Here's the early game rushing strategy I've been using more often than not to take out that neighbor AI with the nice land I'd like to 'annex'. Note: currently playing on Emperor, winning some, losing some.
Expand quickly to 3 or 4 cities. Once AI target has been chosen, make sure all espionage points go against this target. Once appropriate worker and military techs have been researched, get Alphabet for spies. Use spies to take down cultural defenses and capture usually 2 cities including enemy capital. Then develop economy.
This rush is a lot more leisurely than a typical axe rush (and the rush could be a sword or Horse Archer rush obviously). Because spies are used, less units are required to ensure victory, battles go quicker, and the core empire can be developed more fully before the first war since the invasion does not depend on attacking before cultural defenses get too high and walls are built.
If copper isn't present there is time to research IW, and if necessary even HBR for horse archers. Sometimes I will even research IW to clear some jungle (usually to get gems, a great benefit to early expansion). I can stake my claims to the best 2 or 3 surrounding city sites, grabbing necessary resrources, and rather than sacrifice the possible success of the early war, have several productive cities to fuel it.
An additional benefit is time for a wonder or 2. After getting usually 2 settlers out, the capital typically bulds the Great Wall. A settled Great Spy is in my opinion the best of the Great People now, and he will usually show up shortly after the first war, in time to fuel the next round, and simultaneously start getting some intel on the other AIs. There is usually also time for the Great Lighthouse if many coastal cities look to be likely.
Another benefit of the more leisurely pace of the invasion is that it typically isn't necessary to sacrifice the best city location for a copper town in order to get the copper hooked up quicker. The extra 20 or so turns at epic to chop a monument and wait for border pop is usually not a problem.
Typically, somewhere near 1000BC, I've got about 3 cities at the happy cap and have actually started on some non-war infrastructure while I wait for Alphabet to complete as my army of 12-15 axes is already built. The only real problem I've come up against is that the war is so successful, and there is a danger of being tempted to over-expand, keeping too many nice cities. If the economy goes in the tank, often the AI is too slow to CoL to trade for it or steal it, and it may take too long to tech to it directly.
Expand quickly to 3 or 4 cities. Once AI target has been chosen, make sure all espionage points go against this target. Once appropriate worker and military techs have been researched, get Alphabet for spies. Use spies to take down cultural defenses and capture usually 2 cities including enemy capital. Then develop economy.
This rush is a lot more leisurely than a typical axe rush (and the rush could be a sword or Horse Archer rush obviously). Because spies are used, less units are required to ensure victory, battles go quicker, and the core empire can be developed more fully before the first war since the invasion does not depend on attacking before cultural defenses get too high and walls are built.
If copper isn't present there is time to research IW, and if necessary even HBR for horse archers. Sometimes I will even research IW to clear some jungle (usually to get gems, a great benefit to early expansion). I can stake my claims to the best 2 or 3 surrounding city sites, grabbing necessary resrources, and rather than sacrifice the possible success of the early war, have several productive cities to fuel it.
An additional benefit is time for a wonder or 2. After getting usually 2 settlers out, the capital typically bulds the Great Wall. A settled Great Spy is in my opinion the best of the Great People now, and he will usually show up shortly after the first war, in time to fuel the next round, and simultaneously start getting some intel on the other AIs. There is usually also time for the Great Lighthouse if many coastal cities look to be likely.
Another benefit of the more leisurely pace of the invasion is that it typically isn't necessary to sacrifice the best city location for a copper town in order to get the copper hooked up quicker. The extra 20 or so turns at epic to chop a monument and wait for border pop is usually not a problem.
Typically, somewhere near 1000BC, I've got about 3 cities at the happy cap and have actually started on some non-war infrastructure while I wait for Alphabet to complete as my army of 12-15 axes is already built. The only real problem I've come up against is that the war is so successful, and there is a danger of being tempted to over-expand, keeping too many nice cities. If the economy goes in the tank, often the AI is too slow to CoL to trade for it or steal it, and it may take too long to tech to it directly.
