I can't manage to win my first monarch level game. It's phisically impossible to win!!

The fact is that with a "continents" map you are not able to attack a civ in the other continent (let's call "continent 2") until modern age. And the continent 2's civs (expecially financial ones) take advantage from this and get veeery powerful!

Where I did wrong?

I quickly explain my situation:
- I am Caesar Augustus :cool:, my civ started in a small icy angle on continent 1.
- Expanded a bit, soon found russian guys who blocked me. :D
- Built a decent army (catapults+pretorians, you know... ;) ) and went cutting some heads. :rolleyes:
- Completely destroyed russians. :D Moscow became my main production city. Found khmer civ. :crazyeye:
- Peace time, got gunpowder tech and steel, modernized my army. :scan:
- Go killing some khmer using a super-medic warlord. They were a bit more hard... the war was lasting too much. Too much war weariness. :( I made them vassal. It was around ~1880.
- Now I was at the top of the score!!! "Let's focusing on the other continent" I said. :rolleyes:
- :eek: HORRIBLE SURPRISE! :eek: The other continent was ruled by Maya. they had a huge and modern army and was going for cultural victory!!! :sad:
- No way to stop them in time. :cry: I tried and tried...

It's a returning problem. On monarch+ the civs on the other continent get very powerful while you're figthing in continent 1 and there's no way to stop them.

Is there a way to weaken distant civs?

I include the saved game if one of you has the patience to teach me something... :( :( This is when I made Khmer vassals.

Is there a way to win? If not, where I did wrong? HELP ME!!!!

I'll have a look, but most of the time posting screenshots instead of just a save helps people comment easier.

1880AD for clearing your own continent sounds a bit slow to me with praets. You should be aiming to do that before gunpowder comes around or around the time for astronomy really.

There are so many ways to win on continents map. I would say the most common is to quickly get yourself as the superpower of your continent by 1000AD and simply tech your way to victory. However, the key to preventing a culture victory is to have YOURSELF do the job. You can't rely on AI's, so this is what's needed - research Astronomy (hopefully by 1000 AD) and keep some galleons and an army JUST IN CASE you need to raze a cultural city. No sense in declaring war and wasting your energy if no one is gunning for a cultural victory.

Edit, agree with Paradigm, praets should be able to clear out a continent by 1000 AD (or possibly in the BC's with a little luck in geography).

You are very behind in tech. You might be able to build a significant big force and take out some of pacal's cities before he win. However even if you do that hannibal or mansa will probably beat you to space... Your diplomacy have been utterly horrible. If you got friends with hannibal or mansa(or better both) you might have been able to team up with them on taking out pacal... If you had not messed up your diplomacy so much you might have been able to tech combustion then flight and trade it around(alot of people don't have flight yet).

At any rate this is probably a too late stage to ask for advice as the problem lies in the fact that you didn't conquer your continent earlier(with praets taking over this continent in the BC's should have been possible), and didn't tech faster... Of course the fact that your diplomacy have been horrible doesn't help. Your tech choices are also somewhat questionable(what do you really need divine rights for? facism? military science?).

I haven't had a look at the save, but my typical Rome continents strategy is:

Tech iron ASAP, get a few decent worker techs though.
Get an iron city up and running.
Build praets non-stop while teching construction.
Take out any civs who just have archers with some praets.
When catapults come in, build lots of them.
Take out the rest of the civs with your catapults and praets.
If longbows come along, build more catapults, or if you have jumbos withdrawal elephants.
That should be enough for your own continent, if you face knights you need engineering (which is good anyway because of the extra road movement).

Tech astronomy ASAP. You should be able to pick your victory condition (well, probably not culture), by then.

I have had a quick look, unfortunately I don't have much more time at the moment, but a couple of thoughts.

You are very backwards, not an insurmountable obstacle but still a slight problem. The main thing is you are very behind where I would be at the same date, you need to look at your opening game.

