Iron comes late. Too late.

[Sanityfaerie]

WRT Mines of Gal-Dur, from back when the discussion was about what happens when you have no copper

Pulling that off means planning for it early in the game. You should at least have a chance to adjust on the fly instead of being forced on desperate defense for 100 turns.

If you're planning on climbing the metals tree, then crafting and mining are either important parts of your base economy techs (if you have, say, gold in your starting cross) or the very first things that you should research after your base economy techs. As soon as you research them, you know if you have copper. At that point, given that both crafting and mining are required for Gal-Dur anyway, you're still on shortest path to pick those two up. You wouldn't get to RoK any faster if you'd planned to go that way from the start - except *possibly* for whatever benefit you'd get from a few extra turns of God King. That's plenty of space to adjust on the fly.

Just a bit of a pet logical peeve.

Beyond that, could people please clarify what they're trying to prove? It seems like we've fallen into a morass of arguing which is "stronger" between warriors and champions (and somehow ignoring axemen/swordsmen altogether) but I'm not at all certain what the point is.

Seems to me...
- warrior spam is a viable early-game technique. Given sufficient support from priests and mages it can be an effective mid-to-late game technique. This seems reasonably clear.
- warriors are a viable option largely because their cost so few hammers for their power, and some stack buffs work particularly well on them. They also tend to lose, so the warriors that do win get a large block of experience.
- warriors - even highly experienced ones - tend to lose, so that experience will go away pretty quickly if you don't upgrade them. They also have to be fielded in huge numbers and die a lot, so they tend to cost a fair amount of upkeep, have to be regularly replaced even when supported by mages and priests, and inflict a fair bit of war weariness.

There are two other weaknesses with warrior-spam as anything other than an early-game proposition.

- The first: hammer overruns don't do much for you - which means that as your cities start producing more and more hammers, your efficiency for pumping out warriors goes down. This is particularly harmful if you have things like the AV holy city or Shrine of the Fallen Hero, where you really want to build up a single city as the city that produces most or all of your troops.

- The second: on the attack, warriors take horrible levels of attrition. A well-supported assault force with some bombardment ability can steamroller through cities with small numbers of higher-level troops that would leave a bunch of their dead on the tracks if they were using warriors - which means not only does it cost you that many more hammers, but it cuts into your momentum that much more every time.

- The second: you keep discussing generic warriors, axemen, and champions, and ignoring UUs, because they're too complicated. Climbing the metal line pretty much isn't ever going to be the best way to do things unless you have some natural civ advantage to it. Every civ has some advantage somewhere, and it's pretty much always worth chasing your civ advantage - whatever it might be. If you're already building up mages, then get a source of death magic, build up some more adepts, and spam skeletons instead.

 

[Senethro]

Well Dave, if you admit spending your beakers somewhere, almost anywhere else is a better investment then you're agreeing that Iron comes too late arn't you? You can't argue in favour of iron working unless you ACTUALLY GET IRON WORKING.

Is this true? Surely your arguements suggest that warriors are too powerful and need nerfed rather than Iron Working is not a valuable tech. Improve Iron Working and Warriors are still a problem to every other military line.

@ Senthro
Well in my standard emperor and occupational deity games warriors never destroyed my economy, and I use them in the melle role until I get gunpowder or mithril. I explained that the maintained is not a problem ages ago in that you shouldn't be wasting commerce sitting on units doing nothing anyway.

Why would Gunpowder make a difference? Surely warriors are still just as superior to Arquebuses than Champions?

Your explanation was not convincing. You need an advantage to win a war, break into those 20% Culture Hill cities and also to be able to defend your own cities. A building of a critical mass is just something that happens.

Lack of full commitment, honestly are you at war or not? Either your troops are committed to the war effort or there sitting stagnat somewhere you don't need them.

I'm at war from the first turn that an opponents scout accidentally steps in front of Lucien. However I know that getting your stack wiped by moving your troops too far forward too soon is a great way to lose the game. I prefer extended worker and settler harassment until the total strength of the enemy is known.

If you have enough commerce to get IW, you have enough to field an extra large army then its a mater of hitting them with all you've got as efficiently as possible.

The two aren't comparable. IW is a cost you pay once, maintenance is paid every turn.

