Kush/Strategic Overview
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< Kush
Unlike its more peaceful predecessors, the kingdom of Kush in Age of Empires is not the vanilla Nubian civ with its preponderence on long distance trade, nor is it the Kush of Napata, which eventually sought to expand to Egypt using the cult of pharaonic worship to gainsay foreign rivals. Rather this new kingdom of Kush is a war machine of immense calibre, and militaristic it has to be so, for this Kush must not just compete against the Greeks, who have conquered the known world and controlled Egypt, but also against the imperial ambitions of the Romans.
To this end, the Kushitic army is as African as it can be, yet it has its own special tweaks. While it share several units with Aksum (most notably Aethiopian units and the Camel Archer) here the similarities end. From the Imperial Era onward, Kush begins to adopt new units - Kushite Levies now appear as a trainable levy unit, while Kushite Axemen and Archers predominate as regular infantry. There too are new changes too: Kush also gains control of new mercenaries, most notably Alwa Cavalry, thus granting it a very powerful light infantry and light cavalry advantage. All this is supported by Kush's access to cheap and plentiful settlements, alongside faster-moving Peons. Kush has full access to African mercenaries - and while this pool is shared with Egypt and Aksum, Aksum may recruit only Spearmen and Skirmishers while Egypt recruits Bowmen.
On sea, however, Kush is very weak on the oceans, especially if it is fighting the more advanced Egyptian or Asian nations, who have access to some very good naval units. As a result, Kush does well on large land maps, even on Nomad ones owing to its fast-moving Peons and infantry. The only issues then would be its near-lack of siege equipment which in the world of Age of Empires can be fatal, especially if Kush seeks to fight more sophisticated factions such as Egypt or China. Equally, Kush has another problem - it has very few Wonders of any note. True, Kush does have access to the Pyramid and Ammonium wonders, but apart from those it has very little going for it.
Thus, Kush's main play style is all about aggression expansion and raiding - you need to capitalise on your cities at the beginning, building as many of them as possible to lock down sweet spots on the map, which can then feed your armies with resources. Because Kush has the most extensive number of mercenaries among all users of African mercenaries, it thus behooves Kush to pay attention to trade and taxation where possible, especially since the Sentry Post in Warbirth is now used to access tax technologies.