Askia

Rush him with pathfinder and archer, go trapping asap, then pasture tech, make sure his horse remain pillaged/unimproved. Once he has mancav its gameover.

Sometimes its a matter of knowing he's there. If he finds you with his UU and then sails over a body of water, it's a bit like being hit with a meteor. :p
 
This is why I set mandekalu back to knight in my local install. Getting slapped by a 15CS horseman with no city penalty before most people have walls is like the fist of God.
 
Sometimes its a matter of knowing he's there. If he finds you with his UU and then sails over a body of water, it's a bit like being hit with a meteor. :p
That'd be too unlucky. The Huns is just equal annoying. If Im not able to kill him very soon, he will come with hordes of his UU and wreck everything :crazyeye:
 
I’ve never had much of a problem with the Huns, to be honest. Attila comes at you like a mad dog; he is too predictable. Askia is aggressive, but he’s more patient and is sometimes able to catch me out. He also pays better attention to his own infrastructure, so he tends to be able to follow through on an invasion better than Attila can.
 
I’ve never had much of a problem with the Huns, to be honest. Attila comes at you like a mad dog; he is too predictable. Askia is aggressive, but he’s more patient and is sometimes able to catch me out. He also pays better attention to his own infrastructure, so he tends to be able to follow through on an invasion better than Attila can.
Yeah, Askia actually is much better than Attila in waging war. First is because of his UA which give him a big terrain advantage, second is because of his UB which gives tons of production so he will never be behind in infrastructure. In my England game, he has a capital surrouded by rivers and he built 17 wonders in it before I took it from him :nya:.
Attila with a right terrain is very annoying because his UU is very durable, can attack even walled cities with ease, doesnt require horse, and very hard to counter. At least you can still fight Songhai with horseman (dont even use Spearman, Mancav eat those).
 
I have a question. Why is this thread named "Askia" but not "Songhai"? :crazyeye:
 
I have a question. Why is this thread named "Askia" but not "Songhai"? :crazyeye:
Askia IS THE EMPIRE.

After his son revolted successfully, they weren't able to handle what his father was actually competent at and his empire fell apart.
 
Askia IS THE EMPIRE.

After his son revolted successfully, they weren't able to handle what his father was actually competent at and his empire fell apart.

Cool! Do you know any good reading you'd recommend on him?
 
Finished yesterday one big 43Civ game with the Songhai. The game went all the way to long science victory.

Unfortunately due to early lack of horses, I couldn't unleash the Mandelaku cavalry. I had only two horses for much of the early game so missed on the fun of their unique unit. So yeah keep that in mind, resource dependent early on. Until I had enough horses, the Mandelaku cavalry was outdated.

But the tabia building is well worth it for early production and I also had very few roads, which helps control road maintenance.

Fast exploration along rivers, fast fast movement along rivers, crosses rivers without ending turn, quick to place cities. That is good, helped me capture Rome early on. But again terrain dependent, if there is no a long river at the start, you should probably reload.

Strong Civ in my opinion, consistently scores above average in AI hands as well. Hope you have horses early on for maximum fun.
 
Anyone else think Askia is far too easy to win with? I normally play on emperor, but win every single time as him, regardless of difficulty.

I remember people complaining about archer rushes, but his calvary are lightyears better. I understand they require a resource, but even 3 or 4 is enough to take out a capital early.

Getting the horses isn't a problem either--rushing pyramids first and then researching animal husbandry allows you to settle on horses and get them by around turn 32. You'll usually have enough money to buy one at this time and start clearing barbs to promote and get 60 gold per encampment, allowing a second purchase quite quickly. If you go authority, you'll have access to tribute sometime around the second one, and nearby city states will give 50-90 gold as well as the extra culture from the policy, further propelling you. I usually have an army of 4 or 5 calvary(2 of which will have drill 2), 1 or 2 warriors and a pathfinder by turn 45-50 using this strategy.

I'd suggest increasing their cost, reducing their combat strength or leaving some city penalty instead of completely eliminating it.
 
EDIT: I've just watched Minh Le's playthrough (from last year) and cavalry felt OP in his hands.

Ignore what i said earlier...
 
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Songhai AI overperforms in my games in the latest patch. He consistently makes a lot of conquests, builds an obscene amount of wonders and is top tech and culture. I think he's either overtuned, got a bug or the defensive civs need to be taught to defend themselves better.
 
Songhai AI overperforms in my games in the latest patch. He consistently makes a lot of conquests, builds an obscene amount of wonders and is top tech and culture. I think he's either overtuned, got a bug or the defensive civs need to be taught to defend themselves better.

