The Quechua Rush

[Dairuka]

Harrassment is a gamble. It can fail if an unlucky roll happens and his Warrior Beats your defending Quechua. Followed quickly with him throwing in 2-3 warriors to defend the resource and the roads connecting it.

Once that resource is connected and he gets out an Axeman or Chariot. Quechua's are about as useful as a poopie flavored lollipop.

 

[travathian]

The AI will spit out attack units until they've punched your Quechua off their tile. The AI has no fear of the losses they will take doing this and has the production capacity to do it. Then the AI will use it's vastly superior production advantage to push a stack of Axemen at you while you're still likely to be building only your first or second Quechua, because it took you 30 turns to build that Barracks.

Axemen? How the heck is the AI going to have Axemen so early and without access to copper? No, the computer starts building Archers the moment it discovers the tech. Its a flaw in the AI that it doesn't know against the Inca it needs to build warriors.

Every single one of your arguments against this strategy is null because you're talking about it from a MP perspective when the OP clearly pointed out this was for use against the AI. Against the AI its very, very effective. I have yet to lose a game on prince/noble using a similar strategy. It actually makes the game way too easy.

The only time this strategy doesn't work very well is on maps with less than the optimal number of civs, because the nearest AI will be too far away to catch in time.

Obviously its not as effective in MP, because well, people think outside the box unlike the poor AI. But this can be said about just about any strategy that abuses the dumb AI.

 

[Vizzini]

Axemen? How the heck is the AI going to have Axemen so early and without access to copper?

Do you even play this game?

Unless you start right next door the AI will have Bronze researched before you even find them - it's their favorite 1st tech, especially if there's a copper tile near the city. The AI knows where every resource in the game is even before they have the tech that reveals it, so have no doubt that if copper is anywhere near they'll have it hooked up, researched and defended within the first 8 turns, 15 at the absolute latest. They'll do the same thing if they have Horses near.

 

[ToadFaerie]

Harassment? Conquer!

I am becoming convinced that the Inca are the most flexible civ, and allow for the most consistent good start.

I just started a archipelego game, and the Chinese also started on my island. I would have had to share that valuable land space if I didn't have those little anti-archer dudes. But those little Que-dudes got me a size 6 city. Any other civ would have had to wait for technology to get units to conquer the Chinese.

A Que rush is not a plus for every game, but when you can do it, or when you need to do it... it is priceless.

Aggressive is becoming my 2nd favorite trait as well. Units starting with combat I means a barracks will give your units city raider, cover, or whatever you need. Even a culture-win can take advantage of it; you may need to prune rivals before they get a victory.

Financial.... everyone knows how good that is.

Starting with mysticism? Attempting to corner the market for religion definitely doesn't work in every game, but on occasion it works. Having a virtually guranateed shot at one of the early religions allows one to choice tech and strategy more judiciously later on.

 

[mrjepson]

This strategy definately works on harder dettings vs the AI. I wouldn't bother waiting for the barracks though and instead get out a few more guys. 7 guys are better than 3 upgraded guys plus one regular. One the harder difficulty make sure to take the worker when declaring war if possible. This quickly levels the playing field between you and the other ai and sets the ai closest to you on a downward spiral.

I am pretty sure that in the near future I won't be allowed to play as the Inca in MP games anymore.

 

[Verax]

I just got done with 2 Emperor level games using a Que rush. I typically play 2v2v2v2 with my MP partner vs. 6 comps. To answer a few of the questions (mostly by vizzini)

Here is how I work it.

A- found city on a hills/plains, or other hammer resource. That gives you 1 extra production from your capital.
B - make nothing but Quechua until victory is attained.

I can usually pull off 2 simultaneous wars with Emporer computers.

to answer some questions...

1 - How fast can you get there, and copper. In small maps, or on maps with lots of AI's (the way I almost always play) you get to the enemy before they even have bronze working. I'm typically declaring war and capturing thier first worker between turn 6-12. I always try to capture thier worker in the field by suprise. I'll even take a few extra turns to set-up in order to do just that.

2 - In a free for all MP game, this strategy would be a little more tricky. One thing you pointed out was that you would stream warriors to my (undefended) capital. That isn't possible. Let's assume that you knwo where my cap is. By the time you are headed out with 4 warriors, I have 4 quech on thier way to you. I can either attack you in the field on the way to your cap, or follow you back to my cap. All the while I'm still making Que.