You are running 20% culture, not good. If this was for happiness then you need happiness resources/buildings not the culture slider. If it was not for happiness then this was very bad, unless you are going for a culture win then you should not touch the culture slider.

Do not build wealth (or culture/science). At the worst you could be building units if you want to go to war. This was especially bad as I quickly found a city building wealth that could have built a levee, one of the most powerful building in BtS.

I see nothing insurmountable in your position. Tech Industrialism and flight, build a suitable force and attack the weakest AI on the other continent. Once you have a foothold there the res should be simple.

If I get chance I will play on from this position.

BTW, adding a save is not a problem. Pictures don't give anything like a good enough look at your position.

Okay from the start.

You didnt appear to have iron from the start. You were boxed in by Russians due to the long thin shape of continent. You did have copper though. I wouldnt of waited till 1000ad to start your war. Axemen are good for an early rush with or without prets. The key to Romans is Prets and iron. Prets can win domination games for the Romans.

This start screamed an early war with axemen rush as your terrain was so poor. Early war around 1500bc not 1000ad!!

As for your current position. You have a lead points wise but you are lacking techwise. 5-6 techs behind the AI.The Ai appear to have a naval advantage at the moment too due to tech. Not sure what units the Ai are defending with. Sometimes numbers of units outweighs a tech advantage. You would need a big invasion force for this. Not impossible?

You have left it a bit late.

Wait wait wait! A few questions! :) :) :)
Do not kill me please, it's the first time I show a game of mine to other gamers...:blush:

I understand from your comments that the main problem is my technology backwardness... I'll try to fix that next game... :rolleyes:

I'll have a look, but most of the time posting screenshots instead of just a save helps people comment easier.
You're right. Next time... :blush:

Edit, agree with Paradigm, praets should be able to clear out a continent by 1000 AD (or possibly in the BC's with a little luck in geography).
1000 AD? :eek: What do you mean "clearing out"? Making all vassals or conquer all cities?

You are very behind in tech.
Yes... I suffered much war wariness and I put tech slider to 0% some turns in order to build a huge army...

Your diplomacy have been utterly horrible.
Yes, again. :blush: This is one of my weaker points... My diplomacy is ALWAYS horrible. I have to learn the fine art of making friends. (For example, I've never made teams...)

what do you really need divine rights for?
Nothing at all. No strategy in here. I was simply backfilling the tech tree... Wrong step? :confused:

Take out any civs who just have archers with some praets.
You mean BEFORE getting catapults? Never tried... Is it possible? :confused: How many praets does it take to conquer a city with (let's say) 20% defence and (let's say) 3 archers? :undecide:

You are running 20% culture, not good. If this was for happiness then you need happiness resources/buildings not the culture slider. If it was not for happiness then this was very bad, unless you are going for a culture win then you should not touch the culture slider.
It was for happiness. The Roman-Khmer war produced many many many :mad:... This is the turn of capitulation, I simply forgot to put culture to back to 0% before upload the attachment. By the way, 20% culture for happiness isn't good...

Do not build wealth (or culture/science). At the worst you could be building units if you want to go to war.
Never? It's a bad tactic in general? I build wealth generally for avoiding massive micromanaging activity that annoys me...

I see nothing insurmountable in your position. Tech Industrialism and flight, build a suitable force and attack the weakest AI on the other continent. Once you have a foothold there the res should be simple.
The main problem is that Pacal II is going for cultural victory! See the F8 screen! And he's damn near!!! :( I could attack Roosvelt (the weaker) but I would only lose time...

This start screamed an early war with axemen rush as your terrain was so poor. Early war around 1500bc not 1000ad!!
BUT HOW CAN I START A WAR IN 1500BC WITHOUT CATAPUUUUUULTS!!! :dunno::dunno::dunno::dunno::dunno:
Is it possible? :confused:

Early rushes with nothing but chariots or axes are very common, and not that hard. Just expert to lose one axe/chariot/whatever for each archer you face. The first ones suicide to weaken up the defender, so the second wave can win and capture the city.

