[GS] How exactly do you execute Knight rush in GS?

[ElSlayer]

I really like to play Arabia and eventually I found out that building encampment and capturing holy site is much profitable than building just holy site. So I almost perfected Mamluk rush in base game.

Things have changed in GS and now I can't seem to find that perfect timing on when to do all the necessary stuff in order to execute one.

Things that you want to do is:
- Research Animal Husbandry to reveal Horses
- Build worker and improve tiles for yields and boosts (pasture is important for horseback riding)
- Build 2nd city
- Get 2-3 slingers for protection against barbs and other civ early rush
- (optional?) Build a campus since it takes kinda too long to research everything and especially stirrups without one
- Kill 3 barbs for bronze working boost
- Research bronze working to reveal iron
- Build 3rd city next to iron
- (optional?) Build trader to boost Currency
- Research Currency in order to build a commercial hub as you need to accumulate gold to upgrade your chariots to knights as well as pay upkeep after you upgrade them
- Build encampment for GG points
- (optional?) After researching Horseback Riding and build stables for GG/exp/storage before going for wheel?

Choice of governor probably would fall on Magnus for his -80% strategic resource cost to build units

My problem is I get everything too late - I get pressed to much by barbs because of delaying archery or I don't get iron working boost in time, or it takes me too long to get that Iron flowing to my storage so I have to wait for too many turns for stuff so neighbours will have walls and crossbowman by the time everything is ready.

Help me to decide if things above are necessary or not (and most importantly - why?) and in which order I should do them to get 3 Mamluks out by upgrading Chariots + 1 by just building it. I usually combine Mamluks with couple of horseman if I have horses around (usually do).

I got used to how easy it was in base game. Feels kinda unfair that my neighbours have a chance to defend themselves

 

[MarigoldRan]

"With great difficulty."

Best to just rush with a medieval UU that doesn't require resources. Such as the Incan slinger.

 

[pkaem]

You don't need a campus, you need feudalism earlier. Encampment is fine for storage and general, build barracks and you need that iron asap. Store up 60 iron and upgrade 3x heavy chariot right away. You'll need the money for this aswell. There are glots of srategies around the governors. Depends. Magnus for some chops maybe a good idea, esp if you want to secure a wonder like pyramids or oracle. Provision is always good. You want to put down some cities either way. To really speed things up use pingala with his culture promotion and build/buy monuments. Usually you get feudalism early enough.

Mameluke cost 20 iron too? Didn't play them yet in GS. I usually go animal husbandary into mining and bronze. If I can get away with it maybe directly to bronze. With luck you'll get it boosted and throw in a very fast 2nd settler to secure iron. Launch your attack with the three initial marmeluks and follow up with mercenarys. You'll have raid card boosted by the camp and should get mercenary boost while producing chariots after political philosophy. If you get declared war on early you even have defensive tactics boosted. Mercenarys halfs all the rip off and you can put more and more knights on the front. Build new chariots but check to stays below 20 iron each turn so none of it goes into production of a knight. If you have excess trade some away. You will se walls in some cities, just take a ram with you.

 

[Gaonac'h]

I don't see much difference between the new ressources system and the old one tbh, the trick is to build enough chariots before stirrups and upgrade them as you advance with your first push.
While working a single iron mine you should be able to upgrade a good dozens of knights around turn 90. Running the Equestrian Orders card help a lot to get your chariots upgraded.
Also I feel like a GG is actually way more needed than in RnF, especially for your first wave of knights.
And the Black Marketeer promotion is actually good when you reach Monarchy so you can chop more knights with the Chivalry card in captured cities.
You can still use the build-upgrade exploit kind of like in RnF but I wouldn't recommend it as it seems a bit hard to plan and you might end up losing your whole stack of ressources and put yourself in a terrible situation.

 

[BarbarianHunter]

I have been skirmishing with the AI, conquering what I can, and waiting for the initial knight/courser rush until I hit mercenaries. I spend the gold I would be hording for the standard (non 50% off) upgrade on monuments for more culture. I also have been taking the first 2 promotions to Pingala for more culture. Then with all that culture I get to the 3rd governor promotion quickly and add a 3rd to Pingala for more science. This gets me to mercenaries about the same time I had previously gotten to feudalism in R&F. It also gets me to castles sooner for the courser upgrade. A x3 Pingala will help with much of the OP's issues and also eliminate the need for a campus. Also waiting for mercenaries you can upgrade 6 knights at once with your 60 iron.

