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arii
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St-Louis MO USA
Jan 1970
time: 05:12
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On defensive terrain (river, forest) a warrior is often good enough. Usually early units coming at you are horses and a fortified warrior on defenssive terrain can sustain the attack or bring the attacker in the red. You can then rush build an other warrior an kill the attacker the next turn. If a chariot or archer is coming at you the best defense is to attack it with a horse.
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geofelt
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Neptune Beach,Florida,USA
Jan 1970
time: 00:12
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If you have one or two cities, you can defend with anything, even wariors. After that, I build a phalanx if the city is on defensive terrain, like a river. On ordinary terrain, an attacking defense is best. This means a horse, or an archer.
On a related subject, if your defender will clearly lose, don't lose the city to a barb and have it destroyed. Just vacate it and pay a reasonable ransom, or plan to use a dip to get it back later.
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Longfistking
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Springfield, Mo. USA
Sep 2000
time: 05:12
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I usually take Ming's advice a wait a few turns to get an archer or a chariot out of a goody hut before I lay down a city. I have no luck on Diety and I usually get eaten up pretty fast by the barbs, unless I can get a city down on or near a river. By the time I get a chance to build a phalanx, the other civs are coming over the ridge already . . . (I really need to play on Diety more).
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Chainsaw
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Ratingen, Germany
Apr 2000
time: 05:12
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If I have the tech, I build a phalanx, especially in new cities on the border. They mostly win against the early barb archers or horses. A warrior wins VERY seldom attacking an archer (believe me, I tried at least a hundred times). That way, you donīt have to worry about lost cities, especially in the beginning of your expansion, when you have to concentrate ressources on building settlers and caravans. A lost city when you have four or five means one fifth of your ressources is gone! I think it wise to invest ten shields to defend forty.
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Chainsaw
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Ratingen, Germany
Apr 2000
time: 05:12
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Exactly. Both sucks. Solution: Build a phalanx.
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Ming
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In SP games, it depends on the results of huts.
I usually wait a little longer than I would in an MP game to start my first cities because it's easy to catch up to the AI. You can find a great city site, and maybe get a few decent non units. If I find an archer, I will just build warriors for marshall law and wandering...
MP is a whole different story, and it depends on the game you are playing. Most of my MP games are on small worlds, and you will have contact with other players quickly in most cases. In the path to monarchy, you usually have to take one non path science, and I will always take bronze work. If I don't get a unit from a hut, my first build will be a warrior to wander, then a second warrior for marshall law, and then a settler.
Depending on the situation (contact, no contact) I will either build a second settler or a phalanx...
If I find a archer from a hut, he will come back to my capital for defense, and I will build one warrior to wander (assuming I didn't get lucky and get mulitple units from huts), and then I start cranking out settlers...
In MP games, we usually play double production, so I never build a city on a non defensive square... so early on, a warrior can usually defend. I build the the phalanx when asap if I meet somebody who is aggressive 
Again, it all depends on the situation...
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kcbob
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Kansas City, MO USA
Dec 1999
time: 23:12
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We need a new acronym. Or maybe it already exists and I'm not familiar with it.
Since we are definitely not talking OCC, we are talking either ICS or 'xxx'. The 'xxx' would refer to Perfectionist Expansionist Theory, or PET. Maybe?
Anyway, I go warrior first. Then settler. Then, depending on circumstances, I will choose between warrior, phalanx, and settler. The circumstances are nearness of opposing civs, barbs in the area, and food output of the city.
But an interesting question has been raised in my mind by this thread. Should I wait and build archers instead of phalanx?
------------------
Frodo lives!
Better dead than "Red"... or green... or blue... or yellow... or orange... or purple... or white.
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Chainsaw
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Ratingen, Germany
Apr 2000
time: 05:12
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kcbob:
That would be thirty shields to invest, but then you have the possibilty to attack strong offensive units which would win against against a defender with a defensive strength of two.
If I have the gold, Ėīd still get rather a phalanx than a warrior, maybe as the second martial law unit, but still better than a rather weak warrior which is quite useless in a fight.
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Dry
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Brussels
Sep 2000
time: 06:12
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quote:
Originally posted by Ming on 09-18-2000 02:30 PM
I can't remember the last time I built an archer in MP or SP. They just don't seem worth the production.
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This was what I thought (a long time ago, when animals could speak ) until I played deity/raging hordes/no reload .
What I need is a good early military unit, strong enough to deal with the early barbs, until I get monarchy.
Warrior code is for me the good compromise between cheap-to-build, one research step technology and strong-enough unit to avoid the loss of early cities.
A phalanx will NOT survive 2 horsemen barbs: my early phalanx are not veteran, so on the first barb, she will be an almost dead [veteran] phalanx, on the second, she will be a dead veteran.
An archer will, with a little bit of luck, survive: he attacks the first horseman. After that, if veteran: he will survive the second horseman attack, if not, well there is still a chance...
A non vet phalanx has NO chance against a chariot.
A lucky warrior will have the possibility to attack the chariot if it is on an adjacent hex, or even at 2/3 if its is one hex away along a river or road.
With the ability of being offensive, archers are also easier to veteranise. Not a small advantage for the future.
I have seen horsemen, archers and chariots as early barbs, legions comes a little bit later. And even a legion can be killed by an archer, mostly not by a horsemen.
