Immortal curs rush tips!

Been trying curs rush on immortal level with mixed success. Immortal normal speed pangea.

I am trying to guage what others build before the rush. Barracks/stables/forges/libraries/granaries/ universities?? Maybe skip stables and use civics.

Do you have HE/NE and GT built?

Who to attack first? Do you go for the financial Ai or the military strong? What is your average curs date?? 600ad? 800ad? 1000ad?

What do you do when the Ai hit rifles? Cavalry vs rifles? Cannons?? Wealth and tech to rifles/ cannons?

Tech routes. Aesth-Lit/ music/currency/ COl/philosophy/ CS/ paper/edu/Lib. Golden age around philosophy/CS. I think an issue may be loss of focus late game.

Whipping curs. Do you use 2 or 3 pop whips? What do you whip in captured cities?? CH? granary? curs?

Are there some cities you don't whip? Capital? HE city? GP farm??

Any thoughts on the above or additional tips would be great.

My main issue seems to be the Ai hit rifles after 2-3 Ai have been capitulated and the economy just gets tanked. 40-50 strong Ai stacks can be a pain even if just knights/mace/pikes.

I would post a game but my account is already max'd out.

@Gumbolt: Best advice I can give is to watch @AbsoluteZero's latest vid playing Zara on deity here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26dUvA_Pq7M&feature=plcp

NB: this is part 1 of 9 - but all 9 are up.

IMHO, it's one of the best examples of a cuir rush (although war actually starts using medieval units to capture horses) you could hope to see - and answers pretty much all the questions you have, although perhaps not in the way you might expect.

Hey Gumi, bored too while no sgotm?
Usually when i see what land i will have, i make 1 big plan.

For example, if there is much food we will not need many Jumbos/HAs that can be upgraded, and use mostly whipping. So i want my cities big, and when they have all buildings on wealth/research. Granary, Barracks and Forge can be all you want, stables are nice but not needed with Vassalage and/or Theo if a city struggles getting developed.

Whipping Curis, i get them out quick and dun look much at 2 or 3 pop whips. Special tiles, try not whipping those but dun worry about 3f farms or gras hills too much.
Get your ball rolling with new captured cities, and dun worry about your old ones doing nothing but growing back 1-2 and then whip again ~~

GT i never build, cos i aim for happy via vassals and new land with resources.
Theaters if you have time are good thou, for the slider. But they are luxury.

Same for techs, make 1 big plan.
Say you want 4 GS for 2x Edu, Philo, and Lib. You will want compass, and machinery you do not.

Aest + Lib + Music is often best, if lucky you can trade for Currency with these techs very soon.
With marble it's even better, if no marble i often have neither HE or NE, Paci and 2-3 cities creating GP can cover without. HE early is nice, but for Curis it's about as much over rated as GT

First throw any idea you have about Cuirs being a rush unit out the window. They are a Renaissance break out war unit. Now for your questions.

Gumbolt said:

I am trying to guage what others build before the rush. Barracks/stables/forges/libraries/granaries/ universities?? Maybe skip stables and use civics.

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Barracks, Theaters, and Granaries are all you will ever need to build in any city besides a select few. With Cuirs you will have enough time to build Forges in your cities, but stables are unneeded, and expensive. Libraries are good but only need to be built in cities that can run 2 scientists in, or are cottaged.

Now here comes my 100% truth that everyone who wants to get better at Civ needs to understand for any victory besides Space Race, and even then in some Space Races it still holds true. Universities are awful, they are one of the worst buildings in the game. They are a huge waste of hammers. A good deal of people will try to argue that the NW is sooooo strong that it makes up for it. But it really isn't, it costs a ton of hammers to build, and only provides you with some unneeded beakers at the point in the game where you shouldn't worry about techs. At this point in the game you will always want to be running your culture slider at 30-40%, and most of the time you will only have 20-40% more you can run on your slider. So getting more gold will usually be better so you can use it to research at max when you need to get to something to finish the game. So thus what does 100% beakers do for you? In my eyes nothing at all, and it is a useless building. But not everyone is a pure breed warmonger like me so do as you like, but keep in mind that Unis are a strait awful hammer to beaker conversion, and that building research will get you more beakers than building a Uni.

