Emperor: Win Every Game with Horsemen

[TommyVern]

Just tested this one out, worked pretty well.

Built second city around a 4 horse resource, and since I was Russia, proceeded to pump out 8 horsemen while buying a krepost and stable.

By turn 100 there were two civs left, out of 6 of us in total.

When I reached Japan and Siam, they had mostly warriors, archers, and a few spearmen... nothing my recently upgraded Knights couldn't handle with ease.

Gonna test this one out on Immortal next!

 

[andrewlt]

Alright, lulz round 3. (Final lulz post from me on this topic anyway... )

Deity difficulty:

* Alexander (me) vs. Gandhi
* Marathon
* Tiny Map
* Great Plains

Domination Victory at 1620bc using 3 companion calvary and a great general.

So really, you only need the three horseman of the apocalypse

Yes, I know I gave myself some unfair advantages with the other game options, but really, this is just silly

If you're going to play Marathon on a Pangaea style map, Bismarck's UA is actually more overpowered than Companion Cav.

 

[TommyVern]

And it's a win on Immortal and Diety... horsemen need to be fixed imo.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I just gave a quick game test. Had about 5-6 horsemen. My debate is whether I should actually kill of the last Civ or no. I don't really want this game to show up on my hall of fame, it's going to crush the scores of all my other games. I'm usually a slow, steady, catapult and sword kind of person. I hate to risk damaging units in city attacks. But it's too powerful to ignore. I can kill any support units they have around and then crush the city (taking only two or three damage, it seems, and then retreating completely out of the way).

I like the idea of horsemen being very strong on the field (maybe lowered slightly to 10). But you can use this advantage to kill all units around you. A strong city penalty would balance this out. If a horseman gets reduced to 4 health while only doing minimal damage to the city, this strategy wouldn't be so strong.

Also, increase movement penalty for rough terrain. In previous games, a forest stopped a mobile unit dead in its tracks. There's no reason for this not to happen now. Make rough terrain movement penalty a 4. That way, 5 move units can pass it, but every other unit gets slowed down significantly (and every unit has to at leas think about it).

 

[KrikkitTwo]

It needs either

1. a General Strength Reduction
OR
2. a Movement Reduction

and
a general penalty v. cities

 

[andrewlt]

Probably a movement speed reduction with an additional slight strength reduction is enough.

I don't like many of the knee-jerk suggestions in this thread. Reminds me of when Ghostcrawler (Blizzard WoW developer) made a joke about nerfing things to the ground. That's what most of the suggestions are.

 

[lounahtic]

the solution is simple... although i don't know if it's possible to implement.... they tried doing this in total war... i'm not sure if it was successful...

but if you get attack by spearmen... you lose your horses... ie. turns into dudes who walk... logical.. actual... try running toward dudes with long sharpen sticks on horseback and see what happen...

as for horsemen being overpowered.. 'cause they are... genghis khan did not control the largest empire known to man because horses are weak... cavalry were the autowin [nuke] of ancient warfare... if anything they should get a bonus vs infantries...

so yea... see if it's possible to script it so if a mounted unit attack/get attacked by a spear unit, the mounted unit becomes an infantry... horsemen->warrior, knights->swordman..... something like that :/

 

[jshelr]

Nice thread, if more than a little discouraging with respect to the quality of the new game.

Just one remark. The AI is not focused on wonders. Even at higher levels you can get stonehenge and the GL almost all the time, allowing you to research philosophy at the same time and effectively skip an entire era -- the point of which is to use your social policies for patronage. Then you are into a whole different nonmilitary way to beat the AI in an unbalanced and not very entertaining fashion.

The AI is apparently just bad at playing civ V.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Just one remark. The AI is not focused on wonders. Even at higher levels you can get stonehenge and the GL almost all the time, allowing you to research philosophy at the same time and effectively skip an entire era -- the point of which is to use your social policies for patronage. Then you are into a whole different nonmilitary way to beat the AI in an unbalanced and not very entertaining fashion.

You haven't played on high enough levels then. Try playing Immortal/Deity and see the insane early wonder spam.

