What's Up with Warrior Monks?

[steveg700]

Yeah, make the AI work for you. When you have solid faith production and capture a load of cities with holy sites and WMfaith, buy a bunch of them and put them to work

At 35 Strength with no upgrade option, what kind of work we got in mind? Being speed bumps for the first knight that shows up?

When I built Kotaku I sent them to go explore some spots on the map and scrape away some barb warriors to make way for a settler. Even at that, I wouldn't say they did a bang-up job. They had to skedaddle as soon as they bumped into a barb xbow that almost one-shotted one of'em.

 

[Mr. Shadows]

They're certainly viable at lower difficulties. I'm sure they can be used on Deity but it's going to be tricky to pull off. From a game play perspective I'm willing to bet there's always a better way to get the job done. I have to admit they feel a little kung foolish to me. Don't get me wrong, I know there have been military religious orders but these feel more like they come more from the movies than history.

 

[Ordnael]

Going to play the necromancer here and breathe new life into this warrior monk thread.

So I was around the forum and something I read triggered me to look into warrior monks. I read this thread, read some more around the internet, namely reddit. And I got this urge to play CIV VI (while i am still playing The Legend od Zelda Breath of The Wild btw) and I had to try a warrior monk domination game.

So I did and I am winning, I picked China with Qin Shi Huang, chose the East Asia map, just because I never played it before and unlike the true star version where you star location with China is really weak, this maps puts China start location, maybe dependent on leader idk, next to the Himalayas...so nice faith yields right from the start and eureka for the holy site!
I am playing on Emperor at epic speed, might try a later game at a higher difficulty and on standard.

The warrior monks are not that squishy and their cost is really cheap and always the same through the game, so you can spam them easy. Once the AI gets line infantry it gets rough but if you flank them with armies of warrior monks, they can get the job done.

I guess you don't need a faith civ if you have good starting yields and an early holy site to secure the first prophet and guarantee the warrior monk belief.

 

[reddishrecue]

Warrior monks are so useful at the beginning for rushes since they could get your power up quick early in case of earlier wars. However if its done for later eras, the monks become obsolete and won't be as efficient as they are early. I would use them to defend against early rushes and get that power up asap.

 

[Ordnael]

I found them pretty useful as siege meat even at the industrial era. The AI would rather target them and levied musketman than bombards and artillery! X-Bows can become a pain if the monks can't get to them quickly. Corps and armies made them though enough till middle game.
I said I would try them again at standard speed, but I have doubts of that working out, for now I'll resume playing Zelda!

I finished the game late nigh yesterday, got all the capitals before the AI could even get biplanes or ironclads ...I think only CS got to Line Infantry and Infantry as FC...the biggest hurdle i got was when cutting through Pericles and Korea they had zombie traps everywhere (never thought they could hurt so much).

The East Asia map combined with zombie mode may have proved to have been too much of a hurdle for the AI, at least for Pericles and Korea!
Trajan had worst starting location, the middle top of that map is desert and hills and no rivers. The Maya did good though, little defence but at least they were working the terrain properly...nice plump cities to conquer Can't remember the last emperor game that was this easy...but it was fun. I should try more fun settings than torturing myself through the droning of deity! I have won deity 2 out of 3 times I recall...but only fun at early eras.