If the other guy is faster...

[carjm]

I know there are a number of discussions on here about rushers and I have tried to look for some for advice but have found myself still wanting to hear your take on this.

How would you guys deal with a rusher that does not come right for you but rather just uses their early advantage to dominate the map. I have had a good deal of practice with the British and my brother knows that he isn't going to take me early (usually) and he also can't allow me to make it to modern.
He had been going Greek on me and racing me to Oxford - this almost always goes to one of us right before the other so the games are fairly tied in getting there and in who wins.

I guess to mix things up a bit he went Aztec the past few games and has been playing them very aggressive - as he should. He know I have two archers in my cities and can rush the third if needed so he almost never attacks but instead he hunts my warriors and dominates the AI. In our past few games I have found myself hurting to hit 100G and by 2500 he's sitting with two or three caps and starting to expand like crazy.

I know I could switch up my civ of choice and go aggressive on him early on with the Arabs forcing him to worry about defense, but if I decide to stay with the Brits then how would you deal with this tactic change from him. I know that this is all highly dependent on the game at hand so I am really kind of interested in hearing how some of you would react to this situation. We all want to get the Caps and barbs and artifacts but when your playing against someone you know is of equal ability and they get these things before you then how does it impact your game plan.

Example - at 2500 he had 2 caps, 2 HA within striking distance, and the artifacts gave him 2 GP's and the Pyramids. My map was decent and I wasn't being engaged but none-the-less I was behind.
We were not able to keep playing but it is safe to say those HA were there to press and grab my settlers and he was about to go into full expansion.

In a situation like this what would you do?

[elthrasher]

The answer for playing from behind is usually legions. They aren't always a great solution against Aztecs, but if it's all you have, it's all you have. Sometimes the best play is to roll the dice on a 6v6 battle.

England has a few advantages here. You can cover your legions and any gains you make with longbow archers. Nice. You have a good shot at a GL. A GB is even better because then you can get the Samurai Castle. Or you could get a GS and have knights. GA=give him a city and then have his horse army. In any case, stay in ancient to keep your gold rush costs down.

I would say give legions a try a few times. Just go Bronze Working->Iron Working. Don't bother with expensive horsemen. Legions are nice because they cost half as much. Now you can start pushing him back. If he leaves his horsemen where they are, you can strike with legions. Your legions are covered by longbows so if he attacks, he either dies to your longbows or gets killed by the legion counter.

You may not win any cities this way, but if you can claim some more territory, you might give yourself a fighting chance. Trading a few legion armies for horse armies is great since legions cost half as much (and typically the first one is free).

Make no mistake, the Aztecs are a top civ in H2H. We have banned them from most of our tournaments for precisely that reason. The English are good, but you are pretty much always playing from behind. Push him back. Try to kill some armies. Get some dye cities and then figure out how you're going to win it. Usually this either means knights or cruiser fleets in modern.

Also, make your start as aggressive as possible. Move your settler and try to either find a dye/tree spot or a walk-in on an AI capital. I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but all things being equal, the Aztecs will have a better start every time so you need to make up for lost ground immediately. If you have a good start (lots of gold, dye or an early cap), you may want to build horsemen instead of rushing for legions, but just be very careful with them. It's a big investment.

[carjm]

That makes a lot of sense, thanks for the advice. To be honest I have always kind of stayed away from legions as I tend to focus on growth and exploring early on.

I have tried a few times to walk with London and have had mixed results (got an arab walk-in last week then went to fundy horses right away). I still need to practice my walking but have gotten considerably better at it over the past few weeks.
As a side note I had never walked for dye as I thought this was risky but I do walk to get close to the AI as even if I don't take them right away my culture usually hurts them.

I tech and grow well, I am usually at around 6 - 8 cities by 0AD depending on the game and can definitely get a few legions in on top of that with out hurting my pace. I'd like to grow faster but on a personal note I just feel better having the two archers per city over one.
I don't mind spelling this out for you because after hundreds of games my brother knows me better than I do, and I him. We usually talk for awhile after games giving each other our opinion on how the other did.

