how to Composite bowmen rush

[Doctor Doom]

I know this is a stupid question, but is there any particular strategy to spamming 6-8 bowmen and attacking people? I want to get better at early game conquest. Is late game conquest the same thing but with artillery? And what are the best archer rush civs? (England, and China I assume)

 

[Tabarnak]

All civs are good archer rush.

Reach 1 or 2 lux techs to stay happy with 2 or 3 cities. Build granary in capital and start on archers. Use gpt from AIs to finance more archers. Keep 70x#units and upgrade, around the turn 55-65 preferably.

You can also do a mid rush CBs where you build libraries before archers and aim for 70-75 turn rush. Good at immortal but a bit late for deity usually.

 

[FrostK]

Tabarnak knows smth about civ, u can trust him.

Imho best civ for composite rush is India, which does not use composites xD, but uses elephants instead - 3 moves and more melee combat strength makes them really good.

 

[reason]

Can this strategy work on MP?
And is it a good idea to get honor for the free GG?

 

[Aaron90495]

Can this strategy work on MP? And is it a good idea to get honor for the free GG?

1. Probably not, unless your opponents are stupid and don't build units, and 2. No, not even if you're China, IMO. Even as China, you wanna fill out all (or at least most) of Tradition before dipping into Honor. With a CB rush of any other civ, Honor just isn't worth it, unless you have a ridiculous excess of policies, in which case you'll probably win anyways.

 

[Blitz Spearman]

One really underrated civ for archer rush is the Huns. It gets forgetten because of the Rams stealing the spotlight, I suppose, but Horse Archers are almost as good as Indian Elephants, and the hammer bonus from pastures from the Huns UA makes a HUGE difference for an early rush. And of course, you can take 1-2 rams to help, why not.

 

[Resipsa]

1. Probably not, unless your opponents are stupid and don't build units, and 2. No, not even if you're China, IMO. Even as China, you wanna fill out all (or at least most) of Tradition before dipping into Honor. With a CB rush of any other civ, Honor just isn't worth it, unless you have a ridiculous excess of policies, in which case you'll probably win anyways.

If you are going early domination do you usually go Tradition? I tend to go Liberty if I'm gonna rush out CBs

 

[Aaron90495]

If you are going early domination do you usually go Tradition? I tend to go Liberty if I'm gonna rush out CBs

Yeah, usually Trad. I just find it gives me a better foundation for when my warring ends.

 

[FrostK]

Can this strategy work on MP?

From my experience: ~70% that u kill one opponent, but it doesnt give advantage vs some1 who just plays peacefully.

 

[sendos]

Can this strategy work on MP?
And is it a good idea to get honor for the free GG?

1. In defence it works rather well. I fought off a Persian pikemen rush thanks to CB's in MP. For attack, it depends on the skill of the player. It should work against newbs, but not against experts because they'll be doing the exact same thing.

2. Not really, but you could aim for the XP bonus instead. Then stick to either accuracy or barrage (preferably accuracy but not both at once until after logistics and range!), and then get logistics and range, regardless of order. Range helps you attack enemies at a distance without getting hurt, whilst logistics virtually gives your archers double damage. This is why Keshiks are so badass! The range boost will boost your CB's into the industrial era and beyond.


On a somewhat related topic, is it worth getting Temple of Artemis to bolster this CB rush strategy?

 

[Resipsa]

Yeah, usually Trad. I just find it gives me a better foundation for when my warring ends.

With Liberty and quarries you've got a good shot at the Pyramids which when coupled with Liberty give you one turn pillage repair.

Also when does the warring end?

 

[Aaron90495]

With Liberty and quarries you've got a good shot at the Pyramids which when coupled with Liberty give you one turn pillage repair. Also when does the warring end?

I personally play without pillage-repairing in enemy territory, as it feels way too exploitative for my taste. For me, the warring ends when either 1) it looks my Happiness will fall below -10 after capturing the next city (unless it's a capital), 2) I've already been in Unhappiness for a while and feel like it's not worth it to keep capturing, or 3) my units can't take cities any more. Usually, it ends up being option 2.

 

[Light Cleric]

If I CB rush I'm usually going to go Liberty for the hammers you save. If you get the free Settler and Worker you've saved a ton of hammers that can be poured into Archers. Drop the second city in a good place near your target and start getting a few Archers going from there. You can put off the Monument for a bit(but not TOO long) so losing Legalism there doesn't really matter.

 

[Plumfairy]

On a somewhat related topic, is it worth getting Temple of Artemis to bolster this CB rush strategy?

