Sumeria War-Cart rush does not work in diety, or I am really bad in war

Based on the other thread (Has the king detrhoned) I wanted to talk from experience and tried Sumeria several times in standard (small/continent/diety) and also with some more cowded maps and pangeas, and from 10 start I was able to only conquer only one civ, once with the initial rush.

In 9 more cases it was defended quite well (I was always able to take a few weak cities), sometimes other civ's joined agains me too early, sometimes I could not handle loyality enough even with Victor, and even in the one case I have rushed one civ taking its capital, I was not standing better than a good peaceful expo with good of the harverst and faith settlers.

Granted I had 15 War-Cart but all the rest of the cities was walled and between hills/mountains, protected by crossbows from turn 75....

Even if I can build 1 War-Cart/turn from 2 main city it is not enough.

I am using several tactics, like upgrading for heal, flanking, pillaging for heal, baiting with scout/worker, but still, failed mos of my try.

Is War-Cart rush really that strong?

For me the Mongol horse rush were significantly more successful as far as I remember. (but have not play that for long) And the Toa rush was 100% successful whenever I have tried.

 

On flat land they're OK... in hill-heavy terrain they absolutely suck.
Certainly not a game-ending rush by any means.

 

@Arilian are you building them as your first thing?
They are not just about the war cart.

 

I have tried both approach, and the 2-3 Ziggurat first to reach +50% production for heavy cavalry works best usually (expect if the first war-chart can capture a settler from a defending warrior around turn 10-15)

But the window while they are strong is really short. I have played another Maory game since, and I was able to kill two civ on a continent very easily with TOAs at the same time, even walled cities...

 

Personally I think you are right in that building carts and charging in just does not work as well or as guaranteed as I have seen others claim. You really need a high production start, flat land and a map that means your opposition has likely lost a lot of warriors in advance. However playing with Sumeria in a more well rounded approach Does work well, not as an initial chariot crush but more opportunistic built up attack after getting your civ going. The ziggurats and goody huts from comparison help a lot and the chariots lack of maintenance and ability to upgrade to knights means you get onto a good roll roughly the same time as Toa’s. The chariots do allow you to sometimes take an early civ which can help a lot but I still find, builder and settler just make you a better machine moving forward.

 

Sumeria I'd say is a really good classical, not only ancient rusher. Carts and Ziggurats give you a pretty much guaranteed classical golden age and good infrastructure to crush an opponent decisively in the classical/early medieval.

 

Warcarts are pretty good, they almost secure you a golden age and can allow you to take over your neighbours extremely fast.
The faster you conquer, the faster you will get to stirrups. You could probably kill 2 civs before you get to knights.
Sometime the AI is so much behind you can still push with outdated units until very late but on deity around t65/70 you might already be facing pikemens/crossbows, so you have to plan on getting coursers/knights.
If you like ancient rush there is also the hoplites/archers rush, work like a charm on deity and is pretty underated.
Horsemen rush with black marketeer promotion is also pretty strong but you need 1 or 2 early encampements to push the GG asap and you will spend a lof of your chops into horsemen so maybe not be the best choice if going for anything but domination.

 

Deity dom games are a race against time and a game of momentum. Once you lose that momentum and aren't ready for the next push everything comes to a halt. The first two civs are usually easy then it depends if the next one has upgraded walls, xbows and knights waiting for you or if they still have warriors/archers and either no walls for ancient ones. Getting goth and consecutive golden ages really helps carry that momentum as you can chop in troops and buildings and then buy more workers with faith and rinse and repeat. You feel the difference when you miss out on goth. Being culturally starved also hurts and delays professional army and exploration or monarchy. Sometimes you take cities and they are just pure crap and wonder why you just didn't build them yourself instead of warmongering So much also depends on the map, city states, pantheon, terrain, luxes, resources etc.

If you want to try something different try this map below(sweden/standard/standard/deity). Sweden is really good at a late start domination. I didn't get my warmongering started until T100 and finished the game at T189. I focused on culture first so I could get to mercenaries>exploration->nationalism quickly. This gives you corps and open-air museums so now your culture will really take off and you can get to mobilization fast. Carolean corp shred all of Alex's and Genghis's cavalry but I still had a balanced army of xbows->FT, muskets, bombards->arty, and just a few knights->tanks. It was one of the most fun dom games I've ever had. Alexander is still my favorite for early dom but this one had a flavor of its own that was very satisfying. You will have no problem getting goth on this map and that is huge for chopping in Carolean since you can't upgrade a unit to them so either buy them via trading diplomatic favor(which you'll have a ton from earning GWAM) and then chop in some more.