I know that your tech path influences your GP's, or at least I think it does, how about the buildings and units your producing? If I am working on a barracks that early in the game will it help in my odds of getting a GL?
Would you use your legions as just a counter force or actually go on the offensive with them? If I can get that GL then legions with march would be nice otherwise don't you think they're to slow?

[ScottieX]

I know that your tech path influences your GP's, or at least I think it does, how about the buildings and units your producing? If I am working on a barracks that early in the game will it help in my odds of getting a GL?
Would you use your legions as just a counter force or actually go on the offensive with them? If I can get that GL then legions with march would be nice otherwise don't you think they're to slow?

I dont think what your cities build matters. But if you discover anything tell me

GL are hard to target because they are not the most likely outcome in almost any tech combination. but the associated tech are IW and monarchy and they need to be acessible (ie you have a preq for them). That is a problem because you will want to have iw at that stage but if you do you will expose some very high techs with GS and GB asociated with them instead of GL...

You can also try teching nothing like i did with the french but er - surviving to your 1st GP wih no tech?

[elthrasher]

I just feel better having the two archers per city over one.

This is very inefficient. Let's say you have 8 cities, since you say you might have that many by 0 AD (this is a little low for some games, but might be enough if you have dye). You are spending 160 hammers on archers. I would instead just put a single archer in vulnerable cities and put two legion armies nearby. Leave the other cities empty! So maybe something like four archers and six legions = 100 hammers. Net gain of 60 hammers, which is enough for three settlers. The ROI on settlers is absolutely insane in this game.

The key is to use an active defense instead of a passive defense. Use scouts to track your enemy and use counters to kill attacking armies. It's not that uncommon for me to lose cities here and there with this strategy, but what I gain from going light on defenses more than makes up for what I lose.

I know that your tech path influences your GP's, or at least I think it does, how about the buildings and units your producing? If I am working on a barracks that early in the game will it help in my odds of getting a GL?
Would you use your legions as just a counter force or actually go on the offensive with them? If I can get that GL then legions with march would be nice otherwise don't you think they're to slow?

I don't really know if buildings influence your GP since I so rarely have buildings anyway. Supposedly Monarchy + Iron Working is the key for a GL, but I'm not an expert on influencing GP. As for legions being too slow, they are sometimes too slow for going on the attack, but they are fine for defending. You need to track your enemy's movements and position your forces accordingly. You can use roads. If you are having a tough time defending, you should try to keep your cities close together. Maybe your opponent takes a city on the edge, then his armies run smack into your legions. You kill them and then you can try to take your city back.

I build legions almost as matter of course these days. What I often do is just pick a city with 3 trees around it to constantly build legions. I generally build 2-4 of them to start, then set production to a barracks. If the barracks finishes before anything bad happens, I can form up vet armies. Otherwise, I can convert all production to legions and try using non-vet armies.

[carjm]

I am going to try and incorporate the legion defense into my early game plan, I would like to drop the amount to archers I build as you suggested but am just uneasy with doing so.
I am pretty good at expanding and tech and even with losing the extra archers I'm just not sure I can get any additional settlers out by 0. I know 6 - 8 sounds lower than some of the top players are used to but our games are kind of unique in that we really know how to engage each other.
There are a lot of games between us where we are both only at 6 cities by then because we have been interacting and pressing a lot.

My goal for the week is to play through to my first GP a bunch of times on a BW -> IW path and see when the results look like. If odds on a GL are decent then I will look forward to using legions as an offensive weapon as well.
I will let you all know what the results are if interested.

[elthrasher]

If you are fighting a lot in the early game, a lower city count is not just normal, it's probably advisable. I've been on both ends of the overexpanding game. One guy busts through with a couple horse armies and takes two cities per turn. It's not pretty.