Of course, later in the game, after you have discover monarchy you can research and build more effecient units (in terms of: utility/build costs). The cheaper phalanx is a good defending unit, but don't let it alone in an exposed city, put at least a horseman.
But even then:
phalanx + horseman = 40 prod. points; 2 techs to research and phalanx may come out too late for martial law
warrior + archer = 40 prod. points, only 1 tech to research and warrior will come out on time for martial law.
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Ming
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I hear what you are saying... but...
quote:
A phalanx will NOT survive 2 horsemen barbs
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They have the same chance as an archer... you assume that you will get a chance to attack them first, which may not be the case with their two movement. Also, they usually both attack on the same turn.
And even if you do attack out, it may be weakened so much in the attack that even if it becomes a vet, it probably won't survive the the remaining attack.
Plus, if the barbs happen to be archers, there is a chance your archer won't kill it.
Your tactic depends on a lot of if's
I just sit back and let the defenders do the work.
Here is why I don't build archers anymore.
For me, until I get monarchy, I don't want to take any science off the path that will delay the discovery of Monarchy. As we all know, minus any sciences from huts or other civs or free from the start, you usually have to take one science not on the path. Given that choice, I will always take bronze over warrior code. Bronze allows me to build a defensive unit, and start building a wonder. (which I can change to a different wonder later as better wonders become available) No other science on the direct path to Monarchy provides a wonder. Warrior code doesn't allow for building a wonder either.
Once I have Monarchy, production isn't that much of an issue anymore, and I can crank out both defensive and offensive units as needed. Plus, I usually go for writing next... and then, who needs to build archers when you can out and bribe attacking units with diplos
That is the nice thing about Civ... Different strokes for different folks
[This message has been edited by Ming (edited September 19, 2000).]
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geofelt
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Neptune Beach,Florida,USA
Jan 1970
time: 00:12
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Does anybody build a barracks first? In some games, I have built a barracks early in a high shield city, and used it to build vet phalanx for every other city. As I recall, this worked very well.
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Caesar
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Rome, Heart of the Roman Empire
Oct 2000
time: 05:12
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In duels, warriors, warriors and warriors, you only start building phalanxes if you've lost GW and or Sun Tzus. But usually by then I have pikemen. In my opinion its pointless to build phalanxes in every city because I need the production and with 3 warriors in a city, I can keep martial for the production equivalent of one and a half warriors and if someone attacks I will usually have enough time to get a phalanx before they conquer it. Unless I'm building a wonder, then I go with 3 phalanxes, unless I haven't had contact with the enemy or the city is far inland with cities all around. Sometimes my research goals don't include bronze working for a long time. First I go for Pottery, then I go for the 3 Ms (as I like to call them), masonry, map making and monotheism. Then for feudalism. Once I get feudalism I stop building warriors, not by choice. If I'm on the offensive, as soon as I hit mono, I turn my sciences off, 70% taxes for bribing and 30% luxuries for happiness. This basically allows me to survive even if I miss miches, sun tzus and or great wall. But once they get feudal I go to mathematics before shutting it off.
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BlackJack
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Hmmm ... Lots of good stuff to think about. ... I think I'm still sticking with the phalanx as the first unit though - the defense is just too comforting early in the game; and yes my phalanx usually holds off two horse attacks in a turn. After exploring a bit, to find the right location and pickup cash or non units, what I do is found my first cities, pick BW as the first advance and start building a settler; BW tends to be discovered when I've got just the right shields and just before the cities go to size 2.
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Dry
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Brussels
Sep 2000
time: 06:12
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Yes, lots of good stuff here...
Ming: you are right, there's a lot of if's, but my point was: archer have a chance (even if small), phalanxes have no... well, I exagerated, of course they have, but smaller.
You are also right for the WOW, but I usually don't build wonders so early... depends on play style... after monarchy WOWs are only one tech away.
I hear you all about phalanxes surviving horsemen, and I noticed it also (even warriors have survived very first barbarian archer !!!) but my experience is just that since I changed my strategy from phalanxes to archers, I lost only one city (I'm talking here about very early cities: one of the 4 or 6 firsts) every 4 or 5 games, while in the past, by building phalanxes I lost at least one city per game.
An early city is something I do not like to lose... not to say that if the city is not destroyed but taken, this is a direction in which it is much more difficult to expand: you need to wait for diplos  ... or go and try to retake/destroy the barbarian city with... guess what... with... (no, not with phalanxes ), with... archers!!!... well yes, maybe also with horsemen, you are right  .
Maybe it has something to do with game version, but i think that when I changed my strategy I played already with 2.42 version. Today I have the 2.62 (I wanted to try the scenarii). Maybe I should try again the phalanxes...
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smilo
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Belgium
Jan 1970
time: 05:12
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I usually build one phalanx and fill up with warriors to keep people content. The order in which I build them depends on the given situation, if i need defense quite fqst i first go for a warrior and then a phalanx, if I have time a phalanx comes first. When i started playing civ, about 50000 centuries ago, I only build warriors, but in raging the risk of loosing a city to barbs is just to high. One phalanx does an excellent job in keeping barbs and even other civs at bay (in the starting millenia of course).
Archers, actually I can't recall building one ever, for the same reasons as Ming and Rah pointed out.
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16-09-2000 05:37
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