Korea/Babylon Rifle Rush

I've been tinkering with an opening strategy that can be used by the Babs and Korea to get a large army of rifles by about turn 100 and go on a conquering spree which can be well used for a domination, science or diplomacy win. I've formulated this with deity level in mind but it should also work on other levels where the AI's have at least a decent amount of cash.

The end result is a large force of units about half of which, go(l)d willing, can be upgraded to rifles, around turn 100. I don't feel like it's fully perfected yet, and any input or suggestions would be appreciated, but I'm getting Babylon Rifling a little before turn 100 and Korea a little after. This is achieved via a 3-tech chain bulb of Gunpowder-Metallurgy-Rifling.

I was trying to come up with an alternative to the rush porcelain tower, rush notre damne, bulb Astronomy, open Rationalism etc etc etc path which, though awesome, for me has become a real snore fest. Doing the same thing too often detracts from the game, but there need to be competitive alternatives.

This is a timing game and you have a lot to balance. There are a number of things that you want to synchronize, they are -

1. Finish all Liberty SPs
2. Complete the hard build of haiga sophia (rush build the PT)
3. Have approximately ten units that upgrade to rifles completed
4. Clear the tech tree to the point that Physics, Machinery and Steel are open
5. Have 3 - 4 RA's about to mature
6. Pop a self-produced Great Scientist

To do this by turn 100 you need exactly 3 cites, the last of which is settled usually before turn 45.

Capital - build priorities
scout (second scout if you wish)
monument
worker/granary
settler
library
NC
University (immediately staff 2 scientists)
(rush build PT)

2nd City
library
monument
granary
haiga sophia

This city is settled with the Collective Rule SP. is key, you want at least 2 high production tiles to work. Marble is the most desirable lux for this city. It helps to grow this city to at least pop 4 before switching to production focus.

3rd City
purchase library
monument
granary
units...

High spot is also the best location for this city but you'll likely be pulled between luxuries and production as you'd like a lot of both. Makes for some interesting headscratchers as to the best city location.

You usually have a few stray turns in the capital that can be used to build some additional units there as well, or if Korea consider Garden/National Epic.

Social Policies

The best order to take SP's is:

Liberty-Settler-Worker-Republic-Representation-Meritocracy (Great Scientist)

Tech Path and RAs

Take Pottery - Writing (Babylon plants the GS). Then take Mining and resource techs before Philosophy. Then beeline Theology followed by beeline Education. Then clear out the pre-requisite techs for Machinery, Physics, Steel. Preselect these three techs to control RA overflow.

Sign 3, or 4 if you can manage them, RAs 30 turns before you anticipate that this tech order will be complete. On a lucky start that that'll be about turn 65, 66 or 67... on a less lucky start add 5 or so turns.

Other Stuff

If you play deity you know that when you settle 3 cities odds are very high that you'll be in at least one and probably multiple wars before turn 100. You'll have a large amount of bowmen/archers being built from fairly early so handling multiple invasions is feasible. Early wars happen - quit complaining and deal with them!

I like to mix in about 4 pikemen with about 6 - 8 bowmen/archers as the units I build. If you do this then Machinery is not required to be picked up by the RAs. Set the order of tech preselection as Physics - Steel - Machinery. That way you still unlock Gunpowder if you fall short of beakers to finish all three. Upgrade the pikemen for now and use the bowmen in support while you manually finish Machinery.

After the first terrain promotion the archery units can take siege which carries over to rifles when you upgrade.

Babylon gets the Academy while Korea receives extra RAs at library, NC, PT and University. These abilities speed up the rate and make it possible to open Gunpowder in time.

Use the 3 saved Scientists, from Liberty, PT and the University specialists, to bulb Rifling and spend some of your saved up cash on upgrades. 280 per pikeman and 360 per archer.

On deity you have approximately 50 turns of severe military tech advantage now. This is good for Domination, Science and Diplomatic Victories.

Happy conquering

Here's a screenshot, didn't run perfectly due to a RA misshap, but not bad. 4 rifles and 7 bowmen on turn 106. hmmm...



now to head in the direction of whoever builds notre damne...

Just to puncture ur plan;

There is no way to get that much gold by round 100 that u can buy a libary and upgrade units from archer to riflemen. I mean clearly if u play on "Quick" setting and Settler difficulty then this tactic might be flawless, but for any other setting it would fail due to the gold if not for other things.