Yeah, please share whatever you learn.

[HydroDragon]

As a side note I had never walked for dye as I thought this was risky but I do walk to get close to the AI as even if I don't take them right away my culture usually hurts them.

I think you misunderstood the point here. Dye is just an extra incentive to walk. You're looking for gold and an A.I capital, but a Dye spot is a nice second prize. Horseback Riding in 3 turns, and assuming you have one tree then you're in a nice position for early aggression.

[elthrasher]

I think you misunderstood the point here. Dye is just an extra incentive to walk. You're looking for gold and an A.I capital, but a Dye spot is a nice second prize. Horseback Riding in 3 turns, and assuming you have one tree then you're in a nice position for early aggression.

Right. I usually take a tech in 4 turns and bank hammers on a tree. The only way I wouldn't is if I somehow had a huge pile of gold.

If you go all tech, then you get HBR in 3 turns with 1 gold overflow. Next turn you can earn 2 hammers and 5 gold so basically you have the tech and 5 hammers after 4 turns. You can rush a horse now for 30 gold (not counting the 6 gold you've earned as I've already converted it to hammers).

Working one dye and one tree, you get the tech in 4 turns with no overflow but you have 8 hammers banked. You can rush a horse for 24 gold. Also you can turn the banked hammers into a warrior or even decline to choose your tech right away for a quick longbow archer if necessary.

Nothing worse than a warrior next to your empty cap when you're at 1 gold with no stored production but 14/20 on a tech. Well, let's see. If I can meet an AI before the next turn and it has 20 gold, I could finish this tech, sell it for 20 gold and rush a warrior, hopefully all before my opponent declares war and walks in. Good luck!

[carjm]

That is very interesting! Do you always split your workers like that or would it just be in the case of dye? In the early game I am always dedicated to one thing in the city, if beaker then all beaker, same for tree. Until I grow obviously.
I think I'm answering my own question here - it has to be split only if there is a resource (i.e. Spanish whale) right?

Also just to be clear I think you are talking about walking for 2 or 3 turns to pick up gold then rush/build 2 warriors for barbs and map before banking beakers for BW or HBR as needed.
Am I wrong, you wouldn't do this right out of the gate right? Seems to slow right out of the gate without dye. Even with dye probably.

I used to go 2 warriors then hit science or food, but because my brother is so aggressive with the map/barbs I find that I need to go to 4 or even 5 warriors just to stay in it.
They are useful as lookouts later but do you think this is to much? I realize that game situations may affect this but in general?

If you don't get the galley from a barb do you ever buy it? I know it's expensive but with us in H2H I really hate giving him access to the water uncontested - I play every game assuming he's got a boat out early because he usually does.

[HydroDragon]

Heh, you're right of course. I simplified it too much, but yeah, it's a very decent start if you picked up some gold on the way.

[Chug E]

It depends on what strategy you think you are going to take. If I'm definitely going HBR (and I usually do), then I'm probably only going to rush a W or two. A lot of the time, I'll do two W's, in case the first one gets a Tech from a barb instead of gold. This way, I'll have more barbs for my H's to eventually upgrade to veteran. Depending on the map, I usually sell those two W's. My initial reason for producing H's and HA's is to find as much gold on the map as possible, as quickly as possible (2 square moves vs. 1 w/ a W). This also usually ends up getting an AI cap or two. My 2nd most important reason for going HBR is to try and dictate where I can expand and my opponent can expand on the map. I want to relegate them to as little of the map as possible and if my HA is roaming around, your opponent isn't going to want to risk expanding in that area. I'm assuming this is what your brother does to you w/ his HA's. Along the way you may be able to snag a couple free settlers, etc.

To answer your question tho, 5 W's to explore, etc in the beginning of the game isn't too much if you're not planning on using HBR (altho I try to limit them only to necessity). If you build two W's and 3 H's to form a HA, that is 5 units. 5 W's to explore is also 5 units, so it's not overkill. On the other hand, I would never build 5 W's if I'm planning on producing some H's (unless I had to, to take an AI cap early).

