The Early Rush

[Sisiutil]

Any tips Sisiutil on using this against human opponents?

I must confess that I have yet to try multi-player, so I hesitate to offer any advice. From what I've heard, however, human players are notoriously bloodthirsty and ruthless, so don't leave your cities undefended (which I commonly do with the AI for the first few turns), and prioritize military over everything else--though with an early rush, that's what you're doing anyway.

 

[HolyHandGrenade]

Awesome Guide!

As a beginner I was having difficulty with general warmonger tactics and this guide has enabled me to finally put the pieces together. Followed it last night playing bts and slaughtered the computer on noble every time. I'll be trying it on prince tonight. The first AI civ goes down easy and with solid resource management the second falls soon thereafter.

My friends and I have been challenged to a 3 vs. 3 multiplayer battle with no AI and I'm hoping to execute this strategy on an unsuspecting human player.

Any tips Sisiutil on using this against human opponents?

Ouch, never try this against even medium level human players. (Because a human player too uses this tactic). There is a strategy article about playing in MP games which you should read before switching to MP. And believe me, playing MP is something really different than playing stand-alone. One major thing is this nice "turn-timer" - a chess-clock for Civ. And if you are under time pressure you WILL make faults ...

 

[Hawe Hawe]

Very nice and helpful guide. I am always lacking such a planned approach in my games, thats why don't get past noble.
A small addition: The Celt UU, Gallic Warrior, can be build with copper or iron (not with iron only as your article says). So you don't need a third (or maybe even second) city to grab iron, and you can build them immediately if you have already connected bronze. Could be worth hammers (settler and defending unit), upkeep costs and maybe 15 turns of time. My Problem is that so many things distract the Celts (i have not played Boudica yet) from an early rush (religions, monuments and masonry for the Dun).

 

[7of9Fan]

• install a new governor

• burn, baybee, burn!

• hold your darned horses a second, let me inspect the city first

I agree, let me check the city first before I have to decide anything.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

I totally feel for the essence of his article, especially (and unfortunately) the overarching concept that he's trying to get at. It's hard to explain, but basically warmongering is very different from early rushing. With rushing, you are looking for an extra bonus in the early game, while warmongering means you are looking to sustain your economy by pillaging, tribute and grabbing cities. A rusher could quickly rush out one civ and then sit there building with 6 cities for the rest of the game, while a warmonger could wait until liberalism before drafting rifles and unleashing hell on medieval neighbours.

If you're playing BTS, turn on "Aggressive AI" and turn off tech trading: it's decent practice for multiplayer if you want to. I don't think it will work for multiplayer thoguh, because it's quick speed and by the time your units arrive they'll have something more advanced.

An aside: it's actually OK to only lightly defend your cities like you do against the AI, the key is to have lots of units with the sentry promotion running around. I don't care if you have 4 longbowmen or 6, if the opposing team wants a city down and each player contributes their stack, your city could easily be attacked by over 100 units, co-ordinated by teamspeak. You need to see it coming, and either move your stacks to defend the city, or ignore it and do your own attacking. You only need enough garrison to prevent a small harassing stack from taking the city.

 

[stormyorky]

Hi!

I have tried rushing a couple of games now, but I have disbanded them all around 1 AD. The situation becomes this: I either destroy the target civ or leave 1-2 cities. After the war, I find myself way behind the other civs in economy and tech.

In my last game, I had left egypt with only 1 city (on a hill) left. After this, I had a nice army and 3 new cities founded by egyptians. so I had 5 cities and a large stack of axemen.

But when I talk to some of my neighbors I find out that Im WAY behind in tech. and while I fought the war, russia and inca had settled a lot of the land on our continent.

what am i doing wrong?

 

[Sisiutil]

Hi!

I have tried rushing a couple of games now, but I have disbanded them all around 1 AD. The situation becomes this: I either destroy the target civ or leave 1-2 cities. After the war, I find myself way behind the other civs in economy and tech.

In my last game, I had left egypt with only 1 city (on a hill) left. After this, I had a nice army and 3 new cities founded by egyptians. so I had 5 cities and a large stack of axemen.

But when I talk to some of my neighbors I find out that Im WAY behind in tech. and while I fought the war, russia and inca had settled a lot of the land on our continent.

what am i doing wrong?

Could you post a saved game for us to analyze and comment upon? It's a little hard to make recommendations without more details.

 

[Silence101]

Hi!