For example, if a city has three archers, you'll want at least six axes. The first three will die, but hopefully damage the archers enough for the second three will have good odds. The ratio should probably increase to 3:1 if the city is on a hill or if the city is protective, or 4:1 if you find yourself in the very unfortunate position of a protective city on a hill.

The key is all about speed, you want to strike early so that your enemy will not have too many cities, low culture defense, and no city walls. If you can strike before he gets anything better than archers, all the better. You got to go all out from the beginning on once your capital gets up to speed produce nothing but the offensive unit (and maybe one or two spears for defense) and that's it. A second city to claim copper/horses is all you'll need before the war. Once you have a nice stack (usually 10-12 axes) you can start the invasion.

With praetorians and their eight strength points this becomes insanely easy, so much that I'd recommend practicing it with a different civ so you actually learn how it's like.

BUT HOW CAN I START A WAR IN 1500BC WITHOUT CATAPUUUUUULTS!!! :dunno::dunno::dunno::dunno::dunno:
Is it possible? :confused:

Heavymachinegun,

I think you lost your smiley rights after that line!

Seriously, though, I'll show you how to play a game with an early rush. Which leader would you like me to demonstrate it with?

Edit: I just saw you were playing as Auggy. He is one of my favourite leaders with Imperialistic + Industrial, oh how I can leverage both of those traits so fantastically.

If you play monarch, and you get boxed in early, you NEED to know how to attack before construction.

1000 AD? :eek: What do you mean "clearing out"? Making all vassals or conquer all cities?

Yes. On Monarch, with reasonable luck and good play, this is totally plausible.


Yes, again. :blush: This is one of my weaker points... My diplomacy is ALWAYS horrible. I have to learn the fine art of making friends. (For example, I've never made teams...)

Making friends with the AIs is complicated, but:

-- sharing religions is good
-- giving in to their demands (within reason) can be good. This is a very nuanced part of the game. If you always give in, that's bad -- but if you never do, that's maybe worse. Occasionally giving the AI a tech, or breaking relations with another AI, can help move a rival from "cautious" to "friendly". Think it over carefully each time.
-- when you're at war, it's often possible to bribe another AI into joining the war. This gives you a big diplomatic boost. Well worth trying.

Nothing at all. No strategy in here. I was simply backfilling the tech tree... Wrong step? :confused:


Wrong step. Think carefully about your teching! If you're going to war, chase military techs. If you're not, chase production and commerce techs. Divine Right is nice if you get it first, or if you have Stone and are industrious and want to grab the Spiral Minaret. Otherwise, eh.

Don't just backfill! Think carefully.

You mean BEFORE getting catapults? Never tried... Is it possible?

Totally.

How many praets does it take to conquer a city with (let's say) 20% defence and (let's say) 3 archers?

Ordinary archers, with no promotions? I'd say four praets -- three could probably do it, but you'd feel silly if one rolled badly and died.

Archers with a City Garrison promotion, or the city is on a hill? Five probably, six almost certainly -- you'd expect to lose one in that case, but you might still do it without casualties.


By the way, 20% culture for happiness isn't good...

It depends. I play monarch all the time, and I regularly go to 20%. In late game wars, 30% or even 40% is not too unusual.



BUT HOW CAN I START A WAR IN 1500BC WITHOUT CATAPUUUUUULTS!!!

It's easy! People do it all the time! You just have to accept that you'll take some casualties. This is disturbing at first, but the benefits of winning an early war can be huge.

(Can be. If you conquer a rival civ too early, you can crash your economy... it's very hard to have more than six or so cities in the early game. If that's happening, beeline Code of Laws for courthouses and Currency for markets and trade routes.)



Waldo

Hopefully this post is not breaking any rules about promoting other threads or whatever but:

OP, you could check out the Emperor Cookbook thread (should be on the first page) - you should find plenty of examples of how to fight a war before 1500 BC. (with lots of writeups, shiny pictures and saves!)

It could add another string to your bow.

