Early Axe Rush Aftermath: What next?

[JTMacc99]

Okay, this is about my 5th or 6th game of BtS, and I'm now up to Prince level. I'll probably hang around this level for a while before settling in at Monarch for the long run. In my last game, I BARELY eeked out a religious diplomatic victory when I realized that capturing a couple of giant Portuguese cities in the mid-20th century was my only chance at any victory. The problem in that game was a lack of early metals and two powerful close neighbors that prevented me from killing them off early.

In this game, I got myself some copper and a bunch of seafood in my captial, and whipped my poor fish-eating population into a dozen axemen. I really had no choice, as the Greeks pretty much sealed me off as I was just about to ready to start whipping. The war has gone well , and I thankfully won a couple lucky battles against a fortified Phallanx or two. (It helped that the AI let me pillage its copper with my game-starting warrior who was hiding in the woods at the start of the conflict.) From the save below, you can see that I'm about to finish off the Greek menace in a few turns, and I have a settler heading down south to claim some prime real estate before Mansa (I think, it might be Sitting Bull, I forget,) drops a settler in there himself.


So, I am under the impression that I've done well so far but could drop the ball with poor decisions at this exact moment in time. What should I do next? Should I continue with the whipping and the chopping and smack around my other close neighbors? Is it too late for axes to be successful at this point? Should I drop in the (dangerously unprotected) settler as well as one or two more in the rich area below Athens and then just spend some time building and researching until cats and macemen can do their thing on the rest of the continent? If I get the right land, I should be in excellent shape to do whatever I want by mid-game, and then really finish off the world once my UB shows up with Steam Power. I'm just not sure what to do from here.

Other information:
-- I'm Dutch, so the financial trait will help ease the cost of war.
-- My cities are currently VERY lightly defended, with my strategy of dealing with my only aggressive neighbor by bringing a good offense rather than a strong defense.
-- I am without several of the early techs, including archery, due to the theory that I needed Bronze Working for the axes, and then I targeted alphabet to take advantage of my tech-whore neighbor MM.
-- The Dutch capital should make a damn fine GP farm, but is on the tip of the continent. The former Greek capital is, on the other hand, primed to be a wonder building wonder production city, not to mention, much more centrally located in what will be my future empire. Should I move the palace there now, or should I wait? (If I read my screen correctly, it is also the world leader in the production of tin (or something like that) and has a mined hill that cranks out extra shields just in case you are trying to figure out why that non-resource tile is so productive.

Sorry about the long post, but I get a little wordy sometimes.

 

[Catan_Settler]

Well I'm at work so I can't load the save or anything, but I kind of missed the point of your post... What is your problem here? Is the economy crashing? Are you bored? Typically an early rush leads to an economy crash so that's what I think you're getting at... But you do have a financial leader here, so I'd say get to the cottage spam and you should be able to bootstrap yourself up pretty easily... Much easier than most leaders.

 

[JTMacc99]

Heh. Sorry about that.

My point is that I understand the concept of the axe rush (Step 1) as it has been explained in these forums, but I don't really understand what people do after wiping out the nearest neighbor. My most frequent cause of failure is letting close neighbors become too powerful before I'm ready to deal with them, so I'm looking for viable options for STEP 2 in my plan for preventing this problem.

The only useful information I've found on post-axe rush strategy is all about pulling the economy out of the gutter. I understand that part as well. What I'm looking for is actual strategy options for the post-axe rush period, and I'm using this saved game as an example.

My hope is to get two or more "what next" options that I can then weigh for not just this game, but every game.

For example, is REX sometimes a viable strategy if you can afford it, or is that always a bad idea? When is it a good idea to roll on with the war mongering? When should the next move be a peaceful building period.

Does that make more sense? I'm a man without a plan, and I'd love to hear what other people would strategically do from here.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

After/during war I always look at how my economy is doing (aka how fast i'm researching, where the slider is, and whether i'm losing money or not). Chances are after a successful axe rush your economy will be hurting. If it isn't you can consider going for your next target, but generally after my first war I'm researching 40-50% and need to pull that up via courthouses, markets where relevant, and monarchy/calendar resources.

