Strategy : The end of the Archers Rush

[DAVOUT]

The archers rush was an attractive strategy, only because the AI had a totally predictable city defence; a stack of 2 spearmen and 5 archers was able to take any city garrisoned with 2 spearmen, and not totally connected to all other cities. Against a human, you will never be able to predict how many spearmen and archers will be in the city when the assault is launched, and as a consequence this strategy is no longer efficient. The same assault will now demand more units, taking more time to prepare, hampering increasingly the initial expansion, to the point that it can become obsolete with the availability of horses and swords.

But the warrior rush is still valid; 4 standard warriors can take a city garrisoned with 1 standard warrior, before you have had any chance to build more units and to connect your 3 or four cities. The solution will be to start building some additional spearmen when we find another civ relatively close.

This will postpone the serious wars to the horses and swords period, and at this time, the quality of the expansion, and the tactical abilities will apply.

What do you think ?

[GodKing]

Sounds fair, however, many civs start out being able to build archers right up at teh start. What if they skip over and don't build any spear, but they pop out a settler, then 4-6 archers real quick. If anybody is near them, they be dead.

[DAVOUT]

If a civ able to build archers at the start is choosen by a team, and if it is near us, we have to find a solution. Do you know what civ are concerned ?

[DAVOUT]

Germans and Chinese are the best fitted for the archers rush, according to Sir Ralph who is the world expert. He published a timeline :
code:


4000BC (Turn 1) Initial Settler founds City1
3000BC (Turn 21) City1 builds Settler1
2850BC (Turn 24) Settler1 founds City2
2150BC (Turn 41) City1 builds Settler2, set to build Barracks
Warrior code or Bronze Working discovered
2030BC (Turn 44) City2 builds Settler3, set to build Barracks
Settler2 founds City3, set to build Barracks
1910BC (Turn 47) Settler3 founds City4, set to build Barracks
1870BC (Turn 48) City1 builds Barracks, set to build Spearman
1750BC (Turn 51) City2 builds Barracks, set to build Archer
City3 builds Barracks, set to build Archer
City1 reaches size 2
1675BC (Turn 54) City4 builds Barracks, set to build Archer
City2 reaches size 2
City3 reaches size 2
City1 builds Spearman1, set to build Spearman
1600BC (Turn 57) City2 builds Archer1
City3 builds Archer2
City4 reaches size 2
1575BC (Turn 58) City1 builds Spearman2, set to build Archer
1525BC (Turn 60) City4 builds Archer3, set to build Archer
1500BC (Turn 61) City2 builds Archer4, set to build Archer
City3 builds Archer5, set to build Archer
First task force with 1 Spearman and 5 Archers leaves

If the first task force is ready in 1500BC, we have enough time to build the 2 or three additional units necessary to defeat the attacking stack of 5 archers.

[ruby_maser]

without a roaded infrastructure to move with and without a knowledge of where the enemy is when the game starts, I don't see how warriors are going to be a threat... unless our priority is not gonna be to get bronze working ASAP. And I don't know why it wouldn't be. I am confident we could have a spear in every city before an enemy could churn out 5 warriors, find us, and get them there.

But I'm still gonna reaffirm my belief that we should build on hills whenever possible to further dissuade any early aggression against us.

[GodKing]

Any civ with the military trait will start out with warrior code. Warrior code allows archers.

In my time line, city 1 founded. First build is either an archer for exploration, or a warrior.

If goodie hut is found, change city production to not have any settlers being built, this will allow the goodie hut to produce a settler. (an interesting tid bit I recently discovered).

Second built is a barracks. This lets the city get some pop, around size 3-4, and a good production. Next is a settler for city #2 (or whatever depending on goodie huts).

Each city builds first a barracks, then pops out archers at 1 every 3-5 turns. Toss in a settler or worker as necessary.

After the first 50 turns, this civ will probably only have 2 cities, but will have around 8 vet. archers, and either a non vet archer or warrior (the explorer) along with whatever was found in goodie huts. On average, a neighboring civ will have 4-5 cities, but with only 1 defender each. Human civs will not necessarily even have defenders in all cities. Including travel time, there will be a second wave comming. Archer rush is a possibility I think. Just not a large one as it involves leaving your civ virtually defenseless. But if on a small island with only one other civ..... An option we should keep in mind for ourselves.

