Another failed early rush...

[civver_764]

I've been playing a few games on Prince lately, although I've yet to finish one. My main problem is that everytime I try to do an early rush it goes wrong. I just whipped/built 8 chariots as fast as I possibly could, and still by the time I got to his(Brennus) territory he had 4 archers in his city(this is before 2000 BC, btw), and he had a second city built. All 8 of my chariots ended up dying, while only one of his Archers was killed. I know the AI starts getting bonuses on Prince, but this is ridiculous imo. I raised the army as fast as I possibly could(tech went agri->AH because I had pigs in the BFC, I made the second city to grab the horses with a settler which was my third build in the capital, and then I whipped at every opportunity I could get.) I don't see how you guys all pull this off so well. Any tips you have for me?

 

[DMOC]

Can you post one of your games up?

By the way, be careful about using chariots to rush someone like Brennus ... Brennus builds a lot of early units, and this is why I tend to avoid rushing guys like him with bare chariots, unless I am either Egypt or Persia.

 

[war ensemble]

I currently play at Noble, but my advice might hold some credence on Prince. I dislike rushing someone with single-digit unit numbers. My sweet spot seems to be 12, which would take one city. Having four archers by then is fairly ridiculous, in my opinion--on Noble on my latest rush I was up against one warrior per city. Just chop aggressively in conjunction with the whip and make more units than you feel necessary and go after a civ with a weak power rating (very general advice, I know). Post a game up and that'll be most helpful.

 

[Sian]

off hand with 4 archers i'd guess he'd either allready had an settler in the city or had almost built one as to ship it off with at least one of them to a third city side

 

[batavier]

You could have tried to capture/raze the second city. The AI might move archers to defend it, or might move some archers away to escort a settler. I sometimes just move off my forces, build a few more units, and then come back and take the capital.

I don't whip chariots, unless I do not have enough hills to work, wich isn't likely. You can't whip them for two pop and it will hurt your long term production and science.

 

[PieceOfMind]

If rushing isn't working out for you, perhaps try ... not rushing. Even in the best circumstances it can be a gamble so early in a game and unless we're talking Emperor or higher, I don't think the AIs are able to handle it.

If however you do rush, I'd suggest axemen over chariots, unless you're playing as Persia or Egypt I guess.

 

[vicawoo]

I'd advise 3 to 1 chariots:archer, + a few extras. (assume first 4 chariots die, assume maybe half of the next 4 win, need 2 more). 14's a better number. Attack from 2 diagonals so you can declare->attack in one turn. Chop a lot. You can't spare the hammers for a granary. Whip only your last chariots, and whip to size 1 (whip, overflow, whip repeat); whipping without granaries isn't worth it in the long run.
You can mass until 1) right before his borders pop or 2) as he hooks up copper.

 

[Laurwin]

well on noble at least, i think your first priority should be to take the enemy capital first with a quick ancient style blitzkrieg. The reason? its most likely his strongerst military production city, where he is most likely to whip as many archers as fast as possible.

can't say if this is true for prince, but I remember playing a bit more warlike bismarck quite succesfully. First I archer rushed mansa musa, 8 archers I think against 2 warriors and a skirmisher . This won't work on noble+ levels.

but after that I decided to go bronze working and iron working if by chance I don't get any metals. I eventually got both resources, and I moved a mighty stack of 6 swords and 6 axes as close to his capital as possible, and I indeed took it, although all my swords died in the process. A couple of bowmen defending there and so on.

So when rushing, BEWARE of enemy's unique units that come early, such as dog soldiers(american indians), bowmen(babylon), skirmishers (mali). Also preferably target weaker civs, that is those civs that are not protective or aggressive.

Although I must say that dealing with montezuma and shaka earlier is better than later.

So in a nutshell pick your target, build an army, move for the killing blow (take his capital) and only then worry about the rest of his puny resently settled cities.

Ive personally found out that only if you wait too long around the capital trying to pillage stuff and not assaulting right away, then the AI starts to whip a ridiculous number of archers in his capital, not good. Generally they manage to whip around 2 archers or something like that while you walk your stack into attack position.

and pray to god they dont have axes defending also . rush only if they dont got metals

 

[futurehermit]

Bring enough units to get the job done. 8 can be enough if you hit VERY early. But with chariots usually you are going to need ~15 + reinforcements, especially on higher levels.

 

[6K Man]

I have never had a lot of luck with Chariot rushes. No CR makes it very hard for them to take cities with their 4 STR.

HAs with Flanking seems to be the better bet if you don't have strategic metal.

 

[Sian]

funny 6k man ... i usually have more succes with chariots than axes ... feeling axes are to slow to get there before the enemy have chopped and/or whipped even more archers

 

[Monsterzuma]

I've been playing a few games on Prince lately, although I've yet to finish one. My main problem is that everytime I try to do an early rush it goes wrong. I just whipped/built 8 chariots as fast as I possibly could, and still by the time I got to his(Brennus) territory he had 4 archers in his city(this is before 2000 BC, btw), and he had a second city built. All 8 of my chariots ended up dying, while only one of his Archers was killed. I know the AI starts getting bonuses on Prince, but this is ridiculous imo. I raised the army as fast as I possibly could(tech went agri->AH because I had pigs in the BFC, I made the second city to grab the horses with a settler which was my third build in the capital, and then I whipped at every opportunity I could get.)

If there was an agriculture-improvable food resource in your BFC, you'd have been better off going Agri -> Mining -> BW -> AH. If there wasn't, then these are not good conditions for a rush, because the fact you need to tech through Agri and AH before you can even improve your first food tile - all the while not having teched any closer to BW - indicates your start will be incredibly slow.

