Hippus Strategy

[Rex rgis of Ter]

Recently I have found myself playing this civilization. I usually rush HOrse Riding and then rush my neighbor with horses. Then I peacfully expand, relying on pillaging for moeny. I run Apprenticeship and upgrade my horsemen with mobility for extreme hit and run. What do you use as strategies gfor the Hippus?

 

[Demus]

flanking is extremely important for hippus. Given how much more powerful experienced units are, the additional withdrawal helps a lot of you're units reach those higher levels without getting themselves killed.
By the way, which leader do you play?

 

[xienwolf]

Plus the fact that with almost guaranteed withdrawal you can safely attack and weaken enemies FAR stronger than yourself. Any large enough stack becomes unstoppable.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

What is the actual withdrawal percentage though? 10% horselords, 10% flanking I, 20% flanking II, 20% for horse archers, only gives 70%, for a strength 6 unit. How do you fight the stronger enemies? Or did I do my math wrong?

 

[Demus]

i'm quite sure hippus horsemen got 35% withdrawal, so it tops at around 85%. Which means 5 out of 6 will be able to return and heal if they lose a fight, more than enough to take on a strenght 10-15 opponent. Magnadine most of all, with his 100% withdrawal (even though he's tough enough not to need it untill late in the game).
I personally like to send my first couple of horsemen out barb-hunting, to start them accumulate exp for the long run (using the aggressive/raider leader). By the time i can promote them to horse archers, they're generally running max flanking, (almost) max combat, and quite often a mobility level to add to the mix. At horse archer level, they flatten everything they come across for quite some time, untill the opponents have time to catch up. Which is generally around the period where i promote them to knights

 

[kenken244]

dont forget about flanking III

 

[daladinn]

once you get magnadine and the ride of the 9 kings , its basically over.

hippus is all about rushing to the ride. when your making units that come out the gate as level 5 and have 100% withdrawl. at thispoint you dont even need tactics.

 

[westamastaflash]

Already posted...deleted.

 

[MalkutX]

Both of their leaders are great, too. One of them maximizes the horselord advantage, and the gets extra money to hire mercenaries. She can literally ride into a city and ride out with twice as many units as she came in with, even in a city she just captured, deep in enemy territory. It doesn't come cheap, but it works, and it works well.

 

[Cuteunit]

Tasunke is basically overpowered to hell at this point. We'll see where it goes in the future.

 

[MalkutX]

Tasunke is basically overpowered to hell at this point. We'll see where it goes in the future.

I didn't use Tasunke. Yes, his promotions are nice, but a bit redundant, really. You already have the best horsemen in the game. Further enhancements are nice, but not necessary (especally since you'll almost certainly be getting Ride of the Nine Kings), and raiding only works when you have something worth pillaging.

Rhoanna, on the other hand, has the most powerful trait from Vanilla, financial, which can turn her cities into cash machines. This allows her to take advantage of another one of the Hippus' chief advantages: horse mercenaries. Granted, they aren't the most powerful unit in the game, but when there's fifty of them, and reinforcements are available instantly in every city you own, they don't have to be. Plus, you can always enchant their weapons.

I stuck with Runes as my religion, but I was sure to found the Undercouncil. Why? SLAVE TRADE. Now, you can use that money on a disposable armies and a disposable workforce. Your treasury can now be both your sword and your tools, and you can build or conquer your way to world domination however you please.

 

[Ekolite]

Yeah the Hippus are a little overpowered in my opinion. Maybe they could get a small diplo penalty with all other civs to help balance them out. The hippus are mercenaries for hire, other civs might not trust them and wouldn't want to get too close, knowing they would turn on them as soon as another civ outbidded them.

 

[oyzar]

Ok i tried Tasunke on deity(quick). Of course i got remenants of prahia cows and horses in the fat cross so the game got kinda stupid. By turn 35 the first civ was dead to warriors(2 cities and a settler killed and like 10 warriors) due to the AI trying to kill my low promoted warriors outside his city so i could kill them with my high promoted warriors. Lets see if i can manage to get any horsemen before the next guy dies...

