The Case For Knights: Opinions

[CrusaderKevin]

I love the concept of knights...towering, irresistible armor-clads of steel and flesh and faith, taking all before them on the battlefield…

However, I must agree with the general consensus of the forum here: they are on a less-desirable side of the tech tree. One should only bank on knights if your opponent has no elephants (of course) and are trying to attempt a win before gunpowder units become significant on the battlefield. I do believe that in the good situations in which they are available, knights can make any game a victorious one.

The only exception that I have to the “knights come too late on the tech tree” comes from a personal experience playing a standard sized map on monarch with Justinian and his cataphracts. I’ve had them sweep over the field quite easily with little support from anything beside trebuchets when capturing cities, even on monarch surprisingly. The AI was researching faster, and just before the last civ, ol’ stubborn Saladin (ironic, eh?) was conquered (or ever warred), he cranked-out several handfuls of riflemen. Cataphracts are able to take on all medieval units, and when promoted, can even take on green elephants. I believe that one of the only reasons that it was a successful game was that I had several of them promoted all the way up to Combat IV, with a GG leading the stack and a few pinch promotions for good luck. I admit, the situations were pretty ideal for my archaic UU knights to charge-down practically industrial age riflemen, but it just added to the unique overall flavor of the win.

Despite the general consensus, this thread is for the ideas of strategizing possible uses for knights and cats in vanilla CIV, Warlords, and BTS. Also, if you have any eipc stories about how you’ve used knights to beat-put more advanced units or any tips on how toeffectively use them, feel free to post them here!

*******NOTE!!!!! I’m not trying to hijack the article on here about the validity of knights on the tech tree; rather this is more about the GOOD case for knights and to share personal experiences about their use. Enjoy!

 

[CrusaderKevin]

C'mon, somebody's gotta give knights some love!

 

[MkLh]

Knights can be great if you're able to cut enemy's iron sources fast to prevent pikemen spamming. In higher levels you can't expect the enemy has no Engineering or won't get it soon. AI values Engineering high and there is no (easy) way to have knights out really early. If only you are able to prevent pikes, there may be quite big time window for "knights and city revolt"-spies tactic.

 

[GeorgeF]

Knights are growing on me. Last couple of games I've got the Horse Whispering quest, if you finish your last stable just after getting Guilds you get free Knights.

Usually there is just one or two pikemen in a city, if you give the first Knight the Fist, it will damage the Pikeman so it doesn't defend again. The the rest of the Knights get Combat 2 or 3 and they have pretty good odds against Longbowmen as long as there is no Castle, no seige required - if there is a Castle, just roll up some seige for a couple of turns. Only a couple of cities typically have a Castle, so once you've punched through those, you can usually sweep an AI.

Plus if you have lots of Knights they are very cheap to upgrade to Curaissers and then Cavalry. For that matter, HA are cheap to upgrade to Knights, so if you get a head start on building them you can have a lot immediately after Guilds.

 

[Divaythsarmour]

Hey Kevin,

One of my favorite strategies is what I call the Cyrus Horseman strategy. Play as Cyrus on Marathon. Build the Great Wall. When you get your GG's put them in your best production city where you plan to build He and the majority of your units. By the time you get to Guilds and Theocracy you'll have some really tough knights. I like doing it on a Great Plains map where my girst city has 3 or 4 cows in the fat cross and research AF first.

It might be interesting to do in BTS (unrestricted leaders) with Cyrus of the Byzantines.

 

[CrusaderKevin]

Hey Kevin,

One of my favorite strategies is what I call the Cyrus Horseman strategy. Play as Cyrus on Marathon. Build the Great Wall. When you get your GG's put them in your best production city where you plan to build He and the majority of your units. By the time you get to Guilds and Theocracy you'll have some really tough knights. I like doing it on a Great Plains map where my girst city has 3 or 4 cows in the fat cross and research AF first.

It might be interesting to do in BTS (unrestricted leaders) with Cyrus of the Byzantines.

