Hi guys....

Lately I've been busting my ass a little bit trying to see if I can do well on Deity (a bit of a push, and I know it's not reccomended :D). I tried a game playing Hammurabi today, which is different from my normal peacemonger strategy, and I'm having some serious problems.

I had a decent production capital, copper in my BFC, and some forrest, so I figured I'd go for an axe rush. Roughly 800 BC I sent out my stack of 13 Axes, 2 Spears, and 2 Bowmen to bust some butt. I caught my opponent (Izzy, only mediocre in power rating) by surprise, taking her holy city and capital. However, even after killing some 10+ units, she somehow managed to keep a fighting force up. I had axes closing in to raze a smaller 3rd city, but Izzy was able to take her holy city back, with 4 Bowmen + Comb2Shock Axe on a HILL! (Lucky !@#%) At this point, I figured that if I can't even hold the cities I take (Madrid was likely doomed without the holy city's support as it was at the heart of her empire) and with my fallback in teching, I wasn't going to win this game.

How does anyone pull a successful rush on Deity?
Is it even possible to pull a succesful rush on Deity? (lol)
Should I be attacking earlier with a smaller stack?
Is it better to settle more cities and tech to Construction first?

Any help would be appreciated. :D
(And yes, I have read Sisiutil's guide)

I've heard it's possible but also incredibly hard. I don't know myself. I can say that the AI units cost what, about 50% (or just under) of what they cost players at that difficulty? In other words the AI can make double what you can. IMO the best approach in a scenario such as this is a :backstab: coupled with rapid capture of their better production cities (so that they've expended their stack elsewhere, and their ability to reinforce is limited to a large degree). AI stacks start getting a tad oppressive for me on immortal already, so I can only imagine how bad it'd be on deity...I'm not certain the human can put up enough hammers to compete early without some good ole fashioned diplo and cheap tactics.

IME rushing on deity is quite hard; by the time you attack they usually have 3 times more cities than you and every city can build units 2 times faster than you, leading to quite large AI stacks.
It's important that you cut off their access to copper/iron/(horses) ASAP so they can only build archers and can't do a counterattack. The rest is quite luck dependant; sometimes you just hit the wall and can't go on.
Also having a good early UU can be very helpful (immortals FTW).

Getting construction first and attacking with cats is also an option, but by the time you get enough cats the AI will get lbows and cats vs. lbows isn't really fun, especially when you get outnumbered.

How does anyone pull a successful rush on Deity?


With luck or rigged settings. The problem is not just beating your victim, but doing it fast enough to avoid falling hopelessly behind the other AIs.


Is it even possible to pull a succesful rush on Deity? (lol)


Snatty pulled off an early rush in this thread:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=282147&page=3

I think this scenario is more the exception rather than the rule though, and Snatty's decision may have been influenced by the fact that he was DoWed early by his target in a previous attempt.


Should I be attacking earlier with a smaller stack?


Personally I think you should forget the axe rush, assuming you aren't playing marathon on a tiny map. It will be rare that the circumstances will favour such a strategy.


Is it better to settle more cities and tech to Construction first?


Definitely better to settle more cities, but you may want to tech aesthetics first, and use it for trade. The AI doesn't normally prioritise aesthetics, so at least this way you should have something to trade when the AI obtains alphabet. AIs tech so fast at Deity, it's conceivable that someone will be willing to trade construction before you have started researching it. Hence it's unlikely that a cats/phants war would represent optimal play, by the time you have a stack ready they may be facing longbows/macemen. In this case you may be better off beelining Liberalism, and trading for relevant techs that don't take you there. Effective tech brokering is far more important at Deity than any other level. Once you reach Liberalism, there are a range of military options that aren't too far out of reach (MS, MT, Steel, Rifling etc). Your best offense may depend on the circumstances.

There are some great examples of Deity play on the forums, I strongly suggest you read if you haven't already:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=273426

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=279847

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=285089

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=266381

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=270953

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=260753

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=282147

Missing Images:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=248435

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=242211

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=258489

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=275638

I play marathon; before seeing snaaty's rush, I'd have said it's impossible on normal(I'm still curious if hani won't declare back in that game, especially if snaaty will avoid machinery to bulb lib. itself).