I have tried rushing a couple of games now, but I have disbanded them all around 1 AD. The situation becomes this: I either destroy the target civ or leave 1-2 cities. After the war, I find myself way behind the other civs in economy and tech.

In my last game, I had left egypt with only 1 city (on a hill) left. After this, I had a nice army and 3 new cities founded by egyptians. so I had 5 cities and a large stack of axemen.

But when I talk to some of my neighbors I find out that Im WAY behind in tech. and while I fought the war, russia and inca had settled a lot of the land on our continent.

what am i doing wrong?

Aggressive expansion either by REXing, through warfare, or combo of both will likely cause a huge financial burden to your Civ - if you're Civ is getting most of it's research from commerce via the slider (CE), rapid expansion can really slow your tech rate. There's several things that can be done to combat this - prioritize techs like pottery, writing, alphabet, code of laws, and currency.

Pottery - This should be one of the earlier techs you research, I would think. It allows the cottage improvement to be built. Cottages can turn into big money down the road and help supplement your research.

Writing - Allows for libraries to be built, adding +25% to your research. Even more important, it allows you to add up to two science specialists per city with a library which will give you research independant of your commerce and provide GP points.

Alphabet - You can trade techs... try trading the same tech to multiple Civ's for different techs.

Code of Laws - Allows you to build courthouses which lower city maintenance by 50%. This becomes more and more important as your Civ gets larger and larger, because city maintenance costs go up exponentially with every city you add.

Currency - Increases trade routes and allows for building markets, which increases gold by +25%.

Beyond that, you need to manage growth and expansion with city development and avoid over-expanding to the point that it significantly stunts your research.

 

[stormyorky]

I think I know what I did wrong.

This last game that I played (another, with Rome this time), I killed Alexander with praets pretty early. the rush was fine. I kept Athens, and after he was dead I rex'd the land between him and me.

I ended up with about 9 cities around 1 AD. But! even when I run science slider at 0% I lose money each turn. And I have yet to discover alphabet.

absolutely terrible. I was really inspired by this article but none of the games where i tried the rush has worked out for me so far.

 

[JujuLautre]

Well, it seems you just fell into the trap of overexpansion. 9 cities in 1 AD is really a lot, and you should have a very strong economy to handle these cities. Which it seems you did not have.

-- I just checked your save and indeed: your overexpanded without any economy techs (currency, code of laws) and high-commerce tiles. Moreover, you have underdevelopped cities. No wonder your economy is in that kind of shape. But this is linked to your economy management, not to the rush. Don't forget to raze cities in this case.

 

[cabert]

I'm a bad rusher (to be honest I'm more like the warmonger sylwanllewelin mentionned), but here is my opinion on the economic recovery part of the rush.
It's all about workers and growth. You need big cities working commerce tiles.
If you can not get this, you should raze everything in sight.

What do you need to get this?
1) happiness (and health in a lesser way)! check my signature for details. What does this mean for rushing? you should keep cities that help your global happiness : happy resources (only new ones, you don't care about the second fur), pyramids (for either representation or HR) or stonehenge if you're charismatic.
2) commerce. In the early game, there are very few good commerce tiles. oasis, gems, gold, silver, or coastal seafood, and that's it. If you at least got to pottery you can build cottages. If you're not financial, you will need the gold or gems, since simple cottages (before maturation) won't pay for the troops.

You got my point : go for the gold/silver/gem mines.
Do you need the other cities? no! burn them down.
Remember that you need to feed the miners though, so it's senseless to go for a gold mine without a food resource.

 

[Fivetwentysix]

I won my first game on BTS on Noble difficulty with this strategy. Basically after you take out 1 or 2 civs, your economy will completely shut out. What you have to do is quickly research Currency so some of your cities can build Wealth as you desperately try to recover some economic grounds. But conquering 2 out of 6-7 civilizations is not enough. Conquer one more. Once there is 3 civilizations left (This is on Normal Size Pangea) you will have a crap load of cities with benefits from the Wonders you have conquered. You will boom! I mean seriously boom. By like 800Ad i think my score was tripple 2nd place! No one will dare declare war on you due to the size of your left over army if you managed to get your economy back in shape and you can just sit there and wait till your economy recovers and you can slide back to 100% research, you literally research everything in 1 or 2 turns at this point and you will become the most advanced civilization even though you were pushed back over 300-800 years!

