When do you _not_ do an archer rush?

[Victoria]

Not doing it "was kind of silly" ?

I guess I must be stupid then. I am not sure I could have kept playing this game if I always followed the same path.
I did not really use the overlap much, I did not need to. I guess this makes me silly too.

I do to some degree use the feudal builders shift but at a 30-60% of a builder benefit over a few cities its a few turns its not worth me going out of my way to prebuild a builder in every city and disturb the flow of my game. But then I enjoy playing a game with flow, not rules.

Its my choice, call it silly if you want idc.

Well, at least they made it need more prerequisite techs now. I really like the recent tech tree changes.

What? Adding horse riding and archery? 2 classic always got eurekas? Yeah I guess its something but I do struggle with industrialiation being based on horseriding rather than the water mill

 

[King Jason]

Its my choice, call it silly if you want idc.

You can do whatever you want. That doesn't have any impact on whether a particular strategy needs to be retuned or not. You not using factory overlap didn't change the fact that it was deemed necessary to be changed. I never manipulated unit deletion for optimization (deleting wounded units for gold before they get killed/deleting workers with 1 charge, etc) but that doesn't change the fact that it was identified as a problem was adjusted accordingly.

Which is my point; "You can do other things" isn't a valid argument against someone suggesting that a particular strategy may or may not be too powerful.

Or more to the comment that I was responding to, countering someone's suggestion that something might be too potent by suggesting that they lack imagination to do anything else is practically an empty comment. Many people enjoy this game for various reasons - some of those people enjoy min/maxing and optimization and there are many situations where there are in fact a variety of paths and decisions to make but in certain circumstances, there is simply no choice. When you had the ability to delete a wounded unit and recoup the gold before it would ultimately be destroyed by your opponent the next turn - to not do so is simply gifting your opponents an advantage for no reason. Being faced with that kind of decision isn't fun.

Again, the above is a tactic I actually didn't employ because I thought it was disgustingly cheesy and stupid it even made it into the game in the first place. That said, I shouldn't even be faced with the conundrum of having to willingly gimp my gameplay in order to make sure my opponent is on an even footing - That's like asking people to avoid taking their opponents queen in a game of chess just to make the game slightly more of a challenge - which can be fun if that's what you're looking for, but really, I'd rather just play my best and see what happens.

 

[Arent11]

What? Adding horse riding and archery? 2 classic always got eurekas? Yeah I guess its something but I do struggle with industrialiation being based on horseriding rather than the water mill

I thought one of the changes was that industrialization needs square rigging now, which adds some water based techs.

 

[Victoria]

Yeah my bad @Arent11 , I was thinking apprenticeship, apologies.

 

[w3rallmachines]

I don't like conquering a neighbouring civ in the early stages as Aztec. I want to keep a steady supply of slaves coming with my Eagle Warriors. In fact, I think the best way to play using Eagle Warriors is not to conquer the enemy at all (at least not the first enemy).

 

[Gus_Smedstad]

Pfeh.

I'm still playing on King, and I had an archer rush failure against Gorgo. "Failure" in the sense that I took 2 cities, but the rush completely fell apart when I hit her capital. Not because she had walls, because she had Archery, had a garrisoned archer, and was popping out fresh archers to kill mine. Archers are really fragile under enemy archer fire.

I ran it reasonably quickly. 2x Slinger -> Builder -> 2xSlinger, upgrade to archers, then attack. No delays for a monument or district. My starting location was food-rich but production-poor, all my Builder improvements added production (pastures and a quarry).

The real delay was that I had 3 Barbarian camps spawn within 6-7 hexes while building up, and I felt I had to take those out before advancing. I had one Barbarian wave spawn, 3 Warriors, but I managed to take the other two while they were still the starting scout + spearman.

Still, even with the delay, my experience on King is that I never face archers when I'm doing that initial rush. Maybe Gorgo prioritizes the tech more than other civs, or got absurdly lucky with huts? By the time I got rolling, she had 3-4 cities. 3 that I could see, plus a 4th that might have been founded after I started.

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

Maybe their culture kicked off with those kills?

Which turn did you start attacking her cities? Sometimes I bypass a barb camp just to get to my first target earlier. Though 3 camps can be quite hardcore, but then I'd just keep building more military to deal with them.

