keshik WAR to the end

[Aardan]

WOW, I played as Mongols. I used 4 horsemen (later converted 2 to keshik) and used 2 other keshiks to win a domination game. one of my keshiks finished with experience over 1000. They were so dominant even against the last civ which had riflemen. The english lomgbows presented a tougher challenge but for them I sat back and waited for them then sniped them alternatively from different keshik positions with the extra range promotions that they all had. Not sure if I would play the same style again, but it was a ton of fun and I recommend everyone try it at least once.

 

[Laurwin]

yea this is lots of fun

Capital has 4 horse units I think in a single resource, mediocre food, riverside, sugar and silk. I set up a second city for seafood and more horses. Then I attacked Babylon, took their awesome riverside capital with gold, horses and ivory, burned the rest. Then the Mongolian horseman tumans rode north...

Now I'm attacking England, have allied 2 maritime city-states. England's capital is ok coastal city with whales and marble. England's city up north has a massive 5 silver, 1 gold and 1 fish, LOL I sure am gonna get a mint and some multipliers set up in there...

Also I have some pretty nice looking city sites nearby with jungle bananas, and normal jungle tiles, can you smell science?!?! I just have to contend with the Ottomans and destroy the militaristic Dublin city-state out of the way.

Happiness is through the roof. Wonders-wise I got TGL and Oracle. Sadly I F'ed up my research path so that I couldn't pick any expensive techs from the path towards chivalry which I was understandably beelining for the keshiks. So I picked theology so that I could advance to medieval and get better gifts from city-states. Now I have one GS ready to bulb chivalry once I reach it, currently teching towards currency.

Social policies-wise, I took Honor at the like the first turns because I felt I needed something against the massive barbs that seemed to surround me, I took the free khan and the first policy on the right side after that.

Now I'm just wondering what direction I should be going after finishing England, and after tackling the Ottomans and getting those good city sites with banana jungles (you can build academies on these?)

I'm kind of thinking about saving my Oracle policy but I don't really see where I should spend it lol!
Stuff from the autocracy tree looks very rewarding, since I don't have any immediate needs with social policies but it takes ages to reach industrial era...

 

[HermannLombard]

Hmm...I'm playing the Mongols right now and I've been less than impressed with the Keshiks against Siamese Elephants and Longswordsmen and the like. Typically I'm seeing 2-4 points of damage. Maybe my promotions are scattered too thin, but Siam was sending too many units on too broad a front for 4 horsemen to cope. Instead I have combined arms with Longswords, a couple of crossbows for frontier garrisons, and a treb or two.

Now I'm facing an interesting situation preparing to fight Egypt, which has its two biggest cities on one side of an inland sea, and two more on the other side. I want to concentrate my forces and go after the capital, but there are several Egyptian Knights poised on the other side of the water. In partial response I just built my first wall since perhaps Civ III.

 

[JudgeDeath]

What level OP? I'm guessing not one of the harder difficulties.

 

[Guardian_PL]

Yeah, using "I win" button sure is fun. Thanks for taking away any challenge from this game Firaxis.

 

[Laurwin]

yea i'm only playing prince.

Keshiks are good units and work somewhat well with the Khans I think, but it is true that horse archers are not suited for static fighting, and work best at open spaces because that way the enemy doesn't get a juicy terrain defensive bonus against the ranged attacks (?). Mobile defense works pretty well against slower enemies with Keshiks.

But of course, they are medieval era units, requiring a bunch of expensive techs to unlock. But on the plus side you can upgrade your horsemen and chariot archers easily to keshiks if you take the honor tree.

Also Keshiks kind of suck if you literally don't have room to maneuver and place units, like narrow straits. They do work somewhat in their primary purpose in hilly terrain,

but in general when using them you have to have enough movement to run away from the enemy's reach after shooting, and also occupy good "firing lanes" since you cant shoot over forests if you are level with the ground etc...

This way you could use multiple units to move one by one into a good firing lane, shoot arrows and retreat to allow the next unit to step in. Sort of like the historical Parthian shot used against the Romans at Carrhae

 

[Guardian_PL]

Keshiks gain twice as fast experience, you can quadriple that with Military Tradition and in no time you have access to +1range, Indirect Fire, Logistics and whatnot - then things like range or line of sight are meaningless.

 

[bryanw1995]

Hmm...I'm playing the Mongols right now and I've been less than impressed with the Keshiks against Siamese Elephants and Longswordsmen and the like. Typically I'm seeing 2-4 points of damage. Maybe my promotions are scattered too thin, but Siam was sending too many units on too broad a front for 4 horsemen to cope. Instead I have combined arms with Longswords, a couple of crossbows for frontier garrisons, and a treb or two.

Now I'm facing an interesting situation preparing to fight Egypt, which has its two biggest cities on one side of an inland sea, and two more on the other side. I want to concentrate my forces and go after the capital, but there are several Egyptian Knights poised on the other side of the water. In partial response I just built my first wall since perhaps Civ III.

keshiks are great for two reasons:
1. 5 movement ranged attacker
2. double speed promotion


just those two things invariably get them promoted VERY quickly. if you have a decent network of roads in your territory keshiks should be impossible for enemies to reach, but you can still get a LOT of them into combat. elephants are probably the worst unit to attack keshiks b/c they can't ever catch them and they don't don't get the mounted combat bonus when the keshiks attack them (changed with the patch that mobile archery units count as archers when attacking). keshiks can get into almost every battle b/c of their high movement, so they promote so incredibly fast that they get 2 attacks/round, indirect fire, +1 range very quickly. they are far and away the best ranged unit until artillery, and even then 3 keshiks will kill 3 artillery every single time when in the hands of a human. Any time I see the mongols near me I immediately wipe them out before they can build up their forces b/c if you have to take them out in the medieval era they will decimate your forces. Probably the best UU other than companion cav imho, and that's only b/c CC is available so much earlier.

 

[bryanw1995]

Keshiks gain twice as fast experience, you can quadriple that with Military Tradition and in no time you have access to +1range, Indirect Fire, Logistics and whatnot - then things like range or line of sight are meaningless.

military tradition doesn't quadruple their experience, it merely triples it. you get 2 exp for a ranged shot in the open and 3 for attacking a city. the keshiks get 4/6 respectively, and with mil trad they get 6/9. you don't even need mil tradition for them to promote ridiculously fast, after their 25th non-city attack they get logistics anyway, and they can typically attack every single turn in a war.