What to do without horses?

[Gungalley]

Horses provide powerful units. Even without copper, you can have iron as a substitute and long term expansion can eventually lead to the acquisition of copper or iron for future units. So what to do if you have no horses near you? And with the new patch, horses are not revealed without animal husbandry.

Also, what do you do when you have your opponent running his horse units all over your civ? How do you counter that?

Thanks.

 

[Ranos]

IMO, Chariots and Horse Archers are unimportant. You can't bulid them fast enough before you have more capable units (Swordsmen with +10% City attack + barracks allowing an additional + 20%) Horses don't become nessesary until Knight and even more so with Cavalry.

If you have no horses, copper or iron, then you are screwed and you should quit (if multiplayer) or restart (if single player).

If your opponent is using mounted units, counter with elephants (if available) or spearmen/pikemen.

 

[panzooka]

horses aint powerful early.
but build horse archer to counter enemy with lots of axeman, and even chariot with shock > axeman
later, they becomes really powerful with knights and cavalry

but u can live without horses, but u cant without iron
to counter horse, build spearman, pikeman, and later elephants

 

[cleverhandle]

Agreed. No horses = no big deal. For most of the game at least. Apart from a possible early rush facilitated by the extra movement point, all you really want horses for is skirmishing with pillagers, picking off workers, and doing similar things where the extra move really helps. If you don't have horses for this, you'll just expect to lose a few more units so make some extras. But for bread-and-butter city defense and city attack foot troops do just as well. Even once Knights roll around, you've got Macemen which do quite well and have nice upgrade possibilities with Raider promos. Cavalry is the one spot where the mounted units really have an advantage with that big 15 strength, but even then Riflemen can work for you if necessary.

All of this is single-player thinking, though. In a multi-player game it could be a different story, due to the probably larger proportion of Axemen and Macemen running around. But the AI doesn't build enough of those to be real worried about counters.

 

[Ranos]

In the Renassance era, I find it useful to advance on a city with, at the very least, a mix of Knights, Macemen and Catapults. If you want to be a little more effective, include at least one Pikeman in that mix that has Combat I and Cover. That garauntees a good counter against a Crossbowman or Elephant.

 

[Willowmound]

Also, what do you do when you have your opponent running his horse units all over your civ? How do you counter that?

That's easy, you build Spearmen or Pikemen. Much better for countering than another horse...

 

[MarcAntiny]

IMO, Chariots and Horse Archers are unimportant. You can't bulid them fast enough before you have more capable units (Swordsmen with +10% City attack + barracks allowing an additional + 20%) Horses don't become nessesary until Knight and even more so with Cavalry.

If you have no horses, copper or iron, then you are screwed and you should quit (if multiplayer) or restart (if single player).

If your opponent is using mounted units, counter with elephants (if available) or spearmen/pikemen.

Quit, Restart?? Hey, we all don't get horses... often times I find I never use them. You don't have to go to war all the time and I've won many a battle with my foot soldiers... Sometimes, the AI won't have copper or iron and you can trade very easily for horses, I've traded 2 luxuries for horses. Bottom line, it's part of the game. If you don't have a resource, you either attack early to get it, or find a diplomatic way to attain it... Don't quit, you'll never learn to get good unless your sole purpose of the game is to go to war with your horse units every game. Kind of one dimensional if you ask me. Can't take cities with horse units unless you have a tech advantage anyway, swordsmen, macemen both better for city attack with proper upgrades. Catapults and canons do the brunt of the work later.

 

[Artanis]

Horses provide powerful units. Even without copper, you can have iron as a substitute and long term expansion can eventually lead to the acquisition of copper or iron for future units. So what to do if you have no horses near you? And with the new patch, horses are not revealed without animal husbandry.

Also, what do you do when you have your opponent running his horse units all over your civ? How do you counter that?

Thanks.

If I don't have Horses, I'll build Swordsmen/Macemen and go take some Horses from somebody

I recently played a game as Spain where I couldn't get any horses (and Spain's unique unit requires horses!), and when I was dragged into a war against Japan, I was surprised to find that it really wasn't that big of a deal. The only cities that Horse units will take alone are little ones without much of a garrison and virtually no defense bonus to start with. Everything else, Horse-based units won't be any better than Melee units because they have to wait for your Catapults to catch up anyways.

