early rush overrated or am I just horrible at civ?

[tuckerthecat]

Unless I'm extremely crowded I never rush the AI if I have good land to expand into peacefully. I play normal settings ( monarch or emp ) on large maps mostly & 95 out of 100 games there is plently of room to expand, in that instance I see no point in rushing ( unless its the only other civ on your continent ).

In the games were I do an early rush I either fail miserably or so cripple myself that I can never recover ( esp on emp ). The last two games I rushed was..

1. I was playing as Saladin, I was on the end of a narrow piece of land with room for 3 cities before I was totally blocked by Monty ( ended up room for 2 cities cause of course he settled my way even though he had tons of land to his south ) I researched agriculture then animal husb as my 1st two techs, horses popped up in a spot where I could put my 2nd city. I settled the city & made about 9 chariots before I declared. I took the 1st city with 2 losses but the capital had 3 archers on a hill with 40% cultural defense. I whipped 2 more replacement chariots & attacked with all 9, I lost 8 and only killed one archer. At this point I'm at 0% research with writing not do in for another 108 turns! ( on marathon ) GAME OVER

2. I was playing a Toku, I found 2 other cities one of which has copper. Washington is very close so I build up a stack of 10 axemen & declare. I again take his 1st city with 2losses but his 2nd city has 3 archers on a hill ( & I only have 6 healthy axes ) so I by pass it to take his 3rd city while pumping axes still in my original 3 cities. By this time I'm down to 0% research again & negative 4 gold per turn now thanks to unit maintenance. I converge the 2 two stacks ( now have 12 axes vs 5 archers ) & assault the city & loose 9 of my axes. So I have to settle for peace with an american city in the middle of my "empire". My economy is so bad at this point I have to start to delete units while I wait for my cottages to mature.

Unless you are playing a financial civ ( or possibly organized ) & dont get any early commerce bonus ( gold, gems etc ) how do you support your troops & land so early?

Also the losses you incure in an early rush are just incredible, in ALC games & such I see nothing but early rushes that involve taking city after city of the AI's on flat ground with 1 or 2 unpromoted archer per city! Every time I try I rush every damn AI city is on a hill & by the time you get to their second city there is 4 well promoted archers on a hill waiting for me!

 

[Willem]

I agree, an early rush is over-rated. I've tried it a few times but finally gave up. It's just too much of a crap shoot and you're not going to be able to afford to hang on to the city anyway, at least if you're playing on a Huge map. The distance from capital maintanence is going to kill your economy so all you can really do is raze the city. Which gives you more land to expand into mind you, but unless you remove the civ completely very early on, it will just rebuild in those same spots. So you pretty much end up wasting all the production in the units you lose during the campaign.

 

[deanej]

I don't do rushes either, but I'm guessing that since you and the AI each have three cities that you're waiting too long to do it.

 

[attackfighter]

well the archers had 140% bonus defending the capital, so you shouldn've picked another target

I like rushing, cause it gives me an early army to defend against barbarians, and my cities get big so fast. It also gives you premium land, since you get to choose where you want.

I also wouldn't say its luck, you just got to scout a civ that's on flatland and its a sure thing. Maybe you should of attacked montezuma or something.

 

[mechaerik]

Attack a squishy target, avoid PRO civs and civs with early UUs.

It's also much better the earlier you do it, so if that's your strategy, beeline BW.

An early rush is best on smaller maps where civs spawn closer.

 

[Rockies]

I don't tend to do the early rush so much either, but have -- one thing you might have tried in those situations -- take the soft-cities like you did - and instead of impaling yourself on the impossible cities, just pillage every square in his land so he's producing nothing...his archers will be hard pressed to do anything about your axemen and chariots running around..and when there's nothing left to pillage, you can stay at war so he can't rebuild, or if you've got currency by then, get peace and take his money - and the combination of having to whip his pop into archers and being pillaged into the stone ages, will leave him a shattered hulk you can finish off later when you get cats or trebs.

 

[bestsss]

start w/ stealing the worker, choke them afterwards.
when you have your pack ready (or close to), start moving and make peace.
Wait for the settler and the guardians to leave the city, you should be able to see them somehow. Strike and take the capital.
Just time your rush well when the AI sends an expansion, makes things easier.

Of course avoid protective traits and hill established cities.

