Your thoughts on the Janissary?

[AfterShafter]

Eh, I think there's a middle ground to be reached. The way I always looked at it... Jans are a better all 'round unit if you get them first, hands down. They have everything covered - no weakness against knights, and no need to waste upgrade slots to specifically target unit types. Any area an upgraded Oromo is weak in, a Jan is strong - pre-gunpowder, they're almost as good as grenadiers, and continue to be so against enemy field units that aren't gunpowder units. What's more, if you were to make a formation Jan, it would *slaughter* knights wholesale - same deal for cover and shock Jans.

To the credit of the Oromos, they have long legs - those upgrades stick with them. For the long term, Oromos are obviously the superior unit, even if not *quite* as good when they first come around.

Everybody wins - they're both great units. I'd pick Oromos over the long term, and I'd find them preferable in more games, but if my plan is to wage a gunpowder war then go into peace mode for a stretch, I might favour Jans.

 

[braindrain]

i agree that having oromos upgraded to super promoted infantry is really nice (i tend to put of rifles when playin a musket uu), who needs em after the jans have conquered the whole continent and won you the game? Besides after the unstopable jans have won battle after battle, they'll have a lot experience and promotions of their own

 

[Iranon]

Janissaries are nothing special against siege and gunpowder units, Oromos are nothing special against most mounted units. I find the bonus of Oromos more widely applicable... pikemen are generally better than janissaries for defending against mounted units, so the biggest advantage of Jans vs. Oromos for me is the ability to attack mounted defenders well.

Despite not receiving defensive bonuses, Knights are strong enough to make competent defenders as well; early cuirassiers in numbers can also cause more headaches for the Oromo user. On the other hand, Janissaries have no advantage against regular muskets and are ineffective against Grenadiers, a problem Oromos don't have.

*

One question for those who prefer Janissaries... how much siege are you using? I find the Oromo's ridiculous number of first strikes ridiculous against even slightly damaged units, and I like to lead any big assault with a siege unit or two at least.

 

[walkie]

Janissaries are nothing special against siege and gunpowder units, Oromos are nothing special against most mounted units. I find the bonus of Oromos more widely applicable... pikemen are generally better than janissaries for defending against mounted units, so the biggest advantage of Jans vs. Oromos for me is the ability to attack mounted defenders well.

Despite not receiving defensive bonuses, Knights are strong enough to make competent defenders as well; early cuirassiers in numbers can also cause more headaches for the Oromo user. On the other hand, Janissaries have no advantage against regular muskets and are ineffective against Grenadiers, a problem Oromos don't have.

*

One question for those who prefer Janissaries... how much siege are you using? I find the Oromo's ridiculous number of first strikes ridiculous against even slightly damaged units, and I like to lead any big assault with a siege unit or two at least.

first of all if you really want janissaries shine, you should beeline to it and use them as early as possible because they are better than normal musketman since they are good against any unit from earlier eras except siege ones.

second if you are using only 1-2 siege units, i assume u either have superior units against ur opponent, like infantry vs longbowmen, or u have 20-30 or more attackers at least. because against a good defender with +40/50% culture defend u need to sacrife a lot of attackers. number of siege units i use depends on situation and the enemy i am attacking but i can say i use at least 10 siege and probably i produce more, as i sacrifice some of them while getting cities...

 

[cracked]

If I'm waging war with stacks of cats/trebs/cannon I'll have about ten or more when I start the war. You need that number against any well defended cities just to knock out the cities defenses reasonably quickly and keep the attack going.

I tend to use large, well balanced stacks with supporting cruissiers kept in smaller groups to pillage as I attack, draw their units out from their cities and target other units. I generally go with combat one and two with my gunpowder units.

I'm continually building troops. But, once I hit rennaisance era and can build muskets I don't always bother buiding pikes unless I know they have allot of cavalry or I have no cavalry, simply because I'll have one or two kicking about already abd won't need that many in a stack. Knights against muskets isn't always a sure thing (pc doesn't always use flanking promos and if they do, combat two muskets stand a better odd of defeating them in attack or defense) and cruissiers won't flank damage cats or trebs. If I have elephants I prefer to use them instead of pikes (better attack odds and elephants upgrade to cruissiers). I'll move my troops along hills and trees to boost their defense, then fortify them while they bombard city defenses.

I'm sure some of you other guys use different methods.

I tend to get muskets shortly after going for taj mahal golden ages, and use the extra production to knock out an extra eight or more muskets to support maces and knights. This is when jannisaries and ormos are most useful.

It all depends on the situation though.

 

[Iranon]

Actually, flanking has been changed some time ago so mounted units will flank anything of their era and before.

Also, my last post apparently came across wrong... I tend to rely quite heavily on siege; using 1 or 2 in advance is very much on the low end and mopping up damaged units makes first strikes more valuable. An Oromo's 2.5 first strikes (more if we continue along the Drill line) can easily surpass a +25% modifier there.

 

[bestbrian]

If you're going to play with Jans, beeline Gunpowder, and get them out of the box as quick as possible. @500 AD is pretty standard for me (Monarch/Emperor), but it can be done sooner with an awesome start, or tighter focus than I can usually manage.

 

[CivIVMonger]

The thing about Jannisaries is that you have very limeted time to exacute your conquest plans. So I guess a tech lead is in order to acheave more time.