Civilization Bonuses:

Team Bonus: Farms +45 food

• Start +3 villagers but -150 food
• Technologies cost -10% Feudal Age, -15% Castle Age, -20% Imperial Age
• Town Centers support 10 population
• Demolition ships +50% HPs

Unique Unit: 

• The Chu-ko-nu:  a fast firing crossbowman

ES_Sandyman: Last Saturday I got my behind totally kicked by a newbie player who used chu-ko-nu to slaughter me. He built a castle in my town, so I naturally sent my mighty warriors to kill it. Lo and behold a stream of arrows issued from the castle like unto a firehose, causing my dudes to pretty much drop in their tracks. "Yow!" I thought. "Twenty dead woad raiders in 20 seconds! What the heck does he _have_ in those castles?" So I naturally pumped out some battering rams to knock down the offending obstruction. Even the mighty shower of arrows from the castles (which I'd realized held 20 enemy archers of some sort) couldn't stop a ram, after all. Well, the ram got closer, closer, and suddenly 20 chu-ko-nu popped out of the castle and started shooting at the ram. "Ha!" I thought. "That ram has 180 points of piercing armor. Those stupid chu-ko-nu will do only minimum damage." Turns out that the chu-ko-nu DID only minimum damage -- one point for *each* arrow they fire.

My wonderful rams melted like candles in a Texas summertime, and I learned the horrible truth about the chu-ko-nu -- when used in numbers, they are devastating against units that are supposedly "strong" against archers. The reason is simple -- such units typically have strong piercing armor. But Chu-ko-nu, with their bonus attacks, do so much more damage to such units that they really don't suffer from the usual handicap.

So, while chu-ko-nu may get killed by longbowmen and throwing axemen, they sure seem to do a number on skirmishers, light cavalry, siege, buildings, and boats.

History

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