Chariots are weak?

[joncnunn]

I'd already done basically what you did against Rome in one of my games (as the Dutch), I think I may have lost 2 Chariots taking their capital in mine [I caught them before they had built a second city], but pretty similar.

The Incan one sounded a bit more than I would have done, but it looks to me like it worked out well for you.

Now that attacking the American Indians then with Chariots that late was just insane. It would have been a bad idea even if it were a non-protective civ. I really think you'd have been better off consolidating your empire and then planning the next offensive war around cats to knock down city defenses and vetran Chariors upgraded to better units + some foot soldiers.

[wodan11]

Until just after I took the Dutch I was at 100%. After that I mainly only wandered around in enemy territory waiting for the right moment. That's not conquering.

Okay... so you're saying your sample game is not a good sample?

As long as you take cities you are safe.

No, you're not. The cities get further and further away, the defenders get stronger, and you have more and more maintenance costs.

I have lots of conquered workers that have improved nearly all of my cities and connected them with roads. I have 3 units pumps (meaning baracks + stable) and one with a library and 2 gold mines. I also have a number of luxury goods which allow me to have more population than any other civ. (And they already have that.) I don't think that that's a bad infrastructure for a civ in the bc time.

It's poor economic infrastructure. The only thing keeping you going are the gold mines. You're almost entirely focused around military. Barracks + stable is worthless to your economy. Library in Amsterdam is likewise worthless because your slider is 0%. It has a cow but you're feeding people to work the gold mines (which is going to 100% gold to pay maintenance costs) so you're not running scientists, either.

As soon as I shrink my army my finances will be ok again.

Okay, do it, and let's see how you recover from the situation. I'm curious to see!

I don't like courthouses. Way too expensiv for the few bucks they bring. Even if I was organized I wouldn't build them in this situation.

Can I point out that your city maintenance is fully half of your income. You've been pouring hammers down the drain and totally wasting them on chariots that you now have to disband. Use those hammers to build courthouses! You'll save on unit maintenance costs (because you don't have tons of units you don't need) and also you'll reduce your city maintenance!

And also can I point out that courthouses help Organized LESS than they help non-Organized.

Also this game is by far not lost.

Show us!

[Unimatrix11]

Wow - not quite my cup of tea, but yet somewhat impressive. I wouldnt have thought you´d get that far with chariots only. I did pretty much the same thing once with the roman prets, who seemed to be destined to such a strategy. And i overstretched. Took out 2 (or 3? it´s been awhile) civs, but then it all got way to expensive. I had to disband (or was forced to) virtually all of my precious prets and the one remaining other civ on the continent took over the legacy. Talk about rise and fall...

But the statement, that you ´dont like´ courthouses surprised me the most: Unless you can hope to take them all out (or reach domination) with one go , you will NEED them. It´s not like they were optional to expansive civs. If you could go into debts, it wouldnt be so, but since you cant, you just need them. You cant say: Oh, i will pay my bills after i have conqeured the world with my units, when your units begin to disband, because your coffers are empty. The zero-point of what you can afford is not negotiable in Civ. Even if you´d be willing to pay 100% interest per turn, if you could just borrow the couple of coins you need to finish your conquest, the game does not allow for it. And as you keep conquering, potential trade partners (to whom you could sell tech (that you dont have) or, more probable, ressources to, maybe) get less and less, meaning that you are the only civ, that can produce the income you need. Plunder makes up for some - but after a certain point (as Wodan noted) wont suffice anymore. Hence, i regard courthouses as a conditio sine qua non to extensive conquering sprees. They are the buildings, that allow you to keep up with research and such, even while conquering - at least to some minimum extent.

[joncnunn]

I would agree it's impressive he managed to take out all of them; but I'm thinking those victories over Native American Indians were Pyrrhic. If there's any AI left on his landmass that stayed out of all those rounds and isn't bottled up, he's likely to suffer a conquest loss to them when their Knights come calling. (Perhaps Horse Archers / Maces if it's one of the aggressive AIs or Calvary if it's one of the pacifist AIs.)
Even if he has cleared his whole land mass it's likely to suffer the fate of the historic American Indians when they get Astronomeny.

As other people have posted, what he needs most is to get his income back under control. That means:

Commerce Cities: Market Places, Court Houses, and after science gets > 0% Libraries; exact order depends upon how bad maintenance is there. [Keeping in mind the Libraries will only be useful for specialists]

Hammer Cities: Court Houses, then Market Places. Probably won't find Libraries useful.

