Horsemen???

[Kool Keith]

IMHO, Horsemen are undoubtedly better than swordsmen when playing on the lower levels. There is no question about it.

From what I know about the way Aceman enjoys playing, I would guess that he is often spending time building infrastructure while he could be building horses.

The thing to remember about the ancient ages is that the AI is extremely weak if you attack them early enough. You don't need 20 or 30 swords to stomp on them. About 10 horses will be enough to wipe out a 5-town AI in a matter of a few turns if you attack early enough.

Sashi, well down.

 

[ecuwins]

Comment on extra movement point: I like horseys. The way I see it is that every time you attack(or defend for that matter) you get a "roll" and sometimes a particular "roll" could be a very bad one hence -- So the retreat ability helps you to survive those bad "rolls"

It is worth mentioning that a variety of units is preferable. For example: I have a stack of 4 swords and 4 horses, once in AI territory I move them across hill, mountain, or forest squares in case they come under attack. Now once at the city gates I attack first with the horses weakening the AI unit strength and keep 1 or 2 horses alive due to retreat. Next the swords just roll right through the weakened units with no to minimal losses.

 

[Mirc]

Heh. Definitely not a crosspost, eh?

Do you happen to remember whether the formula was posted in GD or Strategy? I'm bored enough to try dig it up

EDIT: Mirc, is this the thread? I found this and this in it.

Might be... But I'm not sure. I think it is, but... who knows.

 

[Aceman101]

When a unit attacks, the combat result is determined by RNG. Say RNG decides that your attacker loses four out of four rounds. A horsemen have a good chance of retreating, and when it does it saves you 30 shields in cost of replacing it. After it heals, it's as good as new. On the other hand, a sword would have died because it will not retreat. You will lose a unit if the battle goes awry. In civ, you want to minimize risks and get the most out of what you've got. Horsemen's retreat ability gives you better chance at minimizing losses, as the risk of dying in combat is reduced.

I bring cats with my swords most of the time. If 3 veteran spearmen defends a town and you bring 10 swords and 30 cats. The 3 spearmen have a great chance of being red lined, if not seriously injured. Say 1 spearmen had two hit points left and the other 2 were red lined, it would switch to the 2 hit point spearman. Even if the spearman was full health, the swordsmen would have a greater chance of winning the battle. So, now that the spearman has only two hitpoints left, I will times 3 by 2. I timed 3 by 2 because the swordsmen has 3 attack, and the i timed it by 2 because the swordsmen has 4 hit points left, but I deducted 2, the amount of which the spearman had left.

That concludes to six. If I did the same with a horse, it would be 4. That's 2 more attack. Now, just to be fair, I'll include the retreat bonus, so... I think a vet horse has 60% retreat bonus. So, this horse would likely retreat, let's say it did. Btw, the horse is the attacker. the horse would go one square away, red lined. In this case, the city has three spearmen, so if it was me playing, I would send one after the horse. A spearmen has 1 attack. Time that by 3 because I deducted the one hitpoint the horse had left.

That leaves us with 3. The horse has only one defense, and he retreated to a grassland. So he has only 10% bonus, which is basically 1.1 defense for him.
So a 3 attack verse 1 attack, odds are the 3 is going to win. And if he doesn't I could just send a different troop from a different town (The troop would get their because towns are usually spaced like CXXC which means he has enough . Even if it was CXXXC, he would still make it in the right angle. And if you are at war, then you should be sending constant supplies of troops anyway, so you are more than likely in reach of the horseman. But that's only if the horseman survives, which would be slightly unlikely.

So, if the swordsman attacked, he would have a greater chance then the horseman, which means in the end swordsmen have a higher survival rate.

That assumes that:

1) They have a good road network in the direction you want
2) Said neighbour won't have the odd worker/unit/whatnot blocking a road tile, causing your movement to slow.
3) You want to sign a binding treaty that ensures peace with them for 20 turns, which I find undesirable

1) I wanted to say this in my other post but I didn't think I would need to. Anyway, if you play Regent-Monarch+ then the AI will have their roads developed much quicker. They would at least have all their cities connected by the time swords and horses are out (I play monarch, now).

2) Who said they'll only have one road connecting their cities? They will probably have more than a single road connecting their cities on Regent-Monarch+.

3) This doesn't necessarily mean by going through other AI civs, it could be your next door neighbor. But a ROP agreement isn't that bad. Most of the time the AI is willing to accept ROP deals without anything in exchange. And while the agreement is on, and you've finished your war with the enemy, why not pick on another neighbor? I don't find that too undesirable.

