Scythia Horseman Rush - And You Thought Companion Cavalry Rush Was Ridiculous In Civ V Vanilla

[Cakeathon]

What is the rationale behind the scout opening ? There are whole threads arguing on the subject and you didn't explicitly provide a rationale for your choice.

Also how late do horses/knights stay relevant against cities ? Don't they just get shredded by walls at some point ? Double attack in melee is very different from double-attack on range, ranged units just get way better and can kill anything with a thousand cuts while melee units still get hit in the face every time so they don't really get stronger. Seems like you will hit a big slowdown if not outright hit a wall(quite literally) between knight and tank.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Im playing an emperor game, small standard, with 5 AI's on a Pangaea. The biggest problem im having is with ghandi and his elephants, any suggestions on how to deal with that? Im using 2 horsemen (for capturing cities) and saka HA. Tried it with all horsemen and i was struggling with that too.

That's a bit beyond the scope of the guide. If I weren't so time-limited right now then I could probably test and give you an answer, but right now I'm just not in a position to do that. The basic idea of the guide is to identify the efficient pathway to (borrowing a sports analogy) clear out under the backboard and make some space. The general practice in later Civ games has more or less been: if you find yourself on a continent with multiple opponents and a UU precludes eliminating one early, then target the other one. If the elephants make it impossible to kill Gandhi, then find another victim and put him off to a period where they don't do nearly as much good.

What is the rationale behind the scout opening ? There are whole threads arguing on the subject and you didn't explicitly provide a rationale for your choice.

As I noted in the relevant thread, at present I've more or less sworn off Scouts. The problem with the thread architecture of forums is that you're stuck balancing two competing goals - having correct information in the top post without obscuring how you got there over the course of the discussion. As of right now my sense is that you want to go Slinger first, use the Warrior like a turn 1 CiV Scout pn a long range mission and let the Slinger fill in the area close to home in the opposite direction.

Also how late do horses/knights stay relevant against cities ? Don't they just get shredded by walls at some point ? Double attack in melee is very different from double-attack on range, ranged units just get way better and can kill anything with a thousand cuts while melee units still get hit in the face every time so they don't really get stronger. Seems like you will hit a big slowdown if not outright hit a wall(quite literally) between knight and tank.

Yes, light cavalry gets eaten alive by walls. That's more or less why I was trying to figure out how you push the rush ASAP. An attack on an opposing Civ with walls tends to resolve in favor of the defender, so every turn that you can save on setup before the Walls land is almost always a good thing.

 

[DeincepsGaleam]

The biggest culprit here is the selling exploit. Once that gets fixed, Sumeria is clearly better like mentioned above - cheaper, stronger, available from the get-go, and their carts transition far better later than horsemen who take ages to get to cavalry.

I can already see the patches that are coming.

1) Damaged units, especially those <50%HP are disbanded for less gold
2) Units are sold based on actual hammer spent, not their inherent value. (might be tricky to adopt)

 

[rpgalon]

Until they nerf the +100% production towards cavalry, Scythia/Sumeria will still be god tier.

having +50% production over other units is just too good to pass.

 

[KmDubya]

I can already see the patches that are coming.

1) Damaged units, especially those <50%HP are disbanded for less gold
2) Units are sold based on actual hammer spent, not their inherent value. (might be tricky to adopt)

They should have no sell value. The benefit to you is the saved maintenance that should be it. That closes all the cheap tactics of selling easy to produce units for more money than running commerce hub projects. Next they should change the +100% cavalry card to +50% like everything else. With those two changes Scythia is still a top tier civ, just not godmode.

Seriously who can defend a set up where you invest 50 cogs +100% card, get two horsemen and delete for 400 gold? It gets even crazier when you produce cavalry armies and delete them.

 

[MyOtherName]

Seriously who can defend a set up where you invest 50 cogs +100% card, get two horsemen and delete for 400 gold? It gets even crazier when you produce cavalry armies and delete them.

Nobody's defending having the numbers work out exactly like they currently do.

What some people (including myself) would like is, rather than a knee-jerk reaction of "remove all of the game mechanics", a fix that preserves the underlying mechanics while removing the overpowered interaction. Then, the underlying mechanics can be played with and evaluated on their own merit.

For example, I don't think I've seen anyone express a belief that +100% cavalry production was overpowered when the only effect they knew of was that it let you produce cavalry faster. Thus it would be silly to nerf cavalry production if the bad interaction with selling was fixed.

 

[LDiCesare]

ok, but why +100% cavalry and only +50% ranged/melee?
It exacerbates the advantage of Sumeria/Scythia over say Rome for instance, because their UU becomes even cheaper.

 

[MyOtherName]

ok, but why +100% cavalry and only +50% ranged/melee?

Why +50% cavalry? Equating numbers just for the sake of equating numbers doesn't make sense.

It exacerbates the advantage of Sumeria/Scythia over say Rome for instance, because their UU becomes even cheaper.

Most civs are worried about how fast they can produce things like archers or heavy chariots. If a UU is out of whack, it would generally be better to tweak the UU rather than playing with the balance of everything else.