 

[Victoria]

Mameluke requires 20 iron to train but with professional army that becomes 10 iron.
As said feudalism is key so pushing culture is where it is at, my aim is 10 culture per turn by T25, a rare pipe dream but something to strive for. Seriously, you want mercenaries as well as feudalism, concentrate on culture.
It is not all about knights, getting a district down early so you can get your govt district down cheap and early helps, but the culture push then gets you ancestral hall earlier which means more cities earlier... this is done alongside a knight rush.... how can you help this, by using chopping well, Magnus is far more important for chopping... however very early chopping has limited value while an Amani is a culture CS gives a very valuable +2 culture and Pingala giving 1 Culture per pop is wow... so you need a district, make it a holy site or a campus... I know which to choose, although you can go encampment which gives you 60 iron storage and the military training inspiration to speed you to mercenaries as well as GG points.
Barbs can be a pain so managing their scouts is what is important, maybe do not place your city on a hill unless it is a plains hill, then even then a hill may equal hell. Hills make your CC very visible to a barb scout.
I start scout and send it the opposite way to my warrior and one of the main reasons is it chases off barb scouts better than a slinger does.
3 slingers is good for a eureka but 3 archers early can be spread out to kill barb camps for era score and can come back to mass if attacked. The AI likes to see your cities have no strength nearby, as long as your archers can get back quick enough havingbthe AI declare gives a hard to get inspiration for defensive tactics.
.....
I think you main issue is... do not get currency, sell everything you have for the best price, putting your troops on a border so you have to promise will give you 30 favour which can easily be near a knight upgrade. Barb camps give gold, open borders do, luxe’s do, sell the lot! I NEVER go for currency before barbs.

 

[Bibor]

Logic from civ4: If you want to cut corners - cut deep. You don't actually need horses to train Mamluks, right? Get to tech and chop them out.

 

[Victoria]

Logic from civ4: If you want to cut corners - cut deep. You don't actually need horses to train Mamluks, right? Get to tech and chop them out.

... yes, but they are tradeable for good gold and you need AH anyway for 3 archers.
Also, considering you can find 20 horses in a goodyhut I am tempted to push it just to get that early OP horseman which buffs your city defence.

 

[ElSlayer]

Thank you for your answers so far! You've already gave pointed out some things that I overlooked. Got a few insights.

One thing that I've forgot to mention is that I'm trying to optimize my play to use it in multiplayer games. Therefore no "putting your troops on a border so you have to promise will give you 30 favour".

You don't need a campus, you need feudalism earlier. Encampment is fine for storage and general, build barracks and you need that iron asap. Store up 60 iron and upgrade 3x heavy chariot right away. You'll need the money for this aswell. There are glots of srategies around the governors. Depends. Magnus for some chops maybe a good idea, esp if you want to secure a wonder like pyramids or oracle. Provision is always good. You want to put down some cities either way. To really speed things up use pingala with his culture promotion and build/buy monuments. Usually you get feudalism early enough.

Mameluke requires 20 iron to train but with professional army that becomes 10 iron.
As said feudalism is key so pushing culture is where it is at, my aim is 10 culture per turn by T25, a rare pipe dream but something to strive for. Seriously, you want mercenaries as well as feudalism, concentrate on culture.

It is very strange to read that as I NEVER EVER thought about getting Feudalism before Stirrups. Basically, I always gave up on culture and focused on production, gold and science.
So, why is Feudalism is key? Just for Stirrups boost?
And why should I wait for Mercenaries? Just for upgrade discount card?
Are you sure it isn't better/faster to just get stable gold income through Comm Hubs and Traders instead?

@pkaem, I don't go Wonders when planning on warmongering. It is better to capture wonders than build them.

It is not all about knights, getting a district down early so you can get your govt district down cheap and early helps, but the culture push then gets you ancestral hall earlier which means more cities earlier... this is done alongside a knight rush....