Of course the cost is incurred through the whole game, but you're not going to be building champs until you get IW, so you're in the same maintainence boat if you want to use the melee line, that or you have to build horribly in-efficient axeman which no one is arguing for anymore. Its not even a good idea to try to get champions before mid-late game since its so beaker inefficient compared to other lines.

Yeah, I'm still not sure of this. While bronze Warriors are obviously the best city defenders and have caused Archers to be redundant for years, I think you're underestimating the value of being able to win repeated small battles to gain XP.
Additionally I've never felt a hammer shortage in the midgame so I'd rather spend hammers on axemen than maintenance on warriors.

All this talk about tanking your economy with a standing army and makes me think the AI sitting around wasting commerce on their stacks is more realistic human behaviour than I gave it credit for.

Alright, its that time. You're making claims about other peoples play so show your own. Post a demonstration game with accompanying saves every 50 turns until 200 or whenever you get bored. Show us that Warriors and Mages, or whatever support you want, are the best solution to war.

 

[Tlalynet]

@Tasunke

"I think a different argument would be to split the metal-line with the melee line,"

That would be very useful, it would make each individual upgrade less beaker intensive too.

@ Senthro,

See my top post on page 2, re-iterating what Jonathan strange said. Part of what Higher Game said was that warriors feel too cheap, I'm saying they are. If warriors could not fill the melee role as well as champions then there would be incentive to get IW, warriors low movement and lack of special abilities prevents them from filling the roles of other unit lines.

Gunpowder and mithril make a difference because of how the games combat works behind the scenes, there gets to be a point where the str difference means weaker units will be able to do damage less and less, Iron Champs are just short of that falloff when they should be just above it. See Scouts VS Rangers or BTS warriors vs War elephants (which incidentally have the same str\hammer but the difference is enough that warriors can't effectively swarm them)

You want a save game? Alright, here's my current Sidar game, Emporor\standard\pangaea. No special options. Its turn 263 and I'm just out of a war with the kurios, I took 2 of their 3 cities before my attack force ran out of steam. They went from no 1 to wherever they are on the list now and I'm on top. Falfmar is probably right on the verge of getting IW if he hasn't gotten it yet, he's had smelting for quite a while.

So far I've built warriors, adepts, and 3 catapults to break their culture (I only needed 2) Only 2 cities have ever built adepts and their use is mostly to create skeletons to wound the stacks so I don't lose as many warriors. I got sorcery during my war with the kurios and had shades for taking down their capital, but I had their first city taken care of before I had mages.

Peace time unit maintainence, 4, and I don't think I'm done waning yet. It will go up as I re-build adepts during peace time while I infrastructure a bit, then in about 15 turns I'll rex again and probably either finish Cartdith or go for Os-Gibella, unless my diplomacy changes with someone else. I don't need champions for any reason, waste of beakers, I might go for archmagi but I don't really need them to get domination anyway.

Sidar warriors get very tough as soon as you get KOTE.'

Ah, civfanatics isn't taking my upload, I'll try to upload it later.

Got it, here it is.

 

[Senethro]

Sounds interesting. Did you try to zip it up in a less common format? Sometimes civfan is fussy about filetype.

 

[Tlalynet]

I might continue it late tonight or tomorrow afternoon depending on what I have to do. The plan as it stands is to take about 20 turns of down time while I build infrastructure and let my GA's in the Kurio cities do their thing, then check the diplomatic situation and probably attack Os or Falf because they are out of the main religion bloc and attacking the Kurios cost me enough diplo points. If I go for Os I'll have to spend some extra time building adepts so I can use mobile skellies to deal with pyro zombies and if I go for Falf I'll probably set every city but my adept cities to warriors, rebuild a couple cats, and go for him. I got entropy mana off of Cardith so even if Falf has champs it won't be a great IW comparison game, rusted champs are gimped and I naturally have enchantment mana (Cardith was rusting the heck out of my warriros, but it just cost me 1 adept per turn to restore them, without bronze sadly)


I could post it again turn 300 if you like, I'm not sure exactly what will be happening then but it will probably be either during a war or in the last phases of war prep.

 

[Calavente]

well...
it seems anybody classed the axemen as unefficient.

I'm still going bronze-working kinda early every game, if only to get copper. Then axemen are very close-by.
I like them.
I'm more of the builder style and having maintenance cost is bothersome.

