My most disgusting game this year....

[Ramesses-Rules]

I just pulled the plug on my latest Emperor game after what appeared at first to be a very promising start. I was building for a War Chariot rush on Wang Kon. He was a sitting duck with nothing but Archers to defend his cities. Even so, he always has a bunch of fancy promotions on his Archers, so I was building a few extra WC's just for safety. Then I see him convert to Buddism. The founder of Buddism was Mehmed who has a world-class military bordering Wang Kon and, of course is "pleased" with him. The good news is that Salidin and Hannibal border Mehmed, have opposing religions, and are annoyed with him. Not wanting to fight Wang Kon and Mehmed at the same time, I decided to build up my military a bit more, expecting one of these other dudes to get into a war with Mehmed. Nope. They just sit there. To make matters worse, Mansa Musa becomes a Vassal to Mehmed without a shot fired! I HATE this vassal stuff. So finally, my economy is feeling the strain of all this unused military just waiting. In frustration, I decided to attack Wang Kon anyway and just hope Mehmed will stay out of it. As I was one round for capturing his capital, what do I see? A freakin' Elephant!! He had no Elephants, so Mehmed just gave him Elephants for the war with me. That's where it ended.

I probably could have done okay in the game if I had not opted for the Chariot rush in the beginning. I had pretty good land, but it looked like a great setup for an early war.

 

[Spoonwood]

Here lies the civ III forums. Did you want the civ IV forums?

 

[darski]

I'm guessing that this is not a simple Civ III game. I recognize some names from the leaderhead forum but the concepts are not at all what i am used to <<<sigh>>>

 

[Ramesses-Rules]

Here lies the civ III forums. Did you want the civ IV forums?

Yes, my error. Sorry.

 

[Sisiutil]

Now that you've found the right forum...

It's called a chariot RUSH for a reason.

The big advantage of doing an early rush with chariots of any type is speed. Chariots give you the ability to move quickly, so do exactly that. Take a risk and attack when you have just enough units; don't wait to build up a surfeit of them, because by then, it will be too late and all for naught.

Frankly, it sounds like your mistake was not building for an early rush (even against a Protective opponent), but that you dawdled too long before pulling the trigger. Even with Wang and Mehmed becoming Buddhist buddies, if it was early enough in the game, Mehmed would have been hard-pressed to give his spiritual soul-mate much help. If you'd moved more quickly, you may have even been able to take out Mehmed as well, or at least deal him a crippling blow--especially since he's not protective and would have been an easier target.

 

[Ramesses-Rules]

Now that you've found the right forum...

It's called a chariot RUSH for a reason.

The big advantage of doing an early rush with chariots of any type is speed. Chariots give you the ability to move quickly, so do exactly that. Take a risk and attack when you have just enough units; don't wait to build up a surfeit of them, because by then, it will be too late and all for naught.

Frankly, it sounds like your mistake was not building for an early rush (even against a Protective opponent), but that you dawdled too long before pulling the trigger. Even with Wang and Mehmed becoming Buddhist buddies, if it was early enough in the game, Mehmed would have been hard-pressed to give his spiritual soul-mate much help. If you'd moved more quickly, you may have even been able to take out Mehmed as well, or at least deal him a crippling blow--especially since he's not protective and would have been an easier target.

Actually, I had enough troops to take out Wang Kon capital if the damn Elephant had not arrived just in time to save his butt.

Last night, I restarted the game from scratch and tried a quicker RUSH with fewer War Chariots (about 6-7 instead of 12-15). Mehmed did not interfere, but I didn't have quite enough to capture the capital. So I pillaged every single resource in all his cities, and am going to let them starve to death. That is slowly working.

I have a question for you. If one is employing this strategy of pillaging and starving a city, does his city's economy crumble any faster if I destroy all his roads as I destroy his farms, mines, plantations, etc.? If not, I would like to leave them intact so that my own workers don't need to rebuild roads after I capture the city.

 

[bakshi]

You were doing a chariot rush when people had feudalism. That isnt a chariot rush.

 

[Ramesses-Rules]

You were doing a chariot rush when people had feudalism. That isnt a chariot rush.

True. As I said, I delayed my attack with the hopes that Saladin or Hannibal would occupy Mehmed in a war while I took care of Wang Kon. Kon was nowhere near feudalism himself or he would have had Longbows guarding his capital instead of Archers. He didn't have Elephants, either. Apparently, Mehmed traded (or gifted) the Elephant to him for the war. That didn't happen in the replay, which was a standard War Chariot rush, but the second time I unfortunately didn't have quite enough WC's to take the capital outright.

