When to pop rush?

[Dizzy75]

So I've recently moved to Prince from Noble, but I haven't finished a game yet (played 2 so far, might start a new one). Basically, in both games I've found myself around AD 1300 in the lead in points, but not large enough (1400+ vs. 1100-1200 2nd place civ) to be comfortable. In my first game I was sure to lose the lead, since my economy was in shambles and I was going to fall behind in tech quickly, and in the second game I was well ahead in tech but last in military (though not by a huge margin).

Basically, I feel like my first early war (usually axemen, often w/catapults) either doesn't start early enough or takes too long. Part of it is that I've been too lazy to simultaneously expand (cities capable of pumping out settlers but "backfilling" military instead or just set to wealth), so I can fix that...but I've never, ever pop rushed anything, so I'm thinking that could speed my early game up a lot. I figure if I can't achieve a pretty hefty lead by 1500 on Prince, I won't do well on Monarch...

My question is, are there buildings/units that lend themselves particularly well to pop-rushing, given the cost and penalty? Should I think about rushing barracks, units, wonders, what? Are there things that I should really never pop-rush, but chop-rush instead or just try to maximize hammers to build?

E.g., I almost always try to chop workers or settlers if they're going to take 5+ turns, because of the growth stagnation, but I usually don't chop military since a) they're cheaper and b) I am more likely to lose a unit than a building, so would rather save trees for buildings.

Fyi, I've been playing Huayna Capac on standard continents, 6 civs, normal speed. I like going for CS slingshot if I have good resources in capital, but sometimes not...I always look to wipe out a neighbor early, though. Any advice welcome...

 

[jray]

In general I think it's best to make sure your population in each city gets high enough to work the best tiles (such as resource tiles and flood plains) before you pop-rush there. One definite good time to pop-rush is when you reach the happiness limit and can pop-rush a happiness-increasing building. As far as what to pop-rush, workers and settlers should be high-priority like with chopping. World wonders that you suspect tight competition for are other good candidates. I can't really think of anything that's "bad" to pop-rush, if the circumstances are otherwise favorable for grabbing the slave whip.

I figure if I can't achieve a pretty hefty lead by 1500 on Prince, I won't do well on Monarch...

That's not necessarily true. On levels where you are handicapped compared to the AI, your score will tend to suffer early in the game due to the AI's starting bonuses. I think those are more significant than the AI's general bonuses, and your human brain will tend to give you a larger and larger advantage the further the game goes along. When I win in Monarch, I am often near the bottom of the heap until well after 1500. The same is sometimes true for Prince.

b) I am more likely to lose a unit than a building, so would rather save trees for buildings.

I think this reasoning is purely emotional . I wouldn't consider it as a factor.

 

[KillerCardinal]

My question is, are there buildings/units that lend themselves particularly well to pop-rushing, given the cost and penalty? Should I think about rushing barracks, units, wonders, what? Are there things that I should really never pop-rush, but chop-rush instead or just try to maximize hammers to build?

Well, the one building that you should make sure you have before a lot of pop rushing, to my understanding, is the granary. Basically, after whipping you want to be able to grow back to the original size as fast as possible. The granary helps there. I'm not sure if it is a good thing to pop-rush the granary or not(I tend to chop it if I don't have much production there).

The building that I am most likely to pop rush is a temple, or other happiness causing building, as the thing that makes me most allergic to pop-rushing is not losing the people. It is losing the happy face that bothers me the most.

I am more likely to lose a unit than a building, so would rather save trees for buildings.

Well, would you rather lose your city(and all those nice buildings) to a barbarian attack?
But seriously, you may lose the specific unit you rushed, but it can mean the difference between taking(and keeping) a city or not. Also, chop rushing that axeman right after your settler early on can mean that your settler can safely be on his merry way a few turns earlier. Now, this can, in turn, mean that you get that really nifty spot to settle in before the AI gets there. Trust me, this really is a concern especially on the higher levels. It started happening to me on monarch, and is REALLY happening to me on Emperor.

 

[The Tyrant]

Basically, I feel like my first early war (usually axemen, often w/catapults) either doesn't start early enough or takes too long.

...but I've never, ever pop rushed anything

Those two statements together are very telling. I was the same way for a long while, never wanting to pop-rush anything because I thought it wasteful. I've learned differently.