The bottom line for MP is that we would be able to have the same amount of units produced at any turn in the game if we both were trying to. If you started building anything but workers from turn 1 though, you are at a disadvantage, since that's all I would be making. You would also need to be aggressive to get combat 1, or else you are at a disadvantage. So the end result is that you would be forced to take an aggressive civ, found your city on a hills/plains or hammer resource, and make nothing but warriors. Any one of those things doesn't happen, you are behind.

At this point, the Que rush is REALLY hard to stop, and very effective.

Verax

 

[Vizzini]

I've never said a Que rush couldn't work. I've been laughing at this "harass 'em" silliness.

It'll work against the AI if and only if you get there before they've managed to hook up a strategic resource and only if your harassing unit(s) survives the counterattack the AI is going to hit it with.

A Que rush is a wonderful thing to behold - when it's done properly: A rush - where your first units arrive with sufficient strength to either immediately take the capital or with more than sufficient strength to survive while waiting for reinforcements. Not this "I'll declare war on the AI on turn 4 with one Que to harass with! Woohoo!" silliness. With some really great luck, that might work. With even a little bit of bad luck tho the AI is going to eat your harasser for breakfast and come looking for lunch.

 

[Verax]

In my opinion the best way is to harass until you have the force to take the capital. I declare war on turn 4 and keep streaming units over until I reach the point where I believe I can take the capital. I scatter all the Quechs out on thier most productive defensible squares. I'm cutting thier production down, and continuing to crank units and stream them over 1 by 1.

In order for them to have hooked up a resource, (in MP) they would need to have spent 12 turns on a worker, 5 turns(?) for a mine, and at least 2 turns for a road.

If I don't have a Quech in your base by turn 19, I've failed. Even if I miss it by a turn, you won't have your chariot out yet, and you'll have no way from stopping me get your horses. So you'll have 1 chariot in a few turns (and no ability to make new ones). Against a steady stream of Quechs.

As far as Iron... forget about it, that adds an additional 12 turns to discover in there.

I'm hoping that there is a counter. (since it is kind of cheesy) But I'm not seeing one yet.

Verax

 

[phoulishwan]

If thier worker is already out making terrain improvements and connecting resources, you have already failed at the harrasment, and there is no need to even try.

Actually this is the only time I'll harass, because if the worker is out hooking up resources, I'm more than happy to take his worker for my benefit and then pillage whatever he did manage to hook up for the cash to pay for my excess troops or my third/fourth city. I'll usually leave after pillaging and stealing a worker however, I'm not looking for the kill this early otherwise it means I'm forced to expend twice the effort and resources building settlers and workers to claim all the land that opponent would have otherwise colonized, but by capturing their worker and pillaging their infrastructure, I've catapulted myself ahead of them. I haven't played any MP nor do I plan on doing so, I'll stick to WOW for my multiplayer experiences. But this is deadly effective against AI's who don't single mindedly retaliate out of vengeance from that point on, they'll happily accept peace once you leave their land and go about the rebuilding of their empire. Usually I'll wait on signing peace until I can also capture their first settler and gain a second worker, this means I don't have the turns of stagnation to spend building my own and I have a strong military to dissuade any AI's from even considering attacking me. By now barbarians are starting their relentless assault and I need to focus on protecting my borders and clearing the fog of war anyhow, the only way I can keep 100% research is if I'd gotten any cash goodie huts or had the luxury of pillaging AI improvements...this strat is crucial to maintaining 100% research once you've founded your 3rd-4th city. If I have 2 AI's nearby (within 20-25 tiles) they both get this treatment, they'll both be wiped out long before the game is over anyhow but I don't want them to out expand me into the resources I want, so I need to slow them down...early warrior worker thieves and pillagers is the only way to slow them down. This is usually enough for me to get out my third city before they've gotten their second, that's effective enough for me to use it every game. When I don't try to do this an AI always seems to beat me to a spot I'd planned on settling and I'm forced to not only go to war over the terrain but raze their city to boot because I don't have the luxury of wasting those turns finding somewhere else to settle or wait for their new found city to grow to size 2. I don't like having a UU this early, I prefer an Iron or Cavalry UU that will typically last the most amount of turns over the course of the game.