Research turns and culture costs dosen't look like settler, it's normal(prince+) number I think.
But I wonder how he got so much money, too.

Actually it is quite possible. Look at the screenshot (which is a deity game btw). That's standard speed and size, pictures don't lie.

No dirty tricks required or used, unless you call selling resources/open borders a dirty trick.

EDIT - the four riflemen are upgraded from four pikemen, which is a little cheaper. The rest can get upgraded as city loot and peace deals begin to roll in.

Babylon rifle rushes have been around for a long time.

You don't even need education for it to work. (Liberty/Hagia Sofia/free GS = easy bulbs)

A few lux sales later, and you're fine.

MadDjinn said:

Babylon rifle rushes have been around for a long time.

Click to expand...

Can't have been around for that long, the patch is only a few months old If you're talking about prepatch, then yeah .....but lol so? those methods aren't current now.

MadDjinn said:

You don't even need education for it to work. (Liberty/Hagia Sofia/free GS = easy bulbs)

Click to expand...

Interesting, how have you been making this work? My idea was to get 3 GS's as quickly as possible for the expensive trio of gunpowder-metallurgy-rifling. I realized your best bet was around the time when you get the liberty finisher and the PT scientist which happens usually around turn 90 - 100.

But to get to Rifling that early I thought a solution would be for an additional GS to come from your own specialists, discarding the possibility of hanging on to the writing scientist for all that time. If the Capital is going to run such an early university then it needs to be freed up from building haigia sophia, hence the second cities purpose. But there's still an awful lot of units that you want built in order to make use of the tech advantage, hence the third city.

If you're not going Education then around what time do you get Rifling, as you're one scientist less...?

Perhaps there is another way using more RAs.

snarzberry said:

Can't have been around for that long, the patch is only a few months old If you're talking about prepatch, then yeah .....but lol so? those methods aren't current now.



Interesting, how have you been making this work? My idea was to get 3 GS's as quickly as possible for the expensive trio of gunpowder-metallurgy-rifling. I realized your best bet was around the time when you get the liberty finisher and the PT scientist which happens usually around turn 90 - 100.

But to get to Rifling that early I thought a solution would be for an additional GS to come from your own specialists, discarding the possibility of hanging on to the writing scientist for all that time. If the Capital is going to run such an early university then it needs to be freed up from building haigia sophia, hence the second cities purpose. But there's still an awful lot of units that you want built in order to make use of the tech advantage, hence the third city.

If you're not going Education then around what time do you get Rifling, as you're one scientist less...?

Perhaps there is another way using more RAs.

Click to expand...

RAs make it fairly easy. No need to tech shift as there's plenty of techs in that path to move things along. If you're doing it without RAs, then you're not getting back to gunpowder (post-Education) in time.

This strat seems to be flawed with Korea. If you are beelining with Korea, then your early techs are going to screw your median value from your free RAs (from the library/NC), thus making those essentially worthless. Also, beelining while you have the RAs will cause you to have, again, a few early techs undiscovered. I signed 4 RAs on turn 66 and, now at turn 96, I need 4 more techs for gunpowder, and I still need to hard build universities. If you beeline straight to Education (I did not do this, I chose to remove a few early techs like archery, BW, IW, Sailing etc) then your RAs will be reallllly worthless.
So yeah, maybe I need to try it again because it will take me a looong time in this game until I have rifles. I guess I could try it as Babylon; it seems to be a lot more effective for that civ than Korea, or any other for that matter.

snarzberry said:

Can't have been around for that long, the patch is only a few months old If you're talking about prepatch, then yeah .....but lol so? those methods aren't current now.

Click to expand...

MadDjinn's complaint is that you're presenting the concept of an early Rifle rush as a new idea when it isn't. I had a lot to do with adapting the original concept to Deity and resuscitating the idea after some nerfs, but that doesn't make the idea mine. I didn't work out the original GL choprush/save SPs/triple bulb/Scientific Revolution methodology that made the first version of the approach work. HuntingX did, and deserves attribution even if he's no longer around to fight for it.

That doesn't make your idea bad or unoriginal; it just makes it less original than you made it sound in your opening paragraph.

MadDjinn is also right that it's possible to finish things faster without grabbing Education, at least as Babylon. You've got three top-tier Medieval techs along the beeline, and the ones you need can be cleared by four simultaneous RAs. (Important: you must sign them all on the same turn.) The trick is closing out the other branches.

