What's your favourite resource

[AshenPlanet]

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Mobility shortens wars which let's you get back to peaceful economy, learning, and building much faster.

Horses are better than the paper, stone, and scissors, and you get double the movement.
They are generally stronger compared to units at their research level; from chariot vs. clubs/archers to horse vs. axe/sword to knights vs. mace/bows, to cavalry vs. just about anything before factories in the modern age.
The hammer cost is higher on horse units than other units at their level because they are simply better.
Hammer cost is minor though, compared to upkeep cost.
Upkeep cost on a knight is the same as upkeep cost on an axe, so it's more efficient to produce higher hammer units which have the same upkeep as their cheapo counterparts.

Any one of the ancient resources will let you get by.
Horses is better for longer than any of the other ancients though.
Whether they top oil is debateable since oil is so crucial later on - that could go either way, really.

As for catapults, they were changed from their more realistic Alpha Centauri counter-parts because the ai never knew how to utilize them properly.
In Alpha, the ai always sucks at using artillery units in much the same way as the Civ IV ai sucks at using bombers.
Indirect ranged attacks are confusing, direct attacking units are simple.
Simple is better when it comes to making it easy for the ai.

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[Mr Justice]

firstly best and favourite not same thing at all.

personally i like gems, excellant tile output.

but talking about best, well then its all about strategic resources

i dont have much of an opinion becuase this is a hugely situational choice.

the most important reasource is that which gives you the most benifit, which is influenced by how you play, which in turn is influenced by difficulty, starting location ect.

ive played games where i concentrate on early war and i'll use which ever units are available to me depending on resources at hand, be it copper, iron or horses. i dont recall ever having played a game where i didnt have at least one. if i have achieved considerable success by taking a civ or 2 out (or atleast significant amounts of their teritory) then the advantage from this will outweigh any loss of later strategic resources.

however equally ive played games where the builder in me is let out and i play it peacefully until modernity (assuming im near top of pack, otherwise its war till i get there), in which case the tanks go a rolling and yes oil is vital.

but for me, none is the "best" becuase these two wishes are interchangeable at the point where u realise oil is not available.
wish 1: damn i want oil but i cant have! no fair!
wish 2: damn i shuda went to war early, im resouce squeezed and thats the best cure for it.

so to analyse further, the builder can be skrewed by no oil , the warmonger shrugs it off as its unlikely to still be an issue at that late stage.

[foudres]

The builder is still screwed if he doesn't has coper.

Just copper give you anything you need :

* Axeman for an offencive force, and good to defend agains spearman and swords.
* Spearman to protect from chariots or horses.


I consider that the horse archer is not an early unit has it require far more research than an axeman/spearman need.

Bronze working is also nearly a must because of the slavery civic and chopping... Something that can basically double you production output for whatever are you need (wonder, unit, settler...). It also a prerequesite of Iron working that is needed to properly use jungle tiles and for your knights.

The tech for horse archer is not a prerequesite for any research at all just to using horse unit. You can later ofen trade for if you want to use knights or cavalery.

For an axeman you just need iron working... It's 2 tech and for many civ just one. You can get it really fast.Their experiences upgrade are also better. Horse archers will need more research and will need some axeman for their proctection anyway.

Later, if you notice when you can use knights or cavalery you need some siege unit so you are restricted to one movement per turn anyway.

No horse is a good replacement, not the best.

[binTravkin]

Mobility shortens wars which let's you get back to peaceful economy, learning, and building much faster.

Horses are better than the paper, stone, and scissors, and you get double the movement.

I agree.
Unless you have 2 enemies to kill nearby, a horse archer is better than swordsman.
I often run into huge upkeep while my units get to killing the enemy at all.
Just yesterday I was having unit upkeep being ~3/5 of my income.
I was kicking everyones ass, for sure, but my research was almost none, so I was stuck suicide killing every second swordsman soon after first of opponents got feudalism.
The elephants made up for the loss, of course, but I lost the edge and was fighting units at least one level more advanced than mine.

[binTravkin]

I consider that the horse archer is not an early unit has it require far more research than an axeman/spearman need.

It still requires less than a swordsman.

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by binTravkin

It still requires less than a swordsman.

