Deity warlords players, wow. Looking at, say, Moonsinger's HOF records just go my intuitive understanding of the game. Or other deity players clearing their continent with extreme SE's.

So I've been trying it out, Aztec immortal. Ordinarily, I'm quite content to squeeze in a few cities, and smartly leverage my economy into attacking at the right moment. But let's trying winning at construction.

And... I just can't do it. My nearest opponent just gets copper or iron too fast, and then jaguars just can't do anything until catapults, especially against protective. Or often they get a religion (probably because I'm playing a small map, so usually 2 other players get religions, and there are 4 AI's total) and they're popping to 60% culture. Or if I do take out some cities (rarely their capital), the other AI's will pop a new city in its place, and I'm afraid to declare on 2 different AI's ... or I take the city and my maintenance is crippling (stupid small maps).

How do people do it? I'm usually doing mining bronze working or agriculture mining bronze working, worker warrior (grow) settler or worker worker settler, after 2nd city barracks->military, chop rush axes/jaguars. Then wheel if I'm axe rushing. worker worker settler is very dangerous, a barb archer will often end your game. I'm crowded to 2-3 cities early. Early settler moving, well, it helps maintenance more than expanding, as that 3rd settler is often too late.

Hrmm, if I were to boil this down to one question, how would you deity/warlords rush an opponent if they have copper or are protective/found a religion? Oh yes, I'm playing epic, since it seems that helps sacrifical altar more than marathon.

I'm nowhere near the difficulty level player you're looking for, but my guess is that when people go for HoF speed rushes they either cook the game into a favorabe setup, or just restart the game until they get favorable early situations such as a nearby opponent with no resources to chew on.

It's kind of like those speed runs which abuse # of tries to try to get random lucky breaks and lower times. The strategies might not ALWAYS work, but when they do you get a high score...maybe. I sure as hell can't rush someone when I'm isolated or they'll take 18 turns to get to.

You talking about qucha rushes? of course you can't pull qucha rushes with jaguars...

Yeah Jags aren't that great for rushing. They are excellent for harassment, pillaging, stealing workers etc. If you want to rush with an Iron based unit then go with a Roman leader. Praetorians are excellent for what you are trying to do.

One major issue you can improve in is micromanagment. By carefully choosing your tech order and tiles improved/worked you can shave a few turns off the time needed to bulid like half a dozen units (axes+) ready to attack.;)
Ofcourse choosing city site(s) that have maximum payoff very early can help as well.
And there is a random part including how good the start is and how it matches your start techs/ traits and UU/UB if applicable.



You cant thus expect it work all the time however. Or expect it to work without taking any risks and therefor taking the time to get archery and make warrior/archers all the time. You will have to take more calculated when you DoW anyhow.



Finally, when the stack is around ready send it to monitor your victim moves. Most chances of success come off AI mistakes. If he leaves his capital with a garrison of 2-3 units to escort a settler, religions founded/protective traits and such can be offset. Same about a newly settled AI city with only the not long fortified escort in it.
Ofcourse one needs to be rather fast and ready for such opportunities to present themselves.

And its really likely that after a couple cities the AI WILL fully stock his other garisons, leaving you with a task finishable only with cats and such.:D
Which is still much better than forcing over a dozen axes on a now well defended city.

half a dozen axes on deity? That is not going to get you much of anywhere...

I find the best thing is to do as Porphyrius says and really figure out your opening moves in detail, including a tech path that is planned out with your desired civ's starting techs in mind. This is even easier to do if you plan it back the other way, by starting with the principle "I want to do a Sword rush" so find a civ with at least Mining, and preferably also the Wheel to begin. Then you need to optimize the build order in your capital, so that you don't spend many turns working unimproved tiles, but also don't find yourself in a position with a worker who has run out of things to do because you don't have the required techs, or the population in the capital isn't big enough to work any more tiles yet. All this should tie into timing the first settler so he can head off to found a city to claim the copper or iron that you require along a road that is ready for him, so the moment you found the city you have a worker beginning to mine the metal right away.

Now it's not always possible to have everything always timed perfectly while doing things 100% efficiently, but you can actually pull off some pretty fast efficient expansion if you work at it and keep trying to optimize your build orders. Little things like spending a turn or two researching metal casting before switching to agriculture because your worker hasn't got time to build a farm yet, can be leveraged later in that the AI will more easily trade you metal casting because you have some beakers already put into it. There are all kinds of little tricks like that that you can do to fill time before a worker is ready to start on a new project, or to ensure that you are exploiting that new tech as soon as it's available.

One exercise would be to time your first settler to build the turn bronze working completes.

Considering incans are banned in a lot of new HOF gauntlets, I think people can war adequately without them. Jaguars just might not be worth the tech opportunity cost, by the time you get them, the AI capital is 40% without a religion (1800 BC). I'm finding they're not so great for crippling opponents, because they're vulnerable when they pillage, and while they're occupying tiles and costing you gold, the culture clock is ticking. Aztec might be a bad race, since there are too many expensive techs that I need: mathematics, construction, code of laws, and monarchy. It might be better to just spam axes over swords, so one defending axe doesn't route your invasion.

Here's the timing for rushes: fastest viable one is worker warrior settler, tech to bronze working then wheel, chop rush barracks/axe. You're basically hoping to hit their capital before 40%. If you can't do that, get pottery so you can whip a larger army. If you can't do that, you go monarchy, which isn't really an early rush, basically an early economy build.

Pouncing on settlers is a good idea, although it's often much earlier than you want to attack (which then puts the ai on war footing, and you'll have trouble keeping up). I find the best way to whittle down an opponent is to declare and counter attack their invasion.

I usually don't waste worker turns at all early game. If a tile is 2 spaces away on normal terrain, I move 1 road cancel next turn move improve, and so on.

I'll try to post a game this evening. I think strategy (maybe faking an assault toward a second city to draw capital defenders, a timely 2 cottages) will make a much bigger difference overall than small micro tricks. Also, I'm trying to stick to SE, and having to tech for code of laws, mathematics, and construction means I might have to have a city pumping GS to settle early.