Civilization VI Tips: Early War

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Early aggression in Civilization VI can set you apart from the competition at a very early point in the game! It can provide you with a lot more land and control of your opponents. In this video, I cover the basics of early war, including units, zone of control, seiging, and loyalty!
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-The Saxy Gamer

[@arja2317]

top tip for early war, be the Aztecs.

[@DexRei]

Those early slave builders are great for your newly conquered cities

[@dracma127]

@@BuildinWings True, Gilgabro's warcarts are some of the most terrifying things to face against in Ancient era. However, I'd argue Aztecs will still have the edge. First is that Aztecs absolutely rely on an early war, while Sumeria may be encouraged to instead focus on their ziggurats for an early tech advantage. In addition, Aztecs have a strong bonus to their production, considering how Agoge is a full civic ahead of Maneuvering. Even if Sumeria ignores ziggurats and spammed warcarts, Aztecs are more likely to reach a numerical advantage.

[@ben69028]

@@dracma127 " press x to doubt" X D o u b t

[@tim_the_gr8_904]

Vernon Gibbs Lets not forget aztecs get bonuses in combat for each luxury resource. Shit can get a bit op haha.

[@ozanavar3460]

aR Ja >My first civ6 game >I was playing as Tomyris >Montezuma was my closest neigbour >He settled a city right between my triangle formation >I spammed Saka Horse archers (built like 5 of em, which doubled to 10) >got wiped out in less than 10 turns >He had like 12 of those Eagle Warriors

[@luismendoza759]

I have +100 on this game and today I discovered that putting a city under siege is a thing

[@benandrews77]

ditto

[@dirkverwaest3851]

Tritto

[@guydives1246]

@@dirkverwaest3851 quitto

[@poopypantsbiden8163]

Sexto

[@sheffield89bs]

farto

[@martinvranovsky7085]

Decide during the first 10 turns? It usually takes me 10-15 just to MEET my next-door neighbour :D

[@rfahlsing]

I know on the first turn that I'm going to way with my nearest neighbor. I just don't know who it is yet. For every city you take you have to build one less settler. This production can be used to build more units to take more cities. Rinse and repeat. And don't waste a warmonger-free war to just peace out too early. Fight until you have every city in their civilization.

[@michaelm.1947]

@@rfahlsing I leave them with the weakest city, so don't take the rep penalty for eliminating a civ. Leave them with the small (or appropriately sandwiched) city which will then usually flip and join anyways. They civ dies "naturally" and I get the city without "killing" them.

[@nateab1994]

Their cities can flip and join your empire? That’s news to me 😮

[@Omegeddon]

@@nateab1994 your cities exert loyalty pressure to nearby tiles so a nearby enemy city that runs out of loyalty will flip to a free City then if it isn't taken by war eventually caves to your loyalty pressure and joins u

[@bobjohnson5557]

@@Omegeddon Even more things I never knew about this game. Great bit of info.

[@ScytheNoire]

Oh great, now that city is too close. And that one. And that one too. Guess I gotta go fight them all.

[@TheAlexcassun]

That's been my strategy since about Civ II.

[@josephzanes7334]

Its like POKEMON!

[@jontyhorton4815]

*settles next to city* you sir settled to close time to die

[@dylan3625]

the difficulty in this game makles me question if any president has ever had any understanding of what they are doing

[@user-ij2tb4mb4r]

Kek

[@chrisredfield6274]

And the answer is likely, no. Well except Teddy and Dwight D Eisenhower

[@metalsasquatch3410]

“Also my trader has nowhere to go”...I lol’d

[@jg-reis]

Best excuse for war ever! 'I wanted to have internal trade. Then I realized I only had one city, so... excuse me, Scotland...'

[@Madmuli]

Nice video! I would like to expand on the topic of unit experience: *Waiting for your unit to drop more health before promoting has an additional downside - it can't get additional XP until you promote it! *Capturing a city (delivering the final 'blow') gives the unit a significant XP boost (at least double the amount), and since units cannot get more XP than up to their next level, you should always try to capture with units that need quite some XP, instead of units that are very near their next promotion. These are - in the grand scheme of things - minor considerations, but I always try to optimize XP gain, since units with several promotions can be significantly more powerful than newbies

[@TimorBlindsideBreakdown]

good advice! I wasn't aware of the XP boost when capturing cities

[@TheSpoonyluvin]

Thank you for the tip :) I didn't know about that either.