Furthermore, even if the enemy is next to you, horsemen still have an advantage over swords; speed. In Civ speed kills. Speed allows you to have:


1) Flexibility: You can quickly shift your troops from one front to the other
2) Faster campaign: AIs sux at defending. Horsemen can quickly take one city and then move to the next target twice as fast as slow units i.e. swords. Since AIs don't understand the advantage of speed. their slower units take more time to reinforce the cities. With slow units, you're at a disadvantage as your attackers are moving as slow or slower than the enemy (you can't use the roads in their territory).
3) Surprise: With horses, you can declare war and raze at least one or two outlying towns on the same turn. This is because horsemen can attack a town from outside it's cultural borders. Proper planning can help you raze a good number of towns before any sizable counterattack shows up.

1) But if the horse has already attacked and retreated, he has no cannot run away to any other troops attacking him. And, horsemen are slower than swordsmen in your own territory. But in open land, or were the enemy horseman comes from, yes they are faster. Still not good enough to make me want to sacrifice 1 attack and one defense.

2)What about the catapults? swordsmen are as fast as catapults, so they don't have to wait. And if you use only horsemen and neglect catapults, then the swordsmen are stronger, because catapults are helping them. They aren't with horses if they just run off and attack cities by themselves.

3) Again, the same thing.

On the contrary, I do not think that is good. If my unit is losing the combat, the least it could do for me is save itself to heal and fight another day. When swords die, the 30 shields in cost is lost. Granted, killing enemy units may be considered compensation. But, why throw away your units? The retreat ability keeps losses lower, as I mentioned above. Whenever my horseman retreats, I would know that if in that particular combat I had used a swordsman, my swordsman would have died without question. By using a horseman, I use up the "bad RNG" combat without losing anything.

I answered this already...

What about the catapults? swordsmen are as fast as catapults, so they don't have to wait. And if you use only horsemen and neglect catapults, then the swordsmen are stronger, because catapults are helping them. They aren't with horses if they just run off and attack cities by themselves.

And swords don't have double attack compared to horsemen Swords may kill more, but they die more too. I'd rather have a lot of retreats with horsemen while killing a lot with very few losses, than lots of win-or-die combats with swords that kills as many units but with more deaths on my part.

I strongly disagree. In the long run, archers sux. Why do I say this? Several reasons:

Archers DO NOT suck, IMO their better than horsemen. Anyway, this isn't so much about the archers this is about the swordsmen, and swordsmen are so much better than HM (Horsemen) that it is indescribable.

1) Pre-emptive strikes?

-That works only on defense. A good, effective campaign means you must not let the AI do a lot of the attacking (if any). The human players are superior to the AI in terms of managing combat and manipulating variables that determine odds of success in battle. It's a shame not to use this advantage we have.

HM are no threat to me, apart from the pillaging, but I can just kill them to solve that problem. Anyway, if the AI HM attacks and retreats, I'll at least have on troop to kill it, I've said this already above.

2) Upgrade path

-Horses upgrade to knights. Archers upgrade to longbowmen. Who needs longbowmen anyways when you have knights? Same attack rating but knights are faster. Often, having a good number of knights before anyone else can be a gamebreaker. This is especially so with powerful knight UUs such as the Chinese Rider and the Arabian Ansar Warrior. These two have three movement points. That's enormous!

I admit, knights are good, but no. I have to concentrate on the present, not the future, and in the present swords and archers are better. And I wouldn't build archers if I had swords, the main topic here is the sword, not the archer.
And swords have a pretty good update path too. With archers, I just stop producing them, and they slowly die off in battle. So, the longbowmen upgrade path is no concern to me.

Some may argue over the costs between knights and longbows. Knights are almost twice the cost in shields, yes. But good players know not to build up their deadly host of knights entirely from scratch. A powerful tactic ( for me, at least) is to build a lot of horsemen and accumulate tons of cash before Chivalry comes in. In some of my games, my instant-40 knights the turn after I research Chivalry handed me the game. Trust me when I say that instant 40 Longbowmen in the same scenario will not have the same effect

Knights are the first, really dominant mobile unit, so I would put knights on a higher priority, thus I build knights instead of Longbowmen. But I don't build horsemen to upgrade them to knights, I don't build horsemen at all.

My advice would be to test it out in your own games. See what works for you, and compare the plus and minus of each. Or, you could read up some games by great civ players, and see their reasoning for their choice between horsemen and swords.

Btw, if anything I say offends you, let me know, because I didn't mean anything bad with what I say, I certainly don't want an argument in this thread.

