Kelpkeeper's Deity Strategy Part 2: 2 turns horseman town

[kelpkeeper]

I think the early horseman is a formidable force. It's ability to retreat makes it arguably better for sieging a town than a swordsman. Plus, you get to the besieged town faster!

Another beauty of the horman is that it costs 30 shields! Just nice for a rush build!

I always makes at least 1 horseman factory early on in the game. And slightly later in the game, I try to set up 2 horseman factories and a worker factory right next to each other.

I have discussed the 1 turn worker factory in an earlier thread. The horseman factory is simply a tool for translating the pop point into a troop.

What does a horseman factory need? Just 1 temple and a couple of troops at deity level and only 1-2 pop. This is very important because you will only be rush building in this town. Oppression misery will be through the roof. Fortunately, with 1 temple and 2 troops under depotism, a 2 pop town will always be content.

So here's how to run horsman factory. Just send a worker to this town every other turn and rush build the horseman. That's it.

I found that becuase the horseman production is every other turn, it is better to set up 2 horseman factories per worker factory. This way, you have a self-sustaining war machine cluster.

What happen when you move out of depotism? There are 2 possible way you can deal with the horseman town:

1. simply rush build a settler and basically disband the town. This deals with the misery issue totally of course.

2. or turn it into a worker factory. This route is tricky and only applicable if you switch to Monarchy. If you switch to Republic, the top route is the only viable option. Assuming you are in Monarchy, you will hve a shot at worker factorizing it. Because of the huge amount of misery, you will need to build a cathedral. This plus the original temple will make 3-4 people content. If you station 3 troops here in addition, you will be able to placate 6-7 people. Just enough for running a worker factory.

[Aeson]

I was playing a Deity game last nite, everything random, and ended up as the Egyptians. I researched the wheel first, and was able to procure horses shortly after in a trade with the English. I had only been able to build 5 cities before being hemmed in by the English, Zulu, and Persians. This was on a Huge map with 16 civs, and I'm guessing archipelago, high oceans (very little land). All my cities were at size 5, no population gain because at 6, even with a temple and 2 units stationed there, plus 1 luxury, they would go into disorder. All of the cities had enough production to build a War Chariot every 3 turns. Not having to use any form of rush building, or worker factory.

My question, is how do you keep your worker factories at 6-7 without going into disorder on deity? Do you have 3 luxuries? If I could keep my cities at 7 without disorder, they might be able to produce enough sheilds for a War Chariot every 2 turns. Of course by the time I have 3 luxuries, the age of Horsemen/War Chariot dominance is mostly over.

As far as my game is concerned, the War Chariots are having a field day with the English, who were settled on mostly plains. While another army of 20 catapults, 10 bowmen, 5 spearmen, 5 War Chariots, are slowly cutting a swath of destruction through the Zulu empire. Fast units lose their effectiveness against the Zulu Impies, as they can't retreat when they are losing. But against British Spearmen, I havent lost a single chariot yet! I have a Settler factory that I set up in the first Zulu town to fall, and have razed 12 cities so far, building new Egyptian towns in their wake. I have walled off the Persians with workers from razed cities (I have more than 50 now), and just about to hit the AD's. The Persians I'm scared of quite frankly, as they have the only Iron of the 8 civs on the landmass I'm currently on.

I'm building up a galley fleet to ferry my slow moving army to as close as I can get to the Persian Iron, once Zimbabwe falls and I make peace with the Zulu. I'm not sure If I can do anything more than cut the Persian's supply lines though, as they have MANY Pikemen and Immortals already. Any town I build would likely be culturally obsorbed as the location is only 5 spaces from their capitol, and surrounded by 4 other size 12 cities. Building a colony inside foreign territory isn't allowed is it? Because I know with 5 spearmen on that mountain, and bombardment and quick strike support, even those Immortals won't be able to dislodge me for quite a while. I'm not too worried about homeland defense, as I have about 30 spearmen in the cities on the persian borders, and enough War Chariots to slaughter most of the invaders before they could approach those cities. Even with the small landmass though, turns are taking close to 5 minutes to process, definitely not going to play many more Huge 16 Civ games.

[War4ever]

large maps suck for time during the ai moves

as for the rush..... add a cathedral.... works like a charm.... i don't mind losing few gold per turn if i am going to make a good return in this investment ..ie war...more cities allows larger military and more gold coins

[Aeson]

Usually by the time cathedrals are a valid option, horsemen (non-iroquois) have become quite ineffective. Colleseums come earlier usually, but also cost more. I was just wondering if I was missing something in his post about how to deal with the unhappiness past 5, as I don't recall him mentioning it.

[kelpkeeper]

The point of a horseman factory is that it is a tiny town (of 1-2 pop) that is capable of cranking out horseman every other turn.

Of cos, an alternative way would be to use one of your fully developed towns (of 6 pop or more) to churn out horseman at the same rate. But, wouldn't you rather have such a town making Wonders or vital infrastructure instead?

By keeping the horseman factory small, you can easily control oppression misery with a temple and 2 troops. I notice that with these elements, a town of 2 pop will always be content. No matter how much rush build you use.

Of cos, with 2 pop, there is no way it could grow a pop every other turn or make 30 shields every other turn. This is where a 1 turn worker factory comes in handy.

The beauty of the combo is that the setup time for both types of factories is so short that you can dominate your immediate neighbors in ancient times easily and very early. And in Deity mode, this can be a very hard thing to do otherwise. With a worker/horseman combo, I can start a major invasion 30-40 turns into the game. Believe me, that early in the game, a force of even 6 horsemans is a formidable armies.

I typically play Eygpt too. I truly think that religious is under rated.
The 1 turn gov change is great for rush building purposes. By going from Monarch-Depot-Monarch, you can rush build a cathedral or aqueduct with a combo of pop sacrifice and money rush. Why do such a convoluted thing? Because the first pop sacrifice is worth 40 shields and subsequent ones 20! I think 1 pop unhappiness for 20 turns is a good bargain for 40 shields but not 20. Hence the gov switch.

As Eygpt, I always avoid building chariots until I get out from Depotism. The cap in Depotism tends to make Golden Age a waste too early in the game. Besides, with a couple of horseman factories cranking out your Mongol hordes, the price difference between chariots and horsemans is irrelevant. Both cost 1 pop for rush build. Hmm... actually, the price diff does make a diff later in the game. It costs 80 coins to upgrade a horseman and 100 for a chariot.

Of cos, if you start next to Zulus or Greeks, the horseman rush does not work! In this case, try the slower swordsman rush!