[R&F] Knight rush strategies

[RedRover57]

Just bought R&F recently and returning to Civ 6 after a long break. I'm interested in knight rush strategies for Domination (or at least to expand your empire to set up another VC) using Deity difficulty and standard pangaea/continents. Mongolia would be a great example for a knight rush possibility (with knights/keshigs). Obviously the map is important for deciding on strategy, but let's assume that you start with sufficient space to expand (if needed). What would be the optimal

• Early build order
• Number of cities to settle
• Districts
• Early defensive army and pre-built army (to upgrade later)
• Tech order
• Important buildings, governors, policies, wonders(?), etc.

in order to have a sufficient (number?) knight/keshig army for starting conquest ASAP (preferably sometime between turn 80-100).

I have been messing around with early Mongolia strategies and the main issues have been:

1. Dealing with a very early AI warrior/archer rush with or without barbs as well - the problem with knight rush is that any production put early into a defensive army (warriors/slingers -> archers) is ultimately "wasted" production. So I have tried to only produce a minimal early army of 2-3 each warriors and archers.
2. Dealing with a turn 60-70ish AI rush with horsemen, swordsman, archers, catapults - initial warrior/archer defensive army will most likely not be able to counter this when it occurs prior to your getting knights - pre-build heavy chariots? Pre-building chariots seems smart since they upgrade to knights, but it takes you off the main tech path. And chariots aren't exactly ideal for defense. Building walls may be a necessity.
3. Not enough space to expand (usually due to AI forward settling) reducing speed to obtaining knights - horseman rush to conquer nearest neighbor while still teching toward knights? Producing a bunch of horsemen will also slow down progress toward knights (less production going into infrastructure). And there's also the potential issue of not having horses (having to wait for Magnus to be promoted).

These challenges have made playing Mongolia interesting, as compared with a civ that has an early UU advantage (like Nubia or Aztecs, both of which are usually a cakewalk even on Deity).

Any insights regarding specific strategies would be appreciated.

 

[Fluphen Azine]

I am interested as well but I want to hear strategies for normal land and Generic Civs.

Some games I can't get knights till after turn 100 but other games I get them out around turn 85-95. I find this is because of Land Issues or Neighbors or Barbs slowing me down. I tend to understand that getting those back to back golden ages will catapult your game in all directions making things faster.

I also find that it depends on neighbors. Some of my neighbors in some games are very easy to roll and are far behind in military but other games some neighbor could have Defender of the Faith and is able to build huge horse armies. The game depends on your land and neighbors and map type before you can really get into general strategies. It seems the best players know how to play the map more so than certain BOs.

 

[Boyan_Sun]

Mongolia would be better to use horsemen directly than knights. Much earlier, start bias to horse. Tech tree can be direct to printing.

 

[BarbarianHunter]

Can't help but agree with other posters. I'd agree with like Fluphen Azine in that any micromanagement strategies are all situational, (besides it sounds like you already know what to do). I'd also say that Mongolia is incentivized more for early war due to the straight +6 diplomatic visibility bonus augmenting horsemen more than knights (so attack early). If you're going to wait, I say wait for the best: Shaka.

Base knight 48 strength
Knight corps 58 strength
Shaka knight corps w/ +5 corps/army bonus = 63 strength



Mongol knight w/ +6 diplomatic visibility bonus = 54
*Assumes you can get a trade route to the civ before declaring war.

 

[antimony]

For a generic Civ (not Mongolia), look at the threads for fast science victory, since they cover strategies for fast progression through the tech and culture tree, which are needed to get pre turn-100 knights (best players can probably get them around ~80 on an average Civ and map). The tech path is very straightforward, so the bottleneck in early game is often culture (you need feudalism to speed up stirrups, and mercenaries to mass update heavy chariots to knights).

For culture: prioritize tiles that provides culture yield, send 1 envoy to cultural CS, chop monuments ASAP in all new cities.

For gold (to update knights): improve luxury and strategic resources and trade them to AI for lump gold (though some people frown upon that as an exploit). Even iron is not needed until knight upgrade.

