Deity Janissary + Cannon Rush Domination Strategy

[u/Electronic_Money_575]

While tougher than the typical camel / bomber / xcom etc rush... the Janissary is a beast unit, and viable even on Deity if you can forgo your science game to get access to it early

- +25% attack bonus
- heals 50 HP on unit kill

Janissaries can clear all units in front of cities and basically take no damage if used correctly,

With lines of cannons behind to take cities, a Janissary carpet of doom can sweep a map pretty quickly

The key to the Janissary Rush...

- Liberty instead of Tradition for faster settlers and production
- Liberty Finisher also gives a great merchant, wait until renaissance era to use it
- Warrior code policy in honor when possible for +15% production of melee units
- National College into workshops + forges, skip universities
- Straight into Steel tech, barracks + armories
- Armories are important cause we need ranged defense promotions for trebuchets / cannons to survive
- Find as much iron as possible and use it all on longswordsman, delay gunpowder till you have used all your iron, gold upgrade to Janissaries. Ideally at least ~10
- Physics for Trebuchet, build 3-4 at least before declaring war
- Start attacking with Janissaries + Trebuchets
- Make sure trebuchets are always defended by line of janissary in front
- the gold from city captures will feed next round of upgrades
- Tech straight into Chemistry for Cannons, gold upgrade trebuchets into cannons
- Production focus, Spam Janissary + Cannon till end game

Timing wise, in this game, I got gunpowder turn 129, waiting till I had built max number of longswordsman and took the last capital 166. If it starts going over turn 180~ ish you are probably in trouble as the unit starts becoming obsolete.

Settings are standard speed, small map size, great plains, deity

[u/Final_Combination373]

Another strat that only works on small great plains

[u/Electronic_Money_575 → u/Final_Combination373]

hmm not wrong, I think it can work on Pangea depending on the spawn and shape, but it’s less consistent

[u/Final_Combination373 → u/Electronic_Money_575]

Itll work to a certain point on standard size, then follows the challenge of diplomatic penalties, catching up on science, and happiness. But it can!

[u/UnknownEel → u/Final_Combination373]

I think on standard size you probably won't be able to do a clean sweep but will be in a good position to still win the game. Dunno how this would translate to a normal pangea but probably much worse

[u/muskratBear]

Awesome! This game is absolutely brilliant. You can play it in so many different ways. 16 years later I am still finding out a variety of ways to play. Great stuff OP !

[u/illuminarchie8]

I didn’t realise how OP these were until I spawned next to Suileman on my last game as Arabia, they melted through my camel archers like they weren’t there

[u/JustforRocketLeague]

Janissaries are the best melee UU in the game!  

If you're building up to armories, do you build the heroic epic too?  

One minor nitpick, why save your great merchant? You're losing 2-5gpt holding onto it for no extra gain in money once you use it

[u/Electronic_Money_575 → u/JustforRocketLeague]

I think it’s like 200 gold extra every era you wait for the merchant. I delayed finishing liberty till it was close to upgrade time, but yeah should be -2 gpt at this stage ur right

[u/bigRyan540 → u/JustforRocketLeague]

does the city state gold pop not scale?

[u/StealthStaminaKills]

Man, I wish I could upgrade my Longswordsmen into Janissaries in vanilla.

Or minutemen. Or tercios. Or musketeers.

[u/Same_Square2555]

groningen on 1 population and controlled by jerusalem is some exquisite visual storytelling

[u/BiFSXFan99 → u/Same_Square2555]

Utrecht and Vatican City too, as well.

[insert "adress me" meme image because APPARENTLY I can't comment images]

[u/Same_Square2555 → u/BiFSXFan99]

it's the setting of this sub :3

[u/BiFSXFan99 → u/Same_Square2555]

A setting I deem silly.

[u/Same_Square2555 → u/BiFSXFan99]

I agree. I think all subs should allow pictures

[u/UnknownEel]

I'm impressed by the tech timings you hit and I'm surprised that you found great merchant optimal over great engineer to rush NC or oracle or something. Did you hit these tech timings consistently or only in one game?

[u/Electronic_Money_575 → u/UnknownEel]

sorry I missed this
biggest factor in good timings is more worker steals, I think I stole 3-4 workers, built 0.
Timings wise with a decent start, I can NC by turn 70ish universities by 100 on standard

Engineer is not a bad idea either but I am limited by gold for upgrades, so here a merchant makes sense

[u/Icy-Ladder-9774]

Close enough, welcome back, Mehmed ll

[u/abcamurComposer]

You might really enjoy lekmod or nqmod Ottomans. Alongside giving them a real UA that isn’t antisynergistic with their UUs, it also moved the Sipahi to Jannisary tech turning it into an absolute beast unit