 

[§L¥ Gµ¥]

3:1, + reinforcements for chariots. I actually prefer chariot rushes, their 2 movement means I can cover more ground in my rush, and they're dirt cheap, so you can amass them more quickly than axes. I've been known for throwing chariots at protective civs, or bronze aided spearmen and won. It's just a numbers game when rushing, you aren't looking to upgrade those units later, so just throw them into the fray and expect to lose your fair share. And if you don't think you can pull off a chariot rush, develop a financial city and beeline to horseback riding.

The only civs that really bust my balls when I'm trying to rush are : Pacal [resourceless spearman], Shaka, and Rags for the sheer number of units they build.

 

[Gliese 581]

8 chariots should kill more than 1 archer unless you were very unlucky or
You didn't build a barracks first.
The city was on a hill, this really stacks the odds against chariots.

The celts seem to love building cities on hills even more than usual for the AI, because of their UB I guess, and they build alot of units, so chariot-rushing them can be hard.

 

[§L¥ Gµ¥]

8 chariots should kill more than 1 archer unless you were very unlucky or
You didn't build a barracks first.
The city was on a hill, this really stacks the odds against chariots.

The celts seem to love building cities on hills even more than usual for the AI, because of their UB I guess, and they build alot of units, so chariot-rushing them can be hard.

It depends if 8 will beat more than one or not. If he's got 3 archers in a hilled city, I'd say that he may not with 8 unpromoted chariots.

 

[Monsterzuma]

The main issue I have with Chariots is that they take another tech to be unlocked. Axes virtually take no tech at all cause you're going to be teching BW early on in every game anyway. On Immortal difficulty, any extra beakers you need to spend add to the financial troubles you go through as a rule in rush situations at this difficulty level.

Other considerations:
- yes, chariots get to the cities 1 turn sooner, meaning 1 archer whip less and possible reinforcements less. Thing is, any reinforcements you destroy do substract from the enemy's power, so effort put toward doing this is not wasted. It's only the extra whip that makes a real difference, and sometimes it doesn't even occur. What's more, forrests and hills can make it so that this advantage of chariots might not be leveragable at all.
- Agressive boosts Axemen, not Chariots
- Axemen fighting Archers in flatland, low culture cities can cross the 50% combat odds treshold in some cases, meaning the biggest jump point gets crossed.
- Axes have increased odds against Spears and Swords, which the AI builds a lot of. Protecting them against chariots is just a case of bringing one spear along and maybe moving through forrest or hill territory. Chariots get stopped dead in their tracks by both Swordsmen and Spears. Generally, the axes are more reliable, less likely to run into insurmountable obstacles. They're much, much less of a gamble.

On the whole, I definitely favor Axes over Chariots.

 

[Jedi_Otis]

IMO, one of the biggest problems with early rushes is it takes alot of experience in the hows, whens, whys and whos, and the only way to get that experience usually means taking some beatings.

As was stated before, your going to want at least a 3-1 ratio of chariots to archers. Certainly more depending on hill cities, protective archers, etc. Also, who you're doing it to is important.

In the OPs' scenario, Brennus is a unit spamming bloodthirsty psycho, but he's a religious psycho. If there was room to expand in another direction or a punier target on another border(Ghandi leaps to mind), that may have been a better option while attempting to placate Brennus with diplomacy and by worshipping the same God he does.


OTH, as Laurwin alluded to, your total psychos like Monty and Shaka, (and I would throw Alex and Nappy in with them), may require immediate action if they are next door. Those guys are dangerous carnivorous predators and if you're the nearest meat source, sending them a freindly fruit basket probably won't help. In that case, seriously consider rushing them with whatever is handy, which might mean chariots if you don't have copper.

Also keep in mind that a successful early rush war doesn't neccessarily mean you have to conquer cities. In a situation where you might have a dangerous neighbor, but don't have enough food or production to spit out a large enough force quickly enough for conquest, consider a pillage war. The superior mobility of chariots can be very effective at this. Steal his workers, pillage his improvements, and try to draw his units out of his cities into open terrain where they have no defensive bonus. Often times you can slow an enemy down enough until you are ready to deal with them with some finality. Just be mindful of enemy road placement to avoid counter-attacks by foot soldiers using road movement, if possible. This shouldn't be a problem that early in the game when roads are more scarce. Also remember that rivers negate road movement until CONSTRUCTION, so use them to your advantage.

 

[iluvatar_gr]

Well since you're playing prince I would suggest that you wait until construction..Settle a few cities , work on your commerce and then attack with a lot of catapults Why rush when you are playing on a difficulty in which the AI's can't possibly keep up with you on research? . However if you still want a rush I would say that the chariots must have at least 2 upgrades.

ps: check Lord Parkin's ALC game

 

[§L¥ Gµ¥]

A rush is not a rush with siege.

 

[Verision]

If you really want to do a rush, use one of the civs with an early unique unit.
Use Julius Caesar, get Iron Working, make Praetorians, kill people.

I know that Iron Working isn't exactly an "Early Rush", but Praetorians are strength 8 vs
archers 3
axemen 5 (7.5 vs melee)
swordmen 6

I'm currently playing a Monarch game as Julius and I took out the Etheopians using the above method. They even had 2 axemen in both their cities when I attacked (I had 8 praets all with city raider 1) and I took them out with little trouble.

Personally, I don't think you should try a rush with anything but a UU until you get used to the difficulty level you are playing at.