Adapting what I learned from Starcraft

[Cornstalk]

Around 2000/2001 I played a lot of Starcraft. Unfortunately, I was terrible at it. I just couldn't seem to adjust my play style to get away from the turtle for an epic army mindset... and I payed for it every game against my friends that had a compedative instinct better suited for a RTS (real time strategy game).

Their plan of attack was as simple as this:
1. Find my base asap
2. cripple my econemy
3. follow up before I could recover

Even if they were behind in number of units and general resources, they had brought the fight to me and kamakaze killed critical units. In this case, my workers. They also got a good look at what my current defenses were. My only option at that point was to rebuild my crippled econemy while theirs had just started to thrive. It was check against me and all they had to do was follow up for the mate because my course of action was now predictable.



While I could never get the knack of offense in Starcraft like that, I found myself inadvertantly doing it in Civ4 and finally tried a game to really focus on that idea.

To really play up the idea of 'harrassing' an opponent, I was aiming for a mobil unit. Chariots seemed like a nice choice, particularly the favored Immortal, but their 2 moves would be worthless in rough terrain. Aha, the mongol's Keshik! But horse back riding is an expensive tech, and I've been starved for horses early on for many of my games... just when I thought an ideal unit was no where to be found, I noticed the free promotion the Zulu's Impi has... mobility!


Shaka it was.

The plan was simple, get some impi's out reaping havok as soon as possible. Unlike a typical rush of say, immortals, to take out a single Civ, the Impi's job was to trek to every civ... pillage their land, steal their workers, and potentially pick off settlers trying to make a run for it. In a nut shell, destroy their econemy.

These were my game settings:

• Noble Difficulty
• Tiny Map (3 AI players instead of 2)
• Inland Sea (Flat)
• No Barbarians (Need to try this with them next time)
• No Goodie Huts (To avoid gobbling up freebie gold at the start)
• No Vassal States (not really sure why since the last patch)

Obviously this is stacked in favor of my strategy, but I've found this is a good way to judge if it's even plausible. (Example: I've tried several times to capitalize on the Chu Ko Nu as a killer offensive unit with favorable settings, and saw mediocre results at best.)

It's also important to note that tech takes less beakers on a tiny map. 720 for something like Fuedalism compared to 840 on a standard size map. (My numbers might be a little off, but you get the idea). This means on larger maps, opponents will have a little bit more time to make units to guard their back yards.



Starting Spot

My settler started on the gold just below my capital. I wanted to get settled on the first turn, if possible, so I took a gamble on the flood plain where I ended up building. It worked well since I got the silk in a forest (2 food, 1 hammer, 1 trade) and the cows in my fat cross.

Expansive now building settlers 50% faster also provided an interesting option. Rather then being stuck with a flood plain (or any other 3 food/hammer 1 trade tile) to get him out in 15, I could go with a gold mine for 15 turns but gain 2 trade a turn, the Silk to have him done in 12 and STILL get 1 extra trade, or I could go with the forested hill and have the worker done in 10 with no extra trade.

I opted for the silk to try and get a tech a turn sooner, which turned out to be pointless. I went for animal husbandry first, which I researched at 15 beakers a turn instead of 10 (I need to look more in to why this happened).

My fat cross grew, my worker played cowboy, and work began on a warrior. Science wise I aimed for mining then bronze next. The cattle quickly turned in to a huge boon for pop growth and hammers because another worker was lined up to start at 2 pop. I delayed starting the scond worker 2 turns to finish a half done scout so I could find my other foes.

Worker 2 was chopped (only 1 tree needed) because the hammers were bumped up to 30! I'm loving the expansive change at this point. About this point bronze working had finished and much to my horror... NO COPPER!

I was almost ready to stop right here. The lack of copper meant the entire impi harrassment plan was flushed down the toilet. If only I had some iron in my diet. Sucking it up, I put off wheel and pottery and gunned for iron working, hoping for better luck.

At this point I did some Queue swapping. Each time a tree was chopped for the city, I'd let it make a settler for a turn. Between that I was making a second warrior to go with him... and praying iron would be close.

A rocky start with a few build/growth/tech mistakes made, but much to my glee... IRON! About this time I have a settler, an escort, and and a worker ready to go for it. The location could have been a little better, but begger's can't be choosers, eh?


Moving Along!
This is actually many turns after I founded my second city. It's already a 2. Sorry for the sloppy screenshot chronicalling, this game was done over an insominiatic night, so I'm lucky I remembered to get as many save files as I did.

As you can see, I've got a good chunk of the map explored and even have my scouts doubling back to start circling my two closest neighbors like vultures.

My capital has a barracks and is making an impi, my second city is working on a barracks. Thankfully I'm aggressive so build times are forgiving. I should note I slowed the growth of city 2 in favor of going heavy on the hammers (iron mine) since I needed some fast production. Going heavy food + wipping wasn't an option because I forgot to convert to slavery when I got it...

My first impi out of the gate was giving a shock promotion. Monty had copper in is capital's radius. I was expecting to get an axe to the face when I got up there. Lucky for me, he had mined the copper... but he didn't hook it up with a road! What's more, I had 1 more move and got myself a free worker.

The worker got out and started building a road home. (With barbs on I would have sent a second impi up asap to escort that worker during the road project). The impi took out the copper mine and started dancing around his land pillaging everything else. Monty resorted to massing archers. I think I arrived just a little too late or he managed to sneak out on me because monty got a second city at some point during my 1 impi siege.

Not long after declaring war on monty, I did the same to Isabella. She already had her second city when I got there, so I used the two impis to take the one worker I could and rip up her land so she couldn't axe me.

Basically I kept those two bottled up for a while so I could get a third city out , make some catapults, and a few swords and axes to go with them. Denying them any form of terrain improvement and forcing them into mass archer mode really shows its effect by their scores.


Aztec Nation

While my impi scooted away to scout the other city monty snuck out on me, he sent a stack of 3 archers out. I'm not really sure why, but that welcoming commity I had on standby was happy to show them the error of leaving forest cover. I offered monty peace after I killed his foolish archers and bullied 3 techs out of in in the process (fishing, polytheism, and archery).

Cowardly Spanish

Isabella was itching to get that settler out, so I had my impis move towards that iron. It was a gamble that I would be able to catch the archers on flat ground before she built the city, and even more so that both impis would win the combat (only 1 of them had cover, and there were 2 archers guarding the settler). Much to my delight, they both won. I disbanded the worker so I didn't have to pay for him and signed peace with Spain aftwards. She had 3 techs as well, but I could only bully monotheism from her.



At this stage in the game, the Inca didn't seem to be doing very well. I was tempted to send my two impis up to harrass them next, but for the sake of letting my war weariness cool off and to see how much harder then my archer hording neighbors were, I left him alone.