Prince, huge 18 civs are usually the maps I play, I have no 'close' by neighbors and sometimes stolen workers get eaten by animals or barbs on the return trip, do I care though? Not particularly, I didn't expend the resources to 'pay' for them to begin with, I won't declare war on rivals civs UNLESS I can take their worker the same turn but if I see it or see a resource their worker will prioritize working on, I'll take their worker or wait until the worker comes to work the resource and then take it. Why? Cause I like to expand at my neighbors expense

 

[suspendinlight]

I just tried this on Prince, 13 civs, continents map. I started near the poles so I immediately moved my initial Q north and ran into a Chinese city after a while. A Greek scout had come from the East earlier and since I despise Alexander, I moved my Q to start harassing him. A few turns later, I found his city which was nicely surrouned by forest/hills and camped out. Of course his attacks were futile. All the while my capitol is pumping out Qs every ~4 turns. After I had about 5 Qs in place to take Athens, I sent out 3 Qs to harass Qin. Took Athens, and about 5 turns later I took Bejing. The Q rush was a breeze and made taking this civs out quite easy.

My unit costs are starting to get up there so I have to drop research down to 80%. After some exploration, I find a barb city and raze it with a pack of Qs. Soon I realize I am on the southern half of a large north-south continent with a fairly narrow landbrige between the north and south parts and all the surviving civs (Rome, Russia, India) are north of the bridge. I quickly pump out 2 settlers to block the land bridge and keep this part of the continent to myself. I build Stonehenge to get obelisks so the cultural borders will block land movement. I manage to found Judaism. Everything is going great.

Then, the problems start. My research is only running at about 40% now due to unit expenses, but the biggest problem is the barbs--I have them on raging, which makes this sort of fast expansion very difficult, especially when at least 70% of my huge continent is "wild". So now there are about 4 barbarian cities popping up around my cities and my Qs are getting strained. Finally, I see an Axeman and I know it is time to switch over to Archers. After whipping a few archers to defend my top cities, I notice my science rate has gone to 0 and I am at -9 gpt with striking units. So I take desparate measures and disband most of my Qs, including several level 4s. Finally, my units are not on strike. Thankfully, my Stonehenge finally kicks in and all of my cities expand so I am back in the black, but still 0% science. Also my improvements have all been destroyed and I can't get a worker out without getting killed by barbs.

Now that my money is starting to come back, I am able to try another Q rush against the 3 barb cities (one was taken by some Roman axeman who got by my borders before they expanded). Again, it works wonders and soon the barb cities are mine and the barbs all but defeated. After I get to currency, it's all but over for the barbs and I fill the rest of the continent with my cities. Oddly enough no one on this continent or the neighboring continent founded any religions so everyone has converted to Judaism. There are three civs left on a separate continent and I'm sure that one is quite technologically advanced because they are building wonders I have never heard of. I should be able to pull this one of pretty easily though. I'm thinking domination...

Ok, well I'm rambling, but anyway, the Q rush works very well but be careful of expanding too fast and running out of money. Also raging barbs can be quite dangerous since your Qs are individually no stronger than a warrior but in packs can destroy the enemy cities.

 

[phungus420]

I still want to know what the damn counter is for quechue rush. Like I said, I use this tactic, and I can't think of one if someone did it to me.

 

[Dairuka]

Connect a horse, copper or iron resource. Or just pump out a lot of warriors.

Warriors get a 25% city defense bonus, and Quecha's get no bonuses against Warriors pre-promotion.

 

[LeSphinx]

It's the kind of strategy I never think about!
Il will try it in order to figure out!
LeSphinx

 

[Verax]

Connect a horse, copper or iron resource. Or just pump out a lot of warriors.

Warriors get a 25% city defense bonus, and Quecha's get no bonuses against Warriors pre-promotion.

You don't have time to connect a resource. The Quechua's are in your base before you'll even see copper, and horses will be the same after the patch.

The only answer would be to play as an aggressive civ, crank out warriors, and bunker down.

Verax

 

[Vizzini]

You don't have time to connect a resource. The Quechua's are in your base before you'll even see copper, and horses will be the same after the patch.

The only answer would be to play as an aggressive civ, crank out warriors, and bunker down.

Play with Raging Barbarians enabled more often as the counter to this setting in SP is the counter to the Que rusher in MP.

