Question: What civilization has the best cavalry: The Indians, or the Sioux?

[spanky4ever]

Camels and elephants are not as bad as people think but India is definitely not a cav civ.
Sioux is by far the best cav civ. Other civs are close together with Fre/Brits/Ger/Russia standing up a little. Actually Russia, which is often seen more of a mass hence infanry civ, has probably the best cav after Sioux.

how would that turn out? full Russ cav, vs full Sioux cav? I wonder?

[dansil92]

French Cuirassiers are awesome, however, I was originally not including then on my analysis beause, truth be told, I was wanting it to be more of a analysis between the Sioux and the Indians, as I... Well, I SEEN then, as being both similar in that they are both cavalry-based civilizations with no true artillery units( Siege Elephants and Flail Elephants dont fully count as "true" artillery on my eyes, but as artllery/cavalry hybrids, even if the game treats then as artillery ). Although apparently people here arent actually too big on Indian cavalry :p -Sigh-The truth is, I actually started plaiyng this game just a few months ago and havent got into the competitive scene yet. A part of me is feeling tempted to delete this topic and just remake a new one later when I have more experience.

Don't feel bad I'm only a master sergeant and still learning lots about competitive play but you learn by asking questions. india in particular is a complex civ so it's probably the hardest to learn and play well

@Garja i would agree that Russia is a cav civ. 3 cards for cossacks and oprichniks (4 if you count advanced arsenal for opris) and 2 for cav archers (a little underwhelming in age 3 but scale very well). Cossacks taking 1 pop is such an underrated feature.

Sioux cav is very very good but i do find axe riders a bit paper thin sometimes.

Also aztec has great "cav" coyotes and eagle runners, but i cant bring myself to call it a cav civ

[DracoWolfgand]

Russia in general is not one of my favourite civilizations( I guess I am more of a fan of quality over quantity ), but I have to admit, Cossacks are pretty neat, especially on the Industrial Age. Though, if I had to pick, I would still choose Cuirassiers, or even the Sioux... Well, the Sioux everything, really. I just find it that they are a lot less vulnerable to area-damage antics from units like the Doppelsoldner. Not that the Cuirassier necesserially COUNTERS the Doppelsoldner, but at least it is not as uneven of a match on the Doppelsoldner favor

[Papist]

Costing wood is probably beneficial in the case of India, @Papist. They gather wood rather quickly, and it slows down the depletion of your coin mines.

Do they actually gather wood faster? I thought they just got the market tech for free.

Either way, it doesn't change the fact that all of India's other units cost gold, making it inefficient to make units that cost wood. You'll be on three resources instead of two, reducing your mass potential.

[Gendarme]

Perhaps it is only the market tech, I don't know. I don't know why gathering three resources would be worse than one to any significant degree at that stage of the game.

[rsy]

Costing wood is probably beneficial in the case of India, @Papist. They gather wood rather quickly, and it slows down the depletion of your coin mines.

Do they actually gather wood faster? I thought they just got the market tech for free.

Either way, it doesn't change the fact that all of India's other units cost gold, making it inefficient to make units that cost wood. You'll be on three resources instead of two, reducing your mass potential.

India doesn't gather wood faster you're right. But their vills get 1.5x wood from trees like if a tree has 300w, indian vills gather upto 450w from it so I guess they deplete nearby trees slower.

I don't get the 3 resources vs 2 resources being inefficient argument tho. U just have to macro the third resource so it's a bit harder that's all.

[edeholland]

Only having to spend 2 different resources instead of 3 makes you a lot more flexible. When I have 600f and 600g I can choose almost exactly how many musketeers and how many hussars I make. When I have 300f, 300w and 300g I have less options for balancing my lb's and huss, for example.

[Gendarme]

That matters only to scrubs that frequently float more than 1000 resources, like @Aizamk.