[@rollercoaster478]

just one of those things, I dont understand why it was changed from Civ 5, where XP carried over to the next level and you could earn more XP while saving the promotion for later.

[@SomewhatSwedish]

@@rollercoaster478 As of now, the units do get XP even though it doesn't show on the bar or pop up on screen. But if you gain xp then promote, you'll see that it has carried over.

[@robertillnevertell1507]

I haven't played in years and forgot that archers don't capture lol but remembered after 5 turns lol but those archers both got the attack 2 times in one turn and were God like later in the game. Lol So I farm a city state or barbarian forts purposely not capture right away. You'll get 6 xp every turn lol

[@vitalijusmotikas4186]

On a higher difficulty one should always think of early war... As we know, sometimes AI sends unptotected settler :)

[@Chloe-vl6yp]

You know what, I have literally doomed those civs who were stupid enough to send unprotected settlers… Well, I just wanted to take the settlers originally, but then ended up with finishing another civ 😂 oops…

[@odinmatanguihan5086]

that's actually more than half the time back in vanilla. I observe that it has to do with certain civs. Saladin is guaranteed to leave his settler unprotected, harold almost always escorts his settler. And I always do war on first sight in deity, or at least as soon as I see a vulnerable settler, even if my army consists of only one warrior.

[@odinmatanguihan5086]

@@Chloe-vl6yp they have 2 free settlers in deity level, in addition to the first one. If you move fast, you can get one of those. And they build the fourth one rather quick. It really is pointless to build more than one settler. The cost of 1 settler quickly becomes more than the cost of four warriors, so it's better to build four warriors and send them looking for settlers to steal. Sometimes I'd setup a warrior and a couple of archers where I expect them to settle, and leave that spot unsettled so they send more settlers.

[@EstrellaViajeViajero]

You have to keep a capital - you can't raze it.

[@anemu3819]

Soviets in ww2: that sign cant stop me because i can't read

[@cormiergames]

Alright. Now I want a top tier list of city states to keep and to take over.

[@daniel.r88]

It's sad how many hours I have in this game and still didn't know the proper mechanics behind seigeing a city. Lol

[@noah5664]

I always go with Scythia whenever I just want to dominate the early game. The special troops aren’t the best, but the troop healing ability is amazing in the early game if you utilize it correctly

[@RaW-xy2tb]

It's very ironic that the Barbarian Scout on the right didn't go back and bring any additional douche army back with him. Happens to me every single time.

[@FasTeaa]

Same today they brought Horsemen in turn 8 xD

[@View619]

So, there's a melee unit promotion that eliminates penalties when attacking over rivers. Does that also allow them to project a zone of control across rivers?

[@SingingSpock]

Tim P yes, it does. Super useful

[@Luke51015]

Thank you for explaining sieges and zone of control. I didn't understand it before your video!

[@nightbladexxx]

Personally, I always use 3 warriors and 3 Archers, plus 1 Archer for each city I plan to keep. Major bonus, is if you're lucky enough to get an Apostle with the Chaplain promotion, but that's rare in an EARLY early war. I usually attack later than what you're doing. I use the melee to gain siege the city and to protect my warriors. Let the archers wear down the city and if I have a battering ram (I never build more than one, too expensive to build two). Builds up Archer experience, and also choose which melee unit that will capture the city for the experience bonus, as you get a lot more than just attacking. Using the archers allows you to leave one in the city. I always grab Victor as my second Governor. His three turn to establish in a city can make a difference, especially when you can't take their capital first. Razing a city, never do if the city is over 3/4 pop in the later game. I'll just suck up the computer's stupid starting location as most of the time those cities never amount to much anyways. I rarely play anything but Poundmaker, so I usually can't rush a early early war. Like you did with the Aztecs. Eagle Warriors with a couple or more luxuries are easy steam rolling, like you showed, but any other civ (besides Sumeria) is going to have a hard time with a 5 warrior attack on a 3 city assault.

[@geraldgonzalez8159]

This is great, especially when play higher difficulties in Civ! Though I would like to see a video of mid-era and late-era wars.

