elephant rush

[cabert]

Elephant are strength 8, and come with the same tech as catapults.

I'm wondering if anyone, starting near ivory, already tried a elephant+cat rush?
what would it take?
- ivory, which you see right from the start
- hunting, to build the camp
- the wheel (or settle on the ivory, or ivory on a river )
- construction (requiring mathematics and masonry, thus requiring writing, mysticism or mining)

that's a total of 7 techs, all of which (except maybe hunting and mysticism, but it's a OR requisite, the other being mining!) you would research anyway sooner than later.
Of those 7, 2 may well be starting techs (mining and the wheel being an overkill).
After 5 techs (not the most expensive one), you can attack with cats + 8str units.
but you cannot rush, you cannot chop, you can't cut jungle, and can't trade techs.

I tried it many times, but always had to research bronze and iron working along the way, because of jungle.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

I once fought some wars only with elephants and catapults. I had no copper, and decided to go for construction instead iron working. Not a real rush...

 

[panasonic]

well, i didnt use the cats, i just rushed them with super experience elephants and crushed their archers. when the enemy gets pikemen and longbownen though, i would suggest using other units

 

[cabert]

pikes need iron and a good deal of techs
you can kill a lot of civs before they become a problem, spears on the other hand are a problem, that's why you need the cats

my fear isn't about the strength of the beasts, it's about the pace you need for a rush.

If you need bronze working anyway, you might just as well go for the standard axe rush first.

I never succeeded in getting more than 3 elephants and 2 cats as a stack.
A little light, after all this time...
and elephants don't get CR...

that's where i would like to hear a good idea : how do you start for this strat to work?
my next try will be a common axe rush, while pursuing the construction tech path, but you fall back on economics + still no alphabet...
Must try against the pyramids man

 

[nealhunt]

I've used it. It takes just the right combo of stuff, though. You really need gems or precious metals for the tech boost or you don't have that much of a lead even with a beeline. Optimally, you start by picking off a barb city or two. That gets your promotions up on your units and then you can go on. Also, it is imperative that you get the melee units (spears and axes) into the mix as soon as possible.

I actually did something similar last night on a Monarch game. I had some bad luck (animals and barb warriors killing everything against absurd odds) and ended up hemmed in. The only resource I had was Elephants.

Had no metal after researching Bronze Working.
Archery - started pumping out archers
Built Barracks
Beeline for constructions - 2 cities on elephants and one on cats

I sent 1 stack of cat/elephant/archer to hit a barb city and took it. Left the archer and promoted the cat and elephant. then headed back to the other end of the empire to hit a second barb city. By the time I criss-crossed and picked up the units I was building I had taken 2 cities and had a stack of something like 4 elephants with moslty Combat II and 4 cats with mostly City Raider II. I just threw in some of the archers I had built earlier for stack defense and to garrison cities and went on a rampage. I took 2 border cities from one of the AIs and another from a different AI, losing no elephants and only 1 cat.

I pop rushed a horde of axes and spears as soon as I took some Copper, sued for peace, and built a huge horde to take out the AI that had been most seriously hurt.

 

[gunkulator]

The Elephant rush is becoming one of my favorite tactics. Axe rushing is nice but it's hard to actually rush them when you only have 2 cities and/or no metal. Of course you do need ivory for elephants which is often a limiting factor.

There's definitely a window of oppurtunity there. The AI defends mostly with archers plus an occasional spearman for quite some time. Axes are good but even with City Raider II, they still lose frequently to archers. Elephants rarely lose to archers and if you send a catapult first, they almost never lose to them. Given the choice, I will always take a Combat II elephant over a City Raider 2 axeman.

On the defensive, elephants defeat pretty much every single ancient unit outside of a city, except spears of course. In particular they are perfect against those annoying pillaging AI horse archers. Even when AI macemen come along, because the AI prefers to give them City Raider promotions, your Combat promoted elephants mostly defeat them.

 

[jimbob27]

Elephants are absolutely fantastic. I'm a bit of a warmonger, and if I start near them, or can get them easily... I'l go on a rediculous elephant+catapult rampage. They're just like expensive preatorians, who get countered by spears instead of axes.

I've destroyed entire civs with about 3-4 units when I get them early. They've got a pretty long window, and they can be used to great effect.

 

[pigswill]

Has anyone tried a pure catapult rush? Same tech, no resources.(slight deflection of topic).

 

[gunkulator]

Has anyone tried a pure catapult rush? Same tech, no resources.(slight deflection of topic).

No, only because the AI just loves horse archers for some strange reason. Horse archers eat catapults for lunch. You'd have to bring spearmen to counter and since they require copper or iron anyway, you might as well just build axemen.

