Do axemen have a counter?

[EscapedGoat]

CIV is clearly based on a counter-system like many RTS games, this is evident from the bonuses units receive like spearmen, axemen, gunships, etc.

After some thinking, I'd have to say that there is no cost effective way of stopping a horde of axemen other than to have more of your own. What unit can stand up to an axeman in it's era? None really.

-Warrior? duh no. I doubt even 3-4 of these guys could take out an axe.
-Archer? in city defence, yes. but that's not good enough.
-Swordsman? no chance. Axes +50% vs melee. Even praetorians are challenged.
-Chariot? Well, maybe. They are cheaper so you can mass them. But that means more upkeep. Not a real cost effective counter.
-Horse Archer: finally an early unit that works! but it's much more expensive and has an expensive tech prerequisite. Not really a good counter then.

I am thinking a good (lame) strategy in MP(or SP) would be to play an aggressive civ, found 1 or 2 more cities and just chop/poprush axemen. Since the only thing that beats axemen is more axemen, an aggressiv civ with a barracks could churn out axemen with combat 1 + either city raider/cover/shock promotions and just own. How could you realisticallystop such a strategy?

 

[Wodan]

Well like you said, Archers can hold their own while defending in the cities. So, you'll likely overrun that other civ, but when/if you decide to do more than pillage, you'll lose a lot of Axes.

Also, regarding chariots, refresh my memory is it all chariots that can retreat, or is it just the Egyptian ones? If the former, then there you have an effective counter, I think. Cheaper, and you don't have to mass them, just have enough to whittle down the enemy. You'll lose a few, but a good number will survive to retreat back into the city, heal, and do it again.

Wodan

 

[Rad Chris]

The obvious answer is Crossbowmen with their bonus vs Melee but arnt melee themselves, but they come kinda late on to stop an early rush.

I'd suggest Chariots with Flanking promotions. Sure they arnt 1 for 1 strength but they will survive 50% of the time anyway. As for defence you leave that to your archers.

But yeah, axemen rule.

 

[SoupLLJK]

No there is no real counter, this is why I've complained in my other posts about it. They might as well be the only unit available for production in the early - classical ages. Sort of a letdown regarding multiplayer because of this.

 

[Bain]

once youre pillaged down, there's no way you can stop the follow-up wave with a few city raider II swordsmen.

 

[Doctor Love]

Until crossbowmen, which eat Axemen for breakfast, your best counter to Axemen is....other Axemen. For city defense your best bet is archers/longbowmen. But the combo of Axemen to pillage the countryside and Swordsmen to invade the cities is a deadly one. This is also of course why Rome's Praetorians are so awesome, because due to their increased attack rating they are basically an Axeman and Swordsman in one flexible unit.

 

[TBox]

Until crossbowmen, which eat Axemen for breakfast, your best counter to Axemen is....other Axemen. For city defense your best bet is archers/longbowmen. But the combo of Axemen to pillage the countryside and Swordsmen to invade the cities is a deadly one. This is also of course why Rome's Praetorians are so awesome, because due to their increased attack rating they are basically an Axeman and Swordsman in one flexible unit.

But Swordsmen invading the cities is easily stopped by... Axemen defending the cities. All else being equal, of course (mainly looking at promotions)

 

[Bain]

how do you get axemen defending your cities when your copper mine is pillaged?

 

[Doctor Love]

But Swordsmen invading the cities is easily stopped by... Axemen defending the cities. All else being equal, of course (mainly looking at promotions)

Well, at least with Swordsmen you can upgrade city attack even further on both of the first two promotions. With axemen you have to wait to improve their melee advantage until shock. Still Axemen are good for defense, but I prefer a mess of archers/longbows due to reduced cost and city defense bonuses on promotion.

 

[Jarrod32]

They're a bit late, and require ivory (two big 'ifs'), but War Elephants with 'Shock' promotions can be very effective against axemen & Praets...

 

[Napo981]

Horse archer with shock promotion

EDIT : of course, build yourself some early axemen, try defending with an axemen, get def bonuses, use also archer units in hill terrain. Combine with chariots, horse archer.

But really not easy choice to counter. Not a rock-paper-scissor war. Sometime is these situations, I use now low-tech-ready-to-trash units to weaken the enemy i .e. useless warriors then attack it with REAL units. Then, promoted axemen will be more sifficult to stop.

 

[PekkaM]

In my games my axemen have really laid waste to Monty's jaguars whenever he happens to spawn nearby. He seems to have a fixation for pushing those out and they are really slaughtered (then again it cuold be that he had neither copper nor iron but I doubt that).

 

[thordk]

in my recent game saladin decided to invade me with lots of stacks of axemen. luckily i had been at war with mansa at this time and had some backup catapults near by. so i attacked his stacks with my cats inflicting massive collateral damage and took out his weakend hordes with just a couple of swordsmen (some promoted with shock for this task)

 

[diamond geezer]

Yeah but Cats come along a little late...

 

[zafyro]

what about more axes? anyway defending would be allways best than atacking [defensive terrain bonus and fortification] In absence of catapults best counter is more axemen of your own fortified in yor resources or in nifty forested hills.

 

[eiseike]

Egyptian war chariots will have a 50/50 chance to beat an axeman , and if they dont they have a 20% chance to get away and heal.

Also catapults dont take that long if you try to go for them on purpose , the techs before them are pretty usefull anyway.

 

[Proteus]

I agree with Napo981.

Either Horse Archers, as he suggests (with 6 Strength against the 5 of Axemen and the advantage of greater mobility)
or Longbowmen, which have a strength of 6 as well, a slower mobility than Horse Archers, but have some advantages on defense (+25% Hill and City Def). And normally you get the tech to build them much earlier than the tech for Crossbowmen.
(and both aren´t affected by the melee advantage of axemen of course )

 

[Astax]

Best coutner to axemen is(are) axemen. All my cities only have 1 unti which I dont use to attack peopel with, a lowly archer or spearmen, rest is mostly axemen. If I'm facing too amy chariots (They are cheaper to build so standard early city can put one out every 2 turns vs 3 turns for axemen) I'lls end spearmen with my axemen stack. But usually you can only stop me with axemen.

 

[Bain]

if the counter to axemen is supposed to be "axemen" then something went wrong. Counters should be cheaper than the countered unit. Spending 200 hammers to counter 200 hammers is too pricey, especially when you're on defense and might just lose your copper / iron mine to pillage

 

[Doctor Love]

if the counter to axemen is supposed to be "axemen" then something went wrong. Counters should be cheaper than the countered unit. Spending 200 hammers to counter 200 hammers is too pricey, especially when you're on defense and might just lose your copper / iron mine to pillage

If you're defending a city, then longbows or even archers will do the trick. A city with walls and promoted archers is tough for axemen to take. If you're talking about defending territory and not just the city, the counter isn't necessarily cheaper as you're talking about the open field of battle.