Really?!! I’ll need to check the relative costs of Horseback Riding and Iron Working because Horse Archers require four techs to just three for swords.

Now it is certainly convenient to compare Chariots with Warriors and Archers but their real contemporaries are Axemen, Spears and Archers

Tech requirements for them are as follows (usually)

Archers(2) - Hunting, Archery
Spears(4) – Hunting, Mining, Bronze Working, Wheel
Axe(3) – Mining, Bronze Working, Wheel
Chariots(3) - Wheel, Agriculture or Hunting, Animal Husbandry

There are basically four jobs that you have for units

1) Defending cities
2) Defending terrain
3) Escorting armies
4) Capturing cities

There is perhaps a fifth one – raiding and pillaging - but this is very situational.

Horses are not very good at doing either 1 or 3 because the units do not get defensive bonuses so we already see their use as limited. When we compare their skill at capturing cities, the horses will also perform more poorly than contemporary units

1) Axes v Chariots
Level 1: 5 vs 4
Level 2: 6 vs 4.4
Level 3: 7.25 vs 4.8
Level 4: 8.75 vs 5.2

Also there will be nothing in the city that worries the Axeman while the Chariots will fear the spear

2) Swords vs Horse Archers
Level 1: 6.6 vs 5.4
Level 2: 7.8 vs 6
Level 3: 9.3 vs 6.6
Level 4: 11.1 vs 7.2

Swords will perhaps worry over an Axeman defender but not as much as Horse Archers would fear the spear

3) Maces vs Knights
Level 1: 8 v 10
Level 2: 9.6 v 11
Level 3: 11.6 v 12
Level 4: 14 vs 13

Maces worry a little when facing Crossbows, Knights fear the Pike.

Cavalry are contemporaries of Riflemen and perform slightly better but by now, the game should already be on the end game phase.

I would note that the flanking promotion is probably the better promotion for the horses because this not only increases their chance of survival but, at level 3, cancels any first strike bonuses of defending archers.

So until the invention of gunpowder, metal is going to help you capture cities far more than horses will.

Which basically relegates the pre-gunpowder horse unit to two purposes

1) As part of a mobile defensive force
2) As part of a mobile offensive pillaging force

Almost every other task is performed more capably by an equivalent metal-based unit (or combination thereof)

[AshenPlanet]

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You're gravely overestimating the research cost of these units.

Cavalry can come a long time before riflemen, and can rule the earth for a long period.
Some civs can get chariots out before they could get axes out, and horse archers are produceable before swords, and knights only require guilds.

In my opinion, they are better city defenders since they are far better when dealing with pillagers which the computer loves to do (and I love to do as well - you can make so much money pillaging).
Defending terrain? other than the computer ais, who sits units on top of resources? again, horses can cover a much larger area of your terrain.
Escorting armies - I don't see the point.
Capturing cities - horses are very good at this because they can cover a lot of ground quickly. 2 move > 1 move.

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[Brutus66]

I am really surprised that stone did not rate higher among respondents.
To me, stone = pyramids = republic or universal suffrage.

Republic gives your science rate a nice boost, but more important to me is universal suffrage, which lets me buy out buildings in cities distant from the capital which tend to start out as slow producers.
Quick building courthouses in those remote cities cuts down on the corruption which in turn lets me maintain a decent science rate.
Being able to quick-build theaters and the like next to foreign borders means their territory is less likely to encroach on your cities and increases the possibility of getting one of theirs from a flip.
I'm not a real sophisticated player, so if my logic is faulty let me know, but I have found that if I don't get suffrage early winning is a lot harder for me.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Brutus66
I am really surprised that stone did not rate higher among respondents.
To me, stone = pyramids = republic or universal suffrage.

Republic gives your science rate a nice boost, but more important to me is universal suffrage, which lets me buy out buildings in cities distant from the capital which tend to start out as slow producers.
Quick building courthouses in those remote cities cuts down on the corruption which in turn lets me maintain a decent science rate.
Being able to quick-build theaters and the like next to foreign borders means their territory is less likely to encroach on your cities and increases the possibility of getting one of theirs from a flip.
I'm not a real sophisticated player, so if my logic is faulty let me know, but I have found that if I don't get suffrage early winning is a lot harder for me.

