8 Archer rush

[Soronery]

Difficulty: Deity
Map: Pangea
Speed: Standard
Special optionsolicy/promotion saving enabled (for convenience). Quick combat+Random personalities. No Diplo or time victory.

Basic idea: Research archer make a ton of archers and attack. Go honor. Get highly promoted archers, upgrade them to crossbows and go kill more stuff. Screw diplomacy just warmonger your ass off.

Pre tries: warrior+archer rushing. Didn't work too great because I couldn't take high defense capitols.

First try:China. Failed. Chokunus are garbage and too weak (11 strength vs 15 strength on a regular crossbow).

Second thoughts: Elizabeth. Did not attempt because her bonuses are garbage.

Final pick: Monty for the kills on culture.

How my game went:

Notes: I used very few trades and no RAs signed until around turn 160. You need to be super careful to not lose any archers. Other units you can lose but not any of your archers or crossbows. Also you cannot use instant heal promotion on archers. If you use more than 1 or 2 instant heals you will lose because your crossbows won't have enough promotions.



Popped a +culture and archer upgrade rune. Killed a few barbs to get that honor GG out.

Build order->scout->monument->archerarcherarcher->Great library (lol)->National college

Early Tech:
Archery->writing->luxury->philosophy->crossbows

Attacked England with ~3-4 archers. Stopped scouting since my scout turned into an archer.
Took a city from her then sued for peace gaining about 450 gold. used that gold and gold that I previously had to buyout 3 archers. Her capitol had an attack strength 15. Once the peace treaty expired I attacked her again.
Surrounded her capitol with 8 archers. Took forever but I took it out. Eliminated England.

Next target was a city state with 16 attack strength and an archer garrison. Barely captured it with no loses. Very clutch. Surrounded with 8 archers and bombarded it for what seemed like ever.

Didn't do much trading and everyone was pissed off at me. I got DoWed and held on for awhile until I could get crossbows.

I had crossbows out before turn 100 and took out 3 cities and Persia's 32 pop 7 wonder gem of a capitol by turn 147. I lost one of my cities to Napolean.

Persia's gem:

Spoiler :

Nothing stands a chance against heavily promoted crossbows. They just mow down armies like artillery.

It is now turn 181 and this is the current state of the game:

Spoiler :

Policies:

Spoiler :

Piety was probably a mistake. My plan is to mass ally CS and pay some tributes to civs that are pissed off at me. I don't want another war until Napolean is dead.

UPDATES:
Turn 239:

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Turn 265:
Top science 15k gold stealth bomber tech. I've been spamming RAs with everyone but Catherine. I have 8 policies left for a cultural win if I go that route.
No one has DoWed me for a long time. I have good happiness and will probably get the Eiffel tower via GE (don't think I will miss it).

Spoiler :

Final thoughts: Not sure if this is a viable strategy but it sure is fun if you can play it out. Kill for gold Kill for culture. If you want to try it out I suggest rerolling a map until you get a mine luxury and at least two resources near your capitol (wheat deer stone ect.).
I may be off but my current guesses (assuming GG):
You need 7 archers to capture a 14-15 defense city.
You need 8 archers if it has an archer garrison.
You need 9 archers to capture a 16 defense city with an archer garrison.

Crossbows will take out enemy artillery pretty easily (cannons are a joke). On open ground it is possible for one crossbow to kill a artillery with 2 shots (1 turn). Usually 2 crossbows will kill artillery in 1 turn.

Crossbows can still still do 2 damage to tanks on open ground. In rough terrain (AI will get open terrain bonus on tanks) tanks can take around 4 damage from crossbows.
It's amazing how long these things stay useful.


Attached below is the initial save and the save of where I currently am. I recommend rolling a different map if you want to try from scratch. My start location was terrible.


Moderator Action: Not a story -> moved to the strategy section and merged with similar thread.

 

[Brigg]

A terrible start is the best test of a viable strategy.

 

[Buccaneer]

Ranged units are good on offense only if you have the terrain to get multiple shots in per turn.

I strongly take exception to you saying CKN are garbage. They are probably one of the best early-mid game units of all. The key is to get them early enough - they are civ destroyers.

 

[Soronery]

Chokunus are good in that they start with double shot. This is pointless if you are one promotion away from getting double shot. They become useless much faster than crossbows. You'll be getting indirect fire eventually so terrain won't be a problem. However before then heavily forested areas are going to cause problems (avoid them).