 

[sherbz]

if you are doing a chariot rush then you should have finished teching writing and be working on your next tech (you could of course do it earlyier, but thats highly map dependent). Beyound that i owuldnt really call it a rush to be honest. Chariots rock until someone techs iron working. Then chariots become very very poor.

 

[Ramesses-Rules]

if you are doing a chariot rush then you should have finished teching writing and be working on your next tech (you could of course do it earlyier, but thats highly map dependent). Beyound that i owuldnt really call it a rush to be honest. Chariots rock until someone techs iron working. Then chariots become very very poor.

A normal Chariot rush will take place before anybody has had time to research iron working. Axemen are no problem for War Chariots, and neither are regular chariots. I used to worry more about Spears than I do now. As somebody mentioned to me, the AI doesn't usually make a bunch of Spearmen. If I can identify and destroy his bronze mine before he can make more than one or two Spears, it usually goes pretty well.

 

[Kevinicus]

I also hate vassals. I turn them off on all my games, you should too. They are just an annoyance especially if you plan on wars.

 

[Ramesses-Rules]

I also hate vassals. I turn them off on all my games, you should too. They are just an annoyance especially if you plan on wars.

Even if I don't plan for wars, it really helps civs like Mansa Musa to voluntarily become a Vassal to the most powerful military civ in the game. Then he can just sit there and crank out spaceship without a worry about war. That is an almost impossible combination to beat at Emperor or higher. That was the other reason I quit that game, but I will never forget the magical appearance of the Elephant one turn before I was poised to capture Wang Kon's capital. I often have actual dreams of civ4 scenarios, so that Elephant will probably appear in a dream sometime!

 

[kivanc]

The exact timing for chariot/axe rush is 2000BC/1500 BC and the number for attack is 10. I experienced this many times
Gallic warrior/Immortal rush can start with less units, as they have good bonuses. But don't neglect to continue training new units during the war. So dead units might be replaced. If u attack with odds less than 70% most of the time, there is sth wrong with what you did.



and about vassals; it is a hidden power in the game. just learn how to use it. but still, i hope they give more to their masters in civ5.

A different tactics for level>=emperor is to build a few colonies very early in the game. You know AI gets bonus on most parameters in the game. That means your colonies should tech fast as well
That helps much on tech. So your vassals will gift you many techs. The more vassals you have, the more free techs you get from them. But as soon as they find the tech, they give it to other AIs as well. So just take the tech from them and you trade for the new tech before your vassal. So you get free tech from him and get new free techs from other AIs with that tech as well.

So archipelago and terra maps make the game even easier for this reason. Joao rules in these maps and he is the best colonizer. he can build colony not only on an island just near your continent but also he can build colony in a different landmass so early as well.

 

[Ramesses-Rules]

I don't know about Gallic warrior rushes, but I have been following the advice I got from somebody a few months ago for War Chariot rushes. He said to build Barracks in my first two cities, then 12-15 WCs, then capture the opponents two largest cities. That may involve walking the stack right past the crappy little border-jamming city he put next to Thebes, and leave it to the next WCs I build to take it out. Otherwise, I may not have enough units to take out 3 cities with my original big stack, because some may be killed or seriously injured taking out the smaller settlement and it gives him more time to build more and better defensive units in his capital. Is that pretty close to what you do?

When you capture a city, do you build Library, Worker, or something else there? I usually do one of these two to give max help with the post-war economy. If it has a lot of food potential, I might build a Granary immediately.

The vassal stuff almost always works against me because I play for Cultural Victory. I like to do the early rush to get good land, and then settle down to a peacefully religious life building Temples and Cathedrals like a worthy Spiritualist (hehe). With rare exceptions, I do my best to stay out of medieval/modern wars.

 

[UWHabs]

No way can you have a war chariot rush while others have either elephants or vassals.

I wouldn't build a barracks in your second city. Just start spamming chariots. And make sure your second city grabs horses in its first ring (if you even need a second city for them). Waiting for a border pop is too long. I suck at gauging turns, but it seems to me you're waiting too long. Don't build a barracks in the second city - just work hammer tiles and spam chariots. Between the city tile hammer, the horse tile, and maybe a hill or even a normal plains forest, you should be getting at least 5-6 hammers a turn from it. Combine it with your cap, and chariots are coming out of each city every 4-5 turns. Means you only need about 25 turns from when you get horses hooked up to build your stack. Throw in some whipping and it shouldn't take you that long to get your chariots to the war front.

 

[Ramesses-Rules]

No way can you have a war chariot rush while others have either elephants or vassals.