As far as a galley early. If a barb gives me one, a lot of the time I sell it. If there is an artifact around, of course I'll use it for that. The only time I buy/build a galley early is if I know it's going to benefit me. Whether it be to get some early island cities so I can continue to explore w/ my galley or an artifact, galley drop, attack strat, etc. I usually won't blindly buy or build a galley early. Of course, sometimes it can bite you in the arse (7cog hiding in the fog and no barbarians nice enough to show me).

I hope this helps.

[carjm]

Okay I played through 10 games with the English, walking my settler for practice and then putting out a warrior and teching BW -> IW to see how this influenced my GP turnout.

7 games my walk went very good ending with money and dye or fish (though in 2 of these I walked way to long, maybe 6 or 7 turns)
3 games my walk was a total bust and I was worse off

I think (or thought) that your GP was influenced by the last tech you researched so I stopped teching after IW. I selected a new tech but after a turn I went to all gold so I would not finish it. Each game I picked a different new tech to research, A few games I did not pick a tech at all and banker beakers.
Am I wrong in my assumption about tech/GP? Is it the tech you are currently researching that decides? I know that it is just a percentage and you can always get any of the GP's, is it maybe that each tech you have adds to the percentage of the GP it leans towards?

Maybe I'm over thinking this.

Any way my results after 10 games were 6 GS, 2 GB, 1 GA, 1 GE
No leader. Crap. Looks like my legions will have to earn their keep after all.

[elthrasher]

Grayson once wrote a strategy in which he recommended finishing Iron Working the turn before your GP appears. He said that nearly always gave him a GL. I've never tried it.

I do think GP influencing has the potential to be a strong strategy, but I've always felt like there was a random element there so I've never worked very hard at it. I know folks used to say that you could get a GB every time as France by researching only Masonry. There's a dubious at best strategy right there already (running around trying to rule the world with just Pottery and Masonry), but when I gave it a whirl in a ranked game, I ended up with an explorer.

[Legatus]

I thought a while a poster (I think it was TyShine) who tried to figure out how the GP's were determined, and after a lot of work couldn't figure it out reliably.

My guess it's like battle odds, in that it's something we'll never be able to completely figure out.

FWIW, I usually end up getting the Great Leader when I'm England when bronze working is the only tech that I have.

[carjm]

I am going to test both of these variants tonight and I will let you all know if either results in a GL.
Honestly I could see either one paying out so I'm pretty excited to get home and give them a go.

[ScottieX]

Any way my results after 10 games were 6 GS, 2 GB, 1 GA, 1 GE
No leader. Crap. Looks like my legions will have to earn their keep after all.

you have it wrong

IW exposes the techs like metalurgy - and so you get GS/GB
you want bronze and cerimonial burial. it might help to point your tech at IW and monarchy but maybe not. maybe graysons effect came completing it the same turn as you get the GP (so he could avoid the boost to the GB/GS probability).

anyway legatus is right about BW. But BW also exposes GE with greater probability... hence my point about it being hard. writing is your best bet i think - more on path than just bw alone.

I think the logic here was primarily that the programmers wanted th GP to appear at the right times in the tech tree,

so concept is about discovering a great GP at the point prior to where you have mastered the thing he was exceptional at ie if james watt is responsible for steam engines being sucessful you need him to exist prior to sucessful steam engines. and once you have steam engines you want the next tech gp gp to be more likely than ancient gp.

[carjm]

Aaaarrrrrgghhh my head is about explode! Scottie would you mind going through that last paragraph again? I feel like it's about to click.. almost got it...

Is there a thread on GP influencing out there?
Have all the members here tried to perfect influencing the GP result with no luck? It would be huge if this could be done reliably.

today's games -
I tried just getting BW a few times with mixed results but mostly a GA
I tried getting no tech at all with also a GA

I'm guessing that result is because I have monarchy?

