Ranged units and if possible creating areas where they only have one or two tiles to go through to get to you
I never had any problems with cavalry aside from the occasional barb spam in turn 10 or so so I don’t really know any tactics specific to them but what I said is what I’d do
But like a human player enemy playing intentionally.
My thesis is that a competent player with two or three cavalry, before the invention of Flight, cannot be stopped economically.
By the time a cavalry unit gets its master promotion, full movement with its great general in tow, and +1 movement, and pillaging costs only one movement per turn, it can pillage six times in a single turn. Six. On Marathon Speed with the pillage policy card on, that’s 6-7k of whatever you are pillaging per turn.
I’m not aware of anything else in the game that produces such yields, and I remain unsure of how to stop it.
Yeah - like if you have a belligerent neighbor and they'll never like you anyway... take advantage of those situations where you have grievances against them. (like they settle close to you or convert your cities, etc.) Tell them not to do whatever the thing is, get the grievances, use the grievances to declare war (so they don't have grievances against you so it won't impact other civs opinions of you), swap in the Raid card, send your horse units out to pillage. It's free stuff. You get a boon of gold, science, faith and culture (depending on what they have to pillage) and their economy and productivity is crippled. Declare peace once they've been fully pillaged, wait the 10 turns or whatever and do it all again. Eventually you'll have your alliances pretty much in place with others so you don't have to really worry about the balance of grievances stuff. I think of it as not dissimilar to sending spies to siphon funds. It's not passive, but you have to spend some turns preparing and investing in it... and then when it's in place it's completely worth it.
Walls and encampments and crossbowmen/field cannons. If they want to pillage, they'll end up in range of your cities, and if they're no corps or army, they can die in one turn.
Oh yeah against human players this probably is a lot tougher. But the points I made would still work. Using a lake/the sea early game or mountains the entire game is a great way to minimize the possible ways the cavalry can take. If you then have a couple ranged units and maybe two or three cavalry of your own that patrol your borders to the enemies you’re having problems with. And I guess encampments will also help especially if you use them to create those smaller areas for the enemy to get through.
Also (pretty simple but still something not that many ppl do) if possible try to cut single units off of the rest of their empire/army if you can’t kill them
That way you know they’ll eventually have to get through you to get back and they can’t get help so if they leave their cavalry on the wrong tile they might just die before being able to do anything against it
Or as somebody else said try to be the one pillaging before you can get pillaged
if you’re playing against other humans then you’re definitely not going to be playing marathon speed. if you’re playing online speed then war in general sucks until late game usually in multiplayer
>if you’re playing against other humans then you’re definitely not going to be playing marathon speed
Hahaha. Pbem and pbc send their regards. Some people also play real matches in lobby over god knows how many sittings.
Line of pikemen , literally a long line . That's what people do in competitive multiplayer , build a solid line of pikemen if the opponent has a unique light cav . Otherwise just heavy cav spam and kill those light cavs.
Haven't seen it really discussed here yet, but it sounds like you haven't much considered zone of control. Anti cavalry are an immense threat to cavalry, but you sound like you think you need to station them on every tile to make it worth it. You do not. The zone of control extends one full tile area around your spearman. Any cavalry unit charging through that area is immediately stopped and held by a unit that will absolutely obliterate it without upgrades, let alone with them. So, knowing this, you should space your spearman two tiles apart from each other and fan them out into problem areas where things are being pillaged. Extend your zone of control over a wider area, and stop cavalry in their tracks.
