Keshiks, etc.

[madscientist]

AGG does nothing with Keshiks. Aside from the very slight Barracks bonus.

No, but the combination of Keshiks and AGG melee units are VERY hard to stop. There is no weakness there against anyone, Prats uncluded.

 

[CHEESE!]

This may be my poor strategy, but I've always thought a 2-move, IMC unit shouldn't have Melees tagging along.

 

[madscientist]

Picture this, having a stack of doom marching in the enemy forrest/jungle where your Horse archers can strike out at any unit with at least a 50% chance of surviving (assuming flanking II) and a 100% chance of rejoining the stack if victorious. Or beter, use the stack to protect the Keshiks and then unleash them against pillagable resources.

 

[CHEESE!]

Interesting. First voice I've heard detailing a non-rush strategy for Keshiks. I've read the Khans but you don't really go into detail on the stacks, so this is new for me.

 

[madscientist]

Interesting. First voice I've heard detailing a non-rush strategy for Keshiks. I've read the Khans but you don't really go into detail on the stacks, so this is new for me.

Probably because I got so caught up in the pillaging and razing. Except for ripping apart MOnty in the Kublai RPC I generally bring my Keshiks to battle with Mongolian steel.

 

[mirthadir]

No, but the combination of Keshiks and AGG melee units are VERY hard to stop. There is no weakness there against anyone, Prats uncluded.

Ballista Elephants FTW. A slow moving stack of Keshiks is a dream come true for the Kmer. Even generic jumbos can mess up a classical stack pretty hard for decent cost effectiveness. Shock Jumbos mean you need a ton of spears to protect the keshiks.

Now sure that is two techs further down the line, but at higher difficulties you should expect the AI to get construction pretty quick; and also recall that you have to spend a lot more turns getting this offensive force than a high level AI does getting his counter.

Outside of the Kmer, CKN would appear to have a per advantage over a slow keshik/melee stack. Now the AI will need MC and machinery, but with Oracle a the stock AI advantage you may well see both as they don't need HBR.

And for purely defensive measures, SB can eat that stack for lunch. CGIII archers don't even need a hill to decimate those keshiks, dogs are grade A counters to the melee and no strategic resources are required.

On the higher difficulties, sure you can run around and pillage and slow war your way to an eventual war win with a massive stack that can kill anything leaving a city. Good luck with that. If you get some, the other AIs won't snap up cheap land that you or your target would otherwise have settled on the cheap. If you get more, the unit upkeep won't burn through all your pillage cash. And if you get yet more, while you nerf trade opportunities and sink a massive amount of early for minimal territory gain the other AIs won't start to lap you in the tech race.

In early wars really can bypass most units in the field if they are not cost effective kills. Either the unit will run to a city where your offensive units can take it down or it will head to your cities where it will die to a fortified spear, axe, or archer. Almost certainly, you could get superior results by skipping the keshiks (two whole techs) and just pummeling the AI with earlier steel (so you definately don't have to worry about pults coming into play).

 

[madscientist]

Balistas are much later that Keshiks and very situations, but you are correct they are the counter to Keshiks. Then again a few catapults will weaken Balistas.

CKN are way too late, hell I admit rifles and muckets are counters to keshiks.

SB is tough for everyone, but flanking II keshiks will seriously weaken those magnificent CG III archers and kill Dogs outright. It's always bloody to take out SB, but doable.

 

[mirthadir]

For deity, Jumbos vs a mixed Keshik/Fe melee stack is going to come into play; I'd even give it decent odds on immort.

CKN, if the Chinese oracle MC, the beaker count is simply not that high for AI advantages; if you are getting construction too then certainly the AI has enough bonuses on higher difficulties to be getting them.

Now sure you can take down SB with Keshiks + Fe melee, however you can also take him down much easier with pure keshiks. The odd spear may show up, but you will save far more by far by giving SB fewer turns to whip in new archers of doom. Given the high promos the archers have, Keshiks are better than swords.

 

[revengeofmakno]

I love Keshiks. Nothing is perfect but like most unique units, Keshiks definitely have their moment and eventually it passes. (even after it passes, they remain the best scouts and as always, mobility has many uses). Get them early and use them aggressively to take cities, raid and interdict mercilessly. If a spear does show up, it should not end the fun as you can disable the relevant mines to prevent more of them and trading off a shock promoted keshik for a spear is part of the cost of doing business. Even if you don't eliminate your nearby opponents completely, they will have been weakened and held down technologically so that your follow on melee units or cats can finish the job.
Horse Archers are obviously not as great but if there is flat, open terrain around, they are extremely effective in the ways that Keshiks are.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Nothing upgrades to elephants, and they have to have ivory.

AGG unit spam AI and longbows (esp protective) in #s are what really walls keshiks, but when on the offensive keshiks should not be moving with slow melee as doing so forfeits a large portion of their advantage.

