HUNS

A nomadic race of herders and warriors, the Huns were descended of the same people of the northern steppes that became the Mongols. Their tactics or warfare were simple, to prey on outlying and less-defended villages. By moving through an area quickly, the inhabitants were unlikely to call for or produce resistance, in this way the Huns avoided open conflict. The civilisation attributed with the sacking of Rome, the Huns were an exclusively mounted force and able to move from one location to another with incredible speed.
The Huns of Age of Kings are also a cavalry-strong civilisation and capable of their own unique Blitzkrieg with a unique array of tactics at their disposal.

--Hunnic Bonuses--

Stables 20% faster

Don’t need houses, start with -100 wood

Cavalry Archers cost 25% less Castle, 30% less Imperial

Trebuchets +30% accuracy
Stables 20% faster
Obviously the Huns being a heavily cavalry reliant civilisation reap the benefits from this bonus quite largely, giving them a unique a Scout Cavalry rush in the Feudal Age, and a more effective ability to mass Knights in the Castle Age. And naturally, being the Hunnic team bonus, this benefits all the Hun’s allies as well.

Don’t need houses, start with -100 wood
The bonus that has gotten the Huns banned in Deathmatch, this is considered absolutely precious. Basically from moment the game starts, your maximum population support is the equal of the population cap. Huns don’t need to build houses. In fact, they can’t; and the Hunnic start has confounded many an unfamiliar player with the instinct to instantly place two houses. However, in the long run, you will never get ‘housed’ (at the population limit when producing units) and you don’t need to keep track of your population. However, this is a two-edged sword, for becoming too used to the bonus can make you less effective when playing another civilisation because you have to consciously adjust your tactics.

Cavalry Archers cost 25% less Castle, 30% less Imperial
This bonus is the one that makes the Huns the only civilisation in Age of Kings to really use Cavalry Archers. For 70 gold, they don’t offer a whole lot to most people. However, the Hun pays only 53 gold in Castle, 48 in Imperial. That’s good.

Trebuchets +30% accuracy
Self explanatory. Hunnic Trebuchets are basically more likely to hit their targets, thus making them more effective at demolishing buildings, despite their lack of Siege Engineers.

--Hunnic Strengths--

Cavalry
The most obvious feature of the Hunnic tech tree is their Cavalry; fully upgraded Paladins and Hussars, along with their own unique unit, the Tarkan. Of debatable value, the Tarkan may be 15 gold cheaper than the Knight line, but lacks three attack and ten HP in both regular state and Elite to it’s comparable counterpart Knights and Paladins. It’s only advantage on the Knight is a double attack bonus against buildings; which lends one of the elements to the Hunnic Blitzkrieg, being able to annihilate Town Centers and then villagers with ease, making it an effective raiding unit.

Cavalry Archers
The Hun pays a mere 48 gold for a Heavy Cavalry Archer. That’s only 3 gold more than an Arbalest, but with double the hit points, more speed, more attack and some armour. It’s only disadvantage is one range lacked on the regular foot archer. However, 20 or so of these can make a mobile Castle spouting arrows in every direction; with very little to counter it. It’s speed allows it to outrun Skirmishers and Halberdiers, and even so Cavalry Archers have an additional +6 attack vs the Spearman line with Parthian Tactics researched.

--Hunnic Weaknesses--

Champions
One of only three civilisations in Age of Kings to lack the Champion upgrade, this leaves the Huns with a serious tactical disadvantage against a player using Halberdiers. Or even Pikes. Basically the Huns are deprived of the practicality of Champions as ‘the unit of AoK’.

Siege
Lacking the Heavy Scorpion and Onager upgrades, the Huns are bereft of these units as practical anti-infantry and anti-archer capacities respectively. On top of this, the Huns lack Siege Engineers. Hunnic Siege is nothing phenomenal, even with greater Trebuchet accuracy.

--Unique Attributes--

The Hunnic unique technology, Atheism; is acclaimed as ‘the most useless’ in Age of Kings. Perhaps the critics are right, however it still indeniably has its uses. It increases wonder victory times, and while few are inclined to attempt wonder victories, I have seen a fair share in the AoKcc gaming group. That aside, the real value of the technology is the half cost of Spies. In a long game, this is invaluable, reducing the maximum cost from 20 000 gold to only 10 000. In an 8 player game, the members of a team could easily accumulate that much gold so the Hun could provide in-depth knowledge of enemy movements to his allies, pointing out critical weaknesses and places to take control of, as well as places to avoid. Where Spies is always the unreachable, and only used to prevent ‘roaching’ (hiding your last units and trying to rebuild or make the enemy resign out of frustration) for the Hun it is likely a practical option.

