How to make a chariot archer rush work on Immortal/Deity?

[fallout3dc]

Hey, I've seen these units used to great effect in multiplayer in the early stages of the game, but on Immortal/Deity, the computer gets to medieval so quickly and has a massive early army, which isn't really there on the lower levels, so how do I make the most of the Horse Archer / War Chariot while still growing and getting the NC up nice and early? Thanks for all tips.

 

[budweiser]

Simple. Go straight to The Wheel and then start building/buying what you need. Dont mess around.

Sight unseen, I plan to do this in the next DCL, but it depends on the map of course.

 

[phillipwyllie]

If you are playing Attila settle near cattle, horses and sheep. Even if you have to move your starting settler for a few turns you'll benefit in the end. I'd only settle 1 expo in a similar location if possible. You might benefit researching Horseback riding for the stable before the NC. After that follow the normal kill all their units first rule. Once you reach Civil Service your pikemen will deal with any knight spam.

 

[Fluphen Azine]

Remember that most MP games are on quick pace instead of the usual standard pace of these SP games. So you can get to these techs quicker and I find that a lot of MP players do not expand fast enough or prepare for early rushes. I do not get into Chariot Rushes as much but I have found that players that use them can cause some problems to my usual Comp Bow rush. If you can get some strong early faith generation you can use Holy Warriors to help get a few extra units for your rush/defense. Most players will not choose this option when choosing Religious choices so it is almost always an option. So you kinda want to go with Tithe/Holy Warriors. Do not enhance your Religion just keep buying units with your 50 faith for archers and delay Construction until your ready to upgrade. However, make sure you research Construction up to 1 turn and switch because you may need Construction ASAP and you do not want to wait 7 turns to research it.

Since a lot of public MP games have more unexperienced players you usually can get away without growing and work your gold/production hexes and expand very early. Try to get up 3 to 4 cities asap if you have a close neighbor. Be aggressive. Camp out near his borders and steal his workers because most MP players do not protect them. Yes they will hate you and call you names but it will not matter because you will be forcing them out of the game very soon. Of course you can play the nice guy and team up and wait till you have a large tech/army advantage and go roll them that way if you choose. In MP it is much easier to be deceitful playing the good guy until your ready to play the bad guy since most MP players just want to play nice and trade and be friendly. You can take advantage of the AI but not like this. I guess it is sort of the same since you can DOF an AI and take all his gold and Back Stab them but when you Back Stab in MP it gets really ugly and you usually just roll your neighbor compared to the AI on Deity where you will have to work a little harder.

Also in an MP game all players are starting from ground zero on the tech tree/workers/settlers so this is going to be a much different experience compared to SP standard Deity games where Chariot Rushes can work but not as well as in MP. It is also Civ dependent because if you are playing Genghis you are going to want those Chariots so you can upgrade them to Keshiks right?

On Deity SP stand/stand I think you are better off going with a Comp/Xbow rush compared to Chariots but that is more of player preference since I have seen both work. I think it is more about what is going on in your game because your Chariots do not last as long and upgrade near as good as your Comp/Xbows into Gat Guns into Machine Guns into one of my favs Bazookas.

Horse Archers ... you are talking about the Huns right? Well that is one OP Warmonger Civ. I don't think you even need horses to keep building Horse Archer after Horse Archer so you know just build a huge army and go destroy whoever you want to ! It all depends on what you are trying to do in your SP game. Do you want to go for an early domination trying to win pre 200 turns? If so you need to be more precise in your game play and set up. I find it easier to start mid/late game wars. Play nice with your AI and get everyone to RA with you and your PT. Now once you have a good enough tech lead you can start to roll whoever you like with your Bombers/Artillery/Infantry/Tanks... etc.

 

[consentient]

1. Research AH first. If you don't have 6 horses in your capital location and a secure expo location, try an Archer/CB rush instead.

2. Assuming horses, get to work stealing workers as per usual. You CAN'T do a CA rush without worker-stealing. Someone people don't like worker stealing but if you have to build them, it will be too late.

3. Go Liberty. You will need it for the hammers, the fast settler, and later, the happiness and culture.

4. Once you have your workers and your expos, divide your workers between those who chop the forests to make the birch canes to 'train' the CAs (and make the chariots, presumably ); and the second set, who improve the horses themselves. Six workers is perfect.

5. Make one horseman for city capture and train him on barbs if need be to get promotions. He will need to be a little beefier than your average meat-shield. If he dies, replace him immediately. Time wasted with no unit to capture is lethal on Deity.

