[HELP]To Rush or Not To Rush

[KiTBOH]

Another thread asking for help from me again

I'm playing a game on Noble difficulty, Marathon speed and i'm playing as the Egyptians (the woman one). I started on a continent with Suryavarman II and Gilgamesh.

http://img93.imageshack.us/img93/3210/nosuryst7.jpg

^Pic of the Continent^

I used cutting forests to get the workers done quickly and in research went straight to bronze working so i could do everything ASAP.

The question now is, should i keep up this rapid production of military units and wipe Gilgamesh out, too. Or should i stop military emphasis and focus on other aspects.

Any other help would be appreciated too


http://img397.imageshack.us/img397/2492/reserchoa9.jpg <---These are what i can research now, aswell

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Nice warrior rush .

By now the Gilgamesh is probably pushing archers, but that's ok. Hook up your two cities and make some axes.

Should you rush? Sometimes, it's in question. Not here. ABSOLUTELY RUSH HIM. You have 800 gold. Your economy is in good shape at the moment (as far as this early in the game goes). If you kill him you can expand into a ton of land unchecked and work a ton of tiles. If all that isn't enough, this guy has TWO sources of GOLD. Get those axes over there...you'll almost have the game won already after doing so.

 

[KiTBOH]

The Gold is from my exploring warriors, they discovered 3 huts with around 250gp each in them.

The only worry I have, is that if i push solely for axemen, will the lack of barracks and Agg trait cause me any problems? Because i know that archers can get huge bonuses defensively.

Also should i go slavery and whip out a few axes? or just cut down forests for them?

Thanks

 

[TheMeInTeam]

When I do an axe rush it's usually a combo of whipping and chopping - the goal being to have 8-12 axes hitting from 1500-1000BC ish. IMO you want a barracks in your cities before making the axes - the CR promos are worth it. Barracks are chopped easily enough.

Given the difficulty and the # of trees you have, you can probably just chop though whipping in addition would be more effective (remember - 2 pop whips!).

Working TWO gold mines early on can fund a LOT of expansion. So much it isn't funny. Combine that kind of situation with proper use of specialists and you can keep expanding, and still tech code of laws, and from there CONTINUE to keep expanding while chopping/whipping courthouses. Crazy.

If you settle the fur and manage to found confucianism then you can even delay teching monarchy for a while - gold + fur + religion/temples is +4 happiness, +6 with market/forge. I wouldn't put monarchy off forever but this situation screams killing sumeria then going super REX while beelining CoL.

Edit: Since you're hatty and don't need mysticism for a border pop, go writing. A cheap library in the gold city and wherever else you deem worth running specialists will do a lot to speed up early tech. It's a pre-req for CoL and also for the currency pre-reqs - I'd grab it ASAP and as above would probably shoot through priesthood for CoL after that since you seem set up to pull that off very easily.

 

[KiTBOH]

Alright,

Thanks

 

[KiTBOH]

OK so I've defeated Gilg and Sury and i have the continent pretty much to myself -2 barbarian cities, one to the south of my capital and one to the north of the city with Gold.



^The Continent^



^Techs^

I have or am getting Barracks built in every city, and the 4 on the right hand side have Walls, too.
I have 1 military unit in each city (an Archer or an Axeman), though, and am still getting -Gold @50% research.
I have 5 workers currently connecting all cities with roads.

This is where I get completely screwed, what should i do?

(I also have Stonehenge)

 

[cabert]

You didn't even explore all of your continent!

Get a few good cities up in size, work cottages, win.

 

[KiTBOH]

Yeah

I know the south past the barbarians is nothing, because i searched it after i saved, and i can take that city with 1 axeman.

My Warrior that was exploring, if i remember correctly was killed by a barbarian on the otherside of Gilgamesh's old cities.
I guess i'll make a scout in one of the western cities to finally unlock all of the map.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

He was busy axe rushing.

Your research/economy is fine atm. You have plenty of gold and whatnot and you're only losing 6 per turn, and the beakers aren't bad at all (just yet). I'd stay away from making barracks now except in a military production city - what are you fighting? At the moment you need libraries, courthouses, and the currency tech. Cottages will help too .

As Cabert suggests, explore the continent, work in some cottages, and as soon as you get CoL expand more. Maybe expand to six cities slightly before then (grab sheep/silver in some form as this will almost pay for itself very quickly and is another ).