 

[FrozenTitan]

Personally I advocate the early rush. I am currently trying to make the noble-prince jump and I'm finding that the early rush allows me to last that extra milisecond. If you're using a warrior rush you can rush 4 or 5 and take out a civ nearly instantly (provided they're not protective, or on a hill). As a result of this you will have a lot more room to expand. Or with the axe rush you can take out a civ completely and gain maybe 5 cities depending on how late you do it. The rush can be a powerful tool.

 

[Bei1052]

I don't rush unless I have horses. And even then it's rare that I do so.

 

[deanej]

The best early rush is on a duel sized map with no extra civs added...

 

[King Flevance]

I guess I will be the second person to say that the rush isn't overrated. I play on Monarch and I rush every game pretty much. If you have a protective enemy nearby it can be more costly. Or Hammurabi can stop an axe rush pretty good. But for the most part, the axe rush rarely fails. And I mean rarely.

(NOTE: In my game axes are a 4 , chariots get +25% vs melee instead of 100% vs. axemen, and archers are allowed the Woodsman promotion line. These are the only things in my game that would make any difference to an early rush. And it actually puts a rush at an even larger disadvantage.)

Unless I'm extremely crowded I never rush the AI if I have good land to expand into peacefully. I play normal settings ( monarch or emp ) on large maps mostly & 95 out of 100 games there is plently of room to expand, in that instance I see no point in rushing ( unless its the only other civ on your continent ).

In the games were I do an early rush I either fail miserably or so cripple myself that I can never recover ( esp on emp ). The last two games I rushed was..

1. I was playing as Saladin, I was on the end of a narrow piece of land with room for 3 cities before I was totally blocked by Monty ( ended up room for 2 cities cause of course he settled my way even though he had tons of land to his south ) I researched agriculture then animal husb as my 1st two techs, horses popped up in a spot where I could put my 2nd city. I settled the city & made about 9 chariots before I declared. I took the 1st city with 2 losses but the capital had 3 archers on a hill with 40% cultural defense. I whipped 2 more replacement chariots & attacked with all 9, I lost 8 and only killed one archer. At this point I'm at 0% research with writing not do in for another 108 turns! ( on marathon ) GAME OVER

The problem you ran into here was that you waited too long actually. Monty isn't Creative so this would take at least ~120 turns unless he founded a religion. The key to a chariot rush is being extremely fast. IMO the only way to have a chariot rush work is to research AH right off, get horses already in a city you have or nearby with a settler and workers ready. Have a barracks ready so that as soon as the horses are hooked up, you start making chariots and then go.

However, axes work better because you can chop and whip them out to get the attack going even sooner. However, copper is always a gamble as is horses.

2. I was playing a Toku, I found 2 other cities one of which has copper. Washington is very close so I build up a stack of 10 axemen & declare. I again take his 1st city with 2losses but his 2nd city has 3 archers on a hill ( & I only have 6 healthy axes ) so I by pass it to take his 3rd city while pumping axes still in my original 3 cities. By this time I'm down to 0% research again & negative 4 gold per turn now thanks to unit maintenance. I converge the 2 two stacks ( now have 12 axes vs 5 archers ) & assault the city & loose 9 of my axes. So I have to settle for peace with an american city in the middle of my "empire". My economy is so bad at this point I have to start to delete units while I wait for my cottages to mature.

This one has a few missing elements to it. You founded 3 cities and made 10 axes. With an axe rush you are allowed a somewhat bigger window than with chariots. So I would say that its kind of relevant what you were pulling commerce from. (Coast, Cottages, or luxury resources)
Next, I assume you kept both cities you captured. I would strongly recommend that when doing a rush, ignore where the AI placed his cities and pretend like the land is just open for grabs. Dot-map out where you would place cities, and then when you have your placement made up, decide if any of their cities are worth adjusting your plans for out of convenience. I will burn down a size 14 city to move it over 1 tile quite often than most I assume. I have gotten less picky than I used to be. But on a rush, the point is to eliminate competition for expansion. It's a turf war. I only keep cities that are definatly worth their placement.

Also, I am curious how many defenders you had. 5 cities, 10 axes, 6 units (2 defenders per founded city) should not have you at 0% pulling in -4.