That being said, I managed to pull once a good rush, while failing about 10 :p Failing not as in not managing to kick my opponent(as long as you pillage the resources, you'll be fine - if they're in pillageable positions, if not, no rush), but as in falling behind bad enough that it convinced me it's ineffective strategy to begin with. WE/catas - didn't get me better results either; 2 pop whip, 2 pop whip, 2 pop whip... great, but it's not like all the irrigated corn is in my lands...:p

Cats are tricky on immortal already because they take too long where an axe rush usually works fine. Renaissance wars work best on deity but getting there unscathed is not always so easy.

Well I don't play Diety, and I'm nto sure if my advice would help with Rushing, but it does make the game a little more realistic.

Firstly the primary problem is you can't hold a state of War, its far to detrimental and the AI can out produce you. Therefore Logically, instead of just takign their cities step by step, the best idea i to knck out their production cities first. War of attrition, stop them from producing units.

Once thats mostly done take out any city that helps support them financialy, the costs of maintenance plus low income will either lower their slider, stop them from upgrading, stop them from building more Units or their units start striking.

Then to close it out, you would probably want to finish fast (Horse Archers Maybe) so you don't fall too far behind in Techs. So maybe Capitulation?

You would also want terrain advantages as much as possible.

the bts ai is coded to whip if your stack is considered to have a realistic chance at taking their city; an archer, even with empty queue, is whippable at cost of 1 pop.

and all ais are in slavery anyway; there's no real "production city" in -2k bc. Anything that has over 2 pop. will be whipped, so taking out their production is nigh on impossible. The only thing you can do is pillage their metals so they whip only archers; however, never pillage their horses, as they might whip chariots instead of archers which is great given those have no defence bonuses. But if you don't pillage their metals, sometimes they're smart enough to whip an axe, which is problematic.

I remember a discussion we had about pillaging horses or not in a one of the immortal students threads, Abigcivfan said that pillaging horses to leave only archers and researching IW/swords to take out the remaining archers was best.

I'm not so sure about this myself, chariots die easy when defending in cities but their movement is quite a nuisance, forcing you to build more spears to defend your stacks and to defend the cities you've taken, if you have IW you don't have to build spears anymore you but still have to hold back more units. It probably depends on the map, lots of forest mean chariots don't move fast, lots of cities on hills mean archers become very strong, in this case it might be better to leave them the horses.

If you're in a position to to research IW pillaging might be best after all , swords usually kill archers outright with minimal losses, also there's always a chance the ai gets HBR and horse archers are a bit of a nuisance though you can still handle them with spears.

I'd like to test this, next time i do an early rush i guess i'll reload some scenarios.

I play Immortal with Aggressive AI, so the stack sizes are probably similar, though the AIs won't tech as fast or expand quite as quickly. I very seldom axe-rush -- only if the setup is perfect, or I'm dreadfully boxed in. If I am going to axe-rush, your army size (13 axes+) sounds about right, but your goal was too ambitious -- stop at two cities including the capital. You've set them back enough and improved your position. They'll be vulnerable to a second war later.

Cat-rushes sometimes work on my settings, but you really want to hit them before they have Feudalism. That probably comes sooner on Deity than Immortal-Agg AI, so I don't know if it's an option or not. Once they have longbows, your options are to get trebs, or play peacefully until either Rifles or Steel (I usually go to Rifles, drafting is so strong).

^On immortal a stack of 13 can capture +/3 cities, if you keep on reinforcing you can wipe usually wipe out one ai completely. But that's normal settings, aggressive ai probably favors later wars even more than normal. I've tried setups with cats on immortal, i feel you basically have to beeline construction prechopping all forests, then attack before 1ad (to have a fair chance of avoindng longbows), then the war'll last until 500 ad if you're playing it really well. Then you have to recover, it just takes too long.

