Ancient Age Attack/Defence ratios totaly unfair

[Foolishman]

I have started playing this game recently, and, I tried using archers against dug-in spearman, they are totaly naffective, even when I used them in mass.

For example, I had 6 veteran archers attack an AI city with two spearman, one warrior, when I attacked, they defence ratios was as this: the spearman were fotified so their defence was increased to I think three, making them totaly superior to archers, I lost 3 archers to just oen spearman, and the other destroyed the other two, this is a totaly screwed up game!!

How does Firaxis expect us to play like this, unless you get lucky and your archers hit the spearman, you would lose mathematicly everytime, this is so stupid, they want us to fight an enemy with a archer that ahs only 2 attack and an enemy who ahs 3 defense, SO STUPID!!

Well, that is all I have to say, please send any comments or suggestions in.

[Willem]

If you use some Catapults first, the Archers will have an easier time against the Spearman. The Ancient Era wasn't meant to have super units, the idea is to build up your military over time until you do get ones that can be more successful. The game would be to easy otherwise.

[zulu9812]

dude - don't mess with Spearmen. They can take out anything: even tanks and cruise missiles!

[Arrian]

Um, unfair? Nope. First off, if you are worried about losing archers to spearmen, use horsemen or swordsmen instead. Or bring more archers.

Your loss of 6 archers was a bad run of luck (the fortification bonus is 25%, IIRC, making the spears 2.5 defense), unless the city was 1) on a hill, 2) across a river from your archers, or 3) larger than size 6. Each of those three factors would increase the defense bonus. I've had it happen... but that is the risk you run when you wage very early war. I've also taken a civ's capitol with a single archer early in the game. There is a lot of luck (good and bad) involved with early warfare.

Swords and Horses will have a lot more success vs. spearmen. Archers aren't supposed to be all that great for attacking fortified spears in cities. They're weak because they are supposed to be. This does not make the game unfair (the AI has to use the same units you do) or stupid.

-Arrian

[Inverse Icarus]

in the civ3 democracy game weve taken 2 fortified cities (Washington and New York) with archer / spearman stacks, and only lost 2 archers.

we're going to take Orleans the same way, again with expected minimal losses. We do have a swordsmen stack now

[Inverse Icarus]

did you check the terrain? was the spearman city on a hill? did it have walls or was it bigger than size 6? did you cross a river on the attack? i have no problem using archers for early wars.

[Capt Dizle]

Assuming the archer unit was regular and the spearman regular, fortified in a city grassland tile the chance of sucess for each attack would be 23.6%. In losing the spearman may have been promoted to veteran dropping the percentage to 11.8.

If the city was one a hill and you were attacking accross a river the percentages would be only 14.47 and 5.97.

And if you were attacking an elite spearman fortified in a city on a hill accross a river with your regular archer your chance of winning would be 2.328%. In this case the spearman would have a base strength of 5 and 5 hit points to your 3.

This is a good way to generate GLs for the AI.

[Capt Dizle]

I never use archers for attacking difficult cities. Or anything else if I can help it. Iron for swordsman and horses are so vital that I spend the entire early game making sure I can get them. Otherwise, you are going to be meat.

I find catapults and cannon ineffective and prefer to use swordsman and horses to attack until you get knights. But you will have to use the crude siege weapons to take cities or your casualties will be very high.

[Theseus]

Agreed... the preferred target for Archers is the Warrior, but even then I wouldn't want to attack one fortified unless a) I had at least 3 attackers, and b) the Warrior had no other defensive bonuses.

You can play around with the odds of different units here:

http://www.columbia.edu/~sdc2002/civulator.html

[Capt Dizle]

Interesting to note that the strongest conventional unit in the game, modern armor, of regular morale, attacking a fortified elite spearman in a metro on a hil across a river will fail 15% of the time.

The moral of this tidbit is simple. Build barracks and artillery. In the example above the odds of losing are reduced to 6% when the attacker is a vet. Reducing the spearman from elite to regular with bombardment reduces the chance of failure to 2%.

Many of the people who complain of losing units when they shouldn't are simple not aware of these mechanics or just don't want to have to bother to think.

[KenderBane]

The moral of this tidbit is simple. Build barracks and artillery. In the example above the odds of losing are reduced to 6% when the attacker is a vet. Reducing the spearman from elite to regular with bombardment reduces the chance of failure to 2%.