If you study carefully the benefits of a 2 point movement and retreat, you get to the conclusion that Horsemen are factually better than Swordsmen, the only disadvantage being that you can't use them for defense, which you shouldn't do with swordsmen either. I remember someone a long time ago posting some exact formulas proving this. And he was not anyone (I don't remember who, but a great HoF player in any case). That being said, Horsemen are my favorite AA unit, except UUs.

IMHO, Horsemen are undoubtedly better than swordsmen when playing on the lower levels. There is no question about it.

I strongly disagree.

From what I know about the way Aceman enjoys playing, I would guess that he is often spending time building infrastructure while he could be building horses.

It's more, building swordsmen and cats, and not building horses.

 

[Sashie VII]

Btw, if anything I say offends you, let me know, because I didn't mean anything bad with what I say, I certainly don't want an argument in this thread.

I'm not easily offended, Aceman I just enjoy arguing these kind of things

I bring cats with my swords most of the time. If 3 veteran spearmen defends a town and you bring 10 swords and 30 cats. The 3 spearmen have a great chance of being red lined, if not seriously injured. Say 1 spearmen had two hit points left and the other 2 were red lined, it would switch to the 2 hit point spearman. Even if the spearman was full health, the swordsmen would have a greater chance of winning the battle. So, now that the spearman has only two hitpoints left, I will times 3 by 2. I timed 3 by 2 because the swordsmen has 3 attack, and the i timed it by 2 because the swordsmen has 4 hit points left, but I deducted 2, the amount of which the spearman had left.

That concludes to six. If I did the same with a horse, it would be 4. That's 2 more attack. Now, just to be fair, I'll include the retreat bonus, so... I think a vet horse has 60% retreat bonus. So, this horse would likely retreat, let's say it did. Btw, the horse is the attacker. the horse would go one square away, red lined. In this case, the city has three spearmen, so if it was me playing, I would send one after the horse. A spearmen has 1 attack. Time that by 3 because I deducted the one hitpoint the horse had left.

That leaves us with 3. The horse has only one defense, and he retreated to a grassland. So he has only 10% bonus, which is basically 1.1 defense for him.
So a 3 attack verse 1 attack, odds are the 3 is going to win. And if he doesn't I could just send a different troop from a different town (The troop would get their because towns are usually spaced like CXXC which means he has enough . Even if it was CXXXC, he would still make it in the right angle. And if you are at war, then you should be sending constant supplies of troops anyway, so you are more than likely in reach of the horseman. But that's only if the horseman survives, which would be slightly unlikely.

So, if the swordsman attacked, he would have a greater chance then the horseman, which means in the end swordsmen have a higher survival rate.

True, artillery units are very strong. And I won't deny that the approach above works very well

Combined arms are a good approach to warfare, but not in all instances. The Age of Combined Arms, IMO, is during the gap between cavalry and tanks. That's when the attackers are outclassed by their defensive counterparts. Hence, you need artillery units to improve your odds since speed doesn't really help in this situation.

But, how realistic is building 30 cats in the Ancient Age? The tech road will have reached the Middle Ages when you have that many. Furthermore, such campaigns are very slow. Even against redlined defenders, there's bound to be injuries even if the casualty rate is nearly zero. When too many are injured and they stop to heal, then you expansion in the war halts, giving time for the AI to build more units. In the end, you will have to kill more units to win the war. You would also allow the AI extra time for alliances to form against you etc. If your other neighbour suddenly show up with an SoD in a different flank, your army will not get there in fast.

Furthermore, in the AA horseman are not outclassed by any standard defender. UUs aside, the best defense any AI can use is the spear. Even swords defend like spears. Horseman attack at 2, Spears defend at 2. Terrain bonuses aside (as humans should easily solve this problem), that's not what I'd call an outclassed attacker. It's rather balanced.

When such a stack as you described above marches, they can only move one tile every turn within the AI's territory. This means that there's bound to be turns when AI units can attack them. Swords are no better than spears when defending. Even archers can kill a sword this way. Horsemen may have only one defense point, but that's good IMO. It allows them to lose on defense without inflicting much damage, increasing the odds for a retreat! And even with this, properly planned campaigns will rarely see exposed horseman vulnerable IBT.

1) I wanted to say this in my other post but I didn't think I would need to. Anyway, if you play Regent-Monarch+ then the AI will have their roads developed much quicker. They would at least have all their cities connected by the time swords and horses are out (I play monarch, now).

2) Who said they'll only have one road connecting their cities? They will probably have more than a single road connecting their cities on Regent-Monarch+.

3) This doesn't necessarily mean by going through other AI civs, it could be your next door neighbor. But a ROP agreement isn't that bad. Most of the time the AI is willing to accept ROP deals without anything in exchange. And while the agreement is on, and you've finished your war with the enemy, why not pick on another neighbor? I don't find that too undesirable.