You convinced me that they are less hammer effective than I thought.
but trust me, I'd rather have some axemen going out in the wood catching some xp than 2 or 3 times the same number of warriors.

The axemen gets some xp killing animals and barbs while the warriors gains some xp then die.
mostly I'll keep the promotions unused so as to gain more xp and be flexible.

Thus I defend with axemen + bronze weapons + promotions.

if you leave me the time to build some 10 axemen, you can come any time to attack my capitol with 3 times more warriors...
So either :
-I'll be able to build more axemen while you are travelling.
-You have more warriors than I can cope with but your civ is undefended.

if you want you can even try coming with cat's but I don't think you will have time to make more than one or 2.
then : either :
-you bomb my culture a bit (it is my capitol !, I'll still have some defense)
-you attack the stack for the collateral damage (I'll still have the cultural defense)

in the end you won't be able to take my city.
while if I built warriors instead of axemen, you won't be able either, but I would need to have a big standing army.

I'm not saying that axemen are more cost effective. I'm just saying that they are way better for the purpose I have.

On the other hand, when i'm attacking a city with units+mages/priests, I'd rather attack a big stack of warriors that I'll be able to pick one per one once they are "rusted/bombarbed/fireballed, fried through the ring of fire...etc" instead of a smaller stack of axes that'll need more effort to kill.
I think I'll lose more units attacking the axemen than attacking the warriors.
And in the same way I'll lose more units if my melee units are composed of warriors than composed of axemen. true, It'll take more turns to take the city, but I'll lose less


So yes, warriors are more cost effective. But no, I won't exchange all my axemen for 3 times as many warriors. I'll just use warriors to soften the stack instead of axes... but that's common sense.

BEWARE : irony is following !!
even better than warriors though... charriots !!! they cost more, but once promoted they survive the softening of the unit !! oh. and as they have more mobility, they can come way quicker to the battle front, allowing you to steamroll if your melee stack is big enough !!
so in the end, after a time, i'll never ever build warriors. (save for soem specific civs)

I'll add an exemple :
I had 1 archer, 1 soldier of kilmorph with iron and 2 swordmen with iron. All had hilldefense, plus the city had walls on a hill plus 20%cultural defense (total +30%defense +hillsdefense). the archer had drillII and the other units had combat 2. only the archer and 1 swordman had time to fortify at 25%, the other two were at 5%.
I was attacked by 40+ axemen and combat1.
I survived and lost 1swordman and the SoK.

I know it was situational and luck dependant. but I'm sure I would never have survived this with 8 or even 12 warriors (with bronze weapons) with hill defense and combat 2. (and that's allowing for a cost of 3warriors for 1axe). And that's supposing I'll be able to give 10xp to 12 warriors and have them in the same defending city !! it's much more easier to have 2 units with 10xp in the same city and 2units with 10xp close enough to come to help before the ennemy attacks.

and even more, I'll never be able to have 12 defending warriors with 10xp per city while still being able to have some economy.

 

[Traks]

Calavente - instead of using inefficient Axemen try next time to push to Champions, they ARE great replacement. You really need flexible defenses as very often battle will not be in city, but outside. I also tried building Axemen first couple of games, but they just fail where others excel.

 

[Calavente]

lol !!
As if I had the tech to build champs !! I was teching for mages
but didn't get them before the COE came with those axes.

For me, axemen is a welcome breakthrough... it means that my promoted units will survive So I don't think they are inefficient. It's just that in raw hammers, the warriors are better, but if you factor in the xp, axes are at least as good and for me they are of more use.

 

[Traks]

There are two ways to test it:
Multiplayer, Warriors - Champions vs Axeman - Champions
Second, posting savegame and seeing development. But honestly, 3vs1 ratio is hard to beat. I always attack with weakest Warriors first, with more experienced killing last enemies, so I have quite a crack team. In Sidari game I got 4 shades from warriors only.

 

[UncleJJ]

For me, axemen is a welcome breakthrough... it means that my promoted units will survive So I don't think they are inefficient. It's just that in raw hammers, the warriors are better, but if you factor in the xp, axes are at least as good and for me they are of more use.

I agree with this way of looking at the problem. Axes are a good way to consolidate any promotions a brave (or lucky) warrior gets.

