Units that you almost never build

killmeplease said:
I like to play Marathon so i have enough time to use all this units.
the most useless i think are archer and longbowman
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You're not being serious, are you? Not much city defense is offered in the Medieval era from units other than Longbow. With an inherent +25% city defense +20% (from CGI) and possibly a +50% hill bonus, with the +25% fortify bonus, a level 2 longbow has a strength of 13.2.

Since much of the time, theocracy is in play, you're getting another +25% for CGII so now you're looking at +145% = 14.7.

Crossbowmen aren't going to give you that. I guess you could use maceman for city defense with a shock promotion, but really that's a huge waste of hammers that are much better used on city raider promoted macemen. On Marathon games, Longbows cost 150 hammers and Macemen are 210.

I guess if you have a massive enough invasion force, you won't need any city defense. But if you're playing any sort of game with more than 4 rivals, you're still going to need some sort of city defense and archers/longbowmen are the most economical and provide really good defense for their cost.

Besides, if you're playing marathon, you'll need thos efor a while.
 
J-man said:
They're stronger then longbow man (9 vs 6) and sometimes I want chemistry early so rifling comes late.
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But longbows have +50% city defence I believe... so its 9 vs 9 with that 25% melee bonus on the muskets i think it is, pretty similar

anyway in single player, i don't usually make much city defence... best offence is a good defence and all that :P
 
Archers are 50%. Longbows are inherent 25% city defense (according to Civilopedia). And they get 25% fortification bonus. And if your city is on a hill it's 25% inherent plus 25% tile defense. Add in CGI for another 20% and if theocracy, CGII for another 25%.

Gunpowder is pretty long after Feudalism in marathon games unless you beeline. But why do that? There are more important techs IMO like paper/education/liberalism or engineering or music (free GS)... there's a lot that i personally prefer way more than gunpowder. Later on in the era, it's much much cheaper anyway and you can slingshot to rifleman fairly easily (if that's your thing) even if you wait for it.
 
Killmeplease has a point. The only good thing about archers and longbows is they don't require resources. Maybe on hilltops they're not too bad.

The axe / spear combo is superior at city defense to an archer. Crossbow / pike is superior to the longbow. Maces are better than longbows and they come packaged with the best economic tech in the game.

-g
 
Well, that and they're a lot cheaper than melee units, cannot suffer from the axeman/maceman +50% vs. melee, and are generally stronger defenders than other units of the time. Again, if you can get along with defending your cities with warriors until BW (potentially IW if you have no copper [50% of the time]) then archers are useless. X-bows might be your unit of choice in the medieval era, but they are more expensive and so is their tech. Again, bang for your buck for captured city garrisons is definitely longbow.

And if the city is on a hill, how can you resist the archer/longbow innate +25% hill (which becomes +50% when you factor in tile bonus)

Finally, for any strategic resources that are on a hill (copper/iron much of the time), nothing can defend them better in the early era than an archer that his hill promoted. +25% fortify +25% hill defense(innate) +20% hill defense (promoted) +25% hill defense (tile defense) and 1 first strike = +95% = 5.85 str for defending a field tile. That's pretty damn good in the ancient era.
 
OK crosspost.

But an axe on a hill is worth 6.25, if I understand the mechanic right. An archer is 4.5. The axe / spear combo is worth 7.5 v melee and 8 v mounted. An city-defending archer is 4.5. I think these are the numbers. The hilltop city archer is worth 6, isn't it?

And a similar situation holds for longbows and crossbow / pike, I believe.

Archers are cheaper; but you need more of them to do the job and they're weak attackers. So the maintenance costs will be higher. And you have to research archery technology, which has no economic value. Bronze working is a powerhouse.

-g


PS.

I'm not sure how to weight these hill-defense and city-defense promotions early in the game, since they take a while to get. Your bronze weapons should be assumed to have a star for every hilltop badge or city-defense promotion the archer has, of course.