I still feel after pottery that you should try a crack at code of laws 1st for religion - at this point you are "isolated" and the OR or pacifism bonuses are pretty huge in isolation (Prefer OR myself usually). If you want to play it safer then the next tech is monarchy so you can grow all your cities up to the health cap using garrison units, and make sure the cities are working improved tiles. Code of Laws is still your next tech after monarchy though (often, currency is the better economy tech, allowing one extra trade route/city, selling resources, etc. Note, however, that when you have nobody to trade with and your economy is fairly stable, that currency offers less immediate return, which is why I advocate CoL here more strongly).

Once you have CoL/currency/civil service (use a bureaucracy capitol with commerce and a scientist-built academy and you'll like the results I think ) you can consider going for liberalism or for optics to meet more AIs - up to you there. You may also want to detour before CS for the great library - you do have marble. Choices choices....

 

[KiTBOH]

I'm back, and this time it's at 450 BC.

I just got mauled by a lot of barbarians. I managed to hold my own and destroy 4 of their towns but a lot of my cottages/mines/pastures etc. were destroyed, along with some roads and workers.

I researched Code of Laws and i also managed to build the pyramids, so i can choose any government civic. That got me wondering what civics i should be using out of



I founded confucianism when researching Code Of Laws and I'm 37 turns away from Currency. My cities as they stand are



I also got a great engineer pop up in my capital.
I can either bulb Metal Casting, finish the courthouse i'm building, or get him to join the City as a specialist giving +3 vials and +3 hammers to the city.
This is what the capital is like right now. I will be making workers to get the Quarry and Pasture built and linked to the road network.



I built a city inside the 2 silvers and sheep but it got attacked by a 5 man barb stack so I lost it pretty damn quickly.
My main problem is knowing what to do with the Engineer. I'm not good at managing cities really, i just normally leave them doing what they do...

Thanks in Advance

Edit: BTW this is the continent as it stands and, when you have a pasture or w/e that gives a health or happiness bonus. Do you need to be using that square to get the bonus?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

No, as long as you have the resource improved and have a trade network from it you'll get the resource - although they are often quite powerful tiles to work also, especially things like gold, cows, corn/etc, or metal...offering way better output than other tiles.

Anyway, if I were you I'd keep slavery but revolt to representation - this gives your specialists a boost and will immediately address your happiness issues also. Sucks about the barbs - in the future use some axes to fogbust as they'll pretty much destroy all barbs except horse archers easily (well, all land barbs...).

5 cities is OK at this point although since you have CoL and are even putting out courthouses IMO it's time to expand to fill the rest of your continent. In your situation you're in excellent running for the great library (although I usually advocate against wonders for beginners, you can gain access to marble, you can get there pretty quickly using representation and running some scientists in high food cities, and the great library itself will be worth more to you under Rep). I'd say after currency you may want to take a shot at literature for the great library and national/heroic epic, then head back to civil service (I only see one calendar resource).

So basically:

1. Expand to fill the continent.
2. Take a shot at the great library making sure to hook up marble and chop it.
3. Tech civil service, then head for either liberalism or optics, I recommend the latter first.

 

[KiTBOH]

running some scientists in high food cities

When you run specialists like that, is it best to wait until you've got all the decent tiles in a city used, and then use the left over ones for specialists?

I've never really understood how all of those things work properly :<


And i've played a few extra turns and i'm getting wave after wave of barbarian archers axemen and swordsmen. All my axes are holding them off from taking the cities but they keep destroying all of my roads, farms and mines which means towns keep getting cut off from the trade route all the time.

Will the huge block of black at the top of the map be where there spawning from? Becausei thought they could only spawn in the black squares.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

When you run specialists like that, is it best to wait until you've got all the decent tiles in a city used, and then use the left over ones for specialists?

I've never really understood how all of those things work properly :<


And i've played a few extra turns and i'm getting wave after wave of barbarian archers axemen and swordsmen. All my axes are holding them off from taking the cities but they keep destroying all of my roads, farms and mines which means towns keep getting cut off from the trade route all the time.

Will the huge block of black at the top of the map be where there spawning from? Becausei thought they could only spawn in the black squares.

A lot of games on this forum (my walkthroughs included usually) kind of glaze over barbs. The proper way to defeat barbs without great wall is to actually send your axes out into the fog to fog bust - usually on hills for extra vision or forests for defense. If you're far enough from your borders (but not so far that there's fog in between your units and cities), the barbs will just attack the fogbust units rather than pillaging. Also, with less fog you'll see less barbs.

IMO if you are in representation the rewards from running scientists ASAP (assuming the city can still grow, that is!) are worth it. 6 bpt per scientist and the ability to grab some great people - excellent. Of course you should still work cottages, especially in the capitol (unless you're going pure SE but don't ask me for help on that because I don't use pure SE much ). Balancing this is strategy/city/situation dependent - but if I were you I'd run library scientists in every city that can do it and still grow - once you work the special resources.