When an opponent is running horses all over me, I'll use the fact that Roads work for me and not him to smack him down with anti-mounted units like Spearmen/Pikemen, or even just stuff with higher base STR to start with.

 

[Blazer6]

I like using horses to provide swift pillaging operations on higher level civs. I don't expect to really destroy that sort of enemy on my first war.
I use them just because they have extra movement to hold the line while stronger units are built.

 

[DrewTate]

In this last gmae of civ 3 i was playing i had no horses anywhere near me or in my country so sailed two galleys all the way across the world and built a city on some horses then built a harbor. i also had a harbor at home and for some reason couldnt get knights it was bush.

eventually i built a 100000000 mile long road to a stranded city for horses.
haha
but i have to have horses cuz i build tons of knights and then just upgrade the mto cavalry and you have an early and strong attack force. . they can defend well, too.

 

[The Condor]

Here yu can have some of my horses but it will cost you 2gpt and some wine. This is why I love Great Plains:

 

[Bob1475]

As Condor implies - you can always trade with someone if you really like horses. For me I agree it is not that big a deal. I have gone a long time with horses and actually forgot about it until I took some from the French and saw I could build Knights!

If it is really important to you then go get them from someone else! But of course, if you can take them then I guess it really wasn't necessary!

 

[jeremiahrounds]

Im a big fan of horse archers though i agree you can get by without them.

For diplomatic wins my armies consist of archers->horse archers-> make a stack of cannons-->sprinkle in some riflemen maybe get a couple machine gunners->make a bigger stack of cannons[yes i keep making stacks of cannons even after riflemen and machine gunners. the game says cannons are "siege" i say cannons are "assault"]->infantry->modern stuffs

thats pretty much my entire generic progression. It was odd someone said they didnt think cannons got that much use in this game. I love cannons. Ive fought off some way out teched stacks with hordes of cannons. You should have seen my stacks of cannons versus the panzer invasion! I think i might get so much life out of them because of the tech progression i choose goes right over an early cannon.

But as far as the OP. I agree horse archers for the win! However not really for the win~ you can get by without them.

 

[warpstorm]

I like horses for very early game aggression. They can ignore the first strike from the archers and get a reasonable chance to retreat.

Having said that, if I don't have them nearby, I switch to Plan B (or C or...).

 

[AWeeMoose]

Also, even if you lack horses, if you're Arabia you can build the knight-replacing Camel Archer. The unit served me well in the last game.

 

[vbraun]

A couple Horse Archers taking out a newly placed city can killer in MP, especially when your playing with 2 city elim.

 

[moro101]

Horse units may not be as important in the early game, but for me cavalry is a must have when infantry starts to pop up. Unlike rifles, infantry doesn't get a bonus against horses. And cavalry is cheaper than infantry, so it is better to use in suicide city-attack missions than another infantry. Cavs can withdraw too, and that can save you some units.

Of course, don't get too horse-happy and make only cavs. Pikes are great cav counters. Switch to Vassalage and Theocracy. With barracks you get three upgrades for your pikes. Spend them on Combat I, II, and the horse bonus (forgot the name). With these bonuses, your pikes become a cheap lean-mean-cav-killing machine.

 

[Meffy]

Frederick the Great once couldn't get horses, so he invented this:

http://www.thegreatfrederickfair.com/2003/Images/StickHorse.gif

Travelling by "shank's mare" was a lot more fun after that... but the other armies laughed.

 

[Smidlee]

A couple Horse Archers taking out a newly placed city can killer in MP, especially when your playing with 2 city elim.

IMO horses are more useful in multiplayer than in single games as for the reason you just point out as well as pillage. So far I've used very little of horses in Civ4 and when I do it's usually Cavalry.

 

[gakkun]

Horse units are important for the 'second wave'.

I often build 'slow' units first, move them next to enemy territory, declare war and take their cities. However once the war progresses and my attack force loses steam and have to heal/defend cities etc. I find melee units move too slow to replace my 'first wave' especially when deep into enemy territory so I build horse units to keep up the pressure.