Early war on higher levels

[notyoueither]

Good points about the Catapults. They can serve the same function as Horse in softening up the enemy. However, they do not have the ability of *going mobile* and wrecking havoc on the enemy rear area. Nor can they defend something by themselves in a pinch. OTOH they do not die when a bombardment fails, Horse sometimes do.

If I'm feeling rich in production capability I would go with Legions and Horse. If I'm in a pinch, Legions and Catapults with very few Horse. Or, pure Horse. The map will have a very big influence on your choice of war machine.

BTW, going pure Horse as the Romans allows a subtle strat. The Golden Age of your choice. So your Horse have conquered the enemy civ for the most part and you have settled all your new lands. Finish the enemy off with a few Legions and voila, you enter a Golden Age that propels the production of your cities to build a bunch of improvements fast. This is also a matter of choice, and the particular game circumstances will effect what the *best* decision would be.

Salve

[Giovanni August]

Ok I did like that:
- Built/rushed barracks (I'm militaristic is not expensive)
- used about 3 catapults to weaken the enemy city (destroy improvements, weaken garrison Hoplite etc..)
- Attack with the "immortals" Horseman (that retreat thing is awesome)
- finish them with my Legions

It' working great!

Thanks all of you

I must say that probably my biggest mistake was not to build Barracks before starting the war, so regular Legions against those Hoplites was really bad

Saluti

[DrFell]

Yes, barracks are a life saver.

[Master Marcus]

Re: make that a dozen

Originally posted by pchang
You better bring a LOT of catapults. In my experience, their bombardments have been amazingly ineffective.

Now I wait for Cannons before building a lot of fire-powered artillery which are a lot more effective in the success ratio ( something like 30-40 % ) next to the "amazingly ineffective" catapult ( a ridiculous success ratio of 10 % ). So if I go to war in Ancient/ early medieval, I only use Swordsman/Horseman etc... the retreat ability is a must, but on the other hand the Horseman is always red-wounded after its retreat so you can't realistically use it again before the few turns necessary for the healing at this stage of the game, so you better have lots of them....like artillery later on.

[AJ Corp. The FAIR]

Originally posted by Giovanni August
Ok I did like that:
- Built/rushed barracks (I'm militaristic is not expensive)
...

Especially if militaristic, I NEVER rush barracks.

Too easy to build in core cities during ancient era.

If not militaristic, only rush when militaric situation requests upon ...

But eventually (ASAP after temples, cathedrals) I build barracks everywhere. They're definitely worth it and are always relatively cheap.

AJ

[Kuciwalker]

Wait until you have nukes.

[ledj]

I often build barracks as the first city improvement, and then few warriors. After discovery of the swordsman, upgarde veteran warriors to veteran swordmen, or better immortals if playing Persia. Then you're in business.

[DrFell]

Yep you have to love the UU upgrade - another great one is the chariot to mounted warrior upgrade... although I've not tested it yet it sounds pretty lethal... 20 shield 3 attack and retreat units. Just hold off getting horse until you've got about 10 of them, then go kill.

[Aeson]

I've used Chariots upgraded Mounted Warriors in a couple of games now. The only problem is that the Iroquois are Expansionist and not Militaristic. I tend to get Horseback Riding from a hut very quickly after the Wheel, and usually before I can get many Barracks built. It does give some use to the spare gold I always have laying around in the Ancient Era though.

[Ãœber KruX]

i skip over archers and chariots. the first tech i dive for is horseback riding, then iron working, so i see what resources i got to work with.

also, your civ will play a big part. you can really tear people apart as the aztecs

[Dominae]

I've mentioned this on another post somewhere, but I think the key to early war on higher levels (which, in my opinion, is a necessary evil) is disruption of the AI's economy before an assault on their cities. By this I mean capturing Workers, pillaging left and right, and denying resources. Resource denial is especially important: I usually wait hold off my attack on their cities until I know they can't produce Horsemen or Swordsmen (or their variants). Disruption is obvioiusly best with fast units.

This strategy is still applicable on lower levels (Monarch and below), the only difference being that you can do it with Warriors and Archers instead of Horsemen. On the higher levels, the AI has so many more units in the early-game than I do that my Warriors and Archers get surrounded before doing anything worthwhile; on Monarch, there's room to run away.


Dominae

[Kuciwalker]

Once more: Play on a small map, wait until you get nukes, build 40-60 ICBM's, and then hit that big red button.