Warriors aren't really the most cost effective "attacker", they are the most cost effective sacrifical unit used to wear the enemy down. You can use a mix of warriors and better troops and use the excess warriors to wear down the enemy. A combined force of axes (with promotions) and warriors is probably more effective at attacking than a force of warriors alone (using the same hammers). The axes are stronger at attacking (due to +1 strength, the promotions and 10% versus city) and need less warriors to soften the defenders before it's worth attacking. The axes still need to take risks to gain useful exp but are less risky than similarly promoted warriors. Any warrior that gets lucky and survives a forlorn attack will gain plenty of exp then gets upgraded to axe, archer or chariot to make better use of the promotions.

 

[Senethro]

Ok, I've had a chance to look at Tlalynet's game. In it he has turned a bad start where he couldn't even get Copper into a successful war machine by turn 267. As it stands its 13 cities split fairly evenly between Sidar settled and conquered from Balseraph+Kurios. He looks to have been using Agristocracy but is currently in Conquest. His income at 100% is 300bpt/-100gpt, but remember thats a war economy not using Agrarian. His current army is 20 warriors and 5 arcane units between 13 cities. To me that looks like about half of sensible defense force but hey, hes playing against the computer and looks to be keeping his neighbours happy. Current unit maintenance: 4/turn.

Looking at the statistics theres some funny things about it.

Kills: 53 freaks
12 Centaur Archers
A total of 20 assorted Adept/Cata/Priests
16 warriors
0 archers

Losses
35 warriors
A few catapults and adepts
69 skeletons
24 Spectres

So its a tricky thing to judge. Hes been beating mostly Tier 1 units with what looks like a summon heavy army. Did he play well or was the CPU just being horribly incompetent? Remember, he did it with Str3 Warriors.

 

[Tasunke]

It seems to me like warriors are the best way to protect your Magocracy ... however not necessarily the best way to defend against one.

@ Senethro- excellent analysis of Tlyalnet's game. I especially like the attention to detail.

Warriors make the perfect grunt or Cannon Fodder ... and I think that is its primary use.
Again this points to me that the system is not in fact broken.

One axeman which I think DOES perhaps make full use of its cost is the Moroi.
I mean ... truly I think the Moroi (with the exception of Demagogue) make the best type of Cannon Fodder. The only disadvantage of course is the Risk of using too many Burning Blood Moroi at once. To give an MP example, if your worried about the opponent using spells to weaken your force, you will probably attempt to use burning blood on your whole stack and attacking from a distance all at once. However, if possible its better to only use the spell on your units about 3 at a time (or in the instance of large armies) 5 or more at a time, as opposed to EVERYONE at the same time. In this way you are less likely to lose cities and units due to highly upgraded barb units. Also, its usually best to give burning blood survivors City Raider promos, since they are made easier to kill if they Turn Coat. Definitely Unwise to give Shock II to a burning Blood survivor. Maybe City Raider, Withdrawal, Sentry, and Mobility.

However, if you DO end up having to attack all at once, then for the love of Aeron please get some loyalty spells onto those Moroi.

 

[Tlalynet]

Calvante,

I see your point about barbsmashing, that extra Str ment a lot in J, but now barbs will attack you even if their odds are low so a couple 4str warrior (or even a 3str warrior) can deal with what the wilds have to offer in most cases, an unlucky move next to a hill giant will probably end either, though a promoted axeman has a better chance of surviving than a promoted warrior.

As for the multiplayer situation remember that other humans can effectively pillage, and 30 units is enough to fan out and destroy a layer of infrastructure every other turn. If they get to you're copper you don't have a way to create new units that can compete with their new units. Its field combat where you're at a disadvantage or bust.

The mounted line is definitely better at their role than warriors, thats why the complaint is that warriors fill the melee role better than Iron era units.

@ Senthro

Of course the CPU was being horribly incompetent, thats why they get production and beaker bonuses at higher levels. They where being no more incompetent than any other game. Whats funny about the statistics though, where you expecting many T3 units at turn 250?

Diplomacy is a solid defense when playing computers, but in the event of an unexpected Dow by any player I can build warriors every turn or every other turn in most of those 13 cities, I am prepared to lose a border town while they advance, but that gives me plenty of time to rally and bring an offensive against whoever DoW'ed on me. In the mean time I do have about 7 too many warriors.

