How conduct an ancient era war?

[planetfall]

that approach did not work well. I was hoping to eliminate Egypt. By the time I had 2 horse and 4 swords, Egypt had squirted between china, headed towards persia and planted 2 new cities. Weird thing is starting to increase swords and horse, Russia decides to declare war.

I have not had horrible experiences with rome yet, but like keeping some civs between me and persia. Don't want to mess with them in the ancient era.

[Theseus]

Don;t worry about eliminating them... just damage them irreparably. They then becomes pawns, vassals, punching bags, etc.

[Playa del Carmen]

If they do start building spearmen, research mathematics as soon as you can and get some catapults to go along with your invasion force. Two or three. The more the better. Then attack each city with at least two or three swordmen with a couple horsemen for good measure (good for finishing off gravely wounded spearmen).

But this is just my strategy. It may be much more difficult if the Egyptians have their war chariots.

[BillChin]

A powerful opening strategy is Swordsmen Conquest.

The basic outline is to build 4 to 6 cities. Research and claim Iron. Build warriors. Save gold. Upgrade warriors to swordsmen (40 gold each). Conquer the nearest enemy.

About 10 swordsmen is suggested. This is enough to take out most Ancient age empires. By this time the enemy may have many cities, but that is a good thing, not a bad thing. There is little chance that the enemy has enough units to defend against a stack of ten swordsmen. If the enemy makes demands before you are ready for war, go ahead and give them what they ask for. You will get it all back and more after the war.

Swordsmen Conquest works great up to Emperor level on small and standard size maps. On large or huge maps, fast units may be better to cover the longer distances. On tiny maps attacking with warriors is better.

If there is no iron, consider horses, or archers. If possible capture iron with these units.

[heidlejohn]

Sometimes you just have to attack with what you have in order to deny the AIs any building space or resources near you.
Two examples:

1) I have both Rome and Persia as neighbors. Rome built a city on a hill next to iron so I can only bother them until I get iron. I just build cities close to the iron and wait for a good time later on to attack. Meanwhile in this regent game Persia only has it's capital so I attack with warriors and kill his settlers, then lurk near his one city until I get archers over there to eliminate Persia.

2) Playing as Babylon I again get Persia as my neighbor. There is iron near the Persian capital so I attack with the bowman to stop his expansion towards me, then build and get iron. I fight Persia in a few wars and win one or two cities and get to the chivalry & gunpowder era. I have no saltpeter. So I build ten knights and start a war and first take his capital which was defended by at least one muskeeter.

[planetfall]

WOW, I never imagined I would get such good comments when I started this thread. One thought really stands out, I have been too friendly in the ancient era. Don't have time until this weekend, but now want to try different approaches to this same game. It seems like I have waiting too long for a 3:1 advantage and thought only of destroying instead of hindering advancement via military.

Again thanks for the advice. I definitely need a better balance between military and builder approaches. Builder only does not seem to work too well with 8 civs.

[Arrian]

Planetfall,

I also suggest that whichever unit you decide to use primarily (swords or horses) you build their predecessor unit (warrior/chariot) in large numbers. Save money and upgrade. Swords are more expensive, which is one of the many reasons I prefer horsemen, but whichever works. I generally attempt to start the rampage around 600-500bc. I use the predecessor units because they can be built quickly, and it's easy to save gold early on. The whole idea is a single-minded drive to build an army which will crush your neighbors. Like Theseus, Txurce & I have been discussing in the strat forum, even the "landgrab" becomes secondary. Why care about beating the AI to a city site (unless we're talkin' about iron or horses here) if you are gonna take it soon anyway? Concentrate you resources, both mineral and financial, on one goal: a powerful (and I suggest mobile) attack force.

-Arrian

[planetfall]

Arrian,

Thanks. I have focused too much on land grab. Time to backup and replay, should be interesting. Looks like my assumption was correct: late game was bogging down with minutia and small gains because of opportunity mistakes in ancient era. Rather than completing a game this weekend, I am going to try different methods of playing the ancient Era and stopping when get to Middle age.

[planetfall]

What an interesting approach: play a full game and then go back and replay part of ancient era.

