Peluin
Chieftain
Someone has a time better than my 350BC 
I haven't found a better option than Cyrus.
I haven't found a better option than Cyrus.
BTS Beta 5
- Thread starter Methos
- Start date
HolyHandGrenade
Holy Pin
- Joined
- Mar 7, 2006
- Messages
- 607
Someone has a time better than my 350BC
I haven't found a better option than Cyrus.
Details, details, I need more details
Jimmy Thunder
King
My game is faster than 350BC, but not by that much. I used Cyrus too for an Immortal only rush.
A lot of it comes down to luck. I would settle my first city in a spot with good production potential and research AH. If horses show up somewhere that isn't too far away, I'll keep going.
That particular game had all AI's on the main continent so no galleys required.
One tricky thing I'm still not sure about is when to attack the AI. I tried to avoid situations where my attackers were parked in enemy territory but were too few to capture the city. This led to more and more archers being built and they love to whip defenders if they get to bronze working.
My conquest steps are ok, but not amazing nor perfectly executed. I try to finish the last 2-3 AI at the same time with not too many military units left over at the end. Captured workers are good for a few improvements and then to build roads to speed up your conquest. I'm sure most people use these ideas anyway.
The first time I tried early rushes a few months ago the hardest thing to adopt was to commit to building only units, units and more units. But it works.
A lot of it comes down to luck. I would settle my first city in a spot with good production potential and research AH. If horses show up somewhere that isn't too far away, I'll keep going.
That particular game had all AI's on the main continent so no galleys required.
One tricky thing I'm still not sure about is when to attack the AI. I tried to avoid situations where my attackers were parked in enemy territory but were too few to capture the city. This led to more and more archers being built and they love to whip defenders if they get to bronze working.
My conquest steps are ok, but not amazing nor perfectly executed. I try to finish the last 2-3 AI at the same time with not too many military units left over at the end. Captured workers are good for a few improvements and then to build roads to speed up your conquest. I'm sure most people use these ideas anyway.
The first time I tried early rushes a few months ago the hardest thing to adopt was to commit to building only units, units and more units. But it works.
Peluin
Chieftain
Wow You were being modest! Nice time Jimmy.
You were being modest! Nice time Jimmy.
HolyHandGrenade
Holy Pin
- Joined
- Mar 7, 2006
- Messages
- 607
Wow
Can both of you give us some more details about your wonderful finish times? As I noted both of you used Cyrus. I tried him too but it seems I am not playing Immortals very well. Any hints?
Congrats
Peluin
Chieftain
I had more luck building a pile (4 or 6) in my capital and then absorbing the nearest guy as soon as possible.
Really though, it came down to hitting them when they were weakest. I picked up writing early and signed open borders with everyone then let the 10-turns-of-required-agreement tick down. I'd maneuver my troops to the quickest border approach (diagonal moves over flat terrain, etc.) and keep a scout in their city or cities, and wait for a settler or worker to leave with escort or whatever.
Prioritizing the deaths of the AIs trimmed a few turns off. The AIs that started with fishing capitals would get out of the gate slowly it seemed, maybe from building a stack of workboats? So sometimes I would save them for a little later. Bismarck basically built the Great Wall every game (I played with set non-protective non-creative opponents), and I usually played no barbarians... so I would leave that hammer-waster to the end of my list as well. Most dramatically, any AIs trapped in the jungle were basically duds and could be saved for last.
After researching bronze working (and sometimes iron working) I'd check up on who had metal. If they get spearmen or swordsman, you're sunk. So kill those first. Pillage their metal ASAP, especially if you are keeping random events on where an iron mine = 3 partisan swordsman, somehow
I had a hard time deciding how to get all the chariots built fast enough. Chopping seemed like a no-brainer, but I had varying success with one worker or two. Sometimes building two took too long and the AIs got multiple cities out before I was ready to attack, but other times one worker just couldn't get it all done. Can I have 1.5 please?
Whipping was a tough call too. I think I decided working a plains-hill-mine was better than whipping in some situations, but that was as much laziness as anything. I didn't want to micromanage alternating periods of production and growth, blech.
Don't keep too many cities. If you hold on to every little burgh, your troops wind up on strike. I usually kept anything that fell into my hands with relatively high population, say 5 or more, since I could whip infrastructure and then have the city contribute to the war effort.
Settle one great general per city so you can have multiple sources of chariots with two starting promotions. In my head, I had this mathematical intuition that flanking 2 is better as an early promotion and strength 2 as the game winds down, but it's hard to get flanking 2 early when you want it, and I swear my 40% withdrawal chariots never withdraw, and my 60% victory chance troops never win...
One alternative I tried was a feudalism slingshot to open up vassalage/capitulation. I'd say in about 75% of games I tried it I pulled it off, it wasn't too bad. Usually some former capital has tons of forest around it to chop the Oracle, and no connection to your horses to build troops anyway... so why not. Have to research Monarchy (which takes awhile...) and Writing (which you definitely need anyway). If you get it early enough, the anarchy can be worth it for the +2 xp civic. Frustratingly, it seemed most of my opponents would rather die than surrender, though a couple times Ghandi just spontaneously decided he would like to serve me. I think it would probably be a better strategy to build warriors and upgrade them than continue research all the way through Monarchy, though. I rarely got any benefit from Feudalism.