A brand new city built to hold a ton of cottages, 2 swordsman, 1 axe, 2 catapults, and 3 impis (who were already there) later, I went after the Aztecs for the kill. They had walled their capital, so I played it safe and let the catas drag down the cultural defense and the swords do the heavy hitting. Without culture to back them up, the swords chewed up the archers, though they were damaged pretty badly. The 3 impis danced ahead and razzed the second city, which had no cultural defense and only an archer and warrior guarding it. I lost 1 impi to soften up the archer, but I considered it worth it.

My Impis stayed at spain's border, and Bell eventually made that city near the iron she wanted. I was going to try and jump them again, but this time she settled without leaving hills/forests. My two impis got stuck between a mountain and her border! Oh well, the war engine was coming. It was up to 4 catas, 3 swords, and 1 axe along with 1 impi from the aztecs.

Over the coarse of the war with Spain, 3 more cats, 4 swords, 1 axe, and 1 medic promoted impi joined the fray (Mind you, it was an 8 turn trek to get to their border by road and a good 10 to reach the point of their capital). I lost 1 sword, two cats, and 1 impi taking out spain. Right about this time the incans built the oracle and slingshot themselves right in to fuedalism. Ouch, longbows. I knew I should have pillaged him too!


So as far as harrassment and repeated warring went on my two neighbors, I'd say it was a stunning success. I'm increadably pleased with the results and just need to refine the build process of my own nation to speed up the follow up. Those workers and tile improves are so critical, to deny a nation those developements early on proved crippling.

As for the Inca... well it was a pretty typical war. Of their 4 cities, their fringe one fell easily (2 units guarding). The other 3 were actually hard enough that I captured only 1 before signing peace and finishing up the tech (and then upgrades) to maces. They actually put up a fairly solid counter attack which cost me 2 catas, 3 impis, and an axe (two of which were lost due to really bad luck against wounded unit).

It made a very interesting contrast, fight wise. The Inca being left alone to develope put up a very good struggle. If I had waited too much longer to strike, they potentially would have had more catapults (they had -just- gotten them when I invaded) which might have been enough to chase me out of their territory or bog my march down enough for them to make more units. While the Aztecs, being he first I harrassed whimpered and died... and spain only gave me grief because their capital was on a hill with a wall and a lot of units. Had I left spain alone and killed Monty first, they might have been to longbows themselves by the time I got there.


So after the first run on this strat, I figure it's worth looking at some pro's and con's that I've found (and I'm sure there are many more others can contribute!).


The Good:

• Crippled opponents are easy to out grow, out tech, and overpower
• Plundering by 2000 BC gives pretty good pocket change for the era
• Doing this to neighbors means a little more safety and less rush for settler developement
• Did you discover a nation with a worker on their outer border? Take it from them!
• Devistating effect on small maps and slower game speeds
• Wonderful way to bully techs from an AI player

The Bad:

• If the worker stealing plunder rush fails, you're going to fall WAY behind.
• The enemy cities won't have developed land if you plan to keep them later.
• Your relations with other nations will likely be ruined for the rest of the game
• Less mobile units are going to have a harder time making this work.
• Harrassing every player could prove impossible due to distance and/or natural boundries (oceans).
• The distance cost for all the units in enemy territory could cripple your own econemy
• War weariness could become overwhelming
• The faster the game, the smaller the window of opporunity to cripple an enemy nation.
• May prove impossible on higher difficulty AI opponents because they'll have axes, spears, and/or cherriots before you can even declare war to prevent it!

Multiplayer Speculation:

• Potentially much more deadly in multiplayer games where diplomacy probably doesn't much.
• Human players tend to HATE being rush (at least they did in Starcraft). This tends to lead to a lot of very sour feelings.
• Getting a rep as a rusher like this in multiplayer may make people gang up on you, especially with the same rush tactic.
• An equal skill opponent will likely have an appropriate counter ready to go by the time you knock on their door.

All in all, I'd say because the general idea comes from a real time strategy game, it's definately better suited for a multiplayer environment. There are adjustable applications for combatting the AI that may even including declaring war perioditically to only raid their land and pillage to push a stalemate in your favor.


I'd really like to work on this to see a bigger scope that more nations can take advantage of, especially to have it carry over in to the higher difficulties where the AI gets such a tremendous head start.

 

[axident]

I used to play a lot of SC. Rushes are extremely common, and in a 3v3 game, expect to have a 1 in 3 chance of getting triple rushed early on. I've also been known to terran-rush someone with my SCVs and and float over to a teammate's base... it sounds weird, but it works. Six-zergling fast-rush is also almost guaranteed to cripple someone, if not kill them, but you'll be crippled in economy too, so you had better have decent teammates.

Anyway, this thread title is an interesting way to put things... your story is interesting but is more like a early-mid game SC rush, and you have seen firsthand how crippling an AI is almost as good as killing it, maybe even better because you can extort it once you get alphabet. What I'm about to describe is more like a six-zergling rush, which you may want to keep in mind if you ever want to mix it up some:

I went back to Marathon speed just to de-rust, and WOW it's slow. But your units move 3 times normal speed, effectively, which makes rushes extremely strong. Now, I randomly drew Mansa Musa and was playing a standard Pangaea map. Mansa's not exactly the first guy to come to mind when rushing, but I did it anyway (hey it's marathon!). I play Monarch.

I was in the northwest corner of the continent. Shaka was close by to the southeast, and the Incans were in the northeast corner of the continent. But the continent’s southern part was wider that its northern part, so SOUTH and EAST of the Incans was Stalin. Korea was sort of in the middle of the map. All the way southeast was Louis of France. Saladin was in the south, but since nobody was in the southwest corner, he eventually became the strongest competitor.

After the standard scouting procedures (I popped a scout early on and later popped a warrior), I sent a warrior to the Zulus and another to the Incans. I timed it so I would snatch a worker right as it finished a project, then pillage, then fortify nearby. I fortified one warrior on a forested hilltop right next to the Incans, and another warrior in a forest next to the Zulus. Shaka got wise eventually and threw 3 archers to take out my warrior, but I just sent another warrior to fortify a little farther away but still in his fat cross, this time on a forested hilltop. I should have fortified farther away to begin with, but oh well.

I researched agriculture to farm the corn and wheat next to my capital, then went to bronze working. Mansa starts wheel/mining which is very convenient for a rusher, and a lot better than starting with agri and being next to fishes and cows, or starting with fishing inland, etc. But I didn’t get far with researching BW when my scout found BW in a hut, so then I went to pottery, figuring that I’d need it for pop-rushing axemen and spamming cottages. I didn't go for animal husbandry because I had only one hill on my capital's fat cross with some pigs on it... I just mined over it for the production. Copper was JUST outside of my fat cross, dangerously close to Shaka, UGH.

