So I'm thinking about writing....

[Velociryx]

CH - another thing you said just sparked a revelation....I think we should very definitely make a point of spelling out the explicit benefits of an early rush, and to that end, I'll put something like this in at the beginning of the section describing the rush:

...the main goal in the rush is to knock out a rival very early on. You don't want to spend a lot of time at it, and you don't want to get bogged down taking numerous cities. That's not really what the rush is about.

What the rush is:

* This early in the game, you're not looking to take a number of AI cities. One and maybe two. More than that, and the war will last too long to really be considered a "rush." The most important part of the rush is securing the target's Capital. Why? Because Capital sites are engineered to be inherently better than average, and having two such sites under your control in the very early game is an outstanding way to begin! (and if the AI has a second, or even third city somewhere, consider very carefully whether to attack them...if you do, then consider very carefully whether or not to KEEP them).

* Ideally, you'll net yourself a free worker (and possibly more than one) from your ambush. That sixty hammer theft might not seem like much, but workers are easily the most important units in the game, and having an extra one for FREE, that didn't cause your city to stop growing is a tremendous boon. Well worth the price of the ambush, even if you simply make peace with the rival afterwards, and don't attack him.

What the rush is not:

* Specifically, you're NOT looking to fuel your entire early growth by way of conquest. This (the act of rushing) should be seen as an opportunistic sucker punch against your closest rival to relieve him of his capital site, and to pre-emptively relieve pressure from your borders as rivals begin expanding toward you (the thinking here is that you'll have relatively more room to expand into, now that you are minus one rival). If you're attacking throughout the "peaceful land grab" phase of the game, you're essentially fighting a war of attrition...at some point, probably not long after your third conquest or razing, it has stopped being a "rush" and become something more akin to a blind, bloodthirsty frenzy.

* You're also not looking to give your opponent enough time to found lots of cities and do a good deal of your terrain improving for you. If you want this type of gain, then the Rush is the wrong kind of attack for you--and this type of attack will be covered later.

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Stuffe...

-=Vel=-

[indeliblemerson]

Re: So I'm thinking about writing....

Originally posted by Velociryx
...a Civ 4 strategy guide, in the same spirit of the SMAX guide.

My first question is...would there be any interest in such a work?

Before you answer that question, here's an excerpt from the proposed manuscript, as a bit of a teaster. Please let me know what you think!

Your prose is excellent. Your writing is lucid and easy to follow. I have learned a lot from some of the things you have written and I am interested in a guide so I can learn more.

However, my lack of the vernacular hinders my comprehension. So for me a chapter 0 (zero) might be useful. Kind of like those graduate course text books that have a chapter zero devoted to review of all those thing that you are "supposed" - that the author assumes- you know to take this class.

I have the glossary from somebody's thread. I have read your guides; a bunch of threads and I am piecing it all together, but I am not quiet there yet.

[Velociryx]

Thank you!

And I like the idea of having a glossary of terms. I've listed the ones I'm using, but of course, there are a great many others, and they may slip out in the course of the writing. If they do, it would be good if they were already mentioned in the book.

Good sugesstion!

-=Vel=-

[Stuffe]

Just a little tip. When you want to rush and there are two potential civs, you could press F9 and look at the power the civs power score, too see who has the most units and to figure out how many you need. Also GNP is a good thing to look for, because if you get enough gold while capturing cities you might not even have to turn your research down from 100%.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Stuffe
Also GNP is a good thing to count in, because if you get enough gold while capturing cities you might not even have to turn your research down from 100%.

Is Gold 'liberated' from captured cities a function of the GNP of that Civ?

[Stuffe]

I might be wrong but i think you steal a curtain percentage of that civs gold. But now that you mention it im not sure at all

[uberfish]

GNP is a totally meaningless stat.

When you capture a city it randomly "loots" some buildings destroying them and converting them into cash. I think any hammers currently stored up in the city get converted into cash too.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by uberfish
GNP is a totally meaningless stat.

It's possible to be rockin' the world with a farm 'n specialist economy and be last in GNP. I take it to be an indicator of commerce tiles worked plus trade routes.

[Cort Haus]

In your game, Vel, I'm a little unsure as to whether the settler was popped, chopped, or both.


I had thought at first that you just popped it. Earlier you said (bold added):

... the moment we get BronzeWorking, we're gonna know where the copper is, and as soon as we know that, we're going to Pop-N-Chop a settler. As has been mentioned, this is extremely efficient for an Imperialistic player, because you get 50% more hammers for either a pop or a chop. Now, based on our earlier established rule of thumb, which do you think we're going to use, in order to speed build our settler?

If you said Pop, you're right on the money. We've already established that we're at least size two, so let's burn a point of that renewable population and get the settler out the gate quickly.

I took this to be a case for popping, rather than chopping the settler. However, above it suggests you chopped it (bold added):

When I ran the sample game that I designed the recipe from, my initial Axe crew got finished at about the same time, actually...I chopped out the settler to get the second city down (right in between some corn and some copper on the flatlands), then chopped out an additional worker set both burgs to making barracks while I hooked up the copper and road-connected everything.

Did you perhaps chop the settler first and then pop it once it was within 30 hammers of completion (at size 2)?

[Velociryx]

Good question, and yep...I deviated from my own recipe a bit, mostly on account of the preponderance of forests in the neighborhood. Chopped the settler to completion, and used a pop shortly thereafter on the first Axe.

I've got to go stain a big seven foot tall bookshelf, but when I get back in from that, I'm gonna fire up some Civ and take more notes to add to the growing collection!

-=Vel=-

[Cort Haus]

I just did a chop then pop and got the settler out on Turn 35, with a worker and two archers already built. That's fast!

Both barracks built on T44 and then ... ... with the barracks in the capital poprushed on T34 and a couple of turns before the road to the copper city completes, a 15 hammer Medic unit, that won't get hit in a stack, and doesn't take a promo from an axeman, becomes available.



The overspill from the barracks poprush completes it in a turn, and the next Warrior build will turn into an Axe when the road completes. {EDIT: No it doesn't. It turns into a Spear. So one turn of an Archer or Granary maybe. Ideally this window should be exactly long enough to build one Warrior-Medic, and no longer.}

[Cort Haus]

There's a possible trick for AGG civs to pull here a bit later in the game. Chop a barracks into an unconnected city (new build or pillaged & conquered) and build a few medic-warriors, one for each stack you want to operate.

[Velociryx]

Now you're talking! I didn't keep track of the turn number, but that sounds right on the money with the timeframe I was hitting when I did it the other night, and prolly a little faster! Sweet.

I like the idea of using the unconnected city to build a cheap-o medic unit, and this is indeed a good reason to build warriors (you rock, Dom! ). Good refinement to the overall play!

So now it looks like the major rush variants and shadings are starting to present themselves for codification. I like it. My immediate target is to collect all these observations and have a comprehensive section put together by the weekend...that's what I'll present to you guys for review, and we'll see how much improvement there has been since the original posting!

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

There's a possible trick for AGG civs to pull here a bit later in the game. Chop a barracks into an unconnected city (new build or pillaged & conquered) and build a few medic-warriors, one for each stack you want to operate.

I like this trick, and would further suggest that it might be worth pillaging a road to isolate one of your cities (disconnect it from the copper) to do that same thing.

-=Vel=-