Some early conquest with warriors / archers / chariots can help to pillage gold/culture/science and to get the Feudalism eureka without spending builder charges on farm. But on high difficulty levels it might be hard without a nearby opponent and good terrain.

 

[Fluphen Azine]

For a generic Civ (not Mongolia), look at the threads for fast science victory, since they cover strategies for fast progression through the tech and culture tree, which are needed to get pre turn-100 knights (best players can probably get them around ~80 on an average Civ and map). The tech path is very straightforward, so the bottleneck in early game is often culture (you need feudalism to speed up stirrups, and mercenaries to mass update heavy chariots to knights).

For culture: prioritize tiles that provides culture yield, send 1 envoy to cultural CS, chop monuments ASAP in all new cities.

For gold (to update knights): improve luxury and strategic resources and trade them to AI for lump gold (though some people frown upon that as an exploit). Even iron is not needed until knight upgrade.

Some early conquest with warriors / archers / chariots can help to pillage gold/culture/science and to get the Feudalism eureka without spending builder charges on farm. But on high difficulty levels it might be hard without a nearby opponent and good terrain.

Good Standard Information. I have been on some odd maps where Iron isn't close and I could not trade for Iron with the AI. I tend to just get into Crossbows. Not that this is normal or usual but what do you suggest if you can not get Iron? I always forget that you can tell where the Iron is before you research the tech... what are the clues that show you where resources are before you ca see them? Many top players know where things are from the start because of the land.

Also if you play too fast and forget to send Tribute to your Neighbors you could be in some early game trouble, however you might want them to attack you so you can kill their army and get the Culture Tech Boost. As already stated... the whole game is situational but once a player understands a few basics they should beat Deity/Standard/Pangaea every game or almost every game. This is why players focus on turn time and finishing fast because that is how they rate skill more so than just winning. Unless you just want to Role Play but I tend to notice most Role Playing is done at much lower levels.

I recently started the Australian Immortal GOTM43 but I was pretty far ahead by turn 60 and I don't really care for water maps. I find that they make Deity much easier compared to Pangaea Maps.

Recently I have been playing my games using far less exploits to make it a little harder. I play my games too fast with little planning so I am always going to finish in the 175-275 range but I don't like city planning and playing slow so I am not the best player to give advice. I never plan out some Mega City where you can build your districts very close to each other to get the bonuses. I always find the land doesn't allow such perfect planning but other stronger players are good at such things.

 

[RedRover57]

Antimony - Your response is definitely more along the lines of what I am looking for. Obviously the map makes a big difference, but I'm interested in the "optimal" strategy under "optimal" conditions just to know where to set the bar. Pretend you're in an isolated area with no other AI (just some barbs that can be handled with a few early units) and room to expand with average turf (not optimized for Magnus chops). The goal will be to obtain an army of ~10-12 knights and a few keshigs, plus at least one battering ram and a GG, ready for conquering without bankrupting your economy. What would be the optimal number of cities to settle? What districts and how many? What tech order (when to detour to pick up the tech for heavy chariots)? There's a balance that needs to be reached - spend production on more settlers or spend it on infrastructure like districts and buildings? In Civ 5 I had figured out the milestones I was trying to reach by various turns, but haven't quite figured it out yet in Civ 6 R&F. All I know is that with certain leaders (like Nubia) it's easy to just spam UU's from the start and end up with 12-15 cities by turn 100 after taking out a few neighbors. But with Mongolia I kind of like the idea of waiting until knights for something a bit different.

Regarding iron, I guess you could use promoted Magnus if iron's not available, but that would mean no upgrading from chariots and only producing knights in the one city - so major slowdown.

 

[antimony]

I suggest looking at GOTM reports, especially @Eyswein who tends to post detailed build orders (e.g. https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/6otm37-after-action.631417/#post-15107885 GOTM 37 - Zulu Deity Domination). Some things that come up in a lot of fast victories:
- Scout, builder, settler opening, and then military.
- Rushing a few more settlers when you have the Colonization policy card (usually with chopping).
- Rushing a few monuments (chopping or buying with gold); inspirations boosting only to 40% really slowed down early game culture in R&F.
- First army doesn't have to be big (e.g. 6 chariots upgraded, so 540 gold) if it's early enough.