Askia/Deity beeline Chivalry or get PT?

[Mirando]

I started a deity game with Askia and got a great start. I got a riverside plains start with 2 wheat tiles, 6 horses, marble, and incense(standard resource settings), I got a culture ruin and an archer scout, free tech and free pop. Gao is surrounded by CS's so no AI has settles near it. I was a little cramped but I managed to get my second city in a plains/tundra area with 2 deers, 2 horses, 4 incense(whadup monastery) and a wheat.
I also managed to get the Oracle and Stonehenge because I had a lot of forest to chop around Gao.
Techwise I did the usual and got the PT. I had gotten a bunch of RS's from all my incense. I did not manage to get to rationalism in time though.

But should I have beelined to chivalry instead? And captured the PT from whoever built it?
Harun DOW'd me and I had to fend him and a crazy agressive Helsinki(they almost captured Gao) off with my first manducav before I could think about doing anything else.
So its now turn 140 and I have 8 manducav. Medina has a 39 shields. I can't capture that. However, that is probably the strongest city in the world. Most of Darius's cities are around 25.

SO, should I have beelined chivalry instead of going the HS, PT way? I sure could've gotten to chivalry faster than I did now. I'm thinking about trying to make peace with Harun, attacking Darius and going for a cultural victory...

 

[Roxlimn]

Not a Deity player here, but if the combat is otherwise identical across diff settings, then you should be able to capture a 39 defense city with just the 8 ManduCav, assuming that the terrain is favorable and there are no Trebs or Cannon in the city.

I had a similar situation once with Hiawatha. His Forested lands were a real pain. What I did was I went around his cap and captured the rest of the cities, which were at 20-28 defense. No prob at all for ManduCav.

 

[Martin Alvito]

There's no guarantee that the PT will get built anywhere near you.

It depends on how you plan to play the game. If you're in a situation where there is war or will be war, or if you want to go the Domination route, then you need to get to Chivalry fast. If you plan to take a more peaceful approach, always go for Education quickly and get the Porcelain Tower up ASAP.

 

[Cheeseisgood]

I'm playing with Askia right now and pretty much beelined Chivalry. Worth noting that I'm playing on Prince rather than your Deity, but if you can set up RAs to get you there faster then you should still be getting Manducavs while the best anyone else has is Crossbowmen/Pikemen.

But of course, therein lies the problem of a Knight Unique Unit... Unless you can get to it stupidly early, everybody is packing pikemen by that time. They're pretty reasonable at taking cities, but you want to bring a LOT of siege/range units to pick off anything that comes near the Manducav.

 

[Roxlimn]

Played Prince a lot, and then playing King now. Pikemen should not be a problem for ManduCav. At the point where you have ManduCav at Prince, you should already have BronzeWorking and Barracks, though it's no great feat to also have acquired Armories as well.

A ManduCav promoted along the right terrain lines should not have a problem (with Flanking, Discipline, and GG) dealing with singles or pairs of Pikemen. It's the flood of German Landsknechts that are really a headache for ManduCavs.

 

[Mirando]

Pikemen? 10+100% vs mounted = 20 strength plus any promotions or GG. They are the toughest thing to face except Siams elephants, Tercios and lancers.
And the AI and CS's masses them.

 

[Roxlimn]

Toughest? Naw. Toughest for Classical/Early Medieval Civs, but not the toughest for mid or late Medieval Civs.

Longswordsmen have base 16 CS already, and any modifier bases off of base CS. A Pikeman starts with a +10 CS against mounted, but terrain, promotions, and GGs add proportionally less.

Pikeman with +100 vs. Mounted and +85% from various sources = 28.5
Longswordsman with +85% = 29.6

As situational bonuses are stacked in favor of the enemy, the Longswordsman just gets stronger in in comparison. Even so, it's Cannon in high-def cities that are the real killers.

 

[Mirando]

Well, its really marginal between pikes and ls's but as the AI the majority of times has more pikes than ls's they're a pain. Plus, the AI rarely has any promotions so in this scenario pikes are worse anyway...

But I started a new game. I was going for conquest but my manducav were much too late and my capital was boxed in by 4 CS's allied to my enemy. And 2 AI's were already covering 1/4 of the pangea each.
Hate to quit a game but it was too late to fix the mistakes.

This game I got a start with 4 horse, wheat, gold and marble plus some other stable resources. Got a sweet second city on a mountainside hill with 2 wheats at a river, 4 stable resources, gold and ivory. No horses though.
Attacked Japan early and have captured two of his cities ATM. Genghis is the other civ close to me and he is super friendly ATM(DOF, fought together and denounced the same leaders).
Allied a nearby military CS for another tradable luxury and 4 horses and later had to DOW France(which is HUGE) to keep it though.
I will probably conquer the rest of Japan but then I'm not sure if to continue on the domination path or go cultural...
It's a snaky map and my the only two civs on my borders are Japan and Mongolia.

 

[Roxlimn]

As Askia, I find it useful to build Horsemen early and go Barb hunting using those rather than Archers or Warriors. This builds Horseman experience, and it gives me the gold with which to upgrade them once I hit Chivalry.

The path to Chivalry is helpfully aligned with having Mathematics in the tech requirements - it can be good to found a second city early in a good production site, and then boost it up with Hanging Gardens so as to have a production powerhouse once Chivalry is online.

 

[snarzberry]

Your great start is screaming out for a cultural victory with Askia, especially since you got the oracle and stonehenge, and with the shield of CS's surrounding you it may make sense to forget about conquest all together. It's a shame to not use the Man. Cavs for full value but if you're not taking cities with them then they're just knights. You could be better off investing in more defensive units like cats/trebs and ally the surrounding city states.

A cavalry force can be a good supplement to defend your lands as you can bring them to bear to different areas quickly as they're needed but at heart these are offensive units. In your spot from your description I'd probably have pulled up stumps and gone for the defensive, peaceful route.

As an aside, playing deity I have before managed to both get the HS/PT and field an early force of mandekalu's/keshiks with songhai/mongolia in high hammer starting locations.

 

[Roxlimn]

snarzberry and Mirando:

You can upgrade the ManuCav to Cavalry and they should retain their potency against cities. Insane, right?

 

[Mirando]

I'm pretty sure it carries on to cavalry but they lose it going to tanks.