Riflemen around turn 120 (immortal)

And metallurgy shortly afterwards.

I think this is the quickest way to get them and I suspect it would be even quicker on Deity. And this was with a pretty weak start too (I considered reloading after I discovered the map around me).

1. Build capital on top luxury resource. Build Scout. Build Warrior. Steal Worker from City state.
2. Research Calendar.
3. Purchase another Settler.
4. Sell resource to AI, even if you hit unhappiness.
5. Start building 3rd settler
6. Build second city on top of luxury resource. Sell that too, even if your happiness is in the red.
7. Purchase library in capital. Put two gangstas in specialist slots.
8. Build 3rd city (I never build more than 3 cities in a game). Hunt for a spot with lots of luxuries.
9. By now, you should have all the elementary techs from the top of the tree.
10. Switch to bottom of the tree and stick with it for a little while.
11. Use first scientist for Steel. Attack your closest neighbor. Continue researching bottom of the tree. Attack your second closest neighbor.
12. Use your second scientist for Gunpowder (you may have to leave him on standby for a while). This is so you can transition to Renaissance.
13. Pick the 4 policies from the Rationalism tree that lead to 2 free techs (turn 121).
14. Upgrade to Riflemen.
15. Rampage. (NB: Always attack the strongest AI, even if he is further away than easier prey.)
16. Get Metallurgy with 3rd GS.
17. Continue trolling the AI.

I like this technique because at no time will you be vulnerable. You will always have a solid army. You have to time your techs/production so that you can mount an effective defense with warriors/spearmen/archers and then an effective attack with Horsemen. Then one with Longswordsmen. Then one final one with Riflemen.

You may stray quite a bit from your goal (riflemen) at the beginning (which means in ideal conditions, you should be able to get rifles even earlier), but it ensures you won't be demolished by a surprise attack (possibly not even one from a human player). You won't even have to put too much stress on your empire (hence the use of only 1 library rather than 2), which means it'll evolve "organically" and be able to sustain your warmongering.

Artillery are not far behind either.

Martin Alvito has quoted times as early as the 90's for Babylon and 100-110 for everyone else for Rifles. I've duplicated turn 100's rifles with a warrior/sword rush on Deity (so different from your method, got most of my science from mass puppets from the warrior/sword rushing).

And yea as you pointed out, beelining the bottom of the tech tree is incredibly effective because while you are teching towards a dominating midgame, your early game defense is quite strong with swords/longswords.

EDIT: notice you mention horses. I frankly think swords are more than enough, getting horses is just an unecessary delay of Rifling.

aimlessgun said:

Artillery are not far behind either.

Martin Alvito has quoted times as early as the 90's for Babylon and 100-110 for everyone else for Rifles. I've duplicated turn 100's rifles with a warrior/sword rush on Deity (so different from your method, got most of my science from mass puppets from the warrior/sword rushing).

And yea as you pointed out, beelining the bottom of the tech tree is incredibly effective because while you are teching towards a dominating midgame, your early game defense is quite strong with swords/longswords.

EDIT: notice you mention horses. I frankly think swords are more than enough, getting horses is just an unecessary delay of Rifling.

Click to expand...

I'm always trying to use a strategy that could work against a human opponent too. I haven't played MP yet, but generally combined arms tend to tip the balance in your favor, and a quick strike force can come in handy (especially if someone is out-teching you). Hence the horse rush. (Have you played MP? Do you think that's sound?)

I agree that I'm delaying quite a bit (with the horses... and also the honor policies), but my main goal was to have a strategy with more than 1 "height." I want to be able to war effectively quickly at various intervals (the time between these intervals being dedicated to empire improvement), while not losing sight of the final goal (riflemen).

After Riflemen, I like to pursue other interests... Along the top of the tech tree. There's not much I can do with artillery that I can't do with canons and riflemen at that point.