His coastal cities will also need Harbors.

He's also going to desperately need Banks when they come around and a FP as soon as he has enough Court Houses; he probably has better location choices for the FP than a more peaceful player would.

Civic wise, if he can build Court Houses he can run Caste System which will supply him with as many Scientists as the city will support without the need for Libraries.

And he really need Vassalage to cut down on your unit maintenance cost. You also need to be running a gold surplus so you can upgrade your Chariots to better units.

H.R will also be very useful for him since he can assign those obsolete Chariots MP duty.

Tech wise, he should focus on techs he's need to do things mentioned above.

[ben04]

If there's any AI left on his landmass that stayed out of all those rounds and isn't bottled up, he's likely to suffer a conquest loss to them when their Knights come calling. (Perhaps Horse Archers / Maces if it's one of the aggressive AIs or Calvary if it's one of the pacifist AIs.)

Hannibal and Ramses are still left on my landmass. As it's a pangea map there's no other continent. Also because conquest victory is activated I know that only 2 other civs remain.

Commerce Cities: Market Places, Court Houses, and after science gets > 0% Libraries; exact order depends upon how bad maintenance is there. [Keeping in mind the Libraries will only be useful for specialists]

Court houses are a waste of hammers in this situation and researching Code of Law for them is a waste of beakers. There are situations that they are very useful. This is not one of them. Markets are a good idea as they will provide about 20% more commerce empire wide. (As science rate is a 0%, gold = commerce and because not every city is a commerce city they will only provide about 20% more gold empire wide instead of 25% they provide in the local city.)

Libraries are useful in high food cities. Unfortunately I have none. Perhaps I can found one though.

Hammer Cities: Court Houses, then Market Places. Probably won't find Libraries useful.

Bad ideas. A hammer city could perhaps make use of a forge but that's it.

Civic wise, if he can build Court Houses he can run Caste System which will supply him with as many Scientists as the city will support without the need for Libraries.

Caste System is an interesting option. Slavery is pretty much useless on this map as I have no high food cities.

And he really need Vassalage to cut down on your unit maintenance cost.

Not a good idea. Vassalage has a higher civic cost. Simply getting rid of the surplus units is cheaper and more cost effective. The +2EXP are interesting if I start building a foot army.

You also need to be running a gold surplus so you can upgrade your Chariots to better units.

Extermly bad idea. Building new troops is nearly always better than upgrading.

Tech wise, he should focus on techs he's need to do things mentioned above.

You have a chicken or egg problem in your strategy here.

[ben04]

I doubt that I can kill Ramses or Hannibal with chariots. I have a standing army of 30 of them which are a drain to my economy. I need to get rid of them! This means attack Poverty Point. The main goal is not to take the city but to get rid of outdated troops. I have enough money to survive with my current gold deficit therefore they don't need to die right now, so I can wait for the right moment.

Upgrading is not an option because therefore I'd need piles of money that I wont get if I keep them. Also my chariots don't have a high experience (compared to new troops) as they only rarly survive more than 3 combats. Another problem is that they upgrade to knights and those are way of my tech track.

The idea is to start building up my economy and then tech my way to Construction and then use an elephant and catapult combo to take out Ramses and Hannibal. Remember conquest is the only victory option. Domination is not activated.

A number of chariots are still roleing towards the Indian lands. I'll wait for them to arrive before launching the last chariot assault. I'll place my troops, that are already there, outside of the line of sight of the Indians. I don't want them to see what is coming. It will take my troops about 7 turns to arrive.

The thing crippling my economy is not city maintenance but unit maintenance, so building courthouses everywhere would be a waste of hammers. I only have 5 cities you know. A much better move is to build markets in my gold pumps. Considering that I'll be running with a low science rate for a while it becomes clear that this brings in more gold then the courthouses would save.

So I need to research Currency. As I've been planing ahead all the time I'm already researching it right at the moment. The only problem is that I have nearly no beaker so it will take forever to get it.

Fortunately I have Alphabet! I can build beakers. Every city now builds beakers except my capital. It build a settler followed by an archer. I'm going to settle that 2 grassland gem city. I send all my workers there to clean the jungle even before the city is founded. The sugar will provide some food. There are also a couple of hills so it will have a few hammers.



175BC: My "don't let them see us" taktik works. The Indians even move towards Cahokia with a Dog Soldier. He is immediately masacared.

Currency will be discovered within 10 turns.