 

[stinkubus]

I play as Rome mostly and will often skip archers if I find iron very early. One good thing about the aggressive barbs is that the bronze working eureka is easy to get. If I can get iron to get the eureka for iron working I will build warriors w/ Agoge instead.

 

[KmDubya]

I play as Rome mostly and will often skip archers if I find iron very early. One good thing about the aggressive barbs is that the bronze working eureka is easy to get. If I can get iron to get the eureka for iron working I will build warriors w/ Agoge instead.

I thought Legions did not require iron?

 

[Browd]

I thought Legions did not require iron?

They do not.

 

[Gus_Smedstad]

Which turn did you start attacking her cities?

I didn't take note, really. About turn 70 on Epic speed, I think, but I could be wrong.

 

[NegativeZero]

I play as Rome mostly and will often skip archers if I find iron very early. One good thing about the aggressive barbs is that the bronze working eureka is easy to get. If I can get iron to get the eureka for iron working I will build warriors w/ Agoge instead.

Even-though Rome doesn't need Iron to produce legions, the eureka would help cut down the research time significantly.
Considering the lack of campus if bee-lining bronze working for encampments, the iron mine (in a nice settling area) could be worth the production/science yields.

 

[Esperr]

I'm still playing on King. Which I grant you is a bit of a walk over in the mid to late game, but I've stuck with it because I still have misfires in the early game, and sometimes an AI will go into runaway even at this difficulty.

Anyway, unless I'm fairly isolated, I find that I'm almost always going for an archer rush on my nearest neighbor. One or two warriors, 4-5 archers, with the archers doing the vast majority of the damage. With just about any civ.

Sumeria's an exception because of warcarts, but few of the early game special melee units are strong enough to support a rush. I just tried playing Monty for the first time, and my 5 Eagle Warrior rush against nearby Greece completely stalled out because Gorgo got city walls up. While that's bad news for any Ancient era rush, it's particularly bad when you're all-melee and doing only a couple of points of wall damage with each attack.

I think I would have done better to go with my standard mix of mostly archers, despite the strengths of the Eagle Warrior.

Archer rush is superior to everything but a cart rush, and thats mostly because of the speed of carts. Archer rush is the best thing to do effectively all of the time if your trying to play optimally and win as it produces the most resources. You put very little input that multiplys by a bajillion when you start taking citys.There may be wierd sideways corner cases where AR wasn't the best, but they are few and far in between.

 

[gettingfat]

I didn't take note, really. About turn 70 on Epic speed, I think, but I could be wrong.

Turn 70 to attack the first city? TBH that's quite late.

Also I always build the second melee unit after 3 or 4 slingers, and in case I pop a scout i will make sure it joins the attack. Turning the target city under seige really matters.

 

[Callduron]

Sumeria's an exception because of warcarts, but few of the early game special melee units are strong enough to support a rush. I just tried playing Monty for the first time, and my 5 Eagle Warrior rush against nearby Greece completely stalled out because Gorgo got city walls up. While that's bad news for any Ancient era rush, it's particularly bad when you're all-melee and doing only a couple of points of wall damage with each attack..

Try one battering ram, one siege tower. It will transform the way you think about early game melee rushes. (Credit to Square Triangle Mouse for the tip).

In particular Monty who you mentioned later on. When I played Monty I just built Eagle Warriors and Encampments except for one builder, ram and tower until they became obsolete. And I think I over-did the builders

 

[DanaLea]

Stupid question here... what's agoge?

 

[stinkubus]

It's the policy card for +50% production of ancient and classic era ranged and melee units.

 

[DanaLea]

It's the policy card for +50% production of ancient and classic era ranged and melee units.

Ah, thank you.

 

[stinkubus]

I thought Legions did not require iron?

It's not about needing the iron as much as getting the eureka for iron working. Can easily shave 10-15 turns off the tech time.

 

[cazaderonus]

Try one battering ram, one siege tower. It will transform the way you think about early game melee rushes. (Credit to Square Triangle Mouse for the tip).

In particular Monty who you mentioned later on. When I played Monty I just built Eagle Warriors and Encampments except for one builder, ram and tower until they became obsolete. And I think I over-did the builders

Dont tell me both effect combine.... Why havent i tried that ?!!!