I wouldn't build a barracks in your second city. Just start spamming chariots. And make sure your second city grabs horses in its first ring (if you even need a second city for them). Waiting for a border pop is too long. I suck at gauging turns, but it seems to me you're waiting too long. Don't build a barracks in the second city - just work hammer tiles and spam chariots. Between the city tile hammer, the horse tile, and maybe a hill or even a normal plains forest, you should be getting at least 5-6 hammers a turn from it. Combine it with your cap, and chariots are coming out of each city every 4-5 turns. Means you only need about 25 turns from when you get horses hooked up to build your stack. Throw in some whipping and it shouldn't take you that long to get your chariots to the war front.

As I told the other poster, I don't call what I did in this game a true rush. I deliberately delayed my attack hoping one of the others would DOW on Mehmed so that he would not get involved in my war with Wang Kon. It would have worked fine except for the Elephant which Mehmed gifted/traded to Kon just in time to save his capital city from my attack.

Anyway, I will try the rush without the Barracks in my second city. So, if half my WCs have no promotion, how many do I need in the stack in order to take out his largest two cities? I assume you'd have a few more than the 12-15 promoted units (some of whom will actually get to +2 combat by fighting barbs)?

 

[UWHabs]

As I told the other poster, I don't call what I did in this game a true rush. I deliberately delayed my attack hoping one of the others would DOW on Mehmed so that he would not get involved in my war with Wang Kon. It would have worked fine except for the Elephant which Mehmed gifted/traded to Kon just in time to save his capital city from my attack.

Anyway, I will try the rush without the Barracks in my second city. So, if half my WCs have no promotion, how many do I need in the stack in order to take out his largest two cities? I assume you'd have a few more than the 12-15 promoted units (some of whom will actually get to +2 combat by fighting barbs)?

With war chariots? I don't know. I might end up with 15 or more to take out someone, but I'd declare against them before getting to that. If I can charge the cap directly, then I'll go for that with maybe 10-12, and let whoever else I build bring up the rear and take out their other cities.

I mean, think about it - say you ended up building 12 chariots, 7 in your cap and 5 in your secondary city with a barracks. You have 12 promoted chariots. Don't build the barracks, and now you can build 7 promoted ones in the cap, and 7 unpromoted ones in the other city. My gut tells me that those 14 will have better chance to win overall than the 12 in the original stack.

 

[Ramesses-Rules]

I understand what you are saying, but some of the things in this game are counter-intuitive. Or, as a great philosopher once said, "You know less than you think you know." That is why I like to run experiments in civ4 and compare results (once you get professionally trained in science, it permanently affects your brain). In this case, have you considered that more of the promoted WCs will survive in battle and get further promotions? When you move on to take out the next city, you will have some +3 combat chariots to help in the city that now has a 50% cultural bonus. I am not yet an experienced enough "warmonger" to answer that.

 

[kivanc]

I understand what you are saying, but some of the things in this game are counter-intuitive. Or, as a great philosopher once said, "You know less than you think you know." That is why I like to run experiments in civ4 and compare results (once you get professionally trained in science, it permanently affects your brain). In this case, have you considered that more of the promoted WCs will survive in battle and get further promotions? When you move on to take out the next city, you will have some +3 combat chariots to help in the city that now has a 50% cultural bonus. I am not yet an experienced enough "warmonger" to answer that.

I used to feel early rushes were quite useful on emperor level, especially for leaders which have good UUs and/or good starting techs.
I try to move up to deity nowadays and I found it not to be so much useful. Early rush is for killing. The more AI you kill, the better. But on deity, as AI expands so fast, it is very hard to kill multiple AIs, except Quechea.

Once with Huayna Capac I killed both my neighbours and I was left alone in the continent. It still didn't help. I could contact other AIs so late that, they were much ahead in tech. I expanded so good in that game and had the largest territory. But still it took so long time to catch them in tech and lastly I failed. You know, no second guy in game takes a medal. Well, tech trade in mid game is important. AIs tech trade with each other so much that isolation is sometimes dangerous.

Shortly, early rush is not always useful (although I had a thread on it) It is useful when you do it effectively. early rush is for killing (or for a very very strategic point/city). If you had problems with Mehmed or any guy, you simply won't have to make an early rush. War chariots are also good for defending borders, right?

When you got late in attacking but still feel you have to attack, then I would suggest you attack a shrine city or a strategic resource city so that would be worth it.

 

[Ramesses-Rules]

I am nowhere near Deity yet. I am still working toward winning consistently at Emperor. I find that a Spiritualist leader like Ramesses needs to get religion -- either by conquest or by teching -- at a fairly early point in the game in order to take advantage of the Spiritualist trait. It doesn't make sense to try to beat the military civs at their own game long-term. But once in awhile I do that by playing Ragnar just to improve my military skills. The rush/no rush decision depends on the availability of Horses and whether I have enough decent land for expansion without getting into an early war. That is the most important early decision for Ramesses.