Chop Rush (A New Beginning)

[DarkSchneider]

I was just thinking about another angle to the whole Chop Rush tactic and I was wondering if other people had tried it. A number of starting cities for my civ have had food resources and floodplains, making them good prospects for early growth. I was thinking, rather than building a worker first, you could build warriors/scouts/archers and then start on your first worker at around pop 5. At this point, since you have already researched Bronze working, you could use Slavery to people rush additional workers and settlers.

This strategy seems safer and possibly even more productive than going for an earlier worker.

[Excl]

In my experience, it might be useful to do just that. In a recent game, it took me something like 50 turns just to get bronzeworking researched. I made a small army and took out Montezuma (same as settling your own city, I guess). By the time I had 10 turns left on Bronzeworking, I switched to a worker, and had a decent city size as well. Had I made workers, they would of been running around with nothing to do. Had I made a settler, I would of had the same number of cities that I ended up with by just invading with an army. With the army first strat, you end up with a nice defense for barbarians, two cities, and a little bit of city size to go with it.

[DaveMcW]

The rules of chop rushing:

1. Rush for Bronze as fast as possible.
2. Build your first worker before getting Bronze.

If you're not following those rules, you're not as fast as those who do.

[Orca]

Well said ^^

[Excl]

Originally Posted by DaveMcW

The rules of chop rushing:

1. Rush for Bronze as fast as possible.
2. Build your first worker before getting Bronze.

If you're not following those rules, you're not as fast as those who do.

I should try both and see what yeilds better results. Maybe I was just on a bad starting spot for commerce, but it was going to take me something like 12 turn to get mining, plus another 27 or so for bronze working. Then something like 17 turns to build a worker right off the bat. So if I did that, I'd be looking at a worker with nothing to do for 22 turns. And a city a size of 1. If I built a settler next, I'd maybe have him by the time bronze was done researching ... and still a city size of one.

On the contrary, If I could build a warrior in around 10-15 turns, and have a city size of at least 2. By the time Bronze working is done, you could have an army of 3 or 4, and just go take over a neighboring city, rather than settle it.

I would think this would work better, especially if you have Montezuma or some other Warmonger next to you. I took an extra 15 turns or so to research archery before Bronze Working. But the result was an army powerful enough to take out Monty, plus a city of a rather large size to make workers a lot faster ... and also a decent army to defend it. To add to it, the city you captured is usually of size 2 ... so you start with a bigger city than a settled one. It may put you behind in the creation of a 2nd city slightly ... but I think the 3rd and fourth ones comes a lot quicker this way. (Not to mention you can solve the problem of nasty neighbors)

[thordk]

if you're able to take monty out of the game before starting to chop: do so! :P

[Dueck]

I mostly avoid chop-rushing simply in disdain of the over-used strategy.

[eric_]

Sometimes I become absolutely convinced that if I don't get Pyramids and Stonehenge I will lose, so I chop rush both. Otherwise, I rarely do it.

On the other hand, I've never gotten oracle (in Civ IV). I think I'll aim for it in my next game.

[SlipperyJim]

I'll use a combination of slave-rushing and chop-rushing, depending on the circumstances. My western city that's stuck in the middle of a huge forest is getting a lot of forest chops. My huge city on the floodplains is feeling the whip.

It all depends on the land that I'm given....

The main advantage to chop-rushing is that I can rush hard without killing my cities. On the other hand, the chopped trees don't usually grow again, so it's sort of a one-time deal.

Slave-rushing can't be used as quickly, unless I'm willing to grind my city into the dirt. I have to spare the whip in order to let my cities grow. However, as long as I don't overdo it, then slave-rushing can keep going for a long time. People are a renewable resource.

Something else that I've noticed is that slave-rushing seems to give the same 30 turns of anger regardless of game speed. That's huge, because 30 turns aren't as "long" on Marathon speed, since everything except unit movement is much, much slower. If my perception is right, then slave-rushing is quite a good deal in Marathon games.

[ElJojo]

Of course if you don't start with mining and you don't have any improvable ressource in your "fat cross" you should not build a worker! An idle worker is a waste of time. I time my worker production so that when the worker is built he has something to do.
But most of the time if you start with mining you can research bronzeworking in the same time you are producing a worker.
Unimproved tiles are much less productive than improved tiles, growing to five without any improved tile will take some time (well, most of the time). What are you researching meanwhile ? Archery I guess but not only that ? So you must have some kind of worker tech before getting to 5, so your worker would not be idle.
Then, for your strategy to work, you need to have a close neighbour and with badly protected capitol... Not so often in my games.
First you have to scout for neighbours and their capitols, it can take a few turns. Sometimes I scout in the wrong direction.
Then you're talking about attacking with archers and warriors. A fortified archer in a capitol will be hard to kill, and he won't be alone. This means you'll need a lot of warriors and archers to do that. Especially on higher levels with the bonuses the AI gets. So I think it's not that safe. (and you need to have some defense because if the AI has some units scouting around he will send them to get you).
But instead of chop-rushing settlers you could chop-rush warriors/archers and then you can have a strong army before the AI does. But you're still chop-rushing...
Chop-rushing is quicker, that's the point but there's not always a need to be fast.

[Wreck]

On normal speed, whipping causes 10 turns of +1 unhappiness, with extra turns added if you whip before the last 10 turns are up.

[DarkSchneider]

I have had a number of starting locations with over four squares providing 3 food each unimproved. These same starting locations tend not to have many hammer resources as well, which is why the pop rush comes into play so often.

[heythere84]

I really wish they would take chop rushing out of the game. I consider it kind of lame that at higher difficulty levels, if you dont even like to do it, you are kind of forced to or else you will fall behind very quickly. I almost always chop stonehenge and I always find myself thinking.....would all this lumber really help me set up stones in a circle? Or how does lumber help you build a worker? Doesnt make sense to me.

[eric_]

would all this lumber really help me set up stones in a circle? Or how does lumber help you build a worker? Doesnt make sense to me.

Sure, they moved all the stones by rolling them over logs, and moving the one in the back to the front when the stone got passed it.

[SlipperyJim]

Originally Posted by Wreck

On normal speed, whipping causes 10 turns of +1 unhappiness, with extra turns added if you whip before the last 10 turns are up.

Okay, my bad.