Keshik Domination - Demonstration

[Silu]

Even if you don't take the added AI production time from using slower units into account, the doubled maintenance for supplying such an army on enemy lands for a longer time will kill you. So with faster units you can actually afford to make a little bit more of them.

As powerful as HAs can be, I think about it as a more advanced tactic that's much harder to pull off successfully for lower-than-the-highest-level players than say, swords&cats. Not because they aren't as good fighters, rather that it's too easy to overextend oneself with them and go broke (grabbing faraway cities fast, slight tech detour from economy techs). They have more potential, but require more skill with concepts such as banking, teching order, guerilla tactics, building res/wealth, espionage and even diplomacy.

 

[Tecibbar]

I
Give an immortal AI time to produce and whip military in its biggest cities. Give it 7+ turns (realistic sword march to get to say capitol 2nd). Watch the AI put 4+ more defenders there, and have time to whip counters to your invasion stack.

Also, mounted does better against more advanced units. Would you have gone swords against pacal, who had nationalism and guilds, along with maces and longbows? I bet you wouldn't.

4+ more defenders doesn't make much of a difference to a big stack. I am refering to your war with Pacal. The surprise attack on Spain's underdefended capital is what mounted are intended for: surprise attack.

As for "mounted does better against more advanced units", are you refering to HA's retreat chance? because HA VS War elephane is 1:2, same as sword VS mace, not counting city attack modification.

 

[bestsss]

doh HA w/ flanking 2 has at least 50% chance to survive, keshik has 1st strike and it's immune to such, so the chance to damage the top defender is very decent.

HAs are cheap and can reinforce way faster than the slow swordsmen. Also HAs do damage (well smash) catapults in the open w/o contest. You can as well consider pults not existing if you initiate w/ the mounts.
Almost no chance to initiate w/ 1 tile movement units and instead get hammered by the collateral.
Needless to say that mounts come w/ 5xp off the gate and it doesn't take any civics/religion to do so (thus flanking 2, or combat 1+shock, or anything you need)

Dude, try it once yourself to see the difference. The best is if you get early cavs to see the power of the mounts, you can compare it to rifle/cannon.

 

[Silu]

4+ more defenders doesn't make much of a difference to a big stack. I am refering to your war with Pacal. The surprise attack on Spain's underdefended capital is what mounted are intended for: surprise attack.

Of course it makes a big difference; you will probably lose at least 1 unit per extra defender the enemy makes. This, among other things, ramps up the war weariness and forces you to build new units.

As for "mounted does better against more advanced units", are you refering to HA's retreat chance? because HA VS War elephane is 1:2, same as sword VS mace, not counting city attack modification.

No it's not. Jumbos don't receive defensive bonuses, which is huge for this kind of warfare. Not to mention Ivory is a tad rarer than metal... And yes, technically Flanking promos gets better as the enemy gets harder; you will still lose about the same percentage of the initial attackers, while the survivors get insane amounts of exp for surviving with low odds.

 

[Silu]

doh HA w/ flanking 2 has at least 50% chance to survive, keshik has 1st strike and it's immune to such, so the chance to damage the top defender is very decent.

Normal HAs have ITFS, Keshik's don't, right? To complement that they have that 1 FS of their own. So normal HAs are even better in some specific situations (obv. not on average, especially with Ger in the picture).

 

[bestsss]

There is something else: if the enemy hits your stack containing siege w/ HAs you will scream...

 

[bestsss]

Normal HAs have ITFS, Keshik's don't, right? To complement that they have that 1 FS of their own. So normal HAs are even better in some specific situations (obv. not on average, especially with Ger in the picture).

It's correct keshik doesnt have built in immunity... however flanking 2 grants it and you initiate w/ them... Thus, they really don't need it.
So the case is: Keshik has 1st strike vs none of the defender.
Actually it's it gets truly broken if you get the shoemaker event (flanking 1 for every mount you have).

 

[Psimon]

As powerful as HAs can be, I think about it as a more advanced tactic that's much harder to pull off successfully for lower-than-the-highest-level players than say, swords&cats. Not because they aren't as good fighters, rather that it's too easy to overextend oneself with them and go broke (grabbing faraway cities fast, slight tech detour from economy techs). They have more potential, but require more skill with concepts such as banking, teching order, guerilla tactics, building res/wealth, espionage and even diplomacy.

A large portion of this is proving true, at least with myself, who's economics and diplo need a great deal of improvement. As well as just plain experience; predicting how various civs are going to react and acting accordingly.

