This is one of the most difficult decisions in the game and a very important one. There is an interesting thread at stooges.org about this too and I need to put a post there to continue to get their valuable feedback.

Anyhow Phoe, Shang, Palmy, Bab and Egypt all get comps and CA's. Let's look at the relevent economic and military factors for the civs involved.

CA

Cost 40 food 70 wood
Build time 40 sec
AP 4
ROF 1.5 shots per sec
HP 70 (upgradable to 80 w/Nobility which is needed anyway for Scythe and improves all mounted units) and with Egypt's being 93 and 106 respectively
Range 7
Speed 2.0 tiles per sec
Requirement Wheel takes 75 sec and is a must anyways costing 175F 75W but that isn't a factor since you need
it for economic reasons anyway.

Compies

Cost 40 food 20 gold
Build time 30 sec
AP 5
ROF 1.4 shots per sec
HP 45
Range 7
Speed 1.2 tiles per sec
Requirement(s) (1) Imp Bowmen costs 140F 80W and takes 60 sec and allows the creation of the compie's little
brother, the greatly underated impie which has 4 AP, 40 HP and 6 range.(2) Comp Bowmen costs 180F 100W and takes 100 sec. The two upgrades together cost 320F 180W and
require 160 sec to complete.

Lets look at what happens in a 1v1 battle between a basic early bronze compie and CA. The greater HP of the CA will outweigh the superior fire power of the compie given that both have the same range.

Assuming that both start to shoot at the same time the CA will kill the compie with 12 shots (48 AP (3 wasted)) in 18 sec. In 18.2 sec the compie will have fired 13 times (assuming a few tenths of a sec travel time for that last fatal arrow) and the CA will receive 65 HP of damage and thus remain alive w/5 HP left. If the CA are Assy (1.1 ROF) or Hitt (5 AP) or Egyptian (93 HP) they easily beat the compie. Nobility (not cheap at 175F,120G) also allows the CA to clearly defeat the compie. If we assume that Mino's +2 compie range allows it to get one extra shot off while a basic CA approaches the result will be a draw as the compies 14th arrow will be fatal to the CA.

Since CA move much faster than compies 2.0 vs 1.2 and can outrun wheeled fleeing vils and dodge flying rocks easier we clearly prefer to have 1 CA to 1 compie.Why make compies at all when we can make CA ? Well compies cost 60 total res vs 110 res for CA. However, that cost savings is only achieved after you spend 500 res on the upgrades for comps.

10 comps cost 600 res to make plus 500 in upgrades for a total cost of 1100 res. 10 CA also cost 1100 res (ignoring wheel and nobility which you must get anyhow for economy and for scythes/other mounted units). 10 basic CA when I test in the SB defeat 10 compies. I place them all clearly in range and wall the CA tightly in so they can't waste time moving around and simply let everthing autofire. The CA always won by a little or a lot. 10 CA in someone's undefended town will kill alot more vils than 10 comps will because the vils escape the comps much easier. I'd still rather have 10 CA than 10 compies.

The resources to make 10 compies are 720 food 180 wood and 200 gold. While the resources to make 10 CA are 400 food and 700 wood. The approximate "effective" gathering times for the resources in mid bronze are Food .40 at best
(unless Palmy), wood .6x (Phoe/Palmy .7x) walking and tree chop times really slow down the higher baseline rates, and gold about .7 (.75 w/goldmining upgrade reduced by a bit of walking for some vils) Thus, since the 10 compies require more food to make , they required more gathering time to produce. I'd prefer 10 CA to 10 compies any day.

Clearly, once we consider larger bronze armies compies become MUCH more cost effective. 20 compies cost 1700 res while 20 CA cost 2200 res. Note that for 1700 res you can build about 15 1/2 CA and for 2200 res you get 28 1/3 compies. Once you start making these large scale armies the compies become VERY cost effective. I ran a few battles with 12 comps (1220 cost) vs 11 CA (1210 cost) and it is unclear who wins. I'd still prefer 11 CA to 12 comps in most game situations due to their mobility. However, once you start talking about 28 comps or 20 CA it becomes much less clear which you prefer. 28 comps will easily defeat 20 CA. The massed fire power of even 20 comps makes it quite difficult for even a decent sized horde of cav to approach without all getting gunned down before doing much damage.

