For the Greeks, is a Hoplite rush worth while?

The Tollan

Prince
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When playing as the Greeks is a Hoplite rush worth while or is it simply more effective to go for Companion Cavalry straight away? In this scenario the CC would still be used but only after the first Hoplite rush. Does the difficulty setting alter the balance on whether an early Hoplite rush is worth pursuing prior to unleashing the CC? The CC are extraordinarly powerful but is it worth taking an AI or two either out of the game or weakening them and demanding tribute somewhat faster with Hoplites?

I played as the Greeks some and performed a CC rush but the various files run almost unplayably slow (apparently loaded non-auto saves too many times or something similar) and I think some of them crash when loading now so I will probably try a new game as the Greeks in the future.
 
I prefer going for BW for double hoplite rush on CS. Since it's allmost a safe win. After I got most of my happiness, I go for beeline HBR.
 
It's almost certainly more effective to go straight for Horseman/Companion Cavalry, but really almost any early rush will work. The AI does not really defend at all against early attacks.

The AI does not defend *well*, but it will defend, especially depending on the difficulty level and map size.

On smaller maps and lower difficulty, the AI actually defends better in my experience than on higher difficulty. It's bizarre.
 
The best hoplite rush for high difficulties I've seen was in the stories section of the forums. Basically, use the hoplites to take undefended city states and gift them for big rewards. On deity, not sure hoplites will really cut it against whole civilizations.
 
Hoplites' lousy upgrade path cripples them. It's a cheap path to Riflemen, but it takes too long to research it and there's no offensive punch with them until you reach Rifles. But they are absolutely outstanding at smashing early AI rushes. A pair of them will horsewhip even the largest AI rush until Swords appear.

By contrast, CCs absolutely dominate unless an AI is pumping out Pikes like mad. Even then, if you promote the CCs properly, keep a GG handy and utilize flanking you can take on anything short of Bismarck's Pike spam with them until Rifles appear.
 
What difficulty, what map type?

Generally I wouldnt bother with them unless I needed to fast buy some defensive units quick because I got attacked with my pants down, or if I had bismarck as a neighbor I would consider rushing him with everything I had to stop the inevitable pike parade.
 
What difficulty, what map type?

Generally I wouldnt bother with them unless I needed to fast buy some defensive units quick because I got attacked with my pants down, or if I had bismarck as a neighbor I would consider rushing him with everything I had to stop the inevitable pike parade.

I am mainly considering the two rushes for Emperor difficulty with the map set to Continents although I am interested in reading about comparisons at higher difficulties as well.
 
If AI has lots of pikes, use hoplites. If not, use CC. The AI almost never produces any horsemen it seems, so Hoplites aren't as usefull.
 
AI use always pikes in my games(Emperor), so i prefer to rush with immortal or hoplite. But best way is still the spadassin rush with Romans :) Just build a seetlers before reach iron age, and send him to build a city around iron. Upgrade warrior into legion and you can destroy 3 or 4 AI players.
 
vanilla horse >> legion. power is only 1 less, and the fast movement/retreat is great. I would take greece over rome in any game without question. biggest reason that infantry becomes better in late game is that the land is much more developed and has many more units generally; early game horse rush is always the best strategy.
 
The best hoplite rush for high difficulties I've seen was in the stories section of the forums. Basically, use the hoplites to take undefended city states and gift them for big rewards. On deity, not sure hoplites will really cut it against whole civilizations.

Don't capture city states. Especially not as greece.


If you have to capture city states, it means you don't know how to use them.
 
Don't capture city states. Especially not as greece.


If you have to capture city states, it means you don't know how to use them.

I personally haven't done it yet, but it seems like a pretty risk free early strategy from what I've seen. You can take one CS without permanent war, and unless it's a maritime its no loss to you, since there's usually more than one cultural. One thing I'm wondering about is, if you gift a conquered city state, and retake it, are you seen as a liberator?
 
I personally haven't done it yet, but it seems like a pretty risk free early strategy from what I've seen. You can take one CS without permanent war, and unless it's a maritime its no loss to you, since there's usually more than one cultural. One thing I'm wondering about is, if you gift a conquered city state, and retake it, are you seen as a liberator?

Main ability of Greece is to maintain city staties 50% cheaper, so there is really no good reason to take them out (even "hostile" ones become manageable with Greek trait).

Maybe only military ones, if you really don't care about bonus units?
 
I did a test last night where I ran two hoplite rushes and two CC rushes both on Immortal, Pangea, Standard. I went only for capitols. I was able to capture 3 capitols w/ CC by the time I managed 1-2 capitols with hoplite.

Having said all that there is a fun thread from R3dKnight that shows a good hoplite rush here:
Athens? No, this is...
 
I don't think the AI will have pikes by the time you get CC out. My last game on Emperor, I rushed with normal horsemen and they didn't even have spears. I didn't even beeline for HBR especially hard, picked up a lot of other stuff before that. I'd go with CC for the mobility, steamroll your continent well before 1AD then settle down for some ICS.
 
This is true. I've only gotten stymied once by spears during an early CC rush: through complete luck, Washington's warriors had picked up spear upgrade from several ruins.

No skill on the AIs part here though.
 
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