If your first war involves catapults, you've waited waaayyy too long. A good axemen rush early on can be pure axemen. You won't need catapults because the cities won't have any (or extremely little) defense. The axemen can basically ignore any city defense there might be because of the relative strength of axemen vs. the poor little warriors and archers they're chopping to pieces.

There are two things I'll pop-rush early in the game, before city growth hits the happiness limit. Those are axemen and granaries. In the cities that are too small to whip, build axemen the slow way. In your (usually two) cities that can be whipped, whip a couple of axemen. Send these off and you can elminate an opponent early. Capturing a capital early on can have a huge impact on the game. Due to the map generation algorithm, capitals are always some of the best city sites on the map. Having another excellent city from very early in the game can really boost your production and/or research well into the mid-game.

I also pop-rush granaries, but not in every city. I'll whip them in my capital and in cities with food resources. These cities will generally recover quickly enough to make whipping granaries a better option than waiting for them to be built the slow way. In other cities it is a judgement call. Some cities are better off not being whipped unless you absolutely have to.

Learning when to use the whip, and when not to, makes a big difference in one's ability to maximize the early game. While general guidelines are helpful, the best way to get a feel for it is to go ahead and devote a couple of games to nothing but early expansion (i.e. play until the medieval period, then start another game). Go ahead and use the whip -- these aren't "real" games anyway, they're just training games. Soon enough, you'll know when to "bring out your dead" -- um... I mean "bring out the whip." (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

 

[Dizzy75]

Exactly the type of advice I needed...thanks all

 

[Fetch]

The axemen can basically ignore any city defense there might be because of the relative strength of axemen vs. the poor little warriors and archers they're chopping to pieces.

You should have seen the image I got in my head when I read this.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Those two statements together are very telling. I was the same way for a long while, never wanting to pop-rush anything because I thought it wasteful. I've learned differently.

I've a feeling that the nature of that lesson is similar to that discovered by the recovering buildaholic. "How can I possibly maintain my military when I'm putting up all these buildings?"

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Hmm - just for the experiment of it, I rolled myself a Monarch (level I haven't beaten in a private game) start, and tried to work towards pop rushing axemen.

The tech progression presumably looks like
Mining, Bronze Working, Wheel, Food (which might come before Wheel if the copper connects for free), Pottery (for granaries, to reduce wait time, and cottages, to give a productive way to restrict growth while waiting for the next pop), Writing, Alphabet (to get techs when they sue for peace).

Presumably this gets shuffled with the CoL tree - Mysticism, Rel 101 (I usually grab Poly, to unlock literature first - Meditation might be better if the religion comes calling) Priesthood.

The religion tree being somewhat important here, as it gives useful wonder builds between pops. So at T-1, the city is just about to forget your cruel oppression, and it is just about to grow as well; you load a new Axeman into the queue (presumably using fewer than 5 hammers). At T0 you pop 2. Your first axe is ready at T1, and the spillover goes wherever you want, but a reasonable choice is a second axe, which shows up at T2. Now you build useful goodies for another 7 turns, trying to time the growth to match. Lather rinse repeat.

If the city is growing too quickly, and you can't efficiently reduce food volume, I suppose you toss the extra turns (prior to T-1) into a worker or settler, delaying the growth until you want it.

You won't normally want to pop your bonus building (Expansive = granary, Aggressive = Barracks), or the obelisk (if you miss the Henge) because the buildings are too cheap (they become a 1 pop after you put a turn into it). Better, I think, is to have the bonus building appear next in the queue, so that you get double hammers on the spillover.

(Example: instead of burning two pop on a granary - because you tried to rush it with no hammers invested - or wasting 10 turns of happy on a single pop, you can instead queue up an axeman for a 2 pop, and invest the overflow - which can be as high as 35 hammers? - into the granary at x2)

OK, so if that analysis is remotely correct, what sorts of signals suggest an Axeman rush is a bad idea...?

Lack of nearby copper is probably a big one - if you've waited for Iron, you probably aren't going to be rushing with Axes.

Animal based food resources - cows/pigs/sheep mean stopping off for animal loving before you can get fast growth. Similarly Ivory, and horse based uber units.

Spain-on-a-Lake, and other perfect storms

Isolated start - no point in rushing axes if they will be late when you get there.

Wrong techs? Hunting and Mysticism aren't much help, really. Fishing without fish puts you just under a tech late (because of the research bonus on pottery).