I think something like a cat war can be done in some situations where you have build a fairly strong production empire and see a neighbour that is relatively backward, it might be possible to get an army together before he gets longbows then. Iirc Rusten did something like that with Aztecs to Izzy, link is in his sig.

well, it's also profitable to dogpile, if the opportunity arise; but 1vs1...

[QUOTE=lilnev;7128520] If I am going to axe-rush, your army size (13 axes+) sounds about right, but your goal was too ambitious -- stop at two cities including the capital.

I tried to go for peace, but the only way I could get it was giving up the holy city, which was extremely valuable (entire continent was buddhist, one great prophet and my economy skyrockets). After she took it back, Izzy would only settle for peace if I gave the capital aways... sigh.

I've managed a handful of diety rushes on normal speeds, mostly using whip/chop driven UUs in tight quarters.

Virtually every single time it has been where I have the required resources in the initial BFC and the AI lacks bronze and gives me reason to beleive that they don't have IW soon to pop (i.e. teched out to Monotheism, no mines non-gold/gem/silver visible, etc.).

I can recall making good progress with war chariots, immortals, impi and vultures. Normally on Deity I only try to snag holy cities and caps; but on occassion there has been enough food/pop/trees to maintain production bonuses and destroy the AI completely. Lumberjacking is the only way to get anything close to unit production parity. Using two move units allows you the chance to blitz a city (or more) on the opening turn of a war and to blitz a cap with only 1 turn of whipping in some situations. Also some AI's leave their cities woefully underprotected so you can get open borders, and launch suicide blitz-raze missions.

Normally I can only afford to actually take two cities and then just pillage, pillage, and pillage some more in order to keep my economy from utterly tanking.

It is exceedingly rare for me to have a good rush on deity; or frankly to war in general before gunpowder (dogpiling though is normally not a bad shot).

One of these days I want to try a quick GE bulbing strat for either the Byzantines or the Chinese on Deity, but the last time I tried I lost the Oracle to an industrious AI with Marble. CKN before LBs or Cataphracts before Pike might be viable rushes.

pick cata; even against pikes they fare quite ok(as long as the guy ain't protective or with stone - without castles at ~40% cultural def., they are good to go, with castles... not really :p). If you have only 2-3 cities to revolt, you usually have enough ep.

preferably not spiritual either - sometimes they are smart enough to slavery and whip the castles.

pick cata; even against pikes they fare quite ok(as long as the guy ain't protective or with stone - without castles at ~40% cultural def., they are good to go, with castles... not really :p). If you have only 2-3 cities to revolt, you usually have enough ep.

preferably not spiritual either - sometimes they are smart enough to slavery and whip the castles.

Cataphracts is just such an annoying bulb rush to pull off. You have to get the Oracle, have 2 good sized cities when it finishes (which normally means picking my third city where I have 100 choppable hammers or more) to whip out forges, and you can't take math until late.

The fun of trying to trade for HBR, Feudalism, and getting stables online and still be on time before makes it annoying to manage.

managed to pull it 3 times on immortal and once on deity without any bulbing(and while being safely on the path to lib. too). That being said, on weaklings/peacemongers... a warmonger spamming pikes is prolly different from ramses who managed to offer me one more wonder just before I took his capitol... Leaving aside aggressive probably would've screw things up since they'd get formation from the start.

however, marathon speed, so dunno about normal; on the other hand, the whole... oracle, forge, engineer, don't get this, don't get that... yuck, no thanks, I pass :p

That Cataphract rush seems interesting, is it much easier to reach guilds than mil trad/gunpowder?

I've been very succesful with cuirassiers/trebs/muskets stacks lately, also on deity. I used to go with cannons and muskets/rifles. This usually means no attack before 1200-ad. If you don't have rifles your stack is a bit vulnerable too, you certainly have to mix in some pikes and even then have to deal with some flanking damage.

With cuirassiers/trebs/muskets the idea is to build ~15 trebs and use them primarily for bombarding sacrificing one for somewhat better odds, the cuirassiers subsequently have good odds against pikes and they just eat the longbows. Heal the cuirassiers while muskets/trebs move forward with some undamaged cuirassiers for defence, begin bombarding (takes 2 turns usually with 15 trebs) while the now healed cuirassiers catch up. This rush can typically be executed ~20 turns before cannons/rifles which is huge especially on deity.

