The Devel's Workshop II - Jaguar Rush

[uberfish]

I certainly don't advocate going mining -> bronze -> iron -> wheel, I set up cottages early in this game to help pay my expenses then made alphabet and CoL priorities once iron is researched with a pretty similar outcome. (thus going for a stronger early economy on the ground rather than religion.)

Sword level rushes tend not to have that much cash trouble though, it's axe rushes that I find have the worst tendency to flatline your economy since there's normally a longer gap between when you start capturing cities and when you get CoL and the happiness technologies such as monarchy/calendar. Now, an axe rush with early CoL from the Oracle so the captured cities could start courthouses immediately sounds like it could be very powerful.

[Dominae]

I still think that Cover first is the right choice.

This was a relatively easy game, where all you needed to do is build up a sizeable stack and any of Japan's cities will fall. Your time frame for doing it was very generous (with or without Oracle). That's something to be taken into consideration, given that this is a learning experience.

In a game where you face greater opposition, +5% to each unit on the initial rush can mean the difference between successful rush and failed one, or an expensive one and an efficient one. Losing units is really bad when the AI has a production advantage over you.

I agree that, if you are relatively safe position, City Raider Promotions pay off in the long run (I think Jags upgrade to Grenadiers...).

I disagree that City Raider is more versatile than Cover. The AI loves Archers and Longbowmen. It especially loves them if it's out of metals or Horses. That's almost a guaranteed +25% in every battle, not just those that try to take cities.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by lange17
I started giving my Jags the shock promotion, but even a Combat I, Shock, City Raider I Jag was <10% to win a fight with one of those Axes. The only thing I can think is I could have declared war as soon as I found the Mongols and tried to keep him off the bronze while I was building the army. Would this have made more sense?

Yes, this is what I was trying to get at above. In this game it takes Tokugawa forever to hook up any sort of Strategic resource, so the Jags are obviously very good. Against resource units, though, the Jag is not so great unless it's defending.

You can set up the necessary conditions for a Jag rush by sending in a few Warriors early on, to harrass the enemy and keep him off Copper or Horses. This is why I think this requirement, respectfully, does more harm than good:

Originally posted by Velociryx
*Jaguars are the only OFFENSIVE unit to participate against the civ in question (if I get attacked and a non-jag garrison defends, it does not disqualify the result).

[Dominae]

Originally posted by lange17
I can see two things that caused problems for me. First, the Mongols were creative, leading to 20% defense bonuses on his outlying cities and 40% on the big ones. No particular counter for this I can see, other than "build more Jags."

There's not much you can do about defensive bonuses from high Culture, other than target another, non-Creative civ instead!

[xxFlukexx]

I would like to make two points here as I've had a lot of experience with rushing too:

1) Vel got pretty lucky on the combat results(I could comfirm via the combat log but for some reason it the combat log wasn't saved in the final game)

A City Raider II + Combat I Jag vs a fully fortified archer with no promotions on a hill and 20% cultural defense will win 29.5% of the time.
A City Raider III + Combat I Jag will have about a 65% win rate vs the same archer. I only count 1 of Vels Jags with 3 promos, so even though Vel trashed the enemy easily, you will take more losses like Fosse, his results are much more normal.

2) Copper is usually a bigger deal. A great trick is to get open borders with your target(and if you can't get that, then do a ring around their borders), check and see if they have copper hooked up, if they do, immediately gank it, it is important to have your first Jaguar doing this recon mission. Man what is up with that map(maybe I notice it because I play on Balanced?), by 580 BC (time of Vels first attack) 2/7 of the nations had copper hooked up, the greeks and the french and no axemen either. Some of the nations don't have copper anywhere near their capital and some like Genghis didn't get jack, no horses, copper or iron, he might grab one of them but they are far away and Alex would have to be really dumb to let Genghis grab them. In 460 BC the Greeks first axeman is done and 3 phalanxes are being made. In 2 turns the French will create their first axeman. Usually on my normal speed games AIs hook up copper much faster, dunno what it is I've seen AI with copper hooked up and a spearman out by 1760 BC....

[Solomwi]

Originally posted by Dominae
I still think that Cover first is the right choice.