I agree ... but screw using catapults and cannons and other garbage "artillery". I only use the BEST artillery in the game ... NUKES.

NUKE the Strongpoint in your opponents defenses and roll the tanks thru while the mushroom cloud is still bubbling up to the sky !

THAT is the way to use 'artillery' !

[Capt Dizle]

Ten steps to winning in the early game (emp level)

1. Find a cluster of special food resources and found your first city on a poor tile adjacent to them. Look for flood plains, wheat, cattle.

2. Build a warrior and use worker to irrigate and road special tile.

3. Build settler and place two tiles directly north, south, east or west of your capital. Be sure the new city can access one or more food specials. Build a warrior there. Then a settler. This is your specialist city.

4. Build another warrior and in the capitol and use it to explore. Find luxuries. Use the worker to irrigate and road the specials that your cities are working. Do not terraform ahead of your population growth. If you get caught up build a road to your next city site.

5. You exploring warrior will have uncovered enough of the map to give you a good idea of where to build your third and fourth cities. I advocate building with a full four squares between your new city and the capital either to the NE, NW, SE,SW as terrain allows. Its better to move this placement one tile to get to the coastline(or to pick up luxuries/resources). Determining which direction to build will be based on contacts you have made and terrain. Build away from jungles. Try to expand to cut off AI expansion. Above all, trade techs and find horse and then iron and claim that land!

5. You need to connect a least one luxury so that one unit can subdue a population of three. All cities should be connected.

6. Research at the bare minimum towards monarchy. Trade for the rest. Alternate your builds in the first two cities between settlers and warriors until you have enough explorers to ensure maximun contacts with other civs so that you can trade.

7. Your 5th and 6th cities shoud also be placed four tiles away from your capital and should have formed a box around the capital. These cities need temples, warriors, barracks. No need to build a temple in the capital or the specialist city. The specialist city will only need a granary and barracks. The capital will need a barracks too. Every city needs a barracks.

8. Expand as practical without getting into a situation where war or a cultural flip is likley, unless you are striving to get iron or horses. Build some workers all around. At least a half dozen. Roads and irrigation of specials. Take the crown and rule in prosperity.

9. Don't build libaries. Build military. You migth have to build cathedrals. Prepare for war. Pick your opponents. You need a civ close by with as much land as you have. Send you horseman and swordman end and clear the area for your forbidden place and built it with a Great Leader. You might use a catapult or two. Leave the victim with a city or two and extort his tech for peace.

10. Inspect your progress and determine your next expansion. Consider yourUU. Cossacks come soon, samauri. When do you want your golden age. What are the other Civ's doing? Do you have a neighbor with his rear ungarded. Onward Knights of Blood and Gore. Or do you concentrate on building in peace for a spell keeping in mind the windows of opportunity that will be present for war, such as the developent of cavalry and then artillery which will devastate the AI. And then Tanks!

[Capt Dizle]

dp

[Artifex]

The river gives no defense bonus. I checked the terrain in the civilopedia. Attacking across a river means nothing. Where does it say attacking across a river gives defender a bonus? Certainly not in the civilopedia.

[Arrian]

Not well documented, obviously, but attacking across a river conveys a 25% bonus to the defender.

-Arrian

[Thrawn05]

Originally posted by Artifex
The river gives no defense bonus. I checked the terrain in the civilopedia. Attacking across a river means nothing. Where does it say attacking across a river gives defender a bonus? Certainly not in the civilopedia.

ummm... check the editor. It lists the defense bonuses for rivers. The Civilopedia is just as bad as the manuel.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Artifex
The river gives no defense bonus. I checked the terrain in the civilopedia. Attacking across a river means nothing. Where does it say attacking across a river gives defender a bonus? Certainly not in the civilopedia.

It's mentioned in the manual.

[Artifex]

I checked the civilopedia..I lost my manual awhile back. The civilopedia is pretty lame to say rivers give no defene bonus.

So what is it 25%?

[Capt Dizle]

yeah

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by Artifex
I checked the civilopedia..I lost my manual awhile back. The civilopedia is pretty lame to say rivers give no defene bonus.

So what is it 25%?

You can change it in the editor though, like I did. I knocked it up to 50% to make rivers more important combat-wise, so you have to watch where you fight.

