Rush in FfH

[Slvynn]

Lets bla bla about Rushing in FfH.
Which races can allow early rush and sucess in it, and which not, or at least, which ones better and why.
How to make them, what things that need to know, to care about while planning rush, and how to perform it w/o killing your feeble economy.

Concept.
Rushing is good to get unwanted neighbout from game as well REX at start, and option for development instead of settler spamming .
The key to strike fast as posssible and to sucess 100% in your strikes, so planning here is necessary.
There is alot of threads were created on Civ4 forums about concept itself, and i hope all know what rushing is so, as for concept, it need not further explanation.

Races and way they do rush. (should be filled , not full list, because i have experience only with certain races) ---- [not complete]
--------------------------------------------------------
Doviello.
Best rushers. If you not rush someone at start with those you misusing your race and leader. They start with triple warrior stack + Beastmans have city attack bonus, so, idea here is to pick 3 warriors and scout and invade someone's capital asap.
Gather tribal villages on your way, you will need that moeny for depletion savings, whiel you will be teching to city states.
Kill few animals on your way, some extra experience will be handy b4 you will stomp your closest neighbour.
The key word here is REX, and if you like building style this is not best race for you .

Clan of Embers
[placeholder]

Sidar
Suprisingly, the race of defencive builders able to make very viable rush early in game.
The key to sucess is bit hidden , but, at fact , they have huge advantage from their palace, that mean best choice of palace starting mana.
they start with Ancient Chants, that make them :
Aviable to get Mysticism, God King, Elder Council and their lovely Sage specialist very very early, and thus they can boost their science very soon from start.
More than that, they are love adepts , for obvious reason of flowing XP for arcane units, making them best way to get shades.
Mysticism is prerequisite for KoE, whcih give you Adepts.
It also give them advantage amond even Dwarves to tech to RoK. (dwarvest go with crafting , but Sidar have their resereach boosted much earlier, so, dwarves losing here at founding RoK)

So techs are somewhat like this:
Mysticism > Agriculture if needed for growth (depends of start) > Crafting > mining > lightbulbing/resereaching KoE > Way of Earthmother.
At that stage you will have:
Warriors, str.3 , +20 % streght (enchantment lvl 1 spell from adepts), 2 moves (bosy lvl 1 spell from adepts), Soldiers of Kilmorph (4 str, , +20 str, move 2), and also courage spell that affect healing on neutral and enemy territories.
With bunch of cheap warriors and 1-2 soldiers, and 2 adepts in stack (adept A = body 1 enchantment 1 , adept B = body 1 , spirit 1) that move ALWAYS 2 tiles (you move , then cast haste, so you move 2 on hillls, in forests too) is pretty insane, and devastating.
Reaching then Bronze wroking asap and making such second stack that go as reinforcement, heading then for Warfare.
As Saldaphon is industrious, you cant miss form of titan, and if you have it , you will get :
cheap ass warrior sidar militaristic style :
str 4 (bronze weapon)
City raider 2
Enchanted Blade
Hasted
Courage (affect healing)

Just spam loads of those, you you set, put 2 adepts in stack and go conquer.

dont forget to switch to city states at some, ending point.


Grigori.
MM Ever tryed Adventurer , hero rush?
1st adventurer get upgrade, and with few warriors going to capture few capitals....

to be continued...
Please post any ideas/experieence that fits to topic.

 

[Ekolite]

I think the Hippus are pretty obvious for rush tactics - I'd say that under Tasunke they are better rushers then the dovellio and under Rhoana theyre still great.

 

[Slvynn]

please post then strats of tech/building orders. Remeber , rushing happening early at game. Hippus are great at rushing too, but when i played them i didnt rushed at all , but devatasted enemies later with Ratha/Mercenary 6 movement armies.

If you see what to add, just describe strat you have .

Actually, my lovely civs in FfH are hippus and sidar.
But rushing with defencive sidar have more power and can happen , except abilities of Raider trait.

So if you rushing with Hippus it should be plain Axes rush, but since its combat 1 + raiders it will have same effect and effectivness as sidar adept soldiers/warriors rush with haste and enchanted blade, when Sidar founding religion and advancing their resereach and economy in same time (building Soldiers of Kilmorph instead of Axes, no Training yard required)

as compared to doviello tasunke still losing, because Rush is what happening EARLY EARLY in game, and starting with triple warriorsgive you almost instant ability to kick closest ass. Just grab 3 beasmans, build more 1, while level others with animals, scout enemy and attack with 4 beasmans and 1 scout.