It's easy! People do it all the time! You just have to accept that you'll take some casualties. This is disturbing at first, but the benefits of winning an early war can be huge.
The fact is that everytime I tried early wars (with "early" I mean pre-construction) I losed all my army for nothing... so I thought: "the AI never tries a war without catapults... why should I?"

Ok. I have to try. Naturally not in monarch level... Is there a good civ to learn early rushing? I mean, Augustus has advantage because of preats...

Another thing: when you talk about "early war" you mean swordsman-age or (even sooner) axeman-age?

"the AI never tries a war without catapults... why should I?"

At Monarch the AI will try it. (And succeed, sometimes.)


Ok. I have to try. Naturally not in monarch level... Is there a good civ to learn early rushing? I mean, Augustus has advantage because of preats...

Sure, there are several. Romans for praets, Egyptians for war chariots (the WC is like an axeman with wheels), Persians for Immortals, Incas for Quechua are all good.


Another thing: when you talk about "early war" you mean swordsman-age or (even sooner) axeman-age?

Either, both. If you hang around these forums you will hear of something called an "axe rush". That's an early attack with axes and no catapults, usually before you have more than three cities. It's a popular strategy, and often successful... though like any strategy, it is contingent on circumstances, of course.

Probably the earliest of all rushes is the Quechua rush, which can happen almost at once! Quechua get a 100% bonus against archers. Of course, against a CG archer in a city with 20% culture, they'll still lose most of the time... but Quechua are very cheap, so it's easy to produce a lot of them very fast and overwhelm your target. You'll lose a few Quechua, but who cares? It's a cheap price to pay for destroying a rival before 2000 BC.

Again, this strategy is contingent... it requires that (1) your capital has decent production, or you're able to quickly build a second city that does; and (2) your victim should be reasonably close (capital within 15 squares at most) and should not be Protective. Also, you should strike before the enemy has horses hooked up, because Quechuas are easy meat for chariots.

But even if you're not the Incas -- yes, it's definitely possible to destroy a nearby rival with just axes. In fact, it probably happens in almost 50% of all winning games on Monarch.

cheers,


Waldo

BUT HOW CAN I START A WAR IN 1500BC WITHOUT CATAPUUUUUULTS!!! :dunno::dunno::dunno::dunno::dunno:
Is it possible? :confused:Heavymachinegun,

I think you lost your smiley rights after that line!

Seriously, though, I'll show you how to play a game with an early rush. Which leader would you like me to demonstrate it with?

Edit: I just saw you were playing as Auggy. He is one of my favourite leaders with Imperialistic + Industrial, oh how I can leverage both of those traits so fantastically.

Heavymachinegun,

I juts played a game to about 2000BC and did an early Axeman rush if you want me to post a writeup. It's pretty long (I took 26 screenshots) and I don't want to usurp your thread without your permission. Should I post it here, or should I start a new thread?

I say post it here, there's plenty of axe rush walkthroughs.

Heavymachinegun,

I juts played a game to about 2000BC and did an early Axeman rush if you want me to post a writeup. It's pretty long (I took 26 screenshots) and I don't want to usurp your thread without your permission. Should I post it here, or should I start a new thread?

Post here!
With "spoiler" tag will not take a lot of space.

Perhaps I should change the thread name...

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=5187457 here is an example of axerush on monarch. In general all games http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=5320091 here might teach you somethings(even if sisiutil's early game micro is horrible his game do have some discussion of pretty much all aspects of the game. Posting a bit earlier save might make it easier for us to see where you've gone wrong the in the early game... Oh and if you are going to attack at 1000 AD, doing it with rifles is good, praets, not so much...

Just going to lurk; I'm interested in seeing Kesshi's post.

My question for the OP is that if he's playing on Monarch, has he been winning on Noble and Prince? What strategies has he been using there that aren't working for him here?