This was a relatively easy game, where all you needed to do is build up a sizeable stack and any of Japan's cities will fall. Your time frame for doing it was very generous (with or without Oracle). That's something to be taken into consideration, given that this is a learning experience.

In a game where you face greater opposition, +5% to each unit on the initial rush can mean the difference between successful rush and failed one, or an expensive one and an efficient one. Losing units is really bad when the AI has a production advantage over you.

I agree that, if you are relatively safe position, City Raider Promotions pay off in the long run (I think Jags upgrade to Grenadiers...).

I disagree that City Raider is more versatile than Cover. The AI loves Archers and Longbowmen. It especially loves them if it's out of metals or Horses. That's almost a guaranteed +25% in every battle, not just those that try to take cities.

I can see the razor's edge argument that you're making, and probably lean toward CR because I play on huge maps pretty much exclusively, which means rushes aren't a big part of the playbook, because the civs typically start so far apart. Any ancient era enemy will have time to at least build enough axemen to blunt the attack. Hence my preference for covering the range of potential adversaries. Of course, I'm also taking the issue a little out of context by applying it to the game in general, rather than a specified rush game.

On the more versatility, My wars typically consist of about 10-20% (top of the head numbers, don't hold me to them tightly ) my fending off AI units in the field and 80-90% my assaulting AI cities. Could be a difficulty level difference that changes those numbers significantly, but assuming that isn't the case, I'd consider the promotion that doesn't become obsolete and helps me with that 80-90% of the war, regardless what my enemy brings to the table, more versatile than one that becomes obsolete once the enemy is fielding muskets (not denying you can't get a lot of good use out of Cover before that happens, btw) and comes into play against one category of unit, regardless where they happen to be. Additionally, Cover's a dead end, while CR allows you to add 55% more with two more promotions.

[Velociryx]

In looking back on it, I prolly would just take pure CR promotions, with an eye toward the gunpowder era. The fight was already over after the first two cities fell. There was no real need to promote to cover at that point, given the success in the first round.

Lucky? Yeah, prolly. But it balances out, cos I've also had some REALLY bad luck (not in this particular game, but losing some 20 swordsmen to FOUR of Mansa's skirmishers in another game...yeah, that ticked me off...GRRRR)

-=Vel=-

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Solomwi
On the more versatility, My wars typically consist of about 10-20% (top of the head numbers, don't hold me to them tightly) my fending off AI units in the field and 80-90% my assaulting AI cities. Could be a difficulty level difference that changes those numbers significantly...

I think it is a difficulty level difference. In my games, it's around 75% in the field, 25% against cities.

[Blake]

Okay, here's my try. Now note that although I eliminate Japan quite a bit faster, I also had the benefit of foresight, which I largely ignored when it came to city placement (ie I didn't account for unrevealed resources), some decisions I made are decisions I made while reading through Vel's report thinking : "No, I wouldn't do that."

Now, what I DID have, is a strategy guaranteed to work, Hinduism then Oracle + grab iron. This is not a strategy I would have thought of (probably not anyway), I decided to employ it almost exactly as Vel did, both because it's brilliant and for comparison purposes.

On with the game!


I start off Settler-First. In this case there is _compelling_ reason, I'm grabbing an early religion which means no worker techs (so no worker first) - now sometimes when researching a religion you have to consider growth - the city can sometimes grow to size 2 then work *another* commerce tile, and this might shave off that critical 1 turn. In this case, there was only 1 commerce tile!!! So settler-first was really no-loss (as a rule of thumb, when going for buddhism/hindu, always go settler first unless growth will add significant commerce).


Okay, my next two city sites are clearly marked. Now City 2 - this is one thing I right away thought that Vel did sub-optimally. To me the prospect of farming the elephants + working mine + floodplains (after expansion) looked good, combined with lower upkeep from being closer, and being on the river. Little did I know just how right I was in this decision.


Polytheism is done, starting down the path to bronze working. No ream of text for this screenshot.