Use Warriors instead of Archers for defense, escort your workers, defend your improvements, send at least one or two Warriors out towards Inca to keep the Que rusher on his toes.

 

[Mujadaddy]

I have been watching this thread intensely since it started (I am an Egyptian Chariot-Rusher "dreading" the patch ) ... and, as far as a Counter-Strategy, I agree with Dairuka about the warriors. Quechas don't get a bonus vs. (15 hammer) warriors, only (25 hammer) archers (which I don't tech for first anyway ) ... He can push Quechas down your throat? Push back with Barracks-Warriors. It will be ugly, but you or your opponent will have the will to win ...

Check out how the Chariot Rush works: My "Early Domination = Horses" thread

 

[Draax]

I'm not a pro AT ALL and I've been toying with this tactic the past day or so. It's kinda fun but I'm still making a lot of mistakes. Here are some of my questions. Advice would be most welcome. Oh and I play continents small world (my pc ain't a speed demon), default # of civs. Noble difficulty because I'm a pansy.

-What's the general rule of thumb as far as Q/archer ratio goes? I lost a stack of 8 Qs to 3 archers. They were all down less than 1str, but I ran out first. The blue streak I cussed would have made you proud to know English.

-How do you consistently steal workers/settlers? If I put my Qs where I can see into his city, he notices me and turtles in. Worker stays on the city stack and he just makes archers. If I sit back all ninja-like, I usually can't see his worker unless he's silly enough to put it on the very edge of his border. Bastard sometimes sneaks his settler/archer out too. I can steal from him maybe 40-50% of the time and that's just not good enough with this kind of commitment.

-I'm new to CIV (and civ in general -- played #2 a bit back in the day but never touched 3), but I've been gaming for a looong time (SC, WC2&3, 3 differrent mmos, whatever). So I understand strats and tactics a bit. They're pretty universal if you abstract'em enough. Anyway the only way to counter a zerg rush that I know of is to turtle up and leapfrog his tech. The only wayI can think of that's able to do that would be jaguars since they don't require a resource. Is it feasible to turtle long enough to get a jaguar out? Dunno. You pros test it out.

-Are walls a feasible counter? Again it requires holding on long enough to get a resource-free military tech. Maybe a slave-rushed wall would give enough room to do something? No idea on that either, but I do enjoy theorycraft and dreaming up counters to counters to counters ad infinitum.

Any thoughts or advice or "god shut up you ramble too damn much when you're bored at work"?

 

[Mujadaddy]

I'm bored-@-work, too ...

Ratios --- what you have to "master" () is how everything works togther... Quechas are 2 Str, +100% vs. archers, = Strength 4 ... Archers are Str 3, but they get +50% in city defense naturally, = Strength 4.5 ... Uh-oh... those odds aren't on your side ....OK, so you said you had 3 archers left in that city, all down to ~1 Strength? That means you needed 3 more Quechas ... Your job as Supreme Military Commander is to OVERplan... so, 3 more quechas, or barracks quechas, were necessary in these fights (remember, if you DON'T finish off those 3 guys, they're only going to earn promotions and get tougher ) At the early stage of the game, when the Quecha rush is best, they're all you have to rush with, though...

*I* don't bother taking workers until I capture the city

Countering, Pt. 1 -- The counter is a barracks and more Archers or Warriors (Archers b/c they get City Defense with their upgrades, Warriors b/c Quechas don't get a bonus vs. them )

Countering, Pt. 2 -- Walls make it very tough for Quechas to beat defending Archers, too... but, as I said above, BARRACKS will be game over.

The Quecha rush is the EARLIEST rush --- which means it also ENDS the earliest...."Caveat Rusher"

 

[Vizzini]

Are walls a feasible counter?

Yes - the problem is getting them built. That's an awful lot of production to commit to and by the time you realize you need to build 'em you can't - because building defensive units has a much higher priority.

If I knew going into it that I would be dealing with a Que rusher... Greeks or Aztecs would probably be the best Civs to take 'em down with. Strength 2 Ques hurling themselves on strength 5 Phalanx would be fun to watch.

 

[Mujadaddy]

Vizzini -- If you've got the bronze for Phalanxes, why not make AXEMEN, same strength and +50% vs. the pitiful wittwe Quecha ...

...but what Quecha-rusher is going to leave you hooked up to Bronze for very long?