Financial was the most powerful in vanilla yes, in FFH not so much. With the overpoweredness of farms you don't really want financial before you are able to use aristocracy. And well you don't ever need COL to be able to win with hippus.. Horsemen should be enough to kill roughly everyone... Assuming you are fighting the AI that is. 3 free promotions is just insane...

 

[MalkutX]

Financial was the most powerful in vanilla yes, in FFH not so much.

Not the most powerful, but still pretty freaking good. Especally since you can hire mercenaries in FFH, and the Hippus Mercs are cheap and powerful and unlimited.

3 free promotions is just insane...

It's also overkill against the AI. Not that what I ended up doing was any better, but still.

 

[skallben]

Tasunke with Ride of the Nine means you will quite easilly have Cavalry with 85% withdrawal and a movement of 5-6 and Commando. That is 15+ movement into the enemy terriotory where it's easy to find more lightly defended cities and lots of stuff to pillage, even if your units are still left in enemy territory the defensive withdrawal makes them hard to kill.

Tasunke's Cavalry is an awesome warmachine and if you use Raider trait correctly by actually raiding you can both cripple enemies and earn craploads of cash. Pillage and take a few cities, doesnt matter if you can hold all since you still wrecked enough havoc to cripple the enemy for a second strike. That second strike you will prevail in most cases. Try to get Guild of the Nine aswell since Hippus get Mounted Cavalry that are upgraded by metals. If wars go bad just make sure you got Gamblin houses all over, set Science to 0% and Hail to the king baby, you just got 10 happy faces in all cities and enough gold to quickly raise a huge army. If you want to be really evil you get Empyrean for Rathas so you can cast "Hold" on enemy stacks.

Yes, in my humble opinion Tasunke is currently too strong mostly due to the Cavalry that you can rush 12/15/18(21 with Haste!)+ moves into enemy territory.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Raider didn't used to give commando to horse units. Well, before that it did, but his units could move so amazingly far and pillage so much it was removed, I think. Then added back because people complained about no synergy between raiders and the Hippus.
Oh well.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I think that definitely should still give commando to mounted units, but you should also be able to pillage your own roads to protect against raider trait civs.

 

[skallben]

Yeah you defo should be able to pillage own roads. Also, I think there should be some special mechanics to Mounted units with Commando. I can't say technical details as Im no modder but I have two ideas about it.

1. Pre-Engineering (2 moves on road per movement) Mounted Commando units are ok but post-Engineering it gets troublesome and excessive IMHO. Maybe make Mounted Commandos move normally in own territory but make it so Engineering never applies to your mounted units in hostile areas.

2. Mobility 2+Horselord is really powerful with Commando. Maybe change around promotions a bit if first alternative isnt acceptable. Have Hippus stable give 1 extra movement from free Mobility instead of Horselord perhaps...

 

[MagisterCultuum]

1. Pre-Engineering (2 moves on road per movement) Mounted Commando units are ok but post-Engineering it gets troublesome and excessive IMHO. Maybe make Mounted Commandos move normally in own territory but make it so Engineering never applies to your mounted units in hostile areas.

I'm not quite sure that the way you propose it possible (although it might be), but that reminded me of one of the firsts threads I made in this forum last year: Improving Infrastructure. I proposed getting rid of all the movement bonus from techs, and instead simply making several different types of roads with different tech requirements. Some roads could be special (religion specific, magic abilities, Toll roads that give take money from the owner of the units that cross there and give it to the roads owner), but mostly I was just thinking of the progression from narrow unpaved paths to cobblestone to highways maintained by the government (railroad, but with different graphics, and maybe a healing/defensive bonus to represent the royal postal stations where units can go for healing, changing horses, etc.) I'm thinking the better roads would be buildable but require more turns to build, and that roads on tiles that are worked would upgrade automatically. That would solve the problem of having mounted units move so quickly, since you would only get the bonus of the road present on the tile. Defenders could make sure that the highways are few and far between, and go straight through well defended forts/castles/citadels.


If I figure out how I may add this to my modmod, but it will likely be quite a while until then.

 

[skallben]

Yeah that sounds good, sounds kinda hard to get the AI not to spam those "highways" all over and use it properly though. Ah well, you are the modder Im just talking out of my arse Anything to balance those riders would be fine with me