By this time my kidnapped workers joined my original one, and I choprushed a settler and planted it one square away from the copper and in between me and Shaka. While all of the above was going on, I had built a worker, then a warrior, and got BW, which got me to switch to a settler which I helped along with a choprush. While I was waiting for copper to be mined and hooked up, I went back to barracks-making, chop rushed it, then started cranking axes. But then I researched pottery, so I paused in the axe-cranking to build granaries and chopped most of the rest of my forests to finish them early. This way, slavery really shines and you can REALLY crank axes fast, if you have food OR production. Since Shaka broke free of my siege early and was thus not really crippled, I stormed his capital first, with about 7 axemen. He had earlier escorted a settler with 3 archers to found a city to the south of my 2nd city, but I left that alone and brokered peace with him. I then cranked a few more axes and killed the Incan capital, this time NOT brokering peace since he was farther away and on friendly terms with his neighbors.. no sense in getting TWO "declaration of war on friend" penalties.

Now, I did NOT raze the capital cities, as I had to have them because I didn't use my hammers on settlers/workers but instead kidnapped workers and captured 2 enemy cities, but damn that maintenance penalty was HUGE. I eventually ran out of money and spent almost all of the rest of the game at zero percent research, while micromanaging my cities to make as much money as possible.

Before I ran out of money, I managed to research Writing. I got open borders with everybody and saw that Stalin was actually pretty weak. 2 archers in his size-six capital city? Give me a break. My axes got some reinforcements and I captured his capital and razed his closest city before declaring peace again. His capital had grown to size seven when I reached it and had only those 2 archers and a freshly-minted spearman, go figure.

Now, not having alphabet really sucks, because you can't extort any techs. It was after the capture of Moscow that my research really plummeted to near-zero due to the distance penalty more than anything else. After Russia's fall, I limped along at 10% research to alphabet and built libraries.. which I basically used as expensive Monuments since I had no techs other than the ones I just mentioned, and no religion!)

During this time I was thanking my lucky stars for being Financial as I cottagespammed. The goliath of the map was France, which had already built the Oracle, the Temple of Artemis, the Great Wall, AND founded three religions to boot. My open borders spying saw that Louis didn’t yet have axemen, so I whipped another round of axemen to reinforce my veterans and invaded. Orleans bit the dust early, but Paris put up a huge fight since it had 2 axemen (surprise!) in it along with the usual archers. Now, I was only going to keep Paris as it was a capital and a holy city, but unfortunately Orleans also was a holy city. So I kept Orleans, but that almost did me in thanks the large distance AND number of city penalties... this was all the way across the other side of the continent. (I was in the NW corner, France was in the SE corner.) I was going to keep pressing my advantage and to keep money rolling in, but France sent 3 axemen to retake Paris while my main stack was far away trying to find an un-Holy city that I could raze in good conscience. I only had a single axeman guarding Paris, since I thought I had taken out his only axemen and had pillaged his copper for good measure. I was forced to declare peace for 10 turns, but not before I extorted fishing and hunting out of Louis.

Peace is expensive… after the first French war, I almost started to lose units due to money problems.

I was at zero percent research and still in the red by about 5 gold per turn, even after micromanaging so EVERY SINGLE CITY of mine was working to make as much money as possible, production be damned. Even my capital city had to give up its scientists and farm cottages. I had no choice but to re-declare on France, because I wasn't about to charge Saladin and Wang Kon's archers with scads of bonuses on them thanks to Protective. (My Spiritual bonus was almost useless in this game; it saved me a couple of turns of anarchy when I went to slavery, but that's about it!) At my low point, I had 9 gold left, -6 gold per turn, and actually had my units go on strike right as I reached my first French city and whacked it like a pinata for money instead of candy. And this was with every city maxing out on gold production and making research instead of units and their associated upkeep costs.

I wisely avoided France’s third holy city and actively sought out unholy cities to raze; when I was out of those, I made peace with Louis and razed some barb cities nearby. I literally could not afford to be at peace. This time, I extorted half of mathematics out of Louis of France (since I was more than half-done with it, the AI devalued it and let me have it, unlike the first time when Louis only gave me crappy stuff). I also extorted the 2 other big players on the map, Saladin and Wang Kon, for some religious techs. I figured that I'd be at war with them soon enough, so whatever. That was a mistake on my part because later on, when I DoW'd on Korea, Saladin retracted his open borders and 2 trades where I was giving him health stuff and he was giving me happy stuff, so my cities became pretty unhappy places. If I hadn’t extorted, maybe that would have let me receive his happy resources a little longer.

Since France was crippled with a holy city and some tiny city far east, and since I needed money, I wiped out the Zulus and Incans during this time.

Although I almost killed myself on maintenance costs by keeping France's non-capital holy city, I got back on track with a GE. Paris, which had all those nice wonders, popped a Great Engineer, which I used on Metal Casting to get to my unique building, mint, which is a forge that gives +10% gold. Lots of slaves died to make those mints, but after my population rebounded, I was actually in the GREEN at zero percent research, imagine that! And better yet, I could make even more research points with that +25% production bonus from the forge. Rather than go to war immediately, I took a breather to replenish my war chest—I didn’t want another situation where I was one turn away from losing units. But then Korea suddenly built Pyramids, switched to Police State, and DoW'd on France.

Meanwhile, my hammer-to-beaker program and those 2 science specialists back at my capital finally got me across the Construction finish line, but I basically had no room for error and wanted some breathing space on the slider so I went for Currency next. Right after Currency finished, Korea asked to trade 1170 gold for Currency. Sure buddy, give me that gold and I’ll give you Currency… sure. You’re dead in 20 turns anyway.

It turns out that it was more like 10 turns later when I declared war. Wang Kon asked me to dogpile on France (um why, they are dead anyway and you just captured their biggest city by yourself), I refused. I didn’t want any more demerits with Saladin, who was Louis’s friend. Unfortunately that ticked off Wang Kon just enough to cancel his open borders with me. Since Korea was centrally located and had been busy with city spammage, including spamming a city right next to my capital early on, I needed Korea to give me open borders just to MOVE effectively. Lack of open borders basically split my empire into three: the two Mali cities and the nearby former Zulu capital, the Incan capital, and the Russian-French three-city area.

After I whipped some spearmen into my invasion forces to counter Korea’s chariots, I declared war on Korea. The Korean AI for some reason (okay, for OBVIOUS reasons: it was nearby and it was a holy city with the only other World Wonders in the game that Korea didn’t already control) decided that Paris was the juiciest target and mercilessly attacked it over and over again with chariots and axemen, but it couldn’t quite kill all of my infantry there. I also gave Paris a catapult which I sacrificed on one of the incoming Korean stacks, which helped.

