Warrior rushing on Deity... works?

[S.K. Ren]

I'm a little stunned to say this but Warrior rushing seems to be super effective for taking out you're closest Civ in Deity. Granted if they are super far away you're better off waiting for swordsmen but I seem to have come up with a strategy for taking at least one, maybe two cities on Deity using only warriors which can later be replaced with Swordsmen.

The best civs for this are: Aztec and France. The reason is because both of them allow you to forgo building a Monument in your capital and still gain Social Policies. Nappy's UA gives a slightly better SP gain rate while Monty's Jaguars have better survivability. Rome, China and Japan make for strong candidates as well. China for it's GG bonus, Rome for it's Legion's and Japan because they cheat.

My Build order is:

1. Warrior
2. Warrior
3. Warrior
4. Settler
5. Warrior/Barracks(Depends on if you need reinforcements asap)
6. Warrior/Swordsmen
7. Warrior/Swordsmen
8. etc.

My Tech order is:

1. Mining
2. Bronze Working
3. Iron Working
4. Luxury Techs (Calendar/Trapping/Masonry/Fishing if my Capital is coastal)
5. Construction (For Colosseum)
6. Metal Casting-> Steel

Usually I just circle my Capital with my warrior until an AI finds me then look for his Capital. When my second Warrior finishes I set my guys up in rough terrain and declare war to build exp and keep the AI's army busy. Should you gain a level, save it. When my 4th warrior come out 2-3 of them should have a level stored up.

Now pick either his capital or his second city and surround it, defending in it's 3rd ring. When you're sure his army is spent attacking you and your warriors are all green, charge in and attack. If your Warriors drop to yellow don't panic. If they hit red or there are a few enemies around, use a promotion to heal them. On the next turn check and see which Warriors have a chance to survive attacking the city again. Those that have a decent chance of survival attack with them then use their promotion (if they have one). Everyone else heal and attack again. The city should fall.

By this time Iron Working should be done as well as your settler so find the nearest Iron Deposit and settle on top of it to give yourself swordsmen. With the money from conquest you now can upgrade 2-3 of your warriors to swordsmen and steamroll your continent. I would suggest Mathematics at this point for catapults.

My latest game was a Random Map(Got Continents)/Small/Deity/Standard Speed and by turn 100 I had eliminated Askia(~Turn 60) and Catherine has just given me the Farm. Took down Askia with 3 Warriors and a Swordsmen (Catherine was fighting with a CS so I had to wait for her to move giving me time to set up my Iron Expansion); I only lost 1 Warrior. Conquering Askia gave me enough money to upgrade my remaining two warriors to Swordsmen which I used to bite into Catherine's lands. Granted Warriors become obsolete fairly quickly but they can be used for a very effective preemptive strike on AI's, even on Deity.

So is this old news or did I find a new viable method for Deity?(Note: I initially tried this on Quick but found myself being outclassed relatively quickly. Epic and Marathon seem more like cheating as well since AI sucks at combat right now.)

 

[lissenber]

I think it`s a viable strategy. If you`re playing a small map.

 

[S.K. Ren]

I've managed to take out the majority of a Standard Pangaea map as well this way, but I got gimped in the Iron Department (Only 2 Iron from a CS, was really bad) so by the time my War machine got rolling, everyone else had a much bigger and pointier one than I.

 

[aimlessgun]

If you can keep teching to Steel at a reasonable pace, I can see this being sustainable for a standard pangea. Highly promoted Longswordsmen are beasts. But yeah 2 Iron is unworkable (also incredibly unlucky).

 

[Unconquered Sun]

I suspect deity is rushable with scouts+chinese general

 

[Airey]

I suspect deity is rushable with scouts+chinese general

ya it's doable, been done before

 

[Martin Alvito]

This works fine on any compressed map.

In my experience, it works well on Pangaeas above Tiny. It also works fine on Small and Standard and Continents maps. The distance to nearest capital on Duel and Tiny Pangaeas can be too far for this to work. Ditto for Large Continents. It can work on Huge Continents, but it's something of a crapshoot because finding the nearest capital may take too long. There will be one within range, but you may not find it.

It's particularly effective if you run Babs, save SPs, and burn a bunch of GS's plus Scientific Revolution on getting straight up to Rifles around turn 100. (A Cultural ally is more or less necessary.) Then backfill normally and spend any further GS's pushing Artillery. Between that and Research Agreements you'll deploy early Artillery and waste any remaining resistance on a larger map.

 

[Udey1]

This works fine on any compressed map.

In my experience, it works well on Pangaeas above Tiny. It also works fine on Small and Standard and Continents maps. The distance to nearest capital on Duel and Tiny Pangaeas can be too far for this to work. Ditto for Large Continents. It can work on Huge Continents, but it's something of a crapshoot because finding the nearest capital may take too long. There will be one within range, but you may not find it.