My current game & situation:

Spoiler :

Saladin and Mali are to the east; China is unknown, but I suspect northeast; the Greeks are gone and the Vikings are down to one city.

The Vikings were encrouching my eastern border, really didn't want them as neighbors, so I warred them next after the Greeks, taking all of their cities but one. I should have accepted a peace treaty, but they wouldn't trade me even 1 tech for it. So I was like, allright, I'll make your life miserable. I should have seen it coming - the very next turn they vassalized to China, a civ that's not even on my map, it's so far away from both me and the Vikings. That is such BS, them vassalizing to a civ that's so horrendously distant. If they vassalized to anyone it should have been me, or possibly Saladin, who's close. Yes, whining.

I've got both Currency and Alphabet. The map shows me going at Meditation (I was heading for Monarchy) but will likely change as I need CoL pretty badly. My Keshik's are relatively small in number, about 8 or 9 of them. While I still have "the largest army in the world" (or at least the most soldiers), no other civ respects me, will hand over tech or gold. Saladin, who's religion I share, hasn't talked to me for 20 turns (even though he's only Cautious) ever since I stopped trading with him due to a demand from Mali, who I was trying to cozy up to.

Science is at 0% as, what I'm sure is killing me, the combined cost of my Keshiks added to city maintenance is proving very costly. I didn't understand how I could prevail fairly easily with Praetorians and Cats and not have these problems until I remembered Augustus's secondary trait was Organized; 50% civic costs and speedy Courthouses.

Right now I'm trying to salvage the game by hurriedly building Markets (I took Pottery early this time, and am running a cottage industry). The good thing about this map is or was the vast tract of jungle (with a few barb cities on hills) that was between me and the rest of the world. That's changed, of course, since I seized most of the Viking's cities.

Oh, and China (and thus the Vikings) have Feudalism. I don't know where in the hell the former are, but will be sending out a Galley to find out.

My problem, I think, is not with the basic strategy and tactics, but just inexperience in properly teching, economy, and diplo, as I said.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Markets are only useful/worth their cost in cities with high base gold (or with a low slider, high commerce). If you want to get to CoL ASAP, build WEALTH, which will let you up the slider for a decent tech rate.

Trade for resources if at all possible.

Get workers improving your cities...you probably captured some, but with that many cities building a few more won't hurt.

You're still making money at 0%, so there's always room for more war/expansion also .

Edit: That deep into the game, you should definitely have more workers and larger cities. I was at -30 gold/turn at 0% at one point, but by 1000 AD I was much more stable and had a full array of reasonably-sized (10+) core cities and developed ones in the new lands.

Still, it looks like you've gained some good ground.

 

[Psimon]

Markets are only useful/worth their cost in cities with high base gold (or with a low slider, high commerce). If you want to get to CoL ASAP, build WEALTH, which will let you up the slider for a decent tech rate.

Trade for resources if at all possible.

Get workers improving your cities...you probably captured some, but with that many cities building a few more won't hurt.

You're still making money at 0%, so there's always room for more war/expansion also .

Edit: That deep into the game, you should definitely have more workers and larger cities. I was at -30 gold/turn at 0% at one point, but by 1000 AD I was much more stable and had a full array of reasonably-sized (10+) core cities and developed ones in the new lands.

Still, it looks like you've gained some good ground.

Thanks ME. The tip about markets was handy, I'd forgotten I could hit Wealth as soon as I had Currency. Problem is it's like a drug my civ is hooked on , lol, I have to have at least 3-4 of my major cities on it to sustain my Horde. I take this or that city out of Wealth to build a temple or granary, etc, then put them back on Wealth, do another city, etc, rotating them like that.

I've got the workers improving like crazy (I've got at least a dozen of them), and I just got Calendar, too (and Monarchy), which is gonna give my trade a big boost, I hope. Also got Feudalsim (see below). I AM runing at 20% science and still making a profit, which may be a mistake (maybe should be going 0 science?).

FINALLY Saladin talks to me; it was weird, he had more bonus to me than penalty, but still refused to talk to me for at least 40 turns or more (we never warred, no. I think it was the trade I cut off, even though that's only a -1). After I setup some trading and gifted him some horses, together we put the hurt on Mansu.