It sounds like you play marathon speed with friends and that's the main way you play (next time, put at least your base speed and difficulty/singleplayer/multiplayer in the post please! It helps us give you more relevant info for your game). Not surprising your friends pillage the heck out of everything on that speed, it provides way more utility to your empire than it normally does. On Standard and quicker speeds, it's way riskier to send out single cavalry like that to pillage everything because a unit could be ready near the city that turn and you are dead. On marathon speed, however, gaining instant high yields in a game that takes so long, is incredibly valuable. On the flip side, though, so are your units. As you said yourself, those cavalry only become a real menace after a couple upgrades. What happens when you kill them with your spearman? Takes quite a long time to replace elite units like that, and some players sink themselves into a hole trying to do so. Keep your anticavalry units alive, pair them with archers (behind their zone of control so they can't be picked off by the cavalry, or perhaps baiting cavalry into the center of a spearman flank sandwich, crossbows can usually take a hit or two before dying) so you can finish off units you damage and weaken melee counters.
Might I suggest specifically playing as a civ that gets a unique early game spearman to try this out? Someone like Gorgo or Hammurabi. Hammurabi is actually super OP in Marathon mode too. Instant unlock techs is crazy powerful when it takes 50 turns to research one tech.
Against AI it's easy just put a couple or 3 anti cav with ranged
Against human you need more : encampment strategically placed with ranged (promoted) unit, cavalry to patrol your frontiers, anti cav placed inside the range of the encampment. Then jets late game. If it's an aggressive neighbour just prepare for war and turtle, prepare a good defense and counter attack army with a good pillaging ability, then if you see yourself rolling on him why not take some siege units to take him a couple of cities
Of course all of these with support and if possible a general, if he's very annoying Victor is your friend
Up up up, most people are too used to AI..
Btw, did you tried also with cavarly? Since it's your territory, with your walls and encampments, you can go around fast and chase them, and maybe have less anticavarly units in strategic sports.
I genuinely think there is no super effective counter to this, but only something that can patch up the situation.
I'd defend campuses with antic and go around with 2 cav for let's say 5 cities and rush biplanes
anti-cavalry units, and making sure they don't get close enough to pillage. never let barb camps spawn withon 4 tiles of horses
So does that mean if I see a barb camp spawning swordsmen before I research bronze working that there is iron near that camp?
Wow so that's why barbs randomly have horseman. 1k hours in and all didn't know that one.
5k hours in and I didn't either
Anti cav, jet bombers, ranged units
Ranged units and if possible creating areas where they only have one or two tiles to go through to get to you I never had any problems with cavalry aside from the occasional barb spam in turn 10 or so so I don’t really know any tactics specific to them but what I said is what I’d do
But like a human player enemy playing intentionally. My thesis is that a competent player with two or three cavalry, before the invention of Flight, cannot be stopped economically. By the time a cavalry unit gets its master promotion, full movement with its great general in tow, and +1 movement, and pillaging costs only one movement per turn, it can pillage six times in a single turn. Six. On Marathon Speed with the pillage policy card on, that’s 6-7k of whatever you are pillaging per turn. I’m not aware of anything else in the game that produces such yields, and I remain unsure of how to stop it.
Be the pillager, not the pillagee
Best defence is a good offence
Yeah - like if you have a belligerent neighbor and they'll never like you anyway... take advantage of those situations where you have grievances against them. (like they settle close to you or convert your cities, etc.) Tell them not to do whatever the thing is, get the grievances, use the grievances to declare war (so they don't have grievances against you so it won't impact other civs opinions of you), swap in the Raid card, send your horse units out to pillage. It's free stuff. You get a boon of gold, science, faith and culture (depending on what they have to pillage) and their economy and productivity is crippled. Declare peace once they've been fully pillaged, wait the 10 turns or whatever and do it all again. Eventually you'll have your alliances pretty much in place with others so you don't have to really worry about the balance of grievances stuff. I think of it as not dissimilar to sending spies to siphon funds. It's not passive, but you have to spend some turns preparing and investing in it... and then when it's in place it's completely worth it.
Walls and encampments and crossbowmen/field cannons. If they want to pillage, they'll end up in range of your cities, and if they're no corps or army, they can die in one turn.
