Achieving a Cho-Ko-Nu rush

I've been playing a couple of games as Qin Shi Huang and I've been trying the following to get to Cho-Ko-Nus early:

1. Built the Oracle, took Metal Casting as my free tech
2. Built a forge and ran an Engineer
3. Wait for GE to appear, and lightbulb Machinery
4. Build a huge army of Cho-Ko-Nus and rush my neighbors

It worked, sorta. Here's the problem. The first time I tried it I built the Oracle in Beijing and ran an Engineer in a second city. By the time my GE appeared my neighbors were too strong to rush. The second time I decided to run an Engineer in Beijing but because of the Oracle I ended up with a Great Prophet instead of a Great Engineer. I was running a backup Engineer in a second city so I got my GE eventually, but again by this time my neighbors were too strong to rush.

Has anyone made this work? Is it better to run only an Engineer in a second city so there's a 100% chance of a GE in 50 turns? If you don't get a GE the first time is it better to abandon the whole rush idea at that point?

BTW, I'm playing Warlords at Noble.

Might have a play on this. Will start a game and see what i can do.

I did that couple of times in BtS Prince level with good success. My way was oracle in the first city, forge quckly in second, so that GE has 100% chance. It probably works on Monarch too, and possibly even higher.

Cho-Ku-Nus are quite hammer demanding, so you need some production though. You need at least 4 cities, and they should have forges before GE bulbs Machinery. Qing's industrial trait (cheap Oracle, cheap forges) has a good synergy with this strategy.

In Warlords, the Great Wall gives Engineer points. If you can manage to build it in your future forge city (and it is pretty easy to chop - especially when you have Industrious), I would think you should have a good shot at early Machinery.

Pre-chopping is usually suggested. You pre-chop a couple forests in the 2nd cities BFC, and slam the Forge out in a single turn. Speeds up the process a bit.

Pre-chopping is good. Also build a road so you can get back there and chop quickly.

EDIT: That is why Gandhi and Asoka rule.

i've always found sword plus catapult to be just as effective as cho-ko-nu's

lucked into early crossbows once without any real plan to do so and just slaughtered my neighbor (standard - monarch).
I think it was a game where i clicked a tech way down the tech tree to see what would happen. I suggest clicking metal casting or fission and bulbing and trading to get there the earliest- but as stated it only happened once out of like four hundred thirty five games.

Use the GE farm strategy. Build the Great Wall (In Warlords) and the Pyramids in one city, the Oracle in another.

I have 2 succesful attempts, but the both times I managed to get Machinery, directly from Oracle without using an engineer.

Unless if you are playing deity, you should be fine with Machinery bulb. AI won't have Feudalism, so you'll face archers/melee only. Or try Sitting Bull from China, phil for fast engineer+ tons of promotions.

I wish BurN was still around. He is the one who taught me the fast-GE sling with Qin. I used it once on Monarch and nailed it HARD! Took out 3 AIs, including GK and JC, with just Chu's and a few Spears (since HAs were the only thing I feared).

Above Monarch, I doubt this strat can be used to rush. AIs at Emp+ tech pretty quickly early, since they dont have any wars for some time. It can, however, be used to pop a fast GE to build the Mids with any IND leader at Emp (did it once with Bismark, actually, had Marble in the BFC though, so I mighta been lucky)

It does work. I play on normal speed monarch (although BTS) and can easily bulb Machinery circa 600BC with Qin and whip/chop a nice force to be ready by 200BC. Chu-ko-nu are the only land units with collateral damage that can kill in BTS as far as I know. Also, the fact that they are crossbows means that only horse archers out of all classical era units are on even ground against them. Just bring a few spearmen (you can build those before Machinery is done) to deal with those.

My problem with the CKN rush is that xbows are high hammer units and you delay expansion and therefore hammer potential to set it up. While CKNs own pretty hard, the cost per is high, and against archers, they're actually no better than swords (though they'll win that shifting defender battle at least). The collateral is great, but it still requires you to lose 1-2 per city. Against archers. This is a high price to pay when you sunk a lot of hammers into wonders and now units. By then (200BC range) the AI has a decent city count and they're stronger - often fielding walls or more units. I wonder if in a lot of situations axes aren't more hammer efficient forms of "collateral" (as in they suicide and do damage).

Cover makes them ever so slightly better than swords against archers...but you're giving up a lot to get this ability, and before long the AI will have defenses that need siege to deal with regardless (forget it vs protective archers or on a hill).

If you can clear these restrictions, they can be very powerful...but I'd rather use them later alongside catapults and spears.

Thanks for all the advice, folks.

