Early warrior conquest

[geofelt]

In a post somewhere, I read that positioning a military unit next to the AI's first city would keep it from sending out a settler and growing. I decided to try it with some success.
On one occasion, I started my warrior exploring, and found a rival very close by. Without delay, I moved the warrior directly towards the city(declaring war), intending to block the exit of settlers. Looking at the city when I arrived, I saw no defenders and attacked with my puny warrior and captured the city, and destroyed the civ! It is a great result so early in the game.
This was at Noble, so I don't know if it will work at higher levels.

 

[Tibur753]

If your at war with the civ, they wont send a settler/worker unaccompanied next to one of your units. (only barbs are stupid enough to do that) I don't see why they wouldn't go in the other direction. As for killing that civ early, its rare that a civ is that close to you in the begining. One time I was playing a game (on warlords, but I play noble now) and my warrior found Stalin pretty early. I sent him in hoping that they didn't build a warrior yet, but they did. I decided to suicide him anyway, and what do ya know, I win with <5% odds and wipe out the Russian Empire.

 

[Nibs]

I'm a big fan of the early rush. Typically when i play and i find a close civ, I try to build 4 warriors and rush the city. In most cases it works, however, depending on the civ, this may not work. I use to play as Roosevelt, but got tired of him. I started playing random civs and found i really like Augustus Caesar. In my last game I killed 5 civs from my continent with my swordmen and was on my way a domination victory. The first two civs eliminated, the Greeks and holy Roman Empire, were destroyed by my warriors.

I say go for the early kill.

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

I think TMIT has a thread about warrior rushing.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Indeed I do . Actually it's on super-early rushing in general. Basically before the AI starts with archers/archery (so any level prince or below) sending 4-6 warriors (4 is needed if aggressive, take more if not to be safe) will almost always net you a capitol if it's nearby. Try to settle a plains hill but it isn't really a big deal if you can't/don't want to risk a bad capitol. Then the build is warrior, warrior, warrior, warrior, (maybe 2x more warrior). Scout the AI, position your stack of 4-6 warriors in a corner so you can attack the AI capitol on the turn after DoW, and there you have it, 2 capitols, and if you're lucky a worker too.

It's a lot harder on higher difficulties (monarch +). It's possible to take an AI out with warriors early still, but they'd have to be extra close and you'd generally have to be aggressive. I actually advocate using archers when I'm not being an idiot and pretending to be attacko.

When rushing with archers, make sure your target isn't protective (because that sucks hard). If you're aggressive then good open up with a barracks while scouting and teching archery. If not then just make a few warriors then archers once you can. Immediately after you get archery go BW. Revolt to slavery and whip out archers until you have 8 archers or like 7 archers and 3 warriors or so.

An 8 archer rush ideally gets there around 2300 BC to 1900 BC. This is usually the period the AI is settling its 2nd city on monarch/emperor. Experimentation yields that if your opponent is not protective, you'll win 8 archers vs 2 VERY often. Practically every time if you're protective or aggressive with barracks for combat.

An important thing to note about archer rushes is that you want to get there before the AI has slavery, or it will simply whip an archer and screw you most likely (unless you get lucky). What's ironic is that many of the civs that found religions are actually targets for an archer rush - they went for a religious tech, not BW! Also good targets are non-protective civs that do not start with mining.

Once you have their capitol just whip out more archers out of it and repeat. Generally if you hit them with the right timing they really won't be able to reinforce well.

I've not tried archery rushes on levels below monarch, but I'd assume them to be very effective (pick a civ with hunting, go archery, and attack an AI before it has it, maybe 2 AIs) I always just do warrior rushes on that level because it nets you a 2nd city and often a worker by 3000 BC.

Edit: none of this is to be confused with a choking strategy, where you are merely shutting down that AI's expansion and forcing it to spam archers nonstop until you get catapults.

 

[Mesix]

I think TMIT has a thread about warrior rushing.

I think TMIT has a thread about every concept imaginable. Where does he find the time?

 

[Nibs]

TMIT - I usually play on Nobel and typically a four warrior rush to a non-protective civ works well. Sometimes i bring a few extra warriors as you pointed out if the civ is protective or I further away. In case they to decide to produce another defender. Never really thought about attacking with archers. I would assume you start building a barracks and upgrade your achers with a 10% strength?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

TMIT - I usually play on Nobel and typically a four warrior rush to a non-protective civ works well. Sometimes i bring a few extra warriors as you pointed out if the civ is protective or I further away. In case they to decide to produce another defender. Never really thought about attacking with archers. I would assume you start building a barracks and upgrade your achers with a 10% strength?

Generally speaking, yes. On monarch/emperor you want 8 archers...promotions seal it. Actually the best civs for the archer rush are protective, as they gain access to counter promotions - cover or shock. It's not an idealistic rush so the AI should be pretty close when going archer vs archer...although the ability to whip more out from captured cities is nice. The problem is paying for them...although I've had some games just get stupid where the AI I attacked had gold and I got a worker . That's one way to pay for an army.