Knight Rush! Building a kingdom from the horseback

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

With 48 strength knights have the most raw strength of any unit in its prime and as a heavy cavalry it is also a 4 move unit that ignore zone of control.

Not only that but with the manuver chivalry card you get +100% production towards knights.

To get Knights you need several but easy to get techs with the only medieval tech you need is stirrups who only needs horseback riding. As knight need iron you need to get bronze working which also unlock the encampment a building I would recommend you to build because a stable + a great general will make you knight into 53 strength 5 move monsters who earn promotions faster. It also allow you to build knights while only having a single iron resource.

To research these expensive techs you probably want to get campuses early so getting writing amongest your first techs should be a goal. Because you need to build up your cities (campus + encampment) I would recomend you to only build a few cities and instead focus on building up the infrastructure. You don't need to build many cities because you are going to conquer alot of cities.

A research order could be mining (to unlock chopping and mines), pottery, writing, BW, AH, HB, stirrups. Given that knight are expensive to maintain you may want to add in currency in the reseach order.

Culture goal should be to have military tradition before you have knights to unlock flanking for extra combat bonus.

Build order should include a few settlers with one city founded to get iron, encampments (use military training project if you need to get the general in time for knights), campus (maybe as soon as you unlock it). I dont think there is to much to say about the BO because each game is different.

With 53 strength 5 move units I don't think you will have much trouble against the ai, naturally if you are Arabia the knight rush will be even more powerful.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Actually manuever only helps ancient/classical cavalry, knights need chivalry

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Actually manuever only helps ancient/classical cavalry

I was wrong which is why I wrote over it. You still want military tradition for flanking bonus to make the most use of the mobility knights have.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

The big issue is chivalry is from a late medieval civic (divine right) so its useless for a rush (except maybe as Gorgo/Trajan)

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

I don't think you need it as knights + general is too strong for pretty much every ancient and classical era unit the ai is likely to have at that point.

Another thing is that you get most techs to get gunpowder as well which can be used as a followup to the knight rush althought building up may be a better move. Most likely if successful you have won the whole game anyway if you play somewhat decent afterwards because the other civs may be so far behind and several may have been killed.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Yeah...based on the rush+ get out a couple, I'd say

Arabia best once you get the knights
Sumer best at getting the knights (fast boost, zig for sci, early war chariot for upgrade)

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Sumer would be pretty nice civ for the rush, you can even ignore writing if you want too with Sumer.

The Knight rush is likely to work well against Rome (if they don't attack you before you are ready) because knight is pretty much the perfect counter to legionaries simply due to better mobility.

 

[WiseGreen]

Another issue will be how well the AI defends its cities, specially how many of them will have walls by the time you have your knights. If they manage to build them in most cities and you end up having to escort rams/towers/catapults, all of which are 2 speed, you are already missing a lot of the knights' strength as they're now as slow as swordsmen/pikemen/musketeers, more expensive to build, and, assuming the human player will win most land battles and reach AI's cities barring a massive tech disadvantage, the difference in combat strength probably won't matter enough. Swordsmen/Companion Cavalry rushes in CiV, specially before BNW, were effective because those melee units could fight cities reasonably well even without ranged support.