I'm not sure that 'summon heavy' is quite right, if I was going for major magic I would have bothered to get the Free Tombs and built adepts everywhere, producing about 25 skels per turn to die, my warriors are responsible for most my kills, other than the odd lucky skeleton that gets L6. Even then I've only lost 2 skels per warrior. Note how many specters I lost and remember I only had sorcery in time take the last Kurio city. Summons just add up really fast.

Where are waned warriors counted? Surely not in the lost category?

Its a pity about the lack of copper, but since the Balseraphs didn't have it it wasn't a serious disadvantage. It might have been a problem for taking down the Lanuan but now that I have entropy mana its irrelevant. Unarmed champs are as bad off as unarmed warriors, and I have enchanted blade too.

 

[Senethro]

@ Senthro

Of course the CPU was being horribly incompetent, thats why they get production and beaker bonuses at higher levels. They where being no more incompetent than any other game. Whats funny about the statistics though, where you expecting many T3 units at turn 250?

Some Tier 2 unit would have been nice! Its turn 180 in a game I'm playing and all the CPUs have Axemen, Swordsmen and Hunters as standard troops. Its no fun if your victims don't at least struggle a little!

Diplomacy is a solid defense when playing computers, but in the event of an unexpected Dow by any player I can build warriors every turn or every other turn in most of those 13 cities, I am prepared to lose a border town while they advance, but that gives me plenty of time to rally and bring an offensive against whoever DoW'ed on me. In the mean time I do have about 7 too many warriors.

I think thats a bit too optimistic. Humans are much better at attacking quickly.

I'm not sure that 'summon heavy' is quite right, if I was going for major magic I would have bothered to get the Free Tombs and built adepts everywhere, producing about 25 skels per turn to die, my warriors are responsible for most my kills, other than the odd lucky skeleton that gets L6. Even then I've only lost 2 skels per warrior. Note how many specters I lost and remember I only had sorcery in time take the last Kurio city. Summons just add up really fast.

In which case you somehow killed 69 Tier 1 melee units (Freaks and Warriors) while only losing 35 Tier 1 melee units. Thats on offense and using only a very small number of catapults. I assume those enemy units were defending cities and getting their defense bonuses too, right? Does Emperor difficulty get 1 free XP or 2? The odds are just looking a little long is all.

Where are waned warriors counted? Surely not in the lost category?

There was a discrepency between warriors built, warriors existing and warriors lost. I assumed you'd upgraded them into something but they were probably waned.

 

[FireBlaze]

What difficulty and speed was he on anyways?

 

[Senethro]

What difficulty and speed was he on anyways?

Normal Standard Average everything, Pangaea and Emperor.

 

[Emptiness]

I'm not sure that 'summon heavy' is quite right, if I was going for major magic I would have bothered to get the Free Tombs and built adepts everywhere, producing about 25 skels per turn to die, my warriors are responsible for most my kills, other than the odd lucky skeleton that gets L6. Even then I've only lost 2 skels per warrior. Note how many specters I lost and remember I only had sorcery in time take the last Kurio city. Summons just add up really fast.

In which case you somehow killed 69 Tier 1 melee units (Freaks and Warriors) while only losing 35 Tier 1 melee units. Thats on offense and using only a very small number of catapults. I assume those enemy units were defending cities and getting their defense bonuses too, right? Does Emperor difficulty get 1 free XP or 2? The odds are just looking a little long is all.

He said "warriors are responsible for most of my kills", not "warriors are responsible for most of the damage I inflicted". He's suiciding summons into defenders and then finishing off the weakened survivors with Warriors.

-------------

Whats funny about the statistics though, where you expecting many T3 units at turn 250?

I can't speak for Senethro, but what's funny for me is that you've produced a total of 55 Warriors and used up 93 Summons. With summons softening up your targets, anything could be delivering the killing blows for you. This doesn't say "Warriors are more cost effective than Champions", it says "Free shock troops rock". (To be clear, I mean 'shock troops' in the military sense, not as a reference to the 'Shock' promotion.)

Also, your opponents do not have Champions or Iron weapons. I fail to see how you rampaging over the AI's Freaks with your Skeletons has any bearing on the Warriors-vs-Champions debate. It could have bearing on the Warriors-vs-Axemen debate, if not for all the summons (and the fact that Freaks aren't Axemen). To be fair, you have demonstrated quite well that Warriors, properly supported, are effective.

