[BNW] Warmonger strategy for Songhai/Mongolia

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Ok that did the trick, I got 5 Keshiks at turn 82 with 2 cities. Since I haven't played for several months.. I kind of fell out of the loop, but it is obvious they did something with happiness. I can't just puppet everything now it seems.
 
Yeah, that's a neat balancing trick to get right. :)
 
My first try with this won me a game on immortal difficulty. I got my mendakalu cav in the mid 70's(i got el dorado:D), but had to invade darius and alexander, which got dicey with heavy immortals/pikes and hoplites/pikes. This rush is so fast that I ran over them just fine once i realized i could take the cities in 4 hits and just ignore the spears or wedge a brave/suicidal sword or two in between spears and my cav. I'm sure that if i knew what i was doing a bit more timing-wise, it would've been more impressive.

Does this build work on deity? I would suspect it wouldn't hit as good of a timing as an iron rush as a deity AI tends to have a half-era lead by turn 80.
 
The Keshiks still trash everything on Deity. Mandekalu are sufficient to prey upon the weak, but aren't quite enough to overwhelm large Pike-spamming AIs without support from other unit types.
 
I've had my first attempt at a domination victory (deity) yesterday with the Songhai ...

Had a seaside start with no sea resources in view ... Moved the settler 3 turns inland trough a heavily forested area ... Was seriously considering restarting ...

So I settled between 2 forest deer .. Scouting the map later revealed I was in the middle of the forest with 4+1 forested calendar luxuries and 4 forested deer ... There were also some forested hills in range ... Great start that means the opening I used will not work in most deity games ...

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Starting TECHs
Mining, Pottery, Writing, Calendar, Animal Husbandry, Trapping, Philosophy, Civil Service, The Wheel, Horseback Riding, Theology, Education, Mathematics, Currency, ~Turn 100 bulbed Chivalry with the GS from PT...

Starting Build Order (don't remember exactly :sad: )
Monument, Worker , Granary, Library, Scout ... [NC(used some chopping), Mud Pyramid Mosque...] Chichen Itza(used GE from liberty) ..some horse units.. hard built Hagia Sophia(more chopping), ... PT(used GE from HS) .. hard built Notre Dame[purchased some tiles and more chopping ]..

Policies
Full Liberty , Full Honor, Left Tree Rationalism(went Autocracy but I think left side Rationalism is better ) ...

I allied 2 hostile:)lol:) cultured states early (sold luxuries) and built the Mud Pyramid Mosque early -> this allowed me to:

finish liberty very early - GE in time for Chichen Itza
get the GG from Honor in time for my first city conquest T100+
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Around T100+ I was decced by 3 AIs, the forth had already lost its capital and was eliminated before I've got the chance to meet him [not a lot of room for RA spamming - only 3 per round]...

My first conquest was a neighboring CS [had 4 Mandekalu Cav and the honor GG] allied with one of my enemies and geographically positioned between my lands and theirs... Had university and observatory already built[my cities were still building their universities] and some World Wonder(old faithful ?) with +2 science ... Pillaging it provided the money for the courthouse - annexing that probably jumped my science per turn more than 80% at that point ... (later it turned out this CS had my only coal 3 and aluminium 8)

Next it was Catherine ... she had lots of pikes and it slowed me down -> I hired a medic longswordsman later to help deal with the pikes ... Got 2 cities from her - Himeji Castle, The Pyramids and Mausoleum of Halicarnassus (each GG, GS pop +100:c5gold:..) and settled for peace asking for some 1500 ish :c5gold:
Her lands later turned out to have 35 oil :eek: and 4 uranium ...

Next was Bismark - who had by this time eliminated Alexander - had to settle a third city to maintain a corridor towards Bismark between Babylon and a militaristic city state (which I later brought to distract Bismark). The corridor was narrow, forested and flooded with riflemen ... My tech path took a detour towards Scientific Theory and the Reveal_Oil_tech (industrial age boosted three allied CS cultured bonuses) so I was fighting riflemen in rough terrain with 6 Mandekalu and 2 LS ...Not pretty ...

....