Heavymachinegun,

I just realized I messed up all the screenshots. :( Every single one of them, save the starting screenshot, are all messed up. Ugh, stupid MSPaint. :(

But at the end I had killed the Celtic civilization and had 3 cities (1 was the Celt capital) 8 axeman and 4 warriors and 6 workers, 4 of which I stole. Also I have the rest of the continent to myself and it's only 2000BC.

The basic way to do this is is tech Minimal Worker Techs. Rome starts with Mining and Fishing, so all you really need is Aggriculture for Irrigation or Hunting for Camps, but only Hunting if there is Deer nearby. After that tech Bronze Working and find Copper. You should try to have 3 Warriors running around searching for a nearby rival and nearby Copper.

Once you have Bronze Working, locate a source of copper between you and your target. Whip a Settler and settle one space from the Copper, or in some very rare situations settle on top of the Copper. In your capital work on growth while building a Barracks. Research The Wheel for a route, and try to get that Copper hooked up and a trade route linking your cities before your capital completes its Barracks.

Next, dedicate both cities to pumping out Axemen. Don't even build a Monument in your 2nd city, and only build a Barracks if you have the time or forests to chop once or twice. Grow your capital to 5 or 6, and whip 2 population Axemen unit, if necessary let it regrow to 4, and whip another 2 population Axemen. If you started at 6 and whipped yourself down to size 4 then 2, you should have 3 Axemen in 3 turns, and probably some overflow too.

In my game I just played my 2nd city grew to size 2 then stopped and worked as much production as possible and managed to pump out a Barracks and 3 Axemen while my main city pumped out 6 Axemen. My rival only had 2 Archers on a hill, and the numbers worked with me well enough that I only lost 2 Axemen, but if she had 4 Archers on a hill I would have been prepared with 9 CR Axemen.

I did some worker stealing, too, I stole 2 workers before the main seige, and stole 2 with the final deathblow, so that's how I ended up with so many Workers.

YOOOOO! :king: It worked!!! (on noble difficulty :D) Thank you guys!!!

Started a new game with Mongols (aggressive + keshik, great combination for early rush) I didn't use keshiks (didn't found horses). I conquered an egyptian city without catapults... only seven axemen (two of them are dead:()! The egyptians defended with 40%, an archer and an axemen.

And now? I go straight for the next city or stop?

I even tried (for the first time) the famous CS slingshot! :king: I failed it. :mad: I delayed Oracle completion until CoL... and egyptians have built for me. :sad:

I remember CivII where the game alerted you when "Ramesses II is about to complete the Oracle"...

See my brand new Elvis' city down here: :)
http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/1307/civ4screenshot0011tc7.jpg

Heavymachinegun,

Good job! You could have done it a lot quicker, however, as 600BC is a bit late to be an "early rush" but nontheless, good job!

Oh, and I found the screenshot in my civ directory. Typically I use the alt-printscreen function to copy the current window's contents to the clipboard then past them into MSPaint, but then I realized I was using the screenshot key and that Civ would save them in there for me. Anyways, some of them were corrupted due to the delay between grabbing the screenshot and me hitting alt-tab, so some have my alt-task window open and some were totally corrupted so I had to use the screwed up pasted ones, but I think I have enough for a story. I'll post them here in a bit.

At Heavymachinegun's request:

By the way, a lot of these files got all mixed up, so I'm really sorry in advance for screwy screenshots. I think enough of them are good enough to show what I did and how I did it.

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/AggyAxerush/AggyAxeRush01.jpg

Our settings. I wasn't sure which size map you played on so I chose Standard. This strategy works just as well on larger maps so long as you have at least 1 rival on the continent with you, and if I remember Continents you always have at least 2 people on each continent if you choose the Standard size or bigger.

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/AggyAxerush/AggyAxeRush02.jpg

Here's our starting position. Looks decent enough, but I'm not going to settle here. Instead I'm going to move to the mountains just west of the Cows. This gives me a 2 hammer city with 2 early food resources:

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/AggyAxerush/AggyAxeRush03.jpg

I know that growth is important, but I don't want my worker to be doing "nothing" so I choose this and lose 1 production for 1 extra commerce. I know the boarders are going to pop in 15 turns. When that happens I can work the 3 food 1 commerce riverside grasslands Rice.

