Medieval start too rushy?

[MasterMishi]

Played another Med start last night and I feel it is too iron rushy, my poor neighbour got decimated and he's a pro civer. Although his 2nd city was away from the iron he had just outside his cap. he settled for it with 3rd city, but too late then. Also he went tradition and it cost him.

My strat:

Worker in cap
Take policy on turn 0 after cap settle, beeline meritocracy, get sci
Settle for iron
Stable or maybe barracks or spear
Iron hooked and swords
Tech metal
Bulb steel
Churn out longs
next policy free settler
Settle for lux/ good prod/ more iron
Prob make spears in city 3 until prod is good enough to get a long in 15 turns #iron dependant
Blitzkrieg suicide attack with spears and a long or 2 on their way a turn or 2 behind

The strat next is a tougher call, heres what happened to me....

I steamrolled 2 civs then one quit and left passive AI.

Then i came across Persia with walls castle himeji, forts and hills on border and a river at border, fewer in number but was enough to halt advance.

I got rifles and suicide attacked, pillaged forts and had city down to half health. He got a cannon and reinforced, I had to retreat. Seige was useless in the terrain. Persia eventually got rifles and that was that.

Rome was quietly wonderspamming to a marginal tech lead with a hilly mountain pass choke.

Terrain caused stalemate and I had to beeline artillery, getting unis up in my 3 cities (Gao, Washington, NY puppeted)

Rome had slight tech lead now and more army. Arty still 20ish turns away. I concede that maybe I should have either attacked Rome first or turtled before persia war for Arty asap. I wasted lots of production on suicide rifles.

Could I have done it different? yes, it was a horribly wasteful stalemate...

MM

 

[Smote]

I agree with your assessment MM

If you decide to sacrifice all your economy and do brute force like that, you really must attack the players that do go economy, like Rome. You can make it hard for them by:

1. Build road to their civ, send stream on longswords down, along with 1-2 crossbows help break chokepoints.
2. Keep attacking. Don't do a fortify push, just slam units into them repeatedly and kill any unit that ever leaves position to kill one of your units.
3. Invent Astronomy quickly, and do a large amphib attack on them.

 

[MasterMishi]

played a few more medi starts going infrastructure first. NC ironworks with 2,3 and 4 city. Tried trad and lib starts and both have merits. If you keep an eye on demographics and grab wall/ himeji you can avoid needing steel and lots of units until much later. If you see a rush coming you have to respond though. China is good for this, as Great wall and CKN + a sword and a treb are enough to defend long rush. buildings first gives much stronger position later. Ideally quick unis for G Sci spam and bulbs.