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I currently play Noble, normal speed games on large Pangea maps, barbs on, and go for a domination win. I use Hapshetsut. I need help with my early rush/warring strategies. I've read Siusitil's early rush guide but still run into one (usually) game-ending problem or another. Below is the gist of one of my major issues and it concerns sustainability. Critique at will! (Note: The builds below may differ slightly from game to game but this one is representative of my approach.)
I open by building three cities, four if space is readily available. I first research bronze working to get slavery. I build worker=>worker=>settler. The first worker roads to a farm resource and improves it. It finishes about two turns after BW has finished.
I then chop the next worker. The two workers then chop the settler. My initial warrior (or scout if a scout was popped in a hut) returns to escort the settler to the second city spot. The second city builds barracks=>archer=>5 axemen.
The third city builds barracks=>archer=>5 axemen.
The capital is finished building its two or three settlers and the two workers are connecting the cities and hooking up resources in the order of: food=>gold.
I research Iron Working to prep for swords. Then head straight to Code of Laws to get courthouses to cut maintenance costs on my (hopefully) soon to be expanded empire.
All new offensive units except the initial archers are routed to the frontline city. I usually have something like 8-10 axemen (with several more still en route to the front but too far behind to take part in my first assault) by this time and *maybe* a few spears and extra archers I can bring along to garrison newly taken cities.
If I can spare the workers and time, I road from my frontline city to the border of the target AI.
I assault my nearest neighbour and take the first city--two if I'm lucky and the enemy cities are very close to each other.
And then my offensive stalls. The problem? To me it appears to be a combination of the following:
1. Even with roads it takes anywhere from 3-5 turns for units from my rear cities to reach the front. Then longer again as my line stretches deeper into enemy territory.
2. From the moment I declare war, the AI switches to a war footing and begins cranking out defensive units at a rate close to almost one per turn.
3. I am in enemy territory with a large force in the early game and, due to maintenance costs, am losing money quite fast. But since it's early I don't have an economy capable of sustaining this cost for more than a few turns.
4. My force moves at one square per turn in enemy territory--all the while subject to Nos. 2 and 3.
5. It takes a lot less to defend than to attack. With the need for attacker odds of 3:1 or more my attack force rapidly loses potency as a result of combat losses, the need for surviving units to heal and the need for *some* units to stay in the captured city as a garrison.
6. I'm obliged to lower my science down to zero or close to it as a result of losing money. (I do set science specialists in libraries to try and counter this.) So even if I win a few cities, I'm so far behind on tech that other AIs are already up to longbows and macemen before I can get my second wind, so to speak.
Here are some of the factors of which I'm aware and other approaches I've tried:
A. Don't build barracks. Build whatever offensive units you've got right away and attack. Tried it. Even large stacks of warriors are useless against one or two archers fortified in a city. Unupgraded axes are OK, but I find losses are unacceptably high against the same fortified archers.
B. Hook up gold resources to help pay for science/maintenance. I already do this. It helps a lot. But it's not always available and often still not enough in the early game.
C. Wait to attack until after you've researched CoL and built courthouses to lower maintenance costs on existing cities. Tried that. Problem here is that if I wait that long, the target AI has far too much defence to make an assault viable and will have taken all sorts of land (with settlers) that I didn't take because I was building units.
D. I've tried intentionally lowering my research to 50% or less well before I need to so as to build up a warchest for my future assault. The idea is that it will allow me to extend my lines, continue to crank out units and continue to assault--as fast as possible. It's met with mixed results so far.
E. My CoL gambit (similar to my attempt to get currency) doesn't work well simply because there is the build time of the courthouses to consider; I'm still losing money while I'm waiting for those courthouses to at least build to the point where I can whip them. Furthermore, I set captured cities to build courthouses but, even on normal, it takes a long time. And I don't have the money. I'm almost always obliged to stop my assault before I've been able to finish off the opponent, and that's not good. This means the enemy will likely survive to get construction and catapults (not to mention the increasing culture defence bonus that will almost require that I also have cats--which is another many rounds of unit building) and then quick wars are basically impossible for me.
F. Another "trick" I use is to set one of my cities (nominally my "gold producing" city) to build a wonder whose race I'm actually hoping to lose. With any luck I will lose the race many turns later while I'm in the middle of my offensive and the gold I get from that will then fund the continuation of my offensive! Is this really efficient? Not sure, but it's all I've got in the early game where I can't even trade resources for gold, etc.
