Another fun build - mostly for team games. goal is to get to age 4, either by FI or by building up in age 2, build up a death mass of boosted iron troops and manchus or even train iron troops out of monastery and then just walk over to the opponent and kill everything.
Extra fun on maps with natives that provide archer upgrades, inlcuding Carib, Tupi and Seminole (Florida provides 2 of them for 20% attack boost on both iron troops and manchus for that sweet sweet dps deathball)
Start is usually 3 villages for early eco boost, then Tea export into german consulate for trickles (food first if you think you can FI, else w8 for wood so you can build an age 2 mass)
age 3 with porcelain tower for more eco and then try to get to age 4 with the temple of heaven for the instant heal and a small xp boost from the 3 wagon that are building. get the gold trickle then switch to russian or brits.
age 4 send Kongixa, collect more coin and build the death mass
also send pikes for anti cav- though once you have enough manchus thats not a problem.
train old han for support so they dont eat into the coin production
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Looks nice ! I will try it ! Thanks for sharing !
Why are you going old hans (without the reform card) as support units and not a meteor hammer based banner or changdao based banner ?
Or are the 20 manchus enough against cav for the whole game ?
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3 reasons
1- CKN have higher base DPS then arquebusier and also benefit from native archer upgrades if you manage to get it. They also have 4.5 speed which is the same as the iron troops so they don’t slow down the army if you group them
2- changdaos are not good anticav, they tank better and have higher base dps but have lower multipliers
3- the mercs are very gold heavy, so training an army that doesn’t cost wood is preferable. also they are just cheaper
the reform card is good but i am not looking to build keshiks or steppe so their upgrade is kinda wasted, also since the role of the pikes and CKN is to be support/meatshields for the mercs, them being disposable and not expensive is a plus tbh.
A few cav is good for tanking shots for the manchus, but the key card for them is the HP+ armour card in age 3 which gives them more then enough tanking power
alternative tank cav is actually the cossacks from russian consulate, in age 4 they are very good tanks.
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Qiang pikes deal 7x5 to cavalry, which is the same as 15x2.3 from changdaos, and the prices are similar (60w vs 95f). But ckn vs arquebusiers may make a big difference.
But as you day, since the mercs are already very coin heavy, you rather want cheap cannon fodder, which is what you get with old hans shipments. If you don’t have mines, the slow rice paddies from temple of heaven may be very useful too, but also very taxing on the rest of your resources gathering. I will still try to swap the age 4 ckn card with either changdaos or cavalry card for more anti-cav or anti artillery.
Anyways, thanks for your input ! I think despite its 16 range, the iron troup has a lot of potential with its huge damage and 60% range resist.
This is pretty good in team games where you team up with an aggressive civ.
