Need tips on Axe-Rush [Vanilla]

[Blockinlick]

So I decided to install this game again recently and I've gotten the hang of managing my workers right again [Like I used to], but I've forgotten how I should go about managing my Civilians/Specialists.

Anyways, the last few days I've been trying to work on and streamline an Axe-Rush strategy on Warlord and, pathetically, I'm having trouble making it work.

Chosen Map/Scenario Don't read this until you've read the rest.

Spoiler :

First off, let me say that I've chosen this scenario because I believe it's what will be the most fun and I believe that if I succeed an Axe-Rush win before 500 AD [Or before Axemen become far obsolete] on it, then I've learned what I want to learn.

I'm using a simple custom scenario to test it.
-Time is Marathon [I like Marathon and Epic because I don't like that Axemen get obsolete so fast in others].
-It's a tiny map with 5 players [4 AI] and every continent is connected Pangaea style.
-Each player starts out on one of the continents by themselves. [Each sizable for about 3 spread out cities, or 7 condensed cities]
-Alexander is my closest AI.
-Each player is balanced [I'd say] resource wise. While I actually am at a disadvantage though
~My immediate resources aren't great. I have Pigs close-by, Corn a little further, and Wheat a little further than that. Other than that, I just have Copper directly between me and Alexander. Alexander is a little bit closer, so I have to rush a settler+warrior to grab it asap.
~Alexander has Stone and Wheat close-bye, and Deer further up.
~Gandhi has Sheep and Wheat close-by one city, an already built mine on a hill between his cities, and Marble near his other city.
-Some AI's are O/P and one is weak. What we all start with
I play Mongolia. I always have. Not sure why, I just like them and I always seem to do better with them than others. However, I've customized what each Civ starts out with unit wise.
~I start out with a Worker and a Settler and have a slightly larger continent than the rest.
~Alexander [Southwest of me] starts out with a Worker and a Settler too
~Napoleon [Southwest of Alexander] starts out with 3 Warriors, a Settler, and a Swordsman. [Although this sounds O/P, his citys only source of food or money is a nearby Oasis. He's surrounded by a vast Desert, but his region also has a "Mountain Gateway". He's easily my smallest threat]. If he played smart, he'd smack a city at the floodplains on the outskirts of the desert... but so far I haven't seen him do so.
~Gandhi starts out with 2 settlers at each end of his oblong continent.
~Roosevelt starts out with a Fast Worker and a Settler [And I believe that because of this, he's my biggest obstacle... as he's farthest away from me on the map. He gets big and strong, fast].

My first attempt today, I was confident that I had strong strategy. I failed miserably simply because Alexander beat me to the Copper, which delayed my Rush until 90 BC [Far too late]. I also had trouble getting my middle city to work fast [It was always taking 30 turns minimum to get just anything done]. They kept getting crowded. Is this because I built too many cottages? It has no water nearby or any hills, so I can't build a farm or Mine either.

At about 3000 BC, I had raised and army of 10 Warriors and declared war on Alex. I stole his city on the Copper and made peace about 20 turns later. It wasn't until 90 BC that I had built up an army of 12 Axemen + 7 Warriors [I divided into 2 groups]. I declared war on Alex again and it was barely enough to take two of his cities and have a couple units to protect each city and 5 units left over to keep marauding. The remaining 5 units [2 Axe, 3 Warrior] got wiped out in the next attack on his other city [To my surprise].

I exited the game without saving because I looked at the year and it said 500 AD and I saw that Roosevelt was trailing me in Techs already. By the time I would take out Gandhi and Nappy, He would have had Muskets lol.

Should I shoot to rush Roosevelt first, then go for Alex? Roosevelt is quite a ways away though.

I'm also wondering if grabbing the Copper first would have failed anyways. Roosevelt is dominant so fast, and Alex is spamming cities in my way like a pest.

 

[pigswill]

Axe rush is easier on pangea, especially on marathon.

 

[Blockinlick]

Axe rush is easier on pangea, especially on marathon.

I know this, and it's why I'm frustrated lol. If I can't do an Axe rush on a small Pangaea, on Marathon, on Warlord... WTH CAN I do?! lol

Btw, your post is useless... js

 

[Bandobras Took]

If you're in Vanilla, forget Axes. Build Catapults and conquer the world. Axes only *really* came into their own when siege lost the ability to kill units.

 

[pigswill]

Can you post the starting save?

 

[brutusrox]

you have pigs in your BFC.... so that means u researched AH early. do you have horse nearby? the only reason im asking is because the UU and UB for mongolia both surround the Keshik so if you have horse i would suggest do a horse archer rush over a axeman rush anyday. but im sure u already new that...

 

[lymond]

no UB's in vanilla and HAs are nerfed a bit. Cats always the way to go

My only advice is to get BTS

 

[Blockinlick]

no UB's in vanilla and HAs are nerfed a bit. Cats always the way to go

My only advice is to get BTS

Excuse me, but why do you all assume that I'm familiar with all these acronyms? lol

I figured out HAs = Horse Archers... that's about it.

 

[WelshGandalf]

You'll get the lingo eventually! You were right with HA's

UB = Unique Buildings
BTS = Beyond the Sword (Civ4 expansion)
Cats = Catapults

 

[Manco Capac]

Each earlier version of CIV4 pre-BTS had a weaker version of HA.
Vanilla HA had no withdrawal
Warlord HA had that 20% withdrawal, but at the price of -10% when assaulting a city.

 

[Blockinlick]

You'll get the lingo eventually! You were right with HA's

UB = Unique Buildings
BTS = Beyond the Sword (Civ4 expansion)
Cats = Catapults

...and what about BFC?