150BC: The Indians still havn't figured out that we're just hiding. They send an archer into his grave. One chariot dies though.

50BC: Settler is finished. The jungle is already cleared and the workers are ready to hook up those gems. All troops have arrived near Poverty Point. Another Dog Soldier stands at gates of Cahokia.



Darn an unexpected border pop delays one of my attack forces by one turn. The defensiv bonus though remains unchanged because of the walls.

Those are 24 chariots vs 5 archers (+1 barb archer).



1AD: The Inidans just finished another Dog Soldier. The decision will fall the next turn.

Back home a barb warrior delays the founding of the gem city.

25AD: The great battle!

I figured that the first wave of chariots will loose no matter what happens. Therefore the most important thing is to damage the archers. My chariots are however, unlike most mounted units, not immune to first strikes, therefore the probability that archers will survive the first wave unharmed is pretty big. Normally I promote my chariots with plain Combat I + II (I have 2 free promotions because of my baracks and stables.) For the first wave I however choose to promote them with Flanking I + II as Flanking II provides first strike immunity. This also gives them 40% chance of withdrawing.

I send in 11 Flanking chariots and 4 survie. No archer dies, however the healtiest archer remaining has 1.8 health points.

Next I'll send in my elite chariots, meaning those with Combat I+II+III. They have 50.1% chance of wining.

One of my elite chariots falls but Poverty Point is ours.



A great general is born on this epic battle field.

This sounds like a great victory but the main goal has not been met: Shrinking my standing army. 16 chariots survived. About 10 more than I expected.

It seems that even I underestimated the power of those beasts. It's the first time that I made use of that Flanking tactic. If I had used it through the whole game my chariots would probably have taken me even further. I think the point of showing how powerful these units are should be clear by now but I'll play this game out to show that my economy can recover. I think with war chariots a conquest victory in the BC time on this map would have been possible.

I still have a few bucks in my treasury. I'll use those to found my units for now. I'll send the remaining chariots against a couple of barbarian cities that have been founded in the fog and when that is done they will serve as fog buster. 2 completely unpromoted chariots still exist. I'll give them Flanking I + Sentry and use them as scouts to uncover the whole country. Maybe I'll use one to make a great medic with my new great general

[joncnunn]

My posts #18 & #19 seems to have incorrectly assumed your war with the Native Americans was over and not still ongoing. They were written that way because it sounded from the other posts like the war was also over.

Until the war ends, there's really no advice on what buildings to build or things to reserach I can give. When it does, it will look an awful lot like posts #18 & #19.

Anyway Vassalage does increase city maintenance but it greatly increases the number of free units your allowed to build. It's based on your population but you can actually check that on the Civics screen even without Feudalism. You'll probably if you reload the save you were on that on net your costs would have been lower at the time. Based on your reported (now lower) current Chariot count, this might or might not still be the case.

[wodan11]

I agree in this situation that Currency is a good choice. Not so much because of markets. (Markets will increase your income of 40 to 50. Courthouses will decrease your city maintenance from 20 to 10. So they are equivalent at the moment.) But because of the added trade routes, which will give you an added and free bonus of at least 5 commerce / turn.

On the other hand, Code of Laws will give you a religion and happiness which you already say is a problem. Plus you should easily be able to pop a Prophet and that means money! Running Organized Religion, also, will mean faster production of those markets or courthouses.

(The main problem with Markets is that they are most effective while you keep your slider at 0%. So, as soon as you increase the slider above 0% then your markets become less and less of a good choice. Meanwhile, Courthouses would remain at optimum effectiveness regardless of your slider setting.)

Ideally you should get BOTH Currency and Code of Laws, immediately. The only question is which one to get first.

Lastly, refusing to disband your chariots seems a bad decision to me. There's a saying in English, "Throwing good money after bad." It's probably in Wikipedia if you're curious.

[Theben]

I'll chime in with my support of what most have said here... IMO you should've quit after the fall of the Dutch, built your cities & research, and started anew. Tackling the Natives at such distance was pyrrhic at best; keeping Poverty Point was foolhardy.

While I don't doubt you can pull yourself out of this mess once you get Currency (and I agree it is better to get it 1st, before CoL, b/c of trade routes), I wonder how long it'll take and what shape the AI will be compared to you when you do. I'll bet they'll have a good tech lead but less land- your strength now lies in the land available to you to settle and the 3 holy city sites you have. Try to get some Great Prophets.

Btw, those chariots you didn't use are that are in effect wasted... better to have built something else.

