How thin can you spread yourself?

[Pinstar]

I'm a die hard Ottomans player (Mehmed II) and addictive expander. I want big cities all over as quickly as possible. I keep bumping into some barriers and stubling blocks where I expand too quickly before I have a chance to reinforce myself.

My two main questions are this. Assuming Noble level game:

How many units should I have in my cities once I bump into some neighbors/start seeing barbarians more regularly? One warrior? Two warriors? Two archers? Once copper/iron is obtained...one axeman? axe and spear? chariots? What standign guard would be enough to hold each city to fend of barbarian attacks and to stop even agressive civs from getting any funny ideas.

My second question is: How many cities can I generally build pre-code of laws? I often find myself at 50% research with a long 30+turn haul to get CoL.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

1. In border cities, enough to repel invasion. Otherwise, just whatever you need for your cap under HR, otherwise 1 archer/warrior.

2. It varies a lot by difficulty. On noble, probably 10 ish, depending on surrounding resources.

 

[mirthadir]

1.) Enough to have the AIs target each other, not you (varies with leaders, map, and techs). If you can secure your borders with diplomacy one warrior per; or as needed for happiness.
2.) How are you funding them? Is this cottage spam or GLH abuse? With the later you can easily afford a nigh unto infinite amount with the right setup. Likewise, do we have the mids for early HR and higher happy caps, or maybe just Cha with monuments? Mapwise how many hunting/mining resources do we have? Are you able to exploit protective walls (best with stone), creative libs, or agg raxes for overflow gold? How about failure cash from wonders?

 

[DaveMcW]

Hereditary Rule. You get big cities and well-defended cities at the same time!

 

[mirthadir]

Hereditary Rule. You get big cities and well-defended cities at the same time!

Define "well defended"; half the time when I use HR I just spam warriors (either I don't research hunting for forever or leave my metals unlinked until there is viable war threat)/chariots (no HBR) till rifling or chemistry/advanced flight or as close as I can get thereto.

 

[Ibian]

I used to spam warriors. It seems to make sense, you can get twice the happiness from warriors that you can from axes right?

The problem is that eventually, you wont need those 10 warriors per city anymore, and then they will be completely useless and much more expensive to upgrade if you decide to do that.

So i started using spears, axes, swords if i have them for happiness. Like Dave said, happy and well-defended cities, and once you get other sources of happiness you can take your troops to the enemy and get even more cities.

 

[mirthadir]

That sounds good in theory, but let's be honest here. Garrison troops won't be highly promoted and once the AI has Xbows/Jumbos/Knights all of your classical units are worthless. Honestly when do you leave HR, or at least no longer require their services in garrison? Calendar? Constitution? Democracy? Drama? Most often my base happy cap does not increase faster than my pop and when it does or I swap out; even swords are garbage.

 

[Ibian]

If you dont have a lot of siege then you need throwaway units anyway. Garrison units give a better hammer to damage return than more modern troops, especially if those modern troops are also highly promoted.

On the flipside, with enough siege you could bring an army of warriors and still stomp anything in your way.

Most of the time, a mix of garrison troops and a little more siege than you have troops works better than either of the above.

 

[mirthadir]

If you dont have a lot of siege then you need throwaway units anyway. Garrison units give a better hammer to damage return than more modern troops, especially if those modern troops are also highly promoted.

On the flipside, with enough siege you could bring an army of warriors and still stomp anything in your way.

Most of the time, a mix of garrison troops and a little more siege than you have troops works better than either of the above.

You can buy an awful lot of catapults for the cost better garrison troops. Saving 15 per garrison troop means I have 15 more to spend on pults.

Also I'm a big fan of two move warfare and garrison troops are useless there.

 

[Ibian]

Bwuh? Horses give as much happiness as axes.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Bwuh? Horses give as much happiness as axes.

I think he's referring to the point of saving hammers via using warriors for garrison, and later building cuirassers or cavalry. Horse archers are pretty painful to upgrade and are not easily produced for garrison as you need them.

I frequently find the axes and such too expensive to upgrade also, making all of it useless except for . In that case, warriors or archers get the call. I'd rather sink the hammers into things that let me tech faster or expand.

Of course, problematic neighbors can skew that a bit!

 

[mirthadir]

Bwuh? Horses give as much happiness as axes.

Yeah and are utter garbage without 2 promos (shock/pinch/FII); and that's assuming you are willing to pay to upgrade the suckers to curis.

 

[CivCorpse]

My second question is: How many cities can I generally build pre-code of laws? I often find myself at 50% research with a long 30+turn haul to get CoL.

50%? You're amillionaire. I usually tech to 0%-10% then cottage spam. As mentioned previously HR can let you work more cottages/specialists which in the long run can make that land really pay off. Monarchy is also cheaper to tech.

 

[futurehermit]

Mehmed is my fav leader as well and I am also a hardcore REXer. I will go 1 unit per city until hereditary rule. I prefer to have axes/chariots in my early empire for active barb defense. Warriors/archers can't do much to stop pillaging barbs. Once I hit HR I will usually grow my cities vertically with cheap units: warriors/archers/chariots. Once the available land runs out (i.e., I reach the limit of horizontal expansion) I will start to expand vertically while producing an army in order to continue to expand my empire horizontally. Unless I rush early this war of expansion either comes in the classical era coinciding with teching construction (preferably if a reasonably close enemy and especially if I have elephants) or else at the time when I can draft janissaries under theocracy.

 

[popejubal]

Leaving aside the question of citizens from HR, for defensive purposes, I keep my best general units (Axes, spears, etc especially ones with unused promotions available) and my better defensive units in my border cities and I try to put two units in each of the cities where I anticipate an attack. Large empty areas on my borders especially get 2 units because I don't want to lose a city when the random number gods frown on me in a 90% favored battle. Keeping 2 units on garrison duty also lets me send one out to kill a wandering barbarian for the XP without worrying about .

I also send my newly built assault soldiers who are looking for that magic 5 or 10 XP mark to my border cities, so those cities will usually have 3-4 units in/near the city, but only 2 of those units are for the city itself. I also tend to not fogbust intentionally because I want the barbarians to spawn near me so that I can farm them for XP.

My inner cities are usually patrolled by whatever garbage units I have leftover and I will often have a capital defended by either my starting warrior straight through to the end of the game. These guys are just there to keep away the , so they're just leftovers of previous eras. Just make sure that you have a reserve set of units generally hanging around, so you can deal with an invasion.

 

[Cashew]

When you have left over warriors and archers from hereditary rule you delete them... upgrading them is a waste. And quite frankly, the notion of building axes and spears to garrison cities instead seems even dumber as you have now tied down defending forces to cities for the happiness they bring making you vulnerable to attack. If you move them to defend yourself you get massive unhappiness and if you leave them you get overwhelmed.

Personally I build nothing but warriors and archers in cities that I know will never seen an attack unless the game is lost for me anyways. If you place your cities within 4 tiles of one another you can get away with have a limited amount of archers and axes to defend all your cities by placing them in between your cities and moving them when the need arises.

I wouldn't suggest too many spears, chariots, or swordsmen if you're only thinking of defending. Archers, especially on hill cities, are very cost effective in dealing with chariots, and axes can defend against everything else. Once horse archers come around you may want more swordsmen though (I prefer them over spears since I can use them to attack).