Anyways, my 2nd attempt worked... sorta... lol

This time I snatched that pretty little Copper the second I got a Warrior and Settler.

I was on a roll until about 1000 AD. I had taken out Alex, Nappy, and all but Roosevelts Capital when even at 0% Research, I started going negative. I quickly took out Washington [He somehow had a settler and this scenario has "Complete kills", so he survived]. Several turns later, all my Axe-Men started poofing lol.

It was quite funny, because I had about 25 Axe-Men on a Bee-Line towards Gandhi and just as each one of them made it to his doorstep they poofed lol.

So I hit this crappy recession where all units but like 8 Archers poofed and I was still in the hole. I spend about 150 turns [Rough guess] researching Currency. I built Markets in all 6 cities, which put me at about 30% positive research. I then unlocked Grocers, then Banks. I'm still working on those Grocers now and haven't made it to the Banks.

I have an issue though. My capital is running like crap because it seems most of my citizens are pissed off. It's overcrowded they all say. So apparently, I've become the Mexico of my scenario [Ha!].

I've done all I could do. I've spammed Cottages and whatever else. I have 8 Farms. Honestly, I have no idea how to fix it.

 

[AbsoluteZero]

You're witnessing the basic problem with the pre-currency rushes. Even if you win the war you go into an economic crash because you don't have the tech to sustain a large empire.

On the other hand if you wait till currency axes are likely obsolete.

My advice is once you get access to axes beeline writing -> alpha. That way once you're done with the rush you can build research and run scientists which will at least get you to currency.

Don't bother with marketplaces unless the city has tons of commerce from trade routes or cottages. Instead have cities build wealth if they have a few hills.

Once you take out 1 AI it's usually time to stop and get your economy under control if it's early in the game. If you try to take out another you will likely go broke without winning anything useful.

 

[Manco Capac]

@AbsoluteZero

In fact, on Vanilla, it's even more disastrous.
BTS makes wealth at a rate 1 ==> 1 , whereas Vanilla cut in half the wealth production (in fact, all processes like research, culture and wealth).

Early rushes on Vanilla are terribly no good.

 

[Blockinlick]

@AbsoluteZero

In fact, on Vanilla, it's even more disastrous.
BTS makes wealth at a rate 1 ==> 1 , whereas Vanilla cut in half the wealth production (in fact, all processes like research, culture and wealth).

Early rushes on Vanilla are terribly no good.

Anything I can do about my capital being crowded though? It's producing slower than every other city I have.

 

[Ghpstage]

The economic issues probably happened because you kept building nothing but Axemen trying to while trying to take everyone out at once while also having no clue how to build or manage an economy.
Happiness problems can be solved by getting more happiness, which can be dne a few ways such as getting new resources, buildings to boost those resources or ones like Temples that give theselves, or running the Hereditary Rule civic you get with the Monarchy tech, its also quite possible you are overwhipping your capital (1 pop whips in your core cities aren't sustainable en masse, especially early in the game).

Oh and BFC = Big Fat Cross, its the maximum workable area a city can control, a 5*5 square of tiles with the corners cut out.

 

[Ecori]

You can not do anything about the "crowdiness" in your cities. There are, however, several ways to negate the effect. If you research Monarchy you get access to the civic Hereditary Rule. This gives you +1 happyness for every military unit in the city. You can also build temples, colosseums and other buildings to generate happyness. Religion helps to. A great way to get further happyness is by luxuries. You can either settle them, trade for them or conquer them.

 

[Blockinlick]

The economic issues probably happened because you kept building nothing but Axemen trying to while trying to take everyone out at once while also having no clue how to build or manage an economy.
Happiness problems can be solved by getting more happiness, which can be dne a few ways such as getting new resources, buildings to boost those resources or ones like Temples that give theselves, or running the Hereditary Rule civic you get with the Monarchy tech, its also quite possible you are overwhipping your capital (1 pop whips in your core cities aren't sustainable en masse, especially early in the game).

Oh and BFC = Big Fat Cross, its the maximum workable area a city can control, a 5*5 square of tiles with the corners cut out.

" its also quite possible you are overwhipping your capital (1 pop whips in your core cities aren't sustainable en masse, especially early in the game)."

This lost me. The sentence in parenth is just jibberrish to me. "pop wips?", huh?

 

[Ghpstage]

" its also quite possible you are overwhipping your capital (1 pop whips in your core cities aren't sustainable en masse, especially early in the game)."

This lost me. The sentence in parenth is just jibberrish to me. "pop wips?", huh?

Sorry, having reread your happiness problem being due to 'overcrowding' it doesn't seem to be the problem anyway. The answer in this case is just to get more happiness.

But for the record its to do with using slavery to rushbuild. 'Whips' being the act of using slavery to complete a build, in order to do so they use up population (pop) from your cities, each population used up giving 30, and you also gain one temporary unhappiness per use of the 'whip' regardless of the amount of pop used.

 

[Blockinlick]

So basically, I was screwed inevitably. I had literally built every building I could, and had nothing but units to make in every city. It was also 1600 AD and Gandhi was at 2400, while I was at 1600, and Roosevelt was coming back fast at 900.

I didn't save or continue that last try. The rush itself worked great, but the economic crash cost me the game in the long run.

I was just about to build some longbowmen to put up a quick defense from random barbs when my capital got gangraped all at once by barbarian Axeman, 2 Archers, and a Horse Archer. I lost my Cap. When I took it back, I was pissed of and out of my mind to notice that all of my buildings had to be rebuilt.

So I said "F&%$ that" and exited lol.

 

[Bandobras Took]

What was your tech path after conquering? Were you using your specialist slots?