Agreed.
I'm trying to finish a deity game in which I got rifleman pretty early too.
I didn't save the screenshots but I believe I've got them at around turn 120.
GS are indeed overpowered.

Hrm interesting. Yeah combined arms would definitely be pretty helpful vs a human, but then again getting Longwords 10 turns earlier is a huge deal too. I guess it depends on the situation. Don't think I have enough experience there to comment though heh.

1. Build capital on top luxury resource. Build Scout. Build Warrior. Steal Worker from City state.
2. Research Calendar.
3. Purchase another Settler.
4. Sell resource to AI, even if you hit unhappiness.
5. Start building 3rd settler
6. Build second city on top of luxury resource. Sell that too, even if your happiness is in the red.
7. Purchase library in capital. Put two gangstas in specialist slots.
8. Build 3rd city (I never build more than 3 cities in a game). Hunt for a spot with lots of luxuries.
9. By now, you should have all the elementary techs from the top of the tree.

10. Get killed by some random AI and reload. Way to go

Realyn said:

1. Build capital on top luxury resource. Build Scout. Build Warrior. Steal Worker from City state.
2. Research Calendar.
3. Purchase another Settler.
4. Sell resource to AI, even if you hit unhappiness.
5. Start building 3rd settler
6. Build second city on top of luxury resource. Sell that too, even if your happiness is in the red.
7. Purchase library in capital. Put two gangstas in specialist slots.
8. Build 3rd city (I never build more than 3 cities in a game). Hunt for a spot with lots of luxuries.
9. By now, you should have all the elementary techs from the top of the tree.

10. Get killed by some random AI and reload. Way to go

Click to expand...

Love it

Realyn said:

1. Build capital on top luxury resource. Build Scout. Build Warrior. Steal Worker from City state.
2. Research Calendar.
3. Purchase another Settler.
4. Sell resource to AI, even if you hit unhappiness.
5. Start building 3rd settler
6. Build second city on top of luxury resource. Sell that too, even if your happiness is in the red.
7. Purchase library in capital. Put two gangstas in specialist slots.
8. Build 3rd city (I never build more than 3 cities in a game). Hunt for a spot with lots of luxuries.
9. By now, you should have all the elementary techs from the top of the tree.

10. Get killed by some random AI and reload. Way to go

Click to expand...

Or rather hold off the random AI with 2 warriors because they advance with archers in the front and then suicide their guys on your Drill II warrior on a hill across a river.

The fastest I've been able to land Rifles on Deity (without using the GL, anyway) is turn 89 with the Babs using the typical three GS slingshot. Got lucky on the AI locations that game (Standard Continents). Cathy went down to the Warrior rush right as I finished the pure Iron beeline, and London was literally five tiles away. Lots of cheap early Science.

Rifles that early are overkill. Napoleon was going to lose to the Longswords anyway, and I was running over -10 Happiness by the time I left Napoleon with one city so he could sign RAs. You are better off saving those two techs for the endgame in most cases. No one will mess with you if you get the kind of tech lead that a pure puppet rush provides. Your cities will slaughter anything short of Artillery.

What is making your engine go is the early Steel, backed up by Rationalism. 5 Science per Scientist is just absurd, and Longswords have a solid window if you burn a GS to speed Steel up.

aimlessgun said:

Or rather hold off the random AI with 2 warriors because they advance with archers in the front and then suicide their guys on your Drill II warrior on a hill across a river.

Click to expand...

Yeah sure .. lets bend the truth.

Lets get things straight: he talked about one warrior and purchasing stuff, which means you should not have money to buy a second one. So that makes 1 warrior, 3 citys.
Talking about the ai you are right. They will suicide 3 units into your drill 2 warrior on a hill across a river(happens every game) and kill him. What now ? Its like you are talking about Civ4 here and never even played Civ5. Yes, back then a fortified Warrior was unkillable.


