China and GK

Those chukonus... way way way too strong. They survive 3 hits from a regular xbow (I was doing less than 30 damage and I had that Alahmbra wonder), and because they shoot twice, they get plenty of xp for heal promotions to become zombie units. In addition, because they shoot twice, they build twice the great general points... but China already get great general bonus!

So now China has more great generals than you, so you can never build a citadel because they will steal it. But they can build a citadel, because if you steal it they steal it right back!

With cities... several chukonus reduce it to zero very quickly - doesn't matter if you have walls and a castle, it is like they don't exist.

For brief period I was playing GK continents with China, where I would conquor the continent when I got to chukonus. Then I would get tech win or some other win with my huge puppet empire. But today... I got to face the receiving end of China... felt like I was fighting an entire era behind with 1/2 my opponent's production... yet I had more tech and more production when the war started... until I started losing cities.

On the plus side my previous game I won a 187 turn space victory... I am ok playing vs China if they are not near me...

Silverfuturist said:

I am ok playing vs China if they are not near me...

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Rush them before they rush you. Only way to reduce their effectiveness. Thank god i had England last time i fought China

Tabarnak said:

Rush them before they rush you. Only way to reduce their effectiveness. Thank god i had England last time i fought China

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Good thought but... if they are competant and you rush them, they will defend and then you both fall behind everybody else.

England would have been nice...

I did a quick combat scenario:

3 xbows face off vs 3 chukonus. The xbows even get to shoot first.
A. All 3 xbows shoot 1 chukonu and it is not dead yet
B. 3 chukonus with 6 shots kill 1 xbow and wound a second
C. the almost dead chukonu now has a promotion and heals. the other 2 chukonus take a sweet promotion
D. the 2 xbows shoot the wounded (but almost healed now) chukonu, but it barely survives as the wounded xbow doesn't do full damage.
E. the 2 xbows now have promotions, one heals the other picks promotion
F. the wounded chukonu retreats, and the other 2 chukonus kill the promoted xbow.
G the surviving xbow cannot come close to killing 2 fully healed chukonus, but will die if it sticks around.

If the chukonus get to go first, it is even more devestating.

well its obviously a huge problem if u got a crap civ and a good opponent.

But how often does this happen?
With having another op civ (as many are ..) aswell you got another huge advantage -

what about knights doing hit and runs on them? Should be kinda effective - espacially if opponent is not pro -
if they start surounding one city its kinda gg as after that next city will fall due to the general problem you pointed out

tommynt said:

well its obviously a huge problem if u got a crap civ and a good opponent.

But how often does this happen?
With having another op civ (as many are ..) aswell you got another huge advantage -

what about knights doing hit and runs on them? Should be kinda effective - espacially if opponent is not pro -
if they start surounding one city its kinda gg as after that next city will fall due to the general problem you pointed out

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So far, it has happened 3 times in NQ games where China is next to me and I don't kill them early... each time I lost, and the players I lost to I never lost to in vanilla. The only other time I lost before atomic age in NQ FFA was when Spain was next to me and found 3 wonders first early.

Knights were tried, but I only had a 4 horse resource, nobody would give me horses (everybody was fighting somebody else) and my CS allies didn't have horses. But my horse resource was exposed and when he pillaged it it was GG.

I just played China on FFA pangea and got to enjoy their broken abilities

Neighbor was Spain. They found faith wonder, bought settler right away and had biggest and best empire until machinery. They even did the "faith warriors" belief combined with padogas, they were spamming out units like candy corn. But... I rushed machinery, and those chukonus obliterated his larger army with almost no casualties, and he resigned after I destroyed his entire army and took his closest city. He was an experienced player as well, not a noob at all.

On the other hand... I played China in a continents game. Took over the continents after machinery. But guy on other continent had a better empire, I only won space victory because I knew a lot of the tecniques and tricks to get the sucker up first.

So China not overpowered in many starts, but in some it is simply ridic.

did you upgrade your armies through barracks/national epic and such? hmmmmm

Silverfuturist said:

Good thought but... if they are competant and you rush them, they will defend and then you both fall behind everybody else.

England would have been nice...

I did a quick combat scenario:

3 xbows face off vs 3 chukonus. The xbows even get to shoot first.
A. All 3 xbows shoot 1 chukonu and it is not dead yet
B. 3 chukonus with 6 shots kill 1 xbow and wound a second
C. the almost dead chukonu now has a promotion and heals. the other 2 chukonus take a sweet promotion
D. the 2 xbows shoot the wounded (but almost healed now) chukonu, but it barely survives as the wounded xbow doesn't do full damage.
E. the 2 xbows now have promotions, one heals the other picks promotion
F. the wounded chukonu retreats, and the other 2 chukonus kill the promoted xbow.
G the surviving xbow cannot come close to killing 2 fully healed chukonus, but will die if it sticks around.

If the chukonus get to go first, it is even more devestating.

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I have been playing China a lot lately (when not playing England) and definitely agree that they are OP, especially with GGs being a lot more useful in G&K.