FIRE POWER AND MASSED FIRE POWER

Fire power is a units AP divided by its ROF. Fire power is simply a measure of how much damage a unit can dish out per sec.

The fire power of a normal CA is 4/1.5 = 2.67 AP/sec

The fire power of a normal compie is 5/1.4 = 3.57 AP/sec

Compies thus dish out 34% more damage per sec than do normal CA's. This advantage in fire power is very significant as long as the compies can stay alive. It is alot harder to charge into 20 compies than 20 CA with a herd of cavs. The cavs will kill the compies easier if they ever come into contact with them however that isn't so easy to do. This is a benefit of MASSED FIRE POWER which occurs when you reach a critical mass of ranged units. It then becomes next to impossible to charge into the ranged units and the only way to defeat them is to hit them with your own ranged units. Try charging into 25 heles sometime to really see this effect.

Compies are a great defensive unit due to their firepower. They will gun down units attacking your workers faster than CA will. Compies can also be replaced in 30 sec vs 40 sec to replace a CA. This quicker reinforcement factor can be vital when your town is
invaded. CA's are clearly superior offensive units due to their speed. They can raid one town and then hit another or return to your town to defend. Reinforcements can be run to the front quickly from ranges near home. Offensive use of compies requires either more forward building or building a large horde near home and then walking them to the front.

Thus, IMO, compies are a superior defensive unit in bronze and CA are a superior offensive bronze unit. When do we play offensive or defensive in the bronze age with these civs? Since I am often Phoe and successful in completing a nice 14 min boom bronze I am often ahead of an adjacent and vulnerable enemy. If either my forward builders(if I used them) or my scout (always make a scout FAST) see vulnerability (ie he is wide open and NOT walled) I will want to rush him. My scout will hopefully make sure no wall goes up and may be accompanied by another or two during my bronze transition. Once bronzed I want a couple of cav/mels to hit my enemy and then follow up w/CA to hopefully finish him and shoot up his fleeing terrorized peons. In this case waiting to make compies would seriously reduce and postpone what could be a winning rush. Since I was faster to bronze than him and am now attacking him, hopefully my fishing fleet is not under a severe attack. I can hopefully, in spite of spending all that wood on CA's have a galley or two slip down the coast and sink his fishing, once his wood chopping operation is destroyed. SO, IF I AM FAST ENOUGH TO RUSH SOMEONE POWERFULLY, I WILL USE CA'S AND FORGET COMPIES, NORMALLY.

Conversely, lets say I still am Phoe but my start went poorly. (Lost 1 to lions quickly, slow poor berries, bad wood..etc) I do the same boom bronze in 16 and my spot is wide open. Clearly if it hasn't happened yet, I will soon be attacked on land and sea. Assuming there still are some fish around I won't want to lose the sea. If I can survive for just a few more minutes I may have a huge and hopefully overpowering economy. Maybe I walled some choke points but I still have a large vulnerable area which would require "The Great Wall of China" to make me secure. By the time it is built something may have trannied in or knocked it down. I am slow and vulnerable and need powerful defences quickly. In this case I may have made some bowmen and slingers at home during my bronze transition, however I need more than that. Compies now make perfect sence as I won't be rushing anyone in a good game with my 16 min bronze. Rather than spend wood on CA's I use the wood for a workshop or two and some ST as well as a decent fleet for defence and to eventually wipe out an enemies coast. As wood continues to pour in I start farming to further increase my food intake for that food intensive compie horde. Assuming I survive, my plan is to create the "unstopable" late bronze attack of several ST guarded by many compies. This can take down walls and someones town very quickly. The compies prevent any but the largest hordes of bronze units from approaching and killing either ST or compies. The enemy can fight it with a large ammount of ST but they need guard too since I will have a couple of charge units on hand also. This attack is not an attempt to win quickly during minute 17 in early bronze. It is an attempt to build defensively to survive powerful bronze attacks and then win in the early to mid 20's with enough force that even an iron-jumped enemy has trouble stopping. THUS IF I EXPECT TO HAVE TO CREATE A LARGE DEFENSIVE BRONZE ARMY I WILL PROBABLY GO WITH MANY COMPIES.

A few more points.

CA's cost tons of wood. If you are making CA's, ST's, and
a navy you better have MANY upgraded wood choppers working safely.

