Immortal University VIII - The Randon Leader Chosen is...

I just can't resist rushing with a strat resource in the capital bfc

A short turn set but I have a big decision to make.

My initial build order was: worker(partial)->WB->worker(finish)->WB->worker->Holkan
Initial teching was: Fish->BW->Hunt->AH->Wheel

4000BC - I settled in place after moving my warrior 1W as planned.
3760BC - Meet Huayna Capac. I also pop Ag from a hut. Fishing is in and I switch build to WB.
3680BC - I could see what looked like American borders on the previous turn but now it is conformed. Lincoln, and he is super close.
3640BC - HC founds Buddhism and revolts.
3200BC - BW is in. I can start chopping out my second WB and worker but there is no bronze in in sight. My scouting is still a bit weak though as my warrior ran into a panther and got waylaid for 10 turns. I start on hunting to unlock UU and give me a discount on AH.
2880BC - I switch EP to HC since I figure Lincoln is going down.
2500BC - HC builds the Henge. I hope he doesn't get too rich building wonders before I can take him down and use them for my self.
2440BC - Ok, heres the situation:


Decision time.
If i am going to attempt some kind of hair-brained holkan rush I have to make the call now.
As you can see, Lincoln has NY up on the river, not a bad spot I think. However, this means that, because of the lake, an invasion stack will have to spend an extra turn marching through enemy culture before attacking Washington (assuming I went directly for it).
He has horses but I don't think he has bronze. I actually hope he wastes time building chariots, my holkans can shred them.
Speaking of holkans, they are immune to first strikes and resource-less. It would seem like they are meant for just this situation - no bronze and no enemy axes, plenty of trees to chop.
Someone else mentioned a cat war. Believe me, I would prefer to back these guys up with cats and am more than a little nervous about building a glorified spearman Stack of Disappointment. That would mean REXing 3 or 4 cities though and I don't really see where. Granted, my scouting to the south is crap but it looks like jungle to me and that means IW which is not helpful to a construction beeline.

So, yea or nay?
If yea, any help with battle plans is good. I would figure on whipping a barracks ASAP and chop/whipping Holkans for awhile. Lincoln only has 2 archers in Washington for now but that will change soon enough. How many holkans is a reasonable number to go in with? He will probably also build walls soon. Should I try to keep an eye on him with EP or is this pointless?
If I had bronze this would be a piece of cake but I am a little nervous about these untested holkans.

EDIT: After playing a couple more turns, it looks like NY is 1W of where I had it marked and its borders have already popped. I don't think this changes anything.

Moved warrior onto hill, settled in place. First tech is BW, then going fishing. Early chops are good times

3875 Met lincoln. Has to be close.
3825 Met HC. I'd rather him close than far but this is cozy.
3450 Religions are going LATE. Buddhism founded . Wish I'd have gone for one.
3425 Revolt to slavery, start chopping!
3350 Herbalist event. +2 health.
3225 HC has a 2nd city already and it has gold. I hate immortal right now
3125 2nd worker is out. Going settler...
2975 Hindu founded...wow. America gets their 2nd city. I guess taking a site on immortal is downright impossible unless you just make a settler first, which is inefficient. There's another way to deal with this though...
2800 Lakamha founded 1W of wheat. Holkan rush I guess.
2600 Finish hunting, going AH, pottery, writing
2400 Starting production of holkans
2000 Judaism founded...all these are in "distant lands"
1950 Lincoln converts to Judaism...nevermind.
1700 Judaism spreads and I adopt it...there's no other religions around...
1475 I'm the least advanced civ...surprising!
1175 Declare on Lincoln with 14 holkans
1150 New York captured
975 Washington captured
875 Was heading for boston, spotted axeman. Queueing up chariots and picking a different target for now - like the one NE of washington that I cut off from resources by taking washington