My catapults backed by my axes and swordsmen and a few spearmen demolished Pyonyang and captured Seoul shortly afterwards, but I wanted to raze another city before declaring peace to really put the hurt on Korea and to clear up the middle of the map some more so that I wouldn’t be split into three pieces if he didn’t give me open borders again. But really just to put the hurt on him, because I had given him a powerful tech (Currency) and wanted to make sure he lagged behind me.

At this point Saladin got Feudalism, switched to Vassalage, and started cranking longbowmen, but I don’t have the research points necessary to outtech him, meaning that I foresee a lot of catapult spammage on my part in the near future. Then I stopped and read your forum entry and produced spammage of a different sort. But I hope that I gave you some ideas for what might work re: an ultra-early rush. I think I would have had an easier time of things if I had avoided France’s holy cities, but it had THREE of them, all solid cities, so I dunno, maybe I should have razed the holy cities anyway. Maybe I should have razed Paris too, even though it was holy and had the Great Wall and Oracle and Temple of Artemis. I’m open to suggestions, as I’m pretty new to ultra-early rushing.

Edit: game is in the bag now, just mop up left. Saladin built almost ALL of his cities on hills, WTH. Quadruple-promoted longbowmen fortified on hilltop cities SUCKS. The walls and culture bonuses died with bombardment, but there is no way I could scratch him without catapults. Oh well, I needed to lose more units anyway, as I'm back deep in the red since my fledgling economy isn't supposed to be supporting such a large army.

 

[Cornstalk]

That's interesting to read about a similar strat being played out on a larger scale. You definately pulled through a game that would probably make me stop from frustration... but then that's why I switched to Civ for my warmonger needs over the ample supply of RTS out there.

You've actually inspired me to try it with Musa now. Those skirmishers seem like a nice unit to harrass someone with. While they don't have the mobility of the impi, keshik, or other horse archers, they're easy to tech to, don't require resource to build, and are bloody annoying to try and kill because there's no hard counter except a cover promotion. The combination of spiritual and financial has always appealed to me too, and I do like the mint.


Honestly though, I've found if I'm going for a kill everyone victory, razing a holy city, while frustrating, is usually worth doing unless that religion has spread everywhere and you can make the appropriate great prophet building (or they made it themselves). It's a little annoying to mop up the mess as the other civs fill in the other gaps later, but at the same time I can spend a turn or two plundering the heck out of everything and make a cool 50g of the crazy amounts of farms the AI builds.

 

[axident]

Skirmishers = bleh. Yeah you can park a few skirmishers on forested hilltops here and there, but I use warriors for that. Or try the Incan UU for an extremely early, extremely hard to kill invader.

Finished my game, 1260 AD, but my economy was awful, as I whipped a ton of courthouses and marketplaces later in the game. I learned a few things from this game, the most important of which was to PILLAGE MORE! If I'm going to raze cities, I can leave one chariot behind to do pillage duty while everyone else continues razing cities. If only I had known that you could pillage neutral improvements, not just enemy improvements, then I would have been able to fund my war machine a lot better.

Anyway I agree with your analysis for the most part, especially how in multiplayer you may gain a bad rep for doing stuff like this, but it's extremely effective against AI or human players to tear down improvements and to scare workers from making more.

Edit to add: also, I forgot to switch to Representation until the game was practically over... totally forgot about the Pyramids haha. Not razing enough cities, not switching to rep, not pillaging, researching Construction ahead of Currency at a time when I needed the money.. hmm I wonder if I did things properly if I could have finished the game sooner.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

I see a lot of Civ players here, not many Starcraft players.

I wasn't that good at Starcraft, a lot better at Warcraft, but still both of them I was limited by micromanagement ability, which takes practice, and frankly I have real life prioritized over practicing how to maximize psi storm damage. I actually like Civ more, and the simulation of the difficulties that aggression in real life causes (that's why I'm here). But one concept that I learnt from RTS is the need to build the earlier units, and not wait for better ones. Again, it's a game, with a payoff matrix consisting of the choices "tech later" and "build units now". The NE is always "build axeman now".

 

[Cornstalk]

What I have been happy with using this strategy is how much it does slow down an AI player. For those times I actually -want- to wait for the overpowering units, I can actually have a shot at pulling it off... compared to say trying to beeline for knights or macemen only to show up at their door and end up facing Longbows anyway.


I've been trying this on a Pangea with Mansa Musa, and I basically picked up my skirmishers in 2 or 3 techs and started sending them out to any civ I could find to block them in. The result was actually rather interesting...

Out of the 6 civs, 4 were close enough to instantly start harrassing. Persia and Germany escaped my bother because I had go through other nations to get to them. I'm going to regret leaving cyrus alone later I think... or I might be glad I did and get a domination victory from keeping his cities. I'll see how it plays out.


Anyway, by about 1900BC I had declared war on Russia, France, Mongolia, and Egypt. One skirmisher to each Civ was keeping them nervous... and each one had a lovely forested hill to sit in. What I didn't expect (and I go lucky because of the terrain) was a counter attack!

All 4 civs over the coarse of hording their archers tried to send out a squad of 2-3 units (warriors and archers) to try and attack my capital. Where I lucked out was being able to box Egypt in on their penisula... and Mongolia on their strip of land thanks to Egypt's border (neither had writing yet).

France and Russia got to me about 1 turn away from each other and would have gone on a pillaging spree if I hadn't wipped an axe out to support my 2 defending skirmishers (it would have been 3, but one of them had just left with a settler). Thankfully all I lost was 1 unworked cottage, but had all 4 made it (or even a 3rd) I might have lost a lot of my improvements or even my capital if my units got widdled down enough trying to clear them all.

I'm going to have to be SERIOUSLY cautions trying this on higher difficulties. The moment I try to get in and pillage even 1 civ, they're likely going to have 2-3 units to spare off the bat to come to my back yard and do the same.


On the good side, keeping the AI from getting to their resources like Iron means even a city on a hill with a wall and 6 archers in it is a fairly simple kill for a sword/cata combo with minimal loses. In my current game that was the case with Egypt (who I wiped out right after russia). My total losses were 2 catapults to soften them up. 3 swords and 1 skirmisher did the rest of the work over two turns.


I'm really enjoying the game messing around with this strat, and I think I could really make it shine if my developement aspects could be ironed out. Unfortunately, once I start to push towards medieval era, I bog myself down because all the techs are so delicious, it's hard to pick which ones should come first!

 

[Idlenessss]

Well i was a darned good SC player, if i may say so, and this 'rush' things is often not at all what appears to be...And its application on civ4, even more important than SC should eb obvious when I explain...