Gumbolt said:

Do you have HE/NE and GT built?

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Yes I always build HE, and GT. But NE is good but not needed in every game.

Gumbolt said:

Who to attack first? Do you go for the financial Ai or the military strong? What is your average curs date?? 600ad? 800ad? 1000ad?

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You will usually want to attack either the weakest AI, or one in the middle that you can set up to being strong. But if you get Cuirs early enough always vassal the strongest AI first, and use that to snowball the game.

The speed of getting Cuirs really depends on your land situation, also even if you get Cuirs early doesn't mean you can ATTACK early. Your attack date matters a lot more than your tech date. I can get MT any where from 200 AD to 800 AD on the late end. But when I get MT before 450 AD I will never be able to attack before about 500 AD due to lack of hammers to mass out Cuirs fast. But my average attack date is around 650 AD.

Gumbolt said:

What do you do when the Ai hit rifles? Cavalry vs rifles? Cannons?? Wealth and tech to rifles/ cannons?

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You have two options that will open for you when this happens. If you are stream rolling the game enough you will easily be able to continue just whipping out Cuirs, and have a massive army that won't care about what the AI has. (I have had stacks of 600 Cuirs when I finish games.) Your second option if you can not just finish is to tech to Riffling, save up a bunch of gold to upgrade the super Cuirs into Cavs, and draft out a bunch of Riffles.

Gumbolt said:

Tech routes. Aesth-Lit/ music/currency/ COl/philosophy/ CS/ paper/edu/Lib. Golden age around philosophy/CS. I think an issue may be loss of focus late game.

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Your tech route depends on the map 100% of the time so I can not give you much advice besides the normal go for Aesth-Music if you can't Oracle CoL or Currency.

Gumbolt said:

Whipping curs. Do you use 2 or 3 pop whips? What do you whip in captured cities?? CH? granary? curs?

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I continually whip 4-2 whips every time they are up, which is around every other turn or so. In new cities if I have a unit to defend I will whip a granary if the city is larger otherwise just strait Cuirs. If I don't have a defender then it is defender then Cuirs.

Gumbolt said:

Are there some cities you don't whip? Capital? HE city? GP farm??

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There are a whole 2 cities I won't whip much. The first is my highest commerce city, the second is my HE city. The rest can get whipped into oblivion.

Gumbolt said:

Any thoughts on the above or additional tips would be great.

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Try to think about what I have to say, and don't go with the bandwagon. Stop being a sheep, and become a wolf.

Gumbolt said:

My main issue seems to be the Ai hit rifles after 2-3 Ai have been capitulated and the economy just gets tanked. 40-50 strong Ai stacks can be a pain even if just knights/mace/pikes.

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It seems that you don't understand how to extreme research, or finish games. You need to ignore almost every single building, and just whip more units. Units win games, buildings do not. 40-50 units don't matter if you have 150.

@Gb: No need to watch AZ's vid after all! @Zx Zero Zx has pretty much nailed the key messages from AZ's vids - especially in making his last four quotes.

I think what hit me on my last game I went to attack Cyrus and he vasselled to Monty who declared. (He had a 45 strong stack) So i had to roll back my 30 or so units back to Monty taking 3-7 cities. Sadly his knights upgraded to curs and my stack was on the retreat from his huge stack. He retook 3-4 of his cities including his capital. His pikes/phants/mace and curs together were lethal. Once his stack split up I was able to destroy it.

However once his stack was destroyed AP peace landed and he was left with 10 cities. I should of burned his cities or waited for his stack to come to me first. (i hardly planned the war.) it also ruined my pleased/friendly status not helped by my vassel. By time I had crushed the stack I had Khan on other side of map plotting and he had 13 cities and a huge stack too.