But really this is just guesses. I would have to see this game to get a good scope as to where the problem was for sure. Yesterday, I would have said "you can't go wrong with an axe rush". (And my axes are 4 ) I believe you somehow did with 5 axes. But I am certain it is a parallel factor rather than the rush itself.

Unless you are playing a financial civ ( or possibly organized ) & dont get any early commerce bonus ( gold, gems etc ) how do you support your troops & land so early?

Flood plains = resource just in case you don't see it that way. I would assume you do but I figure its worth mentioning. Rivers = money whether financial or not. Water = money whether financial or not. Maybe not in massive quantities but plenty to run an empire with a strong army with.

Also the losses you incure in an early rush are just incredible, in ALC games & such I see nothing but early rushes that involve taking city after city of the AI's on flat ground with 1 or 2 unpromoted archer per city! Every time I try I rush every damn AI city is on a hill & by the time you get to their second city there is 4 well promoted archers on a hill waiting for me!

You will take casualties for sure. I would say take 2x the amount of units if their best city has 20% cultural defense. 3x+2 if it has 40% or a wall. Also, always bring the stack. Let them heal if you have to if they have to heal, they probably got promoted. taking a few CR2 axes instead of a stack of healthy CR1's makes a noticable difference. Playing as Toku, you could easily have had CR2 Combat 1 axes. Also make sure that you aren't throwing your best guys in with the first couple battles. Throw in the people you don't care if they die and let your best units (The ones to the far left of the unit roster at the bottom of the screen) come in later to win the war.

If I can rush with 4 axes and take out a protective leader on a hill, with cultural defenses, you can with 5 strength axes. You need to make sure you build a barrack and giv e them CR1. And of course do it fast and it will work I assure you. Just make sure you get it all done early and not as an afterthought. It has to be done as a primary plan.

 

[Patak]

start w/ stealing the worker, choke them afterwards.
when you have your pack ready (or close to), start moving and make peace.
Wait for the settler and the guardians to leave the city, you should be able to see them somehow. Strike and take the capital.
Just time your rush well when the AI sends an expansion, makes things easier.

Of course avoid protective traits and hill established cities.

Agree, the only early war is when I park a worrior next to the first neighbour to steel first worker and demolish improvements. This sets him back so much that they dont pose a problem later on.

 

[Gorey]

for me its purely situational. i never go into game with a set plan of rushing.

if my neighbor is too close, and i have quick access to bronze, and he's not protective and no good early UU's.. i'll go for it.

if those 3 things aren't met... im better of not trying it. especially at harder difficulties.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

It's situational. There are times where an early rush will lose you the game. Then you have games like my one with Saladin over on strategy and tips, where I literally killed (as in completely) 3 civs by using horse archers exclusively on immortal/normal standard tectonics map with a standard # of civs. The advantage granted by doing that was so great that the tech hole didn't matter ----> wound up winning 1525 AD conquest.

Evaluating your own ability to build units as well as the AI tendencies and resources and the political situation is key.

 

[Harvin87]

It's situational. There are times where an early rush will lose you the game. Then you have games like my one with Saladin over on strategy and tips, where I literally killed (as in completely) 3 civs by using horse archers exclusively on immortal/normal standard tectonics map with a standard # of civs. The advantage granted by doing that was so great that the tech hole didn't matter ----> wound up winning 1525 AD conquest.

Evaluating your own ability to build units as well as the AI tendencies and resources and the political situation is key.

Do you play in Epic or Marathon? ... or Normal?

 

[huh?]

Do you play in Epic or Marathon? ... or Normal?

"It's situational. There are times where an early rush will lose you the game. Then you have games like my one with Saladin over on strategy and tips, where I literally killed (as in completely) 3 civs by using horse archers exclusively on immortal/normal standard tectonics map with a standard # of civs. The advantage granted by doing that was so great that the tech hole didn't matter ----> wound up winning 1525 AD conquest."

I would say normal.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Yeah, normal is a good call there .

 

[cracked]

I've found that some civs are better at early rushes than others. Saladin is not one of those who is typically good at early rushes for a couple of reasons...

1) His starting techs make aquiring the necessary techs difficult to perform the chariot rush early enough to make it count. While he has the wheel, it's harder for him to develop animal husbandry to find the horses necessary.

