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**The keeper** · January 23, 2006, 15:48

I love the 5th screen shot. The one with the line of Quechas.

I have never tried a Quecha rush. This thread will make me try it.

**PaganPaulwhisky** · January 23, 2006, 15:52

I use this strategy almost every time I draw the Incans. It is super effective even on high difficulty levels. The computer simply cannot stop a well exucted quecha rush. By the time I have 10 quechas and have roaded to the enemy captial, they usually have two archers for defense and they are done. If you focus on civs that are peaceful or lack copper/iron, the quecha conquest can last a suprisingly long time.

Their financial trait makes it fairly easy to recover economically. Definitely one of my favorite civs to play.

**Velociryx** · January 23, 2006, 16:06

I am looking forward to giving this a try, and I have several questions in my mind that I'll try to answer when I get home. Among them are:

* Might it be superior (especially on the higher difficulty levels) to block the AI's off, maim them, but not kill them (or at least a couple, if you find that you share a continent with several). This could, after relations are restored, leave you with a viable tech trading partner, that could serve as a powerful long-term advantage (this, on the thinking that if you kill everyone off, then you are essentially playing an "isolated start" game, which has distinct disadvantages to you).

* If the AI could be stripped of strategic resources early on (in the first war), then it seems that it might be possible to perform an even later era Quecha rush on them again (a second iteration).

* Quecha's only get 1 mv. point. Seems like hunting might be a powerful first tech to research (depending on map size and the size of your landmass) I would imagine that happiness would be a free scout from a hut on your 1st or second move. Could be something to play around with.

And a bunch of others. This will be fun. Great thread!

-=Vel=-

**Dominae** · January 23, 2006, 17:17

Yes, the Quechuas are indeed powerful on the higher difficulty levels. In fact, I would say they're comparatively more powerful on Monarch+ than below Noble, because the AIs gets free Archers on the higher difficulties; nothing puts a damper in your Quechua rush like a lowly Warrior or two sitting in the enemy's capital!

Your strategy works as presented on Monarch and Emperor, maybe Noble. On Noble and below, I would say you are better off focusing on your economy first, finding Horses or Copper (preferably Horses because they're faster) and steamrolling the opposition that way. I'm talking here in terms of efficiency and speed; if you're in it for the fun factor, by all means rush with Quechuas on Noble!

On Immortal it's a different story. Unless you do nothing but build Quechuas early on, which cripples your economy, it's very difficult to take out an enemy capital. Archers, with all their defensive bonuses, actually have better odds than your Quechua when defending their cap. There comes a moment when you realise that you're just throwing away Hammers if you attempt to dislodge it. Of course this is sometimes the right play, for instance when the enemy capital is a Holy City and just build the Stonehenge, for instance.

However, on Immortal, most of the time the better play to simply park your Quechua around the enemy's cities, luring the Archers out once in a while (one or two always comes out when the number inside the cap reaches a critical mass). This way your Quechua have much better odds of survival, and you accomplish what came for without heavy losses: namely, to stifle the AI's expansion. This leaves you with much more time to claim territory, territory that would otherwise have been the AI's due to it's super-speedy REX.

Your goals for the Immortal Quechua rush are thus as follows:

1. Keep the AI's Archer population low (and Hammers tied up) by forcing it to try and break your siege.

2. Scare the the AI's Workers and Settlers, forcing them to stay at home until an escort is available (it's usually not, since the AI will often prefer trying to kill your Quechua).

Sometimes you get lucky and, during your extended Quechua siege, the AI's capital builds something juicy, like Stonehenge or the Pyramids. It's impossible to predict with certainty what the AI is up to, but by waiting you increase you chances of getting a lucky break like this.

Eventually, of course, you want to take out the capital. This is why, during your siege, you want to be claiming a Horse or Copper resource as quickly as possible. Unless the timing is perfect and you have the necessary Stone/Marble, you should probably forget building your own Wonder. Just focus on getting, say, 6 or so Horse Archers together ASAP. With such a force, the weakened AI's capital should fall, with very minimal losses.

You have thus given yourself almost twice the land area you would normally get, at almost no Hammer cost.

What I especially like about this strategy (on Immortal, remember) is that while your handful of Quechuas (not very expensive, Hammer-wise) are putting a choke an AI, you are free to build Workers, Settlers, and other necessities. It is absolutely essential that you get your economy up and running on Immortal: the AIs out there that are not being Quechua-rushed already have an leg up in the tech race.

Incidentally, Warrior rushes are also possible. The main difference between a Quechua rush and a normal Warrior rush is that Quechua can resist the AI's Archer counter-attacks. When choking the AI it's important to stay in its territory, and this is very difficult with just Warriors (although possible, if there are a bunch of forested Hills and rivers). For a Warrior-rush, your goals are much more short-term, like grab a Worker or pillage Horses; you need to get in and get out. Still, Warrior rushes can be quite potent, allowing you to set up for, say, a Jaguar rush!

**Dominae** · January 23, 2006, 17:27

Re: The Ultra Early Quecha Rush

Nice writeup, bobshiznit! Do you mind if I comment on it?