Even with a stack of 40 or so curs it was slow work against muskets/pike and curs. Which all had 20-30% str and +25% mounted.

I think perhaps I needed to do more with espionage. Attacking cities with city walls and 60% cultural defences is tough. I got Mongols down to 10 cities when he got rifles.

Overall I could of still taken them both down but I would now need rifles and maybe cannons. I had about 25 cities by this point.

Zx Zero Zx said:

Barracks, Theaters, and Granaries are all you will ever need to build in any city besides a select few. With Cuirs you will have enough time to build Forges in your cities, but stables are unneeded, and expensive. Libraries are good but only need to be built in cities that can run 2 scientists in, or are cottaged.


I am not far off here then. I have not really been building universities/OX uni/or theatres. I didn't see the point as the ojective was to win.


Yes I always build HE, and GT. But NE is good but not needed in every game.
Fair enough. GT would only be good if I suffered unhappiness.



You will usually want to attack either the weakest AI, or one in the middle that you can set up to being strong. But if you get Cuirs early enough always vassal the strongest AI first, and use that to snowball the game.

I have been going for those most likely to reach rifles first.

The speed of getting Cuirs really depends on your land situation, also even if you get Cuirs early doesn't mean you can ATTACK early. Your attack date matters a lot more than your tech date. I can get MT any where from 200 AD to 800 AD on the late end. But when I get MT before 450 AD I will never be able to attack before about 500 AD due to lack of hammers to mass out Cuirs fast. But my average attack date is around 650 AD.

Here's where I may be slow. I am not starting my curs rush around this date.



You have two options that will open for you when this happens. If you are stream rolling the game enough you will easily be able to continue just whipping out Cuirs, and have a massive army that won't care about what the AI has. (I have had stacks of 600 Cuirs when I finish games.) Your second option if you can not just finish is to tech to Riffling, save up a bunch of gold to upgrade the super Cuirs into Cavs, and draft out a bunch of Riffles.

The issue here could be the way I am using curs. I can lose 5-10 curs attacking a city. Especially if the Ai has 10-12 cities and spams units. Do you use espionage much? Or do you just attack the weaker defended cities first?

Your tech route depends on the map 100% of the time so I can not give you much advice besides the normal go for Aesth-Music if you can't Oracle CoL or Currency.

Was pretty much doing this anyway. Although I have been trying to avoid wonders like mids and oracle so to improve my game.


I continually whip 4-2 whips every time they are up, which is around every other turn or so. In new cities if I have a unit to defend I will whip a granary if the city is larger otherwise just strait Cuirs. If I don't have a defender then it is defender then Cuirs.



There are a whole 2 cities I won't whip much. The first is my highest commerce city, the second is my HE city. The rest can get whipped into oblivion.

Yep I pretty much whip a city froom 6-3 or 5-3 for curs and I do this is nearly 100% of my cities. I don't do buildings once I get started. Maybe granaries/ a defender as you suggest.

Try to think about what I have to say, and don't go with the bandwagon. Stop being a sheep, and become a wolf.



It seems that you don't understand how to extreme research, or finish games. You need to ignore almost every single building, and just whip more units. Units win games, buildings do not. 40-50 units don't matter if you have 150.

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I wonder if this is where I am going wrong as I never seem to have more than 60-70 curs. Mainly due to losses to pike/phants/ muskets and mace stacked in a city. Yet I can only whip curs when the cities let me. Although I avoid 3-4 pop whips

How much conversion of land do you do once you start a curs attack?? Will you convert most land to farmed grassland so cities grow back quicker or do you preserve cottages?

Overall perhaps I am missing something on war tactics and getting to a curs start date quicker. Maybe also numbers I use in my initial assaults. 20-30 curs?

Mylene said:

Hey Gumi, bored too while no sgotm?

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Very bored waiting!!! Least i have now got a few immortal wins under my belt. Not really ready for deity yet. Took me long enough to play immortal. (lazy or too busy on SGOTM?)

