How to deal with Cho-Ko-Nu

[kniteowl]

When I said Toku's "protective" longbow the drill I is counted already.

This is only an example. The reason I used it is that most people don't go for the drill line if they build longbows. Say for me I will go for combat I/cover and combat I/shock most of the time, with some CG longbows thrown in. This is because the benefit of drill promotions is not obvious until you hit Drill III and IV. People go for Drill IV CKN because they are used as attackers (the collateral keep many of them survived) and by doing so experience comes in quick. By the end of first war I usually have a team of Drill III and IV veteran survivors already. It's rare to use your Drill II longbow to attack (unless I successfully pull out the feudalism slingshot and the longbows will have strength advantage over archers and axes).

In addition CKN has an additional bonus baseline FS even you compare unpromoted CKN to an unpromoted Toku's longbow.

I didn't notice the extra FS given to CKN, I'd always thought their only bonus was collateral Damage, (Only played China once back with Qin was Fin/Ind lol)

I think CKNs are even stronger now in BTS because now they can deal Collateral damage to Siege units because of the new rules about Siege cannot deal collateral damage to other Siege units, but they never said anything about archery units lol!

 

[gettingfat]

I didn't notice the extra FS given to CKN, I'd always thought their only bonus was collateral Damage, (Only played China once back with Qin was Fin/Ind lol)

I think CKNs are even stronger now in BTS because now they can deal Collateral damage to Siege units because of the new rules about Siege cannot deal collateral damage to other Siege units, but they never said anything about archery units lol!

Also CKN now is the only unit (at least in early to mid game, I still don't have the BtS) that deals collateral without suffering flanking damages.

 

[Melchizedek]

I'd build crossbowmen and cats for the time being and just pick off whatever targets you can until knights, then build a stack of those for your main invasion force. Knights should destroy CKNs at their lesiure, especially if you also have a few archery units and hills/forests to fend off any elephants or pikemen you may face.

 

[BARBEERIAN]

At least you are not playing BtS - frankly I think that in BtS China is simply impossible to conquer during the middle ages, unless for some reason they are horribly backward. Not only both of their leaders are Protective, due to siege weapon nerf you can no longer just build a horde of trebs to crack them in.

Not quite so true. Trebs still have great attack odds vs. Choko's in cities in BtS they just can't outright kill them. Bring a few Horse Archers/Knights with your stack (since they're immune to FS) and they'll easily clean out the defenders (albeit slower).

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

Anyways, bee-line for Gunpower and spam Musketmen?

In real history, crossbow has served China very well since the Han dynasty. The only 2 things that beat them were Genghis Khan's Horse-Archer on crack at end of the Song dynasty and The Redcoats during the 1st Opium War.

Coincidentally, in my current game my redcoats are working very well against Mao's CKNs.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Knights and horse archers are you best bet during the time. Unfortunately the former is available later than machinery.

If you have horse archers at least, you can keep your stack from getting owned in the field by the CKNs. That's really all you need other than a strong medic to heal after collateral - the AI doesn't use xbows (or anything really) well in the field, though you'll get attacked by some and will want a power medic ASAP (use a GG for medic III). VS cities use what you should ALWAYS use in medieval war, CR II trebs. When defending the CKN is no better than a Xbow in this regard, and you'd be surprised how easily a CR sword, horse archer, or really any healthy unit can stomp all over a CKN with 2 strength remaining or so.