Good point! Glad that someone else is thinking of all the different used for these units. I am partial to cats when trying to win a game with knights, because tey can steamroll over gunpowder units that are early (such as musketmen), especially with pinch!

 

[CrusaderKevin]

Knights are growing on me. Last couple of games I've got the Horse Whispering quest, if you finish your last stable just after getting Guilds you get free Knights.

Usually there is just one or two pikemen in a city, if you give the first Knight the Fist, it will damage the Pikeman so it doesn't defend again. The the rest of the Knights get Combat 2 or 3 and they have pretty good odds against Longbowmen as long as there is no Castle, no seige required - if there is a Castle, just roll up some seige for a couple of turns. Only a couple of cities typically have a Castle, so once you've punched through those, you can usually sweep an AI.

Plus if you have lots of Knights they are very cheap to upgrade to Curaissers and then Cavalry. For that matter, HA are cheap to upgrade to Knights, so if you get a head start on building them you can have a lot immediately after Guilds.

GOOD! Let them grow more
I think that one of the reasons why knights are undervalued is cuz they require a very specialized mode of play to win effectively with; a mode of play that means you win by the end of the medieval era, or you don't win at all.

 

[fugazi]

I find knights to be more useful outside city combat. They're hard to counter on open plains and can beat their counter, the pikeman, with proper upgrades. The problem is that civ4 warfare is all about citytaking and to tackle down cities at this stage of the game you need siege. Siege is slow and as such you might just want to bring along macemen who you can give the city raider promotions - which make them very good at taking cities. So yeah, knights just seem to fall out of the boat a bit in civ4.

Luckily there's the Cataphract unique unit which IS worth getting with combat and or flanking upgrades that's one sick unit.

 

[CrusaderKevin]

I find knights to be more useful outside city combat. They're hard to counter on open plains and can beat their counter, the pikeman, with proper upgrades. The problem is that civ4 warfare is all about citytaking and to tackle down cities at this stage of the game you need siege. Siege is slow and as such you might just want to bring along macemen who you can give the city raider promotions - which make them very good at taking cities. So yeah, knights just seem to fall out of the boat a bit in civ4.

Luckily there's the Cataphract unique unit which IS worth getting with combat and or flanking upgrades that's one sick unit.

Yeah, I gotta admit that Cataphracts pull a large amount of the responsibility when it comes to backing the credentials of knights.

 

[oyzar]

Wasn't there just another thread on knights? Anyways i strongly disagree that civ is mostly about taking cities. CR is soo overrated. Only the AI is stupid enough to sit in it's cities in the face of an attack..

 

[fugazi]

Strength 12 units that can easily get 3 promotions out of the gate, no one can pass up on that one and Oyzar, most people seem to play civ4 in single player mode. In MP I'd surely build more knights as they're great at destroying stacks out in the field.

 

[civvver]

Knights are very good when ultra promoted. Stables helps a lot with this. Their base strength upgrade over macemen makes them competent city attackers, only real issue is their pikemen counter. I like to promote a couple knights to full flanking and send them against the first couple pikes, then send the rest in to maul the longbows. Works pretty well and your army is a lot more mobile than maces and better in the open field with flanking and combat promos vs cr.

 

[CrusaderKevin]

Strength 12 units that can easily get 3 promotions out of the gate, no one can pass up on that one and Oyzar, most people seem to play civ4 in single player mode. In MP I'd surely build more knights as they're great at destroying stacks out in the field.

I have to agree with you. I've never played on multiplayer; I think that it's a whole new world of play, if not a whole new game completely!

But in single player, I end up relying on uber-strong cataphracts to both reach cities, and then capture them. I know that civ is mostly a rock-paper-scissors scenario kind of game, but I do believe that one of the best ways to get and advantage (if not outright win) is to eliminate your dependance of making units and counter-units and counter-counter-units, while finding that one UU that will do the job of two or more. I believe that cataphracts fill that role nicely.