 

[rpgalon]

Why +50% cavalry? Equating numbers just for the sake of equating numbers doesn't make sense.


Most civs are worried about how fast they can produce things like archers or heavy chariots. If a UU is out of whack, it would generally be better to tweak the UU rather than playing with the balance of everything else.

the balance of everything else is broken because you get +50% production for cavalry over other land units while also getting 2x the movement and no combat strenght penalty.

 

[MyOtherName]

the balance of everything else is broken because you get +50% production for cavalry over other land units while also getting 2x the movement and no combat strenght penalty.

(note the difference between +50% production and +100% is a multiplier of merely 1.33)

You also get different upgrade paths, different promotions, different vulnerabilities, different ability to use support units, and different tech associations, et cetera.

And the AI is currently definitely in no shape for us to be able to judge whether the card values are good numbers. I'd be somewhat surprised if the multiplayer people actually have enough experience to judge -- in pretty much every strategy game I've played, fast units go through a phase where people think they're really strong... and then people eventually learn how to deal with speed.

 

[KmDubya]

(note the difference between +50% production and +100% is a multiplier of merely 1.33)

You also get different upgrade paths, different promotions, different vulnerabilities, different ability to use support units, and different tech associations, et cetera.

And the AI is currently definitely in no shape for us to be able to judge whether the card values are good numbers. I'd be somewhat surprised if the multiplayer people actually have enough experience to judge -- in pretty much every strategy game I've played, fast units go through a phase where people think they're really strong... and then people eventually learn how to deal with speed.

Without considering unique units, why would you produce anything besides horsemen for an early war? Using the +100% card you get cheaper, faster and just as strong units.

• Horsemen vs spearmen - 35 str vs 25+10 = even fight. 80 cogs with +100% is pretty close to 65 cogs at +50% so the cost is close. Spears get eaten up by swords and are much more vulnerable to archers. Advantage horsemen
• Horsemen vs swordsmen - 35 str vs 35 str = even fight. 80 cogs with +100% is better than 90 cogs at +50%. Swords are better with siege support units against walls, or you can just bring up catapults or just wave attack against the walls and move the wounded away before they get too damaged.

The +100% card for naval vessels is fine as navy is not near as useful as land units and going all in for a navy should have some perks, but there is no reason why cavalry units need an advantage for production when they are arguably a better unit path than anything else.

Personally I think the adjustment should be in making the cards +50% and then adding some maintenance cost to cavalry units. Historically keeping large groups of mounted troops cost more than foot soldiers. Give Scythia a cost break on the maintenance for horse units and they stay as the best horse rusher but aren't broken.

 

[MaximusPlatypus]

Just a small note as I tried a similar strat before encountering your thread. If you get a 2 pasture kurgan spot (flat land no woods) in your capitol (seems to happen like 60% of the time) it is kind of worth it to throw the only kurgan you're likely to build in the game up with your first builder to get your pantheon choice (usually first). The pantheon that gives culture from pastures is one of the best IMO it will keep your civic tree moving reasonably whilst you hack your way through your neighbors. 1st builder I go pasture-kurgan-pasture. I then basically ignore religion for a while through the first couple wars unless I take someone's holy city.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Just a small note as I tried a similar strat before encountering your thread. If you get a 2 pasture kurgan spot (flat land no woods) in your capitol (seems to happen like 60% of the time) it is kind of worth it to throw the only kurgan you're likely to build in the game up with your first builder to get your pantheon choice (usually first). The pantheon that gives culture from pastures is one of the best IMO it will keep your civic tree moving reasonably whilst you hack your way through your neighbors. 1st builder I go pasture-kurgan-pasture. I then basically ignore religion for a while through the first couple wars unless I take someone's holy city.

You raise an interesting point in that a strategy thread like this almost invariably leaves finding the actual local optimum as an exercise for the reader. This is complicated by risk tolerance. If you're determined to win every game you ever start no matter how painful playing it out happens to be, long-game strategies like building a Kurgan look pretty good. If you're trying to win as fast as you possibly can, then taking on some (lowish) risk of getting blindsided by the computer and losing your capital as a result is generally going to be worthwhile relative to playing it safe.

 

[MaximusPlatypus]

You raise an interesting point in that a strategy thread like this almost invariably leaves finding the actual local optimum as an exercise for the reader. This is complicated by risk tolerance. If you're determined to win every game you ever start no matter how painful playing it out happens to be, long-game strategies like building a Kurgan look pretty good. If you're trying to win as fast as you possibly can, then taking on some (lowish) risk of getting blindsided by the computer and losing your capital as a result is generally going to be worthwhile relative to playing it safe.

It's not really a long term strategy, first kurgan if adjacent to 1 pasture gives 1 gold 2 faith, 2 pastures 1 gold 3 faith, so you are doubling or tripling the fpt from "wasting" your slot on God King, so you can run that +1 production in every city card, which is gonna get you to your horse spamming needs quicker. I've noticed it also gets you that pantheon almost guaranteed 1st, and that early the extra culture you get from pasture faith pantheon precludes having to build any sort of monuments at all until you get to that 4 slot government. Allows me to rush to horses, and possibly even an encampment (if I don't have 2 horses in range anywhere somehow.

