No Copper - What's My Next Move?

[Naismith]

Let's say I'm playing at Prince or Monarch, Epic speed, continents, standard map with standard number of Civ's. My Civ has a late UU. I researched BW ASAP, but there is no copper in sight. I only have one city, and maybe a worker and two warriors. I can chop a settler fairly quickly. I haven't seen any barbs yet, but I know they will be coming soon - warriors and archers.

What should I research next? Should I go for IW and hope I get iron, and hook it up quick?

Or maybe I should forget IW for now, and beeline to archery?

 

[Araqiel]

Well I think it depends on whether their is a rival near you feel you should attack early. If an aggressive AI is around, or you look to be cramped I say research iron working.

If no target looks appealing then grab archery and expand peacefully for a bit.

 

[Divi Filus]

Archer will be faster and more effective for defense...
Iron Working will be slower, put you behind in tile development techs (like AH and Pottery).

Its a stylistic choice.. I would take Archery, then Animal Husbandry, then Pottery, then Writing, then Iron Working... My rationale being you can't fight a war very well if your tiles aren't producing at maximum efficiency and you will need to expand your border with culture to grab high value tiles and slow down invasions.

DF.

 

[Zherak_Khan]

Straight for iron. Archers force you into a defensive position, which isn't good. Iron is a tech you need anyway, hunting and archery are rather useless. (Fair enough, hunting will cheapen AH and hook up some resources.)

 

[jimbob27]

It depends how much empty land there is. If theres still a fair amount of uncovered land which isn't right next to one of my neighbours, I'll go for hunting so I can get scouts... then I'll go and look for a suitable site for my second city.

If I've scouted everywhere reasonable and theres no copper nearby, I'll place my second city somewhere good, and use my 3rd city to hook up iron (assuming I find some ) I'll research archery, build a couple of archers, then go straight for iron working.

I research archery first because the barbs are likely to appear before you get your iron hooked up, and its difficult to stop barbs taking your cities and pillaging your iron when all you have are warriors.

The other option is to go for animal husbandry and build chariots. You can then use the chariots to pillage the other civs metals, making any wars more even. Pillaging works best on faster game speeds, because the AI can build more units during the war. On epic and marathon their productions are so slow, most units that fight in a war are already built when the war starts. Barbs never build spearmen, so you won't have a problem defending against them.

 

[Andrei_V]

Build the second city anyway, make it a production city.

If there are some AH resources (cows, pigs, sheep) nearby, go for AH, otherwise, IW.

Build one or two stacks of 2 warriors against barbs, fortify on nearby forested hills / forests.

 

[Naismith]

Thanks for all the good advice. My dislike against fighting barbs on anything like even terms (archer vs. archer) makes me inclined to go for IW. But it's also true that by the time you research it, you may find it difficult or impossible to hook up the iron and defend it from the barbs. Usually, they are nosing around before you complete research on IW. As usual, it depends on the situation.

Chariots are an interesting idea. I haven't built one in all the games I've played.

By the way, does the answer also depend on if you have raging barbarians on, or aggressive AI on? (I think I would be more inclined to go for IW in this case.)

 

[Araqiel]

Thanks for all the good advice. My dislike against fighting barbs on anything like even terms (archer vs. archer) makes me inclined to go for IW. But it's also true that by the time you research it, you may find it difficult or impossible to hook up the iron and defend it from the barbs. Usually, they are nosing around before you complete research on IW. As usual, it depends on the situation.

Chariots are an interesting idea. I haven't built one in all the games I've played.

By the way, does the answer also depend on if you have raging barbarians on, or aggressive AI on? (I think I would be more inclined to go for IW in this case.)

Yes it does, with aggressive AI you'll need metal ASAP.

With raging barbs you'll need archers as IW might take too long for you to make it.

Also archers work wonderfully against barbarians, if you're smart its certainly not even. Just give them Guerrilla I and stick them on hills. They bust fog for a long ways, and will get a +70% (or 120% if forest hill/jungle) strength. You'll beat anything short of axemen, and even them often enough. You can do the same with warriors, but its not as effective. On normal barbarians just warriors will do, raging you'll need archers or axemen.

 

[jimbob27]

Aye... I always overlooked chariots until recently as well. I think a lot of people do. They can be a very powerful tool though, if you use them properly. I've used them to get some of my best wins. You send a couple out to every civ you can get to, capture any workers you can see, and then just pillage everything in sight. It leaves the other civs helpless, whilst you're free to develop and build the nessesary units to destroy the cities.