Mansu is driving me nuts. I've taken all his nice cities, including his capitol (thrice). He's only got two cities left. He refuses to hand over his tech for his civ's survivial. I'm the one knocking on his door when it should be the other way around. Finally got so ticked at him I'm gonna annhiliate his 2nd to last city. I bet he doesn't even deal, then. He absolutely refuses to hand over any tech, the butthead.

What I'm afraid is going to happen soon is Mali vassalizing to China. Japan and China are also getting along (now that's a odd couple, if anyone's got anomosity to each other, its Chinese and Japanese).

I've gotten some tech from the arabs, and got my (so far) ONLY GP in the form of a GS, so I managed to lightbulb Philosophy, which got me Feudalism from Saladin.

Spoiler :

From the map you can see, the Vikings are gone, and I've pretty much eliminated Mali. To the east are the Japanese, who have me worried, given they're hitting Samurai and not liking me very much. Fortunately, they don't like Saladin, either. The Chinese, of whom I've never even seen ONE city of theirs (yet) are somehow my "bitterest enemy". Yes, I took their vassal out, what do they expect? Diplo in Civ4 needs some serious tweaking, imo . . . . .

I've got a bad feeling the Chinese are alone on their own continent, and just sitting there developing & teching up . . .

 

[Psimon]

Finished my own Keshik Domination victory
Noble
Marathon
Fractal
Civs/Leaders: Kublai (me), Alexander (Greece), Ragnar (Vikings), Saladin (Arabs), Mansu (Mali), Tokugawa (Japan), Mao (Chinese).
Final Score: 17,714 (Augustus) - highest score I've gotten to date

China almost snatched out a victory. They weren't on their own continent, but close enough. They had a large chunk of landmass all to their own, behind the Japanese. Tokugawa was only interested in turtling and keeping his borders closed, while the Chinese sat there for nearly the entire game and developed culture and technology.

China was a paper tiger the entire game too, proclaiming me his "worst enemy" and DoW-ing me, but fielding few units, doing little to nothing when I annihilated his friend and brief vassal Ragnar. After knocking Mansu down to his last city then vassalizing him (big mistake), I proceeded to pulverize the Japanese and finally spot my first Chinese city in the far east.

Spoiler :

After I took out Japan, at peace, I did infrastructure, tech'd, and went straight for Military Tradition then Gunpowder, to get to Calvary. The amount of time I spend doing infrastructure almost lost me the game. As I invaded China and took their central and northern-most cities, a scout spotted their three largest cities (Bejing, Shanghai, Chengdu):

Spoiler :

Bejing was size 23, the other two, size 20's. How in the hell he could have two size 20's overlapping like that, so close to one another, beats the hell out of me. Special resources & coastal food, I guess. (Oh, and he had the Great Lighthouse and Chicken Itza in Ghanghou).

When I spotted them I had a sinking feeling - I'd known since mid-game that China was somewhere, not being warred on, and sitting back developing tech - so I quickly checked the Victory window. Bejing was at 49,500 culture, with the other two at 35,000 or thereabouts. Eeek! I had just made peace with them and was planning more infrastructure, troops (badly needed more seige engines, that is, Cannon), etc . . . but to hell with that.

Marshalled all that I had, interrupted any buildings being made and had all cities put out Cannon, Machine Guns, Riflemen, and Grenadier's. Workers built a "conquest highway" railroad from one end of the continent to the other. Calvary was the vanguard, sweeping ahead and forming a living wall behind which the other troops & cannon advanced. Occasionally China would send out a Rifleman or Calvary to kill 1 or 2 units, but then the other Mounted nearby would finish them off and keep advancing. At the end I also had four Ironclads pounding their cities defenses (they were all coastal).

I guess I deviated from the Keshik Domination, given I started using Grennies and seige weapons. Figured I'd get a Dan Quayle, lol, but got Augustus ranking, for what that's worth on Noble.

Thanks for all the tips, TMIT

 

[pi-r8]

I just finished one also. I got my best score ever, with a domination victory in 1210 AD on emperor level. I basically never built any offensive units except Keshiks, lol.

 

[wades]

I have a dumb question.

How do you use spies in place of siege? Incite revolt?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I have a dumb question.

How do you use spies in place of siege? Incite revolt?

Yes. Incite revolt lasts 1 turn, but for that 1 turn the culture and wall/castle defense is reduced to 0%. If you were to lose the city after capturing it in such fashion those defenses are restored instantly, so be careful. Still, if you DON'T lose the city again, the effects are quite permanent!

 

[wades]

> - Play Faster! http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=301900

Is there are link to the whole article?