[@victorsavenije8897]

If you play high level AI, you cannot win a war like in this video. They start out with more military units than that, the only thing the AI needs is have them renotely close to their cities.

[@22yhjjjj]

This was the guide I needed. I'm new to Civ. My first few games let me turtle up until I got bombers, then I go crazy, but my most recent game gave me the unfortunate starting position of being close to 3 other civs, so I had to punch at least one of them out early on. I ended up eliminating one of them before they had walls, but I didn't have a siege, so taking their cities took WAY too long due to healing.

[@GymShu69]

Hey good videos so far man. Just a heads up though - Ranged units like Archers and stuff do exercise Zone of Control, just they ONLY do it on the tile they occupy. Basically they do on the tile they stand, they just don't push it out to the next tiles around it which is why enemies can walk by. For the point of sieges though, they can put cities under siege. Keep up the good work though!

[@dontbothermeimjust12]

I always take the promotion to protect against ranged attacks. Even if I take a little longer to take the cities, I am confident that that unit will survive in the long term.

[@seb19992]

I'm discovering your content, that's basicly what I was looking for, just thank you so much, mate ! =)

[@brandenmccarney5065]

Great video. I'm new to Civ and just had an ally declare a surprise war on me. Now I want vengeance! Subbed

[@GamerGrampz]

Hey, just a quick note about where you said that it didn't matter whether you declared a surprise war or used the formal war option. I understand you were specifically talking about creating extra grievances, but you definitely should have used the declare formal war option as declaring a war using a casus belli gives you either a tech boost or a eureka... can't remember which tree the thing is under. Anyway, just thought I'd mention that as I'm sure a lot of new players read the comments in your guides. Nice video. Cheers!

[@KFGustavo]

formal war doesn't count as a causus belli for that eureka though...

[@GamerGrampz]

@@KFGustavo Yeah you're 100% right that it doesn't... that's how little I play domination games I had always thought that it did when I wrote this comment awhile back :)

[@chilliout177]

I've found that early war is almost essential on deity level - unless grinding out a long, diplomatic victory. Yes, the civs have a heavy advantages....but they still make a lot of dumb moves, so as long as you're using all available tactics and are super aggressive, the benefits are much greater than breathlessly trying to build / expand / keep up. Thanks for the video - definitely helped - especially the importance of siege.

[@alexanderlattreuter5196]

4:45 You can go to the settings and turn on „always show yields in HUD Ribon“ so you can see the military strenght of another Civ. You can also just go to the rankings for each victory tipe and when looking at Domination you see the MS.

[@y33t23]

Attacken Norway early on, lost my capital because I didn't know Galleys could Tage costal cities in Civ 6

[@lailai1395]

subbed! just started playing and i found this very helpful!

[@brianhum8765]

They need to change the ZOC so that it does not appear as though it's being exerted across water, newer players get super confused as to why it looks like they have ZOC but it's not actually working. Also can make it worthwhile building some coastal cities if you expect to get attacked a lot assuming you're not compromising the quality of its location too much. Unless it's a water heavy map no one's bothering to build naval units (except for barbs) or get shipbuilding early on so it's impossible for them to exert ZOC on the city.

[@Gignomai_Urania]

TO WAR! WAR! WAR! Btw, nice video. Excited with your civ6 gathering storm play through.

[@jwilder47]

for me the advantage of using Victor to hold a city is he takes the least amount of time to establish in a city.

[@dracma127]

The fact that he establishes earlier is more so his extra city strength can take effect quicker, and perhaps garrison commander. The loyalty provided by governors is in effect the moment you send a governor to that city.

[@iamspamus8784]

Hmmm. I really like lots of ranged (once you have archers, which I go for quickly). For promotions, I do them IMMEDIATELY. You don't gain experience if you have a waiting promotion. Don't forget Magnus with a double promotion doesn't cost any population when building your settlers.

[@DiscoStuIII]

"The argument is between melee units and ranged" i play alot of online multiplayer and against some amazing cpl players. There isnt really an argument, just shitloads of calvary.

[@TheSaxyGamer]

Cavalry are the undisputed kings among good players, I do agree. I have a tendency to just categorize them as melee units, so I was referring to them as well with the whole melee vs. ranged debate.