I tried a bunch of games where I timed it to discover IW the same turn I get the GP
This gave me a GL once then a few GA's, a GB, and 2 GH's

Actually, now that I think about it the games that gave me the GH's I had picked up pottery before IW.
To be completely honest I'm not sure what every tech would actually lean towards, I can make educated guesses but that's all they'd be.

My next match against my brother is set for tomorrow morning and I am positive that I will be up against his Aztec horses very early on.
Let's hope this week's practice with the legions pays off!

If I can survive past the initial rush then he's all mine and after the manhandling he gave me last Sunday my Royal Navy will show no mercy.

[ScottieX]

I'm guessing that result is because I have monarchy? .

yes monarchy is a high tech and that exposes even higher tech. so it wil mae it hard to get lowly gp like the IW one. with monarchy you expose religion and feudalism -> GA/GH with 150 and 140 tickets respectively. IW is only getting you 30 tickets. in the gb game i guess you got pottery or even more likely if you got masonary.

[ScottieX]

Aaaarrrrrgghhh my head is about explode! Scottie would you mind going through that last paragraph again? I feel like it's about to click.. almost got it...

Programmers arent out to make the game more complex than they need to - the main thing they wanted was to make sure that
homer didnt come in 2000AD and henry ford didnt come in 2000BC. So they attach them to tech, they want the GP to arive just before the associated tech and not totally out of synch with the eras, so they give you him when the tech is unlocked (look on the tech tree to see what you have acess to reserch - you can see the programmers had this available to them as a tool) and weighted it towards the high value techs if they are released

anyway you start off with monarchy 150 chances of GA (religion) 140 chances of GH (feudalism) 20 chances each of alphabet bronze hbr pottery (although pre tech appears to be funny and can result in you getting other GP - but i don't know if that is fair play...)
then if you tech bronze you unlock the related tech IW (30 chances) and currency (80 chances).

It may be that it is slightly more complex and iw is 30 and religion is 150 but feud is 70 and currency is 40 (monarchy and bronze both being only 1 out of 2 preqs)

also FWIW i dont think how the tickets (chances) are arranged is totally random... ie playing a singe player game and playing it exactly the same, and the a playing the same will give you the same GP. There may be some predictability to this that could be used.

[Kadera]

anyway you start off with monarchy 150 chances of GA (religion) 140 chances of GH (feudalism) 20 chances each of alphabet bronze hbr pottery

Where are 120 chances of GL (monarchy)? Also Arabs should have 190/620 chances of GA and 390/620 chances of GH, right?

[carjm]

Do you think it is then a random selection based on a total pool of all tickets, so higher tickets to one GP would increase the odds of that GP. Or do you think that it could be as simple as highest ticket count wins?

[HydroDragon]

To be honest with you, I don't think this is worth pursuing.

There's too much randomness involved. Scottie specializes in GOTW where he can repeat things over and over until he gets the desired result. You don't have luxury in multiplayer.

If you can find a reliable, consistent pattern, then that's great. Until then, I wouldn't try basing your whole strategy around this.

If your whole game hinges on getting the right GP then you should be trying to improve other areas of your game so you're not relying on luck so much.

[ScottieX]

In terms of a GL hydro is right, to a large extent in terms of all the GP - you will just lose too much putting your tech in an odd state in order to get a certain result. it is like teching nothing in order to get a certain result.

[ScottieX]

its possible that cuture/gold or otehr milestones effect it a bit by throwing extra tickets i the ring - or somthing ike that - although I would think the programmers wouldnt want to expend the extra effort unless it gave a better result in some obvious way.

Also within this there appears to be a pattern see for reference HGB's post on french gp strategy.

so you might have a 50% change of a GB at soem point - but if you did exactly the same in the leadup to getting the GP you can greatly increase the chance of getting the same GP. So a very standard passive opening with the french gets you GB almost every game. In the same way if you know you arent in the right rythem to get the gp you want yu could seed tweak to try and mix it up (ie flick the seed by atacking a hut first - although Im only speculating that that wil help).