So what am I doing right and what am I doing wrong? How should I pursue the early rush/war? What is the sweet spot for launching an attack? Wait until I have X number of units? Is the problem that I'm playing on Normal speed and the window for action is simply too small?
Any help is appreciated!
I open by building three cities, four if space is readily available. I first research bronze working to get slavery. I build worker=>worker=>settler. The first worker roads to a farm resource and improves it. It finishes about two turns after BW has finished.
I then chop the next worker. The two workers then chop the settler. My initial warrior (or scout if a scout was popped in a hut) returns to escort the settler to the second city spot. The second city builds barracks=>archer=>5 axemen.
The third city builds barracks=>archer=>5 axemen.
The capital is finished building its two or three settlers and the two workers are connecting the cities and hooking up resources in the order of: food=>gold.
I research Iron Working to prep for swords. Then head straight to Code of Laws to get courthouses to cut maintenance costs on my (hopefully) soon to be expanded empire.
All new offensive units except the initial archers are routed to the frontline city. I usually have something like 8-10 axemen (with several more still en route to the front but too far behind to take part in my first assault) by this time and *maybe* a few spears and extra archers I can bring along to garrison newly taken cities.
If I can spare the workers and time, I road from my frontline city to the border of the target AI.
I assault my nearest neighbour and take the first city--two if I'm lucky and the enemy cities are very close to each other.
And then my offensive stalls. The problem? To me it appears to be a combination of the following:
1. Even with roads it takes anywhere from 3-5 turns for units from my rear cities to reach the front. Then longer again as my line stretches deeper into enemy territory.
2. From the moment I declare war, the AI switches to a war footing and begins cranking out defensive units at a rate close to almost one per turn.
3. I am in enemy territory with a large force in the early game and, due to maintenance costs, am losing money quite fast. But since it's early I don't have an economy capable of sustaining this cost for more than a few turns.
4. My force moves at one square per turn in enemy territory--all the while subject to Nos. 2 and 3.
5. It takes a lot less to defend than to attack. With the need for attacker odds of 3:1 or more my attack force rapidly loses potency as a result of combat losses, the need for surviving units to heal and the need for *some* units to stay in the captured city as a garrison.
6. I'm obliged to lower my science down to zero or close to it as a result of losing money. (I do set science specialists in libraries to try and counter this.) So even if I win a few cities, I'm so far behind on tech that other AIs are already up to longbows and macemen before I can get my second wind, so to speak.
Here are some of the factors of which I'm aware and other approaches I've tried:
A. Don't build barracks. Build whatever offensive units you've got right away and attack. Tried it. Even large stacks of warriors are useless against one or two archers fortified in a city. Unupgraded axes are OK, but I find losses are unacceptably high against the same fortified archers.
B. Hook up gold resources to help pay for science/maintenance. I already do this. It helps a lot. But it's not always available and often still not enough in the early game.
C. Wait to attack until after you've researched CoL and built courthouses to lower maintenance costs on existing cities. Tried that. Problem here is that if I wait that long, the target AI has far too much defence to make an assault viable and will have taken all sorts of land (with settlers) that I didn't take because I was building units.
D. I've tried intentionally lowering my research to 50% or less well before I need to so as to build up a warchest for my future assault. The idea is that it will allow me to extend my lines, continue to crank out units and continue to assault--as fast as possible. It's met with mixed results so far.
E. My CoL gambit (similar to my attempt to get currency) doesn't work well simply because there is the build time of the courthouses to consider; I'm still losing money while I'm waiting for those courthouses to at least build to the point where I can whip them. Furthermore, I set captured cities to build courthouses but, even on normal, it takes a long time. And I don't have the money. I'm almost always obliged to stop my assault before I've been able to finish off the opponent, and that's not good. This means the enemy will likely survive to get construction and catapults (not to mention the increasing culture defence bonus that will almost require that I also have cats--which is another many rounds of unit building) and then quick wars are basically impossible for me.
F. Another "trick" I use is to set one of my cities (nominally my "gold producing" city) to build a wonder whose race I'm actually hoping to lose. With any luck I will lose the race many turns later while I'm in the middle of my offensive and the gold I get from that will then fund the continuation of my offensive! Is this really efficient? Not sure, but it's all I've got in the early game where I can't even trade resources for gold, etc.
So what am I doing right and what am I doing wrong? How should I pursue the early rush/war? What is the sweet spot for launching an attack? Wait until I have X number of units? Is the problem that I'm playing on Normal speed and the window for action is simply too small?
Any help is appreciated!
Like playing as Suryavarman and not getting any Ivory.
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