Ancient Era Warfare

[Jon Shafer]

From a purely statistical perspective, if you're talking only 1 Spear (reg or vet) then having the 3 vets is superior to 4 regulars. Once you get to having 2 or more units having the multiples is better, giving 4 regulars a 5% better shot at taking down 2 bad guys, and a 7% better shot at taking down 3 of 'em.

Of course, with more units you also give a greater chance of promotion. So there are other factors to keep in mind.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Trip
In a PBEM game against Thriller/Aqualung I just did a rush with 6 Jag Warriors, 1 Archer and 1 Spear. Within a single turn I basically crippled him because he was trying to out-REX me SP style. Rushes in MP can be very very brutal indeed. They're almost always extremely difficult to defend against without totally disrupting everything you're doing (losing your 60s Granary build, having to pop rush, etc.).

In one of my former game, I rushed selfbiased as Shaka Zulu (hello Dominae ). When I was with 3 vet archers and 1 vet Impi next to his capital, the game died (not by selfbiaseds or my fault, it was Tarquinius who didn't respond anymore). Talk about frustration

[Jon Shafer]

In ISDG 3 I chose the Zulu so I could test the waters with EXP and those 2-move Spears.

Instead, I got a 20 tile ROCK with 4 tiles of grassland, the rest being mountain or tundra...

In a way I'm glad that one died.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Trip
From a purely statistical perspective, if you're talking only 1 Spear (reg or vet) then having the 3 vets is superior to 4 regulars. Once you get to having 2 or more units having the multiples is better, giving 4 regulars a 5% better shot at taking down 2 bad guys, and a 7% better shot at taking down 3 of 'em.

Right, but the Barracks is a one-time cost, so every Archer after the third is worth it from a Shields perspective. I'm not sure what the magic number is for non-Militaristic civs.

The point I'm trying to make is that, early on, warm bodies are more important than Shield-efficiency. You can do a lot more "damage" (in an imprecise sense) to the AI with 5 units instead of 3 in the first 50 turns. I'm sure the same is true versus humans. This is closely related to the "attack units, not cities" thing I just mentioned above.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph


In one of my former game, I rushed selfbiased as Shaka Zulu (hello Dominae).

Were you more successful than I was!?

(I'm not sure we ever wrote AARs for that game. Let me just take this moment to point out that that "offensive" was actually a feint...only the main force never came due to bad communication between my ally and I. Nonetheless, I lost more units than I wanted against a defense much stronger than I was expecting.)

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by Dominae
Right, but the Barracks is a one-time cost, so every Archer after the third is worth it from a Shields perspective. I'm not sure what the magic number is for non-Militaristic civs.

The point I'm trying to make is that, early on, warm bodies are more important than Shield-efficiency. You can do a lot more "damage" (in an imprecise sense) to the AI with 5 units instead of 3 in the first 50 turns. I'm sure the same is true versus humans. This is closely related to the "attack units, not cities" thing I just mentioned above.

Though it depends on what you're going up against, this is generally true. As you said, up to 4 regs or 3 vets it's probably best to just go without the Barracks (from both an efficiency and a strike potential standpoint). It really depends on the timing of your strike, knowing where your enemy is early enough and getting units in the right direction. Statistically in addition to shield efficiency, once you get up to 4 vets vs. 5 regulars and beyond it's better to just fork the shields over for the Barracks (as Militaristic).

[Harovan]

The decision whether to build barracks or not depends on many factors. One of them is the barbarian level. If it's at least restless and your civ is militaristic, don't leave your new-built archers as happiness guards in the cities but send them on different ways towards the civ to attack. They leave your empire as regulars and often arrive as vets or even elites. Just stack them up again before you attack.

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Cerbykins
The latest AU topic - successful 'ultra-ultra-ultra early archer rush', on as high a difficulty as possible

Emperor is probably the highest difficulty possible to do this.

[Arrian]

quote:
Originally posted by Arrian
Militaristic civ changes that from 5 regular archers vs. 4 vet. I was talking about using China.



quote:
Originally posted by Dominae
The same is not true for Militaristic civs, because their Barracks cost the same as only one Archer; I'm pretty sure 4 Reg. Archers is worse than 3 Vet. ones, or at least it's close.

Doh.

[Cort Haus]

There was some discussion of ultra-early archer rushes on this thread .

[Jon Shafer]

Finals done with, finally got some more stuff done on this...

Unit tactics for Worker and Settler are done (okay, so I cheated on Settler, sue me ). Will do more later.

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by Trip
okay, so I cheated on Settler, sue me

Don't tempt us.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Trip
The Worker is often overlooked as a powerful military unit. While it's true that the best application of the Worker is in domestic tile improvement, it can also be used in wartime to great effect.

Against the AI, you can also use undefended Workers to lure out military units from its main stacks, reducing the number of attackers you potentially have to defend against in a close battle. Assuming you spread your Workers around, you can sometimes distract one attacker for each Worker you're willing to sacrifice. You can also use Workers as "walls", where to get to a target the AI needs to waste attacks just to reach it (this only works for fast-movers, or units along usable Roads).

Note that the AI will not always attack undefended Workers, but in my experience it's more often than not.

Obviously this tactic is a lot less effective versus human opponents, but it's bluffing potential should not be dismissed.

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by Dominae
Against the AI, you can also use undefended Workers to lure out military units from its main stacks, reducing the number of attackers you potentially have to defend against in a close battle. Assuming you spread you Workers around, you can sometimes distract one attacker for each Worker you're willing to sacrifice. You can also use Workers as "walls", where to get to a target the AI needs to waste attacks just to reach it (this only works for fast-movers, or units along usable Roads).

Note that the AI will not always attack undefended Workers, but in my experience it's more often than not.

Obviously this tactic is a lot less effective versus human opponents, but it's bluffing potential should not be dismissed.

Very true, I hadn't thought about the tactic of using Workers as bait when I wrote this up. I'll add this stuff in along with my other stuff from today.

[lmtoops]

Originally posted by Dominae


Against the AI, you can also use undefended Workers to lure out military units from its main stacks, reducing the number of attackers you potentially have to defend against in a close battle. Assuming you spread you Workers around, you can sometimes distract one attacker for each Worker you're willing to sacrifice. You can also use Workers as "walls", where to get to a target the AI needs to waste attacks just to reach it (this only works for fast-movers, or units along usable Roads).

Note that the AI will not always attack undefended Workers, but in my experience it's more often than not.

Obviously this tactic is a lot less effective versus human opponents, but it's bluffing potential should not be dismissed.

Many times, this is the best use for slaves from distroyed cities. After destroying an enemy city, you get a few slaves, but your in the middle of a war zone and do not want to spend resources protecting the slaves. Also, you may be vulnerable on a counter attack. As Dominae stated, you can use the slaves as a shield or as a distraction.