[elthrasher]

Zso_Zso had a thread exploring this topic. You guys should dig that up.

[Kadera]

Zso_Zso's thread was with no success. But ScottieX knows probability, you can calculate probabilty only if you know all rules. Also as France (+masonry) he has 99% (90?) chances of GB (while i have 25-30%).

Scottie specializes in GOTW where he can repeat things over and over until he gets the desired result.

No one do it. Expand for 1 hour (to 30 cities) and restart? ScottieX has 2GB every game without seed tweaking (seed tweaking is good for first few minutes = 0% chances of GP).

[ScottieX]

No one do it. Expand for 1 hour (to 30 cities) and restart? ScottieX has 2GB every game without seed tweaking (seed tweaking is good for first few minutes = 0% chances of GP).

my legend is growing, soon I'll be able to tech to bombers in 18 turns every game..

[HydroDragon]

No one do it. Expand for 1 hour (to 30 cities) and restart? ScottieX has 2GB every game without seed tweaking (seed tweaking is good for first few minutes = 0% chances of GP).

Is it not dumb luck though? If I did the same moves as him I would get the same result, no 'method' involved.

Whether he can really 'produce' the right GP out of thin air or just stumbled onto the right sequence is up for debate I think.

Regardless, my point was that this isn't applicable in multiplayer. Even if you did follow some routine and get the right GP how would you know it wasn't just dumb luck? That's my point.

[Pedal2Metal]

The answer for playing from behind is usually legions. They aren't always a great solution against Aztecs, but if it's all you have, it's all you have. Sometimes the best play is to roll the dice on a 6v6 battle.
.

Good stuff from Thrasher. I'll add that if you want to really use legions effectively, use the Germans. They can be absolutely brutal, can essentially become horsemen w/march upgrade & with the additional bonus that most people won't expect it from Germany & the strike can be very fast (sometimes before 2500 BC). Also they are rarely excluded from tournaments so becoming comfortable with them can give you a "sleeper" civ to strike hard with.

To second Hydro's comments, seed-tweaking in MP is a waste of time. I played GOTW until I got ill & used to do that crap. Eventually I got a 2900 BC win in Deity but no way can you do that in MP. Some patterns are helpful (Masonry for GB, etc...) but nothing is with absolute certainty so a strategy depending on GP acquired is not a good strategy. Better to think of GP as a "bonus", rather than have a strategic dependency.

best regards,
Pedal2Metal

[ScottieX]

Do you think it is then a random selection based on a total pool of all tickets, so higher tickets to one GP would increase the odds of that GP. Or do you think that it could be as simple as highest ticket count wins?

non random selection based on the pool of tickets.
you can and do get GP that have less tickets at times. rarely you even get a GP like the HBR gp instead of the construction one or whatever.

having teched a certain tech jsut before the GP comes up MAY matter as your tikets might be 'first" in the pool in some sense but im not sure how that would work - someone like ffgtr might be able to explain if that makes sense from a coding point of view.

[carjm]

agreed, I would never build a strategy around needing a specific GP. the discussing came about from Thrashers suggestion that I look to legions to defend against my brother's Aztec horse rush.
I mentioned that I thought legions were to slow to go on the offensive with them unless they had march, this led to the discussion.

Though now that I take a step back and think about it, if you could estimate with regular success as to what GP you would get if you followed a specific tech path would you use that in game or would it not be worth it to change your normal tech path, be it CoL or Oxford or whatever?

[TyShine]

Madjinn came up with a four city knights in ancient approach thats effective.

I havent read all the posts, but I noticed you said he doesnt attack your cities because of perceived defense. Use this to your advantage by having less defense in them, or none if he cant see your cities.

