Too far for an Axe rush?

[slobberinbear]

I am in the "capital first when possible" camp. It is almost always the AI's best production city and often contains a wonder or is a holy city. And of course there's a fair chance that a strategic resource is in there, so you're depriving the AI of that too. There are times when it's just not practical to get the capital first, but when I can, I do.

 

[Monsterzuma]

Most importantly, it's the city with the highest cultural defense value and the highest chance of having Walls up. Exactly the kind of target you don't want the AI to turn into a 5+ archer boasting impregnable stronghold from having your DoW skyrocket their unit build rates.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Most importantly, it's the city with the highest cultural defense value and the highest chance of having Walls up. Exactly the kind of target you don't want the AI to turn into a 5+ archer boasting impregnable stronghold from having your DoW skyrocket their unit build rates.

If you go the capture perimeter city + take peace route they'll move those archers out to escort their settlers to your future cities .

Truth be told, on normal speed it seems like a capitol beeline into 40% culture is met with 4+ units, while if you hit a perimeter city, you're looking at 1-3 with less defenses.

Since such efforts hit earlier too you might be able to choke/pillage metals.

 

[Charonicus]

I play on epic and will rush on a distance further than ten squares. Sometimes it's necessary. I had a semi isolated start as Brennus not long back where I had a continent with me and Huayna, and, just a couple of squares too far away another continent with most of the other guys on. Rather than going straight for optics and amassing an intercontinental invasion I turned on HC. It was a pretty epic twelve turn trek to his nearest city, but I managed to take all his cities and just managed his capital which was on the exact opposite side of the continent with my last axeman. Having the whole place to myself definitely helped. Another continent showed up after astronomy with Sulieman and Darius running Islam and being pretty powerful. Killing them allowed a nice sedate space victory.

 

[Crusher1]

Most importantly, it's the city with the highest cultural defense value and the highest chance of having Walls up. Exactly the kind of target you don't want the AI to turn into a 5+ archer boasting impregnable stronghold from having your DoW skyrocket their unit build rates.

There is no need to ever fight the full amount of units in an enemy city. If there are 5 units in the city you should only be fighting 2-3.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

There is no need to ever fight the full amount of units in an enemy city. If there are 5 units in the city you should only be fighting 2-3.

Yes, juke-moving to get the defenders to wander out is quite fun, and the best tactic until you can get solid returns by just collateral smacking it all in one go (or just marching through such that pulling a juke is slower than just killing everything because it's easy).

It's kind of dirty though, so some players won't like it. I do though, because even as I can pick out tactics people identify as dirty, I have no aversion to using them, realizing that in reality anything that lets you win can be construed as dirty if you let that nonsense get out of hand.

 

[Verision]

Yes, juke-moving to get the defenders to wander out is quite fun, and the best tactic until you can get solid returns by just collateral smacking it all in one go (or just marching through such that pulling a juke is slower than just killing everything because it's easy).

It's kind of dirty though, so some players won't like it. I do though, because even as I can pick out tactics people identify as dirty, I have no aversion to using them, realizing that in reality anything that lets you win can be construed as dirty if you let that nonsense get out of hand.

There is a great book written by David Sirlin (a professional Street Fighter player, amongst other things) called "Playing to Win: Becoming the Champion" that has a chapter on this topic (using tactics some people consider "dirty" or "cheap").

He holds the same opinion as you, TMIT. Basically, if it isn't considered cheating in a professional tournament (or, in our case, isn't considered cheating in the Hall of Fame or the Game of the Month) then it's a fair tactic, no matter how "cheap" it is.

The book itself is a great read. A good portion of the book is a chapter by chapter look at Sun Tzu's Art of War and how it pertains to playing video games (with the context of being a professional and playing in tournaments). Its available for free on the internet. Here's the link:

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw/

(I pimp the book because it helped me up my game in online FPS games. Yes, I know this is off topic...sorry)

The whole point is to DESTROY THE ENTIRE CIVILIZATION BEFORE THEY EXPAND OR ARE PREPARED. GIVING YOU ALL OF THIER LANDS AND RESOURCES.

Don't yell at me, ThreadMonger, it hurts my feelings. /sarcasm
Also, you don't need to destroy a civilization every time you declare war. Sometimes taking a city or two (especially the capital) can cripple a civ so that you can easily destroy them later.