6. Assault the weakest of the nearby armies and kill all their units in the open before you approach their city. CAs can't stand much of a hit. If the city has a CB you MUST bait him with workers and kill him. If the AI builds another to replace him, again back off until you can actually capture the city.

7. All promotions are instant heal. You will make Knights out of these after T100 so don't bother giving them promotions they won't keep. The heal will help them take out cities quicker.

8. Raze all cities except capitals. They won't have anything good in them worth keeping them for. Don't worry about unhappiness as long as it stays above -10.

9. Press as hard and as fast as you can with crazy numbers of units. Keep 2-3 workers at home to improve your cities to maximise hammers and food. Your cities should grow so you can support many units.

10. When you get to Chivalry, disband all but 3 of your units, sell the surplus horses and build XBs instead. It is also useful if you build archers/CBs and train them on a city state then upgrade them.

 

[beetle]

My first early CA rush attempts (India, so elephants actually) were pathetic. I am just not fast and aggressive enough. So I very much appreciate this list. I hope to try again with war chariots. If that doesn’t work, I will try the Huns.

7. All promotions are instant heal. You will make Knights out of these after T100 so don't bother giving them promotions they won't keep. The heal will help them take out cities quicker.

CA upgrade path is not as terrible as I thought, so I have to ask about this. You get two promotions from barbs, then the third can be March (and, you can pick March even after upgrading to Knights). If you can get March without breaking the city-attack rhythm, is that not worth it?

 

[stormtrooper412]

CAs only work on flat ground, but they are really good because you can swoop them in and clean a forward guard very easily. However, I wouldn't really bother with them unless Arabia/Mongolia because once they upgrade, it's pretty much game over

 

[consentient]

If you can get March without breaking the city-attack rhythm, is that not worth it?

In my experience, fast-paced domination victories are won not by having <10 elite troops but by having SWATHES of elite troops. Therefore it's not about how many promotions per troop, but by having lots with >3 promotions. That said, there is no point choosing promotion (over heal) unless that promotion is going to stick around AND be really useful for the long run. March is not so important for Knights, tbh. What typically happens in my games is that I have the meat shields (Muskets with Cover) at the front absorbing the city attacks, the ranged units shooting away, and the knights used to eliminate troops around the cities, and for city capture. You don't want them to heal too much because you WANT the cities/other troops to shoot at them. March is good for infantry-type units because they take longer to get places. Knights can be parked in the captured city and heal while it razes, or zip to the unpillaged tiles and heal off of those.

For me, horse units should be 1,2,3, Blitz, Mobility, then March. I'm not so worried about March and I can't see how it's affecting my game. I think I've got it right, unless some mathematical type of player can correct me, and it is 'strictly better' to get March.

 

[kb27787]

Seems to work fine in my experience... they are faster than CB, take less to build, and do almost the same damage. If you can pull off a CB rush then a chariot rush is easy; they can also pillage to heal much better than CBs can. While I'm not confident in my CB rushes, I'm quite fine doing a chariot rush (I can eliminate ONE, or two neighbors with it, but will get stuck after that with warmonger penalty); tradition works just fine for that since your big capitol can get one out in 2-3 turns and you can only have so many horses.

Unfortunately range + logistics is wasted on them unless you are Khan or Harun, so they never will be useful for long even with the relevant promotions.

 

[peddroelm]

I'm of the opinion of march being more valuable promotion than blitz on mounted units in most situations (early-mid game)..

It greatly increases their field presence fighting at the edge of your borders .. Almost every turn - hit, (optionally pillage heal) and run back into your territory (city ideally) and/or in mongol khan healing range ( medic for non-mongols) .. Having the ability to attack almost every turn will bring the other promotions pretty fast (melee attacks give lots of XP) ... Chain pillage heal is not an option before breaking enemy lines // when fighting defensively ..

----
Endgame 3-4 high risk/suicide blitz landship//tanks can make a difference caping a city a few turns earlier (just buy back the tanks that die and a few extra on top) ...

 

[beetle]

My attempts at taking early cities are pretty pathetic, but maybe my first impression response to this will allow you to give me some insight?

If you can pull off a CB rush then a chariot rush is easy

This was not true for me. At Deity, I have been able to take cities with CB a couple of times, but only because I started with archers who had +1 range when they became CBs. My few attempts (two maps, two tries at each) with CA (India elephants actually) were total failures as they were one-shotted or taking much, much too long. Maybe if I had a CS to train up on?

