Rush or expand?

I often find myself HA rushing and being very successful *militarily* only to find once the war is over that I have nowhere near enough money to keep up any research or any further expansion. Then some of the AIs that have been peacefully expanding actually start to catch up to me in # of cities and way surpass me in tech.
Sometimes I find myself in a similar situation with elepult rush.
Here's the meat of the inquiry:
In situations with very little land, or very crappy land, you have to do a military push to get out. But when you're surrounded with bounty, lots of resources and fresh water eg, then perhaps
"You may want to start focusing on putting together a solid 4 to 6 city empire, doing the right things to get to Curs and break out as opposed to all this early rushing stuff..or at least just rush once to expand." -Lymond
I have definitely had games where I just didn't have any opportunity to do a military push until lib>cuirs and usually those are pretty successful games. But when I have an early opportunity w HAs or elepult, I just can't decide when to hold back. What is the reasoning behind holding back? Why does it sometimes work better and how can I determine when those times will be? I always catch myself thinking "well, it's always better to do a military rush asap bc then you have more cities sooner". but like lymond is saying, you got to know when to hold back for the perfect moment.
What are some good tells for when to hold back vs when is that perfect moment?

In situations with very little land, or very crappy land

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You'd be surprised with what you can do with 4 good to great cities, regardless of how much land there actually is. Can you say 30 Cuirs at 750AD! Yes sir, TY, GG no re. However, very crappy land would make me want to attack someone early too.

What are some good tells for when to hold back vs when is that perfect moment?

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Imo in order to get this information you need to work your way backwards. A lot of this will depend on what level you play. I.e., if you play on Monarch you have LOTS of time before the AIs will have an overwhelming number of higher tech units to counter you.

Let's be honest here. On Monarch, once you research Currency you can effectively turn your slider off and just HA stomp the world (you "could" squeeze in Fued if you want). On Immortal the AI's you're not at war with will be teching/expanding just fine. Additionally, the AIs you are at War with will get Lbs and rush ENG and Pikes much quicker.

So when to hold back? On Immortal you'll want to push your war to a point that doesn't Hinder you from reaching the next tech level. I.e, take enough cities and leave yourself enough room so that you can have a nice Treb/Mace timing as a follow up (500-800 AD). Likewise, if you plan to go HA into Cuirs, or Rifles, or anything/Cannon makes sure you're leaving yourself enough time to recover your Empire so you can leverage your production/tech advantage. Also, fighting the AI on Tech Parity is perfectly fine if you can swarm them.

Help that helped?? Lol.

That helped a lot especially about timing the end of early wars to optimize a ratio of high land gain but still high enough commerce for getting to next major tech development (which will be used for next war if wanted).
I have heard so many mentions of the mace,treb combo and I have yet to put it to full effect... I've done HA rush, elephant 'rush', praetorians, war chariots, quechas of course, cuirs, rifles, cannons, cataphracts... never really put a good mace/treb army on the board. I can imagine using scientists to bulb up to machinery is quite helpful for this

Dylan - Just to clarify, I was not implying that early rushes are bad. The point is for you to step back and learn about economy and research. Building a empire and specializing cities.

Rushes can often be good and even necessary. On IMM+, early rushes usually can only take you so far though. I love the HA rush and will take it as far as it will let me - usually once AIs get Feud pretty much ends that one.

Mace/treb or let's call it "'medieval warfare" is not always optimal on higher levels, but can be made to work and work well. I don't often use it though but depends on my overall objectives and whether I think a bulb push to MT is will be more effective. Bulbing machinery and/or engineering can be tricky. there are early techs you need to avoid to make that happen, and depending on the map that is not always the best move.

Again, the point right now is to step back on focus on your early game - whether you rush or not or have to - and start learning to expand to 4 to 6 nicely placed and developed cities and break out in whatever fashion from there. Try to setup a good capital. Run scientists early for an academy in the cap.

I quite like medieval warfare (I usually play immortal), although I understand why it's unpopular with other players as it can really be a slog. It usually involves me going from just over one military unit per city to a large army by prebuilding units in nearly every city, starting with trebs/maces/cats and then mounted/crossbows/pikes/longbows in high production cities, then I consider a switch to theocracy or vassalage to get 5xp units and then produce many units on consecutive turns.
Producing the army quickly like this saves on maintenance as well as making a quick defence possible if there is an unexpected attack by an opponent. There is often an opportunity to join in or engineer a dogpile even if I don't have a specific target in mind when I start prebuilding the army.

ok I made another post with a game where I put to use some of these thoughts
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=13606909#post13606909

Pob, I don't like medieval warfare due to the high defensive bonuses from walls and castles. I'll go an early war if its there but once the AI gets its walls, castles and culture defense up I prefer to wait for gunpowder. EDIT: I just reread your post where you actually say you do understand why its unpopular making this redundant lol

However, I have used trebs and maces, perhaps that was on lower difficulties though. With plenty of trebs you can get the maces up to CR3 and that is always useful.

I wonder, why you don't do both, rush and recover at the same time.

It also depends very much on the type of victory you're persuing, but I'd say conquer as much as possible. Even a conquered size1 city can usually sustain itself from the Currency TRs, so as long as you don't have to sacrifice something really important, more cities are always better.

Seraiel said:

I wonder, why you don't do both, rush and recover at the same time.

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Well, Dylan really has asked the wrong question here which I kinda tried to clarify above. I think he was basing this on something I said in another thread, but at the time I was not trying to say rushing was bad..not at all. The point I was trying to make is that Dylan has missed certain basic concepts over the course of his play that has prevented him from setting up proper empires. The idea is to step back and focus on these things to put himself in a better position.

I just started playing civ4 again and in no way am I an expert, but:

- I decide to rush based both on what resources are available for both me and my neighbours and also If I have a UU that is useful on the BCs.

- If decided to expand, then trade those new resouces for money and work cottages/GP ASAP.

Heres a nice example. This is my cap, I just added in some rivers to get the corn and ivories wet:



Nearby is Pacal with this cap. I stole his worker:



I must have that cap!

Result!

[/IMG]

ok, now i hear you lymond. you're saying that what's useful for me right now is not necessarily figuring out when to rush or expand- it's getting more of the basics down to be able to run a successful expansion. which is so true. i wonder how i can most effectively learn more about advanced chopping/whipping/early empire management, i feel like i've read most of the guides on here- probably just watching lots of lets plays couldn't hurt. and of course, practice

Early rushes, I remember those days... but on immortal any rush will tank your economy... well any but the maceman rush

Tokugawa remains my favorite "I'm annoyed, must take it out on someone" game. Beeline those samurai and just go nutz.

Hauptman said:

Early rushes, I remember those days... but on immortal any rush will tank your economy... well any but the maceman rush

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With Currency, it's actually very possible to build a lot of units, and I'm talking of Deity. HA usually is thougher because it comes earlier and HAs also don't do too good in war, so Elepult is normally the favourite choice of me. Earlier than Maces so smaller chance that AI gets Longbows. Also Elephants have the same base-STR as a Mace, but they're much cheaper.