Assuming you grab Theo for HS and a GS, you've got four problems - at least one of which needs to go away. Namely: HBR, Currency, the Trapping/CS line and the Sailing/Optics/Compass line. The cleanest solutions would be to open Compass (decreasing yield, adding an RA but also decreasing research time) or clearing CS to open Education. Then you just triple bulb Gunpowder -> Metallurgy -> Rifling and go wreck house with upgraded Bowmen. (Promotion saving on might be a good idea to get to March rapidly.)

Now, there are of course problems with MadDjinn's idea as well. Getting four or five simultaneous RAs to resolve on Deity isn't exactly going to be easy in many starts. You're also going to be stuck hard building the Porcelain Tower if you want it and finding some solution to the problems that conquest is going to generate. My guess is that the best solution would be to ignore the PT and Rationalism entirely, go Piety, spend all cash after the first RA wave on upgrading units and build your game around maximizing the impact of the rush.

If you can save ten or fifteen turns on getting the machine up and running and improve your management, you should be able to consistently generate a winning position for a Domination game. My sense is that starting at turn 100-105 is going to be a little late with 2-move units.

trust me, I've been hanging around the forums for long enough to know that going for early rifles is a common and established strategy, I've posted myself previously about it many times If you read my OP as somehow claiming that this is a new idea, then that was unintended, that would be ridiculous! I'm only putting out there a method relevant to the current game of achieving early rifles. In this opening you already have HS, PT and universities up and running by 100 also, along with a decent army, so it could be more flexible than forgoing PT, education and rationalism.

If you do take the multi RA path, avoiding PT, how fast do you get to rifling? If you can get there by turn 85 or so then I'm sure it is crazy strong.

VoO1985, sounds like you signed the RAs a little early and thus didn't get good value for them, the right time to sign them changes each game due to the variables. 7 or 8 turns later might have got you there and opened rifling about turn 102.

I haven't been playing around with it; resuscitating it after the Meritocracy nerf is all you.

I would think that it's attainable at least in the early 90's with Babylon using the triple bulb that the HS change makes possible, even without the GL. Beelining Philo should make the NC possible around turn 60 in a three-city start, especially if you can chop it. You should finish Theo in the early 60's as well if you grabbed Mining. Then all you need to do is:

- Sailing/Optics (+/- 4 turns)
- AH/Archery/Wheel (+/-4 turns)
- Masonry/Bronze/Construction/IW (+/- 8 turns)
- HBR/Math (+/- 5 turns)
- Engineering/MC (+/- 16 turns)

Improving on that speed will revolve primarily around your ability to grow the cities, particularly the capital. A size 9 capital and two size 7 secondary cities with Libraries will produce (9 X 1.5 + 3) X 1.5 + 2 X 7 X 1.5 = 24.75 + 21 = 45.75 per turn, which would trim the research estimates dramatically. I'd conclude that going focus is a bad idea as a result.

The big math question is whether or not building the Academy and running up to Education is actually faster. You need something like 850 extra if you grab CS and Education. It's pretty clear that you're going to end up behind if you plop the Academy down and hard build the Unis; even at 9 per turn over 80 turns (which you won't get), you've made less than you spent on the two extra techs. A rushed Uni in the capital will help a lot with that problem, but then you're cutting into upgrade funds and I'm still not sure that you'll get to your goal faster.

Chop-rushing the GL would accelerate things quite a bit, as long as you were in a position to convert on that with a faster NC. I still think that you hold the GS and take Philosophy with the GL, passing Education (you can bulb it around 95-100 with the GS from the GL's GPP anyway). I also suspect that you'd want to go 2-city until after the NC was done.

Martin Alvito said:

I haven't been playing around with it; resuscitating it after the Meritocracy nerf is all you.

I would think that it's attainable at least in the early 90's with Babylon using the triple bulb that the HS change makes possible, even without the GL.

Click to expand...

I don't doubt it, it's attainable in the late 90's with the method in the OP. I've managed that a couple of times, it depends on the available city locations of course.

Martin Alvito said:

Beelining Philo should make the NC possible around turn 60 in a three-city start, especially if you can chop it.

Click to expand...