However, don't fight fire with fire. Knights work really well. If your front is heavily "roaded" you can "missile" the cho's with knights and retreat with little-to-no returned fire. Also, the wounded unit promo works wonders. Mobility in general is your friend against archery units. If you are next to china, Great Wall time Don't like wonders? then invest in roads, as your opponent can't use them (except if they pop those GGs, oh well )

Also, don't chop all your forests / jungle, especially ones one square away from your city - they work great as movement buffers / line of sight blockers.

Silverfuturist said:

So far, it has happened 3 times in NQ games where China is next to me and I don't kill them early... each time I lost, and the players I lost to I never lost to in vanilla. The only other time I lost before atomic age in NQ FFA was when Spain was next to me and found 3 wonders first early.

Knights were tried, but I only had a 4 horse resource, nobody would give me horses (everybody was fighting somebody else) and my CS allies didn't have horses. But my horse resource was exposed and when he pillaged it it was GG.

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Didn't read this till after my reply above. Yeah, being resource strapped is a problem with knights. That said, if you know from scouting that China is close by then you know you are going to need to settle your cities near horses

slyrp said:

I have been playing China a lot lately (when not playing England) and definitely agree that they are OP, especially with GGs being a lot more useful in G&K.

However, don't fight fire with fire. Knights work really well. If your front is heavily "roaded" you can "missile" the cho's with knights and retreat with little-to-no returned fire. Also, the wounded unit promo works wonders. Mobility in general is your friend against archery units. If you are next to china, Great Wall time Don't like wonders? then invest in roads, as your opponent can't use them (except if they pop those GGs, oh well )

Also, don't chop all your forests / jungle, especially ones one square away from your city - they work great as movement buffers / line of sight blockers.

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Great points, they are techniques I have used before - in this game China got great wall earlier than it usually gets built... they rushed it! Used citadels to put their great wall in my territory, then my roads became theirs! Then when they attacked the chopped all woods to give chukonus a line of sight... evil! All the kind of stuff I do as China...

Silverfuturist said:

Great points, they are techniques I have used before - in this game China got great wall earlier than it usually gets built... they rushed it! Used citadels to put their great wall in my territory, then my roads became theirs! Then when they attacked the chopped all woods to give chukonus a line of sight... evil! All the kind of stuff I do as China...

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I ended up "cho-cho train"ing someone as China last night (NQ - The Muffin Man), and they did a respectable job of defense, so I had to resort to citadals. I even resorted to a shift click to get it in position, but I could have just used two GGs instead.

Their strategy:

* Be Spain, find 3 wonders, build a city next to a wonder, first to find 5 or so city states. Long story short, best start ever if it weren't for the fact that he didn't find El Dorado / couldn't settle next to the other two wonders as they were claimed by CS.
* Have 8 cities with +2 science for trade routes pan
* Have a buffer civ between himself and myself (Austria) so he didn't get comp bow rushed
* Have better production (2x mine) so that you can pump out Conquistadors and Xbows
* Have great wall (though chos can shoot then move, not quite as good as move then shoot)

That is, they should have won the game easily. Instead, OP Chos won the day as soon as I built a city next to his capital and claimed territory with GG. I also outclicked him a bit, so was able to focus on economy in my cities rather than producing new chos.

slyrp said:

I ended up "cho-cho train"ing someone as China last night (NQ - The Muffin Man), and they did a respectable job of defense, so I had to resort to citadals. I even resorted to a shift click to get it in position, but I could have just used two GGs instead.

Their strategy:

* Be Spain, find 3 wonders, build a city next to a wonder, first to find 5 or so city states. Long story short, best start ever if it weren't for the fact that he didn't find El Dorado / couldn't settle next to the other two wonders as they were claimed by CS.
* Have 8 cities with +2 science for trade routes pan
* Have a buffer civ between himself and myself (Austria) so he didn't get comp bow rushed
* Have better production (2x mine) so that you can pump out Conquistadors and Xbows
* Have great wall (though chos can shoot then move, not quite as good as move then shoot)

That is, they should have won the game easily. Instead, OP Chos won the day as soon as I built a city next to his capital and claimed territory with GG. I also outclicked him a bit, so was able to focus on economy in my cities rather than producing new chos.

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Great cho story. I have played the Muffin Man before, he is a polite and honorable player when I was in the same game as him.

Hey slyrp,

Have you tried Keshik rushing with Mongols on MP? I have played them a few times and handily won, BUT I was way ahead in production and my opponents didn't have a road network to defend.

I haven't played against anybody strong in MP who have had the Mongols, so I haven't had to deal with them yet. I feel that chukonus are stronger because of the two attacks, stronger defense bonus, and no need for a resource, but don't know yet.

Silverfuturist said:

Hey slyrp,

Have you tried Keshik rushing with Mongols on MP? I have played them a few times and handily won, BUT I was way ahead in production and my opponents didn't have a road network to defend.

I haven't played against anybody strong in MP who have had the Mongols, so I haven't had to deal with them yet. I feel that chukonus are stronger because of the two attacks, stronger defense bonus, and no need for a resource, but don't know yet.