Biggest questions:
1. Does it normally take 5 warriors & 2 horse to conquer a 3 pop city with 2 spearmen? {any less and I get smeared. Had to restart 3 times til got the numbers right}
2. How much do you normally need to get a small city with 1 spearman defending?
3. How long do you use military? all the way through the ancient era? i.e., when do you switch to production improvement.

As suspected it is possible to remove Egypt in ancient era. Also removed 3 Chinese cities. One concern is if try to remove China will be adjacent to Persia, Rome and Russia. Don't think Persia and Rome would be good to tackle right now. But still no GL's.

There is more open land now but data does not yet show shift in game. Here is the data for 350bc


Game1-- no ancient era warfare
score=120
civs alive= 7
approval=72%, #1
productivity=80%, #1
top cities= #3
techs needed to exit ancient era=8
cities= 10
military: warriors=13
spear=1
sword=1
horse=2

Game2-- ancient era warfare
score=108
civs alive= 6 {egypt gone, China 1/3 cities gone}
approval=71%, #3
productivity=76%, #1
top cities= #1
techs needed to exit ancient era=6
cities= 9
military: warriors=8
spear=1
sword=4
horse=2

[Arrian]

Are you building swordsmen and horsemen straight-up? If so, I have to ask... why? Discover ironworking, but do not hook up your iron, build some veteran warriors. Discover the wheel, but not horseback riding. Build some chariots. Science to 10%, research horseback riding, hook up iron, upgrade.

For example, I just finished a game last night in which my attack began in 350bc (what a coincidence!). I launched this attack with 22 horsemen and 11 swordsmen. Every single one of those was originally a predecessor unit that I upgraded. When I was done, I had totally destroyed 2 civs and reduced the other two to 1 and 2 cities, respectively. This rampage also generated 6 GLs.

-Arrian

[planetfall]

Yes, was doing it straight up. Forgot about your comments about upgrading later. Ok this weekend, game 3 trying to follow your model.

This method of replaying games from 1650bc to 350bc and stopping makes a short and yet very interesting game out of a long game.

Thanks again for the great ideas.

[Ghengis Brom]

Originally posted by Trip

They still do, just not always anymore.

I believe it's a 50/50 chance of retreating.

Does anyone know if there are modifiers to this?

[Arrian]

There is a modifier based upon experience. Elites and vets have better chances of retreat than regulars. I don't know exactly what the percentages are.

Planetfall,

Let us know how it goes... I admit it's not a 100% formula for success, but it usually works from a strict military standpoint (I'm in it for the leaders, so a military victory alone isn't good enough).

-Arrian

[Theseus]

planetfall:

While I am a big fan of ultra-early war with Warriors, I am an even bigger fan of upgrading them to Swordsmen!! What are you still doing with all those Warriors? I know they're expensive to upgrade, but it should be your HIGHEST priority.

Ghengis Brom:

The odds of retreat increase with promotions, I believe as follows:

Conscript: 40%
Regular: 50%
Veteran: 60%
Elite: 70%

As you can see, it is incredibly important to manage your forces well, and get all units up to the higher levels ASAP.

[MiloMilo]

Planetfall, it sounds like you kind of squeezed in on this landmass. Theseus has grand visions of warrior wars followed by horsemen wars followed by swordsmen wars followed by knight wars. Now, all due respect to Theseus (he's surely a much more skilled warmonger than me) but I don't know exactly how he does it. I just never seem to have the time.

So I will say this: forget attacking with warriors. Save them and upgrade them, then attack with swordsmen. Also, forget about egypt. You said they have no iron, that means they have no swordsmen, no pikemen, no knights. You can take them out at your leaisure. I would lay the smackdown on the romans before they can properly amass their very powerful legionaries. Carve out some space for yourself in that direction and reduce Rome to a vassal state. Then turn your attention to egypt and their puny spearmen.

My rule, especially in initially cramped quarters: The first war is with a wave of swordsmen. Take a city here and a city there, get resources of all types from any and all civs near you borders. As your force of about a dozen or so swordsmen begins to dwindle or get stuck garrisoning newly annexed cities, hit chivalry and renew the campaigning with 15-20 knights. By the time people get proper defenders against knights (musketmen), you should have filled out your empire and should be starting to run away with the tech/money/land/power.