That's not the hinge of this debate, however. There is a very effective Khazad strategy that revolves around producing Warriors and then upgrading them to higher-tier units (to capitalize on the Ingenuity trait, a robust income, and the lower s cost of Warriors). The Calabim have an incentive (Feed) to continue to produce Warriors after Tier 3 Melee is available. The "inexpensive shock troops" aspect of Warriors can be a benefit to everyone, even late into the game (although when summons become available they instantly eclipse Warriors for this purpose, thanks to their 0 production cost and the ability to produce them where needed - as you no doubt know from experience). The fact that building Warriors is still useful after Axemen or Champions are available does not mean that Axemen or Champions are not as (or more) cost effective.

To underscore this fact, please note that when discussing the use of Warriors when Axemen or Champions are available the reference is made to upgrading the Warriors that survive enough combat to have a decent amount of experience. If Axemen and Champions are so worthless, and Warriors so awesome, they why the upgrade? Furthermore, where has it been established that a unit has to be paid for in raw s in order for its s cost to be appropriate? The term "cost" doesn't mean s specifically. The cost of a T2 or T3 melee unit can be paid as raw s, or it can be paid as with a kicker. If you ever upgrade a Warrior to an Axeman or a Champion you are effectively declaring that you consider the Axeman or Champion to be cost effective. If your empire has plenty of s then build the more advanced units directly; if instead you have fewer s to devote to unit production but plenty of then build Warriors and upgrade. The fact that you have a choice of how to play the game does not mean that the game is broken.

There are plenty of strategies/victory conditions that have nothing to do with the metal line. The fact that you can pursue one of those and ignore Iron Working does not mean that Iron Working is broken, it means that the mod is working as intended. If every victory required Iron Working then playing the mod would have a very constricted feel. Demonstrating that other techs that you can research instead of Iron Working give you the ability to win the game shows that the mod is functioning correctly. It does not prove that Iron Working needs to cost less to research. So, for example, if Warriors + Mages are easier to get and more effective than Champions that does not prove that there is a problem with Champions.

I'll call for it again: please provide periodic saves from a game in which you demonstrate your Warriors winnging the game opposed by enemy Champions. Include general information about the game's progress until until your opponents have Iron Working, a turn-by-turn account of the war in which you defeat your first Champion-wielding AI, and then a summary of the remainder of the game in which you continue on to defeat the remaining AI with Warriors. Do not upgrade your Warriors, and do not use summons. Doing this will illustrate that your 'quantity-beats-quality' approach is in fact functional in real-world situations, which will in turn demonstrate that the cost/benefit of T2 and T3 melee units is too high.

-------------

In reference to the "Iron Working costs to much to research" argument, I have this to say:

A) Research what you find effective. No where has there been a guarantee made that all research paths are equal. The mod offers an array of tools to use in seeking victory. Consider them carefully and choose what works for you. If you win the game without ever researching Iron Working (or any other tech), do not draw the mistaken conclusion that the tech is overpriced or does not serve a purpose. For example, I hardly ever research Pass Through the Ether but I recognise that it is a powerful tech with an appropriate cost. On a different type of map (specifically, Continents), The Nexus is deadly and wins games. It never plays any role in my games, but that does not warrant a reduction in research cost. There is no imperative or madate that every tech must impact every game.

B) Iron Working does more than just provide Champions. Iron Working is the most pivotal tier 3 tech in the game. It is required to research Rage (Berserkers), Blasting Powder (Arquebuses), and Animal Mastery (Beastmasters) - T4 units in three different unit lines/research paths. It also enables access to Iron (although this can also be gotten in other ways), which improves the strength of various melee, archery and mounted units, and is vital to production of a 'modern' navy. Iron Working also allows the construction of Shipyards, which allows naval units to be produced faster and with more experience. It leads directly to Warhorses and Mithril Working, and indirectly to Engineering and Machinery. Access to Champions is arguably free (civs that don't have access to them pay the same cost to research Iron Working, and for good reason).

