Is a National College rush a good idea?

[Pentokoglopolus]

I know that some people will disagree with me, but I have played several multiplayer games with the National College rush strategy and it seems like an almost guaranteed win under most circumstances. This is what I do:

1. Tech Pottery-Writing while building a worker
2. Build a library while working high food tiles
3. Switch to hill tiles when mines are done and build college
4. Spam settlers and use the insane research bonus from the college to get iron working
5. Switch back to high food tiles in capitol (each pop produces over 2 science)
6. Spam troops in all cities, then stomp opponents with superior troops

This strategy works best when there's some space between me and anyone else. If so, I can upgrade my warriors to swordsmen by the time a rush arrives, then retaliate with longswords before they have any.

Also, I play as France for early Tradition and Oligarchy. The cheap 20str muskets later are great.

Just wondering, does this strategy make sense? Or is there some flaw I don't notice?

 

[Tabarnak]

Absolutely. This strategy can allow you to reach Steel around turn 55. I think Liberty can be better than going Tradition if you really want to pump settlers faster and shave some turns to leverage a longswordmen rush. If running more peacefully, Tradition first and Oligarchy make sense. Playing as France, you can pick Lib-Trad-Oli before expansion.

 

[Smote]

Strategy is vulnerable to:

Sword rush
Liberty ICS rush
Early pillage-harass [you probably have only 1 warrior to defend worker with]
City rush [build cities 3 tiles away from your capital to shoot workers and block settlement]
Barbarians [not enough troops to kill encampments for 30+ turns]

Other tech builds that are less vulnerable:
2city NC
3city NC
4city NC

If done right, 2city and 3city are not slower. [4city usually is] It is, however, more difficult to implement properly.

 

[Pentokoglopolus]

Yes, it hasn't worked well for me on maps where people end up close (4 corners), but on most duels I can start spamming troops before the opponent reaches me.

Buying 2 warriors takes care of barbarians, and city rushes are easy to deal with because you'll have better troops and they will be overextended.