Longbows vs. Chu-Ko-Nus?

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Vajrajina

Chieftain
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Oct 7, 2014
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Which one do YOU prefer?

I know that you can't just pick off a UA without considering the CIV as a whole to determine the accurate value of the unit (in other words: you can spam more Chu-Ko-Nus than Longbows).

BUT suppose you can just choose them regardless of which civ you're playing. Which one would you build?

I would choose longbows. While CKN offers more firepower, Longbows let you besiege cities very effectively very early on. They are poor man's artillery, 2 eras before Christmas.

Also, longbows can get a 4 tile range, but CKN can't shoot 3 times. Same goes for their upgrades, if both of them grab range and logistics, you end up with a gatling gun that COULD attack 3 times, but won't, or a Gatling gun that will still attack twice, but with a range of 3.

Any thoughts about this?
 
Afaik longbows can't get to 4 range. But I'll say longbows. Early on, they have the advantage of being able to besiege cities from out of their attack range. Later on, by the time that CKNs would have Range and Longbows would have Logistics, Longbows have the advantage of having a higher ranged strength, meaning more damage dealt and less damage taken.
 
59saintdane said:
Afaik longbows can't get to 4 range. But I'll say longbows. Early on, they have the advantage of being able to besiege cities from out of their attack range. Later on, by the time that CKNs would have Range and Longbows would have Logistics, Longbows have the advantage of having a higher ranged strength, meaning more damage dealt and less damage taken.
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4 range Longbows that could upgrade to 3 range gatlings/machine gun/bazooka would just be crazy powerful for city defense :crazyeye: Mow down the army before it even has a chance to get to the city
 
Without indirect fire that extra range isn't so sexy. I'd still prefer artillery over a buffed gatling gun and that means the promotion aspect isn't really something that I take in account. By the time either cho-ku-nu or longbow get enough exp to get +1 range or logistic, I probably don't have much need for them anymore.

Longbow are generally more appealing to me, but it's situational. Like I said, they are completely pointless to conquer a city surrounded by forest and without hills nearby.

Cho-ku-nu on the other hand have the advantage that they can exp more quickly, since they gain exp for each attack and they attack twice as often.
 
Longbows for defense, CKN for offense.

Longbows can pick off units before they get to your cities (plus a few more when they're retreating) and CKN double attack is nice for quickly getting city HP down.
 
I've used both quite often since England and China are among my favourite civs. Longbow is nice if you have large production cities to spam a lot of them, but in most games I played I can only produce around 6 or 7 ranged units and the CKN edge it due to their fast promotion.
 
59saintdane said:
Afaik longbows can't get to 4 range.
Click to expand...
This is true, Longbows start with the standard range promotion and hence can't get it once more. The same is, oddly, not true for Cho-Ku-Nos that have a special double-attack promotion and hence can get the promotion for extra attack, however it does them little good as they will need a movement of 3 to use the third attack which does not happen unless you have some very specific circumstances (like upgraded scout with Scouting III promotion or Persia getting them from a CS).
 
It's an old chestnut this question!
They're both great UUs; it's pretty much as someone else said, one has a slight edge in defence, one in offence.
 
longbows and not close, honestly a vanilla crossbowman is fairly competitive with a ckn, at least its attack power will remain relevant for more than 20-30 turns. With longbow you can have a squad of 6 archers pelting a city state with arrows for the first 80 turns until you get logistics, then steamroll the map at machinery.
 
Longbows can't get range 4 and the graylings will only be range 3.

I prefer longbows. Out range cities. First shot and higher strength in a 1v1.
Move to three range and shoot, force the CKN to move to two range then shoot. The higher strength and first shot wins.
 
CKN has a lower attack strength (although that becomes moot when they upgrade) while Longbows get their range for free with no drawback.
 
kaspergm said:
This is true, Longbows start with the standard range promotion and hence can't get it once more. The same is, oddly, not true for Cho-Ku-Nos that have a special double-attack promotion and hence can get the promotion for extra attack, however it does them little good as they will need a movement of 3 to use the third attack which does not happen unless you have some very specific circumstances (like upgraded scout with Scouting III promotion or Persia getting them from a CS).
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Hmm. I was unaware of that. I thought they have a triangle like the CKNs. But now that you mentioned it I do recall them having the crosshair-iconed promotion thingy.
 
So I take it I'm not the only one who never actually saw the chance to promote a longbow that much.

Let's face it, level 4 promotions are hardly something that you should put in your equation unless we are talking about end game units.
 
Ryoga said:
So I take it I'm not the only one who never actually saw the chance to promote a longbow that much.

Let's face it, level 4 promotions are hardly something that you should put in your equation unless we are talking about end game units.
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True, ranged units do get less exp when performing ranged attacks. If only there was an Alhambra for ranged units that gave you a free barrage or something, but that'd probably be too good.
 
Longbows every time.

CKN's get more exp in theory, but throw theory out the window when you have to spend 3 turns healing off what damage a city throws at you.

Also, longbows...never...stop. With longbows, you can keep taking cities with the only damage you take being on the horseman (or knight) that takes the city, unless it hits 1 health, in which case even it wouldn't take damage.

Even just 1 or 2 longbowmen can slowly take down a city well into the industrial era, so the city has to have truly awesome defensive placement to protect against them, and if it has that much forest/jungle, it's probably not an important city anyway.
 
And longbows have higher ranged combat strength than CKNs, so when both have range and logistics (or the CKN equivalent), the longbows deal more damage per turn.
 
Rooftrellen said:
Longbows every time.

CKN's get more exp in theory, but throw theory out the window when you have to spend 3 turns healing off what damage a city throws at you.
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This, exactly. I think the balance changes done to CKN were reasonable, because before they were beasts, but now they are just an ok unit imo.

Btw. I think someone said Longbows were better on defence and CKN better on attack. I'd say completely opposite. Plant a CKN in city for defence to cause a lot of damage on assaulting units. Use Longbows to take cities down while still being out of return fire reach.
 
Longbows get screwed both by terrain and by bugs (tiles you SHOULD be able to attack being unattackable) so Chu-Ko-Nu every time.
 
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