warband will, when building a measured few axemen will be much cheaper financially. I mentioned it to your point since GPT seemed not to account for this angle, and I was saying that that one factor makes all the difference in the argument you were making, not inherently disagreeing with it. I hope that makes sense.

Gotcha! Makes sense. Thanks for breaking it down for me.

However, if I may share my perspective, a critical factor in the early RI economy is the Tribal Union civic. As it carries significant penalties, rushing a new Government civic is often the optimal play.

Yep. Getting access to Despotism is something I prioritize in the early game, and typically don't research Animal Husbandry until after I get it.

My usual tech prioritization, if anyone's curious:

1. Woodworking, if I'm in a woodsy area, otherwise early metalworking.
2. Early metalworking, if I'm in a woodsy area. Otherwise Woodworking (with metalworking researched first).
3. Storytelling
4. Trade network (fishing or sailing, depending on which is needed to connect my cities)
5. Founding a religion
6. Despotism
7. Whatever I need to improve other resources in my cities, or archery if no resources

Since early beakers are scarce, the research spent on AH delays reaching new government civics, which means paying higher maintenance for longer. If researching AH took 6 turns, check how much you are paying during the final 6 turns immediately before unlocking the new government civic. I consider this extra payment as a deferred cost of AH, which is... substantial.

Exactly. Especially since by the time you get around to AH, you may well be getting a tech transfer bonus on it too. You might get one on the Despotism tech, but it's nowhere near as certain.

The setup might be:
3 Rams + 2 Skirmishers + 3 Axes + 1 Spear

I usually go 4 axes. I don't remember if 3 axes + spear is enough for the axes to get tier 3 support bonus from each other. And I like the redundancy in case an axeman happens to die despite good odds, which is going to happen ~1/4 of the time.

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Anyway, I've forgotten to mention this earlier, but the posed question is entirely moot because the best strategic resource to hope for in the early game is prime timber.

 

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the best strategic resource to hope for in the early game is prime timber.

Imagine a resource that accelerates all military unit production by 10-20%—how powerful would that be? That is effectively how Prime Timber works in the early game; and it accelerates not just military units but all production, on top of providing specific production bonuses for Naval units and Battering Rams. So, technically true.

rolled a start with lots of flat terrain and horses in my BFC

Militia don't actually counter Chariots outside of a defensive bonus (unless that is what was intended). They both receive 50% strength against each other, but the chariot's base 4 vs. the militia's 3 makes this 6 against 4.5, which is not competitive in flat terrain. If you use them early enough, you can often choose whether or not to give battle, and they are substantially stronger than anything else in an open field.

That said, I would also like to offer a slight defense for Chariots; under these specific conditions, they are truly strong. On open plains, Chariots actually outperform even Skirmishers.

Spoiler :

Actually there's an issue, when intercepting Barbarian Militia, the win rate is around 80%, which might feel a bit risky. However, there is a small trick: if you stack just two other units (Chariots or Militia) to provide support, the odds jump to 90%. This effectively halves the risk. A promoted elite Chariot can handle them even more reliably.

This makes Chariots effective strikers from the very beginning. Being able to defend Cottages without needing Skirmishers is an advantage. Consequently, with a start like this, I tend to research Architecture immediately after Animal Husbandry, even if it further delays reaching a government civic.

Since each pop in RI consumes 3F, I personally view working a 3H tile not as creating new output, but merely exchanging 3F for 3H. From this perspective, working a Cottage is essentially paying 1 Yield to purchase commerce. I think this synergizes quite well with Pastoral Nomadism. While Pastoral Nomadism is dependent on resource nodes, it grants an extra +2 Yields per resource, effectively offsetting that cost.

Although the commerce from Cottages is initially wasted just to cover the deficit of the Tribal Union, Cottages grow. Over time, this allows for competitive performance even against civilizations that established their Government earlier.

However, another reason I dislike researching early AH is the Mounted Savage issue. They are strong, ignore terrain movement costs to move 2 tiles, and even counter Chariots, yet they appear very early. There is a high chance you will meet one before even achieving your first 10 barbarian kills; I once had to fend off six of them before my first Great General was even born.

That is why Militia are necessary. The pure power of chariots is only utilized when you have a mass of 4 or more, but because you are forced to divert limited early production into Militia to counter the Mounted Savages, it becomes difficult to reach that critical mass. It's a pity, because Chariots remain useful for much longer while Militia are relegated to mere city garrisons once safety is secured... but I think there really is no other choice.