 

[Sir Janus]

Great article, Sisiutil I know how much effort producing a document like this requires - much appreciated.

I'm a bit of a builder myself so have (wimped out) tended to use low sea level and one less opponent to give more room for early expansion. Anyway, came across your guide and decided its time to be more aggressive early on.

I was thinking of using Immortals, however this is not included in the list of UUs that stand out - I would have thought that the fast movement, cheapness, and the 50% bonus against archers would have made it an ideal unit. Is there some drawback that I'm not aware of?

 

[cabert]

Great article, Sisiutil I know how much effort producing a document like this requires - much appreciated.

I'm a bit of a builder myself so have (wimped out) tended to use low sea level and one less opponent to give more room for early expansion. Anyway, came across your guide and decided its time to be more aggressive early on.

I was thinking of using Immortals, however this is not included in the list of UUs that stand out - I would have thought that the fast movement, cheapness, and the 50% bonus against archers would have made it an ideal unit. Is there some drawback that I'm not aware of?

You probably know the cheesy deity wins by quechua rush.
I completed a similarly cheesy immortal win by immortal rush. I thought immortals should be used at immortal level .
So yes, immortals are particularly good for a fast rush. Just make sure to pillage any copper and not to attack pacal (holkans don't need copper!).

 

[Sir Janus]

I completed a similarly cheesy immortal win by immortal rush. I thought immortals should be used at immortal level .

Good thinking, cabert I'll give it a go (as soon as I get CIV running properly again - not sure if its the latest patches or the fact that I've moved to a dual monitor set-up but it seems very confused ).

 

[BalbanesBeoulve]

If you play with unrestricted leaders, a skirmisher rush with a protective leader can be very powerful. You can get shock or cover right from the beginning with a barracks. At monarch difficulty i've had no problem taking out 1 civ. On prince I've been able to take out 2 even without being protective.

 

[cabert]

edit : wrong thread

 

[GatlingGun]

Thanks to Sisiutil for an excellent summary.

A little feedback for a possible future revision...

1. I just got BtS last month and have been playing this strategy in both vanilla and BtS on Prince and Noble for the better part of a month now... to be honest most of my attempts were disasters that I would exit in the AD ages when I was horribly behind in tech... classic win the battle, but loose the war scenario.

Then it occurred to me that the problem might be that I was playing Quick speed games after reading through some of the ALC Bullpen. I'm coming to the conclusion that there are some maps / game setups that simply doom an early rush... Quick seems to be one of them... Quick compresses many turns in the B.C. ages that would otherwise be useful for moving your units into position and executing the war. I have tried this on Epic with much more success. You may want to mention this somewhere in the guide.

2. The other observation I have is that your ability to conduct a successful BC war depends largely on your ability to get cottages / gold / gems in play very early (by successful, I mean you can recover enough from the first to take out the other neighbors). This was mentioned in the guide; however, I'm having problems with the practical application of the concept. My experience has been that the map balancing routines love to give my home cities el-crapo land for cottaging... just enough farmland for miners, and abundant plains / hills within 10 or 15 tiles. I then find myself wondering how to respond to this... occasionally I can find enough gold or gems to make the war a success, but more often I find myself with seemingly no good options other than maybe delaying the war for Calendar (I had somewhat close Calendar resources on this map) or building a dedicated coastal city just for the sea commerce (as a Financial leader). All of these delay my war effort while the AI is building more cities. Inspired by some of the ALC threads, you notice my Chariot posed to nab one of Egypt's two workers and go on a pillage fest. Egypt had a scout spy watching all my moves so I figured pillage now and build axes while I pillage.

I actually pulled the trigger on this and killed Ramses by 1200BC... obviously it wasn't a quick war (I had nothing but a few pillage troops when I started), and I concluded it with my economy in the tank... I then founded a city east of Timbuktu to claim the gold, but it wasn't enough to help me recover. Catherine (currently just beyond the top banana resource in the big map below) expanded all the way into the jungle just north of Djenne by 5 BC and it was essentially game over... she popped Feudalism from the Oracle (and had six cities) and I was still at four (including Thebes) researching Code of Laws / Calendar at a rather slow tech rate... even with deficit research from war booty.

Immediately after capturing Thebes, there was a moment when both Catherine and Lincoln shared Buddhism, but were still Cautious towards each other. I wanted to pillage both of them, but I was scared to take on either when my economy was in such lousy shape (and such a huge jungle between us). With a good economy I could do it...