I eventually re-conquered some Greek cities including Athens (sadly no wonders) with my 6 tanks ...Bismark's fighter spam was VERY annoying. Panzers were hell to deal with later by I was still making - slooow progress [lots of reloading :blush:] - fighting German cities .. Then on T 250 he :nuke: my tanks :) before I could conquer Berlin and settle for peace ... Not bad for a first attempt (although with that great start I should 've won :sad: )


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Some things I learned

A tank without Blitz is not a tank ...(with hijemi, flanking, GG and triple shock one can plow trough multiple invading Infantry units caught on open terrain and retreat to safety (near medic which will trigger if the tank also has repair (does march work on tanks?)) on the same turn...Also it is also invaluable when you desperately need to capture a city... )
The cavalry promotion for extra movement does work on tanks ..
Mandekalu 's NEED artillery fast to keep the momentum going ...
Rationalism > (?) Autocracy even for a domination game ...[the extra beakers and Scientific Revolution should really help getting the nukes in time ...]



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I will reload a save before the German war and see if can do better ...
Domination is more fun than science victory ...
 
It really depends on the type of map and starting resources. If you play on continents you will probably get stuck in a thin mass of land and won't find enough horses around. So I think pangaea is a must in this strategy.

In my first try with Songhai, I tried continents and in a very thin land. Only 2 horses showed up where I founded my second city. No CS with horses nearby, and insanely heavy barb activity, and this was a prince game!! It became impossible to collect the 900 golds to buy a culture CS and rush build a library, because I couldn't meet lots of CS and other CIVs necessary to earn gold. So I was very late in SP tree although I began researching Chivalry by turn 95, and that was because of a goody hut giving free tech.

In my second Songhai game, on a pangaea I was much more lucky. I sent my scout exploring, meeting lots of people and trading. 4 horses near capital and a horse CS that is allied. It was on turn 84 I bulbed Chivalry although I was still 2-3 short of horsemen. Conquering China and Arabia was a breeze and after that happiness plummeted like stone. For a very long time I was busy dealing with the happiness issue then when I was happy again, conquered Aztec and Mongolian capitals around 1500 AD. This was too late even on a prince game because Americans and Russians were already pumping pikemen and getting their hands on new musketmen, which should make my Mandekalu Cav useless in a possible war. Americans were grabbing what was left of the Aztecs, so I DoWed them just to see how i will fare. I upgraded to Cavalry and delibrately stayed on the defensive. Americans are now coming with musketmen, riflemen and some lancers and pikemen. I took out several units with my 1 cannon and city bombard. My Cavalry is mostly sitting and picking up wounded ones around. So far I guess I cleared half of their units. But i think I shall get into trouble once I lay sieges on their cities. I now really regret upgrading my Mandekalu Cav. because now I must rely on my Cannons to take cities. Maybe an Artillery upgrade shall save the day, no?
 
This just got me a deity win as Mongolia. It was an epic game, went all the way to stealth bombers. Early DoWs forced me to purchase archers, so i wasn't using keshiks until turn 99. Once they hit, though, the first 2 civs exploded. Happiness was a massive problem, I suspect you need to follow up any mass conquering with a solid amount of culture to raise your happiness cap, because I tend to ignore temples due to the slow build time and high upkeep, and I always have tons of happiness issues. Diplomacy issues in the mid game didn't help - by late renaissance no one was willing to trade luxury for luxury with me, and eventually everyone ganged up on me, cancelling RAs en masse and nearly costing me the game. Keshik versus artillery and infantry for a 30-50 turn span, but then i got tanks:D Japan had fighters and took some ground just from the sheer # of units, including a city with a wonder 3/4's built (grrrr)... But then the great scientist cascade brought me modern armor, and i still had horsemen units from the stone age that by now had almost every useful promotion you can get... and in the end, he couldn't stop the few modern armor with siege, blitz, march, and speed, with air support:)
 
On my first attempt playing Mongols, Immortal, standard Pangaea, I got Chivalry by turn 87. It truly was a balancing act between science, culture and gold. It was science that slowed me down and only helped by getting AH and Writing in ruins. Next time I'll empasize science a little more than culture. Now I have six Keshiks but I then realized I needed some foot soldiers. Not sure how the steamroll is going to go - no/negative gold and negative happiness.
 