The Settler is done, by now you might have noticed me using signs to remind me what I'm doing (mostly for narration). Here is something I don't know: Why don't people bring their scout back and clear the fog for the settler? It's something I ALWAYS do now, assuming the scouter survives, he did, and hence my settler first gambit is perfectly safe. Don't risk the settler, guys. (of course Vel had his warrior to have dibs on the city site, it’s good strategy )


This was a move so brilliant that it can only be contributed to pure luck . I got an instant connection (you can see it in the previous screenshot too) due to some quirk whereby all sea inside territory is conductive to trade, even pre-fishing/sailing. I knew about this, but didn't have the foresight of the border expansions allowing this to happen when combined with the rivers. It's neat anyway, allowing me to work the floodplains way earlier than I was expecting. Maybe I should have pretended it was part of my plan for founding City2 where I did .

Oh yeah, I’m farming the river elephants. I don’t need the happy, the +1 commerce isn’t much. A 2/2/1 tile is more balanced than a 1/3/2. I often farm elephants.


Obviously the Oracle is done because Jaguars are coming online. I've founded my Science City, where I will generate a great scientist some day. In the meantime my capital will be pure-prophet points. I don't like mixing GPP types except when un-avoidable.


Once I have a stack of 4 Jags (I chopped them from capital forest) I send them down to kill any youngster cities, since I figure Toku won’t be expanding into the jungle much. I see a dead city, barb city killed by Japan or vice-verca?
Note my jags are actually STILL taking the shortest-path to the Japanese capital, thanks to the diagonal movement weirdness, always keep this effect in mind - you can do some "free" scouting/denial by making a big zig-zag through the fog.
Actually regarding starting my penetration at 4 jags, this was my other immediate point of contention with Vel's play, I like to attack ASAP, 4 jags is plenty to take out 2 archers so pretty much any city will fall to them. Thus I sent a "forward pack" in to attack a deep city (and perhaps promote off barbs), while follow-ups can attack the near cities. Basically devour the entire empire at once. It’s elegant and efficient.


I feel a premonition; some Japanese are going to... die. Hey it's hard to rhyme premonition.
The next turn they do indeed die in a sneak-attack, I attack the archers in the forest and lose no jags (semi-lucky), both winners are promoted to City Raider II. I get a free worker from capturing the settler.


The Japanese archers manage to stop crapping themselves in fear for long enough to kill 2 of my jaguars, their 5 buddies slaughter the archers and take the city (the capital was my first capture).


Victory in 520BC. Tokugawa only bothered/managed to found 2 cities, I killed one settler, and perhaps he lost another city to barbs, or got distracted killing the barb cities, he also built Stonehenge which I'm not sure if he did in Vel's game (building a wonder slows down expansion). In any case, the killin' part is done.

I'm not sure if I'm going to play out the 70% science requirement or not, primarily because the arbitrariness of it. If all I want is 70% science I just maximize my gold via specialists and such, since I'll be getting a shrine very soon (off-screen, I built a temple in my capital and added a priest to hurry along the Prophet), I’m reluctant primarily because it might result in sub-optimal play, I’m very used to running happily at 50% science or lower. My position is insanely strong anyway; I can dispel pretty much all the fog with my spare jags, and take the barb city(s).

In a real game, where I wasn't trying for speed, I might have let Tokugawa build a bit more, especially in the jungle, so he could do some work for me. I also might have also waited to see if he founded a religion, since he would use the prophet (from henge) to build the shrine, then I could yoink it. It was a killin' good time anyway .

[Velociryx]

Bravo Blake! GREAT game, and well played! Yeah, if I was gonna try it again, one thing I woulda done differently would have been to start the attack before I reached "critical mass" with the Jags....It DID slow me down to wait, but given the terrain, it really didn't matter all that much, since Japan didn't have much in the way of cities or defenses (we can thank the terrain for that, primarily!)

In all, I would rank your rush superior...hats off!

-=Vel=-

[couerdelion]

Very nice

Another fine display Vel and particularly useful when you point out a few minor slips along the way. The civic switches were quite useful and I guess something to bear in mind a lot when playing with a spiritual leader.

Civics are things that I tend to change so infrequently that it often doesn’t cross my mind for long periods. Contrast this with how often I speak to the foreign advisor and get on the phone to other leaders to check out the latest bargains and gossip about the Hatlady’s latest indiscretions.

Another thing you seem to do really well is to keep thinking through the game despite focussing on a particular goal. I find that I can easily not “stop and think” when I am waiting for a particular thing to happen and can sometimes miss a trick. And I also need to learn how to keep those starting free units alive a little longer.

