counter vs. archers if you don't have horses

[nwadams]

hi

if i want to warmonger early what do i attack cities with archers defending them if i don't have horses?...cause axemen suck (this is vanilla by the way)

thanks

 

[Datian]

Archers or not, swordsmen and axemen are tailored for attacking cities, as long as you give them the city raider promotions. Mounted units can't take this promotion, some of them have maluses while attacking cities, they are far more useful for pillaging and intercepting axemen.

 

[Pantastic]

Even with horses, I prefer axemen for attacking cities; with city raider promotions they will kill archers better than horses do, plus they're cheaper and don't have a hard time with spearmen the way horses do.

 

[voek]

Axemen suck in Vanilla? Lol. They are the first available city raiders good for the job, having almost no real counters except other axemen (with shock). That's why chariots now (Warlords) are the axemen killers. Good move, I think.

Build some barracks, get some extra xp from barbs, and you have lvl 2 city raider axemen. Try that!

 

[bitplayer]

Try that!

And try it again! 'Cause it works.

 

[The Lardossen]

Ah, that's why I flood my enemies with Axemen when I'm not playing a civ with a good UU. It's because they suck

 

[voek]

yeah, incredible all those threads about getting bronze ASAP and early axe wars. You would almost think getting axemen, or more correct bronzeworking, is a dominant strategy in Vanilla. Even though many and when I say many, I do mean MANY, people tried to develop alternative strats. I think axemen need to be upgraded. They should have at least 7 strenght so that they can cope with those vicious str. 3 archers.

 

[Hans Lemurson]

hi

if i want to warmonger early what do i attack cities with archers defending them if i don't have horses?...cause axemen suck (this is vanilla by the way)

thanks

Oh you did not just say that! You did NOT JUST SAY THAT!

Axemen, and then later Swordsmen and Macemen are your primary City-busters. Why? Because they can get the City-Raider promotions.

Here's a likely encounter: Axeman with CityRaider2 vs. Fortified CityGarrison1 Archer in a 20% defense city.
5 vs. 3*(1+.25+.20+.50-.45) = 5.00 vs. 4.50
Even with a first-strike, the Axeman is still going to win that battle.

But to be fair, lets look at a Combat2 Horse-Archer fight that same battle:
7.2 vs. 5.85
Ok, the Horse-Archer comes out with better odds than the Axe, and immunity to first-strikes will help a bit too.

Where it doesn't win-out is in cost. Axemen cost 35 and come from the second tech that you research. Horse-archers cost 50 and come from a very expensive tech that is usually ignored for most of the beginning of the game, making it basicly a unit of a different Era.

Axemen pwn in their Era. If you want an era-equivalent unit for the Horse-archer, look at the Swordsman. Same strength (6) lower price (40) and access to the yummy city-raider promotions.

Horse-archers are not optimal for killing archers in cities; Axemen and Swordsmen are.

 

[pigswill]

Horse archers are stronger than axes vs archers but more expensive, slightly dead end tech and the AI sometimes produces spears vs HA which changes the odds dramatically. Combat2 HA=7.2; combat 1 Spear 4.4 (doubled to 8.8 vs HA before adding any defence bonusses). There is no equivalent counter to axes.

 

[Smellycowsquid]

If you don't like axemen, be the Inca, there is nothing else I can thing of. Mass produce that unit I can't spell,(Their UU)which gets a 100% bonus against archers-though you will still need alot to take a city, try to at least double up.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

Welcome to the forum!

Warmongering early...

Any unit with city raider promotions would work when attacking a city. Yes, it's axemen or swordsmen. If you are set on using horses and don't have it, trade the AI for the resource.

At monarch level and above, the AI starts with archers. You can't easily take cities early without a resource. You really need copper, horses, or iron. Attacking archers with other archers, the defenders have an advantage, so you will have to throw more upgraded archers at them than they have to defend themselves by a fair margin.

Beeline for Bronzeworking, build barracks while hooking up copper, and build CR axemen. If no copper for the bronze, switch to animal husbandry or ironworking. If you have none of the early three combat resources, and can't trade the AI for any of them, the next point where you can pick up a real combat advantage is at Construction and Catapults. Macemen require iron so that won't help if you are stuck without the resource.