Against all this i have very bad experience with spy missions lately, they've become very costly, since i gear up for war immediately after lib i get only +/- 100 spy points/turn even at 100% while a mission costs some 600 ep + the hammers for spies which could have gone to trebs for instance. They often fail too. Maybe i'm doing wrong here so any advice in this respect would be welcome.

shrug... it has feeling :p

Especially for someone used to rifles trebs(cannons halfway) and their move 1 step, move 1 step, bombarb, bombard... go to sleep...

That being said, I found it definitely only for specific situation; someone who'll keep his stack up to date and has any military trait is yuck(cha included, unless they didn't war at all). Basically, I got mansa, ramses, hamu, freddie and things like that. Also, each time I managed was with a strong bureau capitol to keep me going(as the rest of the cities varied between 2 and 4 pop. all the time).

And on deity definitely before they manage to get castles everywhere; on immortal, managed even with everything castled(was the 2nd civ. I was taking with only catas), but then I had the holy city, so spy missions were cheaper(spiritual was great here, as I really didn't want that state religion so was in-out of it). But 2 civs. on normal speed... doubt it's possible; those things have to heal afterall.

Also, the city where he'll attack start war will need to have field from his direction in order to destroy his sod; if his sod manages to stay on hills all the time, umm... Last, but not least, not more then 2 major cities(where he normally defends more then average) should be on hills.

The reason I'm so enthusiastic is because I managed to beat my previous finish date on immortal with them 2 days ago(previous record was also with byzantium). Trade cs for feud, go guilds(each time normal research), bam; can't say it was a beeline, was more like reaching cs, looking at the map, seeing the neighbors and where they had their cities, if ok, go, if not, go paper... You attack with them, you defend with them, they more or less do everything; leaving aside you can make your life much easier by parking the stack inbetween 2 of his cities before an attack - the ai will be puzzled and you'll manage to catch some units in transit and many without fortify bonus because we all know it can't properly manage more then one point of attack. Inbetween 3 is even funnier. In the field, you're safe as shock catas are... 75.3(?) vs c1 pikes. The only thing I constantly tried to negate was horses, as c2 knights will have a fair chance(especially since you don't really want formation). Obviously, if the guy has ivory, it's no go.

Also, each time I faced normal armies - lbows, pikes(sometimes spears, but then usually by the end they got pikes) and crap; unless it's a military freak, str 12 with 2 promos more or less is enough vs 40% defence bonus of the average city. Casualties obviously will be higher, but then here the hipodrome keeps you going(umm, ok, and enough cities reduced to pop. 2 :p).

^Agreed, these lightning fast attacks with only mounted units are much more fun to play than the somewhat tedious and slow bombard attacks. I'll keep your remarks about catas having good chances vs 40% culture no pike cities in mind, same'll go for cuirassiers so if i see a situation like that i might consider an immediate attack instead of waiting for trebs.

shrug... it has feeling :p

Especially for someone used to rifles trebs(cannons halfway) and their move 1 step, move 1 step, bombarb, bombard... go to sleep...

Try playing normal speed instead of marathon if that bores you. The approach you describe isn't as good then (on deity anyway) as your opponents will win by culture before you can recover. That specific army composition is very strong, but its weakness is being slow--that's not a problem on marathon, but on normal the war can last for centuries. While you'll fall asleep on marathon speed you'll be trembling in fear of the wasted turns on normal speed.

Let's say you attack 1100 AD; you'll spend 2 turns walking towards the enemy city, then 1 turn bombarding defence and doing collateral (2 turns with trebs 1 with cannons I suppose). Then you spend 1 turn taking the city and another 1-3 turns healing your troops. Now you have to walk towards the next city, that's another 2-3 turns, another 1-2 turns of bombarding, another turn to take the city and then another 1-3 turns healing your troops.

