Knights

[AJSmooth]

But this one time I attacked a tank with about ten leftover knights and killed it! I put em to use, lol.

LOL! I always like to imagine what that battle would look like in reality... a couple hundred knights against a dozen or so tanks... you think the tanks would mop the floor.

 

[Tephros]

Promos (exept combat) are calculated on the defender...not the attacker.

so a CR3 mace attacking a city garrison 3 longbow assuming no culture no fortify would have 8 vs 9 (6 base + 20,25,30 (city defend) + 10 (from cG3 against mele) + 50 (longbow ability) - 20,25,30 -10

a combat 2 cover musket attacking same longbow will have 10.8 vs 12

So about same odds

You're right about combat promos, it's just something I use to estimate. I checked with worldbuilder. Maces do better whenever the longbow does not have city garrison III, muskets do better when the longbows have city garrison III. But I'd also point out that maces are cheaper and the city raider promotions will be more useful as city raiders when you upgrade the units. Things like that make a big difference on marathon.

 

[UWHabs]

Really, if you made guilds a required pre-req for Gunpowder, that's when you'd get the age of knights. Currently, the way the beeline towards Liberalism is usually done, it's easier to get cuirassiers than Knights, which seems wrong.

 

[Ormur]

Isn't the reason just that in the real world nobody beelined liberalism. I'd say it was discovered by the English in the 1600's or something which I think is pretty late if you compare the tech tree to the discovery of other techs.

Just an observation. You could just argue that liberalism is to early in the tech tree.

 

[SnowlyWhite]

great defensive unit when you own your own continent/island.

If the ai attacks directly from ship, you won't have any problem repelling at tech parity with 3-4 units(even if the rest of your cities are guarded by 1 odd archer). If they land, you flank, wipe the siege, let them suicide.

Beside that - worthless. Decent stack defenders with pinch when facing with a rifle vs gren. situation, though, after taking care of the enemy sod, unless you're facing someone with extreme attack courage... not really needed either.

Chances to bring them in the field before pikes - close to 0. The tech itself - low trade value, path heavily favoured by the ai. Hard to bulb the tech. Not on the path to lib. Umm... can it get worse? Of course - medieval war - the worst period to wage war(and that's from someone playing on marathon, so I can afford sitting 3 turns to bombard the defences). Modern times - cr tanks have no real counter, now that gunships were moved so far away; the anti tank is a joke. Rifling time - the rifleman has no real counter when attacking, pinch cav. is enough to defend your stack from enemy grens. Pre rene - the cuirassier has no real counter, pikes barely stop them. Classical age - it's usually a rush, plus axes are a safe bet. Medieval times - everything has a very effective counter, making attacking difficult, castles make taking down defences slow as hell with trebs., everything is slugish.

 

[CivCorpse]

I don't think casualties matter much, losing 1 treb is almost the same as losing 2 catapults. Given that most of the fighting is not against cities anyways(or at least the problem is not taking out well fortified cities, that you can do just as well with cats as with trebs), and cats are strictly better than trebs in the field, i hardly see a reason to build trebs(especially since cats both cost less and give more colleteral damage).

Check this game out.http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=298806 In it I am using just Trebs,LB,Pikes and x-bows to take cities. At the point of the last post, I had taken 4 cities defended by LB's,x-bows and maces with the loss of just ONE treb. One unit to take 4 cities is a pretty good hammer investment. I purposefully waited until the AI had units from the same era so that I was demonstrating the power of siege rather than the power of a tech advantage. If I had used cats to soften up the LB's I am quite sure I would have sustained much higher losses. Trebs are significantly stronger than cats when attacking a city. They also bombard defenses at a much faster rate. I now have a stack of about 10+ CR3 trebs. I do not forsee losing many of them until the AI has muskets.
Cats are better in the open field and should get the barrage promotion (which was argued to death in another thread).

To get back on topic. I very rarely build knights for the offensive. As a dedicated seige unit warmonger, it really doesn't matter what unit I use to attack a city with after the siege assaults. The defenders are all redlined at15% strength. As stack defenders they are greatly overpriced. If you are concerned about x-bows, then bring some of your own. Personally a few cover x-bows are just fine for stack defense. Even if facing another cover x-bow on flat ground they have even odds. And most importantly your precious, and IMHO highly overrated, CR melee units will not be selected as the defender. The 2 moves are wasted due to the slow speeds of the units required to protect them.
I do however build them for defensive purposes. I keep a stack of them in the homeland as well as a couple small stacks of cats. When the SOD is next to a city, i attack it with the cats to weaken the spears/pikes and them the flanking2 knights. It wipes out most of the siege then I gleefully watch the AI suicide and an entire SOD onto the pikes and LB's.
The last reason I go light on the mounted units is the limited upgrade path. Once the AI has rifling, you're hosed. You are stuck paying maintanance on your mounted units until advanced flight.
One of the few gripes I have about civ is the minmal army vs army fighting in the open field. Medievil wars were not usually fought as sieges. Great armies would meet and wars were determined on the battle field where knights were unmatched. When a city was attacked, it wasn't the titled guys in expensive armor that attacked the walls. It was masses of poor shmucks that couldn't afford horses.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

CC:

What about muskets? I really like knights in a stack (although not too many). In addition to holding off a lot of attackers (everything but pikes/elephants), they do pretty well at picking off something obnoxious then returning to the stack.