Cassiel is better at hardcore rushing than tasunke too , because it can rush REALLY EARLY. 1st adventurer is just fast death on closest annoying neightbour.

But Tasunke is great at warfare all game, in late rush or just later, more organized and pre-made invasion.

 

[it-ogo]

All that rushes are of slightly different time. Doviello should go rush immediately, Tasunke should build several warriors and go, Sidar need adepts, Khazad need axemen and much money... Then anybody with OO have a good reason to start conquest immediately after gaining Saverous. Then Svartalfar with poisons, Aeron's bounty and Alazkan... When the "early rush" ends?

 

[Slvynn]

haha just do it b4 you do rites of oghma, then it can be considered as "not-so-late-rush" lol



(joke)

early rush is should be b4 victim found its 3rd city

 

[slowcar]

early rush is should be b4 victim found its 3rd city

and you talk about which difficulty level?
in my games the AI has founded a third city by the time i have my first warriors built. and you talk about adepts, axes and soldiers of kilmorph

while the doviello indeed make a great rusher i favor tasunke, too.
combat1 + 1 first strike + using enemy roads.
plain warriors is all i need to rush, they get experience from barbarians and as soon as i have at least 2 shock2/march warriors (26xp) i go after my neighbour.

all my teching goes towards boosting science and economy. city states is a must if your neighbour is not so near, markets help a lot, too. with councils you can get early GP as well as quite some research as you'll get as many cities as you can afford.

i play this on deity and, unless you get too greedy and can't afford your empire any more, you'll just walk over the AI. at least until one of the other AIs who was able to grow peacefully delivers a good fight at least

 

[Rod]

Hello,

actually any Civ is usable for Rush Tactics, but I do not like to rush all the time. It has to be right setting and the right enviroment

I always play with Blessings of Amatheon therefore me and the AI have more resources. I also play with AI No Building Requirement, otherwise I could just rush with warriors till the end of the world.

I always instantly start building Warriors with my first city.

As soon as I have 6 of them I go conquering, if there is any target nearby (this is not always given). If there is no target anywhere in reach, then I just settle and I skip the entire Rush Phase.

But back to topic.
6 Warriors take on Quick (8+7+5+4+2+2 (city is growing as well) )

= 28 turns, then I continue to kick out warriors and as soon as the first stack is diminished to one or two survivors you get the additional warriors in line to form a new stack with 8 or 10 warriors.

As you get insane promotions in FFH you can continue with original warriors until turn 100. Simply because your original survivors will be so high promoted then, that they can take any Archer Defender. Only then the AI will get City Defender Promotions online and Copper Resources, that means only by then the AI will have effective counters. But by rushing for almost seventy turns you have accumulated so much money and land that you can spend the next 100 turns for nation building and then in turn 200 you start building the Asskick Stacks that will simply overrun the entire world in a never ending campaign.

btw. I play on Immortal Level.

In this way I rushed as Bannor, as Amurites, as Sheaim (who are especially well equipped to turn the warrior-rush into a Pyre Golem Rush - Pyre Golems do damage in dying therefore, whenever you play the Sacrifice Style, it becomes more effective) or as Svartalfar and Ljolsalfar.

I believe even Khazad is very well equipped for early rush, simply because they have an insane speed in Hill terrain and they should get rid of the newly conquered cities, BUT keep the money from Raiding and Pillaging. As Khazad you will stay on only one city for the beginning, but with the new money our vaults get so full that we achieve insane production boni very quick (Overflowing Vault + God King).. and then we can kick out more rampaging Dwarves on per turn basis.

 

[Slvynn]

i playing on emperror-immortal, and well, early early rush happens b3 3rd city of victim founded, medium is b4 5rth, later, but still rush is rush when you attacking bit laer than 5th city founded.
On immortal i managed to do Sidar adept rush at medium stage, that means when victim had 4 cities.

 

[nealhunt]

Luchiurp.

Very simple plan. Beeline Construction for cats and golems, then econ techs while building forces. Build Barnaxus early and go barb hunting for Combat promotions. Once you have cats up, he can pick off damaged defenders to level up to C5.

It's slow enough you may face enemies with more than 3 cities, but a stack of cats and golems with +50% is tougher than anything anyone else can build at similar beaker counts.

Eventually, go for KoE and Dwarven Adepts to insta-heal entire stacks.

 

[oyzar]

Hippus are nice, take out the first 1-2 AI's with warriors(i am playing deity mostly). then kill the rest with those insane horsemen(4 move and +50% against archers WTH?).