Interesting, so you suggest not to build any districts in capital before State Workforce in order to build Govt Plaza and Ancestral Hall asap?
But State Workforce itself requires a distrinct for boost, so I usually build Campus or Encampment in my capital first and build settlers only with bonus from +50% production for Settlers policy card.
Looks interesting, though. I will definitely try your approach to early expansion.

how can you help this, by using chopping well, Magnus is far more important for chopping... however very early chopping has limited value while an Amani is a culture CS gives a very valuable +2 culture and Pingala giving 1 Culture per pop is wow... so you need a district, make it a holy site or a campus... I know which to choose, although you can go encampment which gives you 60 iron storage and the military training inspiration to speed you to mercenaries as well as GG points.

Definitely not a Holy Site as it give nothing in early game. It is better to build army and capture HS, rather than just building HS.

And why are y'all talking about 50-60 storage? IIRC it is 20 base and +10 from T1 encampment building. I usually have only 1-2 encampments when I rushing Knights.

You suggest to go lots of cities (5-6) first and build encampment in each of them?
In base game I usually went 3-4 cities and started invasion as soon as I get 3-4 Chariots upgraded to Knights.

Barbs can be a pain so managing their scouts is what is important, maybe do not place your city on a hill unless it is a plains hill, then even then a hill may equal hell. Hills make your CC very visible to a barb scout.
I start scout and send it the opposite way to my warrior and one of the main reasons is it chases off barb scouts better than a slinger does.
3 slingers is good for a eureka but 3 archers early can be spread out to kill barb camps for era score and can come back to mass if attacked. The AI likes to see your cities have no strength nearby, as long as your archers can get back quick enough havingbthe AI declare gives a hard to get inspiration for defensive tactics.

Yes in the end I've came to conclusion that it is better to spend some production to get 3 slingers and then upgrade them rather going straight for districts.

.....
I think you main issue is... do not get currency, sell everything you have for the best price, putting your troops on a border so you have to promise will give you 30 favour which can easily be near a knight upgrade. Barb camps give gold, open borders do, luxe’s do, sell the lot! I NEVER go for currency before barbs.

Good point about barbs as a gold source. I'll try to play without going currency.

Logic from civ4: If you want to cut corners - cut deep. You don't actually need horses to train Mamluks, right? Get to tech and chop them out.

Yes, but you are limited by amount of Iron you have and spend other resources for strong units won't hurt your chances for successful invasion. I build Horseman only at the time when I'm out of iron and have prepared Heavy Chariots for upgrade. I like to use Light Cavalry together with Heavy Cavalry because of that x2 flanking bonus that you eventually get.




EDIT: I realized one thing - we need to check our timings. Y'all talk about huge resource storages, that mean many cities and lots of turns spent. I usually go 3-4 cities (3 most of the time). I think your Knight rush is not that fast as I'm trying to execute it.

I need to measure number of Knights by X turn in my games.

EDIT 2: Is Professional Army policy card gives discount for resources too or it is just gold?

 

[Victoria]

MP is a completely different game, you will not get gold off anyone else so currency is more important.

So, why is Feudalism is key?

Feudalism is key for 2 reasons... 1 is you get the eureka for knights. The second it you get 5 chop buiders instead of 3 chop.

Just for upgrade discount card?

Yes, but that also includes half cost iron so 60 iron = 6 knights.

Are you sure it isn't better/faster to just get stable gold income through Comm Hubs and Traders instead?

For MP most likely yes...and encampmnets and GG are so much more important in MP

 

[Tabarnak]

One thing that I've forgot to mention is that I'm trying to optimize my play to use it in multiplayer games.

Getting Mercenaries while rushing for Knights in mp is somewhat difficult. But with Reyna and currency you can get enough gold to upgrade 4-5 knights without it. A good rush of Knight is around the turn 50-55 at online speed. For faster rushes you can skip apprenticeship but i wouldnt recommend it.

Start with Scout-Settler-settler. This opening is still very strong. Rush buy a scout or slinger when 2nd settler is up if your warrior and first scout are busy. Then it's all about the map. An early campus with +3 or +4 sci is always a good idea. Explore aggressively.

 

[Bibor]

... yes, but they are tradeable for good gold and you need AH anyway for 3 archers.
Also, considering you can find 20 horses in a goodyhut I am tempted to push it just to get that early OP horseman which buffs your city defence.

The bottleneck is not gold, but culture and science, no? I suggest finding the fastest way to knights/feudalism first and then backfilling with optimization.

