Early Fight???

Nightmare99

Chieftain
Joined
Nov 26, 2006
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66
Hi i dont understand people always talk how good it is to take out an enemy early so i have tried last time i was Rome and Carthage was very close in the beginning so i build only 2 cities with horses and copper carthage had copper in his second city but i was able to pillage it before he could build any axes or swordsman i also took that second city pretty easy with some axes and horsewagons and then i think i should take the capital so i moved up about six axes and 8 horsewagons he had about 7 archers city was not on hill well he killed all but 2 of mine and i managed to kill 2 archers next time i attacked with 10 axes and 4 wagons he crushed me again and my economy was down 2 zero so i had to give up how should i do?
 
I take it you didn't have any iron nearby? Beelining to Ironworking is a must with Rome. And if you had copper going for Animal Husbandry should have been delayed until after Ironworking, unless you had lots of AH resources to improve.

Anyway. Next time, either wait for Catapults, as capitals tend to have high cultural defenses, or go directly for the capital. Promotions also count. Your chariots won't do much against those archers, so I'd rather see them promoted with flanking. That way they might make some damage and get away with it. As for your axes, it's city raider that you want. Bring more axes than chariots, they're way more useful. Suicide the chariots hoping some retreat, then throw in your axes. Be prepared to kill them all in one go. Otherwise you're just giving them experience, and since Hannibal is charismatic you're gonna have a hard time the second go.
 
Yeah, do not attack capitals prior to catapults. Siege his outlying cities, keeping the ones that are closest to you and razing the rest. Once you've crippled him, you can conquer him at your leisure post-catapults.

And, DEFINITELY, if you are playing as Rome, you need to be beelining to ironworking to get those praetorians out and running. With those, you can consider attacking a capital prior to construction...
 
Yeah, do not attack capitals prior to catapults. Siege his outlying cities, keeping the ones that are closest to you and razing the rest. Once you've crippled him, you can conquer him at your leisure post-catapults.

And, DEFINITELY, if you are playing as Rome, you need to be beelining to ironworking to get those praetorians out and running. With those, you can consider attacking a capital prior to construction...

this is level dependant
on prince and below you can very easily take out an AI capital with axes alone. Sure you will lose bunch, but who cares?
 
True enough I suppose, but even when playing lower levels, I think it's important to develop good habits :p
 
True enough I suppose, but even when playing lower levels, I think it's important to develop good habits :p

Up to monarch it's a good habit to take out your nearest neighbour as fast as possible.
It's still true on higher levels, but the fastest possible way to kill a neighbour on deity is limited to playing HC.

I can only say that having 2 "capitals" BC is giving you a serious edge.
Even more so if the captured capital is a holy city :) or contains a nice wonder (stonehenge!).
 
I guess the definition of "nearest neighbour" depends a lot on your game settings.

Eg. I find standard sized continents map with standard settings to be extremely crowded - I can easily imagine myself going for the nearest neighbour there. Hell - the nearest capitol would probably be my dotmapped city #3 or something close by..

But large map w/ low sea level means the nearest neighbour might be quite far. No way I can even get to the capitol before there's 2-3 (of which one probably barb-promoted to garrison 1) archers and some cultural defenses, so need at least 6 axes, and the city is too far to keep anyway - even if razing a capitol is a shame (usually excellent sites).

But yes, if it's close by, it's a big bonus.

And the second fastest way is probably Skirmisher rushing - fast to go to archery, and they wipe floor with Ques anyway :)
 
I guess the definition of "nearest neighbour" depends a lot on your game settings.

Eg. I find standard sized continents map with standard settings to be extremely crowded - I can easily imagine myself going for the nearest neighbour there. Hell - the nearest capitol would probably be my dotmapped city #3 or something close by..

But large map w/ low sea level means the nearest neighbour might be quite far. No way I can even get to the capitol before there's 2-3 (of which one probably barb-promoted to garrison 1) archers and some cultural defenses, so need at least 6 axes, and the city is too far to keep anyway - even if razing a capitol is a shame (usually excellent sites).

But yes, if it's close by, it's a big bonus.

totally true
I just don't play anything bigger than standard usually.
 
Up to monarch it's a good habit to take out your nearest neighbour as fast as possible.
It's still true on higher levels, but the fastest possible way to kill a neighbour on deity is limited to playing HC.

I can only say that having 2 "capitals" BC is giving you a serious edge.
Even more so if the captured capital is a holy city :) or contains a nice wonder (stonehenge!).

BC=?................
 
You're putting a big strain on my english. What does that mean?


Sorry friend. Its a extremely long sentence that should be broken up into seperate sentences. With a couple periods (.) it would have been a paragraph, instead it was a "run-on".
 
If you're determined not to wait for catapults, then you would be better off bringing twice as many axemen as defenders for the capital. Maybe a bit more. If the capital is on a hill, then you had better reconsider and wait for catapults. If the Civ you're attacking is protective, then waiting is probably best as well. I personally would bring at least one spearman if I thought there were any enemy chariots around.
 
If you're determined not to wait for catapults, then you would be better off bringing twice as many axemen as defenders for the capital. Maybe a bit more. If the capital is on a hill, then you had better reconsider and wait for catapults. If the Civ you're attacking is protective, then waiting is probably best as well. I personally would bring at least one spearman if I thought there were any enemy chariots around.

Ok thanks for the advice
 
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