Doubtful the AI will pull elephants on a dedicated keshik rush on immortal, but that doesn't meant it's a good idea regardless if your rush is handing out freebie land. Freebie land going excessively to 1 civ is already enough of a BS garbage issue in this game without the player contributing to it.

 

[michmbk]

The key to successful keshik romps in my mind is speed. 2-3 cities and go go go. Use all the new cities to keep massing keshiks, and you can overrun your continent. Hordes of properly promoted keshiks (half flanking, half combat) stand up fine to anything pre-longbows, and once you've massed sufficient production, can overrun longbows, pikes, maces. Works very well on emperor and below, and if timed right, can be successful on immortal, although speed becomes ultra-critical on immortal in my mind.

TMIT has a bunch of better demos than mine below, but this game was a great example of keshik power overrunning a continent.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8330198&postcount=16

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8333336&postcount=17

One other important thing is to make sure to use all the gold you're getting from taking cities to get your economy righted, by heading to alphabet/currency/COL. The mongols really need to focus on economy while they're taking cities, otherwise you make it tough to support the large empire you'll be taking from other civs.

I'm used to experiencing a slowdown for awhile after I've hit the above techs, as I tend to have too many units and cities, and need time to whip in all the courthouses. What I've found is that you usually will get a wonder or two by taking other civ's cities, and you can suicide some of your old keshiks while righting the economy. Then you can take off again with all the land you've claimed via keshiks.

 

[mirthadir]

I love Keshiks. Nothing is perfect but like most unique units, Keshiks definitely have their moment and eventually it passes. (even after it passes, they remain the best scouts and as always, mobility has a many uses). Get them early and use them aggressively to take cities, raid and interdict mercilessly. If a spear does show up, it should not end the fun as you can disable the relevant mines to prevent more of them and trading off a shock promoted keshik for a spear is part of the cost of doing business. Even if you don't eliminate your nearby opponents completely, they will have been weakened and held down technologically so that your follow on melee units or cats can finish the job.
Horse Archers are obviously not as great but if there is flat, open terrain around, they are extremely effective in the ways that Keshiks are.

Keshiks actually have an odd useful life curve. When they come onto the scene they are one of two top units for their era and argueably the more powerful of the two. With spies, particularly if you can burn metals/ivory or get AI-AI wars going they can still make decent head way against LBs; using a slow moving siege stack and a fast moving "city raider" stack you can keep pushing them through the middle ages. Oddly enough at steel they become relatively more powerful. Cheap and goes anywhere is pretty decent with cannon backing; I generally find keshiks (or Impis for that matter) more useful during cannon wars than in the mace/treb/knight/musket era. I don't think they fully die until rifles.

 

[CHEESE!]

I'm considering altering Keshiks for a scenario I'm doing (don't ask). Would a Praeshik (as I call it) be OP? A 8 str-Horse Archer with no ITMCs. Perhaps I could add an extra requirement, like Copper.

 

[mirthadir]

In a word, yes. Think about what the odds for a Spear vs Praeshik would look like. This is not pretty. Now think about LB vs Praeshik. Ooh that hurts too. In short a C1/Shock Praeshik with spy support has no counter until jumbos and nothing else really stops it until pike. In both cases pilleage can make it run for miles. Right now LBs are roughly on par with keshiks out of the box, and ahead with mods/promos; this goes away completely with a 33% strength boost (think how many promos that is).

Having a metal requirement won't do too much, swap HBR for IW and you should be good to go. If you really need the thing to be that broke (remember this is a stronger upgrade than sword -> prat) I suggest following the prat and boosting the cost.

 

[plasmacannon]

A Mayan Holkan with Combat1 and Formation would be the best counter to it.
Holkans are Immune to 1st strikes, nullifing the Praeshek's advantage there.
It would be a 9.4 attacking the Praeshik's 8.
If the Prae attacked the Holkan, the Holkan would also get terrain defense.
It can also gain woods2 to keep up with the Prae.

Personally, I think it is too powerful, unless you are increasing the other units according as well.

Elephants, and Ballista Elephants would be the next counter, obviously.
They can also get Combat1 and Formation.

 

[vicawoo]

I wrote a semi-finished guide on different tech paths to horse archer rush. I'm guessing your lack of effectiveness is getting it too late; aim for turn 50-60 normal speed and your rush should be on target to rip through most defenses.

Dealing with spears: shock does reasonably well against small numbers of spears. If the city has high defense, remember AI will tend to go for kills with good odds. So if you park a shock horse archer on a tile from which he cannot move back to the city (one tile no road, two tiles with a road), he will sometimes conveniently leave the city, kill your horse archer, leaving a low hp spearmen with no bonuses to clean up.