With longbows, the crossbow will have all the same promotions available.

PPS.

Tactically, versatile units can be more useful. The hilltop defender has to worry about enemies bypassing the hilltop and cutting the key road leading to your resource. It's definitely unsound to barricade yourself in a city while your villages get burnt. Big catapult stacks need to be addressed before they flatten you with collatoral damage. Axes and crossbows are well-suited for both offense and defense.

At the very least, killme is making a reasonable point.
 
Given marathon speed -

Axemen:
Tech cost: 360 (starting with Mining)
Cost : 105
Field hill defense: str 5 +25% tile +25% fortify +10% combat = 8
Hill City defense: str 5 +25% tile +25% fortify +10% combat = 8

Archer:
Tech Cost: 180 (Starting with Hunting)
Cost: 75
Field hill defense: str 3 +25% tile +25% fortify +25% innate hill +20% hill promotion = 5.85
Hill City defense: str 3 +25% tile +25% fortify +25% innate hill +20% hill promotion +50% innate city = 7.2

So you're combat numbers are right, but you can see that not only will I research archery in half the time, but I'll also produce 5 archers when you pop only 3 axes, and since it takes half the time to research, there will be a ton more archers than axeman in the same scenario.

Also, Why waste hammers like that on defending a city with axes when you can CRI upgrade them and invade the next door civ (while defending with archers ;) )
 
By the time the AI is pumping out swordsmen, (and I say 'pumping out' really liberally) you should have culture in your cities. The AI won't have catapults for thousands of years, so you're looking at

Archer 3 +25% fortify +25% innate hill +25% tile + 50%innate city + 20% CGI + 40%culture (from capital) + 1 first strike = 8.55 and a first strike.

Yes, the axemen does better for defending against swordsmen, and all defense stacks should have them. But your basic city defender is still best as archer. What if the AI comes at you with chariots instead of only swordsmen? Now that axeman isn't worth much at all. I've heard the argument that they don't build chariots, but they certainly do, especially if you are spamming axemen. They just don't spam chariots.

Axeman defending the capital against a chariot:
str 5 +25% fortify +25% tile +10% combat I +40% capital - 100% vs. chariot = 5

Archer defending the capital against a chariot:
str 3 +25% fortify +25% innate hill +25% tile + 50%innate city + 20% CGI + 40%culture (from capital) + 1 first strike = 8.55 and a first strike.


And, of course, because you can build almost 2 archers for the price of 1 swordsmen.
 
Units I hardly ever builld are: Spearmen and Chariot. I hardly ever build those.
 
Gimme some credit here, I'm assuming axes and spears both.

The capitol city example you gave is +100% for one-star axes and spears, plus an additional 50% versus melee and 100% versus mounted. So attacking melee units face a strength 12.5 axeman and attacking chariots face a strength 12 spear. So what I'm seeing here are ideal conditions for your archer - a hilltop city & defensive promotions - in which you pay a 70% hammer cost for a unit which is 70% as effective. But that is not a fair deal. Not at all.

Many cities can't be on hilltops, to begin with.

And my bronze units are versatile. They can leave the city and fight outside. Their promotions aid offense and defense. Their maintenance costs are (pound for pound) lower. And they're harder to kill.

I realize that archers are cheaper (in hammers, if not in maintenance); but is this really a good place to economize?
 
Tsk Tsk... you're building mini-stacks for city defense. All I need is 3 archer 1 axe and I'm good for most cities. Throw in an extra 2 axes and 1 archer from other cities to defend the one under siege and I got no problems in the world. And my attack stack with swords/axes/spears/a couple archers are making their way to the offending civ.

My point is the 30% less effective is a moot point at the strength levels we're talking about. Those axeman your using to defend your cities should be out attacking. The str 12 axeman isn't going to be str 12 after a CRI swordsmen raids. It's likely he'll be half strength. So now you need multiple axemen to defend the city properly. My 3 archers tho having lower strength, also have a guaranteed first strike and that means they're likely to have more health left. Also, there's 3 to your 2 axeman. If you built 4 axeman, that's 6 archers. 6 axemen? 9 archers. And most of the archers will survive to become CGII archers.