No. At least, not for the CB rush. The ToA is a fantastic wonder, but its value lies in its bonus to growth... the bonus production for archers is kind of an afterthought. The ToA costs 185 hammers, so you would have to build more than 20 CBs for you to come out ahead.

 

[joshua43214]

Not only would you have to build a ton of archers to come out ahead with the ToA, it takes too long to build. You would normally be about done building archers by the time the ToA is done.

Build ToA if you go Tradition and plan to go tall and narrow

 

[Cromagnus]

I tend to agree, Tradition gets you more happiness/citizen, more gold/citizen, and overall, more growth, but Liberty gets you a faster CB rush.

You get 4 cities out faster, and you impede growth in the capital less while doing so. Liberty saves a ton of turns prior to t60, whereas Tradition really gives most of its benefit over the course of the game. Also, the free monuments save turns mostly in the expos, but the settler bonuses help a lot in the capital, which is your main early production center.

Collective Rule gives 50% faster settlers + 1 free settler. This works out to a significant early advantage. A settler costs 115(?) hammers to build in a normal ancient era game. +50% production = -33% time, so if it normally would take you 9 turns to build a settler, it takes 6 with Liberty. If you build 3 settlers, what would normally take you 27 turns only takes 12 because of the free settler. It's actually more like 10-11 because of the +1 production/city. Furthermore, the food bonus to settler production tapers off, so the extra food in the capital doesn't contribute as many hammers to settler construction. (Extra hammers come at +1/+2/+4/+8/+12 food, so the best return on investment is at +2 food)

16 extra turns of stagnation in your capital is a difference of as much as 2 population, which, in the early game, compensates for the growth advantage of Tradition. 16 turns of lost production is not trivial either. You can typically build at least 2 archers with that.

You will typically have time to build at least one archer in your expos before you CB rush. That's another advantage to getting your first settler out on t30 instead of t40, but it's canceled out by the need to build a monument.. sort of.

Regarding monuments:

Republic gives + 1 production in cities, and 5% while building buildings. A monument is 40 production. A typical expo starts at 3 hammers, if you plant on hills, so that goes to 4. Reducing the cost of the monument (effectively) from 13 turns to 10 turns, for a savings of 25%. The +5% to buildings gives a net savings of 30% on that monument. x3 = ~1 free monument.

Tradition saves you 160 hammers on monuments, only 40 of which is in the capital. Including the free worker, which is 70 hammers, Liberty saves you about 400 hammers in the early game, most of which is in the capital.

Add in the tile improvement rate, and the end result is: Faster CB rush. And the synergy with Pyramids is game-breaking if you get it.

 

[Resipsa]

I personally play without pillage-repairing in enemy territory, as it feels way too exploitative for my taste. For me, the warring ends when either 1) it looks my Happiness will fall below -10 after capturing the next city (unless it's a capital), 2) I've already been in Unhappiness for a while and feel like it's not worth it to keep capturing, or 3) my units can't take cities any more. Usually, it ends up being option 2.

To each his own the AI start with 2 settlers and a plethora of techs so I don't feel bad about pillage repair.

 

[Monthar]

@Cromagnus You could also go with a combo of both Liberty & Tradition. For instance start with Liberty to get to the settler quickly. Then go into Tradition for the free monuments. If you build your monument in the capital to help get the policies faster it'll get the free amphitheater.

This would allow you to have the 2-4th cities work on building granary, library, units, cargo ships/caravans. They can then send trade routes to feed the capital to accelerate its growth after the initial expansion.

 

[Stone_Age]

I think I see how that works, Monthar. Are you suggesting that with the consulates nerf, it may be better to go 3 policies into liberty first instead of searching for other policies to take after finishing tradition? That's a novel idea. It never occurred to me.

 

[Monthar]

In my test game of going Liberty first then Tradition I was actually able to build the monument in the 2nd and 3rd city before getting to legalism. The 4th city needed 3 or 4 turns past legalism to finish its monument or I would have built all 4. I had Mt. Kilimanjaro at the 2nd city boosting the culture. Without it I might have been able to finish all 4 monuments before legalism.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the cash to upgrade all my archers when I got construction, because this test was as Indonesia at King difficulty to practice for the upcoming GotM game. I'm up to turn 93 now, 3 turns from Drama (for the 3 free amphitheaters) with Philosophy queued up after it. I have 3 policies in both trees and should have all 4 libraries finished by the time I finish Philosophy.

I almost have the cash to upgrade another archer, then I'll be taking out the Celts. They only have their capital, because my units have been blocking their settler. The only other civs on my continent are Russia and Korea, whom I've been fleecing for all the gpt I can get.