Aztecs are a better h2h civ so make every turn count.

[Star428]

This is very inefficient. Let's say you have 8 cities, since you say you might have that many by 0 AD (this is a little low for some games, but might be enough if you have dye). You are spending 160 hammers on archers. I would instead just put a single archer in vulnerable cities and put two legion armies nearby. Leave the other cities empty! So maybe something like four archers and six legions = 100 hammers. Net gain of 60 hammers, which is enough for three settlers. The ROI on settlers is absolutely insane in this game.

The key is to use an active defense instead of a passive defense. Use scouts to track your enemy and use counters to kill attacking armies. It's not that uncommon for me to lose cities here and there with this strategy, but what I gain from going light on defenses more than makes up for what I lose.

Do you play like that regardless of what CIV you're playing against? Would you play like that against the Spanish? When i'm playing against them i'm afraid to leave my coastal cities empty for more than a turn or two.

[elthrasher]

Do you play like that regardless of what CIV you're playing against? Would you play like that against the Spanish? When i'm playing against them i'm afraid to leave my coastal cities empty for more than a turn or two.

Against the Spanish, any coastal city could be considered vulnerable and is a candidate for a defender. Whether or not it actually gets one is dependent on quite a lot of things. If I feel like I'm behind, I might need to take more risks. If I have no techs he doesn't have and not much gold but the ability to retake cities easily, then why bother with defenders? It's just more xp for my armies. Probably the biggest one is if I can estimate where he'll come from, I can lightly defend the city he should find first and leave the rest empty, then just watch to see if he passes that first one by. The key is to not just blindly build archers you will never need. You need to anticipate what units you'll need and where and not waste a bunch of hammers. "Better to be safe than sorry" doesn't apply here.

[loading...]

I am often finding myself losing coastal citys to the spanish but then taking them back within two turns with one of my roaming march upgrade legion (germany) or a HA is this better then spending some hammers building archers or is this worse?

[elthrasher]

I am often finding myself losing coastal citys to the spanish but then taking them back within two turns with one of my roaming march upgrade legion (germany) or a HA is this better then spending some hammers building archers or is this worse?

It's never bad to have an archer sitting there stopping a drop-in that would actually happen if not for the archer. The question is whether it's worse to build archers you never need or to lose the use of a city for a turn or two. The answer depends on how many archers. In general, provided you are able to get the city back, I wouldn't think this would slow you down too much.

I'd go for an archer in the more remote cities and leave the nearby easily-recovered ones empty. Of course, if you know the drop-in is coming, you may consider putting units in your cities.

[loading...]

usually my brother comes in heavy with a horse army and takes my one archer ( usually none) and then always doesnt bring a defensive unit with him so I beat out his HA but he has a habit of popping up where i didnt even know where he came from

[elthrasher]

usually my brother comes in heavy with a horse army and takes my one archer ( usually none) and then always doesnt bring a defensive unit with him so I beat out his HA but he has a habit of popping up where i didnt even know where he came from

If you kill his horse army, that's great. Those things don't grow on trees! Who cares if he steals your knowledge of Pottery and 11 gold?

[Pedal2Metal]

If you kill his horse army, that's great. Those things don't grow on trees!

Yes they do! We've learned recently that 6 HA by 2800 BC is easy with just a little map knowledge!

Ok, back on topic...
As TyShine mentioned, English can put together a reasonably quick KA in Ancient if you get enough gold & 3-4 cities w/at least 2 Dye. Non-vet KA + longbow is plenty good to take out HA. They can get vet w/attacks, barbs. Once they are 18 attack, now you force Aztecs to rush archers. While pressing w/KA, you can tech to CoL. Once you've successfully burned up all his gold & killed his HA, you can sell KA for expansion but only after running away so he thinks it's still roaming his lands so now he builds a galley and/or more HA. The bottom line: You have to put the Aztecs on their heels. It's tough but it's doable.

best regards,
Pedal2Metal