3 farms and 2 mines isnt enough improvements for a capital that never grew beyond Size 5 because it was whipping archers?
I had to put up the 3 farms before I got to BW, and them two mines on forested hills, then chop every other forest and spam the whip button on Archers.
Dog soldiers are the most powerful 'reliable' rush unit you can get, no copper requirement, 100% bonus vs melee, enough base str for archers, Im not debating that archers are better than any other unit, in fact they are clearly the weakest unit to rush with. However along with Dogs and Holkans, they are also 100% reliable.
In destroying one neighbor, you've allowed others to settle land near you and get relatively larger.
My starting land is all crappy, tundra, deserts and jungles. The only two decent city spots I had available with gold and silver were along the coast behind my capitals borders, so they were safe from AI settlement. Constantinople was a far better city than any that I could have settled was. I still have room for 8 cities that the other AI wont be able to nick, even Hanibal didnt want to settle the tundra site with deer and furs because it was still crappy, settling that spot and north of Constantinople completely blocked off my starting land from the rest of the AI, then the aim was to conquer their cities with Chu ko nus.
it's still weaker
?
Weaker than what other than Dogs / Holkans / Quecha / Skirmishers if you start with no copper or horses?
want that to convince us that it was a good move?
Constantinople has Gold, Gems, Horses, and Cow, and every other land tile around it is forested, making a perfect spot for a future national park city before the forests got chopped (the commerce and production off the resource tiles plus forested hills is plenty enough and its still a very desirable city to capture ASAP). I had one other gold and 2 silvers to settle after that, my economy picked up following the rush with ease. From there I had two options, Elephants with my Ivory, or Machinery for Chu Ko Nus, the latter obviously being the better choice.
Speed cheesing a map size isn't a particularly convincing demonstration. Do you want me to demonstrate how great the dog soldier is by winning on deity...dual map size marathon?
Says you who doesnt play map sizes above Standard? Oh ok, lets throw the usual excuse. My PC is slower than yours and cannot even handle standard size maps so I have to play small. Its still a very far stretch away from dual map / only one opponent and rushing fast with dog soldiers, which is a 100% guaranteed win.
I actually play small maps atm because I have zero desire to attempt conquests on a standard size or larger map, just as much as you dont want to play huge / marathon / deity for whatever reasons. And I simply hate playing on normal speed because everything happens far too fast.
and any amount of demonstrating that other openings are materially stronger and more consistent falls on deaf ears.
I never said that other units / UUs arent stronger, plenty are. But what exactly is cheesier, only ever playing as Persia or Egypt and restarting the map until you get a capital with horses, or playing a small / epic pangaea with a Pro leader and attempting an Archery rush?
What do you do when you tech BW and you have no copper, or AH and have no horses and want to rush an opponent, start again on a new map?
5. Your rush easily could have failed if any number of unlucky things occurred (protective neighbor, Constantinople on a hill, bad RNG luck, opponent having more archers in cap all come to mind)
Dogs, Holkans, Quechas, Skirmishers, War Chariots, Immortals could all have also failed if any of those unlucky things happened, so whats your point exactly?
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