War without Iron

[kmad]

Does anyone know any strategies or tips for waging early war without access to the Iron resource?

Thanks

[Rhothaerill]

Build a lot of archers and spearmen. They aren't as good, but if you have an opponent that has iron the archers should be able to at least get you to it so you can appropriate theirs.

[ducki]

Ooh, and Catapults. From your non-barracks towns. Not just a couple. As many as you can muster without interrupting "real" troop builds.

Of course, if you don't have barracks towns for troops and non-barracks towns for non-military building, this is a lot less attractive.


Another thing to consider - horses. I personally prefer waging war with Horsemen better than Swordsmen. Not starting with Iron in my immediate expansion vicinity is no real killer for me. I'm a mobility freak. (Try reconciling that with my capatapult advice, haha! )

[Rhothaerill]

Originally posted by ducki
Ooh, and Catapults. From your non-barracks towns. Not just a couple. As many as you can muster without interrupting "real" troop builds.

Of course, if you don't have barracks towns for troops and non-barracks towns for non-military building, this is a lot less attractive.


Another thing to consider - horses. I personally prefer waging war with Horsemen better than Swordsmen. Not starting with Iron in my immediate expansion vicinity is no real killer for me. I'm a mobility freak. (Try reconciling that with my capatapult advice, haha! )

Yep bombard capabilities are much better in C3C than in PTW (thanks to not hitting the buildings now and the addition of the trebuchet). I was assuming ultra-early war though. kmad, around what time were you talking about your war. If you have mathematics then I'd definitely add ducki's advice.

As to horseman...always a plus too if you have the tech and resources. I'm having great fun with almost all my units being 2 and 3-movers in AU502...except for the bombard units. But I've been able to set up the battlefields each time so that it hasn't been taking too long to get my bombard units into place.

[kmad]

what I normally do is build a few handfuls of archer units, stock them with a couple spearmen for defense, and advance slowly with them, but have 1 or 2 horsemen move ahead to pillage strategic resources

I guess I would just have to hope that I don't run into the Carthaginians in the early part of the game.

[Arrian]

Horsemen, if you have time enough to build a decent number of them.

If you just have to take one city to grab iron, then an archer rush might be better, because it's quicker to put together.

But long-term, horsemen are far superior.

Catapults are great in Conquests. Use 'em! Even if you're using primarily horsemen to attack, your attack stack will probably spend a fair number of turns moving at 1-tile-per-turn anyway. This will either be due to rough terrain, or the slowness of escorting spearmen. Thus, cats won't really slow you down, and they work wonders for reducing casualties.

I was playing a Monarch-level game recently, where my entire continent was devoid of iron. I was the Dutch. Anyway, the start was awesome (my gf started it, got frustrated, and I fired it back up at 4000bc to take a shot at it) and I raced out to a huge tech lead, building happily away, fighting only minor skirmishes to hurt neighbors (some worker theft and settler bopping, IIRC). This required only warriors early on. I got contact all 'round early thanks to the seafaring trait.

I got so far ahead, in fact, that I realized I could conquer my continent before I even acquired iron from overseas. Whatever their talents may be against tanks, spearmen do poorly against cavalry.

I got iron later, once I had navigation. In plenty of time for railroads.

-Arrian

[jshelr]

Actually, the game's more fun without those resources. If you use spears, archers, and cats, plus tactics, including lots of pillaging and lots of patience, you can have a much more interesting time tearing an AI civ limb from limb. Running a stack of swords up thier gut has its satisfactions, of course, but the resource-poor victory is very satisfying.

[Arrian]

I was having a blast last night as Rome, marching a largish stack of Trebuchets, Legionaries, Horsemen, and a few Knights (only upgraded 3, since Leo's was coming soon and I figured I had enough firepower, so I waited for the wonder to complete before doing the mass upgrade) against Germany, which had Pikemen and Med Inf.

Ripped 'em apart. Then, with a newly created 3x Knight army and all non-elite horse upgraded to knights, I took on the Spanish, who now had muskets - quite a few of them, in fact.

In the past, I'd have lost a bundle of knights, hurling them at fortified muskets in Madrid. This time, I blasted those muskets down to 1-2hp each and wasted 'em.

Now *I* have saltpeter. Heh.

-Arrian

[vmxa1]

I am becoming a fan of Trebs as well.

[bongo]

Yeah, they have given ancient artillery quite a boost.

Was playing with a game yesterday. Huge map, archipalego, lots of water. Got the Koreans(com+sci), on a small island. Got two luxs but no iron, horses or ivory. No water connection to other continents as well, even with the lighthouse.

Just launched an invasion against the zulus, who got horses and the great wall.. Those trebuchet sure come in handy now.. Only change to take out the impis behind walls is massive use of artillery, escorted by 20+ archers and spears.

[Arrian]

Plus, since bombardment has to hit the walls first, and that can't happen because they have the great wall, you have to break all the city improvements before you actually land hits on the Impi, right? That was a hard target to pick, bongo.

-Arrian

[bongo]

Had to start somewhere, the city with the great wall are no 10 from the front or something. I'll get to it eventually.

Edit: Went to bed after the first city had fallen...strange thing is that they never attacked me... I had 20-30 units in my stack but that have never stopped them before.

[Last Conformist]

The Trebuchet rocks. Big rocks.

Now, if the AI only used the various C3C goodies well ...