Now you've spent +/- 13 turns for 2 cities alone (assuming no split stack). On normal speed this would mean you're already at 1230 AD and your rivals will be racing towards cultural victory or perhaps unlock important military technology. I'm not sure what the time frame is like on marathon, but I'd assume it's still before 1150 AD and the difference will increase as the war continues.

Rifling and drafting is powerful enough on normal speed but on marathon it's just silly. Winning wars is usually not a problem--the problem is that while you're warring some other civs pull ahead in the tech race. Marathon speed effectively removes the problem of going to war as you won't lose much time at all (units are cheaper too I've heard).

The point is (other than trying to lure you into the much more fun normal game speed) that there's no reason for you to use mounted units on marathon as movement speed is not an issue whereas on normal speed it can be necessary. In my last game I finished my second renaissance war in 6 turns, but it still lasted from 1160 AD -> 1210 AD. If I had been using riflemen and bombarded cities that war could've lasted until perhaps 1400 AD making recovery (in time) very difficult.

I'm using a lot of mounted units when I attack civilizations, but it's not just because it's more fun or has feeling (although that's true too), but because you really need to make the war as short as possible in order to stay on top of the game. When you can combine "feeling" with optimal play--that's where the true fun starts.

^ I agree but also disagree with this:

It's very important to declare as early as possible and also win the war as soon as possible. If a war can be won with mounted units that's clearly best as it's fast and you can have cuirassiers early. To get the speed going you'll need ep points otherwise you'll have a lot of healing todo especially with cuirassiers, they might not even win at all.Cavs are better but getting them in time is map.dependent.I did this in the last immortal student thread with cavs and i just ran over a small and a big civ in some 15 turns.

While i 'm beginning to lean to the mounted unit approach more lately i fight most of the wars with the stacks you describe and it certainly doesn't take 13 turns to take 2 cities.

Say it's rifles/cannons it's usually move, move, bombard, collateral and take. Don't heal but move move bombard, collateral with the relatively sound cannons and take = 8 turns.

Dependent on losses and initial stack size we heal and wait for reinforcements for 2-3 turns but with the reinforcements in place and ai culture gradually fading away the stack is now splitted sometimes even in 3, generally you'll take the rest in some 10 turns.

In my experience a cannon/rifle attack against an average sized civ takes ~ 20 turns, less against a small size civ.

Actually i think you should use mounted against the smaller civs not overbuilding the army, striking fast. If you have a really large stack with a lot of siege and you have a choice of opponents to attack take the biggest one on whom you still have a military advantage because slow as it is rifles/cannons stacks ultimately wipe everything that comes in their way (until infantry that is).

I normally play fractal, so the map is more or less one of the standard shapes from what I've noticed(this kinda pangeea thing is prolly 20% or so of the script); from my globe(which is more or less in the middle of my territory) to front, a troop does... 15 turns. From ramses former capitol and a good prod. city, a troop does... 17 turns. Half with mounted; if I tech crappy a tech in 20 turns on marathon, that'd mean ~6.6 on normal speed(and really, it's crappy, with 20% culture and not mmin' for some time as that's the last turn of the game). Maybe I could cut turns by 3 with galleons.

In a situation like this, I'd just go for space(which I hate, ergo I play marathon :p) simply because really they'd be outdate till front line(in 17 turns probably I'd have tanks on normal, so no way I'd want rifles on the front line... or ok, given the prod. prolly even rifles would suffice...).

That's what always prevented me from switching speed; if I have the luck of a prod. capitol at one end of the map I really find retarded to spit out only obsolete units... I'm convinced war on foot would be ok on normal too(afterall, many wins are with cannons and crap) only if those dang units would actually reach the front line. Otherwise, fully agree, draft/cannon goes abit too good on marathon. But I don't want to wait till railroad only to be able to supply post 1st guy.

and that attack on oranje was dang nice ;)

p.s. - as a side note, it also allows grudge wars(I know, stupid, but sometimes I'm just not in the mood to be nice with some ai - might not be optimal, but feels good :p I've wasted 100 turns to eliminate washington the current game, despite not being necesary - but I had a bad day, and wiping him out of the map made the day vaguely better :p)

In my experience a cannon/rifle attack against an average sized civ takes ~ 20 turns, less against a small size civ.
Perhaps you could squeeze it in at that time range, but in order to have both rifles and cannons this would be a very late war pursuing both paths of the tech tree. If you're having a very good game I guess you could pull it off by 1200 AD, but I'd guess it's later most of the time. 20 turns from 1200 AD means 1400 AD and a deity AI can do a lot in 2 centuries.