Just saw another thread with someone talking about a legendary start on king and how imbalanced this and that is. Yeah ... with settings in your favor you can pull everything off you want.
So much talking about stuff, how easy deity is. I would bet that 80% of those guys never finished a Civ5 game.

Realyn said:

Yeah sure .. lets bend the truth.

Lets get things straight: he talked about one warrior and purchasing stuff, which means you should not have money to buy a second one. So that makes 1 warrior, 3 citys.
Talking about the ai you are right. They will suicide 3 units into your drill 2 warrior on a hill across a river(happens every game) and kill him. What now ? Its like you are talking about Civ4 here and never even played Civ5. Yes, back then a fortified Warrior was unkillable.


Just saw another thread with someone talking about a legendary start on king and how imbalanced this and that is. Yeah ... with settings in your favor you can pull everything off you want.
So much talking about stuff, how easy deity is. I would bet that 80% of those guys never finished a Civ5 game.

Click to expand...

Well I was partially making a joke about the poor AI, but to argue the point.

You start with a warrior. So that's 2 warriors. The AI will rarely set it up to have 3 guys attack your fortified position at once, they will often come 1 by 1. You can swap out your damaged warrior with your other fresh one and rinse and repeat.

Look, the computer can sometimes overwhelm you with a rush, if they accidentally play their cards right, or maybe you have no defensible positions or something, who knows. Or maybe they come with multiple spears or even a swordsman, in which case you're in trouble. But my point stands that the chance of the AI pulling off a successful rush on you is pretty low. Most of the time they won't even try.

I guess it's not a bad point though, if you wanted to go for the totally foolproof rifle beeline you'd be better off doing a warrior/sword rush and getting Calendar/Writing after Iron Working.

aimlessgun:

I don't agree with that. Comps on King have rushed me with something like 4 Warriors and 2 Archers, and they were pretty good about concentrating fire. I don't know what you guys are doing that's modifying the behavior of your AIs to make it worse. Maybe it's odd unit placement on tiles or something.

Roxlimn said:

aimlessgun:

I don't agree with that. Comps on King have rushed me with something like 4 Warriors and 2 Archers, and they were pretty good about concentrating fire. I don't know what you guys are doing that's modifying the behavior of your AIs to make it worse. Maybe it's odd unit placement on tiles or something.

Click to expand...

Hrm. Well I guess I'm out of line throwing around assessments like "most likely" and "probably won't". My sample size for early AI rushes is like 3, so I guess I can't say anything definitely.

I have seen the 4 warriors 2 archers, though it was on deity (pretty impressive for king!), but it really did go down like I described: their archers wandered in first, then their warriors sort of staggered in 1 by 1. But maybe I'm the one getting lucky and what you are seeing is the norm.

Realyn said:

Yeah sure .. lets bend the truth.

Lets get things straight: he talked about one warrior and purchasing stuff, which means you should not have money to buy a second one. So that makes 1 warrior, 3 citys.
Talking about the ai you are right. They will suicide 3 units into your drill 2 warrior on a hill across a river(happens every game) and kill him. What now ? Its like you are talking about Civ4 here and never even played Civ5. Yes, back then a fortified Warrior was unkillable.


Just saw another thread with someone talking about a legendary start on king and how imbalanced this and that is. Yeah ... with settings in your favor you can pull everything off you want.
So much talking about stuff, how easy deity is. I would bet that 80% of those guys never finished a Civ5 game.

Click to expand...

If you find people discussing strategies to beat the game offensive, then reading a post about a strategy on the strategy sub-forum of a forum dedicated to strategy games is probably not for you.

aimlessgun said:

Hrm. Well I guess I'm out of line throwing around assessments like "most likely" and "probably won't". My sample size for early AI rushes is like 3, so I guess I can't say anything definitely.

I have seen the 4 warriors 2 archers, though it was on deity (pretty impressive for king!), but it really did go down like I described: their archers wandered in first, then their warriors sort of staggered in 1 by 1. But maybe I'm the one getting lucky and what you are seeing is the norm.