All strong cav AI's can get going on extreme steamrolls if the stars align.
Most common Songhai and Mongols but sometimes also Spain.
The cavalry movement speed (even more so with askia on rivers) catching other AI's, note that AI's dont get the insane warmonger penalty (they get some but not near as much as you) that you get vs AI so its a lot easier for them to keep rolling.
 
All strong cav AI's can get going on extreme steamrolls if the stars align.
Most common Songhai and Mongols but sometimes also Spain.
The cavalry movement speed (even more so with askia on rivers) catching other AI's, note that AI's dont get the insane warmonger penalty (they get some but not near as much as you) that you get vs AI so its a lot easier for them to keep rolling.
All strong cav AI's can get going on extreme steamrolls if the stars align.
Most common Songhai and Mongols but sometimes also Spain.
The cavalry movement speed (even more so with askia on rivers) catching other AI's, note that AI's dont get the insane warmonger penalty (they get some but not near as much as you) that you get vs AI so its a lot easier for them to keep rolling.

This is fine and all but I am not talking about a once "the stars align" once in a blue moon coincidence. 3/4 times I saw Askia recently, he was THE definite runaway, culture, science, wonder and city wise. The one time he wasn't, he was on his own continent alone. This seems like a pattern moreso than coincidence to me.
I'm thinking of using advanced setup to ban him from my games because its boring having every other game be "can I catch up/kill Askia?"
 
Yes, I agree and thats what I meant with "Most common Songhai and Mongols"
Askia and Mongols are a bit too strong on pangea and similar maps.
I wonder if this is more or less extreme on other difficulties, are the AIs better at defending on Diety? Is Askia too slow on warlord?

And yes Advanced setup is great for this kind of tailoring, I've removed Venice a looong time ago and I dont miss him.
I've occationally removed a certain civ because competition was impossible, for example I wanted to use certain religious things and had to remove Aztecs because they grab stuff too early.
 
Songhai AI overperforms in my games in the latest patch. He consistently makes a lot of conquests, builds an obscene amount of wonders and is top tech and culture. I think he's either overtuned, got a bug or the defensive civs need to be taught to defend themselves better.

His ability gives a huge movement bonus which probably helps the AI a huge amount. They struggle to get units into position a lot.

It is possible there is a bug as well as when he declared war on me his units seemed to teleport in going over the top of one of my workers. This was a t0 save someone posted which changed the civ name so there are lots of possible way this bug could not be in the base mod but I have seen other weird stuff from him that wasn't so glaring.
 
Yes, I agree and thats what I meant with "Most common Songhai and Mongols"
Askia and Mongols are a bit too strong on pangea and similar maps.
I wonder if this is more or less extreme on other difficulties, are the AIs better at defending on Diety? Is Askia too slow on warlord?

And yes Advanced setup is great for this kind of tailoring, I've removed Venice a looong time ago and I dont miss him.
I've occationally removed a certain civ because competition was impossible, for example I wanted to use certain religious things and had to remove Aztecs because they grab stuff too early.

In recent patches the AI have got a lot better at attacking on deity. It is pretty rare to see them just fizzle out often they will fully overrun another AI. There is also a lot of random chance in there. I often replay earl-mid game starts to test out different builds and with minimal interaction from me it can swing from Zulus crushing Sweden to Sweden crushing Zulus on exactly the same map.
 
His ability gives a huge movement bonus which probably helps the AI a huge amount. They struggle to get units into position a lot.

It is possible there is a bug as well as when he declared war on me his units seemed to teleport in going over the top of one of my workers. This was a t0 save someone posted which changed the civ name so there are lots of possible way this bug could not be in the base mod but I have seen other weird stuff from him that wasn't so glaring.
When two or more AI units decide to travel to the same tile they're teleported to the empty adjacent tiles randomly. Happens very commonly with carpets of doom.
 
The worst starting location IMO, is sharing a river with the Songhai. Instant restart for me.

The main advantage that the Songhai have is Amphibious and river roads. Rivers end up as the more oppressive terrain obstacle, forcing units to spend 2 turns crossing them, and the Songhai invert that and treat them as roads. The Iroquois and Inca's forests/ jungles and hills movement bonus can be matched by late game units' higher base movement; rivers and mountains cannot in enemy territory. Mountains can be made more manageable via Artillery and Bombers. If you do skirmish against units on mountains, you know they can't heal. Fighting across rivers you know your opponent has got bridges, if you haven't pillaged them, and better healing as you bombard into enemy position. Of course YMMV on how many mountains and rivers you will encounter on your conquests.
 
I like having an AI that constantly performs really well, it makes for more interesting games. If some find Askia to be too annoying because of his strength, I'd recommend either manually nerfing him (for example by reducing Tabya's bonus to buildings from 10% to 1%) or disabling him in the advanced setup options.
 
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