How often do you tech Archery to deal with deity Barbs?

[drewisfat]

To be clear, I'm asking how often you tech archery purely as an anti-barb measure. Or put another way, how often do you tech archery prematurely to when you'd otherwise tech it for war concerns.

 

[Mr_Trotsky]

I’ve voted but it’s a pretty low confidence assessment. Probably very heavily influenced by my last three games (Holkans in one and no space for barbs to spawn in the other two). The factors that push me towards archery for barbs are:
- lots of space for barbs to spawn;
- no strategic resource I can hook up in a reasonable timeframe;
- starting with it needing early hunting;
- high commerce so not delaying key techs;

The factors that push me towards ignoring it are:
- the inverse of the above;
- resourceless early Barb defence;
- aggressive (although lots of those leaders start with hunting…);
- good defensive terrain which can be defended by warriors;
- cockiness because I’ve not been killed by barbs in the last few games.

I never go Great Wall - which is no doubt a character flaw on my part - but that’s obviously a factor too.

Not sure what you get when you put that all together. Probably less than half of the time - mainly because there are a lot of maps where there’s no space for barbs - but not sure.

 

[drewisfat]

Yeah this is what I thought. It's possible my memory is going, but as I understood it this is a big shift years ago when the conventional wisdom was that you never grab archery. Who's my one friend on this poll? <3

I find there are a lot of advantages in a quantity approach with cheaper warriors/scouts. Faster fogbusting, easier to get the top unit the full fortify bonus, easier to keep the top unit full hp, and above all else never suddenly losing a city to a single horrific dice roll.

We say that the early game is the most important, and barbs are a huge part of that, so the rift here is surprising.

 

[sampsa]

I voted 10-50%. Even on immortal I go archery maybe +10% because the barb pressure can last longer. I echo Mr_Trotsky that I should go more often for the GW.

My experience is a bit different than drew's. Archers on hills barely ever get scratched while forest warriors just get rekt unless you can double in time. And more units can cost you that annoying 1-2 gpt.

I think the shift was due to Lain who likes early archery and in general values safety high.

 

[CarpoolKaraoke]

Yeah this is what I thought. It's possible my memory is going, but as I understood it this is a big shift years ago when the conventional wisdom was that you never grab archery. Who's my one friend on this poll? <3

I find there are a lot of advantages in a quantity approach with cheaper warriors/scouts. Faster fogbusting, easier to get the top unit the full fortify bonus, easier to keep the top unit full hp, and above all else never suddenly losing a city to a single horrific dice roll.

We say that the early game is the most important, and barbs are a huge part of that, so the rift here is surprising.

Me.
2 Warriors - 30H. Archer - 25H.
Woodsman warrior on forest hill - no funnel. Archer on forest hill - sometimes funnel.
Beakers for Hunting (67), Archery (101) >>> temporary maintenance cost.

If you have plenty of land, then you have military resource. If you have no land, then you have no barbarians!

(This post is brought to you by the Animal Husbandry is not expensive hill)

 

[Mr_Trotsky]

For me I’m sure it’s Lain’s influence that means I go for archery relatively frequently. I learnt how to play deity from his videos. He’s not my only influence though. When I play I have a little Sampsa on my shoulder who whispers “it won’t pay back” into my ear every time I build anything other than a granary, a unit or wealth.

I agree with everything that CPK says but just don’t find it works that way for me. Watching CPK play I remember thinking that’s not what happens when I push out with warriors. I suspect the explanatory variable is the skill level of the player.

 

[sampsa]

I agree with everything that CPK says but just don’t find it works that way for me. Watching CPK play I remember thinking that’s not what happens when I push out with warriors. I suspect the explanatory variable is the skill level of the player.

This. My warriors just die if I play like CPK in that video. There must be some nuance I'm not fully aware of.

Woodsman warrior on forest hill - no funnel. Archer on forest hill - sometimes funnel.

Do you mean that the barbs may ignore the archer?