 

[TPQ]

Ranged units are good on offense only if you have the terrain to get multiple shots in per turn.

I strongly take exception to you saying CKN are garbage. They are probably one of the best early-mid game units of all. The key is to get them early enough - they are civ destroyers.

I tend to agree with Soronery that CKNs aren't all that good for this specific strategy.

One of your goals is to get highly promoted crossbows, which will mean you're already going to get logistics anyway and when you do, your crossbows will be (assuming equal promotions) 36% stronger than CKNs, which in tern will give them a longer useful life.

CKNs probably aren't "garbage", but I can see how crossbows are the better option for this specific strategy.

@Soronery I'll have to give this a go on Immortal. Sounds good and doesn't rely on resources, which is always nice.

 

[snarzberry]

Something along these lines is always an option (perhaps the best) when an AI plonks it's second city down very close to you and you can go right over and take their land. By turn 50 you have your capital, theirs and their second city usually all on great spots.

I've also done similar rushes to this with Egypt's war chariots also.

You can continue to push forwards with more warfare against other civs or you can develop your civ as normal from that point on. I only go for about 5 or 6 archers and rarely have much trouble taking out a near neighbour on deity. It's a solid RoI.

One tip, if you do discover a very near civ in your initial scouting and decide to switch into an archer rush then don't steal a worker from a city-state as you'll get one or two from your target and you're already going to be DoWing once and will wipe them out. You can preserve the diplo situation fairly well this way. But with 2 separate DoW's and an extermination and you might screw your diplo game up right from the start.

 

[Soronery]

One tip, if you do discover a very near civ in your initial scouting and decide to switch into an archer rush then don't steal a worker from a city-state as you'll get one or two from your target and you're already going to be DoWing once and will wipe them out. You can preserve the diplo situation fairly well this way. But with 2 separate DoW's and an extermination and you might screw your diplo game up right from the start.

Actually, when I first started the game I planned on going after city states to see if that would be a viable strategy. On the other hand, you need promotions and dead units. Getting DoWed might help you.

 

[Empty Can]

Cool idea that I'll have to try.

Might be interesting to see how well this would work with Babylon. The unique archer could help early on, and they'd have the tech advantage that could get you to crossbows quicker.

 

[Soronery]

Just an update:

This is the game on turn 239:
Patronage is still pretty powerful when you ally every CS.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Also note that I'm not behind on science (I also have 3 GS that I'm going to use for stealth bombers)

Crossbows are still good at the infantry stage. If they don't have open ground promotions your crossbows can hit them easily for 4 damage a hit. However at that stage they are start getting weak and you need to start transitioning out.

What I should have done (but didn't do early enough) was before I finished researching public schools built/bought out 2x barracks/armories and started pumping out trebs/longswords so I could upgrade them to rifles/cannons for cheap due to the honor policy. Something to remember for future games.

 

[Buccaneer]

I understand the effectiveness of heavily promoted crossbows. The key, though, is to play on a map in which you can surround a city on at least three sides with the archers, I think. Could you have done it if there was only one direction to attack a city?

 

[Soronery]

I understand the effectiveness of heavily promoted crossbows. The key, though, is to play on a map in which you can surround a city on at least three sides with the archers, I think. Could you have done it if there was only one direction to attack a city?

You stick them in pretty much melee range of the city. If you can't get enough archers able to attack the city you won't take it. A city with walls regens what? 4 hp/turn? Or something. Your going to be doing maybe 1-2 damage a shot. If you can't get enough archers to attack it it won't go down.

 

[Treso]

Didnt work with me. Maybe I need to wait crossbows?

 

[Soronery]

Didnt work with me. Maybe I need to wait crossbows?

It might have been a poor map for the strategy.

Upload a screenshot and a save file (original (autosave initial) + current turn). Also, keep in mind that your main goal is not to take out their capitol.
Your main goals are:
To get promotions
To take some outlying cities
To weaken them

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

this seems particularly fun with Babylon. bowman are already stronger and great for promotions. of course the upgrade bang loses its strength when you get to crossbows but the early nudge is great. you lose out on the Aztec culture bonuses, but i did this once with Raging Barbarians on so i could get extra culture from Honor and it worked okay until most of the land was already settled. btw, i did eventually lose because im not good at military wins, but it was fun while it lasted.

i dont play china, but regarding chukonus: you still get promotions like every other archer but since you already have 2 shots, why not take another one instead?

interesting thread. couldnt believe the 191gpt in turn 239 and 300+ in 265.

