Ancient Wars when enemy civs are far away (40+ squares). Still archer/sword rush?

[Artifex]

What is best way to clear out your continent when ancient civs are far away and the continent is big?

In my current game as the chinese I was using a basic archer rush strategy. At 1200 bc I notice the indians and zulu are both real far away it seems indians are 30-40 squares away and zulu are 40-50. each have about 5 cities.

It seems it will take forever to get my archer and swordsmen up there. Is this a sound strategy?

I am the chinese btw in this game.

[Tuberski]

If they are that far away you are better off building settlers and expanding until you get close to your neighbors.

Archer/Swordsman may not be your best bet.

[Artifex]

Every game they are always far away. At least when I play China. It seems my best bet is to expand and then wait until I get riders.

I guess the early archer rush, swordsman rush works for smaller maps or maybe european civs.

I play on large landmasses on standard maps. Maybe the european civs start closer together and asain civs far away. Or possibly by playing on large landmasses (but th emap is average/standard).

[FrustratedPoet]

You don't have to wait for Riders. A large amount of Horsemen will probably to the trick, as long as you can catch the AI before it gets Pikemen, which isn't easy.
You'll need more Horsemen than you would have needed Archers and Swords, but you can upgrade the survivors to Riders later on so they won't be wasted.

[nbarclay]

China makes for a great "build first, fight later" nation when there's enough elbow room, especially if you're any good at out-researching the AIs on whatever level you play. I view Riders as one of the most potent UUs in the game (partly because my fighting style is so blitz-oriented), and what's even better is that the first time a Rider wins, you get a golden age to build more of them more quickly (assuming you didn't use your golden age earlier). Couple that with a tech lead, and a war that would have been a long, drawn-out slugging match earlier in the game can become a cakewalk.

Not that I have anything against using archers to cripple a neighbor early if one is close enough. But with plenty of room to expand and in the absence of juicy targets for archers, I'm inclined to think China is better off avoiding early wars.

Nathan

[DrFell]

40+ squares is just too far away for archers, and possibly for swordsmen (deity level they will probably have pikemen by the time you get your units over there to fight). I would do a horseman rush, upgrading to riders when you get the tech.