This would mean, science-wise going for AH (reveal horses) > Writing (& building the district) > BW (reveal iron), and culture-wise getting Pingala with Connoisseur as fast as possible, because it's the only reliable source of 6 culture per turn, helped perhaps by a culture pantheon.

Trading away resources for gold is great, but you get the money only once, it doesn't matter if trade it away at turn 20 or 60, since you can sell resources only once (realistically).

So, I'd say ideally culture > science > gold > production for a super-early GS knight rush. Culture first because it's harder to get.

 

[Victoria]

The bottleneck is not gold, but culture and science, no?

It depend on how much you have knight rushed
Basically if you do not watch out you will get to knights but only be able to upgrade 2 chariots. The more you knight rush, the more you will encounter a gold shortage at times. The idea is to forsee the shortage.

it doesn't matter if trade it away at turn 20 or 60

But it does matter if you trade it when you have 20 or 50. At 50 you gain no more.

 

[Bibor]

The more you knight rush, the more you will encounter a gold shortage at times.

Question: what's preventing us from chopping out knights once you get to feudalism? We earn 4 governor promotions to Feudalism, so that's Pingala with 1 or 2 promos plus Magnus. I imagine iron would be a bigger bottleneck than gold, since stockpile is probably realistically about 50-60 at this point in time. I'll test it out as soon as I can

 

[Victoria]

Question: what's preventing us from chopping out knights once you get to feudalism? We earn 4 governor promotions to Feudalism, so that's Pingala with 1 or 2 promos plus Magnus. I imagine iron would be a bigger bottleneck than gold, since stockpile is probably realistically about 50-60 at this point in time. I'll test it out as soon as I can

No reason whatsoever. They are just fairly expensive production wise but for MP I believe chopping in units is the norm.

 

[Bibor]

Okay, tried it, best I can do is getting to knights at T90, a few turns sooner if I don't wait for Feudalism boost. I don't know if that's fast, probably not.

 

[Victoria]

Okay, tried it, best I can do is getting to knights at T90, a few turns sooner if I don't wait for Feudalism boost. I don't know if that's fast, probably not.

Did you do well with them, that is the real measurement.

 

[ElSlayer]

I've played quite a number of games vs Emperor AI since starting this thread.

On average I get first 3 knights out around T60 (online speed) without going Feudalism (basically not going culture at all and even instead going to Theology first for Temple -> Apostole -> Chaplain promotion to support Mamluks). This heavily depends on luck with barbs, neighbours and distance to iron (sometimes you have it in your capital, sometimes you resort to building Jebel Barkal for it). By this time I usually end up with 4 cities with a district in at least 3 of them.

I'm still convinced that early campus > feudalism in order to rush knights.
Feudalism is good on its own, but getting 3-4 extra cities and eliminating neighbour is obviously better.

 

[Victoria]

I'm still convinced that early campus > feudalism in order to rush knights.
Feudalism is good on its own, but getting 3-4 extra cities and eliminating neighbour is obviously better.

Fair enough, both approaches are valid and T60 is a great time.

The science route is great for all out aggression
The civic route allows for getting other things up and running well in parallel

Bottom line is aggression wins this game as a wargamerdom player very well.

 

[Tabarnak]

I've played quite a number of games vs Emperor AI since starting this thread.

On average I get first 3 knights out around T60 (online speed) without going Feudalism (basically not going culture at all and even instead going to Theology first for Temple -> Apostole -> Chaplain promotion to support Mamluks). This heavily depends on luck with barbs, neighbours and distance to iron (sometimes you have it in your capital, sometimes you resort to building Jebel Barkal for it). By this time I usually end up with 4 cities with a district in at least 3 of them.

I'm still convinced that early campus > feudalism in order to rush knights.
Feudalism is good on its own, but getting 3-4 extra cities and eliminating neighbour is obviously better.

If you get 5 cities before turn 35 and build a monument in each of them fairly soon enough you can get away with Feudalism around turn 50-55 and hit Knights a few turns faster. Try to get a good amount of archers, swords and horsemen meanwhile.

Because im multiplayer 3 knights alone cant do much against skilled players(unless you get them before turn 50).

A strong army in mp around the turn 55-60 is more or less 500 strength total.