Most of the time, you want to take out the closest. Meaning, the ones right next to you. You only need to cross your own lands. Most of the time, you don't war to kill them immediately. You war to reduce their strength while you can, so that they don't grow to be too strong for you later on. If you kill them, you only get lands. If you leave them alive after decimating them, you gain many concessions. This is how pointy stick research works. Keep them trimmed down while growing bigger yourself.

On roads, sure the AIs have roads. But again, why would you march all the way to someone at the end of the continent when you've another target close to home? Obviously you're not going to occupy the lands you take as easily compared to areas closer to home.

1) But if the horse has already attacked and retreated, he has no cannot run away to any other troops attacking him. And, horsemen are slower than swordsmen in your own territory. But in open land, or were the enemy horseman comes from, yes they are faster. Still not good enough to make me want to sacrifice 1 attack and one defense.

2)What about the catapults? swordsmen are as fast as catapults, so they don't have to wait. And if you use only horsemen and neglect catapults, then the swordsmen are stronger, because catapults are helping them. They aren't with horses if they just run off and attack cities by themselves.

3) Again, the same thing.

Horsemen are not slower in your own territory. They move 6 tiles perturn on roads compared to 3 by swords.

When you're using speed, you don't need cats as cats slow things down. If you're using slow attackers, cats is needed. Horseman conquest=no cats. It's a judgement call as to which approach to use in games, as each game is different. But I still hold that in most circumstances, speed is more important.

In war, you don't just need to kill enemy units. You also want to deprive them of important resources as early as you can. Horseman, for instance, can reach that iron city faster than a Sword/Cats SoD. This prevents your target AI from building better units, easing your path to victory. This is one instance where speed comes in.

And, bad RNG rolls apply even when you attack a redlined unit with a healthy vet. I've lost some vets to redlined defenders in my games

Archers DO NOT suck, IMO their better than horsemen. Anyway, this isn't so much about the archers this is about the swordsmen, and swordsmen are so much better than HM (Horsemen) that it is indescribable.

On archers, they're slow and their upgrade path stinks.

On swords, they upgrade to Medieval Infantry. I don't want MIs, I want knights. Knights can win me the world on their own, MIs may be able to do so but in larger numbers with lots of cats and in longer time. This is one reason why horses are better than swords: long-term vision.

HM are no threat to me, apart from the pillaging, but I can just kill them to solve that problem. Anyway, if the AI HM attacks and retreats, I'll at least have on troop to kill it, I've said this already above.

The argument was initially on the human player's use of horseman. AIs are a completely different matter as they're stupid. The human doesn't let his horses get attacked, he attacks with them. He doesn't leave them vulnerable to attack after they move, and he doesn't send one lone horse at a time to take out a town. In my statement that you quoted, I clearly mentioned the superiority of the human player's ability to plan ahead and make the odds to work for him.

I admit, knights are good, but no. I have to concentrate on the present, not the future, and in the present swords and archers are better. And I wouldn't build archers if I had swords, the main topic here is the sword, not the archer.
And swords have a pretty good update path too. With archers, I just stop producing them, and they slowly die off in battle. So, the longbowmen upgrade path is no concern to me.

On the other hand, you need to concentrate on the present while moving in the direction of the future. IOW, what you do now must also be done in consideration of your future position. Swords upgrade path isn't really good, just like archer>longbows. Say you just 6 archers die. If you had built 4 horses, these four could've been upgraded to knights. Then , your initial investment of 120 shields in the Ancient Age would not go to waste. And in the Ancient Age, you'll have a good number of horses. That's a lot of extra knights that your cities did not have to produce from scratch. It's an efficiency thing.

Knights are the first, really dominant mobile unit, so I would put knights on a higher priority, thus I build knights instead of Longbowmen. But I don't build horsemen to upgrade them to knights, I don't build horsemen at all.

Let's say you have ten core towns capable of producing 15 spt. That's two turn horseman or 5-turn knights (four turns with shortrush).

If you build all your knights from scratch, in 20 turns you'll have a maximum of 50 knights ( shortrushing to get knights built every four turns).

If you build horseman and then upgrade them, in 20 turns you can have 100 horses. When you upgrade them all, that's 100 knights. Better deal, no?

 

[Aceman101]

I'm not easily offended, Aceman I just enjoy arguing these kind of things

That's good.

True, artillery units are very strong. And I won't deny that the approach above works very well

But, how realistic is building 30 cats in the Ancient Age? The tech road will have reached the Middle Ages when you have that many.