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/AggyAxerush/AggyAxeRush04.jpg

I pop the nearby hut and end up with a technology. Excellent!

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/AggyAxerush/AggyAxeRush05.jpg

I pop a 2nd hut, and end up with another technology. Not as useful as the previous one beacuse I'm not on the coast, but hey, you can't complain about that.

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/AggyAxerush/AggyAxeRush06.jpg

The 3rd hut reveals some land up north and a rival nearby. Time to go check them out!

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/AggyAxerush/AggyAxeRush07.jpg

My boarders popped, and here's what I'm doing. You can see that Aggriculture is coming in 10 turns and the Worker very soon after, so by delaying my production for commerce I actually gained turns.

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/AggyAxerush/AggyAxeRush08.jpg

My target, the lovely carrot top of Ireland.

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/AggyAxerush/AggyAxeRush09.jpg

And lookie here, she's on a hill. Dang it! That means I'll have to bring more Axemen.

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/AggyAxerush/AggyAxeRush10.jpg

Another look at my city. As you can see I'm putting off working non imporved tiles for the lake tiles to gain a bonus to the commrce. I want to learn Bronze Working fast.

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/AggyAxerush/AggyAxeRush11.jpg

Once I have the improvement up, I change my citizens over to the new tile. 1F3P1C > 2F2C right now.

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/AggyAxerush/AggyAxeRush12.jpg

I grow and do the same thing again; work the lakes until I have an improved spot.


http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/AggyAxerush/AggyAxeRush13.jpg

Sorry for the scewy screenshot, the other one wasn't salvageable at all. Anyways this is a zoomed out screenshot of the area and what you're seeing is the lands north of my empire. As you can see my little vegitable friend up north has iron in her BFC, so if I see her adopt slavery, I'd better look out. There's 2 other sources of copper, one northwest of her, and one inbetween us. However the one inbetween us has two unknown tiles and a mountain range next to it. Depending on what those two tiles are I may change where I settle my Copper city.

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/AggyAxerush/AggyAxeRush14.jpg

This is a GREAT event! And even though I'm going for the early rush, I'm still going to take it.

I got very lucky and ended up with the health bonus, 2 unhappiness and no population loss! The unhappiness meant that I had to pull one of my exploring Warriors back home to keep my citizens content. That's okay, I had a few nearby and pulled him home.

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/AggyAxerush/AggyAxeRush15.jpg

Again, sorry for the screwy screenshot. :(

Here's the mystery tiles...COWS! I'm definately settling one north of the Copper.

If you settle 1W of the copper you don't need a monument... also pretty sure you didn't need to work all those commerce over hammers / food... Also with this start i would definatly tech AG -> AH instead of early bw, heck you even got unforested hills... Do you have the starting save?

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/AggyAxerush/AggyAxeRush16.jpg

Looks like somebody left their woker unprotected. Oops!

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/AggyAxerush/AggyAxeRush17.jpg

Beacuse of the previous tests my citizens are unhappy. However you can see that if I whip they'll be 3 unhappy citizens for 65 turns, meaning they're only 2 unhappy for 35 more turns...well only 2 for 5 more turns, and 1 for 30 turns after that. I intentionally grew into unhappiness because I knew I was about to build a Settler and I knew that the unhappiness was very short and about to go away.

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/AggyAxerush/AggyAxeRush18.jpg

I stole some of her women, and had my way with some of her livestock (or was it the other way around?) and am done with her for now. Actually I just had a good look around her empire filling in the black tiles so I knew what was there then asked for a cease fire.

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/AggyAxerush/AggyAxeRush19.jpg

The same turn I come out of unhappiness I can whip the Settler. I didn't plan this, it just sort of happened this way, I'm not used to playing Imperialistic so I expected a longer wait for this Settler.

