A Skirmisher Rush...

[Sib]

...on Monarch. My neighbour is Hannibal and he has copper in his BFC. I can pillage and camp on it as soon as he switches to slavery, so it should just be a case of skirmishers vs archers (with the tiny case of +50% cultural and +25% city defense to consider...). Has anyone tried this? Do you think it will it work?

Cheers, Si.

 

[Belisar]

Choke him with skirmishers, denying him the copper and take him out with better units.

 

[oyzar]

If you want to rush him with skrimishers you should attack once you have enough to take his city..(5 vs 2 should be fine), if you attack earlier he'll start building up units and then you won't be able to take out his city...

 

[Sib]

Just for the record, I waited until I could build up a force of promoted (drill) skirmishers and CR axes which worked a treat (although I was lucky- when I reached his capital it only contained a single unpromoted axe and archer!). Finally, Carthage falls!
Thanks for your help guys.

 

[Levgre]

you probably will need 4-3 skirmishers for every 2 archers. But they are the ausomest at choking, so you can take his copper and have them sit there, while you wait for backup from axemen. The skirms are even a decent replacement for spearmen in case chariots come, with a bit over 50% defending on flat hand, and having a very large advantage against chariots with any extra defense like hills or woods.

 

[vicawoo]

Tokugaway of mali, for drill 2 skirmishers.

 

[Elrohir]

...on Monarch. My neighbour is Hannibal and he has copper in his BFC. I can pillage and camp on it as soon as he switches to slavery, so it should just be a case of skirmishers vs archers (with the tiny case of +50% cultural and +25% city defense to consider...). Has anyone tried this? Do you think it will it work?

Cheers, Si.

If he's pretty close, then sure, that's possible. I once archer rushed Ragnar on Emperor (And as a non protective leader, I believe) so a Skirmisher rushing on Monarch is definitely possible. If the guy has metal hooked up, though, choking would probably be a better option - pillage his metal and surround his capital, then comes back with a lot of Axes.

In your specific situation, I'd suggest parking two Skirmishers outside Hannibal's borders to keep watch over the copper. Let him mine get close to, or finish mining it to give you extra time, and just swoop in and destroy it before the worker can finish the road. If possible, though, you should try to declare war and move on his capital all at once - he'll reinforce it, and even just with archers it's going to suck. So if you can get him with Skirmishers before he hooks up the copper, then obviously that's preferable.

Oh, and build a barracks.

Let us know how it turns out!

EDIT: Nevermind, apparently you already did it. I guess you had it under control. Good job!

 

[unclethrill]

I just played a game as JC and Manny's skirmishers kicked my butt. A skirm. with CD2 in a walled city on a hill were taking out maceman. Not only winning but aceing them. I ended up having to roll two other civs and then came back with rifleman.

I'm not sure how they are for attacking but they are a 4 vs a 3 on archers so that should help some in the future.

 

[Sib]

Yeah, that's right Elrohir, I did manage it in the end, but you're correct is saying that barracks were needed.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

I always thought that chariot rushes only work because they have 2 move. Does not having to found a second city and not needing to research animal husbandary make up for its movement? Because founding a second city and researching AH are things that everyone does pretty quickly anyway, rushing or not.

 

[nbcman]

@sylvanllewelyn

Chariot rushes work since the units have 2 moves. The AI city has less time to whip defenders before the chariots attack. Also if you have Flank 2 chariots, the chariots are immune to 1st strikes. Plus the chariots can quickly move to and pillage the AI's sources of metals (iron/copper) to reduce the chances of fighting spearmen defenders.

You still have to research animal husbandry to locate/pasturize horses before you can build chariots.

 

[mirthadir]

@sylvanllewelyn

Chariot rushes work since the units have 2 moves. The AI city has less time to whip defenders before the chariots attack. Also if you have Flank 2 chariots, the chariots are immune to 1st strikes. Plus the chariots can quickly move to and pillage the AI's sources of metals (iron/copper) to reduce the chances of fighting spearmen defenders.

You still have to research animal husbandry to locate/pasturize horses before you can build chariots.

In theory, you can trade with someone else who has horses and build them without AH. I could only really see this being viable with team games though. You don't have enough gold to buy from the AI and unless you have multiple different high value resources (i.e. ivory) in your initial BFC and you can quick tech sailing, I can't see that working with the AI. Humans would of course be willing to give you concessions like that for steep diplomatic concessions later.

 

[OldDays]

In theory, you can trade with someone else who has horses and build them without AH. I could only really see this being viable with team games though. You don't have enough gold to buy from the AI and unless you have multiple different high value resources (i.e. ivory) in your initial BFC and you can quick tech sailing, I can't see that working with the AI. Humans would of course be willing to give you concessions like that for steep diplomatic concessions later.

 

[nbcman]

@mirthadir

You are correct, but it would be extremely unlikely that you could trade for horses (your civ would need to have a valid trade route to another civ, that civ would probably have two sources of horses available plus your civ would need to have enough of trade value mined/camped/irrigated to trade for the other civ's horse). In most cases, you will have to research AH and get your own source of horses in order to do a chariot rush.

 

[BalbanesBeoulve]

Skirmisher rushes work because they're cheap, and you don't need to hook up any secondary resources. Do it with a protective leader and it's too cheap.