Does Anyone Use Chariots in Vanilla-C3C?

RJMooreII

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Does anyone use the chariot unit in Vanilla, PTW or C3C? It seems like just having horsemen is more economically practical, and the Chariot has such a short life span. What are they good for?
 
Does anyone use the chariot unit in Vanilla, PTW or C3C? It seems like just having horsemen is more economically practical, and the Chariot has such a short life span. What are they good for?

I seldom use them. Egypt on flat land they're good but usually Horsemen are a lot better as you said. I really hate the movement restrictions as well. Horseback riding usually is researched early anyway. I usually trade for Horseback riding by the time I've finished the Republic slingshot.
 
I usually have Horseback Riding before I have time to build chariots.
 
Does anyone use the chariot unit in Vanilla, PTW or C3C? It seems like just having horsemen is more economically practical, and the Chariot has such a short life span. What are they good for?

Scouts, for those civs that don't have scouts. I've built one or two for that purpose on occasion. They'll upgrade to horses cheaply enough when the time comes.

The main trouble in doing that is actually having horses hooked up soon enough to matter.
 
I always build Chariots, i avoid developing Horseback until i have some decent amount of Chariots, 20 or more is good for me. I build them but i don´t use them, i turn research to 0%, stockpile gold and then research Horseback Riding or trade it from a parnter and upgrade them all to Horsemen in a single turn, then i invade my nearest neighbour without warning. I do the same for Warriors/Swordsmen.

So i like Chariots because they are cheap fast units that can be upgraded easily. If no money for upgrades they can be used for pillaging along with a spearmen, move the chariot and spear to a tile, the spearmen can´t move anymore but the chariot can still pillage, next turn repeat the process.
 
I always build Chariots, i avoid developing Horseback until i have some decent amount of Chariots, 20 or more is good for me. I build them but i don´t use them, i turn research to 0%, stockpile gold and then research Horseback Riding or trade it from a parnter and upgrade them all to Horsemen in a single turn, then i invade my nearest neighbour without warning. I do the same for Warriors/Swordsmen.

So i like Chariots because they are cheap fast units that can be upgraded easily. If no money for upgrades they can be used for pillaging along with a spearmen, move the chariot and spear to a tile, the spearmen can´t move anymore but the chariot can still pillage, next turn repeat the process.

Let me guess, you're favorite Civ is the Iroquois, right?:) I'll have to try that strategy.
 
Let me guess, you're favorite Civ is the Iroquois, right?:) I'll have to try that strategy.
That's true for me anyways. The only two times that I've played as them, I used that strategy. Both of those were great victories. :king:
 
Let me guess, you're favorite Civ is the Iroquois, right?:) I'll have to try that strategy.

Actually, it´s Carthage (look at my picture :rolleyes:), because it´s the perfect combination of industrial workers (plus large cities producing extra shields), seafaring for fast curraghs, early contacts and starting on the coast (avoiding two frontier wars most cases) and the obvious: Water based improvements are cheaper, Bonus commerce in coastal cities, and reduced chance of sinking. It packs the numidian merc for defense/pillaging and redline unit mope up, plus GA trigering and not obsolete till industrial age.

Not to mention starting with Alphabet allows me to go for Philosophy faster, plus the earlier contact newtwork due to Curragh gets me a SGL many times. Mansory allows me to choose an early granary if forest chops are avaiable. So for me, it´s Carthage all the way.
 
I play Egypt a lot, in part because it's a sentimental favorite (the first tribe I played), and in part because I like the Industrious and Religious combination.

I avoid using War Chariots in part because I don't want to trigger a Golden Age too early. I also take a peaceful approach early, so I'm only planning to defend myself in early wars.

However, in an emergency situation, in which I'm having trouble defending myself in an early war, I'll pump out the war chariots. I need the units produced quickly, and since I'm planning to use them within my borders striking from my cities, terrain is rarely going to be an obstacle for them.

I usually go for Leonardo's workshop, and if I get that, then the decision to upgrade the War Chariots to Knights or eventually Cavalry is an easy call.

Still though, War Chariots are only a Plan C. Plan A is to avoid war. Plan B is to bribe other tribes to do my fighting for me.
 
Maybe he uses The Pyramids as a pre-build for a granary until he gets a contact which has Pottery.

Nope, i just research pottery as first tech, after i´m done building a warrior and curragh i usually nail pottery in time to start working on it and worker is in place for forest choping.

Abaddon said:
how does that work?

With a Curragh on turn 4 i can get a larger comunication network than most civs, thus i trade every tech i need except Alphabet, and i start researching Writing and Philosophy after my second city is up. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doens´t, depends of course, you have to play with what you have and the AI have between them to keep a small leap in tech until you nail phil.

Popping goody huts while producing granaries also tend to mislead the game engine in giving me techs/gold and sometimes a free settler, which help in getting that early tech lead.
 
Because every tech you learn, that no one else has learnt is a change of a SGL right? So rapidly lead the pack then charge on ahead of them, trading as you go?
 
Trading depends on your goals. You might want to hold on to a tech as long as you can, especially if you are going for a military victory. Never give replaceable parts to the civ you want to conquer, for example.
 
Plain old regular chariots, I rarely use. On rare occasion if I'm being invaded by Horsemen I might build a one or two to do mop-up duty, and then be able to retreat to safety. But generally if I find myself building chariots in any quantity, it's a Bad Sign (and I'd probably build Warriors anyway). Another instance where I might build one is if I'm being invaded and need reinforcements somewhere ASAP - whip a Chariot and it gets there 1 turn quicker than a Warrior, Archer, or Spearman. But again, that's a Bad Sign situation.

War Chariots I like to use as Egypt. Unless you get crummy luck with the terrain, I find 20 shields for a Horseman with some terrain limitations to be a pretty good deal. As the Hittites I might build Two-Handed Chariots, but they don't seem like quite as good a deal.

I remember one game I went totally War Chariot-crazy and ended up conquering my entire continent with War Chariots - and it was a Large or Huge map with 5 or 7 other civs on it. I then set up a big ferry operation and invaded the other continent with triple-digit War Chariots. IIRC I conquered about half of that continent too, and then I think the domination limit occured. Of course by the end I was losing scores of War Chariots to my enemy's Musketmen and whatnot, but they were so cheap and I had so many of them that it didn't matter. Even 'worthless' cities pumped them out often enough to help a bit. So, while it may have been sensible to upgrade to Knights or Cavalry at some point, it was a whole lot of fun to go way overboard with War Chariots.

I tried a similar strategy with Immortals once and it worked pretty well until the enemy got Infantry. Then my advances slowed down quite a bit.
 
Never used chariots, i views them as worthless unit because they are restircted to most of the terrains like mountain, marsh, swamp, which hindered a civilization from invading a enemy city that is surrounded by any of impassable terrains.

So, no chariots for me.
 
Because every tech you learn, that no one else has learnt is a change of a SGL right? So rapidly lead the pack then charge on ahead of them, trading as you go?

More or less yes, at least in the race to philosophy, the secret is finding money to fund your endless 100% tech pace, that can come from selling old techs/lux, goody huts, disbanding barbarian camps, roading a lot and keep building cities.
 
I will build one once in a while if I have land that can be explored by them- no swamps and mountain ridges.

I have never seen a war chariot win a combat in my entire Civ III experience from either side so I never build them. I have a theory that War Charioteers fall over and die if a warrior on another continent happens to glance at them.
 
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