[@DiscoStuIII]

@@TheSaxyGamer It shows as well. You do gush about calvary in the video and made it clear they're the best. I just heard melee versus ranged argument and slammed my head against the table. I'm sure this is geared for new players and this is the argument i'm sure they'll be having in their head anyway.

[@LebronJames-kl8jn]

Yeah In Multiplayer I just spam Archers and Calvary in the early game

[@mikesnow285]

There's no argument, they are supposed to be used together or situationally, they have there on uses and function differently.

[@DiscoStuIII]

@@mikesnow285 They can fortify, move double that of their infantry counterparts, and their counters are at best lower movement Calvary themselves when facing off.

[@onespiceman7246]

Loving these! Civ 6 is so confusing compared to 3, especially with barbarians and whatnot

[@annajansen6945]

This video is really really helpful! I'm new to civ and so angry that the cities got their health back after my attacks

[@tarksgaming6385]

Currently playing as Rome and already eliminated 3 opponents(Russia, Macedon, Russia) and I haven’t even reached the 1900s yet lol

[@adamsugar9728]

Thanks, this was very helpful!

[@ugmagir2641]

Woooww this video is very very awesome! Thanks king

[@KenDanielMurphy]

Every game that I've gone for early war and took over my base continent, I won, but when I did not, I lost because my growth was limited, more competition had advanced resources in later game, and they consistently caused me problems throughout my growth such as settling in between my cities, declaring war on me when I'm working toward progressing my trees, etc. The only downside I've seen for early war is that you spend the whole game with everyone mad at you. Lol.

[@zachtoyra6291]

omg thank you for clarifying the conditions for having a city put under siege tytytyty

[@J0krswy1d]

One thing I really like doing in this game is to play against civs with unique units from the same age, or fairly close.. so early game fighting.. Rome, Macedon, Persia, Greece (Gorgo), Scythia, Egypt, Sumeria. Also makes the game more historically real having all of these civs together. :-)

[@flaviomedina3781]

Excellent video! Thanks!

[@gamarayburst1258]

Saxy : Decide to declare war in first 10 turns *Neighbour spawned right next to you : take the first settler and end the game in first turn even before your game is loaded.*

[@adrianok4266]

Saxy close or not you have to declare war on Scotland at least once per game for Robert's reaction! :D

[@cfalcon513]

Great video, I always learn new things watching your videos. Do you think you could do a video on mid-game war? Specifically knight rushing. I believe a good knight rush should be around turn 90ish, but I find my knights aren't ready till like 105 to 110. I would love some tips on speeding up this up

[@excancerpoik]

I take mostly melee units often a unique unit plus a few archers as support

[@sigithesauropod3340]

17:21 on this subject it is good to remember that magnus promotion that allows for population to stay in the city after building a settler

[@sparkyspinz9897]

Is magnus a dlc thing?

[@youtubemademakethis6449]

@@sparkyspinz9897 you probably already know this. But for the newbies watching the video yes(he's a governor) you can get in gathering storm

[@dewott3754]

@@youtubemademakethis6449 It's from Rise and Fall originally.

[@agirlyman]

Great tips, still trying to figure out this game lol

[@harpoquondraxmarx805]

Really helpful! Thanks!

[@logariddum]

Tip on the governor selection: the one who doubles worker chops is by far the best. Combo-ing civic cards that multiply production (e.g. limes for walls) with worker chops is absolutely outrageous. You are able to start walls (with limes), wait until the very last turn prior to completion, then perform a builder chop on the last turn of completion. You then have an absurd amount of production overflow into your next city production that can be assigned to basically anything.

[@TheSaxyGamer]

Unfortunately none of that works anymore, as it was reworked in Gathering Storm. Magnus now only provides a 50% bonus instead of 100% and overflow production is not affected by modifiers anymore.

[@GFHutchinson]

I caught this man eating beans in a movie theater while watching cars 2

[@nimmyjewtron4339]

A true mad lad

[@Doge-pk6hv]

Never knew I could siege, previously it took about 40 turns and about 10-11 warriors to defeat a city, this will make winning significantly easier with Germany, thanks

[@albinobama5744]

You could also declare realy early, and farm settlers off the enemy city.

[@nicx6139]

I almost always find it beneficial to finish a empire in the early, because civs you meat later will not know, you get more land, never have to worry about them again, and if you don’t they will hold a grudge all game. The resource point is strong and I agree, but if that is not the case always keep going! Note forward settling is very strong if you know what your doing. (I don’t when it comes to that.) So if you are unfamiliar don’t risk it, lose a city and who knows what else.

