So I have Arabia squeezed over right next to me. His military is comparable to mine. Interestingly, this game, there was not one iron resource on the whole continent. I know Cho-Ku-No rush is a good Chinese strategy, but haveing not played with them before, I need to ask for some pointers. Specifically, can I take cities without being able to upgrade my warriors, by Cho spamming? And how many do you wager I need for a strong capital? It's mostly open terrain and my current units are all Shock I at least. How many Chos do I need? I have 5 developing cities and was lucky with luxuries so no qualms there.

Left to my own devices I would grab Machinery manually with building a Barracks, then rush-buy an Armory and a Cho and 4 more Chos. I * think * that would be enough. Other then that I have 4 Warriors.

Some pikes will be useful, rather than warriors (especially against Camel Archers). They'll offer more defence for your Chu-Ko-Nu, and will be make capturing cities easier. 4 or 5 of 6 Chu-Ko-Nu really should be sufficient to take a city, although it might take more than one turn. Going city by city without losing any units, that's all you'll need for an entire campaign hopefully.

I second that ... Pikes or Horses are sufficient escorts for the chukos.

Ok, played it today.

So I ended up going for it with 5 Chos, 1 Warrior, 2 Swordsmen, and 1 Horsemen. Lost the Horsemen to a group of Warriors scouting around. Took his capital already, but I have no clue what there is past there, and he's in a smart defensive formation - I can't get close enough to attack him without getting pounded by his horses. boo. Wish I had a Pike... :/

Next up, England. They have Longbows to my Chos, so even match there. I'm running down Metallurgy (13 turns) and then grabbing Rifling from my GS who is hanging around Beijing. 9 Rifles vs. Knights and Logbows, should be enough.

Of course then it's time to beat down Ghandi :mischief:

In the time in between, I think I'll get a Caravel up and scout out the other continent...my scouting has admittedly sucked this game.

Question: once I control my continent, should or shouldn't I immediately jump onto the other side? Should I raise a Navy? Should I build up my cities first?

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Question: once I control my continent, should or shouldn't I immediately jump onto the other side? Should I raise a Navy? Should I build up my cities first?

Have you made contact with the AIs on the other continent? It depends on how they are doing on tech. If you are ahead in tech, grab frigates and invade quickly. If the AI is at tech parity, you want to invest in your empire so you can make an industrial navy. Upgrading frigates to destroyers is very expensive, and I think you would do better to buff your cities until industrial and later build a fleet of destroyers. In that case, you are going to waste most of your ranged unit promotions, but you can still upgrade them for numbers.

If you don't have contact, make it quickly.

Also, I think late medieval/early renaissance is a time to build up empires. Once everyone is building musketmen, it becomes difficult to take cities. At that point, you need cannons and riflemen to go on a conquering spree.

The Indian army is weak, but they have a lotta territory in between me and them. If I could get close enough I could blitz down his city and grab the iron he has, but I can't get close enough to do that so easily :crazyeye:

Otherwise I really don't have any Iron, except what I'm trading off of India. And he's swapped to Guarded. Which is one of the reasons I'm bee-lining Rifling =)

Do you think I should declare on India, take Mumbai, and then make peace and take out England?

Check Snarzberry's CKNs rush strategy in the S&T forum. You can bring only CKNs and a single horseman. Bring down city's hp and finish last hp left with a 4 moves(parked behind) horseman. Heal, repeat. You can upgrade them to rifles. With 2 attacks per turn, they will be almost unstoppable.

Check Snarzberry's CKNs rush strategy in the S&T forum. You can bring only CKNs and a single horseman. Bring down city's hp and finish last hp left with a 4 moves(parked behind) horseman. Heal, repeat. You can upgrade them to rifles. With 2 attacks per turn, they will be almost unstoppable.

I already have Chivalry. Horsemen are so low-tech ;)

That's basically what I did to take down the Ottomans. Nice to see that everyone on my continent has 2 - 3 cities, and I have 5 of my own and 3 puppets.

But yeah I'm hoarding gold and building a few Lancers right now. I have 20 horses (!) and nothing in particular to do with them. Except sell them.

Check Snarzberry's CKNs rush strategy in the S&T forum. You can bring only CKNs and a single horseman. Bring down city's hp and finish last hp left with a 4 moves(parked behind) horseman. Heal, repeat. You can upgrade them to rifles. With 2 attacks per turn, they will be almost unstoppable.

Depending on the level you play, the old CKN strat kinda needs a melee front line now. Least on deity even Ghandi rolls w enough units to mow my ckn strict army down nowadays if it has open path to them. The changes to the AI significantly increased DoWs and even the peacefuls are building units when they are at war.