I hadn't considered trying for the Great Wall / Pyramids. This last game Augustus beat me to both - I was lucky to get the Oracle!

However, I realized I'd made the mistake of building Stonehenge in the city where I was trying to farm a GE. That just managed to get me an early Great Prophet (though the free Monuments have turned out to be useful).

One question I have about pre-chops in general. How do you time the chops so the bonus hammers go to what your target is? Can you chop to within one turn of completion, stop the workers, then have them continue when you're ready to start the forge?

TheMeInTeam said:

I wonder if in a lot of situations axes aren't more hammer efficient forms of "collateral" (as in they suicide and do damage).

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Not to mention other lightyears earlier UUs like quechuas, praets and vultures.

duckstab: Yes click the worker and tell him to cancel his orders when it says he has 2 turns left (or 1 if you forgot and he has yet to perform his action for the turn), you can hold ALT if you want to use that order for all workers in your empire at the same time.
If two cities share a forest in their bfcs, the one who controls the tile in its city screen will get the hammers.

In my opinion this isnt that hard to do (at least on emporer), all you need is one early wonder (oracle) and a slightly growth stunted second city (as it will be running a specialist). The way i do it is this:
1)settle capital and do worker first as normal, teching BW. If theres a reason to go AH next followed by wheel.
2)Beeline priesthood while building a settler and a second worker (remember to save some chops)
3)Settle your second city to claim some forrested land, 4 is ideal. If this can hook up copper or horses (unlikely) even better.
4)Build oracle as soon as priesthood comes in, with chops while teching pottery. Time so they finish on the same turn.
5)take MC as your free tech (duh) and start second city on forge. once the oracle is built you have 15 turns to get the forge up and the engineer running.
6)now the oracle is complete you have to focus your capital on expansion, pumping out settlers workers and garrisons as normal, look for city sites that will be useful soon... i know that jungle grassland looks good, but corn + cows is a lot more useful.
7)tech IW while the engineer gets going and make sure to settle an iron source.
8)tech normally (towards lit for me) and get barracks up in most of your cities.
9)as soon as machinery comes in go on a whip/chop fest. It may not seem like much but if each city can whip one and chop one, while your capital and good prod city slow build you can get a decent army.
10)target a neighbour, while continuing to pump reinforcments from hammer cities, the rest can go back to infastructure/backfill.

This wont always be an optimal strategy, if the lands good REX if Gandhis next door with copper in you BFC... but its fun adn doable, without knackering your civ, or relying on overly risky oracle techs (CS).

MkLh said:

Cho-Ku-Nus are quite hammer demanding, so you need some production though. You need at least 4 cities, and they should have forges before GE bulbs Machinery. Qing's industrial trait (cheap Oracle, cheap forges) has a good synergy with this strategy.

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This is my entire problem with this strategy. As has been mentioned, using this unit to it's fullest potential means you also need to use it the way you would use a catapult. I build catapults with the intention of leaving their scattered remains on the battlefield for the greater good of the war effort. I don't feel the same way about Cho Ku Nus. They take a lot of investment so it's an awfully big sacrafice to just attack with one at 35% odds just to soften up the defenders a little bit.

In my opinion, this is a strategy best used if you have a relatively peaceful, but potentially annoying neighbor. (Creative and expansive ones in particular fit this description.) You have a lot to gain by taking them out before they grab all the land and start becoming strong, and you can also build a relatively efficient army lead by Cho Ku Nus that should have a very good chance of success.

IMO, the best use is against protective civ, if you need to rush them fast. And they have one more very important advantage, they are good city deffenders and have no counter, you don't need to bring protective units to newly captured cities, or build stack deffenders. That means lower upkeep cost and less hammers spent.

IMO, horse archers are very effective field counters to xbows and CKNs. Even with protective, they hold the promo advantage and will win in the field (drill is meaningless vs HAs unless it unlocks formation, which in this time frame it will not). A combat II HA will wreck traveling CKNs, so you'll probably need spears too...which you'll be able to make anyway if you can make xbows.

Also, I'd rather stock cities with archers than leave behind offensive troops. While xbows can play the defense role, I'd rather keep those hammer investments going on the offensive - a CG II archer will hold pat vs pretty much everything, and you'll probably need 2 of any unit you leave behind because HAs will beat a lone defending xbow. If you're going to leave 2 things behind, IMO use archers and continue to focus CKNs/offensive units on offense (it's not like you won't have access to archers with this strat...). Especially with a strat like this, hammer efficiency is really important.

There's of course the option to send a CKN+Spearman raiding party to pillage their horses. Once you deal with the existing HAs the rest is easier.