[@minhuctrinh1059]

The exception to this is probably Babylon if you can get the eurekas right, then triple slinger and you can 2-3shot a city with crossbowman

[@mreman007]

Excellent video 🎉

[@mrfweeis]

As Gilgamesh, I took out 4 city states using war carts and warriors within the first 30-40 turns. Are you sure I should be given this much power? Also, I took out the roman and the scythian empire with the same troops cos i had a medic *yeet*

[@gabry96colo]

bombardment units are key once defensive walls start to appear

[@charliek2557]

Do you need to have every unit physically adjacent to the capital in order for it to siege? I noticed there was an enemy adjacent to the capital in this video but you were still saying it was under siege.

[@MrLookatmyhat]

That warrior rush is intense

[@pascaldesjardins9835]

1. Open 2 sligners, settler, builder. The best army to start a war is 3-4 archers, your warrior as meat shield and 2 horsmans. Alexander is probably your best choice. 2. B-line horseback riding 3. Build 2nd city for horse and/or near 1st victime to kill. Kill babarians and gain xp for your troops. 4. Upgrade sligners to archers and build some more (3-4 total). Don't lose any troops if bellow deity is quite easy. 5. Build 2 horsman and chop a forrest down with the charge left on your builder when you have minning to get them faster. 6. Reaserch massonerie and go to war. Make a battering ram after the horsemans. 7. Kill troops first. Empty his land and pillage everything you want like science or heal your troops. Archers do the heavy lift and are OP. 8. Suround the city and put under siege so it doesn't heal. Build/buy a battering ram. 9. Blitz the civ. Try to push for a second civ and take every city that will not help you winning the game (including crap city states like religious one) 10. Now, you should have 10 city by turn 100 or more. Settle what is left of the land, build reaserch buildings and the city center buildings like monuments, granary and water mill. (only walls you need). You're now big enough to snowball whatever you want. Sligners are better than figthers. Don't build fighters.

[@garrethgoodworth2494]

TY! I've been wondering how ZoC & Sieging a city works since the game came out. Think I'll try out Motzy or Gilgi for the first time

[@zeko858]

Melee for siege, Ranged for support attacking units.

[@jennabohn3458]

Always keep the war train rollin!

[@fumblerooskie]

Later in the game if you can isolate one city so that it rebels you can simply wait for it to become a free city then conquer it without warmonger penalty (I think).

[@MouseDestruction]

Archer spam is still OK very early, no warmonger in ancient age. Can have walls and warmonger penalties later so only good early. You can place them in cities after. A warrior and scout can seige a city if no rivers though

[@anthonybattaion8389]

By turn 20 every enemy city has a defense rating of at least 60 my units do no damage

[@memescoper]

no way by turn 20, even on deity

[@khatack]

If you play on prince or king or so you should just farm your neighbors for builders and settlers for essentially free cities and improvements/harvests. On higher difficulties that becomes quite a bit more difficult.

[@maxencekab2173]

Thanks again !

[@robbyheiberg2091]

Please continue this series man! It’s been really helpful!

[@TheSaxyGamer]

It might just get another episode released tomorrow morning ;)

[@atencaogamer]

how can you keep up with the tech tree while focusing on building units?

[@billygladman9644]

I was suzerian to a really strong city state on my last game playing as England, America had a city not too far from the city state and my furthest north city so I tried to take it. My units were getting absolutely destroyed every time I tried to take it, but the city state went into them and had an artillery unit by the year 1710 some how and completely annihilated them😂

[@amaurystengel]

I'm kinda new to this game and I didn't really understand whether and how capturing enemy cities, being at war or settling more cities to get more land affect your "amenities" (which is basically happiness, but it's also kinda different).

[@nikkitaiyang1524]

The game I started yesterday japan settled within 5 tiles of me. Yeah I completely destroyed them and they awakened a strange blood lust in me. First ever domination victory under my belt!

[@mr.ehellow1238]

Has anyone here tried a nubia archer rush, you can get up to +125% production for them

[@CSO.flamme]

@Saxy Gamer can you upload an updated video for early war, please?

