Which Units do you favor for Ancient Era Conquest?

Artifex · July 22, 2002, 22:33

Which Units do you favor for Ancient Era Conquest? (Ofcourse when not playing a civ with a dominating ancient era UU where the choice is obvious. Namely Rome, Iroquois, Persia, etc.)

DrFell · July 22, 2002, 23:27

I prefer horsemen, but swordsmen will do too if I have no horses. Horsemen from my experience tend to suffer fewer casualties overall assuming they're veteran.

There are some exceptions to the rule though. If you're up against the Zulus of course the choice is obvious, and in mountainous terrain swordsmen may have some advantage due to their resistance to counterattacks.

YC4B4U · July 23, 2002, 01:08

A bit of both and some others to fill in the gaps...

Swords for pounding
Horses for flexibility (in case something unexpected happens); and
Warriors / Spearman to garrison new cities or protect the supply line.

Jon Shafer · July 23, 2002, 01:10

It's all about the Immortals my friend, it's all about the Immortals.

vondrack · July 23, 2002, 01:32

I usually employ more of swordsmen, with horsemen used mostly to finish wounded enemy units off. And to be exact, several spearmen usually take part in my offensives, protecting the attacking units from counterattacks.

The Pioneer · July 23, 2002, 03:28

I have never tried an ancient era conquest. I usually take my time developing my cities and I peacefully expand as much as possible, I only fight a war when I have to but then I have a good reason to wipe them out

.

Theseus · July 23, 2002, 09:20

You left out Warriors!!

Arrian · July 23, 2002, 09:31

@ Theseus. The "inner bastard" talking again?

I used to be an all-horsemen guy. Then I started mixing in some swordsmen. I voted horse/sword mix. But lately I've also been using warriors and archers as well.

Basically, if I see that I have a military advantage, I'll probably use it.

-Arrian

Harovan · July 23, 2002, 09:41

I won't vote in your poll, that would be wrong, because I use all of them. I begin with waves of spearman protected archers and after I have the appropriate advance and hooked up resources, I mix in Horsemen and Swordsmen. It depends on the terrain, which I prefer of those. If mountains, forest or jungle, I prefer swordsmen, if open terrain like grassland, plains, tundra or desert, it's horsemen.

Andemagne · July 23, 2002, 12:03

Swordmen to have and Hoplites to hold.

Lord Merciless · July 23, 2002, 13:15

If I have neighbors nearby, I get 4 cities built and start Archer rush. If play Aztecs, I will rush with Jaguar Warriors. If I play Babylonians, then with Bowman.

Usually the Archer rush will beat up one neighbor and may generate a leader. As next I would build an Army of Swordsman and screw more AI civs over.

In late Ancient and early Feudal, the Swordsman/Horseman combo rush is definitely the best. If you are playing any of the following Civs, this combo has even greater potentials:
Romans(Legionary),
Persians(Immortals),
Iroquois(Mounted Warrior),
Chinese(Horsemen -> Rider upgrade),
Japanese(Horsemen -> Samurai upgrade).

wervdon · July 23, 2002, 13:30

I almost always go pure swordsman followed up by spearman to hold the cities (the assault is all swordsman though)

If I lack iron ill go horseman or archer though until I take my iron

Horseman does have one advantage in that they are in the upgrade line to calvary, and thats ussually when I take my continent.

Anyways its ussually:
archers if needed to take resources (iron & horses)
swordsman to take out 1 or 2 ai neihbors
calvary backed with cannons to finish my continent
tanks backed by aircraft to take the rest.

If I lack saltpeter for calvary and cannons, I trade for it more often than not.

Anyways, thats more than you asked, but its more or less my whole game plan if Im going conquest and not space victory, and even if I am going space its ussually how I go up until the tank part anyways :P

Cookie Monster · July 23, 2002, 13:32

Just my 2 cents:

I usually strive for Sir Ralph's archer rush strategy but voted for swordsmen. More often than not I am unable to set up the archer rush in time before discovering iron.

foo12 · July 23, 2002, 19:13

Ancient Era Conquest? Meh. Ancient Era Attrition? Hoplites, all the way.

N. Machiavelli · July 23, 2002, 19:24

Legions form the back-bone of my offensive armies until the middle-ages. A large group of them, a couple horsemen, and a few catapults deployed properly will destroy armies several times their number and have a great chance at cnquering anything even the Diety-AI can build.

Thrawn05 · July 23, 2002, 20:11

I play defensivly until the late industrial age, only because I'm a big builder and stuck in my ways. I will go on the offensive if I need to, usaly with my Legionaries, since they can hold ground pretty good with the extra defense.

Panzer Elite · July 23, 2002, 22:45

I use both Swordsmen and Horsemen I make alot more Swordsmen though.

Dom Pedro II · July 23, 2002, 23:22

I am like Thrawn in that I am a builder... well, that's partly it. The other thing is that I feel like being an Ancient warmonger is like being a professional gambler. It can pay off sometimes if you're lucky, but I wouldn't base my livelihood on it... I feel that railroads, blitzkrieg, and my beloved bombers are the only way to go for a war.

On the other hand, since I am a builder, if I get crammed on a tiny continent with another civilization, I feel the best thing to do is continue building on the ruins of their cities. Hey, its better that one of us should go on to be prosperous than have us stifle each other's growth, no? Survival of the fittest..

In those cases, I have to say that a Swordsmen are the key to an effective offensive. Horsemen are my economic weapon. Economic in the sense that they are useful for destroying iron and horse resources. They can be useful in cleaning up border-crossing warriors or archers, or pushing over that enemy Spearmen in a city down to his last hitpoint or two... In frontline combat, I never find them particularly useful, especially against fortified cities.

I almost never use archers, and the only time I would is if I had no iron. I doubt there's enough time to build an army of archers and move them to an enemy's territory before they have Spearmen.

And warriors... I keep them in their cities, and the only time they see action is either when some sneaky archer gets around into my heartland, or if they are standing on the bodies of my Spearmen as the enemy launches their final wave of swordsmen

The_Hawk · July 23, 2002, 23:57

I've started to experiment with some new Civs. I usually play Egypt and France, but i've recently tried Rome and Persia. WOW!!! The Roman Legionary is great in the ancient era. Its an upgrade on the Swordsman and can double as a Pikeman and Swordsman. Its slower than I'm used to, since I usually have War Charriotts, but more powerful as well. They don't upgrade, which sucks, but they rock..... slowly. Immortals are a notch above as well. They're like slow moving knights! And getting them when the AI still mostly has spearman is almost...... too powerful.

But if we're talking non-AI, I like to push ahead swiftly from one front with my fastest units (starting with Horsemen, then Knights, then Cavalry) and use Swordsmen in combo with Catapults in a more deliberate, larger stack. I must say that although slower, swordsmen are pretty cool, especially against Spearman, with that extra attack point. But the Horseman's retreat ability and capability of traversing Mountain tiles is cool.

As for Warriors, I build them only as scouts and once they've done their duty, I garrison my elite Warriors in a city until I can upgrade them, or disband them for their shields.

Dom Pedro II · July 24, 2002, 00:03

If you're on the other end of the Immortals, they are definitely too powerful. I was playing as the Babylonians once, and I was stuck on an island with the Persians... whew! Well, needless to say, I hit them before Iron Working. I got a city and destroyed another, but when I saw that first guy with a sword rear his ugly head from the depths of their empire, I said "Hold it!" and made peace. The next war, a few turns later, when they had a whole army of Immortals, well, that was quite an uphill battle. The only thing that really worked there was attacking the Immortals before they could attack me. Hitting an Immortal first puts you on somewhat of level ground again.