Early-early war with Holkan?

[vormuir]

The Holkan looks like a dopey UU at first. A Spearman that doesn't need metal and is immune to first strikes... big whoop.

But.

1) The Holkan can be built incredibly early. All you have to do is research Hunting! No BW to find Copper, no Wheel to hook it up. One cheap tech and boom.

2) The Holkan fears nothing until the appearance of axes. Against archers it's a straight 4-3 strength match. Chariots, hah -- it's got the 100% bonus just like a Spearman.

So,

3) The Holkan seems perfectly adapted to an early-early war strategy. "Early-early" means war within the first 50 turns or so, before anyone has access to metals.

The strategy here would be to research Hunting as either your first or second tech, and then crank out a Holkan or two. Each Holkan would head directly for an enemy capital, where it would just relentlessly harass the rival civ -- pillaging, snatching workers, and just making the AI miserable. Cutting off access to metals is of course a top priority.

I haven't tried this, but ISTM that one Holkan can harass an enemy until it builds up a couple of archers. Two archers can kill a Holkan, so at this point a second one is needed.

Holkans can get CR promotions, so two or three of them should have a chance to take a weak enemy city. But ISTM the goal is not to kill the enemy outright, but to stunt him until you have a commanding tech and production lead. Then a Classical-era war, with Swords and maybe catapults, can finish the job.

Who to attack? Financial civs. Egypt and Persia (because your UU trumps theirs). Note that Aggressive civs don't get a promotion for Archers, so you can attack them with gusto.

Who to avoid? Well, Protective civs are a PITA as always. And beware Sitting Bull -- just as your UU trumps War Chariots and Immortals, his trumps yours, badly. If the Bull is your neighbor, play nice.

Thoughts? Has anyone tried this?


Waldo

 

[Percy]

1) The Holkan can be built incredibly early. All you have to do is research Hunting! No BW to find Copper, no Wheel to hook it up. One cheap tech and boom.

You don't need Bronze, but you actually need Bronze Working =)

 

[Virulent]

Who to avoid? Well, Protective civs are a PITA as always. And beware Sitting Bull -- just as your UU trumps War Chariots and Immortals, his trumps yours, badly. If the Bull is your neighbor, play nice.

Holkan rush wouldn't really work against Babylon as well due to the Bowman getting an +50% bonus to melee units.

 

[Neapolitan]

My advice is to forget the early rush and use the Holkans to make sure you don't yourself get rushed. A chariot rush, and especially an Immortal rush, would be difficult to fight off without copper/iron to build spearmen with (and even if you had them they'd be a primary target for pillaging)

Providing a counter to this no matter what is where the Holkan really shines

 

[DutchJob]

the idea is good. sometimes capitals r for a brief period guarded by only two archers while sending their first settler away for example.

if u can have +4 holkans around you might get lucky. but it's a iffy.

go zulu, persian or other aggressive/charismatic ones if you want to get mad early.

it that case you want to be friendly to the maya's.

 

[frob2900]

You don't need Bronze, but you actually need Bronze Working =)

Yup. Which makes the whole idea in the OP flawed.