I posted my BtS Prince game below... I'd love to hear some feedback on a better way to play this situation... I'm tempted to say that I simply didn't have the right land for a war this early, but maybe there is something I could improve otherwise... Maybe use Djenne as a limited cottage city? The problem with this is that Djenne didn't have enough grassland for both mining and cottages... I'd get cottages now, but loose my ability to get production later unless I raze the cottages... I've never been able to bring myself to do that...

Thoughts?

 

[MarkJohnson]

I thank you very much Sisutil for taking the time to write a wonderful article.

In the past few months since I started playing this game I've avoided much of the military side of the game to learn the other aspects of the game. I was able to conquer the game easily up to Warlord, but noble has proven very challenging. I decided to focus on all the different strategies to help me win on noble, again avoiding much of the war strategies.

well, I decided the other day to give this early rush a try to see how I could do on noble. I decided to try on Warlord first so I could take my time and analyze everthing without too much fear of falling behind.

I built up too slow and declared war too late and wiped out my first opponent on 1100AD -lol

I decided to try again and not worry about building up too much and left my village unattended, this time I upgraded my units to city attackers instead of the second strength and easily took out my first opponent by 790BC which I thought was still a little late.

at this point I was still at 80% research and a huge army and my next opponent was stuffed in a corner and decided to sacrifice my army on him to reduce his production and hopefully capture at least one more city. Well he fell so quickly I just kept marching in. I was down to his last two cities and was going to capture his Iron mine next, when the other AI declared war on me while I was resting my units to full health.

My production was slowing down to 50% and had to declare peace on my current opponent and focus on my new foe. I captured two cities and when I approached his third city, he was well fortified and as I brought up my reinforcements my original opponent declared war on me.

again, I sue for peace with my current opponent and refous on my original opponent. My production is down to 30% and falling. I quickly regroup and conquer his last two cities and my population hit it's first turn of strike!! but at least the wars were over.

I used your advice on building commerce quickly early and was able to switch my cities to gold production and withing 75 or so turns I was at 80% and no longer in last place.

next, I declared war and re-engaged my third opponent which was a little challenging because we were fairly equal in tech, but conquered him without too much trouble.

I rebuilt and went after my 4th and final opponent on the island and tried going through his back door and straight for his capital. I razed the first city and captured his second city fairly easy. but when I went after his third city he wiped out my army. He was like 4-5 tiles away from me and his many horses whiped my catapults with ease and the rest of my army fell before I could run for home. I quickly realized I should NOT have went for the backdoor approach and just hit his cities that where closest to my border to avoid the moving in enemy territory penalties. I got too greedy and wanted to hit his capital and really hurt his economy, but just ended up hurting my own economy.

I tried to rebuild quickly as I didn't build any garrison troops for my other cities and had no reinforcements to bring up. I tried again to fight but he was too powerful and retreated immediately without much loss and declared peace quickly.

I learned I should have declared peace when I failed the first try so I could rebuild quicker and to get him out of war mode and back into production mode to get him to build buildings and not armies.

I declared peace longer than I should have. I decided to build artillary so his horsies couldn't damage them, but then on the way there I noticed I researched cannons that I forgot I could of used just as effectively. so I quickly put together an army and by the time I got them in place and ready to delare war I had researched artillery and needless to say, I wiped up the board with them.

anyway, thanks again for the tips. I should have read this one much earlier as it has good advice on early development, even if you don't want the early rush.

now, I guess I'll give noble a try. wish me luck
-=Mark=-
ps... I had only built 2 cities the whole game until the last few turns I built two cities to get a quicker end to my domination victory as I only needed a couple percent population and territy to win. I built in the desert areas to get the extra territory. It was easier than building a navy to conquer the two remaining opponents. I won in 1919!! best win yet.

 

[Rancid Sushi]

Very good guide. I almost always like to try and rush the nearest enemy. I had the military tactics down before this guide, but it was the post-war economy I usually need help with. I'm a conquerer, not an accountant. Also the only time I like to REX and wait for Construction is if I'm playing Korea. This guide really helps me put things in perspective as far as where a rush fits into the big picture of the game. Keep up the good work.

P.S. I fell out of the loop a while ago so I don't have BTS. I found your game with Giggles to be fascinating. Truly a well-rounded leader who can REX as well as he can rush. I look forward to playing Sumeria and I think that was one of my favorite ALCs in retrospect.