C) Look before you leap. It was suggested earlier that Iron Working should be split into two techs, but effectively it is - Smelting and Iron Working. The 'huge' cost of Iron Working is not something that has to be undertaken blind; Iron is revealed by Smelting (a valuable tech itself). Similarly, Bronze Working is split into Mining and Bronze Working. First you see if the metal is available, and if so then you continue on to the ability to use it; if not then you pursue another path and your investment is limited (and comes with some rewards as a consolation prize). This is a very clever design feature that I feel is being overlooked. The cost of researching Iron Working does not have to be paid until you are sure that it will be beneficial to you. To put it another way, a foolish player researches Iron Working too soon or too late; the wise player researches it as soon as the reward matches the cost.

 

[Tlalynet]

@FireBlaze
Emp\Normal, its just a casual game for me, not any kind of challenge.

@Senthro
Actually the Balseraphs where a disappointment with their freak show, the Lanuen have had axes since I met them but attacking them first would have been a bad idea. I havn't actually seen the Balseraphs in action before on this patch, I assume its new AI favouring unique units. They had a lot with stoneskin, which was kind of funny Centaur archers replace horse archers though, so they are Teir 3, and that was a bit more of a serious war, there was a reason I didn't get the RoK holy city.

As for the first war, I didn't actually have catapults for that one, but they didn't get many defensive bonuses either. They attacked me, I stuck my warriors on a city on a hill (the one with death mana, I forget its name) and they judiciously decided not to suicide their whole force on that endevour. They where being harassed by skeletons (IIRC I had 5 necro adepts, I had just teched necromancy before that war) all the way in and all the way out and where completely routed on the plains between our lands.

By then I had enough promoted warriors to have good odds on their cities after those (at that point 7?) skellies weakened them.


I've played multiplayer several times, but sadly the only humans I play with do not attack more efficiently than the AI. In serious multiplayer I'd probably rush\pillage the human or attack him at the first opportunity, just because they are the biggest element of chance in the game. Not saying I would succed at that, but that I prefer getting the variables out of the way ASAP. In a many player multiplayer game I would probably behave differently too, but it would probably be archers in border forts or something like that.

As it sits this is a very effective strategy for single player.



Anyway, Os Dowed on Falf 3! turns after that save state. I skipped the infrasturctuing and went right to mobilizing and went to war with OS I took 2 cities including my target city with bronze just out of its fat cross. I waned for a bard while following the Pyre SOD in Falfs territory, I manadged to take a city they only guarded with a pyre zombie and raze it . Just making things easier for my next war.

Sadly Cardith is under the protection of the Cabalim but he is pleased with me again and I'm not too worried about a sudden attack.

A Sheim SoD complete with Rostier the Fallen turned on my copper city, I played for time with a protracted summon war while I waited for my bard to get me copper. I failed 2 turns before the border pop and had to trade my shadow mana away I abaondond the city with nothing but summons and 1 CD warrior in it, they killed a few zombies at least.

Because I could I built a radiant gaurd to protect my mages and a Stonewarden for another +10% to my warriors. Copper turned the tide of the war, but pyro zombies are tough and I was creating mobility warriors instead of shock warriors (to escape the pyro wrath) In the end I beat their stack, but not by much. I had some bad luck fighting Rostier, I lost 6 battles with him where I had 30-40% odds and he got to heal and promote several times. In the end he only had .1 str left so I only got a few XP for him

Now they have a SOD left in Lanuan lands, but they are at peace now and I don't think they can even move them out of the city they took, either way its just a few turns till my warriors are re-stocked and now I have a few mages back in action so the war can go on.

Unit expenses where 50 gpt last I checked, and WW is <900 but only my biggest cities are really being affected, I can still build warriors fast. I hope to vassal them in the end and take their death and entropy mana, I dunno if that will happen or not but I've got a good chance now that their first SOD was cleaned up.

... Server busy again, that will have to wait for later too.

@ Emptiness
We already have your test to prove that warriors > champs on the offense. You're just mad because I called you on your David Suzuki worthy conclusions So now you're grasping at every arbitrary straw to try to get more credibility again. You go play yourself a game where you can only the best melee unit available to you, and don't bother posting it as its not to hard to beat the AI and is immaterial to this discussion anyway. I just fought the Sheim and showed that warriors+mages could beat pyre zombies+more mages+heroes, not that that proves anything either.

Now if you take the time to look at the context of a discussion (which you probably didn't as you didn't last time) Senthro said "Show us that Warriors and Mages, or whatever support you want, are the best solution to war. " I happened to have such a game handy, thats whats posted.