[@spectatorguy4923]

Almost always keep cities, because the cost of producing/purchasing units scales with how many you have produced.

[@AhmadSammy]

Please do a video on occupying vs razing

[@lejonbrames1278]

how come when you attacked that city they have 2 units to throw at you but when i attack a city at this time in the game they have an army of spearman and archers that get made every 3 turns i have no idea what to do in this game

[@loopyguy7611]

i need the tip about city under siege. i tried looking it up in the civapedia and couldn't find it. thanks for the tip!

[@lincoln43267]

he says the ai is stupid for its city placement but the 3 unclaimed tiles between the ai's cities can be made into industrial zones with aqueduct and dam/coin zones between city and there industrial zone for massive production bonuses. the bottom city can just make 4 farms to give it some housing till it gets a aqueduct

[@luisfbjunqueira5837]

thanks!

[@danielnagy8078]

any guides that are applicable for higher difficulties (Immortal or Diety)?

[@vv2955]

In civ 6, isn't it just better to settle as many cities as you possibly can? I can't think of any scenario when I'd raze a city, especially in the early game.

[@svansy]

whichever civ you play with, slinger rushes are highly effective. keep your warrior safe. rush the range units - they're cheap. then get the 50% discount civic as quickly as possible and upgrade them to archers, get your civ specific and use the archers for defense. scout rush with cree. just rush the closest civ to you and you have 4 cities within 20 turns. suddenly you have the possibility to focus on nice stuff in your capital. buildings etc. warrior rushes aren't very efficient. your warriors die too quickly and the AI cheats. leaving a city on 1HP? boom. it has walls next turn :I

[@tedgore7098]

Atleast i usually pick Victor when having much early war, and that’s not becouse the bonuses for garrisoned units, it’s becouse he just takes 3 turns to arrive in a city instead of 5 wich can give me alot of extra time to take another city and save the one i just took from loyalty, and magnus really that good when in a war since you might want to keep getting some military and therefore you either waste time or you spend chops on units wich could be better to spend on districts and wonders

[@SupermanBatman798]

Emil Olvestad in v

[@sigithesauropod3340]

I see where your going with this but isn't it that the loyalty comes into effect instantly so it's just that his bonus comes quicker? Forgive me if I'm wrong. I like to use Magnus for his settler promotion ( doesn't use a population) for the early classical war. I might just try this though.

[@PritzLOL]

What are you most looking forward to in gathering storm?

[@drewbakka5265]

The rework of ai, the fact the board is coming alive and hungary suprizingly, since now I can do a ww1 game with half of austrohungary

[@Revanbzn]

Drown my enemies

[@MadManMatrix]

Incas and Maori they just look like so much fun to play even if Incas went the strongest the prospect of just spamming farms and making 100 food a turn just seems fun to me and the Maori just look to be super fun all around.

[@xarmanhsh2981]

@@drewbakka5265 lol ai will always be trash too bad sucks to be u

[@josephzanes7334]

Saxy gamer - *talks about Loyalty* Me - I want an equal amount of Loyalty in each city!

[@linkholder]

"Scotland is way to close to me" Me: * Laughing in True Start Earth Huge Poland, going for a Religion victory * Move as close as you'd like!

[@harjutapa]

You say not to worry about early war if no one's nearby, but I see you're playing Aztec, whose entire early game is strengthened by war. Should you make an exception there?

[@amelliamendel2227]

is it better to leave a civ one city or wipe then out?

[@connerSphotography]

Will this tip work for naval strategy

[@guojing88]

Monty is always looking for early war, just to get some workers. =)

[@optimusporg]

Is it ever worth it to use cavalry or spears?

[@StopFear]

There needs to be a video about how to make the late game hurry up and not get stuck forever

[@Edgelordess]

I seized a town but I can't seem to get my units to attack for some reason...?

[@TheJPJT1234]

Solo me playing: alright... early war it is Every barbarian within 50 spaces: GET HIM!!

[@sasamichan]

how do you know what cities are easier to take?

[@Bovinecowful]

Doesn't Victor have a promotion that causes your cities to exert more loyalty?

[@connerSphotography]

Do you have naval domination guide ?

[@PMMagro]

Melee units are better than... none. You need them though but ranged units and cavalry/chariots-knights-tanks are way stronger. When walls come up you need major forces or siege units and melee units.