axeman are too powerful

[Silver14]

They are not that powerfull. If you don't have copper or iron they won't save you from axemen. At least with the latest patch they made the Jag cheaper to build then the swordsman. I'd rather they upped their strength from 5 to 6 to be on par with the base unit.

[DrSpike]

Well you have to consider the overall balance situation. Yeah, if you sit back with your jaguars until your opponents have hooked up their iron then yes, you will die.

However, you can quite easily stop them with your jaguars that only require the tech! As you say they just got a buff. Buffing them again would be silly.

It is not the jaguar's role to sit back and defend. If you try to do that and die it's not the fault of game balance.

[Axxaer]

Re: axeman are too powerful

Originally posted by Dis
axeman are too powerful

I disagree with this on a wholly grammatical level.

[Silver14]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Well you have to consider the overall balance situation. Yeah, if you sit back with your jaguars until your opponents have hooked up their iron then yes, you will die.

However, you can quite easily stop them with your jaguars that only require the tech! As you say they just got a buff. Buffing them again would be silly.

It is not the jaguar's role to sit back and defend. If you try to do that and die it's not the fault of game balance.

As it is now, even when not playing the Aztecs I'll only build a few Swordsmen, they take a backseat to Axemen when possible. They are good for softening up cities and thats about it. Usually my pre catapult stacks consist of two or three swordsmen, a spear man, and as many axemen that I can muster. Jags just seem somewhat inferior to the base swordsmen while the Roman pretorian is the top pre-maceman unit.

Not needing iron just isn't a big enough pay off for the Jaguar given that bronze or iron are usually nearby, and if I have bronze the axeman is preferrable to the Jaguar.

[DrSpike]

As I said, arguably swordsmen could use a buff. I wouldn't disagree with that.

Jags do not need another. As I've said repeatedly, they are not a slow burner unit. To use them effectively you get iron working (just the tech) early and stop other civs building their counter, which requires iron itself hooked up if they don't have bronze. At this, Jags are incredibly effective already. Buffing them to make them useful for longer means they become overpowered in their actual role.

[Shr3dZ]

I dont think any unit should have a bonus to attacking its own kind, ie melee vs melee units. I like the melee vs horse units (spears vs mounted), grenadiers vs riflemen, knights vs siege weapons etc. much more~

I think the Axemen is the only unit that has a bonus against itself right?

[Willem]

Originally posted by Enigma_Nova
Praets, most likely. Either that or Quechas.

Quechas are mainly useful only against barbs. Their bonus is for Archers, and it's only the Barb that uses them offensively. And even then the barb will switch to Axemen or even Swordsmem after awhile. So it's really only useful at the start of the game.

[Dominae]

In the early-game, the AI defends its cities mainly with Archers. So the Quechua is the best rush unit in the game. With Promotions like Cover and City Raider, it's a Warrior that can reliably capture cities (in small groups, of course)!

The Quechua is actually more powerful on the middle-higher difficulties, where the AI bonuses means that its cities will more likely be defended with Archers than Warriors.

If you wait too long, until the AI has Copper or Horses hooked up, Quechua lose their teeth. Effective scouting will let you discover those resources and pillage/cover them before the AI can react.

[Shaka II]

Originally posted by Enigma_Nova
Axemen's main counter is Horse Archers.
Taking a City with Axes in it generally can't be done before Cats says All your Base are Belong to us, though.

I took over the Chinese civilization in my last game with axemen without cats. It depends on the number of defenders certainly. I usually saw two or at most three archer defenders. I met only two axemen, before I took their bronze away. An enemy capital can be heavily defended, so a nice early start helps avoids the situation where they have too many archers. The window of opportunity is small. You must seize the moment.

If there are too many archers, I bypass the capital for something more realistic. Fully fortified archers on hills are tough. A beeline for construction is definitely in order after alphabet.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Shaka II
Fully fortified archers on hills are tough.

Hills give only +25% defense, while jungles and forests give +50%.

[Dominae]

Archers get a defensive bonus on Hills...

[Tau]

Axemen are just plain silly. Guys, don't defend them on the grounds that you can beat them with this unit and that; the point is that they're too powerful for their cost and tech level. They also make no sense: on a historical battlefield, swordsmen beat axemen any day of the week.

[Hauptman]

Ya know what beats the axeman? the Civil service slingshot... all the sudden your macemen and crossbows really have nothing to worry about.

The trick is getting those axes to leave you alone long enough to do it.

[Tau]

Originally posted by Hauptman
Ya know what beats the axeman? the Civil service slingshot... all the sudden your macemen and crossbows really have nothing to worry about.

The trick is getting those axes to leave you alone long enough to do it.

On most difficulty levels, you're up against barbarian tribes who use loads of axemen and archers. Good luck getting them to leave you alone for that long...
However, you do have a point about getting Civil Service quickly. Macemen are good for cleaning up a continent of the savages (Samurai are even better. Oraora! Yare yare da ze...)

[Enigma_Nova]

Macemen require Machinery and Civil Service.
If you want a Sling,
Mining - Bronze Working
Myst - (Meditat or Poly) - Priesthood
Ironworking - Metal Casting - Sling to Machinery

You now have crossbows.