This also depends on the type of victory you're pursuing. If you're going cultural, you can consider stopping here and focusing on economy/necessary techs. If you want space (I haven't won a space game since noble because I don't like them, but w/e), you have to evaluate how big you'll be vs your rivals and whether you can outpace them in techs and production with the cities you have. Diplomacy isn't something you'd normally go for this early IMO (I always just see how the political landscape looks as we near the modern times, to see if I can garner the votes), but whether you're going for that or a war victory you'll want to plot your next target.

Do keep diplomacy in mind though when warring. You want to minimize the chances of getting backstabbed or dogpiled as much as possible.

 

[Bleys]

Cottages, and look for Wonders that are really abusable by FIN leaders, like GLH, Colossus, etc. Beeline techs that are big "steps" for FIN too, CoL for courthouses, Compass for Harbors, Printing Press for the bonus's to villages and towns, Steam Power for that game-breaking UB of Willems, makes every coastal city a Moai Statue city, it really is that broken.

One key for me with early Axe rushing is to try and keep my infrastructure going forward (even if its at a snails pace) while using chops and whips for my army. With overflows, you can still slowly build important stuff while amassing an army, even Wonders.

Get those workers out. Get them improving tiles ASAP. Watch your cities and switch citizens to the tiles you want/need to keep your economy afloat while your rushing. Work those cottages, get those caps up (happiness, and to a lesser extent for Monarch, health). One adjustment I made moving up is you cant keep every city you take from your opponent. Even if its in a great spot, raze it, planning to re-build yourself when your economy has bounced back. This is my biggest downfall of Axe Rushing on Monarch and above, keeping too many cities and stifling my economy baddly.

 

[pigswill]

If you've a decent stack of CR axes then one option is to stabilise for now, improve economy, maybe research maths, (masonry) construction (starting building cats), currency and CoL. Hopefully you'll have a stack of cats and axes by the time you've got CoL and its time to start the next war before your next victim gets to feudalism.

Edit: depending on the state of your economy it may be better to go for currency before construction then build the cats while researching CoL.

 

[Catan_Settler]

Well yeah, it really all depends on what you're trying to do in the game. I find in most cases, rushing one opponent is sufficient to get enough land to found your eventual 6-12 cities that you want. After this, further warfare can be useful for domination or conquest wins, although it is often quite costly. If you have the room to build out your core cities and are going for a peaceful victory then you're essentially done, and want to knuckle down and start working towards your goal... Be it building a powerful research base to get to spaceship development, or starting to nurture 3 of your cities into eventual cultural powerhouses. For diplomatic wins well, more warfare could be in the cards, but it could also irreparably damage your reputation with other civs. Taking vassals is good, but getting involved in wars you can't finish, or angering blocks of allied civs would obviously be quite bad for a diplomatic game. Of course, the final reason you may want more warfare is to secure additional resources. These can help your civ grow in the long term, and ensure plenty of trading partners, but again the costs can be quite prohibitive for these early wars so it's not always the best time to pursue it.

For my money, I feel the axe rush is really just a slightly modified form of early REXing which you must resort to if you are getting boxed in by the AIs. If you're not, it's not a particularly sound strategy in the long term view because let's face it, a settler is a lot cheaper than a stack of axes. Sure it's fun and all, but if you wait till a bit later you can usually wage much faster and less damaging (economically speaking) wars, and consolidate the captured territory quicker and more efficiently. If there's a good reason to go after a second opponent with axes, well then by all means go ahead, but you should really ask yourself WHY you need still more land, and HOW are you going to pay all that extra maintenance? There can definitely be good reasons to do so (an enemy has built a shrine or a wonder you want, he has tons of juicy resources that you lack, etc), but you really need to have a good reason to keep up with the rush, because if one rush can crash your economy, the second one can utterly cripple you.

 

[JTMacc99]

So first theme here seems to be: It's all about the economy.

In this game, gold is not a big problem yet, and I can probably keep the slider at 70 or 80 with little or no extra effort right now.

