Keshiks -your experience?

[darski]

I have been playing the traits so the Mongols came up in the roster. I was so happy to get to my Keshiks (UU) but I had no idea how bad they are on offense and defense. They can't even scratch the tapesty covers on knights but they drop faster than War Chariots when attacked. They are so bad that I abandoned the game - it was just pathetic.

Now, I concede that I have the worst pRNG luck in the world but these guys are so bad I am thinking that others may have gotten similar results.

Is it just me or are they lousy units?

 

[RickFGS]

They have the exact same attack as Knights, ignore movement cost on hills and mountains, and cost less 10 shields then Knights, so if you use them in packs and keep them on mountains and hills, you will be able to move through the enemy lands from mountain to mountain and have a modified defense of 4 or 3 at the end of every turn.

I use them as deep penetration forces, the ideal is to attack cities that are near hills/mountains and entice the AI to attack you there, while you move up your slower forces, or just attack first with slow moving forces, using combat settlers to gain healing land, and once the AI comits troops to counter that attack, move up your Keshiks trough some mountain/hill range to capture other distant cities.

Of course this will depend if there are any hills/mountains on the AI land or not , if there are none, they still have a good attack and are relitavely cheap, not to mention they retreat to safety if losing the battle, can be upgraded from Chariot or Horsemen for less than a regular Knight and can spark your Golden Age.

BTW, i believe they also exerce "Zone Of Control" which is rare, so i´d say it´s a pretty interesting unit.

 

[Raliuven]

Never heard of them with ZoC. Nevertheless, I've never played the Mongols. Based on the stats I would say they have situational use. If you have the terrain to make them useful, it might be okay. Otherwise they are just cheaper knights with less defense. Personally I don't think that is a good trade. But if they can move on mountains for the 100% boost, then maybe. Of course a regular Knight on a hill has the same defense and a better defense on the same mountain.

 

[Verarde]

Before I moved up to Warlord (then Regent), I played one last game as a random civ, and I got the Mongols. I used Keshiks to take over my whole continent, which was pretty big, so their movement ability came in handy.

 

[Elephantium]

The strength of the Keshik is its mobility. You take a stack of a dozen of them, cross some mountains at your enemy's border, and sack their cities. Move in some Pikes on the roads to cover your Keshiks once you have the city in hand, and you're golden.

Of course, this ignores darski's legendary RNG...

 

[darski]

The strength of the Keshik is its mobility. You take a stack of a dozen of them, cross some mountains at your enemy's border, and sack their cities. Move in some Pikes on the roads to cover your Keshiks once you have the city in hand, and you're golden.

Of course, this ignores darski's legendary RNG...

I think you've nailed it. I was working on flat land with jungles etc. And I am thinking it is just my pRNG luck at work in that game.

boy they were bad - I find most knight replacements challenging (to me). I have good luck (relatively) with cav replacements.

 

[Lanzelot]

The Keshik is highly terrain-dependent:

• The first point (as others already mentioned) is, if the enemy has a mountains in it's territory, which hinder their own mobility but not ours.
• The second point: it doesn't require iron.

If both these requirements are met, it's a great unit (might save your game, if you are stuck without iron...!) Otherwise it depends on the difficulty level: on the lower levels it's just a "cheaper Knight" (usually the AI is too weak here to counter-attack, so the reduced defense value does not matter), which is nice: you can hit them with larger numbers... On the higher levels it's a "weaker Knight" (here the AI does counter-attack, so you will be missing the extra defense point very dearly...), which is bad...
One other disadvantage that no one has mentioned yet: the Keshik does not require iron. (Now you probably say to yourself: "Lanzelot has gone nuts?! First he says it's an advantage that the Keshik doesn't require iron, no he calls it a disadvantage?!? ") Well, if you do own iron, it's a disadvantage that the Keshik does not require it, because then you can't use the connect/disconnect strategy...

 

[RickFGS]

Wrong thread, pls delete this post.

 

[Toxicman007]

Now, in civ3, I rarely play Mongols. I have played as them a couple times in the past, and I remember using Keshiks very usefully to conquer, pillage and destroy the Inca. They're not exactly a poor UU, but not among the best, either.

 

[Elephantium]

Toxicman: Agreed, mostly. I'd say that they're a strong UU, but I wouldn't put 'em in the top 5.

Those would probably be

Immortal
Mounted Warrior
Sipahi
Cossack
Rider (3 move FTW! )

 

[Toxicman007]

Not entirely sure why the Cossack is up there, Elephant. Could you give your reasons, please? I've always viewed the Cossack as a renamed Cavalry.

Immortals, MWs, Sipahi and Riders are awesome, though. To be honest, so are Berserks.

 

[del62]

Great thing about Cossack is you can make more than a single attack with is per turn, thus you can get a lot of elites, I would but the Gallic Sword in the top 5, prefer it to the immortal

 

[Elephantium]

Gallic Sword is also an excellent UU.

I really like the Panzer, too, but it comes too late to matter in most games.

 

[Toxicman007]

Ohh, I forgot Cossacks have blitz. Yeah, the Gallic swordsmen are pretty good too. A personal favorite of mine is the Ansar Warrior.

 

[del62]

I really like the Panzer, too, but it comes too late to matter in most games.

I concur about the Panzer, in vanilla did it have blitz as well as I dont think tanks did

 

[rollo1066]

The strength of the Keshik is its mobility. You take a stack of a dozen of them, cross some mountains at your enemy's border, and sack their cities. Move in some Pikes on the roads to cover your Keshiks once you have the city in hand, and you're golden.

Of course, this ignores darski's legendary RNG...

I'll have to try this some time. Seems to be about what the real Mongols did. If Keshiks were compared to real history though they would be a lot stronger than they are in Civ III.