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I actually lost online a few weeks ago to someone with Keshiks (yeah, I know, admitting to losing a game of Civ - who does that online?), so I figured I would give them a go. While Keshiks are fantastic for single player, for multiplayer you need to be really "fast" to attack, and then move, without being counter attacked. Resources are all to often an issue, so I normally put early-game resource dependent strategies in the same bucket as wonder-based strategies. At least you can find out if you are going to have a good time of it early on with AH, unlike the old Iron Gambit pre-G&K. On top of that and the issues you mention above, they are very weak to xbows and pikes.

Also, the upgrade path is less than ideal. Horsemen are fine defensively, but hard to use for an early game rush. Their promotions (form horsemen and to calvary) are effectively lost, and they don't really upgrade in to that great of a unit later on (unlike double-shooting machine guns).

On the other hand, Comps are a great rushing unit. I find most games I am early rushing now especially if my nearby opponent is Maya, Babylon, Inca or Spain as their starts can push them so far ahead if you don't do something early. And double shooting Machine Guns _destroy_ everything

In other news, I found another way to beat the rush (unfortunately by losing ). It was a linear fractal (long and skinny continent). I got rushed early on by a celt-warrior rush (ChrisDaFox), and lost a city early on (even with 4 comps defending!). I managed to hold on long enough to get machinery and then turned the tables. Unfortunately, that took a long time (since I lost an early city and Chris' capital w/ HG+Petra only had 3 squares I could attack from, and he had enough cash / prod to produce a new pike every turn to prevent me from taking the city with a melee unit). It was over 20 tiles (and a few CS) to the next opponent, the Maya (Alshain). They already had _artillery_ and calvary by the time I got there, but it was no match for 12 chos. Swarming is great with them By the time I made it through their cities I had to fight through another city state to get to France (perron). He had the great wall (didn't get artillery the whole game), filled out culture tiles, and rifles then _infantry_. I upgraded to Machine Guns, and by sac'ing 3 GGs managed to get close to one of his cities. It turned into a 7-citadel marathon I was just breaking through (had artillery units coming down), when his "team mate" Persia (Rudy) dropped in from the ocean near my capital. I had to move units back to my capital (9 turns on roads - that's how stretched out the map was) so wasn't able to take any french cities

I then sat there defending two lines for about 2-3 hours before it got too late and I had to concede.

My main mistake was continuing the rush to France. Should have held back and fixed my economy and turtled my way from there. However, with France and Persia signing research agreements, it would have been hard for me to keep up. Perron had a good point that friendships are important in this game 2v1 is never easy.

So, strategy to beat Chos: team up! Though to be honest, that only really works if in the mid to late game. I normally finish Cho rush pangaea / fractal games around turn 110 or so, so even when people do team up, it normally doesn't help much.

"for multiplayer you need to be really "fast" to attack, and then move, without being counter attacked."

Great point, in my games I was fast and I had used some tactical techniques that might not have worked vs a strong player.

"_artillery_ and calvary by the time I got there, but it was no match for 12 chos."

THIS says it all - artillery and cavalry being no match for previous era units!!!

Silverfuturist said:

"_artillery_ and calvary by the time I got there, but it was no match for 12 chos."

THIS says it all - artillery and cavalry being no match for previous era units!!!

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I have some difficulties with this. If i can kill a Musket fully fortified with Himeji Castle bonus with 4 arty units how cho ko nus can resist to them properly? 3 range attack not be able to counter CKNs? Thanks for the laugh.

Unless you are talking about only 2 or 3 arty units. If it's the case then you faced a really poor army. Bring 12 CKNs against my 7-8 artys and 4-5 industrial horse/melee units and they will die in some turns like a knife in butter.

Tabarnak said:

I have some difficulties with this. If i can kill a Musket fully fortified with Himeji Castle bonus with 4 arty units how cho ko nus can resist to them properly? 3 range attack not be able to counter CKNs? Thanks for the laugh.

Unless you are talking about only 2 or 3 arty units. If it's the case then you faced a really poor army. Bring 12 CKNs against my 7-8 artys and 4-5 industrial horse/melee units and they will die in some turns like a knife in butter.

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What I am saying - chukonos are too strong vs cities, even when the opponent jumps to the next era, they still work damn well vs cities.

Silverfuturist said:

What I am saying - chukonos are too strong vs cities, even when the opponent jumps to the next era, they still work damn well vs cities.

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Ok but i quoted a part where you say they beat artys and cavs...against cities i can understand that the double shooting is pretty good against cities lower than 40 but not much. Over that number an oligarchy city with a good ranged unit can easily kill a CKN per turn.

slyrp said:

I ended up "cho-cho train"ing someone as China last night (NQ - The Muffin Man), and they did a respectable job of defense, so I had to resort to citadals. I even resorted to a shift click to get it in position, but I could have just used two GGs instead.

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Interesting

As you are member of NQ you would have read the rule regarding shift moves.
What is your steam id??

I'm going to have to agree. China is very op. There uu is very powerful to begin with and then throw in the extra GG spawn rate. Without the extra generals I'd say England and China are fairly equal. The best part, or the worst depending which side your on is the units keep their special ability when upgraded to gatlin and machine guns.