This game is too reliant on Iron

[gunkulator]

This is a very valuable remark.

The AI is not able to understand bombardment. It will send in hordes of units only to die at your defensive strongpoints, if you use your early "artillery" well enough.

Very true. A stack of cats or trebs can keep the AI away.

The same stands true when your're on the attack. A stack of 10 cats, 10 spears and 10 bows (just as an example, whatever may be the needed combination) will get you almost any city in the early game.

That's 600 shields of units. Does anyone ever really build 10 catapults in the ancient era? I'm usually busy building workers, setters and warriors for MP. And with all the mad trading that goes on in the AA, the AI and I are typically out of it before long. If you have built that many units, that AI will have a similarly nasty SOD up its sleeve to go after you. You need a reserve of artillery and attackers for defense. Given the choice, I'll take 20 horsemen. Better yet, I'll take 10 horsemen and attack sooner before the AI can build up a big stack and get to pikes

I find the best time for the big slow stack is the early medieval era when you are no longer losing population for workers and settlers and your cities can now grow to be able to crank out those slow movers.

 

[budweiser]

That's 600 shields of units. Does anyone ever really build 10 catapults in the ancient era?

Oh yes. I do. I build them in towns that don't have a barracks. Math has to be one of your earlier priorities, sometimes before iron. Iron for attack, math for defense, then attack. Remeber you dont need resources for cats so you can build them earlier.

Depending on the timeframe though, you may not need that many, 1 or 2 will stop a gang of archers. But, its not hard at all to build up a stack of 10 or 15 by the time you hit the MI. If the map is large or the difficulty is DG then you should have plenty of time to get them built.

As an example, I was playing the english on a large archipelago last night, emporer difficulty. I had 5 catpults when I hit the MI, but hey I was english with no bonus food, and I had a bunch of ships I needed built for exploration. Anyway, 4 or 5 was the perfect number for that game, at that time because I was facing towns with 2 spears and maybe an archer and that is just enough shots to give your archers and horsemen a combat edge.

 

[Daghdha]

I was in the "no resources= " situation the other day (emperor) and posted the "no iron, no coal, no rubber"-thread as a cry for help. grog (I think) gave some sound advice and I stuck to that. Well, Mongols declared on France bringing England in and I wasn't the one to miss a party so I nicked a couple of France cities (mostly after they'd been downsized by my friends) and gifted my brothers in arms well and things looked rather bright. Now Liz has backstabbed me and toghether with Genghis I'm making her pay but it's a bloody affair and my 20K victory has all in all dragged out. I will have it but late in the game (no SGL's either). Maybe my lack of resources were OK since I had a non-war strategy from start, I dunno, but it is indeed possible to survive but hard to be aggressive. Note that rival aggression was set low.
Try again, and again.....

 

[morbror_sven]

I think that we all have experienced the frustrating feeling that comes when your land is covered by mountains and you realise that none of them contain any iron.
This is not very realistic since in real world iron is a very common resource that can be found in most countries.
Instead of removing the resource the map generator could generate four times more iron than it does now.
That would maintain the important role of iron but in a more fair and realistic way less dependent on luck.