Comp's cost 320 extra food to start producing. You need to CLEARLY make more than 10 of them for the upgrades to make any sence. Honestly, it makes NO sence to me unless you will make at least 15 and more likely in excess of 20 compies over the course of the game. It is quite difficult to iron reasonably quickly while spending the food to make 20 compies. However, in good game you will need a bronze army and you will need to do something offensive with it or you just might find out you are ironed with 2 dead allies.

Since comp hordes require lots of food use some of that saved wood to make farms and better yet make new TC's on any berry patches you find to continue booming. The saved wood is idle for a couple of ST.

CA require 2 ST shots to kill and can often avoid flying rocks better than compies do to their speed. Egypt must get Nobility quickly for its CA which will now survive 2 shots from a ST and be even harder to kill by all units.

Compies die from 1 ST rock and compies get splattered by the wide area damage of cats in iron.

The availabilty of wood or gold can affect your decision too. Once with Egypt I had such poor access to wood that I went with compies supported by chariots rather than CA/chariots. Other times I have had poor access to gold as Phoe and any thought of producing compies was left for another game.

CA work well with other mounted units because of their speed. Never forget that even when you are going heavy with archery range units you should NOT let your stable sit idle. Make something from it to help out at all times.

Compies work well with slower units like ST and infantry. The "poor man's cheap unit flood" of compies/broadswords is a fun tactic of mine when I have a large boom raking in the food. Adding a couple of chariots helps deal with ST and if the enemy is walled up my own ST break walls faster than broads do. The "unit flood" requires tons of food so you need to use that saved wood for many farms and make sure you have a large navy(probably for offense as well) and make sure you build new docks close to new fishing areas. The compies provide great support for the broads and visa versa. The broads intercept charge units while the compies pin cushion them with arrows. The broads charge enemy archers which then have a choice to be sliced by broadswords or kill with arrows.

Compies provided the ultimate back up for the "unstopable" late bronze attack of several ST guarded by 20 compies.

Impies are underated. 4AP 40 HP and 6 range is not bad. Consider that the person using impies saved 280 resources because he couldn't/didn't upgrade to compies. I was badly hurt by a late bronze Roman attack of ST guarded by impies and my few camels could not get near them. I have used impies/rax as Rome very effectively in bronze. The rax dice up buildings quickly and a couple can be left behind to clean up a town since they need no guard like ST's. Minoan impies have saved me from CA raids twice while I was upgrading to compies.

Just a few thoughts on this interesting subject. Just remember that CA's are fast raiding units and devestating if they aren't stopped by walls. Make CA when you can attack vils with them quickly. Compies are better on defence and for guarding ST. When you enemy is safely walled and you can't attack until later in bronze, make compies and get a nice group of ST ready. However, never forget what you can do with 5 surprise CA's trannied into his town.

Before I joined DaRq I simply chose CA's about 95% of the time over compies. I couldn't understand why you'd make a slower and slightly weaker unit. I hated spending 500 on upgrades for something of dubious value (even Minoan) in iron. Only 5% of the time would I make compies unless I was Minoan.

Now my current opinions are:

Shang and Phoe: Rush civs and if the rush looks feasable I make CA's. Once in a while I may make compies if my rush is repulsed or he escaped behind walls. I'd say I tend to make compies maybe 35% of the time with these civs.

Egypt:CA's are simply too tough and I make compies only 5% of the time.Tough chariots go nicely along with tough CA.

Palmy: depends on how fast I was able to bronze and whether I am able to rush. CA's support a camel rush nicely and it is hard to find the 320 food for upgrades and camels and more vils as Palmy. Still I am often forced to play defensively as bad maps make Palmy SLOW. I'd say again 35% of the time I go compies here.

Bab: a slow civ like Egypt and one with great towers to
aid a defensive game while slowly creeping in on the enemy. This would favor compies except for 3 things. 1) I am not often that slow to bronze with slow civs so I have rush opportunites. 2) People wall SO POORLY that even late CA hordes kill them 3) In spite of Bab towers and stone mining you can't afford to play semi-sim tower city in bronze in your allies are under attack. I'd say I go compies 50% with Bab.

There you have it. I am more likely to use CA because I am more of a rusher and raider than a defensive player. I prefer to use some walls to keep enemy units away from my vils rather than have compies sitting around. My style in 3v3's with most civs is to try to win in bronze. This means either quick rushes or very powerful late bronze attacks on possibly ironed enemies. When the attack comes in later bronze I will likely have many compies....

.... neilkaz....