I skimmed the log for Jimmy's impressive game and it looks like he was better about attacking more AIs earlier than I did. I'd venture that if you can send a couple Immortals to your foes, they get penned up real good since they have nothing to kill them with in the early game. Then they can't improve their land, so they build and tech slower (especially if you steal their workers...) and are easier to destroy after you build enough troops. So probably my mistake was that part at the very beginning where I admitted I "built up a pile of 4 or 6"
Oh, and when your workers are done they can build roads toward the remaining victims. Every little bit helps! And try to avoid moving across the continent a bunch of times. If you wind up with two fronts, maybe push the veterans one way across the continent while new troops handle the other front, or something.
Too much typing.
Really though, it came down to hitting them when they were weakest. I picked up writing early and signed open borders with everyone then let the 10-turns-of-required-agreement tick down. I'd maneuver my troops to the quickest border approach (diagonal moves over flat terrain, etc.) and keep a scout in their city or cities, and wait for a settler or worker to leave with escort or whatever.
Prioritizing the deaths of the AIs trimmed a few turns off. The AIs that started with fishing capitals would get out of the gate slowly it seemed, maybe from building a stack of workboats? So sometimes I would save them for a little later. Bismarck basically built the Great Wall every game (I played with set non-protective non-creative opponents), and I usually played no barbarians... so I would leave that hammer-waster to the end of my list as well. Most dramatically, any AIs trapped in the jungle were basically duds and could be saved for last.
After researching bronze working (and sometimes iron working) I'd check up on who had metal. If they get spearmen or swordsman, you're sunk. So kill those first. Pillage their metal ASAP, especially if you are keeping random events on where an iron mine = 3 partisan swordsman, somehow
I had a hard time deciding how to get all the chariots built fast enough. Chopping seemed like a no-brainer, but I had varying success with one worker or two. Sometimes building two took too long and the AIs got multiple cities out before I was ready to attack, but other times one worker just couldn't get it all done. Can I have 1.5 please?
Whipping was a tough call too. I think I decided working a plains-hill-mine was better than whipping in some situations, but that was as much laziness as anything. I didn't want to micromanage alternating periods of production and growth, blech.
Don't keep too many cities. If you hold on to every little burgh, your troops wind up on strike. I usually kept anything that fell into my hands with relatively high population, say 5 or more, since I could whip infrastructure and then have the city contribute to the war effort.
Settle one great general per city so you can have multiple sources of chariots with two starting promotions. In my head, I had this mathematical intuition that flanking 2 is better as an early promotion and strength 2 as the game winds down, but it's hard to get flanking 2 early when you want it, and I swear my 40% withdrawal chariots never withdraw, and my 60% victory chance troops never win...
One alternative I tried was a feudalism slingshot to open up vassalage/capitulation. I'd say in about 75% of games I tried it I pulled it off, it wasn't too bad. Usually some former capital has tons of forest around it to chop the Oracle, and no connection to your horses to build troops anyway... so why not. Have to research Monarchy (which takes awhile...) and Writing (which you definitely need anyway). If you get it early enough, the anarchy can be worth it for the +2 xp civic. Frustratingly, it seemed most of my opponents would rather die than surrender, though a couple times Ghandi just spontaneously decided he would like to serve me. I think it would probably be a better strategy to build warriors and upgrade them than continue research all the way through Monarchy, though. I rarely got any benefit from Feudalism.
I skimmed the log for Jimmy's impressive game and it looks like he was better about attacking more AIs earlier than I did. I'd venture that if you can send a couple Immortals to your foes, they get penned up real good since they have nothing to kill them with in the early game. Then they can't improve their land, so they build and tech slower (especially if you steal their workers...) and are easier to destroy after you build enough troops. So probably my mistake was that part at the very beginning where I admitted I "built up a pile of 4 or 6"
Oh, and when your workers are done they can build roads toward the remaining victims. Every little bit helps! And try to avoid moving across the continent a bunch of times. If you wind up with two fronts, maybe push the veterans one way across the continent while new troops handle the other front, or something.
Too much typing.
HolyHandGrenade
Holy Pin
- Joined
- Mar 7, 2006
- Messages
- 607
I had more luck building a pile (4 or 6) in my capital and then absorbing the nearest guy as soon as possible.
Really though, it came down to hitting them when they were weakest. I picked up writing early and signed open borders with everyone then let the 10-turns-of-required-agreement tick down. I'd maneuver my troops to the quickest border approach (diagonal moves over flat terrain, etc.) and keep a scout in their city or cities, and wait for a settler or worker to leave with escort or whatever.
Prioritizing the deaths of the AIs trimmed a few turns off. The AIs that started with fishing capitals would get out of the gate slowly it seemed, maybe from building a stack of workboats? So sometimes I would save them for a little later. Bismarck basically built the Great Wall every game (I played with set non-protective non-creative opponents), and I usually played no barbarians... so I would leave that hammer-waster to the end of my list as well. Most dramatically, any AIs trapped in the jungle were basically duds and could be saved for last.
