What do you when there's no Iron?

[Light Cleric]

I've grown increasingly frustrated lately playing Rome/Persia and attempting to go for Swordsmen, spending all that time going for Iron Working and...there's none almost anywhere. I try to find city states with Iron, but they never seem to have six, and I can't get the gold to sustain two city-state allies with the AI competing with me. What makes it frustrating is that it's basically the same scenario playing itself out EVERY single game, trying to settle a second city on/near Iron and the world is just barren and I almost never find Iron nearby me. Maybe I should just tick strategic start and be done with it?

So basically, my question is: what do you when this happens? Is there enough time to shift gears on Deity or do you have to scrap the game? I've been able to turn it around in time on Emperor and even Immortal sometimes, but it just seems to be really devastating on Deity to have your strategy torpedoed like that. I don't want to scrap the game I'm on since it's a GREAT start, but I don't know if I can suddenly shift to Immortals this late.

 

[Tiber4321]

If your gameplan is based on an iron-rush, or if your ability to defend yourself is based on 6-8 iron, and you get none, its time to reroll. You might be on a bad luck streak.

 

[DaveMcW]

Play Greece or another civ with a horse UU.

 

[snarzberry]

If you want to go and start attacking as soon as you hit swords then a multi city approach is a lot better, look up a thread by tabarnak for a detailed rundown. This way you have a much larger area settled and have a greater chance to hit iron.

If you want to just have your capital and then settle your liberty settler, or an additional settler in a non liberty game, then I think you're a lot better off planning to attack with longswords. The reason is that you can build the majority of your warriors in between the time you reveal iron and open steel. This way you're not too committed at the time iron is revealed, and if there is really no way to source any then you can adopt a different plan.

The other plans would be something like bulbing ahead to rifling as quickly as you can, or bunkering down and shooting for an early late game military tech like stealth.

 

[Zenstrive]

Reroll. Civilization without Iron is useless civilization. In the game. I don't know about real ones

 

[RedRover57]

You could turtle up and wait it out for rifles/artillery or bombers. On Deity this requires using RA's and GS production to make up for low beakers/turn in order to not get badly out-teched. You don't need iron to defend - archers then upgrading to crossbows should do the trick. The other possibility is pikemen/crossbows to take out your neighbor, which would not be a bad idea as Persia (upgraded Immortals).

 

[Callonia]

Stab people anyways with spears and clubs, some silly lack of iron isn't going to stop me. Even if I cant take their cities, by golly, I will take their soldier's lives out of spite. And let there be a flood of spearmen/warriors with some archers/catapults.

It is very very very possible to conduct war without iron and invade successfully. AI ain't just that smart yet.

If I could defend my territory with landsknechts and knights and longswordmens against infantry and artillery and tanks of a run away rome power for centuries which has killed off everyone around me except for me. I got my vengeance by killing rome off after teching up to modern era while turtling for one of my longest turtle ever. You can get over a trifling lack of iron start.

Ok ok, i only had like 3 longswordsmen in that game, but that shouldn't count when vast majority of my army was landsknechts.

 

[smallfish]

How bad is it?

I could try and "borrow" some iron from someone I've already met (who is farthest away from Target Civ/not Target-Civ), and beeline for closest enemy city with Irons.

Alternatively, if there are horses, use horsemen instead

 

[joncnunn]

No need for Iron for defense: Archers which require no resources are very good defense units. Crossbows even better.

You can often buy a city state ally with Iron or maybe you have surplus Horses you can trade for Iron.

But if your really concerned about it; go to advanced settings and choose "balanced resources". That will give you some of all the early resources nearby. (But not necessarily the late game ones)

 

[Light Cleric]

Thanks for all the suggestions.

If you want to go and start attacking as soon as you hit swords then a multi city approach is a lot better, look up a thread by tabarnak for a detailed rundown. This way you have a much larger area settled and have a greater chance to hit iron.

If you want to just have your capital and then settle your liberty settler, or an additional settler in a non liberty game, then I think you're a lot better off planning to attack with longswords. The reason is that you can build the majority of your warriors in between the time you reveal iron and open steel. This way you're not too committed at the time iron is revealed, and if there is really no way to source any then you can adopt a different plan.

The other plans would be something like bulbing ahead to rifling as quickly as you can, or bunkering down and shooting for an early late game military tech like stealth.

With Rome, I've been trying two cities just to make sure I could get the Legions out early enough to really use their 13 Strength(last game Gahndi somehow had Knights by turn 60, probably with a ruin on an earlier tech), but with Persia I've been trying the 4 city strat after I saw JeanBaptiste use it in that domination challenge. I was wondering what to do when I have no iron there too. I've sometimes tried to save my last settler to drop on some Iron but that doesn't help when there's only one 2-iron source within 20 hexes of you that isn't already taken by the AI's turn 5 city spam >_<. Unfortunately I'm not spawning city-states with any more than 2 Iron either, and like I mentioned, I can't sustain two CS allies.

If I hunkered down for Stealth, what would be my probable "deadline" to get it and still be able to conquer everyone before a space victory? This strategy actually suits my playstyle extremely well, but I was unsure how viable it really was at Deity because I've had the AI launch as early as 220 on me, but that may have just been Napoleon being a runaway and the AI roulette landing on the spaceship parts.

How bad is it?