Ok, that was a bit false. But let's just say you built 15, that's enough to injure the three spearmen to at least three hitpoints, the swordsmen still has a greater chance than the spearmen, and a way greater chance of victory than the horse.

Furthermore, such campaigns are very slow. Even against redlined defenders, there's bound to be injuries even if the casualty rate is nearly zero. When too many are injured and they stop to heal, then you expansion in the war halts, giving time for the AI to build more units. In the end, you will have to kill more units to win the war. You would also allow the AI extra time for alliances to form against you etc. If your other neighbour suddenly show up with an SoD in a different flank, your army will not get there in fast.

This still happens with horses though.

When such a stack as you described above marches, they can only move one tile every turn within the AI's territory. This means that there's bound to be turns when AI units can attack them. Swords are no better than spears when defending. Even archers can kill a sword this way. Horsemen may have only one defense point, but that's good IMO. It allows them to lose on defense without inflicting much damage, increasing the odds for a retreat! And even with this, properly planned campaigns will rarely see exposed horseman vulnerable IBT.

I know there is risk, but if the AI attacks a stack of horses, that's even worse, because horses only have one defense. They're basically more vulnerable than swords in these situations.

Most of the time, you want to take out the closest. Meaning, the ones right next to you. You only need to cross your own lands. Most of the time, you don't war to kill them immediately. You war to reduce their strength while you can, so that they don't grow to be too strong for you later on. If you kill them, you only get lands. If you leave them alive after decimating them, you gain many concessions. This is how pointy stick research works. Keep them trimmed down while growing bigger yourself.

When I wage war, I just want to gain territory and cities, because if you cripple them before you kill their units, your going to destroy them anyway.

On roads, sure the AIs have roads. But again, why would you march all the way to someone at the end of the continent when you've another target close to home? Obviously you're not going to occupy the lands you take as easily compared to areas closer to home.

I'm not saying you should, It could be your next door neighbor. Just any civ you want to declare on.

Horsemen are not slower in your own territory. They move 6 tiles perturn on roads compared to 3 by swords.

True, but I meant on your own territory.

When you're using speed, you don't need cats as cats slow things down. If you're using slow attackers, cats is needed. Horseman conquest=no cats. It's a judgement call as to which approach to use in games, as each game is different. But I still hold that in most circumstances, speed is more important.

Then your losing more troops. Your having more casualties because even with the retreat bonus to the horses, the other 40% of the time, your horses are likely to be killed by a spearmen, because it has more defense then the horse has attack, that is, adding up the bonuses like fortify grassland, forests etc.

In war, you don't just need to kill enemy units. You also want to deprive them of important resources as early as you can. Horseman, for instance, can reach that iron city faster than a Sword/Cats SoD. This prevents your target AI from building better units, easing your path to victory. This is one instance where speed comes in.

If no defenders come with the horses then they are in great risk of attacks, and with one defense, they're very vulnerable.

And, bad RNG rolls apply even when you attack a redlined unit with a healthy vet. I've lost some vets to redlined defenders in my games

I know how it is.

On archers, they're slow and their upgrade path stinks.

On swords, they upgrade to Medieval Infantry. I don't want MIs, I want knights. Knights can win me the world on their own, MIs may be able to do so but in larger numbers with lots of cats and in longer time. This is one reason why horses are better than swords: long-term vision.

Just ignoring archers here (I don't build them when I got swords), Media evil Infantry aren't too bad. Sure knights are better, but you have to research an entire tech that is optional.

On the other hand, you need to concentrate on the present while moving in the direction of the future. IOW, what you do now must also be done in consideration of your future position.

That is true.

Swords upgrade path isn't really good, just like archer>longbows. Say you just 6 archers die. If you had built 4 horses, these four could've been upgraded to knights. Then , your initial investment of 120 shields in the Ancient Age would not go to waste. And in the Ancient Age, you'll have a good number of horses. That's a lot of extra knights that your cities did not have to produce from scratch. It's an efficiency thing.

As said above, you need to research a whole optional tech. And also horses to knights cost quite a bit of gold. Not every civ can afford it.

Let's say you have ten core towns capable of producing 15 spt. That's two turn horseman or 5-turn knights (four turns with shortrush).

If you build all your knights from scratch, in 20 turns you'll have a maximum of 50 knights ( shortrushing to get knights built every four turns).

If you build horseman and then upgrade them, in 20 turns you can have 100 horses. When you upgrade them all, that's 100 knights. Better deal, no?

Better deal, yes. But, due to what you have to do to get this good deal, no.

 

[Ville]

I used to totally ignore horsemen but now I've used them all the time.