If you take Collective first and have a good hammer spot to hard build the library in that city, then purchase the third cities library, you're looking at mid - late 60's at best I believe. Two cities and I'm with you. EDIT - actually, 60 - 65 with chopping is right.

Martin Alvito said:

You should finish Theo in the early 60's as well if you grabbed Mining. Then all you need to do is:

- Sailing/Optics (+/- 4 turns)
- AH/Archery/Wheel (+/-4 turns)
- Masonry/Bronze/Construction/IW (+/- 8 turns)
- HBR/Math (+/- 5 turns)
- Engineering/MC (+/- 16 turns)

Improving on that speed will revolve primarily around your ability to grow the cities, particularly the capital. A size 9 capital and two size 7 secondary cities with Libraries will produce (9 X 1.5 + 3) X 1.5 + 2 X 7 X 1.5 = 24.75 + 21 = 45.75 per turn, which would trim the research estimates dramatically. I'd conclude that going focus is a bad idea as a result.

Click to expand...

That may be about the best pop you could get to focusing on growth, but I'm worried that hammers are going to be scarce. Size 9 plus two size 7's seems a bit of a stretch if you're building HS and units. I haven't tried it but I foresee difficulties growing that high and getting everything built in time...

Martin Alvito said:

The big math question is whether or not building the Academy and running up to Education is actually faster. You need something like 850 extra if you grab CS and Education. It's pretty clear that you're going to end up behind if you plop the Academy down and hard build the Unis; even at 9 per turn over 80 turns (which you won't get), you've made less than you spent on the two extra techs. A rushed Uni in the capital will help a lot with that problem, but then you're cutting into upgrade funds and I'm still not sure that you'll get to your goal faster.

Click to expand...

Ah, so am I correct in understanding now that you're using the writing GS as part of the 3bulb? plus Liberty and the HS as a scientist. I didn't realise that until now, correct me if that's not the case. It's clearer to me now what the plan is.

In the OP strat a university is hard built in the capital after the NC, during the turns 80 - 90. The other cities are building units and the HS at this point.

I can see a number of advantages to going the academy, civil service - education route and then using RAs for Steel, Physics and Machinery, although if your math is right then it's no doubt a tad slower to get off the ground. The academy and it's benefits, the need to only secure 3 stable RAs, an early university in the capital which will yield another GS quite soon, PT/Rationalism buffed second wave RAs and relatively early universities in the other cities.

All of this will help grab Chemistry faster and the push towards Dynamite. If you can on average only achieve Rifling 5 - 10 turns slower than by taking HS as a GS and using the writing and liberty GSs to bulb, but get to the later crucial techs significantly faster then it might be better overall. It's a bit less risky as well, less dependent on avoiding early DoWs from partners.

Martin Alvito said:

Chop-rushing the GL would accelerate things quite a bit, as long as you were in a position to convert on that with a faster NC. I still think that you hold the GS and take Philosophy with the GL. I also suspect that you'd want to go 2-city until after the NC was done.

Click to expand...

I'm avoiding the GL completely atm, since the new ancient wonders inclusion have you found a significant increase in the amount you get it? It'd be good to have as an option some of the time.

Doing the Liberty->PT/Astronomy/Rationalism route (ok, we need a name for this sling so I don't have to keep rewriting the whole thing) is by far the most effective 'long term' solution to the tech tree. You're in modern very simply by turn 200 latest, even with only being able to research 1 tech between RA spams. (more AI/lux's to convert to RAs the faster it is) A few GS along the way + Oxford/Sci Rev and you're done. Mech infantry rush beats Rifle Rush, though comes later.

But that's not really the point. The 'rush' to something, as a strategy, needs to be worthwhile to do, as well as being faster to a specific point than 'normal' strategy. You give up on the long term if you head straight to rifles, but you shouldn't need anything else (ok a cannon or two is nice), so it doesn't matter much that you're hitting modern 50-70 turn later. If you can roll the AI before then, it's not a problem.

To Open Gunpowder:

I don't think you need to concern yourself with Sailing->Optics. until the end. HBR might be good to get rid of though.

Once you have Currency/Metal Casting/Engineering/Civil Service open, you'll get 1/2 of each as RAs pop. Finishing Engineering first gives access to Machinery, then you finish Metal Casting for Steel/Physics open.

