Higher Difficulties and Early Rush

[Opies]

Do higher difficulties (Immortal/Diety) rely on early rushes to be successful?

It seems to me from what I've gathered from forum posts, strategy articles, and videos, that early rushes are basically the norm on higher levels. Is it simply that it is not really possible to win without early conquest unless you have say, extremely favorable circumstances? or is it more of a crutch used to avoid extremely difficult games?

I'm just curious, as I'm now playing on emperor, if I'm going to have to transition into early rushes in nearly every game in order to not get dog piled within 100 turns.

The standard play for me now is to push with a cata based army around turn 100-120 (depending if the game moves faster or slower) and take out a neighbor or at least expand my lands, then later roflstomp and gain a serious lead with cuirassiers. Does this no longer work on higher levels as the REX phase is no longer able to provide enough land?

I'm really just wondering basically what the metagame is for immortal/diety play, and if early rushes are almost required to be competitive.

 

[lymond]

IMO...no...for me, the early rush is all about opportunity. In fact, on Deity it is often almost impossible to early rush in many cases. Horse Archer rushes are a different story, but I don't necessarily consider those "early rushes" and neither are cat based armies.

Horse archers are the best in any circumstance if you have horses and close neighbors. The factor of speed of attack and tactics override other considerations of snail based armies.

Generally on IMM/Deity, if you know what you are doing, you can expand out to enough cities early, say 6. Deity sometimes calls for maybe 4 cities or even less and then break out with mounted or phants earlier to grab more cities.

Yeah, overall, Curs are the best option later for warfare on IMM/Deity.

 

[Opies]

IMO...no...for me, the early rush is all about opportunity. In fact, on Deity it is often almost impossible to early rush in many cases. Horse Archer rushes are a different story, but I don't necessarily consider those "early rushes" and neither or cat based armies.

I consider an early rush to basically be one without siege. Quecha being an extreme example, 1 city Immortal/WC being slightly less extreme, and horse archer/gaelic/praetorian kind of being the last of the "early rush" possibilities.

My question then is, as you have already answered, is it possible to break out from as little as 4 cities, waiting until cats to do so? considering its 140% and 150% production rate on imm/diety, respectively right? It would seem to be that even with a lot of cats, the sheer number of forces would make it near impossible to win in that situation.

I guess I'm just looking for general insight into the metagame for immortal//diety and what specifically leads to a winning game versus a losing game. Is there a large amount of luck involved? As in I better be ready to reroll for a really good start, or else be prepared to lose a lot, really hard?

 

[coanda]

Do higher difficulties (Immortal/Diety) rely on early rushes to be successful?

It seems to me from what I've gathered from forum posts, strategy articles, and videos, that early rushes are basically the norm on higher levels. Is it simply that it is not really possible to win without early conquest unless you have say, extremely favorable circumstances? or is it more of a crutch used to avoid extremely difficult games?

I'm just curious, as I'm now playing on emperor, if I'm going to have to transition into early rushes in nearly every game in order to not get dog piled within 100 turns.

The standard play for me now is to push with a cata based army around turn 100-120 (depending if the game moves faster or slower) and take out a neighbor or at least expand my lands, then later roflstomp and gain a serious lead with cuirassiers. Does this no longer work on higher levels as the REX phase is no longer able to provide enough land?

I'm really just wondering basically what the metagame is for immortal/diety play, and if early rushes are almost required to be competitive.

Axe/chariot/sword rushes are much weaker on high difficulties. HA rushes or Construction rushes are common choices when your city count isn't going to get high enough peacefully. Medieval warfare is much more likely to be necessary, although there are countless games just in this subforum demonstrating that Renaissance breakout is still often the right move. Choking AIs becomes a very powerful early option to keep in mind. Early tech path considerations become painful - you simply have to make some sacrifices in early techs and get them in trade later if you want to keep up. And diplomacy is no longer merely a game of "keep the AI from attacking me while I run ahead and win the game" it also becomes one of "make the AIs attack each other to slow them down so I can run ahead."

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

No vary rarely will I do a typical "rush" that you would do on lower difficulties. The biggest problem with them is the AI gets walls and metal units very quickly, and builds 5 bagillion dudes from their stupid hammer bonuses. The most consistent wins will come from expanding to 6 cities and getting some high up military tech with Lib. But when you can not do that that is where the siege wars come in. They are all about getting to either a strong unit, and Cats or random junk, and Trebs before the AI gets to much stuff like walls.

 

[civvver]

I think you've been reading too many hall of fame threads. In those specific types of games you always rush someone, but generally above emperor you won't be able to. But on emp it's very possible to axe rush someone, I play on emperor primarily and do it often.

 

[barbertje]

I consider an early rush to basically be one without siege. Quecha being an extreme example, 1 city Immortal/WC being slightly less extreme, and horse archer/gaelic/praetorian kind of being the last of the "early rush" possibilities.

My question then is, as you have already answered, is it possible to break out from as little as 4 cities, waiting until cats to do so? considering its 140% and 150% production rate on imm/diety, respectively right? It would seem to be that even with a lot of cats, the sheer number of forces would make it near impossible to win in that situation.

Immortal and deity AIs need 80% and 60% of the hammers that you need, so that is an 125% and 167% production rate.
On immortal I quite often start a cat war with 4 cities and kill or cripple the target. On deity it rarely works unless you can bribe someone to attack your target first.