 

[Sashie VII]

That's good.



1. Ok, that was a bit false. But let's just say you built 15, that's enough to injure the three spearmen to at least three hitpoints, the swordsmen still has a greater chance than the spearmen, and a way greater chance of victory than the horse.

2. This still happens with horses though.

3. I know there is risk, but if the AI attacks a stack of horses, that's even worse, because horses only have one defense. They're basically more vulnerable than swords in these situations.

4. When I wage war, I just want to gain territory and cities, because if you cripple them before you kill their units, your going to destroy them anyway.

5. I'm not saying you should, It could be your next door neighbor. Just any civ you want to declare on.

6. True, but I meant on your own territory.

7. Then your losing more troops. Your having more casualties because even with the retreat bonus to the horses, the other 40% of the time, your horses are likely to be killed by a spearmen, because it has more defense then the horse has attack, that is, adding up the bonuses like fortify grassland, forests etc.

8. If no defenders come with the horses then they are in great risk of attacks, and with one defense, they're very vulnerable.

9. Just ignoring archers here (I don't build them when I got swords), Media evil Infantry aren't too bad. Sure knights are better, but you have to research an entire tech that is optional.

10. As said above, you need to research a whole optional tech. And also horses to knights cost quite a bit of gold. Not every civ can afford it.

11. Better deal, yes. But, due to what you have to do to get this good deal, no.

1. A greater chance of victory, certainly. It's one of the advantages of combined arms campaign. However, my main argument is the necessity for speed. Combined arms campaigns are slow. You take more war turns to destroy one AI before you can move on to the next. And thus, you actually spend more resources (production turns on military).

2. It happens with horses, but when it does, you would have gone farther into their heartlands than with swords. This means you would have done a lot more damage.

3. Key word: if. My whole point on human player's superior warmongering skills is that this situation can easily be avoided, and few if any AI attacks will happen when proper planning is done beforehand.

4. Territory and cities are good, but you can have more. Techs is very valuable. Getting techs out of a peace treaty is especially nice and profitable, enough of an incentive for warring. By decimating the AI, I meant leaving them with enough cities to stay alive so that they can actually sign the treaty and give you the tech+gold etc. Dead civs can't give you anything.

5. Declaring on someone far away and actually go fight them is wasting resources, IMO.

6. I don't understand what you mean

7. More than 100% pure swords force, which was the original point of comparison IIRC And compared to combined arms, the losses are IMO the price for a fast, efficient campaign. Besides, did I mention that humans war a lot better than AIs can?

8. Again, you must not let the horses be attacked. The key to successful warring is taking the offensive. On the IBT, let the AI units come out into the open. On your turn, kill them and be careful not to let any of your horses exposed to counterattack on the next IBT. That's the edge we have over AIs, since AIs are hopeless in this area.

9,10. Optional tech, yes. But, it's an important optional tech. If it wins you the game, why not? Or if you don't want to conquer the world yet, let the AIs research it. You can have a huge amount of knights when the AIs are only beginning to build one or two, since the AI do not understand the power of mass-upgrading. As for gold, by the MA you should have good income. Even at emp I can have a good income running zero science for several turns, enough to upgrade my horses when chivalry comes in. My best record is Korea: Mass Upgrade 50 Knights and swept Zulu, America, Maya and Arabia off my continent in 25 turns

11. Isn't that hard, really. Just a matter of getting them into a city with barracks and resources connected, then press U of SHIFT+U

 

[Aceman101]

1. A greater chance of victory, certainly. It's one of the advantages of combined arms campaign. However, my main argument is the necessity for speed. Combined arms campaigns are slow. You take more war turns to destroy one AI before you can move on to the next. And thus, you actually spend more resources (production turns on military).

Actually, IMO you use less resources because your ensuring the death rate is very low, with horses, you just barge into someones territory and you lose more horses because your not using the finer points of strategy. Your not building artillery, and keeping the defenders weak. Slow yes, but more effective, YES! Less Kills, yes.

2. It happens with horses, but when it does, you would have gone farther into their heartlands than with swords. This means you would have done a lot more damage.

If your just running towards cities with horses, then your not actually doing any damage, unless you pillage roads, but that doesn't make the AI feel like you've conquered them, so it won't help with peace deals.

3. Key word: if. My whole point on human player's superior warmongering skills is that this situation can easily be avoided, and few if any AI attacks will happen when proper planning is done beforehand.

But the point is, with horses, if it happens, it is far more devastating then with swords, because the defense bonus. And if the AI built a huge stack and attacked all the horses, then goodbye horses!