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/AggyAxerush/AggyAxeRush20.jpg

I move north, build the city, and get the Copper hooked up because of Sailing. However Sailing is fairly unnecessary here because I'm going to build roads there anyways for faster troop movement and my Barracks aren't done yet.

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/AggyAxerush/AggyAxeRush21.jpg

76 turns = 60+16, so in 16 turns I'm going to have 1 less unhappy Roman. Thus I want to grow my city in exactly 16 turns and maximize the hammers until then.

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/AggyAxerush/AggyAxeRush22.jpg

16 turns later, 60 turns = 1 less unhappy Roman in 30 turns. Thus I want to grow in exactly 30 turns. The closest I can do without working unimproved tiles is 28, so I'll take it. Two turns of unhappiness isn't that bad, really.

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/AggyAxerush/AggyAxeRush23.jpg

(Sorry for the screwy screenshot.) You'd think she'd learn by now.

One thing to note here, I totally messed up with that road to her SW boarders. You can't see it too well from this screenshot but Bibracte has a river running south of it connecting to that lake. Initially I had planned to use one of those captured workers to build a road to her SW boarder and move in and strike in 2 turns. However that river would have put my forces at a disadvantage, so I needed to attack from the SE to accomplish this.

Also, because she had two Archers in her city, while at war this time I moved two Warriors onto her Farm to pillage it, to slow her down as much as possible.

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/AggyAxerush/AggyAxeRush24.jpg

(Sorry for the screwy screenshot.) This is my copper city. As you can see I've halted growth to build up my military. I want a lot of Axemen and I want them fast!

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/AggyAxerush/AggyAxeRush25.jpg

Worker captured, Farm pillaged, and I'm done screwing around. We call another Ceise Fire. Note that I'm not going for a 10 turn Peace Treaty. I want the opportunity to attack her if she pumps out another worker really soon.

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/AggyAxerush/AggyAxeRush26.jpg

Ugh, of all the screenshots to get messed up, this one had to be messed up. Anyways, that's like 8 or 9 Axemen. Rome's continues to build 1 or 2 more of them, and Antium switches over to a Monument and starts to grow again as soon as the Farm next to the Copper comes online.

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/AggyAxerush/AggyAxeRush27.jpg

The most noteable thing about this picture is the date. Remember that I made some mistakes and had some setbacks, too. I built the road to the wrong spot. I was one turn short of getting to the Celtic boarders before she popped her boarders, pushing my units back 1 space (losing 2 turns), and I did those herbal tests which hampered my production a bit as I had to cope with unhappiness.

As you can see I didn't need nearly the numbers I sent after her; I had been harassing her so much I knew I didn't need this strong of a focre, but I still produced it just to show you that you CAN have a very strong early game rush, strong enough to take down even protective empires on hills. I had 2 other Axemen down south, and about 4 Warriors floating around that I could have added to the pack but felt that my pocketbook was going to take too large a hit.

And there you have it! An entire continent to myself due to a quick and effective rush that required no unique units, and I even took down a civ on a mountain.

If you settle 1W of the copper you don't need a monument... also pretty sure you didn't need to work all those commerce over hammers / food... Also with this start i would definatly tech AG -> AH instead of early bw, heck you even got unforested hills... Do you have the starting save?

oyzar,

True, but then I'd miss out on the Rice in the future. I didn't want to totally screw my future (remember that I took the Herbal tests, too) and I figured out that it was enough of a trade off to build north of the Copper and grab those two in the future.

Even though I'm not planning on finishing this game, I wanted to play like I was planning on finishing it just to show how one can execute a very early rush and have a solid foundation in perparation for the future.

Also AG -> AH delays Bronze further delaying the setup of the 2nd city, further delaying the demise of my rival(s), further increasing the chance of them expanding, increasing the amount of units and time spent at war I would need to destroy them. I like to stay in war as little as possible in the early game because 1 single citizen discontent due to war weariness can sneak up on you and severly hamper your production and/or growth.