[Harovan]

In the early game the AIs have no veteran spearmen. The have only regulars. When you attack with veteran archers, you have a 50% chance against a fortified reg spearman in a city on plain territory (no hills). You certainly had very bad luck, that happens rarely. A 5-6 stack of archers, protected with 1-2 spearmen takes a city almost for certain. Go for the enemy capital and take it. Leave a spearman as garrison, and try to raze or even take another city. Quickly sue for peace, and demand advances and 1-2 cities. You will for certain get all you demand. But do it early, the archer stack shall leave 1500BC at the latest (better around 2000BC).

2 simple rules:

- If the enemy capital is on a hill, take 2-3 archers more.

- Don't mess with the Greeks. Archers don't very well against hoplites, even regulars. If you see the Greeks early in the game, attack with an exploring warrior one of their hoplites. You will lose for certain, but you just have fired their GA. As they are still in REX mode, they will use the extra shields on settlers, and since a GA gives no extra food, it will be completely wasted, waiting for the settlers to be completed food-wise. Make peace ASAP and don't touch the Greeks again until you have knights. Note: Nothing is more annoying than a Greek GA in well developed cities. So make sure they have it earlier.

[Lord Merciless]

You used 6 archers to attack 2 fortified spearmen and 1 warrior. I would hardly consider your force sufficient. When on offensive, you need at least a 3 to 1 numerical superiority. In later games, it's hard for even 15 tanks to capture a size 13+ city defended by 5 infantries.

[Harovan]

Lord Merciless: We are talking about the very early game. That means:

- No city is above size 6.
- The AI has not more than 2 regular spearmen in the city.
- It will poprush an archer, if you approach, which will probably lose badly attacking one of your vet spearmen.
- The AI is focused on expansion and always willing to talk about peace, usually only 6-8 turns after the declaration of war. So even if you fail (which happens once in 20 cases), it won't reach your cities with counterattacks (except maybe 1 or 2 exploring warriors)

A 6 archer and 2 spearman force is in most cases enough to take 2 cities (or take one and raze one). That's the goal. Read: Oscillating wars.

[Ksim3000]

I thought Archers were mainly for Defence not Offence?

[Capt Dizle]

Ralph, you have your numbers right given the parameters.

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
Lord Merciless: We are talking about the very early game. That means:

- No city is above size 6.
- The AI has not more than 2 regular spearmen in the city.
- It will poprush an archer, if you approach, which will probably lose badly attacking one of your vet spearmen.
- The AI is focused on expansion and always willing to talk about peace, usually only 6-8 turns after the declaration of war. So even if you fail (which happens once in 20 cases), it won't reach your cities with counterattacks (except maybe 1 or 2 exploring warriors)

A 6 archer and 2 spearman force is in most cases enough to take 2 cities (or take one and raze one). That's the goal. Read: Oscillating wars.

Well, we don't know the settings of the thread starter. He might have faced 2 vet AI Spearmen, fortified in a city on top of a hill and across the river. That would mean the Spearmen have an effective defensive strength of 2+0.5(fortified)+1(hill)+0.5(river) = 4. Six Archers would not be enough to dislodge 2 of them.

The other explanation is simply a string of bad luck.

[Jon Shafer]

And that string can be mighty bad sometimes. Once I lost 18 (yes, 18) Archers in an assault on two AI cities with 2 regular spearmen each. That was the end of that game.

[Foolishman]

Originally posted by Lord Merciless


Well, we don't know the settings of the thread starter. He might have faced 2 vet AI Spearmen, fortified in a city on top of a hill and across the river. That would mean the Spearmen have an effective defensive strength of 2+0.5(fortified)+1(hill)+0.5(river) = 4. Six Archers would not be enough to dislodge 2 of them.

The other explanation is simply a string of bad luck.

Lord, the spearman were fortified on a Grassland and they were ona river, I better understand now the dynamics of defense bonus, but, that was simply too bad, and no, none of the spearman were veterans, only I was. Also, after that, I used the spearman to pillige their improvements, as last retribution for the destruction of my archers.

[Foolishman]

Also, lord, I am quite pleased you were as nice enough to post on my thread, I like many of your "war stratagies" and one day hope to become as good in battling civ Ais and eventually humans as you are currently. Your stratagies of extroting and taking cities is quite affective on higehr levels I hear, I must try it.

[Thrawn05]

This is why I stay away from anchient warfare and even middle age war as well at times. I guess I just don't have that warmonger blood in me. I usualy lose due to a lack of units.