Don't let it hamper expansion or prevent you from working the super tiles though - there's a lot of good land here and you want to be working it. With religion and rep and all the resources/buildings you should be set for for a while once you settle all the resources and so forth. Metal casting gets a higher priority than normal for you here (I'd probably get it right after CS) because forges = 2 with gold/silver and it's on the optics line.

Edit: Barbs can spawn even in the fog. The only place they can't spawn is where your units or culture can currently see.

 

[KiTBOH]

Alright, I think I know where I went wrong.

I took over way too much land for me to work to early on.
I didn't have the workers or production to allow large amounts of the fog to be busted. Now the problem with barbarians is dire. I can barely keep on producing anything other than military units. 2 cities have been taken over, then taken back. Only about 2 of the special tiles have buildings on them and the trade routes are destroyed. I'm going to keep on and see how quickly I can quell the barbarians and clear all of the fog. But the units they're producing are, for the most part, as good as the ones I am.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

For whatever reason, I seem ultra-involved in this thread. If you like, you can give me the 4000 BC save (or one following your rush) and I'll retrace the steps with a highlight on fogbusting/some city sites/rush execution. I'll post some screenies of where I put fog busters and shutting down barbs, as well as individual cities. I might not play out the whole game but probably through 500 AD ish just to highlight everything to give some idea of what I'm suggesting visually. I don't understand the barb issues . With proper fog busts an axe here or there should dominate them .

I'm not a pro at all but Rusten/Abigcivfan/Dirk etc. may be busy with succession games and Deity so you'll have to make do with me for the moment . IMO there's nothing wrong with the land you'd taken via rushing both AIs.

 

[KiTBOH]

The Earliest save I have is 2420BC. Just after i killed Sury. I'll try and post it up here.

The problem i had, is that when i took over the other nations land, i didn't have enough units to really cut out the fog, thus I became the only civ on a continent where 75% of the land could be used to spawn barbarians, which it did. And not just warriors, but a lot of higher units such as swordsmen and axemen. They had no one to go for but me and my nation wasn't established enough to do much about them.

OK i worked out how to add it. I use BUG mod and nothing else.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Same here - only BUG mod. Once I get home I'll do a little run through . I SUPPOSE I should go to class first .

 

[TheMeInTeam]

OK, I promised I'd do a little walkthrough here so here it is, to 1 AD:

Spoiler :

Well, of course I take my own advice to axe rush:



I used only chops and tiles - marathon feels weird but the hammer tiles I could work were efficient (I did whip once in the 2nd city though).

Result? Not surprising:



Bloodletting continues:



And finally:



Now granted, I beelined CoL just like I said. I do NOT want to be isolated without religion after all and it's not ilke I can't use courthouses. I get it pretty early:



Ok now. I promised fog bust screenies, and here they are:





Most of the axes were leftover rush guys but I did make a few new ones also. Barbs? Pretty darn non-issue after that. I had a couple units suicide into my axes on the ice hills. Oh well.

I realized we had stone and decided to copy the OP



Ah, but with poor income and more hammer cities than normal, I didn't stop there, and what I did was huge:



Philosophy? Seriously? Marathon/noble is wack. I'll take it though and this game is almost over already......

Ah, later on I see that one of the barb cities is still guarded by warriors and take it with a lone axe:



And just because I'm already in OR and got to philo nice n early:



Actually, that wasn't smart. I intended to remove it for money but forgot .

Ah, but I did grab some more important/useful wonders to me:




And that's why I settled the marble city. Parthenon was build in the capitol, TGL in "gp farm". Combined with philosophy, I'm going to start doing stupid things with research.

Here's the empire at 1 AD





Good bit of the island settled and another settler about to go down (and I'm about to take that barb city with 4 axes and a war chariot on its way).

Oh, wait. One more sneak peak bonus I got from scouting:

There's some fogbusting, wonder whoring, and low % research going on here...got most of the continent settled or about to be...couple more cities after this at most on this one.

View attachment 185613

 

[KiTBOH]

Alright, thanks for that.

I was trying to tone down the amount of units i had because when i was playing i was losing quite a bit of money. When i rushed i had a stack about half the size of yours and ended with only just enough units to cover the cities.

I'll keep all the tips in mind for future games

Thanks again

 

[TheMeInTeam]

It takes a while to get used to being ok while losing money or having low sliders - at one point in my playthrough I was actually losing gold @ 0% science . Specialists + city count eventually turned this around - keep in mind even at the end of that segment I'm only at 20% (currency will help a lot though, as will getting foreign trade routes if my culture can reach) - but I'm @ 80 BPT +.