With that in mind, then would it make sense to drop in a couple more cities in the prime spots opened up by the war, and then regroup and stablize until catapults are in play? By that point in the game, a person should know enough about the neighbors to have a good idea of who, when and where the next confrontation will be.

If I were going to make this a general strategy, then I guess it would be: After an axe rush where there is no other immediate military threat in the area, expand (if necessary) to the maximum number of cities your economy can handle, build infrastructure and wonders that leverage your traits, shore up the defenses, and start preparing for the next empire expansion period.

Does that sound like a reasonable general plan if conditions are right?

 

[Catan_Settler]

Sounds perfect. If your research slider is still riding high like that you definitely have room to absorb some more cities in your empire, be it via invasion or REX. Of course it's always cheaper to build a settler than a stack of doom, so when you have that option it's almost always better to pursue peaceful expansion.

 

[Bleys]

With that in mind, then would it make sense to drop in a couple more cities in the prime spots opened up by the war,

It depends, really. How far away from your cap is this? Can you build courthouses quickly, or grow fast enough to whip them? I tend to avoid building too many cities until I have the techs in place to quickly get them to "pay their own way", so to speak. If your talking an all-river grassland area with a couple high commerce tiles, by all means, settle them, get some workers up there, and cottage up. If you dont think you will be able to pump that cities infrastructure or improve the tiles fast enough, perhaps its better to wait, unless there is an AI near, and you want to beat him there or cut him off.

 

[JTMacc99]

It is actually far enough away from the current capital to be a problem, but I plan to move the capital ASAP to a much better spot. I'm guessing that the extra cities I settle, rather than capture, are going to send the slider WAY down below 50% for a few turns until I get the capital moved and rearrange some citizens off of pure shield and food tiles and onto higher commerce ones.

In this case, the expansion cities would be on rivers with flood plains and lots of pretty resources and/or river in plains with gold.

The thing is, if I don't do this now, I am sure I'll lose these sites to MM, and he will slaughter me with all of those high commerce flood plains and rivers. I think that in this particular game, I may need to over-expand after the axe rush because I opened up prime real estate to the other civilizations.

Funny how even though my actual early rush didn't plunge me into financial woes, if it is going to turn out to be a success, I need to do things that almost certainly will.

 

[pigswill]

@ Catan Settler. Whether its cheaper to build settlers than axes is debatable. If for instance you build a stack of 8 axes and capture 2 cities then those two cities arguably cost you 280 hammers while the settlers cost 200 hammers. However if you lose say 4 axes during the rush then you end up with 2 cities and 4 axes, you've lost 4 axes (140 hammers) but saved on 2 settlers (200 hammers) for a net saving of 60 hammers.

Having said that if the nearest AI is more than ten tiles away and I can build a blocking city then that's what I'll generally do instead of a long range axe rush.

Effectively what you're losing with an axe rush isn't hammers but turns at the start of the game because you can get a settler out and a city established many turns before you can get a stack into enemy territory.

 

[Bleys]

Moving your capitol is a pretty expensive thing too, hammerwise. I think a better plan is to get CoL, get to 6 courthouses ASAP, especially in those more distant cities, then plan to build Forbidden Palace in the city you're thinking of moving the Palace into. You could even build Versailles in another city, although I tend to let the AI get that one, since Divine Right isnt a big priority tech.

You also want to get those cottages up and worked fast, with a FIN leader its not hard for a city to "earn" its place with a few Cottages. But it does sound like a juicy spot, and MM is DEFINITELY a guy you want to prevent from getting those juicy commerce spots. He can be a PITA.

 

[onedreamer]

The only useful information I've found on post-axe rush strategy is all about pulling the economy out of the gutter. I understand that part as well. What I'm looking for is actual strategy options for the post-axe rush period, and I'm using this saved game as an example.