Not sure why you don't build Theaters as they give insane happiness, if I didn't build them all of my cities would have around 10 unhappiness over its cap or more. Also not sure why you don't build the best NW in the game. :| The production you get out of GT is insane, and it is a very cheap wonder to build.

When I say weakest I mean power wise. Tech doesn't mean much over all with the AI. They can be dumb as frack, but have massive massive stacks, Monty Shaka cough cough.

Learning how to speed research is something that is not easily taught to non experienced Deity players. But if you can convince me to not be lazy, and teach you I might in PM.

Losing 5-10 Cuirs a city is massive, you are fighting the war completely wrong. I try to not lose more than 2 Cuirs more than a build a turn. If I know I will lose more than I can build, AKA not to RNG hax, I will try, and flank the AI by luring defenders out of cities to protect others so I can pick off units for free. Also I will pick off cities for free if I can. Also I very rarely use EP for other than watching what the AI is doing, hell some games I will even forget to put it on anyone. >.>

Not sure why you avoid the best wonder in the game but ok. Pro tip on how to get to being a better player, abuse everything that is abuse. (Whipping, Drafting, Oracle, GLH)


I think you have the same problem as a lot of people, and that your early game is weak. Thus allowing the AI to start having their production boosts having an effect.

I really don't convert land much at all after I get going. It is not because it isn't worth it. It is simply because I am a high lazy frack who doesn't want to micro more. But I already farm most of my land anyways, I will have 2-3 cottaged river cities but not my whole empire. That's for noble players.

Getting faster Cuirs is all about using Caste very early to run 5+ scientists for massed GS for bulbs. When I attack I will always attack at first with 10-15 Cuirs with more on the way. To get the first city you don't need that many Cuirs.

Zx Zero Zx said:

Not sure why you don't build Theaters as they give insane happiness, if I didn't build them all of my cities would have around 10 unhappiness over its cap or more. Also not sure why you don't build the best NW in the game. :| The production you get out of GT is insane, and it is a very cheap wonder to build.

Perhaps I should use these more

When I say weakest I mean power wise. Tech doesn't mean much over all with the AI. They can be dumb as frack, but have massive massive stacks, Monty Shaka cough cough.

The risk here is the Ai vasseling to a stronger Ai

Learning how to speed research is something that is not easily taught to non experienced Deity players. But if you can convince me to not be lazy, and teach you I might in PM. I might take you up on that.

Losing 5-10 Cuirs a city is massive, you are fighting the war completely wrong. I try to not lose more than 2 Cuirs more than a build a turn. If I know I will lose more than I can build, AKA not to RNG hax, I will try, and flank the AI by luring defenders out of cities to protect others so I can pick off units for free. Also I will pick off cities for free if I can. Also I very rarely use EP for other than watching what the AI is doing, hell some games I will even forget to put it on anyone. >.>

i think I just came across a strong war monger. I was going for his big cities and they all had 6-8 strong defenders. Perhaps due to the late date.

Not sure why you avoid the best wonder in the game but ok. Pro tip on how to get to being a better player, abuse everything that is abuse. (Whipping, Drafting, Oracle, GLH)

Not so much avoid them but trying to learn the game without abusing wonders too much. A strong start does not always need a lot of wonders.


I think you have the same problem as a lot of people, and that your early game is weak. Thus allowing the AI to start having their production boosts having an effect.

It could probably be improved but I am normally first to liberalism with most Ai still struggling for paper/edu/nationalism. Maybe I should be further ahead. Again pends how many med wars i do.

I really don't convert land much at all after I get going. It is not because it isn't worth it. It is simply because I am a high lazy frack who doesn't want to micro more. But I already farm most of my land anyways, I will have 2-3 cottaged river cities but not my whole empire. That's for noble players. Perhaps I should use a few more farmed cities for growth. I am good at growing my capital but some of my other cities can slack a bit.

Getting faster Cuirs is all about using Caste very early to run 5+ scientists for massed GS for bulbs. When I attack I will always attack at first with 10-15 Cuirs with more on the way. To get the first city you don't need that many Cuirs.