Originally posted by bobshiznit
My Quecha finally heals in 3080 BC and I meet Ghandi. Unlike every other time I get to this screen I imediately tell him I want his head on a pole. Then I park my Quecha next to his city. Dehli contains two archers and a fast worker. The purpose of doing this is to stop his expansion imediately and to prevent him from ever seeing copper.

Although it was probably fun to declare war on Gandhi right away, I would have waited a bit. By circling around Gandhi's borders, you probably would have caught the Fast Worker out in the open, in the middle of some job. That's the time to strike! Declare war, grab the Worker, and brace yourself for the counter-attack.

Parking your Quechua outside the city to stop expansion and preventing the use of Copper is right on the money though!

The next six turns I make six quechas. I had one that finished, popped one. After popping one the next one is free. Then I popped one and the next one was free etc.

It's not really necessary to poprush the Quechua, and in fact it's probably hurting you more than helping. I would growing my cap a bit, then work some Mines. Your Quechua are thus ready every 2/3 of a turn or so, without any loss in population.

If your only goal is to kill the Indians ASAP, I can see why you would want to poprush. But if you also want to dominate the mid-game, improving your capital early really helps.

**Dominae** · January 23, 2006, 17:35

Originally posted by Velociryx
Might it be superior (especially on the higher difficulty levels) to block the AI's off, maim them, but not kill them (or at least a couple, if you find that you share a continent with several).

Yup, this is what I outlined in my post above (the long one).

This could, after relations are restored, leave you with a viable tech trading partner, that could serve as a powerful long-term advantage (this, on the thinking that if you kill everyone off, then you are essentially playing an "isolated start" game, which has distinct disadvantages to you).

I usually rush my nearest neighbor, and for various reasons I always prefer to have a tight-knit empire instead of a sprawling one. This means that I want my nearest neighbor's land for myself.

I never take out all available civs with a Quechua rush, it's just not possible in the games that I play. I play the Incans rather conservatively, using Quechua to make sure I have what I need when I need it. I do not need a continent's worth of land right away. Overexpanding is a real pita on Immortal.

If the AI could be stripped of strategic resources early on (in the first war), then it seems that it might be possible to perform an even later era Quecha rush on them again (a second iteration).

Yes, this is what I was getting at your Jaguar thread! The Aztecs have to use Warriors, but the result is the same.

Quecha's only get 1 mv. point. Seems like hunting might be a powerful first tech to research (depending on map size and the size of your landmass) I would imagine that happiness would be a free scout from a hut on your 1st or second move. Could be something to play around with.

If you are playing larger maps, this could definitely work. I usually try to go for Pottery ASAP, though, to be better prepared for the Maintenance costs I'm going to face.

**xxFlukexx** · January 23, 2006, 20:22

Yup, I wrote up my post on Quechua rushing a long time ago. Dominae makes good additions, like scouting for the enemy worker with your first quechua instead of declaring war right when you see them.

Also I like just building quechuas from turn one, forget the rax. A rax is 30 hammers and that's 2 quechuas. I also wouldn't recommend capturing a 2nd enemies capital + cities after you are done with your first victim. Usually they are just too far away and maintenace will kill you, your map is pretty small (or on a small contiennt) so you got off there. If you still have a large quechua army after you are done with target #1, I would focus on harassing and razing another nearby AI.

You can also do war chariot and immortal rushes too, horses aren't that hard to find.

**bobshiznit** · January 23, 2006, 23:42

I would have to agree that maiming the ai rather than killing them right away has its benefits. But there are other strategies that can be beneficial to being alone on this island. I have 3 cities in capital locations. This means alot of food and good hammer production. Not meeting another AI for some time means I can keep the barbs in check and build 3 culture cities in the former capitals and two religions founded. Get Islam and the Spiral and we're raking in some dough with nothing but barbs bothering us, no need for more armies.

Getting hunting definently has its advantages to scout and find the ai more quickly.

I probably should have razed more cities or just maimed them.

Thanks for the advice all! Some good stuff to take my game up a few more levels.

I like imortal rushes too!

Another thought I had with respect to a trading partner. Ghandi would probably trade techs with me, but Washington usually would not trade with a featherhead. Just something I have noticed. Not sure though.

**couerdelion** · January 24, 2006, 05:52

Very eerie those Incas. I was playing around with Quecha rush yesterday and skipped a few games because the starting position was not at all conducive to the strategy. Almost every start seemed to put my Incas on the coast about as far from civilisation as it could and I was forced to research fishing almost every time to allow me to access those tiles and resources for the financial bonus.

It would be interesting to know what game speed and level you are on because I notice that the in 1675 AD, Delhi had not got the +40% culture bonus which would, IMHO, push the odds heavily in favour of the defenders. I would also be interested to know how you calculate those odds. A quecha with combat I and cover is +135% against archers (ie 4.7). Archers in cities with just the city bonus are going to be at +50% (4.5). Add to that culture of +20% (to 5.1) and fortification of +25% (5.85) and you are fighting losing odds even with city raider III. Having said that, I suspect I may have made some mistake in my calculations because the results I experienced seemed to be heavily in my favour.