 

[Pantastic]

I like to give elephants combat I and shock, that puts them a bit ahead of spearmen, praetorians, and macemen in the open (I can get shock with my second promotion while formation takes 3, and the AI rarely uses it) and just devastates axes and swords. The nice thing about elephants is that they rock in classical times and don't go obsolete until gunpowder units. They're just as effective against knights as pikemen are (str 8 + 50% vs str 7 + 100%) and easily beat those annoying crossbowmen, so even when they lose their offensive edge they work fine to defend your stack.

 

[Nares]

Consider supplementing your original tech order with Meditation and Priesthood, then using The Oracle to research Construction. You should be able to clear through Mathematics in time.

You'll want Bronze Working and Iron Working in order to disable those resources. Knowing which Mines to go after would help a good deal. Otherwise, you'll need to pillage every single Mine improvement that you encounter.

Mining and Mysticism are the better choices for this over Writing. You'll want more production, and hopefully a Gold/Gem/Silver mine or two, and Mysticism obviously for Meditation.

 

[cabert]

Has anyone tried a pure catapult rush? Same tech, no resources.

not really, but i found myself doing cat only attacks quite often after i kill off the first SoD (meaning the AI has only few units left to take out your cats in the open).

The problem is cats are good for offense but are poor defenders. You can give a few drill promotions that will help, but they're still easy prey for horse archers, swords, or even combat promoted axemen.

So pure cat rush has a very high rate of losses = the exact contrary to mixed elephant+cat.

With elephant + cats, you're horse archer proof.
With only cats, you're horse archers promotion food. Even chariots can give you a hard time.

(slight deflection of topic).

you're welcome, as good ideas always should be

 

[The Lardossen]

They're great units, but usually they come after my economy dip, when the AI already has longbows and pikemen.

 

[cabert]

Consider supplementing your original tech order with Meditation and Priesthood, then using The Oracle to research Construction. You should be able to clear through Mathematics in time.

You'll want Bronze Working and Iron Working in order to disable those resources. Knowing which Mines to go after would help a good deal. Otherwise, you'll need to pillage every single Mine improvement that you encounter.

Mining and Mysticism are the better choices for this over Writing. You'll want more production, and hopefully a Gold/Gem/Silver mine or two, and Mysticism obviously for Meditation.

You've got a good point if starting with mysticism, and if you're confident that you can build oracle first (marble!)

If you don't, what's the point?
construction isn't that expensive
while the oracle is!
if i miss the oracle, i did research vainly 2 techs and come 15 (meditation and priesthood are cheap) turns later = too late?

the only distractions that seems worthwhile are BW (choppping and slavery) and pottery (granaries). Combined, these 2 give you the rushing ability you may need (since you cannot start building a single cat or elephant before construction).

In fact, i see the elephant rush more as a mid game war strat, not so much an early rush.
But it's still a lot earlier than macemen, isn't it?

 

[cabert]

They're great units, but usually they come after my economy dip, when the AI already has longbows and pikemen.

pikemen require Engineering and iron!and if you promote one or 2 elephants to shock, they eat spears without second thought.

longbows can be tough, but that's why you need the cats

edit : typo

 

[cabert]

Elephants are absolutely fantastic. I'm a bit of a warmonger, and if I start near them, or can get them easily... I'l go on a rediculous elephant+catapult rampage. They're just like expensive preatorians, who get countered by spears instead of axes.

I've destroyed entire civs with about 3-4 units when I get them early. They've got a pretty long window, and they can be used to great effect.

nice to read this

 

[Zombie69]

You'll want Bronze Working and Iron Working in order to disable those resources. Knowing which Mines to go after would help a good deal. Otherwise, you'll need to pillage every single Mine improvement that you encounter.

You don't need those techs to know which mines to go after, as i found out in a game last week (it's a wonder i didn't notice this earlier). Toggle FPC display on if you haven't already, then look at which mines give more P than they should. Even tiles that haven't received a mine yet will show up this way, since the unimproved resource gives +1P.

 

[pigswill]

The reason I mentioned cats only is for the situation where you don't have copper,iron,horses or ivory and are too stubborn (stupid?) to quit.

 

[cabert]

The reason I mentioned cats only is for the situation where you don't have copper,iron,horses or ivory and are too stubborn (stupid?) to quit.

then you'll need archers to defend your cats
if you don't defend them, they can be killed before they get to attack any city

edit : i'm a rather stubborn person myself, that's why i tried elephant "rush"

 

[BCLG100]

The reason I mentioned cats only is for the situation where you don't have copper,iron,horses or ivory and are too stubborn (stupid?) to quit.

has anyone actually ever got that start though? must be a pretty poor city placer to not get a single resource