If the city is on a hill, the axe rush looks more like the archer rush against other archers (not the best solution considering how many units you will lose, but doable if you want the city bad enough). When attacking a city on a hill, the catapult rush is the first and best solution. If you have the Warlords expansion, you will have the trebuchet to help you even more later in the game.

That's all I can think of that could help.

 

[Nestorius]

A little trick I liked on massively fortified archer cities is to attack with first-strike archers before bringing in the axemen. Archers are cheap. Funny now in warlords, the dominant early unit is the chariot... I like it better now,

 

[Sisiutil]

hi

if i want to warmonger early what do i attack cities with archers defending them if i don't have horses?...cause axemen suck (this is vanilla by the way)

thanks

I'm with Hans. HUH?!? Axemen RULE vanilla Civ IV. Read this closely: In vanilla Civ IV, Axemen have no effective counter until Macemen show up. Every other (non-unique) unit in the game pretty much has a contemporary counter, but not these guys. PLUS they get defensive bonuses, which mounted units don't, so they can serve as both defensive and offensive units. My early cities are, as a rule, defended by Axes, not Archers.

As a result, I usually don't research Hunting, Archery, or Horseback Riding. I trade for them, and HBR usually very late--I usually delay it until Guilds are on the horizon, for Knights. I rarely build any mounted units until then, unless I'm playing as Egypt (War Chariots rock) or have no copper or iron.

Now in Warlords, Chariots have been amped up so they're Axe-killers. Sounds interesting, and changes the game considerably.

 

[pigswill]

Technically crossbows are an effective counter to axes (50% vs melee, first strike) and the best classical city takers imho are cats (with our without axes).

 

[Stolen Rutters]

Macemen, crossbowmen, and catapults all counter axes to a degree.

 

[Pantastic]

Axes have some other earlier counters, elephants (str 8 vs 5) and crossbows (str 6+50% vs 5) both do a good job. While people will often go for CS before machinery so that crossbows and maces come at the same time, in a fairly isolated start (like America on an Earth map) you might want to beeline to caravels, which doesn't need CS. They don't have any same-era counter though, and elephants are iffy (you have to have ivory, which you often don't have and can't trade for), so they've really got almost 2 eras worth of no counter.

Now in Warlords, Chariots have been amped up so they're Axe-killers. Sounds interesting, and changes the game considerably.

Yep, you won't skip hunting whenever you get Warlords unless you enjoy your cities falling to chariots. You really, really need some spears to go with your axes; they're still the dominant unit, but you can't get away with only axes like you can in vanilla. I like it a lot, my ancient armies tend to be much more mixed than they used to be; cheap archers defend cities and hill resources, some spears counter chariots, some chariots for enemy axes (and to soften cities), and a big batch of axes for taking cities and fighting in the field.

 

[Eqqman]

I think people are being a little hard on the OP. I've read all the same posts saying how wonderful Axemen are and they fall short of my expectations. The AI is just far too likely to settle cities on hills, and in these situations I've lost even with a 4:1 ratio of Axemen to Archers once culture is in place. The cities that have no culture and are on flat land typically are also the ones I don't want since they are in poor areas. Reading people's raves about Axemen you'd get the idea that once you have them the AI's cities are just going to fall at your feet but that isn't the case. Running the numbers on an imaginary battle typically overlooks all the 'real-world' factors that count for more in practice.

 

[Pantastic]

So eggman, you're saying you'd rather use horsemen than axes trying to take a culturally defended city on a hill?

 

[Eqqman]

No I'm saying I'd rather use Catapults .

 

[Pantastic]

But the OP said he'd rather use horses than axes, that's why he's getting the response he's getting. BTW, when you talked about losing against a city with a 4:1 ratio of axes to archers, did you bring all 4x axes in on the same turn? In my experience, a city with walls on a hill will normally fall with just 3:1 axes to archers, but this doesn't work if you spread it out over multiple turns.