 

[ccubed]

If I were to redesign the Horse line, it'd go something like this:

1.) Horsemen are basically the same except they don't have the ability to move after attacking.

2.) Knights gain the ability to move after attacking but still only have 3 moves. Reflects military training but heavier barding and armor.

3.) Make Lancers the next upgrade after Knights to make Metallurgy more appealing. Lancers gain 1 move over Knights. Reflects lighter armor to enhance mobility.

4.) Cavalry have 4 moves and can move after attacking. Currently, Cavalry feel really weak, imo. Reflects no heavy armor at all to restrict horse speed.

5.) Cavalry can upgrade to Tanks, then Tanks to Modern Armor. I think everything should have an endgame upgrade path.

6.) All of the above have the same reduced attack power vs cities that Tanks have.

7.) Possibly reduce base attack power on these units by 1 or 2.

 

[Louis XXIV]

All those seem reasonable. I think limiting the horseman's ability to move after attacking isn't a bad idea all things considered.

 

[neptune2000]

I'm not sure I'd nerf the move after attack. Horses should be able to do that. I'd also be careful of lowering the strength too much; they should be somewhat overpowered to non-spear-type units. What about increasing spear/pike units' strength against horsemen from 100% to 150% (and possibly increasing even more if they're fortified)? This would weaken horses against their counter while leaving them strong over other units. I don't think I've seen that suggested here.

They should have the penalty against cities like tanks do, and it would be nice if they upgraded to tanks.

Last, force the player to take promotions the turn that they're awarded. Don't let them save them for a later instant heal. That seems cheap and unbalanced. (btw, I still like being able to save social policies

 

[Lord Parkin]

I'm not sure I'd nerf the move after attack. Horses should be able to do that. I'd also be careful of lowering the strength too much; they should be somewhat overpowered to non-spear-type units. What about increasing spear/pike units' strength against horsemen from 100% to 150% (and possibly increasing even more if they're fortified)? This would weaken horses against their counter while leaving them strong over other units. I don't think I've seen that suggested here.

That doesn't seem like a bad idea.

They should have the penalty against cities like tanks do

Agreed.

and it would be nice if they upgraded to tanks.

Not so sure about this. This would mean you can get a whole bunch of super-experienced Tanks immediately upon researching the appropriate technology. The whole reason nothing upgraded into Tanks in the previous versions of Civ (Civ4 and Civ3 at least) was because it would be unbalanced if you didn't have to build them all manually from scratch.

Last, force the player to take promotions the turn that they're awarded. Don't let them save them for a later instant heal. That seems cheap and unbalanced. (btw, I still like being able to save social policies

I really dislike the idea of being forced to choose a promotion instantly. There's quite a bit of strategy in withholding them and then promoting along the lines you need just before battle.

I'd just remove the instant heal option if that's the problem, or nerf it to half-heal (like Civ4 promotions did).

 

[patsfan454]

They should just give horsemen a ~50% penalty for attacking cities. It wouldn't nerf the HBR rush to the point of uselessness, but it would make it less of an overpowered strategy.

I think rushing HBR should be a viable strategy and devastating if used in the right scenario, but as it stands right now there really doesn't seem to be reason to adopt any other strategy 90% of the time.

 

[Slowpoke]

Well Horsemen certainly are very powerful, but an absolute rush probably won't cut it in a real game. I'm trying deity standard/standard and I know there's no way you'd complete it with two cities: eventually you can't finish the game unless you have knights, which 2 cities can't get you to. Which isn't to say horsemen aren't awesome, you just can't win a mindless victory on a real game. And if it's not a real tough game, well who cares? I can beat settler with a scout rush prolly

 

[TheUndersigned]

Just finished a good marathon game on 'TSL Earth Huge' playing as Askia on diety difficulty. Quiet easy game. Won domination victory with a strategy similar to this in turn 376.

