Ancient Era Warfare

[Cerbykins]

The latest AU topic - successful 'ultra-ultra-ultra early archer rush', on as high a difficulty as possible

[Theseus]

Wasn't there an AU game where that was practically a requirement? Rome to the northeast and Iroquois further north? And I think Rome itself was on an iron hill... the only one remotely in sight?

[Krill]

The total eternal forever war one? This one?

[vmxa1]

Yes AU208? You needed to archer rush Rome as they had Iron. I seemed to remember having to take down a few legions with archers. But I could be confused by now.

Then it was MW with archers, if yo found them early you did not have to deal with too many. Both capitols were founded on their UU's required resource, nice job (was it alexman?).

[Krill]

I'm going to play it tomorrow, with a couple of changes.

Iroquios replaced with Sumerians, and I'm playing with AU mod 1.04, for C3C.

I better have a good starting position, and I'm not psoting in the DAR/AAR.

EDIT: I meant today

[CiverDan]

By the time people have gallys and catapults, the time of pillagers is about over. That is probably why the pillage attempt on Monkey failed. At that point, your opponent will have sufficent force to counteract them. The best time for pillagers if when your opponent has only a couple of cities. In my MP playing I have never seen someone use boats just to land a token pillaging force, the strat just isnt effective.

[Krill]

By the time people have gallys and catapults, the time of pillagers is about over. That is probably why the pillage attempt on Monkey failed. At that point, your opponent will have sufficent force to counteract them.

That and we were attacking Carthage, who were in a GA. They had/have alot of mercs.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Master Zen
Trip, ever done the "ultra-ultra-ultra early" Archer rush?

It requires a LOT of luck but you can wipe out an enemy civ quite easily. Basically start with a militaristic civ (China is my preferred choice). Begin building an archer, and send it away, try and pop a goody hut with it and HOPE to get barbs. Luckily you might get a promotion from the barbs, build two more archers and perhaps a worker.

Once you find a close neighbor send those archers their way and try and catch them before they even get Bronze Working. Their cities will be defended by either warriors or archers. I once did this in PTW on emperor against my Roman neighbors, with 3 archers took rome in ~2700 BC and even got a leader out of it. It was frightneningly devastating.

Again, you need a lot of luck to pull it off, but it is actually fun to attempt. (Though admittedly, not something you should plan on doing consistently since you lose a lot of time in your capital for other builds)

Dunno about Trip, but I have done that.

Usually as China. 2-3 archers. Maybe a barracks first, especially if you have lots of forest so you can chop assist.

Sometimes it's awesome, sometimes it's ugly (when the AI finishes that spearman on the very turn you invade).

-Arrian

[Harovan]

Ultra-ultra-early rushes are a gamble, and usually work only on lower levels, because on higher the AI will have the 1-2 spearmen it needs to fend off a 2-3 archer rush. You can succeed, you can fail. Generally, you usually fail more often than you succeed, but that does little harm, because the AI usually makes peace around the 8th turn no matter what, even if the counterstrike is already right next to your undefended capital.

[Dominae]

The "ultra-early" Archer rush need not be a gamble: all you need to do is revise your objectives. Instead of planning to take the AI's capital with your 2-3 Archers, instead prey on their new settlements, Settlers and stray military units. This weakens them enough for you to conquer them at your leisure later on. As Sir Ralph points out, there's little worry of counter-attack, because you can usually get peace when things get hairy.

Personally I feel this sort of "gamble" is almost always worth it on Emperor and below, because after a successful early Archer-rush you essentially cannot lose (I posted a thread on this a while back).

IMO, the construction of a Barracks is not necessary for such an operation. In fact, it's counter-productive. Would you rather have 5 Reg. Archers with which to rush, or 3 Vet.? With such small numbers, the Barracks is not being cost-effective (of course, the Barracks "pays for itself" later as you build more units, but that's the old invest-or-spend dilemma...with rushes it's assumed you "spend"). The same is not true for Militaristic civs, because their Barracks cost the same as only one Archer; I'm pretty sure 4 Reg. Archers is worse than 3 Vet. ones, or at least it's close. Annoyingly enough, Mil. civs are the ones that do best with Reg. units.

[Arrian]

Militaristic civ changes that from 5 regular archers vs. 4 vet. I was talking about using China.

And yes, it's often even better to just nail settler teams, kill stray units, and then get peace for the civ's tech and worker(s). Taking the capital can be left for later if you cripple them like that early.

-Arrian

[Harovan]

I'm still fond of my old mixture, 5-6 vet archers and 1-2 vet spearmen per rush. True, this isn't an ultra-ultra-eraly rush, but it has several advantages:

- It is nearly failsafe. The success rate high, if the terrain isn't too lousy (hills) or it's the Greeks or Carthage. You will reasonably often defeat the 1-2 regular spearmen the AI can muster for defense.
- Often you can grab a wandering settler or 2 with your approaching reinforcements. You can even wait till the next settler leaves the capital. This means one defender less in it, and almost for sure 2 additional slaves.
- It comes later, somewhere between 2000BC and 1500BC. The AI will already have enough (~3-5) cities, so if you take 1-2 and perhaps get one for peace, it still has 1-2 cities and can and will build more, which you can take again when the time comes. If you rush too early, you'll wipe that civ out and it can't build cities for you anymore.

[Jon Shafer]

I agree with what's been said just above. The ultra-early stuff can be quite effective if you do it right. But since the Conquests beta I haven't played below Demigod so an ultra-early rush is basically suicide. Against human opponents though, a few Archers can be very very deadly...

When I do for a rush I typically do what SirRalph has just said. Build up a relatively significant force with 1 or 2 cities (2 to help pay support mainly, keeping research going). Going in with 2 or 3 Archers is usually a bit too risky for me unless I'm going against a human player.

In a PBEM game against Thriller/Aqualung I just did a rush with 6 Jag Warriors, 1 Archer and 1 Spear. Within a single turn I basically crippled him because he was trying to out-REX me SP style. Rushes in MP can be very very brutal indeed. They're almost always extremely difficult to defend against without totally disrupting everything you're doing (losing your 60s Granary build, having to pop rush, etc.).

[Jon Shafer]

Well, 1 of 3 finals is now complete. By Wednesday I'll have free time to start doing more stuff for this...

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Arrian
Militaristic civ changes that from 5 regular archers vs. 4 vet. I was talking about using China.

Originally posted by Dominae
The same is not true for Militaristic civs, because their Barracks cost the same as only one Archer; I'm pretty sure 4 Reg. Archers is worse than 3 Vet. ones, or at least it's close.