The rush is an important DEFENSIVE resource. This is meaning, that if you completely leave a guy alone, and he has better resources than you...then you are ultimately doomed. You are basically forced to feel the other guy out, see what tricks hes got, etc. The important thing about the 'rush' is that it is non commital. You can always pull out without having disasterous losses. This is very true in civ 4, even without mobility, because defending gives such a great advantage over attacked, and a meager raiding party, withdrawing, coudl cause disproportionate losses on an insistent counter attack.
Also rushing is a vital form of scouting. You can quickly get a feel for what your opponent is doing (if he survives) see the terrain and resources around him, and basically, and most importantly, how good he is. If hes genuinely good, then he wont hold grudges.
The concept of a commited rush and an uncommited rush are totally different. A commited anything, in multiplayer, is just plain stupid, its like gambling, its not strategy.
You do not need access to copper or whatever to take the offensive. Its very Bruce Lee. If the other guy contracts, you expand, and if he expands, you contract. for example, if he has one stack of 10 axemen, and u have 4 archers, just put them really far from eachother. withdraw where he attacks, and pilliage where he ignores.when he splits up, then you contract, withdraw to a single point (say a forested hill with all, and leave his army paralyzed. The critical thing is that units closer to the rivals soft spot are inherintly stronger than a defensive army. Simply because it takes you less time to hurt him, that it would take him, to hurt you.
In SC, when both players were very good, you woudl reach a sort of equilibrium, where both armies would hover around eachother, each equally a threat to the other, equally large, and it was a sort of multitasking dance. THIS is how you protect yourself, by being a threat. NOT by 'turtling' which is in almost every strategic game, a technique doomed to failure.

 

[axident]

Unfortunately, once I start to push towards medieval era, I bog myself down because all the techs are so delicious, it's hard to pick which ones should come first!

That's a GOOD problem to have. Lots of people beeline for Literature and Liberalism, but I tend to get my research bogged down just in time to limp to CoL or Currency or both to help me out. I think you just need to find your own playing style; it sounds like you are a very strong rusher as any SC veteran ought to be. I don't like skirmishers; I just use a warrior on a forested hilltop and then axe rush. If you want a mini-skirmisher suitable for such early rushing, I suggest the Quecha unit of the Incans. But it sounds like your skirmishers do just fine, so what do I know?

And yes I know what you mean about the AI counterattacks. In my current game, I was on a Fractal map (Epic, Monarch, random leader; I drew Shaka of the Zulus) with no intention of starting more than one war. So the first person I met was Catherine, and I wanted to leave her alone since Egypt had copper and was also nearby--they just hadn't researched BW yet, and I wanted to camp their capital to make sure that they couldn't hook it up even when they researched it. But Catherine founded a city right in my face, and I thought, just for that I'll kill you first. I waited for a Worker to show up so I could grab it before parking a warrior on a forested hilltop. She didn't even know where I was, but her scout eventually found my capital. Not that long later, she sent 2 archers my way, so I hastily declared peace with her until I could get axemen, at which point I reparked my warrior on that forested hilltop while waiting to gather enough axemen to raze her expansion city and capture her capital. Egypt wasn't slowed down, but they were the next-closest so I beat the crap out of their capital, too, and then I discovered that Spain had no copper, just horses, so I beat them down next with the help of a Great General attached to an Impi. I love how Impi are perfect counters to mounted units and pillage well without any promotions. But an Impi with 3 movement thanks to Morale makes a super-awesome pillager that can pop out to pillage, then jump back into my main stack. My other great general much later in the game I attached to a War Elephant, but that's another story.

 

[30+]

STARCRAFT!!! GOGOGO! BEST GAME IN UNIVERSE.

I was a ZERG user! 1900++ Gamei user and A+ WGT season 5 with a record of 75-9. Former member of rS., (players such as Day,Nyoken, etc.).

Your strategy would work very well in MP, duel map, 1:1. Unique units such as Jag/Skirmisher which can be made very fast and camp outside enemies cities preventing them from improving their terrain/resources. Contain them and simply build/expand whenever and however you want. Kinda like Lurker contain > map control > expo whore > Macro whore (billions upon billions of never ending units being thrown at your enemy from your superior economy/hatcheries).

However, if you are playing against more than 1 person in MP I don't think it's a viable strategy. You will not be able to mass produce enough units that early to cripple everyone in the game, and whoever you don't hurt will shortly overpower you with greater tech and units.

I think it can be somewhat more favorable vs AI's..........if after your first war and capturing of cities you immediately go into infrastructure.

It's too bad Civilization doesnt have standard maps with standard starting positions like in Brood War, both for MP (especially), and SP. For me anyways, it would be alot more fun. You can always regenerate the map with a screwed Starting position in SP (which happens more than 85% of the time, lol). MP is a whole different story........you are hung out to dry by the civilization Gods.........pray you got LUCKY and have a decent starting position. Nothing worse than having only fish resources with a non fish leader and not a single hill.....then you meet your first human opponent who has pigs/gold/rice/corn/4 hills (one of wich is bronze, lol!).

The important thing about the 'rush' is that it is non commital. You can always pull out without having disasterous losses.

Nothing could be farther from the truth imo, especially RTS. If someone sacrifices economy early in hopes to fag you, and they fail, then they are already hopelesslesy behind and the game might as well be over. I don't go along with the terminoligy "Axe Rush" either. If you have time to hook up a resource such as bronze and produce a few axeman the time to rush is way over. Your opponent, if skilled at all should be able to have chariots or axe by the time you reach his land (unless civ gods cursed you ??! Oh?? Hypocrite!, !).

Six-zergling fast-rush is also almost guaranteed to cripple someone, if not kill them, but you'll be crippled in economy too, so you had better have decent teammates.

Most maps used in tourneys and ladders (gamei/wgt/pgtour) have a single ramp or single access point to access your base (such as Lost Temple) which allow a Toss user who 9 gates to bring 1 zealot and 2 probes (placed perfectly) to stop 6 zerglings (4 pool) from even entering your base. With proper micro you can easily defeat the 6 lings, not to mention your 2nd zealot will pop out very very very shortly after, which will of course let you permanently block your ramp. Terran players can simply rally their first 2 barracks marines to there minerals and micro marine + scv. Terran can also build depots and barracks in such a manner as to block access with a single SCV (in some cases with buildings alone) and allow marines to safely fire and kill lings. ZvsZ 9 pool rapes 4 pool. And even if your 2nd hatch is in base you can start 2 colonies while stacking drones attack/stack drones attack/while waiting for your lings to hatch + sunk. Anyways, it's not hard to stop a rush many more times than you will lose to it. Rushing in MP is normally a bad thing ^^.

Don't get me wrong..............I play MP way way way more than SP and I do love it, BUT, it could be much much much MORE balanced if they used Maps such as in Brood War.