I’ll have to check out that Jaguar because it sounds like a strange creature to give as an alternative to a swordsman but no more effective than an Axeman. That and I have a common border in a game with both the Aztecs and France and Louis XIV (Monty’s best mate) recently declared war on me and my pitifully small empire. I’ve beaten off the first attack but am rather nervous that the river border will serve as a very poor barrier to a continuing stream of medium-strong units trying to take my gold. Just as well my bowmen are extra strength skirmishers and that I also have a strong hill barrier although if the French use their horse archers to outflank me then I could find my spearmen out of position.

You also mention that thing about “knowing” your city is safe which I guess is just one of those things that you pick up after lots of experience with the game. I even managed to find gold yesterday when I moved a warrior “in the right direction” although this may just have been lucky. But it’s particularly useful in the diplomacy game and something I need to learn (NB I was still fairly certain that either Monty or Louis would declare war at some stage in above game so had decided to add more variety to the army)

p.s. Since writing, I notice Blake's additions and found the trade route line to be a very neat trick Very cleanly done.

This evening I will be working on my own Quecha Rush

[tijuanacowboy]

So I tried a Jaguar rush yesterday for the first time. It was lots of fun, a totally new and different strategy I've never tried in Civ IV. And it was so successful, actually TOO successful and it ended horribly.

I played my own game; epic noble standard size custom (two) continents game so I'd be sure to play with some other civs. (I had started a regular continents and didn't run into anyone until almost 1 AD)

I pretty much followed the same tech path that Vel did at the start of this thread, the easy Iron Working slingshot. Anyway, I was on the continent, I ran into the Chinese and the Egyptians.

Once I got Jags I had two decent cities. The Chinese had found a couple of cities directly north-northeast of me and the Egyptians were northwest, so I was feeling good. My plan was capture the Chinese cities and contain the Egyptians from spreading on our continent.

Once I started rushing the jags, I went due north to discover the Chinese had dropped a few more cities than I had though. I easily took over all of them, leaving Beijing. I cut off his horses and bottled him up. I didn't take Beijing. It was too powerful for me, or I was too scared, but I though did a good job, I got a bunch of cities for pretty cheap and I got back even with the techs. I had also grabbed a barbarian city that had cropped up between us.

I should have quit there....but I was too greedy. I blame the addiction to the rush of the Jaguar rush and the aggressive nature of the Aztecs. I could hear Montezuma calling out to me from the days of yore to conquer- okay, maybe not.

Anyway, this all wasn't good enough for me. I turned towards the Egyptians who were pretty weak militarily. My main reason for attacking them was that they had just completed the pyramids, which I had wanted. I drove towards Thebes, grabbed one of their cities, automatically pillaged one of their other towns, and captured Thebes. The Egyptians were contained in the upper west corner.

Then the Chinese declared war on me and everything really went downhill. They took my non-Thebes Egyptian city and tried to take back one of their cities. I beat them back and took back my rightfully captured city and got peace. (They had also taken the last Egyptian city so I took that from them.)

So now I was feeling OK. I was running a slight deficit, and my science rate was not good, but I had a pretty big bank roll from all the capturing, so I upped my science and spent more, because I needed to catch up with the techs. I was in the process of building courthouses and my resource connections and everything was just barely OK. Then I looked at the date.

It was about 1000 AD and I was just finishing currency. I was screwed. When the other continent’s civs came calling I knew they'd be way ahead of us. And sure enough in a couple hundred years when Catherine, Tokugawa, and Kublai came around they were a whole bunch of techs ahead of us. I was still losing money and my research was at about 50%. Everything on the trade screen was redded out, but I didn't have any money anyway. Then I looked at their relations and they were all friendly! I had checked aggressive AI and they hadn't attacked each other! What's up with that, they were trading techs back and forth while we were over here killing each other, dang it.

So anyway, what did I do wrong? How could something so great end so badly?

I probably just bit off more than I could chew.

But how do you know when to quit the rush? How can I stop doing something when it feels so good! (And works pretty darn well )

What I should have done:
I should have just concentrated on the Chinese and forgot about the pyramids. I should have just contained them and tried to work on trading with them, especially because they are a pretty nice civ. But at the time I was blind with rage! If I had told Mao to stuff his techs and just popped a few more jags I probably could have taken Beijing- but I was scared of his heavily cultured city on a hill. The egyptians wouldn't have declared war on me and I probably would be sitting pretty.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it all boils down, for the 1000th time; overexpansion will kill your civ!