[Krill]

You played on Noble...hardly a convincing argument why Chariots are awesome.

You took 4 capitals...and it's turn 116? You didn't build any settlers, so almost completely wasted the advantaged of Creative. You made sure you had horses, so you didn't even have to delay to get a settler out.

You basically loaded the game to get the best possible none UU chariots, and ignored any other strategies that may have been BETTER than a chariot rush. Hardly a scientific test.

[Blaupanzer]

It was a demonstration more than an experiment. Like the archer demonstration last year. As such, I'm surprised how well he has done to date. The really valuable turn in the game that may help him win is that fact that the 2 remaining civs hate each other. This means they will most likely trade techs and resources with him.

Also he notes he didn't get any really good food resource cities despite owning 5 civs' starting positions. That must be a function of whatever scenario or mod is in effect. Most of the time, the capitols's BFC, or the immediately neighboring territory is rich in food resources.

[ben04]

You played on Noble...hardly a convincing argument why Chariots are awesome.

It's prince.

You basically loaded the game to get the best possible none UU chariots, and ignored any other strategies that may have been BETTER than a chariot rush. Hardly a scientific test.

What's your point? I said that I wanted to do a chariot rush. Doing something else would have been very off topic. I never said that you could rush someone with chariots without horses.

Also he notes he didn't get any really good food resource cities despite owning 5 civs' starting positions. That must be a function of whatever scenario or mod is in effect. Most of the time, the capitols's BFC, or the immediately neighboring territory is rich in food resources.

No scenario or mod. Just a map with not many real good places (besides the capitals but those are already founded ). There are a lot of medium places though, that need time building up population to become significant.

This means that I either get my economy to the point where I can kick the remaining civs and do it by then or I build up for most of the rest of the game and finish it in the modern age with a big tech lead. I don't like the later. That's so boring.

[Unimatrix11]

So, i think you have proven your point ben04, BUT only under certain conditions:

1. Pangea-Map: If you play a map, that does not gurantee, that all civs are on the same continent as you are, you are seriously running the risk of those who are not to outtech you without you even noticing. I dunno, but i doubt, if and that the AI knows, what map-script is in action, and thus does not know, it´s pangea - that is an information assymetry (i know thats spelled wrong), that grants you quite an advantage.

2. You knew you had horses and you picked a civ - i never peek at the world builder or pick a civ. Since the success have rushing depends a lot on its earliness, you have to decide on it early. The condition you set at the start of the game allowed you to make that decision even before the game started (in combination with 1.). I take it, that this was needed for the demonstration you wanted to do - yet it does substract from it being applicable to other situations, that, by no means, are guranteed to be so much in favor of this specific strategy at all times. If you start on a tectonics or fractal map, with a random civ, and without prior knowledge of where to find horses, the picture changes quite a bit (and even more so, if all victories are enabled)... this means, that this strategy is not applicable to 99.9% of my games (at least not 1:1). For SP-games on a pangea-map, this demonstration holds some value though IMO.

I like how you choose your promotions with a lot of thought - and apply the rule of ´promote when needed and what needed and not before you know it´. I think i´d employ you as my general ... You dont like building, i dont like warring too much - we´d make a good team... But you´d constantly complain, that i´d provide you with too little troops

[Krill]

Prince then, but Prince is hardly a difficult level, due to the AI still starting with warriors. It's a strategy aimed primarily at easy levels, where alot of strategies work due to the ineptness of the AI.

Your original premise was that people call chariots weak and underpowered; showing their strength, but not comparing it to anything else, is a fallacious argument because all strength is relative, not absolute. Chariot rushing can be the right thing to do, but my point about loading the game was that you are showing the chariot at it's strongest and ignoring all other strategies that could be stronger, and as such it's a bad test.

[ben04]

Well then Krill show us that using the same settings there is a non unique unit that is not a chariot and can exterminate 4 civs by 25 AD. I can even give you exactly this map as I still have a save from the first turn (although you know more about that map by now than I knew by taking a quick peek at the resources around my city so that wouldn't be fair).

Also there is nothing from a pure logic point that I need to prove further. A unit is underpowered, if it is useless in every situation. This is clearly a counter example. Also I did conquer most of the known world in the BC as I promised.

@Unimatrix11 The fact that it's a Pangea map is no problem. If you start building up at 0AD you'll have at least tech parity when the AI is ready for a naval invasion.

Well I guess on an archipelago or islands map you'd have a problem but that applies to all early rushes.