Anti-Hippus tactics?

[Lance of Llanwy]

Just a quick note... part of the problem is probably that you have ancient forests immediately adjacent to your cities. When the Hippus attacked me, they tended to bring one or two melee units and would rest the whole stack in the ancient forest (with the melee unit providing defense with +50% bonus). I can't remember if their horsemen get defense bonuses.

You may want to make sure that the first ring around your cities don't have any forests which should allow you to venture out and counterattack more efficiently.

Just use Apprenticeship to get Woodsman II Fawns. That'd probably allow you to attack them in the forests. You can later upgrade the survivors into satyrs and have them slaughter any poor fool that stumbles into the woods

 

[JameyM]

I honestly beeline Cartography and the Pact of Nilhorn in every game I play to get the Three Stooges. When playing as the elves, I think this is a must as it gives you 3 units much better than Catapaults IMO. In addition to their bombarding skill (they throw coconut custard pies at the enemy!) they are great as HN units in that it takes a long time for the AI to catch up to them and you can send them into AI territory to build up XP and pillage to get Gold.

This can't be emphasized enough. Early on, they have 7 strength and are vicious raiding enemy lands when the enemy has 4s and 5s on their units. In the later stages of the game, I wind up getting them Mobility 2 and using them as a 3 MP siege train.

This is doubly true with the Ljosalfar, whom I do not believe get normal siege engines. Sure, you can use mages instead, but I find it more convenient to just select the stooges and tell them to bombard.

 

[lordrune]

Hmm Cartography's a handy technology anyway for open borders/map exchange. I haven't yet built Pact of the Nilhorn, but I'm going to try it in my next game nice tip.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I rarely find Pact of the Nilhorn to be worth it honestly. I think that in my version it won't give 3 free Hill Giants, but will make them buildable instead.

I also think that giving Treants siege abilities makes a lot more sense than giving them to hill giants.

 

[Sarisin]

This can't be emphasized enough. Early on, they have 7 strength and are vicious raiding enemy lands when the enemy has 4s and 5s on their units. In the later stages of the game, I wind up getting them Mobility 2 and using them as a 3 MP siege train.

This is doubly true with the Ljosalfar, whom I do not believe get normal siege engines. Sure, you can use mages instead, but I find it more convenient to just select the stooges and tell them to bombard.

Thanks for agreeing with my strategy, but I don't believe the Stooges can get a Mobility 2 promotion. I wish they could!

I try to get the Commando promotion for them early on so they can zip around as HN units on roads pillaging and killing the weaker units on the map. When the Rangers start showing up in the game, though, it is time to bring them back home as I find even basic Rangers are hard to kill, and a Ranger with a few promotions will easily take down a heavily-promoted Stooge.

I am playing as Arendel Phaedra (?) now and have all three of my Stooges up near 200 XP.

 

[Humakty]

Anyone has an idea on how to counter an early hippus horsemn rush with the luchuirps ? I've got stomped all other, my wood golems were too slow, and much to weak (I had 30 % on average, but Hippus had gained XP against another foe (victim...)).

 

[heisenberg]

Early on a surprise horsemen rush can be fatal if you are not prepared for it.
I'd say that if you are near Tasunke you should start building up a decent military early even if it means cutting back abit on building other non-essential buildings like wonders etc. That usually is the best way to prevent a Hippus rush.

Needless to say, as the Luchuirp, you should focus on getting good ol' Barney up to combat V ASAP. With empower V wood golems, you should be really getting very good odds even against battle-hardened horsemen.
Horsemen are str 4 after all, and cannot gain defensive bonuses--so use that to your advantage.
Even a combat V horsemen would only have a str of 8, and a wood golem (base 6) with empower V, would have a str of 9.
So once you kill off those veteran horsemen, the remainder of the stack (which say only has combat III), would be easy to mop up.

The problem really comes if you are surprised by a huge invading stack and your military is too weak. (that's why I've advocated a decently large military as deterrence earlier)
However, as I've mentioned in the comparison of modified str, garrisoned wood golems are definitely hard to kill by horsemen--but beware of their withdrawal abilities through flanking.
Golems might have good high str, but they are impotent when it comes to regaining str through purely healing.
Enchantment Adepts for Repair are absolutely essential for the Luchuirp, so grab KoTE early on. A simple earth I wall of stone would also help increase the defensive bonuses of your cities.
With enough Adepts on the field, you'd actually find that Luchuirp's golem army actually recovers much faster, than any other generic civ needing to heal a few turns with medic II priests.

