sorry admstx7, you're not making too much sense
a) I'm going to need the wheel prerequisite and woodchopping upgrades later in the game anyway. I do not need Bronze Shield. Bronze shield is a waste of (a lot of) money (unless Macedonian, and Macedonian doesn't need slingers in bronze). By the time that slow and expensive and useless upgrade is done my CAs or cavalry just run around your slingers and kill your villies. BTW even if Bronze shield was FREE it wouldn't matter. CAs have 9 range. Slingers have 5. Which means my archers can run around the slingers and ignore them, or take them out from a safe distance.
b) CAs are the best villager killer in the bronze age. Period. How the heck are you going to build any units if you lose your villagers? Cavalry appear earlier but have a tendency of losing sight of villagers...not to mention that camel problem. BTW, camels don't do that well against CAs. +4 is barely better than cavalry when you factor in the less hps a camel has. If you see a camel attack a CA run it away from your other raiding CAs while your CAs kill villagers.
c) Obviously you are either playing on some sort of ancient computer, or with zone zombies that have ancient computers, or you play on some sort of tiny map if you think that CA can't be danced effectively. Even in a lag fest it's not hard to dance CA. In fact in a laggy game CAs are even better. They automatically mass their fire unlike stupid hand-to-hand units which waste time chasing 1 CA to death.
d) Bowmen suck in tool age. It's nice for a surprise attack or a resource equalization but the fact is slingers eat them...and slingers come out of a stone age building...not to mention bowmen have a fun time dying to towers, ships...pineapple you can have 17 bowmen in tool age? Great I'll build slingers and laugh. Or I'll go bronze and run around your bows, kill your econ (you're not going to bronze fast with 17 bowmen), and then have fun watching my cavalry slaughter your bowmen. BTW have you ever seen bowmen vs. walls? It's very funny...
e) How long do I have until I get CAs? I'll be building cavalry if I see bowmen and I won't even worry about CAs. Cavalry will slaughter your bowmen 3 or 4 : 1 and then they run to your town and kill your economy too. Once I rid you of bowmen I'll build CAs because cavalry suck as a big army...easily converted, blind, stupid, and have a good counter unit in camels. CAs, on the other hand, are hard to take out en masse in bronze, except with compies. Which brings us to...
f) Composites vs. CAs...Composites research time is even LONGER than CAs, and CAs can kill your villagers during that critical time span. Not only that the composite upgrade costs about 320 food 180 wood...and then you still need to get wheel anyway! Minoan and Macedonian villagers know this situation well.
Now of course if you do manage to research composites their cheap cost is nice...but even then, they are not effective until you make a LOT of them. In smaller numbers CAs, stable units, ST, and ships screw them. So it takes a LONG time before composites become effective, and it's a BIG if regarding whether composites will be effective fast enough.
Don't forget that composites have slow speed so you need to keep a handful at home or else risk losing your villies to raiding cavs or CAs. CAs, on the other hand, are effective in small packs...raid, kill villies, run, repeat.
Also Composites are a lot worse once someone goes Iron. More than a few team games I've played in had a Minoan player filled with composites completely beaten back to his town with Catapults which murder composites. CAs on the other hand continute to be viable in Iron as villager killers, protection for siege, accompanying scythes, etc. They can also dodge cat shots. Try dodging cat shots with composites.
g) Chariots vs. CAs...Dance your CAs. CAs en masse beat Chariots. Not only that but with Chariots you have to get a bunch of expensive upgrades (1st armor, toolworking, metalworking, artisanship, wheel) before they are effective. With CAs I only have to get wheel, artisanship, and leather armor.
[This message has been edited by RomanGladius (edited 01-28-2000).]