Horsemen... Too powerful or worthless?

[Ming]

I've seen in multiple threads/posts now that some people think that horsemen are overpowered, and that the key to success is building tons of them and destroying your enemies.

On the other hand, in most of the games I play, the AI builds tons of spearmen, making horsemen very ineffective. Since spearmen don't need a resourse, the AI's I've been playing against just keep cranking them out. And the same is true once they can build pikemen. I've found horsemen to be great for quick response, but they die like dogs against the spears.

I would much prefer to build early swordsman than horsemen. I find them far more effective in the field, and attacking cities.

So which is it?

[mrboo123]

I pefer to use horseman to attack cities while any one else focuses on attcking units. Very rarely have I seen a unit attack from inside a city.

[Hermann the Lombard]

My impression is that, as usual, it depends on difficulty and timing. Up through Prince the AI starts with a warrior and takes a long time to get spearmen. That's too late for your nearer neighbors as long as you rush. If you're slow they will have enough spears to make your horsesmen miserable, though combined arms are still effective, as per mrboo123. At King the AI starts with a warrior *and* a spear, so the situation is tougher, but you may still be able to get there first with the most men, and let an archer neutralize the spearman. As I recently discovered, if you try a delayed horse rush (i.e. failure to rush), at King the AI will bleed you white. Above King... Obviously it also depends on the size of the game. A horse rush may be deadly on a Duel map and powerful on Pangea while it has clear limits on Continents or (horrors) Archipelago. [I'm telling this to Ming? Forgive me, Lord!]

[Ming]

True enough... I've only been playing at the highest levels, and the AI cranks out spearmen. I've played on the different types of maps as well, and the determing point I guess is level. I remember the first few games I played, I liked horsemen, but after moving up to the killer higher levels, I just stopped building many of them since they just got chewed up all the time.

[jshelr]

Ming I've been playing on immortal and emperor. Not only has the horseman rush worked consistently on the first neighboring civ, but it has usually worked up to four civs. Very few unit losses. In fact, the promotions just make you stronger. Don't you agree that you can use the horseman's additional moves to stay away from a spearman and to correctly position multiple units to attack a city. And it seems that once you get to the actual city attack phase, then the garrison unit doesn't matter much. It sort of reminds me of the initial civ III horse units that retreated so often that hardly any of them died. They were just too overpowered when you had a stack of them. These new units are also overpowered due to speed and hitting strength, as well as their very early arrival on the tech tree. Let me start a couple of diety games and see if my experience changes

[CHannum]

Think as most things it's a "it depends". Playing on emperor as Russia, build nothing but horsemen and archers early on. Go to war early against Hiawatha in a war pact with Bismark; chomp chomp chomp. Go to war against Darius, again in a war pact with Bismark; chomp chomp chomp. Decide to enter a third war pact with Bismark to finish off Hiawatha, oh oh

He backstabs and and beelines for my cities with a large force of the German Landsknect (sp?), the heavy investment in cav forces mires me in a protracted war. I eventually turn it around with swordsmen and crossbows, but in the meantime lost 3 cities and about 3/4ths of my cavalry stopping it from being worse. In the end, I drive him to the northern margins of the continent where he sits sulking but harmless, but I learned my lesson: they are mighty very early on, but they are easily neutralized so make sure you don't wait until you encounter a wall of spears/pikes before getting your heavy infantry rolling off the production line.