Cho-Ko-Nu are usually in my army till the mid industrial era when the last of them that I didn't upgrade are usually wiped out or used in a suicide pillaging run against an underdeveloped nation. They are simply amazing for taking cities, I hardly even bother with macemen and knights when most of my cities can crank out a Cho-Ko every other turn. I usually don't even bother with cats until the enemy is getting musketmen, getting a small army of replacements every turn, I don't ever need to worry about losses. i've had pangea games i've won by elimination or conquest by 1600 with an army comprised of only Cho-Kos, hundreds of them.
Crossbowman. Who uses them?
- Thread starter J_RocKeT76
- Start date
gettingfat
Emperor
- Joined
- Nov 7, 2003
- Messages
- 1,417
Dueck said:
Try Chuckie Cho-Ku-Nu, build a stack of them. Throw in a few catapults and pikes/spears. Your above opinion will totally change. (look at my avatar
)And Qin is very well-rounded leader, unless you want early religion.
I always have at least one crossbowman defending in my cities and take a handfull with offensive promotions when going to attack an enemy. Giving them City Garrison promotion makes them a formitable defender vs. any unit but especially against melee.
Older than Dirt
King
Crossbows are very effective for attacking those stacks with macemen that approach (especially when adjacent to) your cities. If you do not have a weapon to attack the AI's assaulting stacks they will eventually overwhelm you. At least have a few as a mobile defense which you can quickly move to threatened areas.
diablodelmar
no comment
- Joined
- Jan 11, 2006
- Messages
- 945
xbows are no worse than longbows. In fact they are excellent when used together. That is the best strategy when using any units, a combination of several different types. I learned this the hard way with the romans: I just pumped out Praetorians and this one guy just had a couple of axemen and killed loads of my beautiful praetorians, one by one. The same goes for xbows combined with macemen, longbows and knights. So never dismiss any one unit as being useless.
Dueck
Walrold
gettingfat said:Try Chuckie Cho-Ku-Nu, build a stack of them. Throw in a few catapults and pikes/spears. Your above opinion will totally change. (look at my avatar
And Qin is very well-rounded leader, unless you want early religion.
Crossbowman != Cho-Ko-Nu
Mahatmajon
Prince
I rarely ever build xbowmen in single player games. Usually by the time macemen are around I have at least 2 or 3 Combat 2/shock axemen (5+20%+75% vs melee) and that's plenty for keeping awayt the pesky macemen.
Sir 37mm
Chieftain
So after finally getting the hang of Prince I move up to Monarch difficulty, now however playing quick games (rather than epic/marathon).
In my first game I made a beeline for a religion & finally got Christianity it was then that I realised that all my neighbours were annoyed with me & wouldn’t open their borders (I’d initially closed my borders to allow me to settle a peninsular at leisure.
I now had no way of spreading my religion not that it mattered as almost immediately a huge war erupted which involved 2-4 enemy AI’s at any one time. After a thousand years the Romans finally crushed my starving cities (defended by Longbowmen with 40 XP).
So for the Second game I decided to ignore religion & concentrate on my military MUCH more… a quick axeman rush gained me a single Egyptian city (which luckily also happened to be the holy city of Christianity). I then made a beeline for Machinery as I was bordered next to the Aztecs and knew the buggars would go for me at some point.
They did... just as the first Crossbowmen rolled off the ‘assembly line’.
There is no way on earth I could’ve survived that war without the crossbows… Jaguars & Axemen were bolt fodder yet still managed to overwhelm many of my defensive positions.
Eventually the Aztecs asked for peace having made no real gains, the war had cost me two wonders (both missed by only a few turns) but at least I was allowed to exist!
I eventually joined the Germans in destroying the Aztecs, taking two cities with Musketmen, making a shot at victory possible… I scraped through with a space race victory.
Crossbows rule and, for me, they seem now to be one of the most important units in the game esp. if you're trying to defend your territory & improvements.
In my first game I made a beeline for a religion & finally got Christianity it was then that I realised that all my neighbours were annoyed with me & wouldn’t open their borders (I’d initially closed my borders to allow me to settle a peninsular at leisure.
I now had no way of spreading my religion not that it mattered as almost immediately a huge war erupted which involved 2-4 enemy AI’s at any one time. After a thousand years the Romans finally crushed my starving cities (defended by Longbowmen with 40 XP).
So for the Second game I decided to ignore religion & concentrate on my military MUCH more… a quick axeman rush gained me a single Egyptian city (which luckily also happened to be the holy city of Christianity). I then made a beeline for Machinery as I was bordered next to the Aztecs and knew the buggars would go for me at some point.
They did... just as the first Crossbowmen rolled off the ‘assembly line’.
There is no way on earth I could’ve survived that war without the crossbows… Jaguars & Axemen were bolt fodder yet still managed to overwhelm many of my defensive positions.