 

[axident]

Who said anything about 4 pooling? That's just not worth it most of the time. Also, 1v1 games got boring and I usually played 2v2, 3v3, and 4v4 games in SC. I didn't have Brood War so I couldn't play that. What got some people calling us cheaters was when I played with people I knew in a 4v4 game, and 2 of us would six-pool the same patch of fog of war and annihilate whoever was there. I don't care how good you are, if 2 people both six-pool you, you're toast. The remaining 2 teammates (preferably 1 terran and 1 toss) then patrol and clog up the middle to block counter-attacks while the zerg guys put their survivor lings also on middle-map patrol. Shortly after someone would get quad-rushed, making it 4v2. But I got really sick of rush games and over time I'd just participate in the first rush and then sit back to make a tank/marine drop on someone while they were fending off more of my teammates' rushes.

STARCRAFT!!! GOGOGO! BEST GAME IN UNIVERSE.

I was a ZERG user! 1900++ Gamei user and A+ WGT season 5 with a record of 75-9. Former member of rS., (players such as Day,Nyoken, etc.).

Your strategy would work very well in MP, duel map, 1:1. Unique units such as Jag/Skirmisher which can be made very fast and camp outside enemies cities preventing them from improving their terrain/resources. Contain them and simply build/expand whenever and however you want. Kinda like Lurker contain > map control > expo whore > Macro whore (billions upon billions of never ending units being thrown at your enemy from your superior economy/hatcheries).

However, if you are playing against more than 1 person in MP I don't think it's a viable strategy. You will not be able to mass produce enough units that early to cripple everyone in the game, and whoever you don't hurt will shortly overpower you with greater tech and units.

I think it can be somewhat more favorable vs AI's..........if after your first war and capturing of cities you immediately go into infrastructure.

It's too bad Civilization doesnt have standard maps with standard starting positions like in Brood War, both for MP (especially), and SP. For me anyways, it would be alot more fun. You can always regenerate the map with a screwed Starting position in SP (which happens more than 85% of the time, lol). MP is a whole different story........you are hung out to dry by the civilization Gods.........pray you got LUCKY and have a decent starting position. Nothing worse than having only fish resources with a non fish leader and not a single hill.....then you meet your first human opponent who has pigs/gold/rice/corn/4 hills (one of wich is bronze, lol!).



Nothing could be farther from the truth imo, especially RTS. If someone sacrifices economy early in hopes to fag you, and they fail, then they are already hopelesslesy behind and the game might as well be over.



Most maps used in tourneys and ladders (gamei/wgt/pgtour) have a single ramp or single access point to access your base (such as Lost Temple) which allow a Toss user who 9 gates to bring 1 zealot and 2 probes (placed perfectly) to stop 6 zerglings (4 pool) from even entering your base. With proper micro you can easily defeat the 6 lings, not to mention your 2nd zealot will pop out very very very shortly after, which will of course let you permanently block your ramp. Terran players can simply rally their first 2 barracks marines to there minerals and micro marine + scv. Terran can also build depots and barracks in such a manner as to block access with a single SCV (in some cases with buildings alone) and allow marines to safely fire and kill lings. ZvsZ 9 pool rapes 4 pool. And even if your 2nd hatch is in base you can start 2 colonies while stacking drones attack/stack drones attack/while waiting for your lings to hatch + sunk. Anyways, it's not hard to stop a rush many more times than you will lose to it. Rushing in MP is normally a bad thing ^^.

Don't get me wrong..............I play MP way way way more than SP and I do love it, BUT, it could be much much much MORE balanced if they used Maps such as in Brood War. Anyways, good luck!

 

[30+]

I'm the opposite of you . I only played 1:1. I found Team play to be extremely boring because it was always a 2v1 game or 3v1 game. Just scout someone and coordinate your attack with partner/s. I believe there is much more potential for game strategy in 1:1. You can rush. You can try a drop. You can try to mass expo. You can tech to a unit as lurker/Dark templar and try sneak attack, etc. In team games you don't have as many options....but are rather limited to making lots and lots of basic units early to try to team up on someone and cripple them. If you tried to sit back and camp out or tech really fast your team mate would surely be screwed.

And I said 4 pool not you. Why did I say 4 pool? Because it's the earliest possible rush, and if you delayed your pool longer then your chances of a successful (which isn't very good to begin with vs a good player) rush would deminish even further.

if 2 people both six-pool you, you're toast.

Not true ^^. On maps such as LT with a ramp + choke you can bring 5-7 SCV and block that ramp and let your 2-3 marines fire away as the zerglings run about. Further, a terran who makes a barracks first (which happens alot in team play) can easily build a depot and academy to completely block off the entrance. The academy placed properly will not allow even a single ling to enter, therefore giving the opponent the opportunity to repair depot/academy/barracks with multiple scv's while his marines own you. Further, another 9 pooling zerg can easily defend with 1 sunken and lings himself, even if you both 6 pool.

 

[axident]

I'm the opposite of you . I only played 1:1. I found Team play to be extremely boring because it was always a 2v1 game or 3v1 game. Just scout someone and coordinate your attack with partner/s. I believe there is much more potential for game strategy in 1:1. You can rush. You can try a drop. You can try to mass expo. You can tech to a unit as lurker/Dark templar and try sneak attack, etc. In team games you don't have as many options....but are rather limited to making lots and lots of basic units early to try to team up on someone and cripple them. If you tried to sit back and camp out or tech really fast your team mate would surely be screwed.

And I said 4 pool not you. Why did I say 4 pool? Because it's the earliest possible rush, and if you delayed your pool longer then your chances of a successful (which isn't very good to begin with vs a good player) rush would deminish even further.



Not true ^^. On maps such as LT with a ramp + choke you can bring 5-7 SCV and block that ramp and let your 2-3 marines fire away as the zerglings run about. Further, a terran who makes a barracks first (which happens alot in team play) can easily build a depot and academy to completely block off the entrance. The academy placed properly will not allow even a single ling to enter, therefore giving the opponent the opportunity to repair depot/academy/barracks with multiple scv's while his marines own you. Further, another 9 pooling zerg can easily defend with 1 sunken and lings himself, even if you both 6 pool.

Can't choke as effectively on other maps though. But hey you're the SC pro, I'm sure you'd figure out a way to defend against a dozen lings early on.

 

[Idlenessss]

Hey if you dont know how to make an uncommited rush, u aint in my league. Zerglings werent all that great, they just got that rep, i guess, from habit, of swarming nubmers? they died too easy. U wanna solid rush, u use zealots. Ok i rmemeber, u use zerglings, then probes could actually effectively fight them, with careful micro managing, they zero in on a guy, u move him, and u have another probe attacking (lol). Zealots overpowered probes enough that this sorta thing didnt work, it was an easy rythm, exactly 3 hits = dead probe, so if one guy moves, they were powerful enough to ignore and switch targets, so dancing just didnt work really. zealots also somehow seemed to have a kind of range advantage over zerglings.the real power of the zerg was their air, it was unbeatable. Still, I think most really good players preterred protoss. They ruled SC in the power and mobility of their units, and their easy and quick diversification.
Terran jsut sucked man. Did any of the pros use them? the onyl decent attempts i saw was really determined containment strategy, or really, really diffiult micro on those vultures. But vultures being the onyl really mobile unit the terrans had, their attack was too specific (organic only,really). easy prey to protoss, who can NOT be contained. oooh i just remembered also, with brood war....yeah lol this thread brings back memories. there was nothing the zerg could do about the corsair rush, with their overlords. Nothing. It was a flaw in the game. one of the few ones, but it was there, if u wanted a cheap win as toss vs zerg, a decent corsiarre rush worked every time, I tried all kinds of ways to combat it, as zerg, but there was jsut nothin, zip, nada.