I would dare saying hold on to your gold since you will pop rifling shortly. You will have mass upgrading to do. If you don't have pults/trebs/cannons though, I suggest you hold onto ~6 CKNs as is rather than upgrade them to rifles. Even doing only 1dmg per hit to cities, thats 12dmg per turn (given by then you should have them upgraded w/ +1 range and possibly even indirect fire so you can get all 6 of em to really attack regardless of geography.

I would probably hit Ghandi after england since he often surrenders cities for peace treaty and a peaceful city turnover gives awesome cities...no buildings destroyed, since it's ghandi they often have every single building out there already so the later he is in tech, the better the cities will be. Ultimately for him to surrender cities for peace, you will kinda want to use a few extra turns to siege his "2nd capital" (the city that becomes capital after his is lost) to increase the pressure into signing completely absurd peace treaty.

Personally I hate going after england during medieval. Least on deity, she has like 12+ longbows lying the f behind cities and just slowly plowing through your forces as you go in. I prefer early rushing or delaying till she is partially past longbows. Having CKNs with +1 range though can clearly alleviate that since you play as china. I would still wait for rifle frontline though to ensure 4-5 longbows can't do 2+ dmg per turn and kill a unit every turn.

Done it. Wiped out England, turning around to take down Ghandi, soon as the extra cities I raze bring my happiness back up to decent levels.

I got lucky, Ghandi and England suddenly declared war, and she lost 1/2 of her forces in the toussle :lol:

Also made contact with the other continent, only two players - Haiwatha (defensive REXer :/) and Siam. Their militaries are both weaker then mine.

Gonna build up to Infantry age, then warmonger some more.

Done it. Wiped out England, turning around to take down Ghandi, soon as the extra cities I raze bring my happiness back up to decent levels.

I got lucky, Ghandi and England suddenly declared war, and she lost 1/2 of her forces in the toussle :lol:

Also made contact with the other continent, only two players - Haiwatha (defensive REXer :/) and Siam. Their militaries are both weaker then mine.

Gonna build up to Infantry age, then warmonger some more.

The changes to the AI in .275 has increased opportunistic DoWs. On many dom games I play, I see a super crippled AI (on I already hit on) get DoWed by all of it's neighbors because of the "operational AI: chance to DoW if total military strength is higher" change to the AI. It may be why the turned into a DoW. If they didn't have a DoF I could totally see Ghandi seizing the opportunity you gave him by crippling her, jumping in the war.

The combat AI in this game is absolutely horrible on attack. :hammer:

Upgraded CKNs are monsters. Pikes should be plenty of support with them.

Ok, finished this game a couple of days ago.

Basically: took over my continent, then got DoWed by Siam + Iroquois, which had by then puppetted most of the Iroquois. Spammed frigates to make up for my sea disadvantage in a prep for mass-Infantry/Artillery upgrading and cross-water attack, but, to my surprise, both Haiwatha and Rammy tried running down my CS ally instead, with disastrous results. The CS did fall, but Haiwatha lost half of his units in the fight. Then Siam actually DECLARED on Haiwatha, and all of the Destroyers were, naturally, occupied elsewhere.

Cross-water invasion was successful. Established a beachhead south of the capital. I was losing tons of units, though, to Artillery in the fog of war. Here, my massive continental puppet rally really helped, pumping up my Gold at 230 GPT - having a double GA/GG golden age with Taj Mahal from the Indians also helped. :lol: I was behind Siam in tech - they were fielding Tanks to my Cavalry, and had already entered the Modern. Of course, Siam is a tech powerhouse...oh well.

In the end, to get eyes on the Artillery, I purchased of a Fighter and sent it down to my beach-head. Also bought and built more replacement Infantry. Never one during this whole time did I see a single Destroyer. :mischief: The Fighters gave me eyes on three encamped Artilleries near his capital and I took them down with a combined Fighter/Artillery barrage. Sometime during this fight he capture Haiwatha's capital. Then I took his second largest city, followed by, after some more fighting, his capital, which took 2 turns of 3 Fighters, 3 Artilleries, and 6 Infantry attacking to finally take down.

My first Dom win, that was. :)

Lessons learned were to puppet everything, focus on Luxuries first, that the left side of Theocracy is REALLY REALLY powerful, and that cash-buying replacement units for yourself every once in a while can keep an otherwise weakening offensive live. Also that Cavalry are mopped up quickly by Tanks.

Now that I have the hang of it, I'm marching towards another Dom win with Songhai right now, with 3 civs conquered via Mandekalu rush. Man. I love these Cavs! :thumbsup: