How many axemen for a rush on Immortal?

[DMOC]

I decided one day that I would try and perform an axe rush on someone on Immortal difficulty, but it kind of failed badly.

My question is: is it normal for an Immortal AI to have about FIFTEEN city garrison 2 and drill 1 or 2 archers total by around 800 BC?

I played on a map where I was Rome (Julius Caesar) and alone on a continent with Charlemagne and Suileman. I thought my starting location was perfect: lots of forests for chopping, and copper right in the fat cross! I was also blocking off Charlemagne on his peninsula with just my capital city! I then, of course, atempted to rush him.

I whipped several axemen and chopped a few, got a second city up which was closer to Charlemagne to reduce the available area on the peninsula for settling. By the time it was around 1000 BC I had gathered about 6-8 axemen, and declared war on Charlemagne. But his closest city (not his capital--his capital was on the very tip of the peninsula I was blocking) had six city garrison 2 and drill 1 (or 2) archers in it! His other two cities had similar amounts of archers. This is weird...how does anyone get a rush on Immortal if the AI makes this many archers... and I didn't gather all my troops on Charlemagne's border, I kept them in my second city until I was ready to declare war...?

(and sorry I don't have an available save)

PS: I did try to research Iron Working for praetorians, but the closest iron to me was in Charle's fat cross in his capital.

 

[ABigCivFan]

To run a committed Axerush, I normally sign a open border with my victim first, send some scouts or chariots to scout our the target cities. It helps you plan better. Also, you do not have to attack a city defended by 6 CG archers, walk your axe/spear/chariot to pillage his mines/cottages/farms and starve him to death. Or just move on the to the next target, a horde of Axeman is a huge early investment, dont let them go to waste.

 

[DMOC]

I guess I should have scouted Charlemagne's land more (I didn't).

I read your immortal domination game where you had around 6-8 axemen at the same time I did so I was a little confused at that time.

Or maybe I shouldn't target protective leaders...

 

[ABigCivFan]

Normally against a non-protective leader, bring at least 2 CR1 Axeman for each archer defender because you need to make sure you can capture the city in 1 attack. If you must fight against protect civs, I would say use a 3-1 ratio. Alternativelly, I would train my troops on a non-protective leader first, then bring a stack of CR2 and CR3 Axe against the protective AI.

If you fight a lot early, try use the first GG as an instructor in your best production city to crank out CR2 + shock melee, this should help a lot.

 

[obsolete]

I like to bring extra workers/scouts. Leave them out in the open, and the stupid AI can't resist moving out of the 125% def city to snatch them. Then you rush in, catch the city easy, and trump the unit while it has no def mods, not even a fortification bonus, and CGI - III end up being useless.


Note: Leave the bait in an area that is not in trees, or a hill, or forces you to pounce across a river.

 

[fuzzynutz]

Thats a bit too gamey for me.

 

[DMOC]

Normally against a non-protective leader, bring at least 2 CR1 Axeman for each archer defender because you need to make sure you can capture the city in 1 attack. If you must fight against protect civs, I would say use a 3-1 ratio. Alternativelly, I would train my troops on a non-protective leader first, then bring a stack of CR2 and CR3 Axe against the protective AI.

If you fight a lot early, try use the first GG as an instructor in your best production city to crank out CR2 + shock melee, this should help a lot.

Yeah, I was thinking I should have tried to attack non-protective Suileman first, then Charlemagne. The problem would be that the Immortal AIs make so many archers that there seem to be at least 5 in every city so I would need at least ten axemen...really expensive.

I like to bring extra workers/scouts. Leave them out in the open, and the stupid AI can't resist moving out of the 125% def city to snatch them. Then you rush in, catch the city easy, and trump the unit while it has no def mods, not even a fortification bonus, and CGI - III end up being useless.


Note: Leave the bait in an area that is not in trees, or a hill, or forces you to pounce across a river.

I might try that, as long as I can capture the city AND recapture my worker/scout on the same turn (I would rather go with worker since the AI can't "kill" them).

A question of mine still remains unanswered: how many archers do you expect Immortal AI's to have in the 1000-800 BC range? Or something close to that. If anyone can provide an answer, I'd appreciate it.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Workers and scouts die when attacked by the enemy (they immediately delete workers they capture for some reason). Unless obsolete is saying it works even if you stick them more than a square away from the capital... meh. My anecdotal evidence says it doesn't work. I've captured enemy workers and left them high and dry in enemy territory immediately after before, and they were never pursued.

15 archers sounds about right for an immortal AI around 1000 BC. Normally, however, they will be more spread out than what you saw. Because you choked Charlemagne's expansion, he only had, what, 2 cities to protect with his 15 archers? Normally they'll be split between 4 or 5. You should see something like 5 in the capital and 2 in outlying cities.

 

[lilnev]

Before the declaration of war, cities will typically have 2 archers, or 2 archers plus a something-else. Plus somewhere (sometimes the capital, sometimes the closest major city to a threatened border) he'll probably have a stack of 3-6 additional units. (Aggressive leaders may have more). Those numbers are probably a bit higher than pre-BTS, but a bigger change is how the AI responds to being attacked. In particular, it does a much better job of ramping up its forces quickly (better use of slavery, I think). If he has 4 reasonably well-developed cities, expect him to add maybe 3 units/turn to his overall force. And the AI does a better job of massing them and moving them to key threatened cities. So it's not uncommon to take the first city from 2 archers if it's near your borders, and then meet 6 or 8 defenders in the second city.

Decide what your goal is. If you just want one or two smaller cities that are on your border, 8-10 axes should do it. If you plan to smash his empire more-or-less completely, you want as many axes as you can amass before he gets Feudalism. The gig is up against longbows. I'll turn research off completely while building the army, expecting to hit negative income at 0% before I'm done.

And I'm not convinced that he cares whether you gather your forces on his border or internally. In any case, you definitely want to move as close as possible before declaring to minimize his response time.

peace,
lilnev

 

[Dan Quale]

Its not so much the numbers its the timing. When they move their initial settler stack the capital is usually left with 2-3 archers that is the best time to make your move. Also i try to begin my attack before 2000 bc. My standard immortal rush takes place before 2000 bc. Settle second city on copper, or if by some slim chance its in the capital I settle second for max production. At that point a force of axemen deemed necessary by my scouts will go straight for the nearest holy city,stonehendge or a lightly defended capital. 800 bc is your problem, by that time Somone no doubt is nearing maces.

Axe rushes are easy, tell me how to win this war against huyana capac and his 5 vassals and then go on to rape wang kong and his 4 vassals, without firing excessive nukes and ill be impressed. Axemen>fallout.

 

[obsolete]

Workers and scouts die when attacked by the enemy (they immediately delete workers they capture for some reason). Unless obsolete is saying it works even if you stick them more than a square away from the capital... meh. My anecdotal evidence says it doesn't work. I've captured enemy workers and left them high and dry in enemy territory immediately after before, and they were never pursued.

15 archers sounds about right for an immortal AI around 1000 BC. Normally, however, they will be more spread out than what you saw. Because you choked Charlemagne's expansion, he only had, what, 2 cities to protect with his 15 archers? Normally they'll be split between 4 or 5. You should see something like 5 in the capital and 2 in outlying cities.

It can be a hit & miss thing. There are some 'defender's who are hard coded to defend no matter what. That means, they are not allowed to move and lose their FORTIFICATION BONUS. The perfect example of this, are those few barbs you find 'guarding a hut'. They simply won't move. And it's the only time you can use your worker to make a road right up to them and improve terrain unprotected, and those barbs won't move to touch it because they are hard coded. A roaming barb, will go after you 100% the time though.

When you attack a city, the AI loves to group everything it can now into those cities. So even if there are hard coded defenders, you got other's in there too who are not going to 'stay-put'. I suppose if you make it outside the enemy capital in the same turn you declare war(so it hasn't grouped anything yet), and you're stack is much bigger than the AI's then maybe it is possible it wont move anything. But hard to say, as you don't need to lure with a worker by that point so I haven't tested that enough. But then again, I have seen in warlords, them move out 2/3 their stack from a city under seige (don't ask my why, but the AI is intensely stupid).

I can tell you for a god damn fact, if an AI has a city near your borders, and you put a worker there (even in your own cultural borders), they will sent a unit out to to nail it. If the primary defenders don't go out and take it, then a secondary unit that went into the city will. They just can't resist. Sure, they will kill it instantly, but if you're going to take the city light, at least that one more unit out increases your odds considerably. Now, bring two workers, and you get 2 units to come out, etc.

 

[DMOC]

Its not so much the numbers its the timing. When they move their initial settler stack the capital is usually left with 2-3 archers that is the best time to make your move. Also i try to begin my attack before 2000 bc. My standard immortal rush takes place before 2000 bc. Settle second city on copper, or if by some slim chance its in the capital I settle second for max production. At that point a force of axemen deemed necessary by my scouts will go straight for the nearest holy city,stonehendge or a lightly defended capital. 800 bc is your problem, by that time Somone no doubt is nearing maces.

Axe rushes are easy, tell me how to win this war against huyana capac and his 5 vassals and then go on to rape wang kong and his 4 vassals, without firing excessive nukes and ill be impressed. Axemen>fallout.

A rush before 2000 BC ...? Wow I seriously need to retime my rushes. And by 800 BC I doubt even an immortal AI could be close to maces.

 

[Way_Traveler]

I've run across that before, on immortal. My rush arrived too late to get past all those archers, so I just pillaged the land, razed all the cities except the capitol, and put up a 'blockade' (two-three axeman in four of the squares around the city; even if a unit wandered out, they wouldn't get far, and the archers were vulnerable once they were outside of the city).

Try it. With their land pillaged and your civ free to expand in their direction, it's just a matter of time until you can wipe them out. Beelining for construction (if possible) and making cats is a good start.

I am not sure what it is like on the higher difficulty levels, but I've found it almost better to block in a city like this. When I can finally take it over, my economy is in much better shape to absorb the new city...

 

[Gr8scott]

Was there a settler in the city?

He could have recalled a settler party or two (2/3 archers + settler) to the city when you declared war. As someone earlier said, scouting is key. timing it to hit the city after a settler party has left is ideal. Also, did you mass the axes on the border? The AI seems to recognize a big stack now and starts to create defenders even before a declaration of war.

Of course defenders are usually whipped 1/turn as well. Add it all up and it can be a lot of defenders!

GS