 

[CarpoolKaraoke]

Do you mean that the barbs may ignore the archer?

Yes. At low enough odds barbarians will walk around instead of hitting.

This. My warriors just die if I play like CPK in that video. There must be some nuance I'm not fully aware of.

If you have a no-resource map in mind, maybe I can make another video explaining barbarian strategy alone.

 

[sampsa]

If you have a no-resource map in mind, maybe I can make another video explaining barbarian strategy alone.

I don't have one in mind but you can pick any map you like! Is there one in recent Noble's Clubs?

 

[CarpoolKaraoke]

I don't have one in mind but you can pick any map you like! Is there one in recent Noble's Clubs?

The last dozen or so Noble's clubs don't look like they have barbarian problems, except for the one with Stalin -

Spoiler :

but there's copper and he's an aggressive leader...I think I'd rush a military campaign on that map.

I found an old thread on isolation maps by Lain: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/deity-isolation-workshop-stan-norm-fractal-nh-ne.612863/

Would you mind choosing one from the list with a likely barbarian problem? Hoping to not play with spoilers read. Note: I did play the last WB save (Low Sea Zara Yaqob).

 

[AcaMetis]

*Inconspicuously starts writing down notes*

 

[sampsa]

Well, this one is a classic. It's hard, but not impossible I guess.

 

[CarpoolKaraoke]

Here we are! Forgot to record game sound. Please see closed captions for explanations.

 

[sampsa]

Very nice. You push pretty hard with the initial warrior, something I'm less prone to do. What you gain is some intel on future sentry spots, but there is always some risk of losing the unit, which hurts. Overall what I gather from this is that you want to take some risk, but such that won't lead to a disaster if you get a bad roll. I'm glad you got some bad rolls so it wasn't too easy.

Warriors not attacking fortified forest hill warriors is something I hadn't fully realized in the first 15 years of playing this game. Is it guaranteed they won't attack or is it random? I know they attack (sometimes) when not (fully) fortified.

In the end you mention that you need to keep the horse pillaged. I'm not sure, do they ever build horse units?

 

[AcaMetis]

In the end you mention that you need to keep the horse pillaged. I'm not sure, do they ever build horse units?

Don't have time to watch the video, but if a Barbarian city has access to Horses they can and will train Mounted units in that city. I've seen it happen before.

 

[Nick723]

Yeah this is what I thought. It's possible my memory is going, but as I understood it this is a big shift years ago when the conventional wisdom was that you never grab archery. Who's my one friend on this poll? <3

I find there are a lot of advantages in a quantity approach with cheaper warriors/scouts. Faster fogbusting, easier to get the top unit the full fortify bonus, easier to keep the top unit full hp, and above all else never suddenly losing a city to a single horrific dice roll.

We say that the early game is the most important, and barbs are a huge part of that, so the rift here is surprising.

What map script do you tend to play @drewisfat ? In my experience, Pangaea very rarely calls for archery (I would say essentially 0%) but others eg inland sea would need it much more often. Also sea level plays a big part.

 

[Henrik75]

Interesting.
I'd say it depends on commerce and strategic resources. With horses or copper nearby there's no need at all for archery, even if you can't connect it in time, with half decent fogbusting you can usually hold out until you get the strategic resource up.

Now talking about commerce
If you have low commerce, this almost always means you have good production or at the very least forests to chop and defensive terrain to put warriors in.

If you have high commerce, you might have lower production, this can mean flood plains, gold mines, grassland rivers etc but it can be difficult to keep pumping warriors out if you have some terrible rolls.
In this case I'd say archery is worth it, you're spending some of your commerce to get stronger units essentially so you can have an easier time with barbs- but it shouldn't affect you too badly in a high commerce environment. I have read CK's logic before and definitely become more confident holding out with warriors myself, but also seen him get bullied by barb spears xD. I go archery maybe 10-15% of the time.