 

[PotatoOverdose]

Illians... combat1+shock1 warriors straight off the assembly line from the day you start production. build a small stack of those and you can kill just about anything in the early game...

 

[onedreamer]

Because the AI -especially in FFH2- is definitely not designed to :
a) pursuit rushing
b) prevent being rushed

developing tactics for rushing it is pretty pointless IMO, you might as well just enter the editor and remove that neighbor you don't want.

Now if we're speaking of rushing in a full human multiplayer game, then I'd not be so sure about anything you wrote. Saying that Doviello must rush for example; it won't be easy to rush a human player if they have any multiplayer experience, and if you fail you're most likely toasted and going to fall vs. another neighbor or that neighbor himself.

 

[Slvynn]

Because the AI -especially in FFH2- is definitely not designed to :
a) pursuit rushing
b) prevent being rushed

developing tactics for rushing it is pretty pointless IMO, you might as well just enter the editor and remove that neighbor you don't want.

Now if we're speaking of rushing in a full human multiplayer game, then I'd not be so sure about anything you wrote. Saying that Doviello must rush for example; it won't be easy to rush a human player if they have any multiplayer experience, and if you fail you're most likely toasted and going to fall vs. another neighbor or that neighbor himself.

sure sure, but 2nd player need to prevent rush and wait for it.
Some races are designed for rush, and not rushing = being toasted imo.
Every rush have chance to fail like every game have chance to be lost, as for me i think your sayings are pointless (sorry) because some people playing with AI at hi levels (deity/ immortal) and doing rushing best way it possible with least damage to your economy - is important, and deserve to be discussed.
As for multiplayer game - i will repeat, evey game can be lost same as rush being failed. If you not rushing with doviello and waiting for sidar player developing and then comiing and killing you with hi end units - its more useless , because in difference from rush you just wasting alot of time .
Its all matter of skill, and rushing with rush-designed race should be done well.

Added : in my current game (immortal lvl) with AI Varn Gosam actually rushed me. I had 3 cities when he attacked me with few lightbringers and hunters. He got killed at end, but IT WAS actualy a rush.

 

[onedreamer]

you can't call it a rush when you have 3 cities in FFH2...

 

[slowcar]

you can't call it a rush when you have 3 cities in FFH2...

if one or two of them belonged to my neighbour i can

 

[Lazylen]

I find the hippus to be complete rape. maybe it's just the way I'm playing, but nothing can really stand up to me unless I stupidly declare war on everyone at once.

on small map mode, pangea (which is what the hippus are made for, but still).

My strat (im trying to go as fast as possible, but I haven't been able to break the 10 minute barrier on emperor yet and I haven't tested it on deity) is to make a city as fast as possible. next is animal husbandry -> horseback riding, all the time while making at least a warrior and a worker. the rest goes into scouts to find everyone as fast as possible.

once I get horseback riding, I immediately switch to hippus stable, then once that's done, i set autobuild to permanent horsemen.

about the time after my first horseman, orthus appears on the map. I gather a few horsemen, sacrifice one or two of them to lower his health and destroy him with the last one for experience & the axe (just the axe doesn't accomplish much but a low-level character with a good weapon, which means nothing).

I then turn my horseman with the axe against the civilization closest to me, and send the rest of my horsemen away to a different civ. the one horseman with orthus' axe can take down entire civilizations in just a couple of turns while the others are significantly weaker and need to attack in groups.


I almost always finish within 100 turns, and my last one (on emperor) finished in 86. if you get a horseman with the axe, you've basically won (even against those pesky hill giants, all of which i took down in one turn ).

 

[Rex rgis of Ter]

Undoubtbly the Grigori are the best. Build workers and warriors until your 1st hero pops. Upgrade him into a hero and with a stack of 2-3 warriors you can easily destroy them, assuming that your combat 5. I managed to this and destroyed the only civ on my continent. I was isolated for 100s of years.

 

[Lazylen]

on a small map though, by the time I get three horsemen, the first civilization can be taken out with ease, even on deity.

i finished a 4 civ game on deity in... 90 turns I believe. by the end I was raging war more against barbarians & the four horsemen than the sheaim that I faced. The hippus special spell saved my ass, otherwise I would have been destroyed by the 76 Armageddeon Counter & the four horsemen (I killed the last one, but was eventually run over when the other two came into play and ravaged my city... the barbarians were the real winners ).

 

[kiaace]

I think another way to rush( quite late though) is to get tribal villages for $$$ then increase science for infernal pact. The Hyborem, longbowmen and sects of flies come in handy when they're still at archer lv