 

[Immaculate]

Back to civ for a quick bit...
... when you are over-expanding and fighting a lot and you find you're losing lots of cash, and especially when you are playing a spiritual leader like Mansa, try to grab code-of-laws (either through oracle or research) and switch in and out of caste-system/slavery. Use caste system mostly except for whipping rounds. Assign merchants to cities that can't really help you too much otherwise and let the merchants pay the bills. Eventually you may get a few great merchants and those can be redeemed for some very nice cash.
I do this and it works pretty good. I don't do it with non-spiritual leaders though because i like to go back and forth from slavery, so i don't know how useful it would be otherwise.

I.

 

[tempuraki]

when I read the title of this thread i thought you were going to mention "overwhelming your opponent with numbers." SC taught me that 10 hydras are better than a couple of battle cruisers, and 10 dozens of zerglings is better than pretty much anything. Outproducing the opponent how I win in SC, and that's what powers many of my civ4 wins.

Basic idea: Build up you empire, hook up the resources, whip/chop/draft a bunch of units, and go city hunting. No iron or copper early on? research construction, 10 cats can easily bring down a couple protective longbows. This is also why FE is all the rage these days, whipping can give you a lot of units in very little time, and with farms you can recover very fast.

oh, and I can't believe no mention of the Incans in a "rush" thread. with a half dozen quechas you don't have to rush uncommited, just take the city already

 

[30+]

Hey if you dont know how to make an uncommited rush, u aint in my league. Zerglings werent all that great, they just got that rep, i guess, from habit, of swarming nubmers? they died too easy. U wanna solid rush, u use zealots. Ok i rmemeber, u use zerglings, then probes could actually effectively fight them, with careful micro managing, they zero in on a guy, u move him, and u have another probe attacking (lol). Zealots overpowered probes enough that this sorta thing didnt work, it was an easy rythm, exactly 3 hits = dead probe, so if one guy moves, they were powerful enough to ignore and switch targets, so dancing just didnt work really. zealots also somehow seemed to have a kind of range advantage over zerglings.the real power of the zerg was their air, it was unbeatable. Still, I think most really good players preterred protoss. They ruled SC in the power and mobility of their units, and their easy and quick diversification.
Terran jsut sucked man. Did any of the pros use them? the onyl decent attempts i saw was really determined containment strategy, or really, really diffiult micro on those vultures. But vultures being the onyl really mobile unit the terrans had, their attack was too specific (organic only,really). easy prey to protoss, who can NOT be contained. oooh i just remembered also, with brood war....yeah lol this thread brings back memories. there was nothing the zerg could do about the corsair rush, with their overlords. Nothing. It was a flaw in the game. one of the few ones, but it was there, if u wanted a cheap win as toss vs zerg, a decent corsiarre rush worked every time, I tried all kinds of ways to combat it, as zerg, but there was jsut nothin, zip, nada.

Lol. Your response shows you don't have much idea about Brood War... so, where to begin? First off, in Gamei (over 15,000 users at the time) I was in the top 300 with 1900 Gamei ranking, in World Gaming Tour i was in the top 100 (over 8,000 players), not to mention I was in rS. one of the best if not very best USA clan in 2001-2002.

Zealots and Zerglings are both Melee units and therefore have exactly the same range.....neither of them has the advantage. Zealot rushing isn't so much of an all out rush seeing how you can make non stop zealots/probes/pylons (only difference if you did a 5/6 pylon followed by 5/6 gate). If you zergling rush or 5 or 6 rax marine rush you have to stop making workers and sacrafice economy. The only issue with your non-stop zealot would be when do you expo or tech to gas to get archons or sair to defend vs possible air (if vs zerg anyways). Oh, Cracklings are superior vs zealots late game due to cost + upgrade ratio effectiveness. Each zealot blade only does 8 damage. So 8 (attack per blade) + 3 (zealot level 3 attack upgrade) - 3 (zerg carapace [armor]) = 8 x 2 (each zealot has 2 blades) = 16 damage per attack vs a Zergling. This means that even a fully upgraded zealot takes 3 attacks to kill a single ADRENAL crackling. This ling now has +3 attack and a much lower cool rate of fire (attacks about 40% faster than it originally did). This makes cracklings devestating vs Zealots late game. Archons are not a big deal, even with their splash damage because Zerg have the defiler, which of course has Dark Swarm. Archons deal out approximately 5 splash damage per attack (not the normal 35) under dark swarm, therefore effectively nullifying its splash damage. Just some extra food for thought. If you wan't to get into more game mechanics let me know ^^.

Further food for thought, Devourer/Muta/Queen/Scourge can cope with Sair just fine. Devourer slows down the rate of fire vs Sair (+ it is already heavily armored), queens slow down rate of fire (although not very much) and also slow down the movement of sairs. This allows the rest of your units in conjunction with devourers to mop up the mess.

Protoss the best race? HAR HAR! Please. Take a look at all the Pro-Leagues. Especially Ongamenet Starleague, aka OSL, which is the elite of the elite when it comes to pro-rankings and tourneys. Only ONE toss has ever won the league in over 4 years (approx. 3 leagues a year). All the other winners have been Terran or Zerg. Just take a look at the following links showing past KESPA rankings (Korean e-Sports Players Association)(aka Pro Korean Starcraft Players):

http://teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=49419
one protoss top 10

http://sc.gosugamers.net/news.php?id=4866
one protoss top 10

http://www.phgamers.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5
2 protoss top 10

http://sc.gosugamers.net/news.php?id=5495
1 protoss top 10

Keep going backwards in time and you continue to see the same thing over and over.

Additionally, corsair rush does nothing vs a zerg unless you are playing on an island map (where sair/reaver works very well). Losing a few ovies is nothing more than a small annoyance...and once the combination of ovie speed/lurk/hydra comes in Toss is once again contained.

Additionally, seeing how you think Terran suck so bad, here are 2 more links, the first is Slayers Boxer, the best gamer in history (not to mention his annual salary with endorsements is over 900,000 US dollars). Look at those major achievements!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lim_Yo-Hwan

And here is his my-space, lol, which has even more achievements shown than above.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=30890477

Anyways, it's all good. This is a Civ forum and I don't expect too many people to really grasp Brood war mechanics or be familiar with actually BW history. GG no re .