Thats my take on the Luchuirp against the Hippus in the early-mid game.
Many of the other suggestions found in this thread are not Ljosolfar specific, and can be applied or modified to fit into the Luchuirp's case. (for eg. not building roads near raider civs)

 

[Humakty]

You're right, I was over confident, too much used to play the Clan, I guess. I was building a wonder when they attacked, even though they warned me by invading our common neighbour.
However, I still really think it would have been hard, because these damn horsemen kept retreating when I won, just falling back to their cities for healing, and sending in fresh fodder.
Thanks for the advice !

 

[heisenberg]

You're welcome

And yes I did forget to mention the huge annoying withdrawal sometimes when you attack.
But if you look at this for another perspective:
Golems cannot gain experience through combat.
So if horsemen actually withdraw severely wounded by a golem its actually a blessing in disguise.
Adepts can farm those half-dead horsemen up for very neat XP--such that once you hit sorcery, many of those can become mages immediately.
Non-arcane civs sometimes have trouble getting their adepts to level up on their own, so you'd have to throw them into combat to level them up proactively.
Not to mention once they become mages, Earth II stoneskin is very useful in letting them pretty safely continue to fight in the fronts/protect against assassins.

 

[slowcar]

luichirp with golems should have no problems against horsemen. maybe you forgot to have barnaxus trained to combat 5?

tasunke is the strongest military leader (but not the most aggressive, that would be varn gosam imo) - if you play none of the other aggressive (or similar) leaders you'll have to level his advantage with yours, be it economy, expansion or magic.
if the hippus start a rampage against their neighbours it is not very smart to let them proceed, best intervene while they are on it.

i can understand very well that some players are surprised that a hippus army full of combat5/city raider axemen and horses comes over and stomps over defenses.
if this happens they got a lot of training - while you were sitting around doing happy builder style without preparing any defenses.
some people like playing peaceful - but playing defenseless is something different (even if soeren won a domination victory without building a single military unit once).

 

[heisenberg]

tasunke is the strongest military leader (but not the most aggressive, that would be varn gosam imo) - if you play none of the other aggressive (or similar) leaders you'll have to level his advantage with yours, be it economy, expansion or magic.
if the hippus start a rampage against their neighbours it is not very smart to let them proceed, best intervene while they are on it.

Actually I prefer to simply beat up the poor guy getting pummeled by the Hippus--just try to kill the weakened defenders in their cities and grab it before the Hippus do
There's nothing like someone else doing the dirty work of killing the most hardened defenders for you.

 

[Sarisin]

You're welcome

And yes I did forget to mention the huge annoying withdrawal sometimes when you attack.
But if you look at this for another perspective:
Golems cannot gain experience through combat.
So if horsemen actually withdraw severely wounded by a golem its actually a blessing in disguise.
Adepts can farm those half-dead horsemen up for very neat XP--such that once you hit sorcery, many of those can become mages immediately.
Non-arcane civs sometimes have trouble getting their adepts to level up on their own, so you'd have to throw them into combat to level them up proactively.
Not to mention once they become mages, Earth II stoneskin is very useful in letting them pretty safely continue to fight in the fronts/protect against assassins.

You make a lot of excellent points on your strategy against the Hippus!

Yes, I find the overinflated withdrawal rates a real nuisance, and, as you said, it is great to have another unit nearby to kill the wounded Hippus mounted unit. Of course, even then you might find the blasted thing withdraw again! I can remember many times when they withdrew twice, but only once when the unit (with all the withdrawal promotions) withdrew three times.

One thing I never understood is the XP when a unit withdraws from battle. As I recall only one unit, the attacker I think, gains any XP. Wouldn't you think the defender would get some experience there too? Then, again, usually it is only one pt. so I'm not sure how that could be given unless the attacking unit was killed...

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I tend to think that xp from withdrawal should be more too. Currently it can only give 1 xp regardless of the odds, and only to the attacker.