It depends on the land as well. On Continents you should make it in 20 turns given the shape of the land but on other (snaky) map types (such as the one SnowlyWhite attached) logistics can be more demanding making movement speed essential and splitting of stacks less efficient.

Yes, i know that cannons/rifling take some time to research, i see rifling as a bonus for this strat though, cannons are center and the rest is basically fodder good for taking the cities and used to defend the cannons. Muskets'll do together with some pikes. Reason i tend to do it with rifles also is that i often have very good research but i need some time to produce the cannons relying (too much) on workshops so i get the rifles more or less for free often. I think this is a bit of a weak point in my game, that's why i experiment with cuirassiers/trebs more now relying more on whipping/cheap techs than workshops/steel and rifling so i can start some 20 turns earlier. This particular combination of cuirassiers/trebs/muskets appeals to me a lot right now.

Rushing is viable if you manage to trap trap the AI into a small amount of land. Otherwise it will probably not be worth it until you get rifles or so.

There are always exceptions though. The AIs military strategy on deity is still as bad as lower levels so you can expect a big edge when it comes to casualties, but you can't afford as much cost as on earlier levels. Middle age is hard to get away with little cost because of longbowmen, and ancient is hard because you usually need catapults to get the best kill:death ratio.

Pillage his/her strategic resources with mounted units and enemy should be down to warriors? Or before even declaring war get your spies on his stratefic resource spots and declare war and on first war turn pillage them with spies.

Just a thought. :)

I'm usually doing it with cr maces upgrade to rifles as main focus of the army(and draftees). The key here obviously being to get the gm for cash; and rifling as main tech.

Cannons take down defence in 1 turn; trebs. in 2. But, from the initial fight in your territory(as pointed out, troops are comparatively cheaper on marathon, so I found that without waiting for the sod I'm already with ww problems the 1st city I take - immortal maybe not, but deity, definitely; I need at least 2 turns only to trash the sod simply because I usually face some 80+ troops) you get a gg. Which means a mash.

A gm mission in worst conditions(same continent) at that time nets over 4.5k(marathon); an upgrade costs 260. So you can basically get 20 cr rifles(probably only 12-15 or so on normal, as upgrade is hammer difference, and units are comparatively 33% cheaper or marathon).

While trebs. means slower bombard, this thing basically doesn't have to stop contrary to any stack. 1st turn of bombardment is when your troops heal; sure, not huge since it's enemy teritory, however due to mash still a decent 20% and you don't need them all fully healed. What's fully healed in the 2nd turn attacks their main defenders, what's with decent health attacks his mounted/trebs/maces/whatever he still has in that city, what's still badly injured gets another round of 20% heal. Obviously, if you're monty or some cha leader and get woody3 beside medic, it's even better.

If grens, you defend with some pinch knights quite allright; if rifles, a couple of pinch rifles and a couple of guerilla ones are enough; if neither rifles nor grens, it's a walk in the park :p And... you move non stop(at the snail's pace of 1 move/turn, but nevertheless... you move :p).

Cannons are obviously better then trebs; however, if you don't have some 2 move units as attackers, the whole advantage is negated by the fact you stop a turn to heal, so turn wise you gain nothing. Plus mounted units, post the current war, aren't upgradable an eternity till you get advanced flight(and let's face it, modern wars are pointless - it's clear that when you have 5 moves units and bombers and paratroopers the ai is totally lost and you win even if you're drunk); cr rifles are upgradeable to cr infantry which will still roll over everything(if you use a zeppelin or 2 to soften up the mgs).