It's particularly effective if you run Babs, save SPs, and burn a bunch of GS's plus Scientific Revolution on getting straight up to Rifles around turn 100. (A Cultural ally is more or less necessary.) Then backfill normally and spend any further GS's pushing Artillery. Between that and Research Agreements you'll deploy early Artillery and waste any remaining resistance on a larger map.

Suggest avoiding taking the super cheese route, as glaring errors like this will probably be corrected (if not with patches then definitely with expansions)
A couple more prerequisite stoppers put in the right place on the tech tree solve this problem neatly. My hope if that we will wind up with a heavily chained tech tree that puts a stop to most focused research to PWN attempts, and more generalized choices become the norm.

 

[S.K. Ren]

The point is to wreck using the bottom 2 tiers of units. Alternatively, Bismark could spam Spearmen and hold a rush till he gets CS. With his Landsneckt being half price, rapidly upgrading them would be a snap. This is awesome as they require no strategic resources.

 

[cracked]

Would building a worker first help you knock out those units and buildings more quickyl or would you lose too many turns to make that optimal?

 

[S.K. Ren]

No, any and all workers come from conquest. Just spam warriors/spearmen. In the time it takes to build a worker you could make 2 Warriors and start a 3rd. In my experience you need at least 4 warriors to take a city and that's if you don't get bad luck. The longer it takes to build them up, the longer the AI has to pump out Archers and then you are screwed.

 

[Jaguar]

I've definitely done this without a struggle as Chinese and Aztecs.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Suggest avoiding taking the super cheese route, as glaring errors like this will probably be corrected (if not with patches then definitely with expansions)

The way I see it, you might as well practice optimizing your approach now. It might matter after enough updates.

The point is to wreck using the bottom 2 tiers of units. Alternatively, Bismark could spam Spearmen and hold a rush till he gets CS. With his Landsneckt being half price, rapidly upgrading them would be a snap. This is awesome as they require no strategic resources.

The problem you run into is that early detours to CS are almost invariably a bad idea. You burn a ton of turns doing it, slowing down progress towards Longswords and Rifles and collapsing those conquest windows. Even on Deity, if you can get the critical techs fast enough you don't have to bother with siege. You can puppet everything, let your capital be the sole unit depot, spam Warriors until Steel and just upgrade them as needed/able.

 

[aimlessgun]

Currently giving the warrior > sword > longsword rush with the Romans. It's been rather effective thus far. Definitely would have been a bad idea to grab CS, needed Steel just when I got it. Did backtrack to Calendar/Writing after Iron Working though.

Wasn't really sure what policies to get, so I'm saving them for Ren, think I'll just blow them into Rationalism for the 2 free techs to accelerate into Rifles. Honor really didn't seem that useful, though 15% unit strength is nice, the general is sort of just a golden age and double XP feels like overkill. But I could be wrong about that.

I've only taken out 2 civs so far though by 650 BC (serious gains into a 3rd as well), but on a large pangea with 13 civs I'm not sure if I can sustain this the whole length of the map.

 

[S.K. Ren]

The problem you run into is that early detours to CS are almost invariably a bad idea. You burn a ton of turns doing it, slowing down progress towards Longswords and Rifles and collapsing those conquest windows. Even on Deity, if you can get the critical techs fast enough you don't have to bother with siege. You can puppet everything, let your capital be the sole unit depot, spam Warriors until Steel and just upgrade them as needed/able.

Actually, If I plan on waiting for CS usually I just Beeline it. Pikemen are just as good as Swordsmen and you can field a lot more of them without worrying about Strategic Resources. A quick GS slingshot and you're there. Granted they are a dead end until Riflemen which takes you through Swordsmen anyways but, you should be able to conquer your continent before L-Swordsmen become available and since the AI sucks at naval warfare, you now have nothing to worry about; However, any of the maps where its all one land mass will present problems to this approach.

 

[aimlessgun]

Actually, If I plan on waiting for CS usually I just Beeline it. Pikemen are just as good as Swordsmen and you can field a lot more of them without worrying about Strategic Resources. A quick GS slingshot and you're there. Granted they are a dead end until Riflemen which takes you through Swordsmen anyways but, you should be able to conquer your continent before L-Swordsmen become available and since the AI sucks at naval warfare, you now have nothing to worry about; However, any of the maps where its all one land mass will present problems to this approach.

Yeah, the AI seems to be getting longswords around turn 80, and xbows right afterwards, so on a pangea I'd be in trouble. When do you get CS usually that you can take over a continent before turn 80-90?