Edit: Also, no, I don't have the initial save anymore (I've since started a new singleplayer game.) I'm still playing 3.13 with Bhuric's patch anyways, so if you updated I don't think any of my saves would be compatable with you. Sorry.

Good job! You could have done it a lot quicker, however, as 600BC is a bit late to be an "early rush" but nontheless, good job!
250BC, completely destroyed egyptians. :D
http://img300.imageshack.us/img300/782/civ4screenshot0012ji4.jpg
I know, 250BC isn't so "early" but it's the best I could do for my first time. The last city get razed. Never build a city on a resource. Is it right?
(note my lovely Leonida warlord... this is MONGOLIAAAAAA!!!)

...
Thank you for the screenshots... I'm reading them.

Kesshi, thanks for a great sequence!

Machinegun, notice that Kesshi didn't have an early UU. And he was facing an opponent who, though not Protective, is usually a military monster (Aggressive and Charismatic) and whose capital city was on a hill. So you see the early axe rush is possible under many different circumstances.

Of course, sometimes the EAR is impossible, or anyway too hard to be worthwhile. Like:

-- no copper, or copper much too far away
-- victim is too far away
-- victim has some combination of bad traits (Protective, Creative), early UU (Vultures, Skirmishers, War Chariots...), or excellent defensive terrain.
-- you want to keep victim alive. Like, it's Gandhi and you share a religion... so he'll like you and trade techs with you and sometimes give you money, and then he's usually a military weakling until the late game so you can gobble him up with a mid-game war.

So it's not a cheat code. Which is good! You wouldn't want one strategy that always worked -- the game would get boring.

But it is a very powerful, useful tool, and a little practice with it can really raise your game.

cheers,


Waldo

You ended up with 5 cities by 250bc. You could have 8-10 cities by now.

Not sure what you did before 250bc?? 5 cities by 250bc is slow. You need to spam cities asap. On higher levels the Ai will be throwing a stack of 5-6 units at you by now.

Keeshi example is how the job should of been done. Beware of taking out an Ai too far away. Upkeep cost of cities can slow growth. Capturing capitals is a big plus though.

It's his first early rush. Practice will make perfect, or at least more rapidly destructive.

Although Gumbolt has a point: be careful about conquering cities too far away. Your maintenance costs depend on (1) how many cities you have, and (2) how far each city is from your capital (or Versailles or the Forbidden City, if you have those). The State Property civic eliminates (2), which is one reason people love State Property -- if your empire is huge, it can save you 100 GPT or more.

But in the early game, you don't have State Property or Versailles. You don't even have courthouses. So you have to pay the full maintenance costs. And if you capture enemy cities that are way, way over on the far side of the continent, you'll pay.

The ideal victim for an early rush is close. And s/he has no early UU or annoying defensive traits. And has just spent all his hammers, not on defensive units, but building the Pyramids for you...

cheers,


Waldo

Bear in mind, it's going to be more difficult on Monarch to rush than your practice on Noble, since the AI starts with archers.

Although Gumbolt has a point: be careful about conquering cities too far away. Your maintenance costs depend on (1) how many cities you have, and (2) how far each city is from your capital (or Versailles or the Forbidden City, if you have those). The State Property civic eliminates (2), which is one reason people love State Property -- if your empire is huge, it can save you 100 GPT or more.

Just a third thing, (3) the size of the city. A city's maitenance will rise along with its population, so if a city is rather far away and doesn't have a courthouse, keeping it whipped small will help save you cash until you can build those.

And of course there's also (4) colonial maitenance and (5) corporation maitenance, but those aren't really relevant here. :p

Bear in mind, it's going to be more difficult on Monarch to rush than your practice on Noble, since the AI starts with archers.

ParadigmShifter,

I actually find a Monarch rush easier because I can usually capture workers and use them to build roads on the way back. Also your cities grow while producing units but they don't while producing workers. Sure I need a 3-1 ratio to attack Archers instead of a 2-1 ratio to attack Warriors, but that's not difficult to achieve when you don't need to halt your growth to produce Workers.