Montezuma II
Chieftain
There's been speculation recently as to which civ is militarily superior in the mid game: Mongolia or Arabia, or more specifically, Keshik or Camel Archer. Thoughts?
Maybe you ought to specify circumstances.
Can I just say something here? In MP, neither of these units can be reliably killed in one turn with a competent player and contemporary tech.
Meanwhile, literally every bonus Mongolia has is war-based, which is extremely limiting regarding strategic diversity. Yes you can rush your neighbor and maybe push into a second or third civ afterwards, but your bonuses run out. In MP, people keep an eye on when you hit chivalry. War someone, and that person's neighbors build military, gift the guy, or just team you. In SP, well in SP you can kill the AI with any unit lol. Late-game, you have no bonuses whatsoever. Unless you ensured your victory during mid-game with keshiks, you're now just a generic bonus-less civ.
In isolation, I would still take the camel archer over the keshik. Who cares if keshiks get more promotions? A keshik would need to have 4 promotions to compete with a non-promoted camel; accuracy 1, accuracy 2, barrage 1, and barrage 2. This is because their 16 ranged strength would need a 30% increase to reach the camel's base 21. I'd much rather have a 30% increase in base strength (which scales better with promotions btw, as 15% of 21 = 3.15 while 15% of 16 only = 2.4) than 2 movement points.
The only thing the camel has no answer for is the faster general production. I can't seem to find an exact number regarding how much this actually effects general production, but this isn't a reason in and of itself to choose mongolia over arabia, given all of their disadvantages. The reality is that in SP you can win wars without generals, so this really lends itself to MP. Again though, having a civ geared completely towards war makes players prepare for you, team against you, and limits your strategic diversity.
Do you play primarily on Quick speed?
On standard speed played on Deity, you can easily conquer 1-2 civs with chariot archers
It's important to get full Honor as Mongolia because the gold-from-kills can really add up
Keshiks can reliably get off double-shots in situations where Camel Archers cannot
Keshiks will always be accompanied by a Khan so they have 18.4 combat strength at all times
Khans are very effective in single-player despite you constantly making single-player mode out to be dumb and easy (judging by some of your statements). All this time I thought single-player mode was the main focus of the game, but I guess not
The question was which is a stronger midgame millitary civ. I voted for Mongolia because I think that Keshiks+Khans are stronger than Camel Archers, but I'd never argue that Mongolia is stronger than Arabia overall.But the question wasn't "which UU is more fun", the question was which civilization is better. Arabia is just an overall better civ.
Roads do mostly neutralize the movement speed difference, but only when you're defending your own territory, and if your only goal in waging war is to defend your own territory you don't need the strongest mid game military civ. If you want to go actually on the offensive and capture cities, you're going to have to rely on your units' inherent movement speeds.If you have roads up, the difference in movement speed is near moot. Yes, if you plan on attacking an enemy civ through open terrain ~15 tiles from your border (meaning no generaling and no roads), Keshiks have the advantage. That's not how I wage war, though. It is always always through roads when I have Keshiks/Camels.
Again, this would have to be a crazy strong start to ignore trad/lib altogether.
Honor is just plain awful. It can be very useful as a second tree between tradition and rationalism, but even if I'm going full war, I would never open with honor.
If you have roads up, the difference in movement speed is near moot.
Which is why I mentioned that Camels base strength scales better. With a general, Camels have 24.2 ranged strength.
There are going to be games where the Mongols can't just wipe the map, much more often, in fact, than there will be games where they can (so long as you're playing at an appropriate difficulty setting in relation to your skill).
To say that you can roll over multiple AIs very easily as if it's a very reliable and consistent tactic, however, is misleading imo.