counter vs. archers if you don't have horses

[nwadams]

i don't neccecarrily prefer horse archers it just seems like their a better counter to archers tahn axmen but maybe not, i'm a terrible war-mongerer anyways...lol

 

[Eqqman]

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.

Yes. I had 8 Combat I Axes that attacked 2 unpromoted Archers in a hilltop city with 40% culture.

 

[Rathelm]

Well that's why you're having cultural defense issues. The axeman rush is meant to be used long before culture buildup becomes a problem.

 

[ThePope]

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.

Are you ****** kidding. If axeman were strength 7, they would absolutely own (even more than they already do). If they could take out archers, why would you build anything else? And by the way an axman with strength 7+ is a MACEMAN.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Not to mention they need to be CR axes if you plan on attacking with them.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

i don't neccecarrily prefer horse archers it just seems like their a better counter to archers tahn axmen but maybe not, i'm a terrible war-mongerer anyways...lol

Ah, yes. A counter to archer... So you were thinking about the "immune to first strikes" upgrade? And the axemen default bonus being only against melee units? I see where you are coming from. The combat rules are kind of difficult to get. Play the game awhile and send a bunch of different units up against other units and you will get a sense of which units to best in certain situations. 25% of strength 6 is the same change as 50% of strength 3.

Chariots start with strength 4 and axes start with strength 5. That's like an automatic 25% bonus over strength 4 before you even apply the real modifiers. Archers start with 3, so promoted axes can counter regular archers in an uncultured city most of the time. Add fortification, hill and culture modifiers, and archers start to hold their own against anyone before classical age units, especially since they are cheaper to build. See eqqman's example. Add city defense and you will quickly see why people's next unit to beeline after the ancient age tends to be the catapult more often than not if they are trying to warmonger.

Simple points:
-Set up your combat so you can take a city out in one turn, ideally, so the enemy city doesn't have a chance to heal the defensive units. Before culture builds up in an enemy city, Axes or swordsmen can take out archers easier than pretty much anything else. Anything less will cost you more.
-Enemy city on a hill with culture? You need a stack of catapults to strip the cultural defense and to use collateral damage to soften up the units (and throw in any other available unit that was built earlier for the final take down if you end up short on cats after the first attack). Anything less will cost you more.
-People tend to sacrifice cats more than any other unit, though some players will try to upgrade cats for super attacks. Either way, you want catapults to weaken a city for attack.

 

[Moonsinger]

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.

Technically, for every city on the hill, you can capture it by sacrifice an axe or two, but never more than two. Yes, I'm talking about attacking city on the hill that has around 40% or 50% of culture defense. Hint: There is a good city doomer unit that you can build since 4000BC.

Spoiler :

The Worker - this is an all season battle ready unit for all ages.

1. If there is more than one archer defending the city, you need to reduce the number of defenders to 1. First you need to setup a killing field (an open field 1 or 2 square away from the city without any road on it). Move a worker there to lure an archer out. Don't worry about losing your worker; he will be a POW city for a few turns. By next turn, an archer will come out to capture your worker....now kill that archer. Keep on repeating this process until there is only 1 archer left defending the city.

2. Assuming that you did step#1 and/or only 1 archer in the city. Now, you are ready to launch a full scale attack on the city. How many axeman you think you will lose against just one archer? Btw, if you lost any workers in step#1, you will get them all back at this point. The AI usually just capture the workers and keep them inside their nearest city.

 

[Pantastic]

Yes. I had 8 Combat I Axes that attacked 2 unpromoted Archers in a hilltop city with 40% culture.

That's the problem, CR axemen are what you need for attacking a city, not combat, and I'd expect to have at least a 2-4 CR2 axes before hitting a cultural city (from barbs or wanderers). Though I'm kind of suprised that 8 couldn't pull it off.

 

[nwadams]

yes ok, i understand this basic spam axmen early strat now but on another note i found out cossak's vs. nothing more than longbowmen make a very easy war...bye bye monty

the pic used to be monty's continent...


gonna go for a diplo victory i think...

 

[Martinus]

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

That's like saying tanks counter longbowmen.

Anyway, in Warlords, chariots are obvious axemen counter.

 

[voek]

Are you ****** kidding. If axeman were strength 7, they would absolutely own (even more than they already do). If they could take out archers, why would you build anything else? And by the way an axman with strength 7+ is a MACEMAN.

Yes I was kidding my friend. I guess you didn't read my earlier post.

 

[Sisiutil]

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

Me, I'd rather use Praetorians.

The city's on a hill, you say? Good! The lads can enjoy the view once they're done slaughtering Archers...