Early war on higher levels

[Giovanni August]

Hi everybody!
I'm really having an hard time to fight a good war in the ancient times at the higher levels:

My strategy is to conquer most of the land in the early times and than just sit back, wait for modern units to come and once the tech tree is almost done fight a couple of new wars with modern units, so I REALLY need to know how to fight good wars in the ancient era!

Every time I build lots of swordsman and target one city, conquer it, drop a sordy there and move on on the next city, the problem is that in many case 5-6 swordsman can't kill more than 1-2 sperman and the AI garrison its cities with a lot of them. If my neighbors are the Greeks I usually don't try to fight with them cause I know they will crush me.

Any suggestions?

Saluti

[Skanky Burns]

Try using 2-movement units, such as horsemen.
While they have a smaller attack value (2 as opposed to 3), these units attack but if losing, have a chance to retreat and lick their wounds. Send a few in to weaken the defenders, and the last one to actually kill them, then heal your units and move on.

You will have a lot more units around due to them being able to retreat as opposed to swordsmen that never retreat, so you will need less replacement troops.

Hope that helps

[notyoueither]

Only build units in cities with Barracks.

Try a combination of Horsemen and Sword. Horse weaken the enemy and often retreat before dying. Sword finish them off.

Make sacrifices of M&Ms to Mars. (It can't hurt).

Which civ do you favour playing?

Salve

[Giovanni August]

I will try that Hoseman thing!

I never really used Horsies in the lower levels cause th swordman are much better.

I generally play as the Romans (this means Greeks nearby).

Saluti

[Capt Dizle]

Whoa there! You said you were having problems with 5 or 6 swordsman not being able to take out one or two spearmen. I don't have that trouble.

Then you mention the Greeks. Are you sure your swordsmem are attacking spearmen or hoplites? Hoplites are much tougher on defense and they can hold off a lot of swordsmen.

Regular Swordsman versus Regular spearman fortified in town
= 54.925 % success

Regular Swordsman versus Regular hoplite fortified in town
= 36.242 % success

Thats a big difference.

jt

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Giovanni August

I generally play as the Romans (this means Greeks nearby).

Ahh, then you are well on your way to success. At least your people know the correct names for the gods.

JT has a point about the Greeks. Those aren't just some wimpy, garden variety Spearmen. But he is also overstating the odds in the Greeks favour if you plan properly. Oh, BTW, you do not have common Swordsmen. You have Legions; the glory of the ancient world. Call them Swordsmen and they may well fall on their Pila (kinda like yours seem to be doing).

The AI generally will not use Barracks in the early game. The reason Barracks are so important is that any units built in that city will be Veteran to start. Vet status gives them an additional hit point. That last hit point will greatly enhance the survival of your units. Since the AI will not generally have Vets to start with, your Vet Legions should do well, even against Regular Greek Hoplites. And especially if you soften them up with a couple of Vet Horsemen.

Salve

[Jaguar]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Try a combination of Horsemen and Sword. Horse weaken the enemy and often retreat before dying. Sword finish them off.

That is how I've played for a while. My 2nd deity victory in about 50 games (most stopped ancient era after I got romped) is coming along because of that. I used horses to soften musketeer, and then softened with another horse, then used a swordsman. I was a whole age behind the leader military-wise, but now I have 1/5 of his empire.

[Hurricane]

One underrated effect of the retreat ability is that it takes away the defender promotion. This means you can soften up the defender without worrying (too much) about it being promoted to elite. You should only attack with non-retreat-capable units when you have an overwhelming chance of winning (about 75%).

[player1]

GREEKS?

From my expirience:
-forget Horsemen
-Use Legions
-OK, don't forget Horsemen, just use them to sweep those archers & warriors on open.

For others:
-Horsemen rule! (especialy if elite)
-Sworsmen are OK if built in border cities.

[DrFell]

You may also want to use Immortals (Persia) instead of Legions because of their higher attack, if you want to use swordsmen type units for conquest. Losing 5 swordsmen taking out just 1-2 spearmen seems excessive though, are you sure you're building vets?

[ledj]

On Deity, the best civ to play is Iroquois. I won space race few times. I like to share my strategy with every one.
First, finding (by re-starting the game if necessary, normal size map) a site to build the capital. It must be on a glassland with a river and a cow near by (producing 3,2,2 after building a mine and road). Prior to v1.17, I usually set research 0 to 10%. (40 turns). With v1.17, it is too expensive to buy techs. So I set the research rate 100%. Income are mainly from hunting goody huts or barb encampments.
As an expansionist, in an average game, goody huts will give you one settler and 2 to 3 techs. I beeline my research to horseback riding. After that go straight for literature. You need to have a horse in your territory, for mounted worriors. When I reached the size of 4 cities with an army of 6 mounted worriors, I started having fun. I will conquor one of the neighbor civs. Conquoring 5 to 7 cities and producing three great leaders are the main objectives. If you can build the Great library, the Sistine chapel and the forbidden Palace, you are on your way of winning this game. Next I will change to Republic and start to build the infrastructure. In half of the games I was able to build Copernicus or Newton's College. The next important wonder is Hoover Dam. Then the after that, it's pretty boring. Main activity is building railroad, if you avoid the war.

[Marquis de Sodaq]

Nary a mention of catapults!? Hoplites with 4hp are a tough nut to crack with any ancient unit. Hoplites with 2hp are much easier to bring down. Roll in a swarm of catapults (escort them with your legions), bombard the town until you get a good number of hits in a turn, and take it.