Clearing Sailing/Optics might be faster that currency, but that's your only choice needed once Physics/Machinery/Steel is open. (removing one tech or adding a 'top' tech) At this point, until the RAs clear one of these three, you'll get 1/2 of one of them.

So either sign the 4 at once (Physics/Steel clearing) or if you have to space them, ensure you clear Currency or the Sailing/Optics line. (since with only 2 of the 3 left, you're splitting with Currency)

Oh, another interesting point is that, if this is consistent, then the Ottomans, Americans and French all use the same paths to hit gunpowder with a single GS. (2nd GS goes to Chemistry for better production/cannons)

Spain could do it as well, if there's no horses around.


(so realistically, this is the 'anti' Education route; domination lovers version, basically)

MadDjinn said:

Oh, another interesting point is that, if this is consistent, then the Ottomans, Americans and French all use the same paths to hit gunpowder with a single GS.

Click to expand...

just need to get a free GS at writing with those three civs to make it work =)

vexing said:

just need to get a free GS at writing with those three civs to make it work =)

Click to expand...

heh, that's to go beyond

Getting one from Liberty is enough for Gunpowder. Getting a 2nd from the HS is enough for Chemistry. Then you're basically stuck for a bit while producing, but you will have the time to produce, before finding ways to get to rifling.

MadDjinn said:

heh, that's to go beyond

Getting one from Liberty is enough for Gunpowder. Getting a 2nd from the HS is enough for Chemistry. Then you're basically stuck for a bit while producing, but you will have the time to produce, before finding ways to get to rifling.

Click to expand...

my point was the op strategy involves planting babylon's writing GS for the +6 early beakers to get everything rolling.

snarzberry said:

Ah, so am I correct in understanding now that you're using the writing GS as part of the 3bulb? plus Liberty and the HS as a scientist. I didn't realise that until now, correct me if that's not the case. It's clearer to me now what the plan is.

Click to expand...

Right, that's the suggestion since the math indicates it's actually quicker. You make some serious long-term sacrifices to do that, but...

MadDjinn said:

But that's not really the point. The 'rush' to something, as a strategy, needs to be worthwhile to do, as well as being faster to a specific point than 'normal' strategy. You give up on the long term if you head straight to rifles, but you shouldn't need anything else (ok a cannon or two is nice), so it doesn't matter much that you're hitting modern 50-70 turn later. If you can roll the AI before then, it's not a problem.

Click to expand...

In other words, an advanced rush like the Rifle rush should function like a Keshik rush: you flat out win, or at least generate a guaranteed winning position, with the unit. In my experience, an extra 10-15 turns lets you rapidly knock over an extra civ or two, which goes a long way towards an outright win. If you're generating big raw from , no one else can RA spam you into the ground and you focus on producing GS (unlike the AI), it gets hard to lose.

snarzberry said:

That may be about the best pop you could get to focusing on growth, but I'm worried that hammers are going to be scarce. Size 9 plus two size 7's seems a bit of a stretch if you're building HS and units. I haven't tried it but I foresee difficulties growing that high and getting everything built in time...

Click to expand...

Things are highly dirt-dependent, I suspect. I want to say I had a size 7 capital before turn 50 on Epic playing G-Minor XI recently in just the right Granary start. I definitely see the concern, but my thought process is that:

- If you pass the Uni, you can hard build HS in the capital (and 10-15 there is not unreasonable even without Marble).
- This frees you to unit spam in the two secondary cities after the standard basic infrastructure (Library, Monument, Granary).
- At 6-7 per turn (also a reasonable figure) you're looking at roughly 200 per secondary from turns 60-90.
- That's your Bowmen right there.

The big problem as I see it is coming up with the . Civil Service is amazing for that...but that requires hard teching it, which eats time.

MadDjinn said:

I don't think you need to concern yourself with Sailing->Optics. until the end. HBR might be good to get rid of though.

Click to expand...

Getting rid of Sailing -> Optics is only marginally more expensive but does much more for your medians. Currency is off-beeline, expensive and doesn't reveal a top tech. Teching CS is strictly superior.

The basic problem is that you have four "low" techs and three "top" techs and you need to reverse that equation somehow before the RAs land. Unless you're isolated, you can't depend on more than four or five RAs in a typical Deity start.

I was able to get Rifles at turn 120 w/several other Great Wonders thrown in (Hanging Gardens, Oracle, Notre Dame)... still shooting for earlier Rifles though