Warriors.

[ridjack]

I'm far from being sure this is any kind of problem, but I don't think I've built a Warrior in literal months. They just don't do anything. They die easily to even the weakest Barbarians, they feel too costly to produce during the only time they might have a use (literal beginning turns), and if I absolutely need a melee unit to capture a city, a humble Pathfinder serves the purpose better. I realize that they are the literal default unit, which is why I doubt it's a problem, but I thought I'd mention it.

Besides, maybe I'm just an idiot and I can learn why not building Warriors is a stupid idea.

 

[Moi Magnus]

I feel like we should boost their bonus against barbarians. I mean, their purpose is actually to survive against barbarian until you have better units (spearmen, ...), so they should be good at it.

 

[Stalker0]

Warriors are fine to me. They are your basic unit, you fight with barbs with them until you get Spears, than you upgrade them to Spears.

they are the basic intro unit, they are not supposed to be strong

 

[amateurgamer88]

Warriors have another purpose. You build a couple of them and then upgrade them to Spearmen to quickly demand tributes from nearby CS when you go Authority. I think people tend to overlook this and snowball slower as Authority.

 

[Gazebo]

Missed a chance to say "Warrior! Uh!? What are they good for, absolutely nothing!"

 

[LifeOfBrian]

I find warriors to be just ok. You can quickly upgrade them to Spearmen or even better yet your UU (Celts, Persia). They do the job on defense against the AI until you get Spearmen and against Barbarians (before Horsemen).

 

[ridjack]

I find warriors to be just ok. You can quickly upgrade them to Spearmen or even better yet your UU (Celts, Persia). They do the job on defense against the AI until you get Spearmen and against Barbarians (before Horsemen).

My only issue is I don't feel like they do. I'd rather have one Archer than two Warriors almost always, especially if I have any thoughts of ancient Era conquest.

Missed a chance to say "Warrior! Uh!? What are they good for, absolutely nothing!"

I am beyond chagrined. This is basically unforgivable.

 

[andersw]

I'm far from being sure this is any kind of problem, but I don't think I've built a Warrior in literal months. They just don't do anything. They die easily to even the weakest Barbarians, they feel too costly to produce during the only time they might have a use (literal beginning turns), and if I absolutely need a melee unit to capture a city, a humble Pathfinder serves the purpose better. I realize that they are the literal default unit, which is why I doubt it's a problem, but I thought I'd mention it.

Besides, maybe I'm just an idiot and I can learn why not building Warriors is a stupid idea.

I would say it depends, on difficulty, game settings and such.
If you play authority with barbs on they are absolutely vital, depending on difficulty and space there is a variancy on how much barbs spawns and how many warriors you need.
As progress/tradition you don't get the bonuses vs barbs and also nothing from kills, but you still need to clear out barb camps.
Sure you can go for something else but archers are more expensive and spearmen a lot more.
I purchase most of my warriors and at most build up to 2 (there are other things more urgent to build).

I agree that they are useless if you play with no barbs, on very cramped maps you will maybe need one or two.
Edit: if you are unable to take out barb camps with warriors or have warriors dying to barb camps you need to position your warriors better and retreat with the injured ones.

 

[swapoer]

My only issue is I don't feel like they do. I'd rather have one Archer than two Warriors almost always, especially if I have any thoughts of ancient Era conquest.



I am beyond chagrined. This is basically unforgivable.

Same here, I built archer only for defense and barbarian for my tradition game.
I don’t it is a problem too, since it’s a basic units.Archer are better but they require technology.

 

[ridjack]

I would say it depends, on difficulty, game settings and such.
If you play authority with barbs on they are absolutely vital, depending on difficulty and space there is a variancy on how much barbs spawns and how many warriors you need.

Hard disagree. King and Emperor, Authority is tied with Progress for my most taken tree, and Warriors are a waste of hammers IMO. Trapping for Archers, use them to hunt camps until you have three or four and then conquer a nearby neighbor.

If I have no nearby neighbors, I'll clear the camps entirely with Archers. Maybe use a Pathfinder to actually clear the camp if AI or CS units are hanging out nearby.

I prefer to use my gold to purchase workers. Workers are so crucial, but I absolutely hate building them. Best use of gold in the early game, IMO.

 

[andersw]

Hard disagree. King and Emperor, Authority is tied with Progress for my most taken tree, and Warriors are a waste of hammers IMO. Trapping for Archers, use them to hunt camps until you have three or four and then conquer a nearby neighbor.

If I have no nearby neighbors, I'll clear the camps entirely with Archers. Maybe use a Pathfinder to actually clear the camp if AI or CS units are hanging out nearby.

I prefer to use my gold to purchase workers. Workers are so crucial, but I absolutely hate building them. Best use of gold in the early game, IMO.

I felt like that as well with warriors and didnt understand how others did it, I watched some video(s) and practiced.
I use warriors for barb and barb camps vs both barb warriors and barb handaxes, works even if I use the raging barb settings.
But you cant afford to lose them, the upgrades are important, it helps to kill the barbs faster, and you have to use 2 (or 3) warriors or warrior+pathfinder and you need to fortify, don't be to greedy.
So if you throw away your early pathfinder and try to go hunting with solo warriors, yeah that does not work.

The benefit is that I get slightly more warriors than archers for the cost and can clear more camps/barbs and I can choose techpath freely.

Still an archer that survives is a lot better than a warrior that dies, so it's not wrong per se to use archers if thats more effective for you.
The downside is that it forces you into trapping and you get it out later to start clear the first camps, worst case you have barbs hammer on the door pillaging gold before its out.

 

[ridjack]

So of course after posting this thread, I finally had a situation where I HAD to build/buy a Warrior. Four encampments spawned in close proximity to my soon-to-be-Tradition capital, and neither Archers nor Spearmen were coming to come quickly enough to fend off the assault.

The downside is that it forces you into trapping

I guess that's a downside, but with Authority that's never an issue. The AI legitimately cannot handle an ancient era rush with 3 - 5 Archers, at least not up to Emperor. Excepting when terrain is heavily in their favor or I end up surrounded by multiple aggressive AIs, I've never failed to take a capital with that.

With regards to the thread, though, seems like I'm in the minority in my disuse of Warriors, which is pretty much what I figured.

 

[Stalker0]

If I have no nearby neighbors, I'll clear the camps entirely with Archers. Maybe use a Pathfinder to actually clear the camp if AI or CS units are hanging out nearby.

I prefer to use my gold to purchase workers. Workers are so crucial, but I absolutely hate building them. Best use of gold in the early game, IMO.

I'll counter with: Get warriors -> Upgrade to spears. Tribute nearby CS, so you get more culture, and you get gold to buy those workers you want anyway.

 

[azum4roll]

As Authority I always run out of buildings to build in ancient so I just spam warriors/archers and try to balance them. You don't need that many workers either since you can take them from AI when you take cities.

 

[tu_79]

Warriors are useless against cities, so don't ever try against a major civ. But I use them a lot when I have plenty of room for expansion since the land is likely filled with barbarians. Just one warrior escorts my settlers finely. A second warrior helps the first with clearing barb camps. Sometimes I produce a third warrior, though upgrading to spearsmen or archer is my usual.

When I don't do that, I feel like I lose too many turns evading barbs.