So just recently completed a game playing Mao. Now, I normally feel crossbowmen are useless as usually in a couple turns, you'll be building Maces with similar odds vs mele, better vs mounted, and gets city raider bonuses. And I've played using the Chinese before and ChoKoNu and their collateral damage is exploitable, but only briefly. And Machinery can be an expensive tech to beeline.
But in the recent game, I beelined pretty successfully, and succeeded to mow down and run over two strong AIs sharing my continent. I had to stop there to let my economy catch up, but here is where I found the newfound love for them. As the game progresses, you can continue building them until Riflemen come available. And their 60 hammers, becomes cheaper as you advance. I had started to use them as an alternate to my normal catapult suicides, and used these as my suicide as they can take cities and defend pretty well. The best part....I started my foreign invasion of my next neighbor (Ragnar) who was really strong, but luckily was in a war with another neighbor. I put a bunch of my ChokoNus in boats with grenadiers, Knights, and a few trebs. One of the biggest pains of amphibious attacks (pre industrial/flight) is the attack from sea penalty, and the inability to soften using seige from boats. And that opening attack is so critical. Many of us know of trying to land an invasion force first so as to not suffer the sea penalty, only to get slammed by seige and mounted. I was able to hit the defense from my galleons using my old ChoKoNus, to soften the defenders, damaging them without having to land my stack. And another bonus, they even caused collateral on Ragner's seige!! Normally seige is excluded from collateral from other seige and they end up being the defenders, and cannon and artillery can be good defenders who can take out some of your units. But with the ChoKoNu, I only had to use a few, and was able to hit a large stack they had in Nidaros, and I took it quickly with shock and awe, and was able to run through Ragner real quick and then his war opponent. I was still using them to soften Infantry and Tanks by the end of the game (albeit it at this point, they were too obsolete and basically became suicides).
I had never used ChoKoNus in this fashion and is probably the MOST under-rated UU and I think is almost as good as a sea unit as Berzerker, even though they don't get a sea bonus.
But in the recent game, I beelined pretty successfully, and succeeded to mow down and run over two strong AIs sharing my continent. I had to stop there to let my economy catch up, but here is where I found the newfound love for them. As the game progresses, you can continue building them until Riflemen come available. And their 60 hammers, becomes cheaper as you advance. I had started to use them as an alternate to my normal catapult suicides, and used these as my suicide as they can take cities and defend pretty well. The best part....I started my foreign invasion of my next neighbor (Ragnar) who was really strong, but luckily was in a war with another neighbor. I put a bunch of my ChokoNus in boats with grenadiers, Knights, and a few trebs. One of the biggest pains of amphibious attacks (pre industrial/flight) is the attack from sea penalty, and the inability to soften using seige from boats. And that opening attack is so critical. Many of us know of trying to land an invasion force first so as to not suffer the sea penalty, only to get slammed by seige and mounted. I was able to hit the defense from my galleons using my old ChoKoNus, to soften the defenders, damaging them without having to land my stack. And another bonus, they even caused collateral on Ragner's seige!! Normally seige is excluded from collateral from other seige and they end up being the defenders, and cannon and artillery can be good defenders who can take out some of your units. But with the ChoKoNu, I only had to use a few, and was able to hit a large stack they had in Nidaros, and I took it quickly with shock and awe, and was able to run through Ragner real quick and then his war opponent. I was still using them to soften Infantry and Tanks by the end of the game (albeit it at this point, they were too obsolete and basically became suicides).
I had never used ChoKoNus in this fashion and is probably the MOST under-rated UU and I think is almost as good as a sea unit as Berzerker, even though they don't get a sea bonus.
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