 

[Skallagrimson]

C'mon, somebody's gotta give knights some love!

My pikemen always do!

 

[Poppis]

Wasn't there just another thread on knights?

Yeah, this would've been better there, I think.

Since it's still in the first page and all...

 

[CrusaderKevin]

Knights are very good when ultra promoted. Stables helps a lot with this. Their base strength upgrade over macemen makes them competent city attackers, only real issue is their pikemen counter. I like to promote a couple knights to full flanking and send them against the first couple pikes, then send the rest in to maul the longbows. Works pretty well and your army is a lot more mobile than maces and better in the open field with flanking and combat promos vs cr.

Very true. Again, knights (especailly cataphracts) excell at eliminating that rock-paper-scissors reliance. Just make sure you have all of those fancy recources to build them!

 

[CrusaderKevin]

Yeah, this would've been better there, I think.

Since it's still in the first page and all...

Yeah, I just caught that other thread about it right after I made this one. I had no intention on hijacking, so I edited it a bit to try and make it a bit differentMore people should share personal experiences with them, or something. Sorry about the confusion

 

[bobbyboy29]

i too am a huge fan of knights so you're not alone, even though i usually beeline liberalism and so am not on that side of the tech tree, i try to get them up. The reason i love them is that knights and cavs are in my opinion, the most verstaile units of the game. They are great at active defense, running round your territory using roads to sneak attack pillagers or even flanking attack main stacks. I also like to give one knight the sentry promotion and use him as an intel gatherer in war, he can jump into enemy territory the first move, taking a peak at all the surrounding tiles, then retreat into safety the next. This is not to mention flank attacks, with flanking two one knight can potentially damage the best defender as well as all siege units in a stack. Finally, the most important thing about knights is that they have the highest base strength of any units in that era, even besting musketmen. This means that each promotion has a greater impact. For instance even against pikemen, a combat 3 knight has 1.3*10=13 strength whereas a combat 3 pike has 2.3*6=13.8 strength, meaning the higher promoted the units, the greater chance the knight has of winning due to his higher base strength! Knights ftw

 

[CrusaderKevin]

i too am a huge fan of knights so you're not alone, even though i usually beeline liberalism and so am not on that side of the tech tree, i try to get them up. The reason i love them is that knights and cavs are in my opinion, the most verstaile units of the game. They are great at active defense, running round your territory using roads to sneak attack pillagers or even flanking attack main stacks. I also like to give one knight the sentry promotion and use him as an intel gatherer in war, he can jump into enemy territory the first move, taking a peak at all the surrounding tiles, then retreat into safety the next. This is not to mention flank attacks, with flanking two one knight can potentially damage the best defender as well as all siege units in a stack. Finally, the most important thing about knights is that they have the highest base strength of any units in that era, even besting musketmen. This means that each promotion has a greater impact. For instance even against pikemen, a combat 3 knight has 1.3*10=13 strength whereas a combat 3 pike has 2.3*6=13.8 strength, meaning the higher promoted the units, the greater chance the knight has of winning due to his higher base strength! Knights ftw

Nice. It's good to hear that the Crusader is not out there alone! Don't forget about cataphracts: a well-promoted cat can destroy a non-promoted (or minimally promoted, with some luck) riflemen. There's just something about archaic military forces beating down the modern, standardized armies that's very appealing to me. A group of life-trained, aristocratic knights lowering lances and charging-down those standardized riflemen just feel like a last huzzah for the good ol’ Middle Ages!


(despite the life expectancy of late forties, poor healthcare, and lack of nationalism and subsequent coordinated armies….)

 

[bobbyboy29]

That's one of my favourite things about civ combat, how a rifleman will wait until the swordsman runs up to him and stands there, poised to strike for one second, before finally deciding to shoot him in the face. Its also fun when a macemen smacks a longbow in the face, the longbowman, shrugs the pathetic blow off and proceeds to kill him with an uppercut from his twig