Mounted Warriors are the way to go

[petey]

After reading a lot of the posts here, I tried a game as the Babylonians and went for the cultural victory. Although effective, and I thank all the people who've posted about it for the tips, I found that method of game play to be very slow for my taste. I prefer alot of military action with constant bloodshed and massive battles.

For my money, having the Mounted Warrior gives you a leg up over everyone in that department. I was playing the Canadians (militaristic, religious - UU 'Mountie' - Iroquois Mounted Warrior). I was lucky in that three horses popped up in my capital and then just started churning out the troops.

The Americans were just to the west of me and I immediately set upon them. Washington got me the Pyramids and with the Forbidden Palace added via a Leader (Gretzky - they're all named after hockey players), I had two productive empires working side by side.

Now when they've been smashed, tech-whoring had gotten me a ton of cash and I was able to instantly upgrade to a huge army of knights to roll over the Germans to my east. Now that they're through with, I have a large army of Calvalry about to go and say hello to the Aztecs up north.

With the speed and offence, the Mounted Warrior is the best ancient unit out there and gets you the early lead militarily. The other early UU's are good as well, but when the Romans are done with the early fights, they're left with a buch of soon-to-be-useless Legionnairies, while the Mounted Warriors are good all the way up to Calvalry, so you'll still have the large modern military while spending production points on city improvements and wonders and not producing the next generation of offence.

You really do have to go into the editor and change the crappy Expansionist trait the Iroquois are stuck with, though. Making it Militaristic gives you the leader production to jump ahead with the Wonders - I've had five so far and haven't even built the Heroic Epic - Get your Elite Units to attack , attack, attack)

BTW - I'm playing Monarch, Large Map, 7Civs

Petey

 

[Buecephalus]

Now I'm only playing on Regent so it may be different, but I'd take legionary over mounted warrior every time. I just finished playing a game (small world, Aztecs, Zulus, Japanese, regent) as the Iriquois and barely escaped with a win! I had more than one veteran mounted warrior killed by WARRIORS! Those wimpy cavemen? You gotta be kidding me! I was lucky enough to get an iron deposit in my capitol upon discovering iron working and was able to hold my own cities until I got knights. Then I proceeded to wipe 'em all out but damn it was a struggle. Now if I had used legionary, I woulda mopped up all of those civs before AD. The mounted warriors are so disrespected that even when I had the last Zulu city surrounded Shaka wouldn't acknowledge me for two turns! (I killed him anyway, heh). Also, they take way too long to become elite. Four sometimes five battles to get a MW to go elite. That's just crap. Now I see that you altered your Iriquois with the editor making them "militaristic" and that probably makes a big difference, however I don't use the editor and so this opinion is strictly based on the "original" game (v.1.17).

 

[IronicWarrior19]

My comments are below :

 

[IronicWarrior19]

Mounted Warriors are one of the best UU - they can retreat, with good attack, and they are fast too which means the low defence is not much of a problem. I hate legions, they seem such a waste of a UU. After all, how many times are your legions actually attacked? Added on to that, they lose quite a lot even against spearmen and it all adds up into a unit I can't really like. Immortals are much better and for the same cost - higher attack (less losses attacking cities), and still reasonable defence all adds up to a decent unit.

 

[Zouave]

I suppose you know with patch 1.17 mounted units can't always retreat now and sometimes get destroyed, making Mtd. Units weaker.

But they are good. Compared to the legionary it is almost a push they are so close. The speed of Mtd. Warriors is great, but that '3' defense factor for the Romans is extremely useful. If you're careful in your use of terrain even Mtd. Warriors will be hard=pressed to defeat them.

Immortals can be attacked easier, but those legionaries are really tough to take out - unless attacking across an open field where they have no terrain bonus.

Good units, both of them.

 

[escl]

Why r Canadians militaristic and religious ?
I would think that Canadians r the opposite of that.

 

[Buecephalus]

Originally posted by IronicWarrior19
Mounted Warriors are one of the best UU - they can retreat, with good attack, and they are fast too which means the low defence is not much of a problem. I hate legions, they seem such a waste of a UU. After all, how many times are your legions actually attacked? Added on to that, they lose quite a lot even against spearmen

Zouave already made one point, that mtd. units don't always retreat now, and even when they did, if you were playing against Zulus or Aztecs their UU's had the same speed, so no retreat was possible a lot of the time. How many times are my legions attacked? I guess I don't understand the question. Legions in my games are attacked all the time, and the legions usually win! They lose against spearmen a lot? Not in the games I've played, and I've played dozens as the Romans. Obviously everyone is entitled to their opinion, I just disagree.