 

[consentient]

I'm of the opinion of march being more valuable promotion than blitz on mounted units in most situations (early-mid game)..

It greatly increases their field presence fighting at the edge of your borders .. Almost every turn - hit, (optionally pillage heal) and run back into your territory (city ideally)

Yes, I've seen you do this brilliantly in all your LPs. The situation that springs most readily to mind is about 1/2 way through your war with Attila in DCL #2. Your knights were going down the road from Boston, hitting his troops and then backing up. This is great, but in my play style I more often want mounted units to kill units in 1-2 hits and then move. Blitz is better for quicker kills, which brings more money for more units. Maybe it supports my sloppy style of warfare. But I won't argue with you on this, since most of all my strategy came from you

 

[Light Cleric]

Yeah, March is more valuable on Knights/Cavs than any other unit except maybe Air Repair on Planes. Still in SP I much prefer CBs to Chariots because you can start building Archers sooner, the base Archers take fewer hammers, they aren't limited by strategics, and frankly a mass of CBs is more useful than a mass of Knights against an AI that has an unhealthy obsession with walls of Pikemen. Obviously the calculation changes with a civ that has a Chariot Archer/Knight UU because those tend to be extremely powerful units, especially Camel and Horse Archers.

 

[Acken]

Speciall UU aside,

Chariot are good if you don't plan to do more than a conquest with them to unlock a possible crowded start. While more costly than archers they come sooner than CB and don't require gold to upgrade allowing you to use it for your normal economic development. Due to mobility they are also excellent for harassment while you get more of them to deliver the final blow.

CB are by far better if you plan to transition to crossbow for more conquests or defense.

 

[reddishrecue]

If rushing with early mounted archers, make sure you have enough melee units to go in. Early defensive civilizations usually get to recover their defenses when there's not enough melee units to capture the civilization's cities.

 

[peddroelm]

Going slightly off topic in the march vs blitz debate .. Blitz is (IMO) better on infantry than march ..

Allows to attack-finish off move - ending up in a potentially suicidal spot and then backing away to safety IGNORING zone of control rules.. Most infantry units can do this only on flat land or in own territory attacking across owned road tiles .. But for some unit types/promotions it gets even better..

With high altitude training/inca - you can also do this onto hills (still having a move to pull back)...
Woodsman allows attacks into jungle/forest..

And minutemen can do this across all terrain types (even across rivers) ..

/////////////////

On topic:

What is the endgame ? How do you transition into med-final game ..

- do you want to kill one AI (steal early wonders, natural wonders, polders ..etc) and then continue peacefully ? (might work)
- do you want to keep warring towards domination victory ? (potential problems if not playing Huns/Arabia/Mongols/Songhai or Honor policy)

Target terrain very key - only horse archers can navigate non-flat terrain - chariot archers REQUIRE flat terrain to operate with any sort of efficiency ... If not playing Huns/Arabia/Mongolia/Songhai (even with honor) probably a more mixed approach (unit composition wise) of archers/composites sprinkled with 2-3 chariot archers will transition better past the first conquest into the mid/late game ..

 

[consentient]

(Even more OT post)

Peddro, since you're gracing us with your presence and wisdom, how about a DomV VidLP of one of the more recent or forthcoming DCLs?

 

[Nick31]

Speciall UU aside,

Chariot are good if you don't plan to do more than a conquest with them to unlock a possible crowded start. While more costly than archers they come sooner than CB and don't require gold to upgrade allowing you to use it for your normal economic development. Due to mobility they are also excellent for harassment while you get more of them to deliver the final blow.

CB are by far better if you plan to transition to crossbow for more conquests or defense.

This is a very important point.

Acken states the reasons pretty clearly for when an early Chariot rush is best: setting up an empire to properly expand and then go into eco mode. And if the terrain is suitable, it's nice to just build Chariots and do things like exp farm CS or pillage everywhere, and of course, kill. I much prefer that then spend all my gold on upgrading into Composites.

And for certain civs (Mongols, Arabia, and Russia) they make perfect sense.

 

[peddroelm]

(Even more OT post)

Peddro, since you're gracing us with your presence and wisdom, how about a DomV VidLP of one of the more recent or forthcoming DCLs?

maybe

 

[consentient]

maybe

Mul&#539;umesc! (thank you)