Early Combat

[TMTurtle]

I've been lurking here occasionally for about a month, decided to post.

I've always found myself to be a very peaceful player, going for late game Space Race, Diplo, or Cultural Victories. On few occasions, I would go for warfare but very late in the game, so I'm not too familiar with early war techniques.

I decided to try it out, and had a lot of fun lately with conquest victories and a domination victory (and I've noticed that military victories seem to be a lot more successful), but I've found that one thing that really slows me down is all the Archers the AI likes to pump out. It seems like the only counter I have to them is to simply try to tech past them, then throw units at them until they weaken enough to take the city.

Am I missing something? Is there a better strategy than wasting hammers on fodder?

 

[Sjaramei]

Suiciding what troops? You are supposed to throw siege in first to soften then clean up with your troops. Cats kill archers, trebs kill longbows and muskets, so you shouldn't take heavy losses unless you are fighting protective civ or with obsolete siege.

 

[TMTurtle]

Suiciding what troops? You are supposed to throw siege in first to soften then clean up with your troops. Cats kill archers, trebs kill longbows and muskets, so you shouldn't take heavy losses unless you are fighting protective civ or with obsolete siege.

Well then I suppose my problem is I'm rushing TOO early :\ I generally don't have Construction yet at that time

Thanks for the help, I'll adjust my tech tree accordingly next game to try to get that earlier.

 

[oyzar]

Nah you can suicide axes just fine... Just make sure 2:1 axes to archers or 3:1 if you are using chariots.

 

[Sjaramei]

Yeah, you can axe rush a capital or two in the beginning, but it costs a lot in casualties, get cats when you need to conquer more

 

[Silence101]

I can see the challenge pre-seige unit - still, construction should probably be a priority tech, but until then, you're at the mercy of the numbers to a degree. The bright side is that archers honestly arn't that strong. Yes, they get a ton of defensive bonuses, not to mention culture and possible walls / castles, but by the time much these things come into play to a large extent, if you don't have construction... shame on you! I would think that on average, the most difficult city defense you'll come up against might be +50%. Still, archers present a significant defensive advantage to cities in the early game. Even with swordmen or horse archers, I'd expect to lose at least 2:1 against archers - so yes, it becomes somewhat of a numbers game. The point here is to prepare accordingly and attack early... to longer you wait, and you might as well wait until construction. Also, spies can go a long way to helping with city defense issues by putting a city in revolt - they're available slightly earlier than seige units, so this might be an alternate method assuming that you've got the EP's to pull it off.

 

[TMTurtle]

Alright, started a game to try it out. Played as Ghengis for the Agg bonus.

I went to Bronze Working asap, then was able to skip Agriculture for the time being since my capital was on the coast with 2 clams. I went to Construction, eventually, but it just took me way too long to make a sizable force, because my capital had like 4 hammers available to it. Bad starting position to try for a rush, I suppose.

On the bright side, when I did get the force out, it was a definite improvement. 5 axes and 3 cats took out 4-5 cities before they dwindled too far to continue without the reinforcements.

 

[AlessioCerci]

If you can get copper in first 2 cities, then build lots of axemen and rush ASAP. Construction is unecessary.

 

[qwertz]

try playing as persia or inca. their UUs do really well against archers

 

[Melon Head]

Another option for a leader is to play the sumerians. Their vultures significantly enhance axe rushes. Their traits don't really help the early rush, but they are pretty good at teching later.

 

[Cer]

Am I missing something? Is there a better strategy than wasting hammers on fodder?

Sort of. In the early game you can beat archers with axemen provided you have about 2 axes per archer. Swordsmen and horse archers are sort of a "counter" to defending archers as well, although with those you still need a lot more attackers than there are defenders... but not as many as you would need if you had axemen.

Later in the game, knights and catapults are strong against longbows.

 

[Quotey]

Another option for a leader is to play the sumerians. Their vultures significantly enhance axe rushes. Their traits don't really help the early rush, but they are pretty good at teching later.

Creative helps a lot. You don't need to make the difficult choice between settling in a rubbish spot for copper without an obelisk. You don't even need to research Mysticism.

 

[fuzzynutz]

You dont have to take the city right off to beat your opponent, just take out his resources and let him come try to kill your axes while you surround/pillage his cities, assuming you can still.

 

[PimpyMicPimp]

Creative helps a lot. You don't need to make the difficult choice between settling in a rubbish spot for copper without an obelisk. You don't even need to research Mysticism.

QFT Creative has to be one of my favourite traits for the early game. It's absolutly great and I'm not forced to get Mysticism until I'm ready.

 

[Iranon]

...you could just play the Incas, laughing at non-protective archers and whipping terraces for culture.

With most other civs, it pays to get those Axemen swinging ASAP and supplement them with Swordsmen once they become available (keeping a few Axes around as stack protectors if you can't cut them off metals). Be prepared to sue for peace as soon as war is no longer profitable, demand techs to do so if you applicable.

While your economy recovers, either change to peaceful gameplay or prepare to overwhelm your opponent with Macemen and siege units.