P.S. Whoever started this thread is EVIL..... LOL. I quit playing BW because it seemed to always take up too much of my time!

 

[axident]

when I read the title of this thread i thought you were going to mention "overwhelming your opponent with numbers." SC taught me that 10 hydras are better than a couple of battle cruisers, and 10 dozens of zerglings is better than pretty much anything. Outproducing the opponent how I win in SC, and that's what powers many of my civ4 wins.

Basic idea: Build up you empire, hook up the resources, whip/chop/draft a bunch of units, and go city hunting. No iron or copper early on? research construction, 10 cats can easily bring down a couple protective longbows. This is also why FE is all the rage these days, whipping can give you a lot of units in very little time, and with farms you can recover very fast.

oh, and I can't believe no mention of the Incans in a "rush" thread. with a half dozen quechas you don't have to rush uncommited, just take the city already

I agree, and spamming a good, cheap, early UU like war chariots to pillage opponents' copper and run them over with sheer numbers is reminiscent of early SC rushing.

I DID mention the Incans, see post number 8 of this thread.

 

[Idlenessss]

But toss could pump out 6 corsair long before zerg teched to either devourer, or queen, or that scorpion guy....what was his name? anyway, So what does zerg do? 6 corsairs, at like 2:30 minutes. I dont rmeember the exact number, but i rmemeber, i tested and tried all kinds of stuff, and there was no solution. Im betting brood war mustve been altered a bit by the time I quit playing, i dont know.
Its true that in later stage zerglings countered zealot, but thats much later, the early 'rush' was a very improtant stage of the game, thats the topic here. just a single reaver or 2 would fix any zergling problems.

 

[Cornstalk]

Civ 4's rock/paper/scissors/school bully (for lack of a better way of describing winning simply by being a stronger unit with no type vs modifiers) sort of system really introduced a nice aspect to the game that gives a flavor that's always appealed to me from RTS games. Warcraft 3 really introduced me to the idea, but unfortunately failed to really carry it through because many of the supposed counters... really didn't seem to counter anything at all. Two areas that come to mind are the shield stance for Footman just meaning ranged units were that much easier to micro a kite kill with... or the far too many tweaks to the huntress unit went through patch after patch after patch.

Civ4 offers that wonderful thing that I've only found in 1 RTS (Starcraft) of the several I've at least taken the time to read about... the chance for a come back after a bad skirmish.

Sure maybe in a 1 on 1 setting they got in there and stole your worker and pillaged your land... but once you've chased them out, a lot of players will lose their momentum (something I'm personally bad about in RTS). Odds are they may not be prepared to advance again soon or even threw thier all in to the offense, leaving them vulnerable to a counter attack. Many people tend to favor a single unit rather then diversity too.

If they hassled you with warriors right off the bat and you've at least scouted and saw they had copper, odds are axes are on the way. Find yourself some horses, crack the whip, and suddenly the fight is in your favor. What are they defending their cities with? Axes or worse yet... a warrior or 2? The game could be over shortly after because now you have some combat veteran mobile units that can get to their front door a lot faster then they got to yours.

The same thing could happen though... if you don't push to cut off their metal and strike before the spears show up, you could be put in a bad spot again.


I remember starcraft being a lot like that, though with less obvious math and more micro-management skill. Zerglings didn't work so hot against the marines? Get those lurkers out before it's game over. Every small skirmish seemed like it left the victor in an obvious spot for a good unit to counter with on the rebound... and if it worked then the cycle could repeat for quite a while.


But both games still boil down to the simple idea that an economy that can take a lead and keep it will typically win out.... at least assuming equal skill (not sending lings against marines+medics repeatedly or sending impis against axemen repeatedly, economy alone can save you from stupid tactical mistakes!)

 

[30+]

@cornstalk

Agreed to almost everything your saying . Another poster eluded to SE/FE being very good due to production from the whip...and that is very true. On all my emperor and a few Immortal wins now, when I have used SE/FE I have been able to produce 24-60 units per 7 turns very fast and wipe lots of people out......of course repeat when your happiness and growth allows.

Overall, yes, economy normally translates to more tech and more production and more units to victory.

@Idleness

In 2:30 seconds, if you did a normal 8 pylon 9 gateway 10 gas (teching to sairs), you would have only just begun to start producing your very first zealot. By the time you had 6 sairs zerg could easily have 12 + hydra, which of course is not contest, victory zerg. If you teched to sairs that fast you would only have 1 gate producing units......This means that early Hydra's would be a very real threat, and could easily defeat you. 3 hatch hydra will greatly outproduce 1 gate zealot. This means you would have to get cannons to defend your choke.....meaning zerg could simply contain you with fast ovies and hydralisk > tech to Lurk > contain > map control > expo whore > macro whore. Even going back to basic Lings vs Zealots. 3 hatch lings out produce 2 Gate zealots, meaning the Zerg user only has to mass produce enough lings to hold you back in conjunction with there expo single sunk, or 2 if they are paranoid. Zerg would already have speedlings meaning they could add an additionaly sunk or 2 and split there forces up which would easily allow them to defend + counter your empty main with many lings.

If you want to LEARN how to play Brood War I suggest refering to www.gosugamers.net or www.teamliquid.net . Because unfortunately, right now, everything you are saying is simply invalid in many many aspects.

p.s. Reavers take even more time. In BW there has been ongoing debate whether or not Reaver/Sair/DesruptionWeb on land map can compete with Hydra/muta/scourge/devourer. Although there are a few games Pro vs Pro showing reaver/sair raping hydra/muta/ etc, there are many more games demonstrating zerg steamrolling over toss when using such a strategy, not to mention at the high pro-level, you most typically see Zerg owning Toss on a rediculous scale (something which is undoubtedly proven in all my links and the past 4 years of KESPA rankings.)

2nd P.s. Any additonal post you make in reference to SC/BW will not be replied to by me. Nothing more needs to be said on my part, although a book of information could easily be shared towards your direction (you need it). More Civ iv discussion for now on .

3rd and very late edit P.S. I am just partial to Brood War because I was stationed in Korea for around 15 months in a little place called Dongducheon (aka Tongducheon), about 16 KM South of DMZ, @ Camp Casey, gogo! Needless to say, all my little Katusa (Korean Augmentation To the United States Army [some of them spoke better english than me!]) friends greatly helped my Brood War skills. Those damn Korean's have some demon speed hands!! Talk about super fast mouse and key punches. APM (actions per minute) off the chart! Even at my best I was only 190-230. I played a game about 4 months ago and had a measly 133 . Anyways, dissappointing to see Civ was ranked above BW in top games of all times, lol!