Nobles' Club 195 - Asoka of India

[cseanny]

@elementoffear, I was about to start my GA and I wanted those cities to be able and produce 2t HA's. If I had whipped those particular cities they wouldn't be big enough (workable tiles), nor have enough food to do so. Remember, denying growth lets you have max food saved and then you can starve if needed and work more hammers. The other cities, at size10 and 9 were doing the same thing, except for running GMs.

In general, you only want to emphasize growth in a very select few cities, such as a cottaged Capital or a GPF. That's all it typically takes to reach key techs. Other than that it's my strong belief you should be whip, whip, and whipping. There might be some in between time, that is to say, between reaching key military techs where you might have the opportunity to focus more cities on research but generally you'll be using one, or two hands to dish out some whip sauce.

Extra spicy sauce with no breaks works best. It's not uncommon to own cities with over 100 whip anger; something I was a few turns away from reaching in this game. How else can you get 80 Knights in the 600 ADs, which incidentally, is when people usually find themselves finally reaching Cuir tech . Just a playful but serious reminder that Knights are usually much faster and create bigger and badder snowballs.

 

[gaash2]

Knights even on diety ?

 

[cseanny]

Knights even on diety ?

Absolutely. Have you ever read any of Wastintime's games? My game had 80 Knights in the 600's and while Deity is quite different, you'd still be able to have 30+ Knights much much earlier than even reaching Cuir tech (several hundreds of years). The snowball is no joke.

And with Deity AI's researching so fast, getting the Vassal train earlier means they do most of the lifting for you. If you're already on the lower part of the tech path Cannon + left over units/anything is fine. Cannon/Knight while an odd combination is quite powerful vs main stacks and core cities. Using a few smaller, multiple 12 stack Knights can do amazing on fringe cities by themselves.

So yes, Knights are definitely underrated imo.

 

[Fippy]

Knights only work on great deity starts thou (HoF usually has those),
i would not recommend going for them on starts we usually see in this forum.

 

[gaash2]

Interesting. I’ve used cataphracts Some on IMM but I find I need too many regular knights even on imm difficulty vs what my cities can produce / whip , and on diety engineering comes so early

 

[elementoffear]

@elementoffear, In general, you only want to emphasize growth in a very select few cities, such as a cottaged Capital or a GPF. That's all it typically takes to reach key techs. Other than that it's my strong belief you should be whip, whip, and whipping. .

@cseanny :
This is like, the first time I've heard of this tactic. It sort of makes sense now

The big things I got so far from your walkthrough are:

1 - Early war

2 - Bribe wars

3 - Whip like its going out of style.

Thanks, for a very new perspective, am I missing something?