4. Territory and cities are good, but you can have more. Techs is very valuable. Getting techs out of a peace treaty is especially nice and profitable, enough of an incentive for warring. By decimating the AI, I meant leaving them with enough cities to stay alive so that they can actually sign the treaty and give you the tech+gold etc. Dead civs can't give you anything.

AI's at war don't usually research much, this decreases the frequency of them having new technologies. But if/when it does happen, then yes, that is a good strategy.

5. Declaring on someone far away and actually go fight them is wasting resources, IMO.

The point wasn't about that, I just meant whoever you choose to declare on...

6. I don't understand what you mean

I mean, the horses still are slower in your territory.

7. More than 100% pure swords force, which was the original point of comparison IIRC And compared to combined arms, the losses are IMO the price for a fast, efficient campaign. Besides, did I mention that humans war a lot better than AIs can?

Yes, I'm sure you mentioned that about five times in this thread, who knows you much you mention this in the forums altogether or in RL.

8. Again, you must not let the horses be attacked. The key to successful warring is taking the offensive. On the IBT, let the AI units come out into the open. On your turn, kill them and be careful not to let any of your horses exposed to counterattack on the next IBT. That's the edge we have over AIs, since AIs are hopeless in this area.

It is inevitable if a AI unit jumps out of a city IBT, thus you cannot predict it.

9,10. Optional tech, yes. But, it's an important optional tech. If it wins you the game, why not? Or if you don't want to conquer the world yet, let the AIs research it. You can have a huge amount of knights when the AIs are only beginning to build one or two, since the AI do not understand the power of mass-upgrading. As for gold, by the MA you should have good income. Even at emp I can have a good income running zero science for several turns, enough to upgrade my horses when chivalry comes in. My best record is Korea: Mass Upgrade 50 Knights and swept Zulu, America, Maya and Arabia off my continent in 25 turns

I admit I DO build chivalry. And I DO have enough gold. The problem for you is how to convince this guy (Me) to finally BUILD A HORSE, and stop complaining, huh?

 

[Sashie VII]

1. Actually, IMO you use less resources because your ensuring the death rate is very low, with horses, you just barge into someones territory and you lose more horses because your not using the finer points of strategy. Your not building artillery, and keeping the defenders weak. Slow yes, but more effective, YES! Less Kills, yes.

2. If your just running towards cities with horses, then your not actually doing any damage, unless you pillage roads, but that doesn't make the AI feel like you've conquered them, so it won't help with peace deals.

3. But the point is, with horses, if it happens, it is far more devastating then with swords, because the defense bonus. And if the AI built a huge stack and attacked all the horses, then goodbye horses!

4. AI's at war don't usually research much, this decreases the frequency of them having new technologies. But if/when it does happen, then yes, that is a good strategy.

5. I mean, the horses still are slower in your territory.

6. Yes, I'm sure you mentioned that about five times in this thread, who knows you much you mention this in the forums altogether or in RL.

7. It is inevitable if a AI unit jumps out of a city IBT, thus you cannot predict it.

8. I admit I DO build chivalry. And I DO have enough gold. The problem for you is how to convince this guy (Me) to finally BUILD A HORSE, and stop complaining, huh?

1. The finer points on strategy has many fine points Not attacking from across a river, not attacking when a unit is on a mountain,etc, are also finer points on strategy. For horses, it is especially important to not let them end the turn next to an enemy town, for instance. What I meant by less resources was that you're not dedicating more of your turns on military production. For combined arms to be very effective, you need good attackers. Then you need cats, lots of them. That's a lot of shields, and in the AA your production turns are important.

2. By going farther, I meant you would have razed/captured more cities. Not just moving closer, Aceman. This is so since horsies can reinforce their comrades faster. Their speed allows for faster movement towards the front lines. Thus, your campaign takes longer before it stalls.

3. Ifs You're not playing a human player, you're playing the AI. A huge stack? No problem. You attack them, don't let them attack you. Part of the AI stupidity is that they would send any unit, alone or otherwise, to chase the enemy (especially weak unit e.g. worker as bait etc.) AI stacks are rarely dangerous if handled correctly on the mid-levels.

4. Wars should be short and decisive. When you see them having a new tech, strike. Raze some cities quickly and once they talk, get that tech. There's even SGs played with the variant of never researching anything IIRC.

5. Why? In your own territory, they can use your roads. Swords move 3 tiles on roads, horsies 6. Why would you say that my sword using my own road is faster than my horse using my own road as well?

6. I rarely mention it since I seldom get involved in Civ debates

7. You can't. But the placement of your units before assault should assume that an attacker or two will sally forth and attack.