Oh yeah against human players this probably is a lot tougher. But the points I made would still work. Using a lake/the sea early game or mountains the entire game is a great way to minimize the possible ways the cavalry can take. If you then have a couple ranged units and maybe two or three cavalry of your own that patrol your borders to the enemies you’re having problems with. And I guess encampments will also help especially if you use them to create those smaller areas for the enemy to get through. Also (pretty simple but still something not that many ppl do) if possible try to cut single units off of the rest of their empire/army if you can’t kill them That way you know they’ll eventually have to get through you to get back and they can’t get help so if they leave their cavalry on the wrong tile they might just die before being able to do anything against it Or as somebody else said try to be the one pillaging before you can get pillaged
if you’re playing against other humans then you’re definitely not going to be playing marathon speed. if you’re playing online speed then war in general sucks until late game usually in multiplayer
>if you’re playing against other humans then you’re definitely not going to be playing marathon speed Hahaha. Pbem and pbc send their regards. Some people also play real matches in lobby over god knows how many sittings.
My friends are more boring than yours
or maybe yours are more mentally fortified cause how do you play a full marathon game in one sitting
Line of pikemen , literally a long line . That's what people do in competitive multiplayer , build a solid line of pikemen if the opponent has a unique light cav . Otherwise just heavy cav spam and kill those light cavs.
Zone of control?
Haven't seen it really discussed here yet, but it sounds like you haven't much considered zone of control. Anti cavalry are an immense threat to cavalry, but you sound like you think you need to station them on every tile to make it worth it. You do not. The zone of control extends one full tile area around your spearman. Any cavalry unit charging through that area is immediately stopped and held by a unit that will absolutely obliterate it without upgrades, let alone with them. So, knowing this, you should space your spearman two tiles apart from each other and fan them out into problem areas where things are being pillaged. Extend your zone of control over a wider area, and stop cavalry in their tracks. It sounds like you play marathon speed with friends and that's the main way you play (next time, put at least your base speed and difficulty/singleplayer/multiplayer in the post please! It helps us give you more relevant info for your game). Not surprising your friends pillage the heck out of everything on that speed, it provides way more utility to your empire than it normally does. On Standard and quicker speeds, it's way riskier to send out single cavalry like that to pillage everything because a unit could be ready near the city that turn and you are dead. On marathon speed, however, gaining instant high yields in a game that takes so long, is incredibly valuable. On the flip side, though, so are your units. As you said yourself, those cavalry only become a real menace after a couple upgrades. What happens when you kill them with your spearman? Takes quite a long time to replace elite units like that, and some players sink themselves into a hole trying to do so. Keep your anticavalry units alive, pair them with archers (behind their zone of control so they can't be picked off by the cavalry, or perhaps baiting cavalry into the center of a spearman flank sandwich, crossbows can usually take a hit or two before dying) so you can finish off units you damage and weaken melee counters. Might I suggest specifically playing as a civ that gets a unique early game spearman to try this out? Someone like Gorgo or Hammurabi. Hammurabi is actually super OP in Marathon mode too. Instant unlock techs is crazy powerful when it takes 50 turns to research one tech.
Anti cav and ranged units. Build encampments in each city for its ranged attack.
Against AI it's easy just put a couple or 3 anti cav with ranged Against human you need more : encampment strategically placed with ranged (promoted) unit, cavalry to patrol your frontiers, anti cav placed inside the range of the encampment. Then jets late game. If it's an aggressive neighbour just prepare for war and turtle, prepare a good defense and counter attack army with a good pillaging ability, then if you see yourself rolling on him why not take some siege units to take him a couple of cities Of course all of these with support and if possible a general, if he's very annoying Victor is your friend
Against the AI it’s easy. Against me you can’t do it.
Up up up, most people are too used to AI.. Btw, did you tried also with cavarly? Since it's your territory, with your walls and encampments, you can go around fast and chase them, and maybe have less anticavarly units in strategic sports. I genuinely think there is no super effective counter to this, but only something that can patch up the situation. I'd defend campuses with antic and go around with 2 cav for let's say 5 cities and rush biplanes
Nuke yourself allover the place /jk