Click to expand...

im finish my game already on King difficulty now im at upperhand in emperor (i cant finish it yet, i havent play my civ for a week) and i experience just like u mention. They come 1 by 1, and dont have a strong battle formation, their range unit are put in front and left vunerable. Even in emperor.

But yeah, im never playing deity, not yet. I will play it gradualy but so far i have no problem with barbs instead they sometimes appear from no where capturing my worker or settlers.

Other thing, if u hit barbs warrior with city range attack or archer, they will tend to fortify : healing. So it make u easier to call up the reinforcement (warrior that wandering arround the map) to the spot where the barbs attack.

And yeah, i never met 4 warrior and 2 barbs archer in my game.

haroon said:

im finish my game already on King difficulty now im at upperhand in emperor (i cant finish it yet, i havent play my civ for a week) and i experience just like u mention. They come 1 by 1, and dont have a strong battle formation, their range unit are put in front and left vunerable. Even in emperor.

But yeah, im never playing deity, not yet. I will play it gradualy but so far i have no problem with barbs instead they sometimes appear from no where capturing my worker or settlers.

Other thing, if u hit barbs warrior with city range attack or archer, they will tend to fortify : healing. So it make u easier to call up the reinforcement (warrior that wandering arround the map) to the spot where the barbs attack.

And yeah, i never met 4 warrior and 2 barbs archer in my game.

Click to expand...

I think we were talking about AI Civs, not the barbs. At least I know I was. Never met a barb force with 4 Warriors and 2 Archers.

Generally, the guys giving me problems with early aggression are the usual suspects. Monte is surprisingly bad early on, because he concentrates on Jaguars, and those aren't too hard to deal with. It's the Archers that give it teeth.

Sometimes, the AI wanders in with Archers first. I don't know why they do that, but I suspect it has to do with not having info on where your units are, so they're not predisposed to protecting the Archers.

When Bismarck rushed me, it was with 2 Archers, 3 Warriors, and 3 Brutes. Meanwhile, Washington was attacking me from the south with 3 Warriors and 2 Archers. They did not attack one at a time. It was brutal.

uberfish did this in an Emperor OCC game by 0 BC...not sure what turn that is .

Darrell

Its like you are talking about Civ4 here and never even played Civ5. Yes, back then a fortified Warrior was unkillable.

Click to expand...

No, it was not. Clearly, THIS guy never played Civ4.

That being said, I also disagree with those saying that Deity is extremely easy. It probably is very easy for players who could already win in Civ4 Deity. I was an IMM Civ4 player - never won in Deity - haven`t tried much anyways, and woud win the majority of my games in IMM. In Civ5, I just can`t lose in IMM. Never. Not a game. But I`m still having trouble with Deity (thoug I don`t abuse horseman rush, that doesn`t count to me).

Realyn said:

Its like you are talking about Civ4 here and never even played Civ5. Yes, back then a fortified Warrior was unkillable.

Click to expand...

Axes.



Thanks for making my day.

Cheers!
-Liq

Realyn said:

1. Build capital on top luxury resource. Build Scout. Build Warrior. Steal Worker from City state.
2. Research Calendar.
3. Purchase another Settler.
4. Sell resource to AI, even if you hit unhappiness.
5. Start building 3rd settler
6. Build second city on top of luxury resource. Sell that too, even if your happiness is in the red.
7. Purchase library in capital. Put two gangstas in specialist slots.
8. Build 3rd city (I never build more than 3 cities in a game). Hunt for a spot with lots of luxuries.
9. By now, you should have all the elementary techs from the top of the tree.

10. Get killed by some random AI and reload. Way to go

Click to expand...

If you already have warriors, archers and horses (horseback riding and archery are top of the tree, as opposed to iron or bronze), the AI will not get to kill you. You'd have to be damn unlucky not to be able to mount a proper defense with that.