Warriors is still a risk and opens up a chain reaction to disasters possibly if the archer kills you then promotes then kills you then promotes again and comes at your city full health with 2 promotions. Probably not an issue in high production starts but in low prod starts it can be.
Any thoughts?

 

[CarpoolKaraoke]

Interesting.
I'd say it depends on commerce and strategic resources. With horses or copper nearby there's no need at all for archery, even if you can't connect it in time, with half decent fogbusting you can usually hold out until you get the strategic resource up.

Yep, talking about rare cases to begin with here.

Warriors is still a risk and opens up a chain reaction to disasters possibly if the archer kills you then promotes then kills you then promotes again and comes at your city full health with 2 promotions. Probably not an issue in high production starts but in low prod starts it can be.

Chain killing 10 tiles away vs 5 tiles away vs 1 tile away makes all the difference.

I have read CK's logic before and definitely become more confident holding out with warriors myself, but also seen him get bullied by barb spears xD.

I'd pay 45 hammers worth of warriors for +120 commerce in a heartbeat again. The spawning of barbarian spears with proper forward movement is minimal under correct anti-barbarian movement + conditions.



At a high level, the original poll question was "often you tech archery purely as an anti-barb measure". If we re-frame it as "what would you give up to start the game with 1.5 more techs on Diety," I think the polling would look slightly different.

 

[drewisfat]

Sorry for not replying to my own thread, busy with holiday stuff. Glad to see we've finally got a 1-10%er.

I don't think archers are useful against barbs on an average sized map (fractal med. seas). The ultimate goal is to fogbust the barbs out of existence and the longer you delay the more complications arise: spears/axes/pillaging/barb cities/galleys. Any unit can fogbust so why pay more than the 15 hammers for warriors and scouts.
I'm not relying on barbs never reaching cities. I fogbust what I can, then brace for impact in cities ~t40 and then aggressively finish fogbusting my area by ~t50.
Warriors get an extra +25% city defense bonus, so they're getting ~80%+ odds while archers get ~95%+ odds in those barb wave fights. There's not going to be enough fights for archers to pay off hammer-wise. Archers aren't better at reaching fogbust positions once you compare them to 2 warriors instead of to 1 warrior.
There's room for a spear to get out if I'm unlucky (late barb attack trigger + early spear spawns) but it's rare. And while I'd prefer to line up archers against spears, a single spear does not justify the beaker cost of archery - just bring extra warriors for insurance.
I gave the archer approach a shot in the past, but found that after redoubling my barb technique, warriors/scouts led to better and safer results. I generally opt to avoid fights "in the wild" unless I get very good odds. The worst "disaster" I had was a recent game with a double spear spawn (t48 and t51) both charging cities..... but then they both lost their first fight to a warrior
I think archery is a trap that inherently leads to slower fogbusting which leads to worse barb situations that then seemingly justifies the use of archers.
There's also a danger in ever trusting a single unit to defend a city.
I think stuff like holkans/dogs are only a little helpful. I think chariots are bad because they're weak to the key danger unit, a spear, and they don't get def bonuses. Axes can be useful from an upkeep management perspective and at least consistently stop pillaging, but you have to weigh the other barb complications if you're trying to get by without full fogbusting.

Granted I'm going to be less consistent at stopping spears from spawning on certain map scripts/low seas isolation, which is why I stated my settings and gave that 1-10% poll option for those who play with random seas. Still, archers only save cities, they don't fundamentally solve the problem on those maps where fogbusting is hard and expensive and not fogbusting leads to pillage risk, barb cities and galleys. Without something like copper those games don't feel fair so I don't like playing them. These are virtually never the games people are showcasing though (and you can check map size at start), so it seems like a bit of a straw man excuse for going archery.

 

[Fippy]

Well it's gambling on maps with not easy to reach barb areas..cos sometimes you have no guarantee that your warriors get there.
I can always try in random games (and it's like a fun mini game), but would i risk my gotm (if i really want to play that one) and see large fogged areas with no easy path towards fogbust spots