My hope is to get two or more "what next" options that I can then weigh for not just this game, but every game.

when you eliminate a neighbor with an early rush you're pretty much set to win, that's why you didn't find anything after. All you have to do is keep the others at bay and colonize your neighbor's lands before they do, in case you razed his cities (high chances you did since in BtS the AI is awful at city placement). Colonize and improve your cities. Do not let the AI trade too much among themselves. Encourage wars. Use diplomatic skills... they are a harder strategy component than a simple axemen rush. You will have an edge because you'll have more land than others, so all you need to do is improve this land. When you feel ready, pick your next target to eliminate, or just aim at cultural, space race or diplomatic win (this is the most interesting among the 3 IMO, and you'll still need to eliminate others anyways). Or do it all together... depends how you feel. After eliminating your closest neighbor pretty much all doors will be open and you only need to choose which to take. Hence why no further suggestion. Oh, and disregard mathematical reasoning on wheather a settler costs more than 4 axes or the like. Let it be the AI to decide how to play based on numbers...

One thing...: do not rely on moving the capital to solve overexpansion problems. It won't be (nearly) enough. You need to build the infrastructure in the cities and more importantly improve the land. You should have accumulated much money by taking your neighbor cities, so you should be able to research with a gold spending.

 

[absimiliard]

I think he should drop in a few more cities, get up to 4 or 5.

I agree with moving the capitol. Bureaucracy will help you in the old Greek capitol if you intend to pursue a high hammer strategy there.

In your circumstance I find I usually overexpand into the newly free space and suffer economically for it. It's my worst vice in a rush scenario. Don't be me.

-abs

 

[JTMacc99]

In this case, the question of Axe Hammers vs. Settler Hammers wasn't really a factor. I had, at best, a shot at three of my own cities on the main continent before I would have been pinned by Greek cites.

By the way, Bureaucracy, a settled General and the HE have made Athens a level three unit generating machine. I'm also in Organized Religion at the moment, which allows me to quickly sneak in useful buildings as we go along.


Well, I did settle a few more cities in the good spots. It did have a disasterous effect on the slider, (it bottomed out at 20% for a few turns.) I did move the capital, which is a highly unusual move for me, but Athens was a MUCH better place, and there was no shot of me building courthouses more quickly (especially in the brand new cities), and the effect on the economy was dramatic the second the palace was finished.

The net result of this was me claiming the entire middle of the continent and pinning MM and Sitting Bull to the east and west coasts.

Because I'm not very good at this game, I fell pretty far behind in research to you-know-who, but I beat his ass to Liberalism and grabbed Astronomy. I am in the process of building a city busting army to claim the American Indian cities. There's at least one holy city in there, and they're all protected by CGIII longbowmen, so I may have to wait for cannons to finish the job, but I'll probably get this underway earlier and see if I can take the annoyingly close cities in a first round of war.

Also, I did something I probably shouldn't have done, but I wanted to see how it would play out. As I geared up for war with SB, and right after Liberalism, Mr. MM came for a visit and asked if my mighty nation would protect him as a vassal state. Since he was way ahead in science, and I thought he might be useful in that regard, I took him up on his offer. I'm thinking that I am going to shoot for the domination victory.

I'm only a turn or three from finding the rest of the players in this game as well as being the first to prove the world is round. All pop up rankings have indicated that my continent is far more advanced than the rest of the world. Once I clean up my Sitting Bull problem, I think it's time to bulk up the navy and see how I do with an overseas invasion.

 

[troytheface]

Save your Great Generals from your war and attach them to Caravels. Build a huge navy for the hell of it and see if you can be the premier naval power.
Hopefully you can upgrade a couple of those Caravels into super frigates or destroyers.
You might want to wait and turn one into a super attack submarine.

 

[Bleys]

20% isnt so bad bro. Remember, you WILL bounce back. Once you get things like Courthouses up, and tech Currency, etc, it comes back FAST.

One thing I have started doing post-rush is trimming my old units, each one you delete (to a point) is another +1 gold. When your hovering at the 10-20% mark and under 50 total beakers, every penny counts.

Keep this thread updated on how you do. It will be a good read for others who rush and crash their economies, then pull it out of the sewer. Sounds like you are on the upward trail already.