 

[Tarkeel]

Actually, it would also provide justification for Mounted units to upgrade to Tanks. (they both would have a penalty to city attack)

Which is why I don't bother building tanks. Mech Inf with blitz promotion has the same base strength, no penalties, no resource and can come earlier in research

Not so sure about this. This would mean you can get a whole bunch of super-experienced Tanks immediately upon researching the appropriate technology. The whole reason nothing upgraded into Tanks in the previous versions of Civ (Civ4 and Civ3 at least) was because it would be unbalanced if you didn't have to build them all manually from scratch.

Which is why I prefer Mech Inf Those swords upgrade right into it.

I've been purposely ignoring horses lately, it just isn't fun how you can use move after attack to get several horses attacking from the same tile on the first round of war.

I never saw an AI GG out of all of this, in fact I almost never see AI GGs.

I remember reading somewhere that when a unit dies, the experience it has contributed to the next GG is lost. Given the rate that the AI is losing units, I think this will explain it.

 

[neptune2000]

That doesn't seem like a bad idea.


I really dislike the idea of being forced to choose a promotion instantly. There's quite a bit of strategy in withholding them and then promoting along the lines you need just before battle.

I'd just remove the instant heal option if that's the problem, or nerf it to half-heal (like Civ4 promotions did).

You're right, it is nice to be able to wait on promotions. I was thinking more in terms of the instant heal. Maybe if you could only choose heal on the turn you get the promotion, so if you hit 'end turn' the option goes away. That would probably be impossible to do in a mod.

 

[Blitz47]

I just tried this strategy on immortal + Deity. Won both. Used duel map (alas my system is below requirement so I need to keep it small), I was Greek, computer was Arabia (immortal), India (deity). Speed is epic and marathon.

Just 2 suggestions.

1. When you settle 2nd city, I found it to be quite useful to settle right on top of the horse, unless there are more than 1 horse resource within a new city radius. This saves me the worker time to improve the horse pasture to gain access to horses. This is what I did today and it was really easy as Greece. I tried to build companion Calvary ASAP and used it to fund my treasury.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Found your 1st city

2. Set warrior to explore. Get animal husbandry. Pay attention to the resources around your city and on the map and once you gain horseback riding, get some tech to improve your resource tiles. If there are close enough horse tiles, beeline to horseback riding, otherwise, maybe get mining or some early tech to help with city production & growth. The key is you need to get access to horses ASAP but since horseback riding takes a while to research, if the horse tiles are far, might as well delay horseback riding a bit while waiting for worker & settler to build.

3. Set 1st city to build scout (you want to use scouts so you can explore more quicker and hopefully encounter some city states before AI to get 30 gold, every gold counts.

4. Once scout is build, set to build worker.

5. When worker's out, improve tiles. Also get honor social policy, if necessary, get GG from social policy or wait for your companion cavalry to produce one from constant razing of barbarian camps. Build settler in 1st city.

6. When settler is out, set to the best horse tile that is closest, if there are 2 horse tiles within 1 hex of each other, then settle between them, otherwise try to find the closest horse resource tile that yields 4 horses. Settle right on top of it so you gain access without wasting worker time to improve it. If you have to settle besides it (like there are 2 horse resource hexes that you can improve quickly), do it. Key is to gain horses ASAP.

7. Once you have access to horses, build & buy companion/horseman immediately. Don't wait on purchase a horse because you are going to be using your horseman to both gain exp (help with getting Greater General), exp for your horseman (pick bonus in rough terrain, heal as your 2 improvements), and raze barbarian camps.

8. Once you feel confident enough, with 3 or 4 horseman and a greater general, time to kill the AI.

I found it relatively easy to kill AI when I'm ready and it took me very little time to get 4-6 horseman because I set them to raze camp for gold, at $75 per camp, they add up easily. I completely all city quest raze barbarian camp to gain influence so I can bribe them with $250 to become ally, if they have access to horses.

with some of my horseman getting the + heal ability, it was easy to keep my horseman busy all the time fighting and also easier by the time I hit the AI. I did not have to resort to change the 1st & 2nd city build queue to horseman and wasting production because I simply buy my initial horseman and fund more horseman with razing camps.

 

[Ahriman]

I think the real problem is still that horses are too available. If horse resource were rarer (and only came in 2's) then cav would be Special Elites, not the core of a military.

Strategic resources need to be more strategic....