After researching bronze working (and sometimes iron working) I'd check up on who had metal. If they get spearmen or swordsman, you're sunk. So kill those first. Pillage their metal ASAP, especially if you are keeping random events on where an iron mine = 3 partisan swordsman, somehow
I had a hard time deciding how to get all the chariots built fast enough. Chopping seemed like a no-brainer, but I had varying success with one worker or two. Sometimes building two took too long and the AIs got multiple cities out before I was ready to attack, but other times one worker just couldn't get it all done. Can I have 1.5 please?
Whipping was a tough call too. I think I decided working a plains-hill-mine was better than whipping in some situations, but that was as much laziness as anything. I didn't want to micromanage alternating periods of production and growth, blech.
Don't keep too many cities. If you hold on to every little burgh, your troops wind up on strike. I usually kept anything that fell into my hands with relatively high population, say 5 or more, since I could whip infrastructure and then have the city contribute to the war effort.
Settle one great general per city so you can have multiple sources of chariots with two starting promotions. In my head, I had this mathematical intuition that flanking 2 is better as an early promotion and strength 2 as the game winds down, but it's hard to get flanking 2 early when you want it, and I swear my 40% withdrawal chariots never withdraw, and my 60% victory chance troops never win...
One alternative I tried was a feudalism slingshot to open up vassalage/capitulation. I'd say in about 75% of games I tried it I pulled it off, it wasn't too bad. Usually some former capital has tons of forest around it to chop the Oracle, and no connection to your horses to build troops anyway... so why not. Have to research Monarchy (which takes awhile...) and Writing (which you definitely need anyway). If you get it early enough, the anarchy can be worth it for the +2 xp civic. Frustratingly, it seemed most of my opponents would rather die than surrender, though a couple times Ghandi just spontaneously decided he would like to serve me. I think it would probably be a better strategy to build warriors and upgrade them than continue research all the way through Monarchy, though. I rarely got any benefit from Feudalism.
I skimmed the log for Jimmy's impressive game and it looks like he was better about attacking more AIs earlier than I did. I'd venture that if you can send a couple Immortals to your foes, they get penned up real good since they have nothing to kill them with in the early game. Then they can't improve their land, so they build and tech slower (especially if you steal their workers...) and are easier to destroy after you build enough troops. So probably my mistake was that part at the very beginning where I admitted I "built up a pile of 4 or 6"
Oh, and when your workers are done they can build roads toward the remaining victims. Every little bit helps! And try to avoid moving across the continent a bunch of times. If you wind up with two fronts, maybe push the veterans one way across the continent while new troops handle the other front, or something.
Too much typing.
Thanks for your detailed answer. I see some of my mistakes now. I always tried to get 2-3 cities up and start building immortals then. This seems to be too late.
One point with withdraw - as far as I know a unit only can withdraw if it has at least 1 move left after the attack. So attacking diagonal consumes 2 moves => no withdraw chance
But moving to the city and resting for the next move => 1 more defender (whip)But again - thanks for your nice answer
Peluin
Chieftain
I'm almost certain a unit can withdraw on its last move. In fact, one of the startup hints suggests that saving a movement point might be good for moving a tile away so you can survive (evade) the counter-attack. I'm being completely honest when I say that my units withdraw so rarely that I can't be completely sure though!
In his winning game Jimmy Thunder built a second city. If done quickly (and Cyrus is imperialistic, so whipping/chopping is extra quick) it can be beneficial to get two production sites up and running, but when I tried going for three it was typically too slow. It seems like turn 65 or so on epic is a good target to have someone dying.
In his winning game Jimmy Thunder built a second city. If done quickly (and Cyrus is imperialistic, so whipping/chopping is extra quick) it can be beneficial to get two production sites up and running, but when I tried going for three it was typically too slow. It seems like turn 65 or so on epic is a good target to have someone dying.
DJMGator13
Still breathing
Having just submitted a few Warlord level BTS conquests I was reviewing the HOF tables and noticed all the Monarch scores and realized that I had just missed this game. But I decided to play with the same settings even though it won't count as a gauntlet score.
I just finished a 1000BC Conquest as Cyrus, scoring 85,054. I had to do multiple starts until I got one with horses in the fat cross. Built a worker first, then a few warriors while I was hooking up the horses then nothing but immortals from my capital. I did keep the nearest cities that I captured and they eventually added some immortals, but over 75% came from capital.
I just finished a 1000BC Conquest as Cyrus, scoring 85,054. I had to do multiple starts until I got one with horses in the fat cross. Built a worker first, then a few warriors while I was hooking up the horses then nothing but immortals from my capital. I did keep the nearest cities that I captured and they eventually added some immortals, but over 75% came from capital.
Jimmy Thunder
King
Good game DJMGator13, you should think about joining in the current gmajor/gminor competitions where early rush tactics are needed for a fast finish.
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