It was suggested earlier that metal lines and melle lines should be split, not whatever you where thinking.

IW is the most expensive T3 tech and it doesn't give you a more cost-effective unit in return. Upgrading a limited selection of units shows only that those units have a niche role, its not new units obsoleting old ones.

And note that warriors can finish off more weakend units than champs hammer for hammer

For Champs to total warriors they need to be closer to triple warriors power, so taking away bronze clubs would be the simplest way. Warriors already had their access to Iron and Mithril taken away, I suppose you don't think those where balance issues either?

 

[Senethro]

I have to say that I'm beginning to wonder if Bronze warriors are a balance problem on the offense as well. Its interesting to note that most of my favorite civs are those with cheap or otherwise special Axemen. This may not be an accident but a response to having to deal with their otherwise poor performance.

I tried to copy Tlalynet's game using the Malakim which was a lucky accident. I regenerated until I got a 1 seafood start with some happiness resources and fresh water like he did. This made for a surprisingly slow start and I didn't manage to get my 3rd city up before losing Creative. After getting up to 5 cities I got hemmed in by CPU players and a cluster of 3 elephant guarded barbarian cities. By turn 200 a Rhoanna/Hannah trading partnership were about 15 techs ahead of me. The rest of the game went better: I stumbled into Ashen Veil, mashed the World Spell button and realized I'd accidentally just given myself 7 citycracking support units that would have otherwise cost me 840 hammers (i.e. 33 warriors). Thats all I needed to go killing. Shrine Entropy mana and Body/Enchantment from Alteration made it easier. I even got to have my cake and eat it too as I used Infernal Grimoire to pop Iron Working in 240.

I was still using a 60/40 Warrior/Swordsman mix with most swordsman being promoted warriors, because I think thats a sweetspot in terms of encouraging unit survival and keeping maintenance low. There came a point though when my maintenance costs became just silly and my StW cities had more production than they knew what to do with, at which point I was sick of microing warriors anyway and switched to Champions. On a small map size it would probably have been better to go 0% science and drown the world in Bronze warriors and hope to win by conquest quickly. On any map size where war will be more protracted and distant opponents may tech to advantage, the warriors may run out of steam.

Also of interest is that the Malakim have 2 of the 4 mana needed for the Tower of Divination. Would 800 hammers for 11000 beakers (mithril working) be a good deal? That would get around the maintenance problem.

As for counters to warriors in the mid-game I can think of a few. Raiders mounted units that are able to threaten multiple cities at once and force warriors into a more defensive role. Aggressive mounted can begin with Shock and play hit'n'run while grinding XP. Warriors are heavily support based so Assassins may undercut that, though at 2000beakers for Poisons you may have trouble being able to pay for it. Pyre zombies controlled by a human would obviously do well. Diseased Corpses with Cannabalize in a good defensive position might do well. Last one: Radiant Guard. Warrior massing depends on being able to attack all at once. Blinding Light would let you tie down enough of the stack that you can pick it apart over several turns with higher strength units. Or with enough RG I suppose you could just lock them in place permanently as if they're in your territory then each one will be costing the opponent -2 gold per turn.

 

[Tlalynet]

It sounds like a fun game, but it sounds like your start is much worse than mine, I saw Yggdrasil with my first scout move and went out of my way to settle near it. 5 food start and able to reserch mysticism for a scientist and God King right off the bat. I bulbed KoTE while teching (sadly worthless) BW and had magic warriors up pretty early. Those magic warriors dealt with the lizardman swarm, one went insane and one freed a diciple of Empy, which has been sadly almost worthless to me as I have no priests and don't want Empy for diplomatic reasons...

It sounds like a really good game your having. Elephent guarded cities, groan...



Human pyro zombies do well against anything but warriors have lots of counter, I agree with that. Using assasins on them is probably the most creative thing you suggested, that would hurt a lot and I didn't think of it before. Since I have Empy anyway I was thinking of going radiant guards in my game, but I didn't want the diplo penalty. My complaint with warriors is similar but a bit different than Higher Games complaint with Iron, so I started a fresh thread with some simple comparisons to cut down the animosity and get my main point through without as much clutter. I'll still keep trying to upload my game as it goes though.