 

[The Tyrant]

You should have seen the image I got in my head when I read this.

LOL! Sorry.

I've a feeling that the nature of that lesson is similar to that discovered by the recovering buildaholic. "How can I possibly maintain my military when I'm putting up all these buildings?"

Ohh... don't mention that. I'm still a recovering buildaholic. That's one of the reasons I like playing Qin so much. I know that after I move up from Monarch I'll probably have to abandon him, though. Forget getting most wonders on Emperor or above. That is going to be one tough lesson that I know I'll have to learn, but I wish I could put it off indefinitely.

VoiceOfUnreason -- that's a very good breakdown on the method, almost exactly what I use. Or used to use -- now that I've started playing with raging barbs, the tech progression had to change a bit and I don't even think about getting the Oracle for a slingshot. Thank you for writing it out for everyone to read.

 

[Dizzy75]

I did a "trial game" at Prince last night and rushed Axes - took out Tokugawa pretty easily, but the 5-6 extra Axe units I built caused me to miss Oracle (standard continents, 6 civs). This was a pretty ideal start too, with gold, floodplains, and grass/copper in capital. Maybe my workers were suboptimally deployed...anyway if early Axe rush means a high chance of missing one or more of Stonehenge, Pyramids, or Oracle, maybe I should stick with my current plan and wait for cats/swords? Is an early-wonder strategy impossible at monarch and above?

 

[Smokey McDope]

You can chop pyramids before the AI builds it with their bonuses (if you straight beeline for BW and masonry), but forget about the rest. Also, the later wonders they will have built before you can even get the tech. I rarely have time to chop pyramids though, too busy chopping workers/settlers since the AI starts with free ones.

 

[Primus Inter Pa]

oops, accidentally posted earlier version.

 

[Primus Inter Pa]

I use pop-rushing quite a bit in the mid game. Slavery is ideally situated right in the period when your cities are growing too large too quickly despite your having all the possible happiness buildings and having built all the settlers/workers you need.

I'll give you an example from my most recent game. I had a city that I built on the ocean. It had grasslands all around it, as well as pigs and fish. When I had both the pigs and fish tile developed as well as a granary and lighthouse, I was raking in the food. However, there were no hills around, or even plains, with which I could balance this gigantic food production. Each grassland I added to cultivation maintained my total food surplus. The city grew to a size where it had unhappy people doing nothing at all.

Whenever you have unhappy people like this, pop-rushing is obviously very helpful.

In a more general sense, you really just have to look at the losses in production/commerce if you pop rush (which become relatively much less expensive with that first angry citizen you put to death), versus the benefit of funneling that food/production into settlers/workers to avoid city growth and thus angry citizens, and the benefit of quickly producing whatever it is you are pop-rushing.

One time, in this super-food/commerce city (I'm also financial and have the colossus, so each of those ocean tiles are 2 food/4 commerce), I was pop-rushing to avoid wasted food and unproductive angry citizens. But because I was running 80% science and was building a library, I experienced no large downside in terms of lost science production due to the pop rushing. Ideal situations like this can make pop rushing really quite valuable.

With the advent of biology and the extremely high happiness of the later game due to all the buildings/luxuries/wonders/civics, and with a city that has a couple good food resources, I wonder just how effective a permanent pop rushing city could be.

Probably not very, due to the fact that there are forges/factories which greatly increase traditional production methods. Not to mention the costs in terms of lost potential in keeping the slavery civic around (though not if you were spiritual).

So in summary, when you've finished your expansion stage, there are no good city spots left, you have enough workers to develop tiles as fast as your population is growing, you're working with a city where you can't shift production from food-heavy tiles to hammer or commerce-heavy tiles and thus stabilize food growth, and you are at your happiness or (perhaps) health cap, then that's the time to pop rush. Free hammers are way nicer than the wasted food of disease and angry citizens.

Other than food-rich cities that grow quickly or angry citizens though, I use it pretty sparingly. It just isn't worth it usually if you are destroying citizens working good tiles in core cities.

By the by, I'm in my first game on Prince as Catherine in about 1700 AD with a 500 point lead on my next two greatest rivals, and a nice lead in tech. Oddly enough, I haven't fought a single war yet (this is my first game where I've been peaceful for so long), and I have most of the wonders (thanks to local stone and Alexander's very odd decision to trade his marble). Soon though, my large army of cossacks will flow down from Russia, the land of high culture to bring true civilization to the masses.