 

[MinutiaRules]

This sounds like a great idea. Please provide some tips on how you avoided the AI mounted units. My experience is that they have them just out of sight and take out archers or crossbows in one shot. Thanks.

 

[Soronery]

This sounds like a great idea. Please provide some tips on how you avoided the AI mounted units. My experience is that they have them just out of sight and take out archers or crossbows in one shot. Thanks.

You pretty much just have to be really careful.

1. Don't advance with crossbows. Use a horseman to scout.
2. Make horsemen/knights of your own to buffer crossbows.
3. Make pikes to defend crossbows.
4. Knights only have 3 movement. Horses have 4 but will not one shot your crossbows.


Early game:
3. When you have archers (the first attack should come at around 3-4 archers and 1 warrior) use zones of control from the city and from your initial warrior to avoid horsemen. They have 4 movement so keep that in mind.
4. Make peace if he is getting too many horsemen.
5. Go Attack someone else that isn't spamming horsemen

i dont play china, but regarding chukonus: you still get promotions like every other archer but since you already have 2 shots, why not take another one instead?

They have 11 strength instead of 15. This is a pretty big deal as Chokunus start struggling at rifles and are pretty weak vs infantry. Regular crossbows are pretty much fine vs rifles and they struggle vs infantry but they are still strong if you have enough of them.

 

[Soronery]

Oh I forgot to mention: Since you arn't going to be settling any cities it's generally a good idea to annex a few strong production cities eventually (capitol+1 or 2 other cities).

Here's another game for you guys
wonders:
I built hanging gardens, Sophia (GE for Notre Dame), and the Oracle.

Start of the game: Turn 68
DoWed against Arabia when I saw that Siam's capitol was out of reach. Multiple wars are ez pz with archers. I used around 9-10 archers.

Spoiler :

Turn 84: about to get DoWed from Rome, Siam, and Arabia (soonish? this is when I started building extra archers.)

Spoiler :

Turn 140:Going after Rome

Spoiler :

Moving on...~turn 180 4 civs have lost their capitols to crossbows.

These are probably the policies you should go for.
T179 Policies used:

Spoiler :

T179 demographics

Spoiler :

T179 end of my conquering party. Probably going to use a GS on artillery and go attack Egypt. I might go after Askia with crossbows and rifles since he has used up most of his army.

Spoiler :

T181 Home base: Note the trebs(a lot of those used to be catapults) and swords spammed everywhere. All of them have 2 promotions. Because honor gives you cheap unit upgrades its a good idea to spam weak units and upgrade them.

Spoiler :

T184 CS allies:

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T184 Score screen:

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[Tabarnak]

Good job Soronery. I wonder if this strategy is viable for multiplayer. I never heard someone making archer rushes yet, at least for multiplayer. But this is indeed a very interesting approach(and more importantly, ressourceless and civless). Thanks for that.

I guess that some maps are pretty hard to make this rush. But if it's hard with archers, it's probably hard with everything else.

In my 4 cities swords approach, after the initial rush with mostly composed of swordmen, the best way to continue the rush is certainly to build/buy a lot of archers. In my no writing game i built a lot of archers right after and built only melee/horses units to support these 8-9 crossbowmen around the globe. The AI is clueless against ranged units...but what about humans?

 

[Soronery]

Hum. Not sure. I don't play multiplayer but I imagine that it might be viable.

Archers can attack a unit 3 tiles away (Step+shoot) so he can't just fortify a bunch of warriors on hills and get away with it. Capitol+archer should be weak enough to capture if you have enough archers without walls but with walls you most likely won't take it.

If he goes for any sort of early expansion I don't see him being able to hold his expansions. Newly (8 strength) settled cities die pretty fast to 3-4 archers+GG. Also keep in mind that you don't take any damage by attacking.

Highly promoted crossbows are probably going to be just as ******** for humans to deal with as the AI. Probably would want a bunch of pikes to defend them from horses.

You might want to get some spears early on to stop horsemen from destroying your archers.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

i dont play much multiplayer but i would imagine it might be difficult to pull off because human players adjust far more efficiently than the AI. but a steamroll is a steamroll. it would work on a few unfortunates right next to you but would be teched against by those able to see it coming.