Also good for doing in enemy siege, should you find yourself on the defensive. Good diplo avoids that happening too frequently but nobody is 100% immune.

 

[Cashew]

Knight stacking can be interesting if your early game strategy was horse archer stacking. Get currency, tech like mad to get guilds, upgrade 40 ha's to 40 knights. Course, that's mostly something you'll do in a team game.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Cashew, are you nuts?

Sorry, couldn't resist

 

[mirthadir]

knights are great for quickly putting down weak AIs, either those lacking engineering or those lacking metals (and of course no phants). A double engineer bulb has the potential to catch the AI with archers and spears vs knights, which is just a gimme (I very rarely try that as a philo leader and often run with catas that way).

Really though they just aren't that much stronger than phants and unlike phants they come after both counters. Worse still, not terribly long afterward the AI is going to start getting muskets.

 

[bestbrian]

Cashew, are you nuts?

Sorry, couldn't resist

Beat me to it.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Cashew, are you nuts?

Sorry, couldn't resist

I've seen that strategy he lists before...

Where have I seen that before.......hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Oh well .

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Course, that's mostly something you'll do in a team game.

A "TheMeInTeam" game perhaps...

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Believe it or not, it's pretty effective.

My best emperor game was over 200k score where I HA rushed native america, then someone else I forget, then rome. Later I got knights and gradually started building up EP. Game ended with cuirassers...I was backward with a lot of vassals.

Of course, paradigms pc crashed right around when I was doing it a lot ----> PYL I, Cam H's monarch no caste/no library churchill game, noble's club III to name a few. On immortal it's rough on normal but on epic or marathon it's very serviceable even there...the rate at which you can take cities after DoW is so damaging to the AI that it's hard to measure the cost effectiveness. You will see a LOT less units...built and whipped. IMO against soft AIs it might be among the best routes short of deity games.

 

[CivCorpse]

CC:

What about muskets? I really like knights in a stack (although not too many). In addition to holding off a lot of attackers (everything but pikes/elephants), they do pretty well at picking off something obnoxious then returning to the stack.

Also good for doing in enemy siege, should you find yourself on the defensive. Good diplo avoids that happening too frequently but nobody is 100% immune.

I really do not consider muskets as contemporary units of knights. Yes they are just one tech further, but usually knights are the last piece in your medievil army. They are the contemporary of Curassiers.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Well yeah, if you're wanting to include cuirassers in your stack rather than knights, I'm not going to argue. They're one of my favorite units in the game. The world was a better place thanks to me not having civ IV in vanilla days when catherine got an EIGHTEEN strength unit with the exact same techs......

 

[CivCorpse]

Well yeah, if you're wanting to include cuirassers in your stack rather than knights, I'm not going to argue. They're one of my favorite units in the game. The world was a better place thanks to me not having civ IV in vanilla days when catherine got an EIGHTEEN strength unit with the exact same techs......

For me it was nilla redcoats. Liz has always been one of my favorite leaders....so being able to tech like crazy and then get redcoats made for an unstoppable army....yes TMIT, i do wage wars

 

[Skallagrimson]

Knights get flanking versus cats and trebs, while cuirassiers and cavalry do not. Often times I'm up against cats and trebs while I'm in the rifle/cavalry/cannon era, and it's annoying to see huge stacks of old school artillery presenting a credible threat to my cities. So what do I do? DELIBERATELY keep several knights from the medieval era around without upgrading or deleting. When attacking the enemy stack, the cavalry goes with CII or CIII to wear down or take out the enemy's pikemen, at least down to the point where the knights can survive an attack against the stack. And then? Unleash the knights. The cats and trebs get the flanking damage and often to the point where you kill several per turn per knight. By the time the riflemen do any combat it's mostly cleanup, and as a bonus, it's in my culture zone to it's all the AI's WW. It then becomes an option to make unreasonable demands (techs, gold) for peace or just move in for the kill, because the AI's stack is dead and can usually not keep up unit production by that point, to be much of a threat.

Except for Monty, who seems to make it rain cuirassiers down from the sky via magic spells. ::checks the Aztec altar for interdimensional portals::

 

[Rusten]

Knights get flanking versus cats and trebs, while cuirassiers and cavalry do not. Often times I'm up against cats and trebs while I'm in the rifle/cavalry/cannon era, and it's annoying to see huge stacks of old school artillery presenting a credible threat to my cities. So what do I do? DELIBERATELY keep several knights from the medieval era around without upgrading or deleting.

This was fixed/changed in the 3.17 patch. Cuirassiers and cavalry now flank earlier siege as well.

 

[Skallagrimson]

Excellent!