Once again, this is a preference issue. But by no means are archers/longbowmen useless. They're too cheap and effective to be useless. If I'm playing a purely defensive game, I'm still putting 3-4 archers in my border city along with a couple axeman and spears.
 
blitzkrieg1980 said:
You're not being serious, are you? Not much city defense is offered in the Medieval era from units other than Longbow. With an inherent +25% city defense +20% (from CGI) and possibly a +50% hill bonus, with the +25% fortify bonus, a level 2 longbow has a strength of 13.2.

Since much of the time, theocracy is in play, you're getting another +25% for CGII so now you're looking at +145% = 14.7.

Crossbowmen aren't going to give you that. I guess you could use maceman for city defense with a shock promotion, but really that's a huge waste of hammers that are much better used on city raider promoted macemen. On Marathon games, Longbows cost 150 hammers and Macemen are 210.

I guess if you have a massive enough invasion force, you won't need any city defense. But if you're playing any sort of game with more than 4 rivals, you're still going to need some sort of city defense and archers/longbowmen are the most economical and provide really good defense for their cost.

Besides, if you're playing marathon, you'll need thos efor a while.
Click to expand...
I agree. LB have stopped my rifleman many a time. LB are some of the best unit values IMHO
 
Can someone please explain how to get and use a great general super medic explorer? Thanks!

Also, why do people say they skip on horse archers? I have to build a lot more axemen to successfully wage an early war against archers. Or do I attack too late? I do beeline for bronze working but by the time my 6-10 axemen enter the enemies lands it already has an archer or two in all its cities. Or should I just use chariots? I never use chariots...
 
Deep_Blue said:
Archers, spears, Longbows and Pikemen were designed to defend, axemen, swords, macmen were designed to attack. It is as simple as this and anything different from that is up to your style not efficiency, for example how efficient it would be using elephants to defend ?!
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Very, against knights or HA's. Longbows lose their first strikes there and with combat knights get pretty scary.

Being defensive is bad though. You might want some border units to prevent an easy city capture even with culture d intact, but when it comes to stack-to-stack combat you want to be on the offensive, not the defensive. This is because collateral off siege tears just about everything apart. Crossbows lose to axes when they have 2.0 strength left! Badly!

Archers are still very useful for fogbusting and when you lack metal. I do go some games without longbows but they have a place. When you need cheap defense fast it's these guys I call on, assuming that for some reason I teched feudalism that is.

Deep in enemy territory I prefer a ministack combo of an anti-melee troop and an anti-mounted depending on situation (once the coast is clear I'll lower that garrison to 1 unit). This prevents those "walk around the SoD and recapture the city" forays by the AI, which it just loves with HA's and knights.

MP is a bit different and you have to protect cities better, so using archery units isn't a bad idea, but most of your military will still be offensive units, so you don't get pillaged or choked to hell.
 
I hardly ever build war ephalumps. They move too slowly. A stack of horse archers properly promoted can be much more effective at the same point in the game. And the HA always promotes thru currs to cavalry. Almost never build chariots. HAs are available almost then, too.
 
russinmn said:
I hardly ever build war ephalumps. They move too slowly. A stack of horse archers properly promoted can be much more effective at the same point in the game. And the HA always promotes thru currs to cavalry. Almost never build chariots. HAs are available almost then, too.
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If you build a lot of war elephants at an early stage, they can be very mean and useful when attacking cities. It's a question of timing.
 
I love Privateers, they have to be some of the best units out there!

Explorers- meh, I build one for the lulz every now and again, or if I am playing Rhye's and Fall as the Dutch.

I actually never use catapults and always use trebuchets. Meh.
 
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