 

[paz_paz]

Surprised by the slinger spam. Early game, I build 4-5 warriors, depending on how many scouting there is to do. If I don't see any builders, I build one after the 2nd or 3rd warrior. With 5 warriors plus 1 or 2 slingers/archers, AI won't be able to kill anything, because of terrain, healing, and rotating injured troops. With 2-3 promotions on the warriors, assaulting a city is possible. Especially if there is archer support.

It's not uncommon to be at war with a city state and 2 AIs on deity during the first 50 turns. At the moment, the battle AI is totally incompentent, and if you stay fortified in a nice position they will either suicide or send unprotected settlers. I usually don't take the capital though. Maybe I'll try slingers to do that.

 

[Hans Lemurson]

I won a Deity game last night against India attempting to do a Horseman rush.

...I failed. Not having any horses in your capitol really throws off your time-tables. You can sit on Horseback Riding for many turns with no benefit. Had to Archer-rush a nearby City-state in order to gain access to horses, and by the time I redeployed my forces to attack India, they had City Walls up already.

I attacked anyways, hoping to wear them down with large quantities of Archers with cheap Horsemen as my melee backup. Unfortunately they also completed their Encampment district the turn before I assaulted, meaning two sources of bombardments and unkillable melee units. I ran into a stalemate where the high city strength (50+) meant my units could hardly do more damage than they healed each turn, so I sued for peace and got 2 cities (including a second source of horses).

With the blitz a failure, I would have been screwed by a Religious Victory, except that I had the good fortune of killing two Hindu missionaries right outside their cities, which totally removed Hinduism from both Delhi and Mumbai. Hinduism remained only in the two cities they surrendered to me, where I could keep it nice and safe and under 50% of my population.

I decided I needed some Catapults if I was ever going to defeat the Indian fortresses, so I built Horsemen non-stop in all of my cities and sold them to pay for artillery. If the Military exploits fail, you can always fall back on Economic exploits!

When I finally resumed my assault with a massive carpet of Horsemen backed up by Catapults, I found out that VARU ARE REALLY REALLY HARD TO KILL. Like seriously hard. And their -5 penalty to nearby land units stacks. And makes assaulting Varu-defended cities ever so much harder.

Long story short, you can attack with a Horseman, Immediately sell it, and then attack with a second one, and third one, and so on. I send wave after wave of my own men until they reached their pre-set kill limit and shut down.

Victory on turn 89. (eventually...)

 

[MaximusPlatypus]

Lol not to mention the double war weariness you get from India but that was hardly relevant in your game

 

[Roxlimn]

Seriously who can defend a set up where you invest 50 cogs +100% card, get two horsemen and delete for 400 gold? It gets even crazier when you produce cavalry armies and delete them.

Once you get Armies, you get infinite money. There is no need to produce anything or slot any card for it. Just buy the Army and then immediately disband it. It disbands for more than the cost of acquisition.

 

[Hans Tork]

What is the rationale behind the scout opening ? There are whole threads arguing on the subject and you didn't explicitly provide a rationale for your choice.

Also how late do horses/knights stay relevant against cities ? Don't they just get shredded by walls at some point ? Double attack in melee is very different from double-attack on range, ranged units just get way better and can kill anything with a thousand cuts while melee units still get hit in the face every time so they don't really get stronger. Seems like you will hit a big slowdown if not outright hit a wall(quite literally) between knight and tank.

I do not know for horses but knights do stay relevant for a long time. Infact against a walled 8 pop city 4-5 knights bashing against it can take that city out in 3-4 turns with minimal help from CBs. I would say that about T130-140(I ahd used them till T180 in most of my games) you can clear a large part of the map with knights. Upgraded knights that turn into tanks are even deadlier.(only pain is the scarce oil on most maps)

 

[Compound Interest]

Yes, light cavalry gets eaten alive by walls. That's more or less why I was trying to figure out how you push the rush ASAP. An attack on an opposing Civ with walls tends to resolve in favor of the defender, so every turn that you can save on setup before the Walls land is almost always a good thing.

Walls are completely countered by Siege Towers though. They let your attacks completely ignore walls. Despite the text for Siege Towers only mentioning they work for melee units, they in fact work for cavalry units too. So you just rush Construction after you have researched Horseback Riding and your aggression can keep going.

I find the thing that actually stops your early Horseman aggression is not Walls, but Pikemen. Horsemen just get slaughtered by pikes. So what you are racing against is the AI getting out their pikes. Fortunately the AI is usually quite slow at getting out pikes. If you play well, you can usually take like half the map before you are stopped by the pikes.

Once they the AI does have pikes, I declare peace on all fronts, then bee-line for Cavalry to support my next aggressive push. With Cavalry you are racing against AT Crew. But they come late in the tech tree, so you should have plenty of time to finish the game before they show up.