800 Philly actually has swordsmen . I capture it anyway.
725 GG emerges. Given how my units are surviving/needing replenishment, I settle him. Healing isn't the problem in this one.
485 Atlanta captured
440 HC won't trade me gold for corn, even though he's pleased (I'd declared before he would get pissed for me warring on Lincoln)
425 HC declares on lincoln. AI opportunism.... The good news is that this early there can't be any capitulations.
275 HC completes the apostolic palace...what the?
260 I lose by 2 votes
245 Boston is heavily garrisoned with 5 archers and an axe so I just ignore it.
170 Visgoth has 2 archers and a chariot, which is more to my liking . I take the city.
35 Another look at Boston. This time, its garrison is 3 archers, 4 workers, and a settler . The computer is so smart. The city does have walls so I lose quite a few units taking it. I still take it with 4 holkans and 6 chariots left.
5 Chicago is garrisoned by 5 archers and an axeman . It has 12% culture d though, so although I can't see it HC likely has catapults bombarding that city. I'll just try to hang around and snipe it first .
25 AD HC damaged chicago down to 5% defenses. The axe has 3 health, and the 4 remaining archers have health of 3, 3, 1.4, and 2.2. I think 5 chariots and 4 holkans can do it so I try for America's last city! I take it with my 2nd to last unit remaining with a movement point, ending the war.

40 AD summary:





I'm in a tech mess. HC is teching wildly and he's my only neighbor. At least he is friendly so I don't have to worry about getting declared on in the near future. As a rookie player I'd have considered this game lost but now I'm just uncertain. I have a good # of cities for this early in the AD's, and will probably improve considerably once I hit currency. I'm obviously going to have to tech for things HC doesn't have and use them as trade bait.

I'm also going to use a work boat to scout. With the kind of war I just went through I kind of neglected it, but rushing with spears basically every hammer counts .

I note that I have iron. It's probably already hooked up (though I lack IW), because Lincoln was putting swords on me (and an axe or so). This means I HAVE to have iron. I also have ivory, so in terms of strat resources I'm ok. I need to check the power graph to see if I can attack HC, but the answer is probably not, at least until I'd get construction/HBR for elephants and catapults. Maybe I'll go the medieval/hammers/military over tech route in this one (emphasis on getting to caste/guilds, probably via trades on this difficulty, then using numbers to get lots of land not unlike our friend Monty prefers).

I'm still very new to Immortal so any help/suggestions/criticisms are welcome . Even if you just want to know my reasoning for something stupid.

I didn't want to do it but I didn't see any other way than rushing Lincoln ASAP. I did find some copper but I'm not sure it's in realistic range to use for a rush - it would take a long time to road it back and I figured the delay from that would be so bad I'd be better off with spears.

I do have experience rushing with the dreaded impi - but shaka is aggressive and combat/cover or combat/CR are much stronger than first strike immunity with C1 or CRI...as is the ability to capture a city on turn 1 like it's nothing with 2 moves and mobility. The holkan is a bit weaker IMO but doable. Once they start getting CR promos you can often clean up an archer after suiciding one (but not always). Perhaps the best thing about them is that they're like the jag - resource-less means they can instantly be started in captured city for snowball-class #'s.

I certainly went the rush route but in the interest of not spoiling your game thus far I'll stop with that. Besides, advice from probably the weakest player in the Immortal U at the moment is iffy to begin with .

I decided to settle in place and build a worker first while researching fishing/bronze/hunting/AH/wheel/pottery/writing/agriculture.

Since Washington and Mutal were only 9 tiles apart, rushing Lincoln seemed to be by far the best option in the early game here, especially since he had marble in his capital. Rather than settling a second city, I simply chopped forests around Mutal into a barracks and a stack of Holkans, declaring on Lincoln in 1240BC (with a stack of 10) and capturing New York a couple of turns later, before pressing on to Washington. I lucked out somewhat as he only had two archers defending his capital, so was able to press on to Boston before taking a break from war. I waited one more turn to snag a couple more workers before declaring peace in exchange for alphabet and should be able to finish him off when the 10 turn treaty expires and I've got some more Holkans.

Huayna appears to be the only other neighbour and has already expanded to 8 cities which means he's going to be a headache. He's also founded Buddhism and built Stonehenge.

I'm wondering whether I should embark on what's likely to be a protracted jumbo/cat war against him to secure the remainder of the continent, or whether I should use religion and HR to make a friend. More war would leave me incredibly backward when the other AI show up, but that'll be easy to recover with so much land and a financial leader. I'm currently using loot money from the first American war to race through maths with the intention of beelining those units and the UB - the alternative approach would be to head for literature/calendar to exploit the marble.