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Here is where getting the Oracle really does help. Going music route first can delay me.

Right time to set up an immortal game on here and look at improving my ole game.

Which leader hmmmmm. A non financial/ philosophical leader for sure. (See this is why I am so slow at curs as i always try to create a challenge).

Trying to move up in difficulty while trying to create a challenge is just making is harder for you to learn how the AI works on the next difficulty.

Zx Zero Zx said:

Learning how to speed research is something that is not easily taught to non experienced Deity players. But if you can convince me to not be lazy, and teach you I might in PM.

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Could I convince you?

Gumi..just look at our sgotm game where we used Curis
There are some basics that never change, like Zero said GS generation is very important cos you want to rush, and "skip" many beakers you would need without bulbs.

So music is just very good, free golden age for doing that..creating great peoples.
And good trades (Drama too if you have time), Currency when not warmongering early is mainly valuable for selling techs for gold, but you can get lucky and trade for it (not so sure about Imm, but on Deity rather often).
Similar for MC, Construction...it's all techs you want, but usually become available for trade cos AIs will never skip that path.

Revent said:

Could I convince you?

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It really depends on your knowledge of the game. I am no where near as good as some of the Deity Space HoFers, but I understand some of the things they do. But they have their secrets as they are a much older Deity club that I am not in. Message me about what you know about research on crack.

Theatres are hammers that could go to wealth or stables, unless you have dye for the free happiness I wouldnt bother. Unhappiness problems during war are best solved with the whip.

National Epic is huge, not building that in your most food-rich city is a major blunder. Far more important than building the globe theatre.

ben-jammin said:

Theatres are hammers that could go to wealth or stables, unless you have dye for the free happiness I wouldnt bother. Unhappiness problems during war are best solved with the whip.

National Epic is huge, not building that in your most food-rich city is a major blunder. Far more important than building the globe theatre.

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Lol ok. Not going to argue with you if you think stables are better than theaters. You obviously never run the culture slider, or have had 40 whip anger in all of your cities.

Zx Zero Zx said:

Lol ok. Not going to argue with you if you think stables are better than theaters. You obviously never run the culture slider, or have had 40 whip anger in all of your cities.

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Not gonna argue with you if you bulb heavily without building the national epic

See, that doesn't go anywhere. What does whip anger matter when you're rolling up vassals for a domination win? At that point I find cash from running wealth to promote dozens of level 3-5 cuirs to cavalry a lot more helpful. Having cash on hand to upgrade medieval units to rifleman is also handy when you're trying to keep pushing forward and enemy SODs appear to retake their cities.

ben-jammin said:

Not gonna argue with you if you bulb heavily without building the national epic

See, that doesn't go anywhere. What does whip anger matter when you're rolling up vassals for a domination win? At that point I find cash from running wealth to promote dozens of level 3-5 cuirs to cavalry a lot more helpful. Having cash on hand to upgrade medieval units to rifleman is also handy when you're trying to keep pushing forward and enemy SODs appear to retake their cities.

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I never said I don't build either the NE or Wealth. I just said that GT is a bit stronger than NE, you could argue that the NE is a little stronger due to only needing a Library to build it, but the top 3 are all about the same power level.

hey Zx Zero Zx

I'm terrible at conquests and using units to win games, but if I wanted to try it. Are you saying if I capture cities and build it a barracks, granary and theater I can turn it into a unit farming city forever?

do you have any advice for this because whenever I build units my games usually fall apart lol.. so I usually stick to making infrastructure and boosting tech speed for other victory types... >.<

I haven't been able to get pre-900 AD attack dates either (on Deity), but I find these games still to be very winnable. Being at 20+ cities allows for some good teching after Communism, and taking on the least advanced AIs with either Artillery + Infantry or Tanks + Spies/Bombers is often enough for a diplomatic victory or domination. You don't even need to be there first, just make A LOT of those units with all the cities you have. An important thing for that is to be wary about taking on vassals who mess up your diplomatic standing or whose cities could be used for getting closer to domination.