This is the first time I've been able to get more than one source of 2 Iron in my four cities combined in FOREVER. Naturally, Wu, Alex(who got Iron in his capital anyway but he's just a prick), and Harun (I said monty before but at this point all the games are running together so I forget who DoWed me when )all decided they want it and DoWed me. It's great how the AI will settle 4 hexes from your capital and then yell at you for settling remotely close to them

EDIT: Yeah, I lost the iron city to china/greece archer spam + Companion Cavalry

So these are my options, it seems:
-Hunker down and go for Rifles or Stealth and see how that goes.
-Immortals/Crossbows as RedRover suggested, that sounds like a good approach.
-Ask to borrow a cup of Iron from a neighbor by stabbing them in the face
-Go back to China and try snarz's archer rush that I've had some success with before but failed epically after a while lol(Hoplite and C. Cav spam didn't make this easier)
-Go back to Immortal/peaceful Deity games/Keshiks before I blow a gasket

 

[RedRover57]

If I hunkered down for Stealth, what would be my probable "deadline" to get it and still be able to conquer everyone before a space victory? This strategy actually suits my playstyle extremely well, but I was unsure how viable it really was at Deity because I've had the AI launch as early as 220 on me, but that may have just been Napoleon being a runaway and the AI roulette landing on the spaceship parts.

I've never seen the AI launch that early, so that seems like a 1-in-100 fluke. In fact I would be surprised if the AI launched before T300 in most games. If you use snarzberry's stealth strategy (search for the thread) you can hit Stealth around T200 or earlier (due to extraneous circumstances with failed RA's, etc. it often takes me until T210 or so) and stealth bombers are so powerful at that time you can usually run the map in 50 turns or less very easily (depends on the map of course and how well you can manage unhappiness).

 

[Light Cleric]

I've never seen the AI launch that early, so that seems like a 1-in-100 fluke. In fact I would be surprised if the AI launched before T300 in most games. If you use snarzberry's stealth strategy (search for the thread) you can hit Stealth around T200 or earlier (due to extraneous circumstances with failed RA's, etc. it often takes me until T210 or so) and stealth bombers are so powerful at that time you can usually run the map in 50 turns or less very easily (depends on the map of course and how well you can manage unhappiness).

220 was an extreme fluke definitely(Napoleon had the entire side of the Pangaea dominated, had puppeted Alex's whole empire and basically wiped Washington too) , but I thought 250-260 was common for them(that's when I lost an OCC in the middle of Utopia a long while back but that might have been pre-RA changes I don't remember @_@). That's actually a big relief if they don't launch before 300 My friends tell me I have awful luck, perhaps it's true

Found that thread and almost died laughing at the Incan's peace deal. It sounds like it's a great strategy and I'll definitely give it a shot. Thanks for the help

 

[RedRover57]

Maybe 250-260 is more common for an AI space launch - I just don't play Deity that much because I find it more tedious than fun. Usually that is about the time that they can get nukes as well, so it is a good idea to try to wrap things up by then no matter what VC you are going for.

The problem with the stealth strategy is that it is so overpowered that once you have done it a few times you will probably shelve it for something that offers a bit more challenge. On anything less than Deity it's just ridiculous to one hit units and 1-2 hit cities with sb's around turn 200, particularly since they quickly get promoted to 2 attacks/turn. On Deity it may take a couple more hits to take down a city, but with 12-15 sb's it's gg for any AI civ no matter how many units they have.

 

[Light Cleric]

I definitely agree about Deity, but I just want that one dom victory on Deity because I'm stubborn lol. Several science, but no dom, I usually get annoyed by the AI repeatedly rush-buying units and swarming me with them

 

[flairin]

find a city state with some iron... a couple catapults paired with a few pikes, a few warriors to sacrifice, and a few archers could get you an ai city with more iron to upgrade more warriors. sounds like more of fun challenge to me

 

[RedRover57]

Ah if you want a Deity dom win and don't want to cheese with duel map, etc. then you can always semi-cheese by playing Mongolia. Having 10-15 keshiks (plus one horseman to cap cities) on around T80-90 is like having 10-15 sb's on T200. Try a plains map.

 

[Light Cleric]

Yeah I might try that again, I made the mistake of not taking out Gahndi early(partly because Siam DoWed me and I figured i'd crush them since it was their DoW and Egypt was blocking the way over tons of hills + rivers, hence why you probably said Plains) and his HUGE pop cities' unhappiness slowed me down to the point where he was able to start spamming Lancers at me. I think if I can take him out earlier then it'll work out well. It was crazy fun though, I conquered like 4 civs with logistics range keshiks

 

[Tabarnak]

At high levels you can always ally with a cs with some iron pretty early. If you are stuck with a 4 cities approach with no iron, you can build from there and spam crossbowmen later and borrow some iron from another friendly civ.

For immortal and below, at standard speed or slower, a warrrior rush(with some archers) can do the job if you discover no iron. You usually have enough to rush buy 2-3 extra warriors. Make an army of 7-8 warriors and swing da clubs

 

[Tabarnak]

Ah if you want a Deity dom win and don't want to cheese with duel map, etc. then you can always semi-cheese by playing Mongolia. Having 10-15 keshiks (plus one horseman to cap cities) on around T80-90 is like having 10-15 sb's on T200. Try a plains map.

Tiny islands with England. Insta win(don't put scarce ressources of course!)

 

[huerfanista]

Play as Hiawatha, use mohawks. You can take out 2-3 civs before you need any iron at all (for cats/trebs/longswords).