Eventually the Aztecs asked for peace having made no real gains, the war had cost me two wonders (both missed by only a few turns) but at least I was allowed to exist!
I eventually joined the Germans in destroying the Aztecs, taking two cities with Musketmen, making a shot at victory possible… I scraped through with a space race victory.
Crossbows rule and, for me, they seem now to be one of the most important units in the game esp. if you're trying to defend your territory & improvements.
anglosaxon
Monarch
- Joined
- Mar 16, 2006
- Messages
- 89
If you build the pyramids and hanging gardens as a priority you get a great engineer before 1AD, so you can use him to discover most of Machinery, so you can get Xbowmen by 1AD. A great advantage.
Pantastic
King
- Joined
- Mar 15, 2006
- Messages
- 922
I generally have a few crossbows in each of my stacks and maybe on border cities until the big gunpowder upgrade, like others have said they do a great job beating up on macemen (and axemen/swordsmen) at low cost. I like to have one or two little pillage sets of a crossbowman and elephant or spear/pikeman (can add a chariot/horseman for quicer pillaging). The computer will inevitably throw way more than their value at them to kill them, which nicely soaks up those annoying AI units that otherwise end up pillaging or snagging a worker.
I generally like longbows better for city defense since they're cheaper to build and get the free +25%, but if I can't trade for feudalism I'll gladly use crossbows. A longbow with city defense, crossbow with first strike, and spear/pikeman with medic makes a nice garrison for a border city, the crossbow or pikeman can catch any stray pillagers, and the different unit types make an attacker hurt some.
Personally, I find the Cho-Ko-Nus only a so-so unit; the collateral damage is nice, but the strength 6 and no city raider promotions makes it hard to roll through cities the way cats and city raider macemen do, so I end up having both for offensive work. They rock against a stacks in the open, a big stack of them will simply annihilate whatever they come up against. Plus once they go obsolete any that don't get upgrades can suicide much more effectively than any other unit. Not bad by any stretch, but not something you'll use for pretty much all of your fighting the way you do Praetorians or Redcoats.
I generally like longbows better for city defense since they're cheaper to build and get the free +25%, but if I can't trade for feudalism I'll gladly use crossbows. A longbow with city defense, crossbow with first strike, and spear/pikeman with medic makes a nice garrison for a border city, the crossbow or pikeman can catch any stray pillagers, and the different unit types make an attacker hurt some.
Personally, I find the Cho-Ko-Nus only a so-so unit; the collateral damage is nice, but the strength 6 and no city raider promotions makes it hard to roll through cities the way cats and city raider macemen do, so I end up having both for offensive work. They rock against a stacks in the open, a big stack of them will simply annihilate whatever they come up against. Plus once they go obsolete any that don't get upgrades can suicide much more effectively than any other unit. Not bad by any stretch, but not something you'll use for pretty much all of your fighting the way you do Praetorians or Redcoats.
Eternalsteelfan
Prince
I build longbow men for city defense and crossbowmen as support for armies.
Mirc
Not mIRC!!!
They can be very nice sometimes!
cthom
3,011,451,295
Crighton said:
it's from old german with the meaning of a crossbow bolt. from there to english.
ps. i just looked it up in an online dictonary. i'm not really that brainy!
Crossbows are a great unit. Cho ko's are devastating.
This helps make the point perfectly... One non-upgraded crossbowman will destroy the upgraded axeman as the axeman does not get any bonuses vs the crossbow but the crossbow does vs the axeman. Secondly macemen get bonuses against melee units and therfore fare well against axemen. There are few answers to crossbows as only ancient units have natural advantages against archery units. I have total fear when I see a lot of crossbows approach my territory. What units match up well against them?
This helps make the point perfectly... One non-upgraded crossbowman will destroy the upgraded axeman as the axeman does not get any bonuses vs the crossbow but the crossbow does vs the axeman. Secondly macemen get bonuses against melee units and therfore fare well against axemen. There are few answers to crossbows as only ancient units have natural advantages against archery units. I have total fear when I see a lot of crossbows approach my territory. What units match up well against them?
Chamaedrys
Emperor
I think Knight are good against Xbows. Other Opportunity is attacking them with Long- or Xbows.
cthom
3,011,451,295
Chamaedrys said:
that's odd, because historically knights got crossbows banned because they were so effective against them!
Mahatmajon
Prince
Drakken said:
I still am not overwhelmed by xbows. I understand and agree that the lack of +xx% vs archery unit(s) makes them powerful, but for what? They're a Str6 and aren't going to do anything on the offensive against City Defense longbowmen. If xbowmen are just for making cities harder to take and killing melee units in the open that's fine, but a bit boring.
Match up vs. xbowmen? How about horse archers? 50 hammers i/o the xbows 60 and it's a 6 v 6+1 first strike.
player1 fanatic
Fanatic
And if you use Pikes, plus Crossbows for stack defense you can safely escort your Macemen to do city assaults.
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