 

[Dizzy75]

Thanks for the advice - I started a "real" game and pop rushed some axes in the capital early on (had to wait for Iron Working). Also pop rushed some improvements, but don't remember exactly what - ended up saving a ton of time. I held off on the early axemen rush to CS slingshot, then got cats/swords and wiped Monty off the map.

It's now 1685 and I have about a 700-pt lead over #2 (Isa/Cathy keep switching between #2 and #3). Isa is my neighbor to the north and is pissed at me, Cathy/Julius/Cyrus share a continent away from me (got Optics around 1000AD and circumnavigated). I sent missionaries off to Cathy and Julius and they both converted - Cathy is Friendly, Julius is Pleased, and they're both happy with each other and mad at Isabellla and Cyrus (who got wrecked by Cathy early and is no longer a threat).

I beelined Rifles and then used Liberalism to get prereqs for Democracy; switched to Emancipation/U.S. for a massive gold/tech boost and am next going to get Steel. I think my best bet will be to hammer Isa with rifles/cannons (got about 6 City Raider III Rifles waiting, w/normal rifles gold-rushed next) while I swing back for Military Tradition to throw Cavs into the fight later.

So pop-rushing did help quite a bit in the early game, I think - I'm sure I could have done some things better but I'm in a much stronger position now than my earlier game, in spite of the fact that I didn't get copper until very late.

Question, though - given my situation:

2. Isa: Annoyed
3. Cathy: Friendly
4. Julius: Pleased
5. Cyrus: Cautious

...and considering Cathy/Julius are both Cautious/Annoyed with Isa, would I be better off letting Isa stay in 2nd place for Diplo victory? If I pound Isa, it will make Cathy #2, which means she can't vote for me, right? My instinct is to blow stuff up...

 

[Bezhukov]

Whipping is so powerful that it is worthwhile to found cities near multiple food bonuses for the express purpose of exploiting the whip.

Think of it this way. With a granary, it requires 11 food to gain each pop (if you've whipped the city down to just the food bonuses to maximize growth). These 11 food can be traded for 30 hammers. That means a pig-sty on grass that generates 4 net food per turn (6 - the 2 to feed the citizen) can yield 12 hammers per turn.

 

[cabert]

Question, though - given my situation:

2. Isa: Annoyed
3. Cathy: Friendly
4. Julius: Pleased
5. Cyrus: Cautious

...and considering Cathy/Julius are both Cautious/Annoyed with Isa, would I be better off letting Isa stay in 2nd place for Diplo victory? If I pound Isa, it will make Cathy #2, which means she can't vote for me, right? My instinct is to blow stuff up...

Isa will attack you at some point if you don't share religion. And i'm not sure cathy will vote for you if it comes to this.
You may take out cyrus, with her help and maybe with julius'. Would give you better relation from common engagement.

 

[Dizzy75]

Thanks guys,

I actually finished that game wiping Isa and winning space-race (thread here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=166265), despite a nuclear meltdown in a main prod city. Pop-rushing early (and later, w/Globe Theatre) helped a ton, imo.

You're right, neither Cathy nor Julius ever voted for me in UN elections (except for S-G), so I'm glad I didn't rely on a Diplo win. Next game will be Domination all the way...I didn't focus early enough this game for a full-scale military victory. Will take out neighbors sooner and upgrade cities later, next time...

 

[Xanikk999]

Pop rushing is especially helpful when you have an enemy army approaching your city and you realize you cant reinforce its defenses in time.

I usually keep slavery on until emancipation. If i play a spiritual civ i sometimes swap it for serfdom when its appropriate.

 

[Xanikk999]

Isa will attack you at some point if you don't share religion. And i'm not sure cathy will vote for you if it comes to this.
You may take out cyrus, with her help and maybe with julius'. Would give you better relation from common engagement.

Actually i find izzy is a wimp. Her army is always weak (at least on prince) and she has only attacked me once in all my games. And i have never shared her religion. I dont cave into other civs religious demands.

Although izzy might be very pissed at you i dont think she will always declare war on you for it like monty or toku would.

 

[slightlymarxist]

Monty will declare even if he likes you.

Good old Monty. He knows how the Play the Game.