2) An axe rush is even harder because he does not start with mining.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't start an early war though. The last game I played with saladin I halted ragnars progress with the sum total of.... two warriors. He never recovered from this initial attack (I took a worker and and hemmed him in, even though his position should have made it easy to exapnd and block me off as I was on the edge of the continent while he was almost in the middle. My two warriors died (He was defending with one warrior so I thought I'd try it) but by this time I already had my second settler on the go defended by a protective archer. This was within the first fifty turns. When he did get his second city, axes and swords made it easy to wipe it out during the second war (50 - 100 turns). He was not the only civ on my I could trade with but... that shouldn't stop you from early rushing in fact it should be regarded as the perfect motivation to rush (just remember not to build other cities too quickly and have enough troops to fog bust to avoid barbs). If you suceed, you won't need the same number of troops and will instead be capable of wonder spamming and developing a very strong infrastructure. (the trick in this situation is focus on later techs then trade with civs when you meet them).

Tokugawa is also typically bad at rushing, but can be expected to be good at early wars because of his traits.

Some of those who'd be good at early chariot rushes:

Hatshepsut (egypt), Louis (french), G. Khan and K. Khan (mongols), Sulieman maybe Mehmed (ottomans), Cyrus (Persian), Gilgamesh (Sumerian).

This is because they start with techs making it easy to acquire animal husbandry plus the traits that would allow them to acquire the resource quickly (creative and/or imperialistic).

Axe rushes strike me as being more difficult and I can think of only three maybe four civs that would really excel at this: Indians ('cos of fast workers), Romans (start with mining and and are both imperialistic), Mali (you could just as easily skirmisher harass, and an early religion can help pop borders) and the protugese (could be expected to be really good).

I personally really hate the term early rush.... It strikes me that most of those who play this tactic b-line the techs for it... to such an extent that failure to suceed in rushing ends up seriously penalising you. It also suggests taking cities (you need huge nos of troops to do this and against a neighbour with few troops) But, early wars are very useful if sucessful and started when your neighbours haven't really got going yet.

Some are good at early wars if in a strong position.

Chinese (either of the leaders) Ethiopia (strong starting techs and creative and organised) Germans (mixed staring traits) Khmer (mixed staring traits and creative), N. americans (good UU you'll need to b-line bronze working and build massive nos), Russia with catherine (unbelievably strong even in tight starting positions). + Any civ with mining.

 

[sosasoser]

I'm a big fan of the early rush. I always play standard size maps with a couple of extra civs in the hopes of getting some early action going. I tend to get bored if there isn't anything going on early anymore.

Over lunch today, I started a game with a random map and a random leader. I rolled HC which is always lucky. My initial exploration told me that Cyrus was on my continent as was Kublai. Neither of these make me terribly happy. There wasn't a ton of room to expand as Kublai had Cyrus and me blocked off from part of the continent completely. Mehmed made his appearance through a workboat, so he may or may not have been on the blocked off portion of the continent. If I tried to peacefully expand I would be able to get 5 cities max and that's assuming Cyrus didn't expand at all and Kublai expanded in the other direction. Doubtful.

I quickly built a stack of Quechas and rushed Kublai. It took 10 long turns to get to his border, but his capital was defended by one warrior. That's a dead Mongol. From there it was 9 turns to get to Cyrus' capital, which was also defended by one warrior. Dead Persian. Turns out Mehmed was not on my continent, so I had it all to myself with 3 capital city cites before 2200 BC (don't recall the exact date.)

I eventually found horses in my capital's BFC so I might have been able to wait for chariots or horse archers. However, the only copper on the continent was either in Cyrus' BFC or in the area blocked off by Kublai. I discovered a bit later that the only iron was in Kublai's capital BFC. Had I not rushed, my situation would have been pretty desperate by the Medieval period.

Having said that, I've had very little success with axerushes. It's either an early warrior rush or a little bit later by beelining IW. Those both work for me.

 

[Molybdeus]

I don't do rushes either, but I'm guessing that since you and the AI each have three cities that you're waiting too long to do it.

Bingo. The three keys to success with early rushing are speed, speed, and speed.

It matters very little who is defending when you rush quickly. I've easily taken down Sitting Bull, Churchill and Charlemagne on Emperor. Immortal is a bit harder, but still quite possible. The only time you shouldn't rush is against Mali.

The first mistake you made was playing leaders with bad starting techs. Give Mehmed a try next time.