The 4 cities swords rush strategy

[Vorlath]

Tabarnak, I wanted to thank you for this walkthrough even though I have difficulty with it. I did learn a lot and I think it will help in my future games.

So much so I'm thinking of developing a different, but very similar, 3 city strategy that might not be as aggressive, but will let you develop with stronger units a few years down. This will be for those who play on intermediate difficulty, say around Emperor (or lower). I'll post more once I have it worked out. It already works fine on King. Need to tweak it with what I've learned here.

Thanks again to everyone. This forum rocks!

 

[André Alfenaar]

Is it feasible not to build a second city at all and not to wait for iron, if you want to go for an early strike? Just go for the honor sp's. And meanwhile build spearmen and archers. Together with an early GG this should be enough to conquer another civ?

I have never tried such a strategy. It seems risky, especially if there are other civs that meanwhile can expand peacefully.

 

[Mazer Rackham]

Is it feasible not to build a second city at all and not to wait for iron, if you want to go for an early strike? Just go for the honor sp's. And meanwhile build spearmen and archers. Together with an early GG this should be enough to conquer another civ?

I have never tried such a strategy. It seems risky, especially if there are other civs that meanwhile can expand peacefully.

Yes - even on Deity. You need a boat load of archers, though. Wainy has a Let's Play video on youtube with Babylon where he took Bowmen on Deity if you want to see it in action. They are good for this strategy since they can withstand a Pikeman/Horseman hit, and England/China are good because the archers will upgrade to a nice UU.

I think it is a bit riskier than this strategy, too. With 4 cities, you can go defensive if you need to and still pull out a victory.

 

[Tabarnak]

Every strategies are risky at Deity

 

[NZL]

Hey guys, I'm still learning to survive on the higher difficulty levels and reading this thread has taught me new stuff, but also left me with 2 questions.

1. DaveMcW says: settling the gold hill tile is better in every way.
Why? Doing this will give you one less tile for Mine improvement, so isn't it worse?

2. tommynt says: u use oasis instead of sheep in showcase game? mirco [sic] to production tiles when building settler should be basics
Why? When building settler, excess food and shields are pooled right? So the oasis has the benefit of 1 extra coin over the sheep tile.

 

[DarkSatyr]

Forgive me if someone has already asked this, I didn't read all 4 pages.

Egypt seems like it would be a particularly good civ for this strategy if a legal tomb expand was used. It would delay some later Lib policies, but the +8 cpt from the tombs themselves, and the +3 cpt from Trad opener might help to mitigate this. Also, on probably Emperor or Lower, TGL may be accessible with Egypt.
Overall it would mean delaying Steel (assuming it is Lib GP bulbed) and delay Merit/Rep. The Tombs would easily cover the cost of culture and lost from delaying these policies, however.
Maybe Legal Tombs could be a way to pull out of it if a 2nd wave @ steel is a priority.

Opinion on this variation, Tabarnak?

 

[Resonance]

@NZL:
First question: Settling on hill gives one extra production. In the early game. You lose the ability to build a mine on the hill, true. But the short term benefit outweighs that.

Second question: The benefit of surplus food on settler build times was reduced one or two patches ago.

 

[Tabarnak]

Hey guys, I'm still learning to survive on the higher difficulty levels and reading this thread has taught me new stuff, but also left me with 2 questions.

1. DaveMcW says: settling the gold hill tile is better in every way.
Why? Doing this will give you one less tile for Mine improvement, so isn't it worse?

2. tommynt says: u use oasis instead of sheep in showcase game? mirco [sic] to production tiles when building settler should be basics
Why? When building settler, excess food and shields are pooled right? So the oasis has the benefit of 1 extra coin over the sheep tile.

1. 95% of time, you want to settle on the luxury hill. In my example, you clearly see that you can't work 3 mines when building settlers if you settle on gold(you have 2).

Also, there is a marble tile in a barren third ring if you do that. I preferably settled in place because of these facts. Was it better or not? I don't know because i or someone else didn't try the second approach yet.

2. Before collective rule, it's correct to use 3 tiles over tiles. The difference is negligible. If i can produce a bit more gold for the rush i will gladly do. After taking collective rule you want to exclusively work biggest hammer tiles.

Forgive me if someone has already asked this, I didn't read all 4 pages.

Egypt seems like it would be a particularly good civ for this strategy if a legal tomb expand was used. It would delay some later Lib policies, but the +8 cpt from the tombs themselves, and the +3 cpt from Trad opener might help to mitigate this. Also, on probably Emperor or Lower, TGL may be accessible with Egypt.
Overall it would mean delaying Steel (assuming it is Lib GP bulbed) and delay Merit/Rep. The Tombs would easily cover the cost of culture and lost from delaying these policies, however.
Maybe Legal Tombs could be a way to pull out of it if a 2nd wave @ steel is a priority.

Opinion on this variation, Tabarnak?

Egypt is a great candidate mainly because of his (early)UB. Their UA let you build national wonders(they cost a bit more with 4+ cities) faster too. Definitively top 3 civs for this strategy.

 

[Buccaneer]

In my current Immortal game, it looks I did do a 4 Legion (swords) rush but this was my 2nd attempt. The first try it came too late (turn 85) by the time I attacked Japan 12 hexes away. The 2nd time I beelined IW and had Japan's three cities (2 large, 1 small) wiped out before turn 85. It's all about speed and timing, I think.