One problem that I did experience was in slave-driving for Quechas. I tried this once and noticed that the game did not leave me any spare hammers for the next free Quecha. In the end I relied on building one every 5 turns and supplement it with two more from tree-felling operations.

From my experience playing this at Epic/Emperor and there is a critical balance you need before your Quechas become a less attractive option. You need to strike hard and early so you need a very local rival. The factors that will undermine this strategy will be
1) Any civilisation with early access to copper and axemen or horses and chariots
2) Creative civilisations
3) Mali’s skirmishers
4) Time

In my successful rush, I managed to destroy England by 1675AD (the same date as you destroyed Ghandi). I did have to take three cities off Elizabeth and two of them were capitals – She fled from London with an archer escort and founded a new capital in Nottingham. In your game, Gandhi only had the one city and Washington seemed to have just two cities by some time circa 1500-1025AD (I’m assuming that the second time you captured Boston , this was actually New York).

In general, apart from the consistent placement of Huayna Capac’s minions in some cold wet isolated peninsula, the strange thing was that, when I finally succeeded in making a quecha-rush, it was actually the correct decision. Cuzco had two health resources (one only on second expansion) and no happy resources). To the east was more tundra and to the south west was London (although room for a second city to bring in some bacon-yippee). With 5 crabs it would make a perfect science and GP generator well into the game. Elizabeth has horse, a couple of food resource and floodplains (though strangely still no happy resources – except Whales – double yippee) and was simply “in the way” to a healthy situation. In all likelihood I will probably move the capital to London and may now use the Oracle (Nottingham will provide the marble) in the same way that you did to get Code of Laws and Confucianism. I’m not really sold on the arguments for courthouses but may be convinced if I am still heavily in deficit once my cities get their trade links and are up and running properly.

Oh, and one more thing, that idea about pausing on a few promotions, I like. But my biggest fear these days are actually bears. I even organised my march on York to take in the view from a hill so that I could see if any bears emerged from places they had previously been sighted.

**Mr Justice** · January 24, 2006, 08:32

i too love the quecha rushes. and incas have g8 traits.

me i follow these rules
1. i never build any settlers. al;l expansion is done thro conquest, hense large gaps are left between cities. AI cant resist trying to spead here. once i have 3/4 decently sized cities i will start on settlers then.

2. its important to maintain a good few workers. you have few cities but you goto make sure you maximise all tiles. capturing them is great.

3. leave barb cities till later. only go for other civs, they are the long term threat. (never had to deal with real early barb city tho tbh)

4. i ignore all early wonders. not worth it compared to building up a dominating lead on your continent. with finiancial civ its very easy to go on to late game tech domination if you can have much more territory than AIs.

5. get pottery as early as possible. get those cottages down asap. especially desert plains tiles.

i play @ monarch and epic speed.
this working so well for me im just waiting to win my current game before upping the difficulty.

**DaveV** · January 24, 2006, 08:51

Re: The Ultra Early Quecha Rush

Originally posted by bobshiznit
2240 BC Ghandi builds another archer and attacks my quecha. The first archer dies but the second one succeeds in killing him, but that is alright I've got reinforcements coming.

I wondered when I saw your screen shot why your Quecha wasn't sitting across the river from Delhi. If he was just there to keep the settlers and workers bottled up, why not do it on the best defensive terrain?

**bobshiznit** · January 24, 2006, 23:31

It would be interesting to know what game speed and level you are on because I notice that the in 1675 AD, Delhi had not got the +40% culture bonus which would, IMHO, push the odds heavily in favour of the defenders. I would also be interested to know how you calculate those odds. A quecha with combat I and cover is +135% against archers (ie 4.7). Archers in cities with just the city bonus are going to be at +50% (4.5). Add to that culture of +20% (to 5.1) and fortification of +25% (5.85) and you are fighting losing odds even with city raider III. Having said that, I suspect I may have made some mistake in my calculations because the results I experienced seemed to be heavily in my favour.

A archer in a 20% fortified city is 5.1

Quecha vs. Archer in City
No Promo (Com I) 4.2
Com I + Cover 4.7
Com I +Cover +CR 5.1
Com I + Cover + CRII 5.6
Com I + Cover + CRIII 6.2

Using a Barracks will get you the cover bonus, and a win or two against and animal, barb, or AI will get you even with the archer.
So the Odds are definently in your favor after getting the city raider II promotion.

**bobshiznit** · January 24, 2006, 23:35

Re: Re: The Ultra Early Quecha Rush

Originally posted by DaveV

I wondered when I saw your screen shot why your Quecha wasn't sitting across the river from Delhi. If he was just there to keep the settlers and workers bottled up, why not do it on the best defensive terrain?

Yes, it would have been best to sit him accross the river if I was defending, but the AI could have escaped with a settler from that position by moving NE although they probably wouldn't have tried it. The other thing I was doing was protecting the spot I was going to attack from.

**cal_01** · January 25, 2006, 03:05

One thing that I noticed about the Quecha rush is that it has to be done very early. Any kind of cultural, hills, or unit promotion defense will kill this gambit very quickly.

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The Ultra Early Quecha Rush

The Ultra Early Quecha Rush

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