On my first attempt playing Mongols, Immortal, standard Pangaea, I got Chivalry by turn 87. It truly was a balancing act between science, culture and gold. It was science that slowed me down and only helped by getting AH and Writing in ruins. Next time I'll empasize science a little more than culture. Now I have six Keshiks but I then realized I needed some foot soldiers. Not sure how the steamroll is going to go - no/negative gold and negative happiness.

You don't need foot soldiers, just one horseman to cap the city when it gets to one hit point. Soldiers that move 2 tiles at a time will just slow you down. On Deity it helps to also level up some melee and siege units because the keshiks will eventually need to be supplemented with some infantry/artillery, but on Immortal or lower you can clear the map well before turn 200 with just keshiks, khan and one horseman (often before turn 160 depending on the map). I would eventually aim to get about 10-14 keshiks though, which will help when the cities get to greater then 35 strength. Just build/buy some more as you capture more horses. When I first started trying this strategy my mistake was to not build enough units.

You should also add production to your balancing act. With a low production city it is hard to get to Chivalry below turn 90 even if everything else falls into place, since lower production leads to a later NC. But as long as you get there before turn 100 it should be fine on Immortal or lower.
 
Yeah there were a few things in that game i'd have done different haha and im still not convinced it isnt better to take a GE from liberty and HS, and still pop ND and PT hard teching Chivalry after but pre 80 keshiks can be done!

Much thanks to Snarzberry for the idea
 
The second civ on my invasion list are the Greeks. #1 in soldiers with tons of Hoplites and the Great Wall. I hope the hit-and-run tactic is not going to drag me into a 20-turn war plus the time to take down Athens.
 
Good luck taking down Greece, don't forget the power of the cheap war bribe with Alex to get him fighting someone else just before you invade :)
 
I actually played a game today as Mongolia and had the keshik army up and running on turn 85 on a map where I couldn't meet a Cultural City State early in the game, so no extra culture to finish liberty early. I compensated by building a temple in each city and running artists and it worked out roughly the same time to be able to bulb Chivalry. Something to remember if you get caught in that spot, high production needed though.
 
Good luck taking down Greece, don't forget the power of the cheap war bribe with Alex to get him fighting someone else just before you invade :)

Thank you. I did eventually get Athens in 13 turns - awkward topography and placement in the middle of the landmass plus a dozen aggressive units (not to mention the @%#$! Great Wall) prevented a quicker capture. I think they were already at war with others (and others with me) at the time.

Next up were the Chinese and I got them around 300ad before Cho-Ko-Nus (thank goodness).

Then came Honolulu which was on a coast forming a near perfect half-circle two tiles deep. I aligned 10 Keshiks on their border, covering every tile, declared war and took 10 shots at Honolulu each in two turns (and drawing back) before going in with a swordsman. That's the perfection of Keshiks.

I only have two cities (size 7 and 3) plus annexed Athens. All they do is concentrate on happiness and gold with an occassional replacement unit.

I finished Steel and Physics so I'm about 11-12 (long) turns away from Dynamite. I'm not sure how much longer I can go with the Keshiks without help, esp. when England will be quite a bit later. I love their speed and movement after firing, that's what makes them overpowered, esp. when you can attack enmass instead of piecemeal (as I had to do in Athens).
 
Just posting something for the fun of it. Here's the post-capture screenshot of a Quarter-Circle tactic with every Keshik out of harm's way and yet every Keshik was able to attack.
 

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Wel,, I got the first half of the game pretty much nailed but failed at the second half. Part of it was my mistake in adding two additional civs to the standard Panagaea map (I tend to like a little more denser map). I took out 6 civs (one was gone before I got there) and by the time I finished taking the 6th's capital, the remaining four all DoW me (including the two with their capitals). Still got the 10 Keshiks but I am going up against better units (like Rifles) since my science did lag behind. I guess I could try to defend (what? all of the puppeted capitals?) but will have lost the initiative. Still a long ways to Dynamite but Cavs are along the way. What to do?
 
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