--Through the Ages--

The Hunnic Dark Age is faster than usual due to the eliminated need to build houses, so often you can choose whether your initial villagers scout, cut wood, or find a compromise.

In the Feudal Age, if the Hun has had good hunting and fishing, he can do a Scout rush with 4 or 5 Scout Cavalry (Including his original) and kill some villagers. Plus these carry over to Castle and continue raiding as Light Cavalry. The Scout Cav rush is tenuous but probably more volatile than an Archer or Skirmisher flush because it is harder to counter; Spearman have no hope of killing anything if they spend the entire time running.

Moving to the Castle Age, the Hun has the fastest moving Knight rush as it gets out 20% faster than everyone else’s. The Hun is also able to use Cav Archers right away which while less powerful are cheaper and more viable, due to having no food cost and only 30 wood. Gold is much more practical in the Castle Age because it is 50% faster gathered than food and doesn’t require wood as farms do, so likely following his initial Knights are Cav Archers and more Cav Archers. So the Hun would benefit from getting the two archer attack and range upgrades early on. Tarkans can also be useful for raiding and destroying the occasional building, but the Hun is wise not to invest too heavily in them as they are, of course, still an inferior option to Knights in real combat. If encountering an opponent using Pikes, the Hun’s most practical option is to just ‘micromanage’ his Cavalry Archers to kill them. Alternately he can just build more Pikemen to combat them.

Moving to the Imperial Age, the Hun becomes very powerful. 20 or 30 Heavy Cavalry Archers can become a mobile Castle, spewing thousands of arrows a minute at anything straying within range. Researching Parthian Tactics will give them a total of +6 attack against enemy Halberds, and they can mow them down by the hundreds with a little management. Hunnic Paladins, while expensive, are still fundamentally one of the most powerful units in the game, and able to kill basically anything save a few unique units and Halberds and Camels. Hussars are cheap and expendable but less expansive in their combat abilities. Hunnic Halberds are effective weapons too, in a gold-less situation. Other than the obvious cavalry, there is little worth remarking on in the Hunnic Imperial Age.

--Combined Arms--

Every civilisation in the game has some weakness in some form. Striking at these weaknesses should be a high priority of enemy tactics, as is the game’s nature. To prevent this you must cover these weaknesses at all costs. The best way to do this is by even more extensively accentuating the strengths of the civilisation in question. This reinforces my law of AoK: A unit is only as good as your ability to back it up. In doing this, we create what are commonly called ‘combos’ or using multiple units in our tactics to cover the weaknesses of one with the strengths of another.

Response units, general combat: Cavalry
Critical to the continued success of every general is the proper caution employed by maintaining a response force to deal with unexpected threats in the form of enemy ranged units and siege. Hunnic cavalry is also ideal for general combat due to its real power in the thick of battle. And it’s a good thing too…as the Huns lack any other practical options besides.

Ranged combat units: Cavalry Archers
As mentioned in several points above, Cavalry Archers are a critical element of the Hunnic army. Possibly the most effective counter to enemy Halberds, Cav Archers are also vicious raiders and very capable against Infantry reliant civilisations.

Anti cavalry specific, gold-free unit: Halberdiers
Important in later game, Halberdiers provide a tactically sound unit costing fundamentally nothing. It is produced quickly, can take a few hits, and moves fairly fast. While the Huns lack the last armour upgrade for Infantry, their Halberdiers are no less viable.

--Key Technologies--

Heavy Cavalry Archer unit upgrade
Cavalry Archers, are to my mind, critical to the Hunnic player’s success. And naturally, the Heavy unit upgrade is just as important in order to give them the necessary power boost.

Paladin, Hussar unit upgrades
Crucial to the Hunnic offensive capabilities in late game are the expensive cavalry upgrades, providing strength and speed, the power to take the extra hits from defensive pikes and camels when attacking siege and come out alive. Earlier in the game, when you approach considerable numbers of knights say 8 or 9, you will want to get the Bloodlines upgrade as well.

Thumb Ring, Parthian Tactics
Thumb Ring increases the fire rate and accuracy of the Hun player’s Cavalry Archers, Parthian Tactics provides extra armour and an addition +4 attack vs the Spearman line on top of the base +2. Both are very useful to making Cav Archers evil little units.

Blacksmith upgrades
Critical to any civilisation’s continued success, blacksmith upgrades provide small but significant extra power to your units, especially your Cav Archers. Chemistry is also a useful technology, adding an extra 1 attack to your Cav Archers. (And making the arrows look like they’re on fire…which is really cool…)

--Conclusion--

The Huns are often dismissed as a ‘newbie’ civilisation, or as too ‘one-dimensional’. This is a grave injustice, and players doing so are dismissing the true power represented within the Huns. Perhaps more people should play Huns. Perhaps you should try them today.