 

[Araqiel]

Aye... I always overlooked chariots until recently as well. I think a lot of people do. They can be a very powerful tool though, if you use them properly. I've used them to get some of my best wins. You send a couple out to every civ you can get to, capture any workers you can see, and then just pillage everything in sight. It leaves the other civs helpless, whilst you're free to develop and build the nessesary units to destroy the cities.

They are handy as your early unit against barbs and to escort settlers as well.

My favorite use of them though is with flanking.

 

[Hans Lemurson]

I'd advise chariots, since they're a very versatile unit, and Animal husbandry is a very valuable development technology.

Combat 1 chariots stand ~90% odds against archers, are very mobile (need fewer for defense, arrive at problem area quick), and are a reasonable bargain at 25 hammers.

If you go the flanking path, try out the Sentry promotion. Sentry give your unit a Line of Sight as if it were standing in all adjacent squares. That's normally 2-squares of vision, but you can get up to 3 squares if you are standing next to a mountain. Extremely valuable for exploration and fog-busting. 1 Sentry-promoted chariot can monitorr at least 25 tiles, and can often see more than 40.

Now if you're Egypt, chariots are a different matter entirely...

 

[cabert]

I'd advise chariots, since they're a very versatile unit, and Animal husbandry is a very valuable development technology.

Combat 1 chariots stand ~90% odds against archers, are very mobile (need fewer for defense, arrive at problem area quick), and are a reasonable bargain at 25 hammers.

If you go the flanking path, try out the Sentry promotion. Sentry give your unit a Line of Sight as if it were standing in all adjacent squares. That's normally 2-squares of vision, but you can get up to 3 squares if you are standing next to a mountain. Extremely valuable for exploration and fog-busting. 1 Sentry-promoted chariot can monitorr at least 25 tiles, and can often see more than 40.

Now if you're Egypt, chariots are a different matter entirely...

true
with egypt, i didn't connect the copper for a loooonnng time
i had killed frederick before i connected it

 

[Eggolas]

Playing as Uncle Manny, I go for Archery and Skirmishers, using them against barbs defensively. With Immortals or War Chariots, head for AH. With Praetorians or Samurai ... yeah, well, they are a no-brainer!

With other civs that do not have an early UU (Lizzie, Katie, George), I'll head for hunting/archery first to forestall the barbarian archers, then try to get IW.
If I don't have horses, iron or copper . . . sigh. Build 15 archers and send the SOD to take some forcibly.

 

[Naismith]

I started a game after getting all the advice. My starting conditions were somewhat different than I originally stated, however.

Standard map, epic, prince, 10 Civs (instead of standard 7), aggressive AI, and I chose Kublai Khan. I have never played him before. Lo and behold, I didn't have copper. Under the circumstances, I decided to go the AH route, thinking I would research Horseback Riding next for Keshiks. I hardly ever prioritize it, so I was unaware that it was so expensive compared to IW. Anyhow, I built some chariots, and sent them off to wreak havoc on my nearest neighbor, Ghandi. Razed a 1 pop city, pillaged a bit, etc. It was fun.

Anyway, I researched IW after AH, instead of Horseback Riding. I decided it was important to figure out where the Iron was ASAP. After IW, I researched Horseback Riding. With Axemen, Keshiks and some chariots running around, it's quite lively. I took down Ghandi - he had two cities. One was the founding city of Buddhism and Hinduism, the other was the founding city of Judaism!

I should've played at Monarch. I'm such a chicken.

 

[Zombie69]

Also archers work wonderfully against barbarians, if you're smart its certainly not even. Just give them Guerrilla I and stick them on hills. They bust fog for a long ways, and will get a +70% (or 120% if forest hill/jungle) strength. You'll beat anything short of axemen, and even them often enough. You can do the same with warriors, but its not as effective.

A Guerilla I archer, fortified on a forested hill for at least 5 turns, gets 20 + 25 + 25 + 25 + 50 = 145% bonus, bringing it up to 7.35 strength. It can then easily take on axemen. With Guerilla II, which it should get to easily, it will have 175% bonus, for a total of 8.25 strength. At that point, it can take on macemen and war elephants! That doesn't even take into account the extra bonus you get against barbs, which is dependant on difficulty level.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

I, too, found that guerilla archers are good units against barbs and strong chariots are good for settler escort (when you don't have early game UUs, of course). This combo was discovered at great expense and many reloads (I had too many bad habits to unlearn from Civ3). Without copper, you definitely need to upgrade from warriors to units like these to handle the various early threats.

I have only been playing the game for two months so I was amazed when I discovered how valuable copper was two weekends ago (checking the forum, I found having copper and using slavery change the game immensely). I played the whole weekend with axemen galore... the game got much easier. The barbs didn't beat me to axemen for once and I survived into AD, and even won my first Prince level game. Next up, Monarch!