8. Nah, the problem for me is to get over my depression and start updating my story

 

[Aceman101]

I'm going to take a brake. I'll answer these soon.

 

[Aceman101]

1. The finer points on strategy has many fine points Not attacking from across a river, not attacking when a unit is on a mountain,etc, are also finer points on strategy. For horses, it is especially important to not let them end the turn next to an enemy town, for instance. What I meant by less resources was that you're not dedicating more of your turns on military production. For combined arms to be very effective, you need good attackers. Then you need cats, lots of them. That's a lot of shields, and in the AA your production turns are important.

Yes, this is True.

2. By going farther, I meant you would have razed/captured more cities. Not just moving closer, Aceman. This is so since horsies can reinforce their comrades faster. Their speed allows for faster movement towards the front lines. Thus, your campaign takes longer before it stalls.

I admit, you do capture towns faster, but to me it's the quality of how you do it. Basically what I mean by that is, Minimizing losses, killing as much enemies as possible etc. So you can have a lot more troops left over for future battles.

3. Ifs You're not playing a human player, you're playing the AI. A huge stack? No problem. You attack them, don't let them attack you. Part of the AI stupidity is that they would send any unit, alone or otherwise, to chase the enemy (especially weak unit e.g. worker as bait etc.) AI stacks are rarely dangerous if handled correctly on the mid-levels.

And yes, again, I admit the AI handles these situations (Or should I say most) very poorly. So the Human has a great advantage their, but that doesn't mean they'll never use a stack properly and kill a few horses.

4. Wars should be short and decisive. When you see them having a new tech, strike. Raze some cities quickly and once they talk, get that tech. There's even SGs played with the variant of never researching anything IIRC.

IMO Wars should be accurate, as long as the job is done, and the AI has been almost or completely conquered. Speed is not part of the question, it's the precision that does it. The precise attacks on cities, the deadly stacks of death etc.

5. Why? In your own territory, they can use your roads. Swords move 3 tiles on roads, horsies 6. Why would you say that my sword using my own road is faster than my horse using my own road as well?

I'm not saying that. I'm simply saying that any horses that come into my territory are slower than any of my units using my roads. I know the horse can travel much more distance in it's own territory but that was not my point.

But yes, you can intercept enemy attacks with horses, not securely but in time.

6. I rarely mention it since I seldom get involved in Civ debates

That's good, now I know your not a 100% civ addict.

7. You can't. But the placement of your units before assault should assume that an attacker or two will sally forth and attack.

Yes, but you do realize that horses have a low chance of surviving an attack from a unit like a spearmen.

8. Nah, the problem for me is to get over my depression and start updating my story

(EDIT) That's bad.

 

[Sashie VII]

This could go on for a long time

Let me end my part by again saying that one should test it out in solo games and find what works for oneself. There's no definitive difference between swords and horses that would make one or the other clearly stand out as "best". Simply put, which would you need in your particular situation?

Or in Turner's words, It Depends.

Cheers~

EDIT: You put this debate in your sig!

 

[Aceman101]

...you do realize that horses have a low chance of surviving an attack from a unit like a spearmen.

I meant Swordsmen.

 

[Aceman101]

This could go on for a long time

Let me end my part by again saying that one should test it out in solo games and find what works for oneself. There's no definitive difference between swords and horses that would make one or the other clearly stand out as "best".

Or in Turner's words, It Depends.

Cheers~

Ok, I might be in favor of swords, but that's just my opinion.

EDIT: You put this debate in your sig!

Yes, I did infact. I see of it more of a point, or strategy.

 

[Sashie VII]

I might be in favor of horsies, but also just an opinion. And I use swords when I need them too.

 

[Aceman101]

That's good, just debating freely. I just realized how large this page is, just from us debating!

 

[King Flevance]

Hehe, you two made me withdraw and just spectate.
I also prefer swords for actual city attacks. Horses have other uses but I build more archers and swords by far than I do horsemen.

 

[Aceman101]

Hehe, you two made me withdraw and just spectate.

I hope we didn't scare you away!

Well, now we have that sorted, then.

 

[Abegweit]

Aceman, you are simply wrong on this. I'm not going to say that horsemen are necessarily superior to swordsmen but they definitely are very useful units. Sashie has quite ably shown you why. If you want to improve your game, you should listen.

I'll just make two points:

1) When I play Monarch or Regent, the AI does not make roads for me. Not even on Emperor. In fact, sometimes I'll get a ROP simply to make a road towards the enemy. Are we playing the same game?

2) The AI only occasionally attacks my horses, and a vet horse has a 60% of retreat anyway. Bring along a couple of spears for defence (they can often keep up) and plenty of workers to connect the cities.