Use horses to pick off any reinforcements coming in, or to pillage any resource tiles. Cutting off luxuries can even help, as it may throw cities into disorder. While in disorder, they can produce nothing.

Generally, guess how many units you will need to capture a city - then add a few more to ensure victory. The extra time/resources needed for this are worth it in many cases.

[pchang]

You better bring a LOT of catapults. In my experience, their bombardments have been amazingly ineffective.

[Herr David]

But they're also pretty darn cheap so why bother...

[AJ Corp. The FAIR]

In my experience catapults (and other bombard units) ARE effective in THEIR proper/own era.
Catapults do frequently weaken ancient units and even knights and pikemen. Usually quite useless against other more advanced units though.

Catapult production itself is kind of a 'luxury unit': if I have time/room to build them, I will.
A massed attack or defense force supported by many catapults is a real appealing and fun way of warring I find...

Also saves many units in battle.

AJ

[notyoueither]

Good points about the Catapults. They can serve the same function as Horse in softening up the enemy. However, they do not have the ability of *going mobile* and wrecking havoc on the enemy rear area. Nor can they defend something by themselves in a pinch. OTOH they do not die when a bombardment fails, Horse sometimes do.

If I'm feeling rich in production capability I would go with Legions and Horse. If I'm in a pinch, Legions and Catapults with very few Horse. Or, pure Horse. The map will have a very big influence on your choice of war machine.

BTW, going pure Horse as the Romans allows a subtle strat. The Golden Age of your choice. So your Horse have conquered the enemy civ for the most part and you have settled all your new lands. Finish the enemy off with a few Legions and voila, you enter a Golden Age that propels the production of your cities to build a bunch of improvements fast. This is also a matter of choice, and the particular game circumstances will effect what the *best* decision would be.

Salve

[Giovanni August]

Ok I did like that:
- Built/rushed barracks (I'm militaristic is not expensive)
- used about 3 catapults to weaken the enemy city (destroy improvements, weaken garrison Hoplite etc..)
- Attack with the "immortals" Horseman (that retreat thing is awesome)
- finish them with my Legions

It' working great!

Thanks all of you

I must say that probably my biggest mistake was not to build Barracks before starting the war, so regular Legions against those Hoplites was really bad

Saluti

[DrFell]

Yes, barracks are a life saver.

[Master Marcus]

Originally posted by pchang
You better bring a LOT of catapults. In my experience, their bombardments have been amazingly ineffective.

Now I wait for Cannons before building a lot of fire-powered artillery which are a lot more effective in the success ratio ( something like 30-40 % ) next to the "amazingly ineffective" catapult ( a ridiculous success ratio of 10 % ). So if I go to war in Ancient/ early medieval, I only use Swordsman/Horseman etc... the retreat ability is a must, but on the other hand the Horseman is always red-wounded after its retreat so you can't realistically use it again before the few turns necessary for the healing at this stage of the game, so you better have lots of them....like artillery later on.

[AJ Corp. The FAIR]

Originally posted by Giovanni August
Ok I did like that:
- Built/rushed barracks (I'm militaristic is not expensive)
...

Especially if militaristic, I NEVER rush barracks.

Too easy to build in core cities during ancient era.

If not militaristic, only rush when militaric situation requests upon ...

But eventually (ASAP after temples, cathedrals) I build barracks everywhere. They're definitely worth it and are always relatively cheap.

AJ

[Kuciwalker]

Wait until you have nukes.

[ledj]

I often build barracks as the first city improvement, and then few warriors. After discovery of the swordsman, upgarde veteran warriors to veteran swordmen, or better immortals if playing Persia. Then you're in business.

[DrFell]

Yep you have to love the UU upgrade - another great one is the chariot to mounted warrior upgrade... although I've not tested it yet it sounds pretty lethal... 20 shield 3 attack and retreat units. Just hold off getting horse until you've got about 10 of them, then go kill.

[Aeson]

I've used Chariots upgraded Mounted Warriors in a couple of games now. The only problem is that the Iroquois are Expansionist and not Militaristic. I tend to get Horseback Riding from a hut very quickly after the Wheel, and usually before I can get many Barracks built. It does give some use to the spare gold I always have laying around in the Ancient Era though.

[Über KruX]

i skip over archers and chariots. the first tech i dive for is horseback riding, then iron working, so i see what resources i got to work with.

also, your civ will play a big part. you can really tear people apart as the aztecs

[Dominae]

I've mentioned this on another post somewhere, but I think the key to early war on higher levels (which, in my opinion, is a necessary evil) is disruption of the AI's economy before an assault on their cities. By this I mean capturing Workers, pillaging left and right, and denying resources. Resource denial is especially important: I usually wait hold off my attack on their cities until I know they can't produce Horsemen or Swordsmen (or their variants). Disruption is obvioiusly best with fast units.

This strategy is still applicable on lower levels (Monarch and below), the only difference being that you can do it with Warriors and Archers instead of Horsemen. On the higher levels, the AI has so many more units in the early-game than I do that my Warriors and Archers get surrounded before doing anything worthwhile; on Monarch, there's room to run away.


Dominae

[Kuciwalker]

Once more: Play on a small map, wait until you get nukes, build 40-60 ICBM's, and then hit that big red button.