Have you tried accomplishing your US goals with the whip?

[Brutus66]

Yes, but I have found that my city production is fastest when I balance spending population and gold.

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by AshenPlanet
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You're gravely overestimating the research cost of these units.

Cavalry can come a long time before riflemen, and can rule the earth for a long period.
Some civs can get chariots out before they could get axes out, and horse archers are produceable before swords, and knights only require guilds.

In my opinion, they are better city defenders since they are far better when dealing with pillagers which the computer loves to do (and I love to do as well - you can make so much money pillaging).
Defending terrain? other than the computer ais, who sits units on top of resources? again, horses can cover a much larger area of your terrain.
Escorting armies - I don't see the point.
Capturing cities - horses are very good at this because they can cover a lot of ground quickly. 2 move > 1 move.

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Of course it is POSSIBLE to get the horse-based units a long time ahead of the foot soldiers but the simple comparison of the basic tech requirement are about the same for Axemen and Chariots while Swords look easier to acquire than Horse Archers. I am comparing he the documented costs so perhaps will wait until I see what the tech costs are before saying this for certain.

The obvious benefit of going the foot soldier route is that Bronze Working also allows slavery and chopping which give significant bonuses to your civilisation.

Escorting armies are important because they risk being taken to pieces by their “anti-unit�. The best example would be a stack of chariots which spearmen would make nice sport with. Another would be a stack of catapults which would be very exposed to horse archers or swordsmen exposed to axemen. Because of this, you bring along a number of defensive units and at classical level this would be Spear (to defend against mounted units) and Axe (to defend against other Axes or Swords). These units provide the security which allows your stack to approach the city and let your specialist raider units attack it. Foot soldiers can also take whatever cover is available on the route making the stack even more likely to reach its destination without serious incident.

[Blake]

You way underestimate the Chariot as an attacking unit.

It partly exploits the AI logic... but can work on complacant humans too.

The idea is you use the fact that chariots can be got very early and quickly mass produced - this obviously works best with a cows/pigs type start where you luck out with horses and you have some hills to mine since chariots can't be slaved. Anyway you get the ~8-10 chariots then just zoom on in and gank the capital, hit hard and fast. It will fall.
Works especially good against the AI if you time it for when a settler has just left for the capital, for a settler will usually drag away 2 archers and will leave the capital with only 1 or 2 archers, even if they produce a 3rd archer if you have 8 chariots you'll typically win.

Mobility really does count for a heck of a lot, being able to declare war and hit a couple of turns faster does count for a lot, it's also easier to cut down units in the open and retreat out of counter-attack range or back to the main stack.

Horse Archers are bad because they take too much tech to get (it's dead end) but chariots are great because they can be got so early move so fast and are so cheap.

Axeman cost a full 40% more than chariots and are not 40% stronger against cities... maybe with 2 promotions or aggressive, but not for the ultra-early attack.

[couerdelion]

Well a little play-testing will see whether the 40% rule is true. From gut-feel a city attack of 6 should be more than 40% better than a city attack of 4.4. The simple question is then how many hammers are needed to capture a typical capital city of the time (say 40% culture with 3 fortified archers)

Even if it is about the same there are questions of cost but I think these largely balance each other. The larger chariot force will get the job done more quickly but will cost more in unit costs while the army is being built and transported and during the war. The foot-based army will be cheaper to maintain but will spend more time getting to their destination.

But the biggest argument against the horses is that they are exposed to a counter – the spear. The threat of counter to the axes is neutered by a spear which can itself be built using the same raw materials and even this is of no use defending a city while a fortified spear defending the above city will probably need 3-4 chariots to kill it.

So while an early chariot attack might work, the strategy is more exposed to the simple risk that the defender has a spear. The axeman rush does not have the same level of exposure.

[Kuciwalker]

The larger chariot force will get the job done more quickly but will cost more in unit costs while the army is being built and transported and during the war.

Chariots cost half maintanence.

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

The larger chariot force will get the job done more quickly but will cost more in unit costs while the army is being built and transported and during the war.

Chariots cost half maintanence.

Never knew that.

Quickly orders a dozen chariots