Although I'm curious what will happen. I could give up but I think I'll play out the game and see what happens...it's probably going to be pretty ugly!

[Arrian]

The Pyramids are a very worthwhile target. You probably should've waited a bit, though, and hit with Maces/Catapults and such. Besides, you want to give Isabella some time to found religions and build shrines for you Shrine income can be the cure to your financial problems.

-Arrian

[smacfan]

I'm in the middle of finishing this one myself. Did not make the 2nd criteria (positive cash flow at 70% beakers) by 1AD, but I am (at least for the moment) in the lead. 880AD, and I probably have more cities than I should for playing Aztecs. Been doing a lot of infrastructure builds to try to increase my economy while researching as fast as I can (mostly at 50%, unfortunately -- too much maintenance, darnit!).

Trading mostly with Cyrus, who is pleased (just wait til I start gobbling him up... ), but everyone else is at least annoyed, if not worse.

Genghis has catapults and one humongous SOD in the city I can see because it shares one of my religions, but the Greeks and the Persians should be not too hard to take once I get going (if it's not too late already, I get the nagging feeling I've blown this one). I've met the French, but I have no clue where they are yet. About to head down the tech route to Caravels, then I'll know better. I've just gotten the techs for catapults and war elephants myself, and I've got lots and lots of elephant resources. I'm thinking catapults, WE's and HA's for an attack force, with a few spearmen to handle chariots, Real Soon Now.

Then again, there's at least one more civ I haven't met yet, somewhere off in the FOW.

One More Turn!

smacfan

P.S. -- Will have to try this workshop at least one more time to try to make that 2nd criteria. I have the sinking feeling it will be crucial.

[smacfan]

OK, a little progress report here, to help others. I have a lot of saves, but not a complete log, so I'll just report where I've gotten to for now. If RL doesn't get in the way, I'll try to cobble up a log later.

I restarted from 220BC to try to correct my mistakes. I think I've done that, at least in part. I managed to satisfy Vel's 2nd criteria later than he did, 700AD (70% beakers, +1gpt), mostly by limiting my expansion after conquering 4 Japanese cities to just one -- up at the land bridge to block Cyrus from grabbing it (not to mention the two gold hills there). As it was, he established his own city 2 squares away in the bridge area, taking the top of my fat cross away and threatening (quite effectively, I should add) to overwhelm that small city culturally.

However, being first to Music meant a free Great Artist -- gotta love that culture bomb! Now I may wait to see if his too-close city turns over to me -- it's only 47% Persion at 720AD.

Also had to build lots of infrastructure to get economically viable. I'm building more farms, too, where possible, for more population expansion in the cities that I do have.

Lost out on the Great Lighthouse in Tokyo (don't know to whom yet), but I got Oracle and Great Library in the capital. Hinduism and Confucianism are almost completely spread, and Cyrus has converted to Confucuanism, letting me see a lot of what he is up to. Two GSci's generated, academies in capital and Tokyo, working on GProphets for religious shrines for both religions.

Building 3 or 4 Markets at the moment, but having to use Population for basic builds (Courthouse, Library) in one of the Japanese cities with *very* little in the way of hammer production (like, max of *2*! No hills AT ALL, just jungle, jungle, jungle).

I have Currency, almost have Civil Service and Beauracracy, but trading has been dissatisfying -- I still haven't managed to make a decent trade to get Horseback Riding for Horse Archers. I may have to try trading gold for it, or take the 4 turns to get it myself. Just traded for Calendar to build plantations, I have bananas and dye to get up and running.

I am behind in military techs, though -- Jaguars are still my most powerful units, and Cyrus has Swordsmen now as well as Immortals. Conquest is going to have to wait a bit, perhaps for War Elephants and Catapults and Horse Archers, not sure yet. I may have to beeline for Guilds to get Knights before I can mount any kind of effective campaign.

Onwards I go. Hope this helps others trying this one. If I can manage it, you can too!

Comments and criticisms and advice on better ways to play Aztecs welcome.

smacfan