 

[AbsoluteZero]

Do higher difficulties (Immortal/Diety) rely on early rushes to be successful?

Not really, unless you're boxed in with just 3-4 cities. Most people just get 6+ cities and go lib, then break out with cuirs / cavs / cannons.

However, there are 2 cases where you are forced to do a pre-lib rush on deity.

1. You're stuck with too few cities to do whatever you need to do.

2. The AI's are teching like mad and waiting for lib would be too late to get them under control.

 

[cseanny]

On Immortal/Deity I actually prefer a 4-5 city Cat/Anything war because you can usually conquer your way to another 4-6 cities before too many LBs come in. Usually kill/sue peace from 1AI and take a few cities from another (more if you're lucky!). On average it seems to put me right around 10 cities on my push towards Lib/Cuirs or I just stay on the bottom tech path with Treb/Anything>Cannon/anything.

 

[CaF]

I really try to get my land peacefully in the early stages. I can work with 5-6 cities and break out from there. For everything below that things get dicey and pretty unfun. You are more or less forced to break out early or face an uncontrollable game until Lib, which you may or may not win.

There is not many options early on:
1, axe rush
2, cata based ( best: oracle construction? )
3, horse archer rush
4, oracles and bulbs leading into early engineering or oracle feudalism.
[ 5, unit specials: egypt/persia: chariot rush, inca: quechuas ]

1, No clue how to pull off a successful axe rush. I usually use it to choke an AI in case I can't box it in but I need the land. Leaves you a neighbour who hates you and who is going to peace vassal once Feudalism is out. Very nasty in many cases.

2, I personally dislike catapult and trebuchet based armies. Even though I have practised them quite a bit, it does not seem to work out for me, even on just immortal. It's either that I suck with it completely or the whole bombard -> cata lead, follow up team, take city -> move in -> heal 1-2 turns -> move next city is just far too slow for normal speed games. It seems to me that I'm facing that AIs' main stack in every city I siege! Like a déjà-vu, so scary.

3, The only early war that I can pull off consistently is an ordinary 4 city horse archer rush: starting with 15 of them, try to cut off metal on turn 1, fork capital on turn 2, take it on turn 3, go from there. Quite some ride, but I usually force it to work.
Leads into a vulnerable mid game with focus on economy, Lib MT -> cuirassiers into cavalry for conquest.

3a, Sometimes I can even rush over the first target and then chain capitulate the whole game by following up with knights. Happened to me like 3 times on Immortal.
I don't remember how exactly I did that, though.

4, Copyright on AbsoluteZero. Ask him on that stuff.

 

[gspchamp999]

I've found it a very rare occasion to peacefully get enough good cities on Pangea deity to wait until Liberalism to break out. It is possible sometimes, but I now take the approach of assuming I will need to be attacking a neighbor with HAs, catas, or trebs.

 

[cbucks]

If you don't ruSh, then start a war by bribing other people.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

If you pre-catapult rush on imm+, you are playing with luck.

 

[LeHam]

I think rushes still work well on Monarch. Here I used a combined Swords/Spears rush since i knew my opponent only had Horses and no Copper/Iron. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=456729&page=2). Then again it was on a mod so your mileage may vary.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

I always wondered what the immortal / deity players do when boxed in by creative or protective (or gilgamesh!) AI that are really close (like 7 tiles away) with no copper or horses. I had this happen in a recent monarch start. Decided to beeline IW but found iron in my neighbor's land. Do you guys reroll map or retire? I really couldn't think of any way out of such a situation.

 

[georgjorge]

If you pre-catapult rush on imm+, you are playing with luck.

But aren't you an Immortal player with a liking for Horse Archer rushes?

 

[Iranon]

Rarely advisable on Immortal, desperation on Deity. Even if you can pull off the rush:
a) if this was the only AI on your continent, you have nobody to mooch tech from.
b) if it wasn't, chances are an AI will be able to make exellent use of the free space and turn into a hard-to-control monster.

Sometimes a strong UU can make it tempting if you play for score, but it remains foolhardy if you play to win.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

But aren't you an Immortal player with a liking for Horse Archer rushes?

I like them, but you'll notice I don't do them that often.

There are times where a rush still gives you better odds than not rushing, even if they're not amazing odds.

Sometimes a strong UU can make it tempting if you play for score, but it remains foolhardy if you play to win.

I'd list marathon as an exception to the rule though. AI production bonuses still aren't quite enough to compensate being caught out of position/low on units on that speed.

 

[Heathcliff]

I think you shouldn't rush too early, because you will go broke even if you win the war.

Currency is key, because then you will never go broke. Math, Currency, Alphabet and Horsebackriding are useful techs to have before you rush.

I like to Horse Archer rush around 1000-500 BC, with 4 cities, a cottaged capital and with alot of whipping and choppin. On immortal.

The extra land and promoted Horse Archers, helps you transition into a cuirrassier rush at 1000 AD.

I also think that it's hard to outgrow the AI just by settling faster, the AI does that well, but it's weak against rushes before it has settled all available land.

 

[vicawoo]

Immortal's very doable as long as they don't start with copper. Chariot rushes may fail if they're on a hill. Your axe/chariot rush will hit them just as they're hooking up iron. Horse archer usually works unless they're high unit count AI and they haven't moved their units out.

Deity you need a unique unit or very good conditions.