THis speeds up the timeline considerably by ignoring defence of any kind. Think about it. How would you defend against two stacks of 4 archers that just appeared, and you have 5 cities with only 1 spear in each, 1 barracks in your capitol, and a road network that is lacking.... And if that is just the first waive, it will take 2-3 cities, then get reinforcements. It will also have the scout that can attack from the rear, pilliging your single lux, iron, horse, and what not, and causing you to sent troops after it instead of the front where needed.

[DAVOUT]

Originally posted by GodKing
How would you defend against two stacks of 4 archers that just appeared, and you have 5 cities with only 1 spear in each, 1 barracks in your capitol, and a road network that is lacking.... And if that is just the first waive, it will take 2-3 cities, then get reinforcements. It will also have the scout that can attack from the rear, pilliging your single lux, iron, horse, and what not, and causing you to sent troops after it instead of the front where needed.

It is exactly why I open this thread : the possibility that you describe make necessary to built more unit and less settlers. But if you have four cities connected, two units in each, and three or four units in reserve, the rush can only fail (the two stacks do not arrive at the same time). This is what is different from the AI behaviour, and why the archers rush will not be used against humans.

[Arnelos]

I've actually USED that archer-rush strategy by building barracks and non-stop archers (other than the occassional settler) in the very early game. I remember a game on Monarch level where I did that on an Archiapelago map where I was unlucky enough to be stuck on the same small island with England and France. I just built a ton of veteran archers at the start of the game and ran over their warriors...

It works quite well against the AI, even on harder difficulty levels. We, as a human civ, are going to have to develop a counter. Best counter around is a good road network and a few horsemen (for counter-attack on those highly vulnerable archers) and spearmen (to absorb their attacks). BY FAR THE MOST EFFECTIVE DEFENSE, however, is to build city walls. City walls are extremely cheap and well worth it in terms of augmenting the defensive capabilities of our early spearmen on defense.

[ThePlagueRat]

I agree to maintaining a counterattack force, and city walls.

DEFENSE:
Hopefully, sporadic attacks will be resisted on those walls...
moreover, an assault into our lands should be absorbed until the attacking force is somewhat weakened or ill-positioned,
and our counterattack will wipe them out.

OFFENSE:
1.
One huge siege of a resource location can be more complicated,
for the defender. Enemies might use it against us?
This is the tactic we should use when on the offense.
Sporadic attacks on an opposite front might do well as a decoy.

2.
Disrupting the infrastructure as we are gaining territory is a slow,
but efficient way of weakening them.
(I guess this works against humans as well as AI)
Mobile units should be around for attack support too...
It might be possible to form a frontline, if strong enough.

3.
Then perhaps the second wave should go for their cities?
As they expected the first wave to do?
(but it did not, so some defenders left town)

When they expect one thing first, and we do the other,
and they will have to reorganize...
Then we do the first thing all of as sudden.

4.
At the last stage, when they are so disorganized that we know exactly where the chicken kicks... We strike with all forces!

[DAVOUT]

Arnelos, you do not consider the ultra early warrior rush. The walls are not available at that time.

I am impressed how we are all impregnated by the AI. We have to change that.

[Arnelos]

an early warrior rush may not be something we can do a whole lot about, quite frankly... what ideas did you have?

[ruby_maser]

Originally posted by Arnelos
an early warrior rush may not be something we can do a whole lot about, quite frankly... what ideas did you have?

I have an idea it ain't gonna happen for all the reasons I said earlier...

or perhaps I would just prefer that there finally come a point when something of this pre-game hypothesizing was labeled "ridiculous"

The Ai was easier to tip over than humans; why should something that didn't work against them suddenly become practical?

[GodKing]

I have done it against an AI. The problem is that usually they AI has 2 or 3 cities by the time the 5-6 warriors get there. They can usually take any one city, but that is it. Only if you are lucky can they take all three.

Humans are apt to be slower in REX than the AI. It can work.

However, the loss of only one city at this stage is often enough to cripple the AI. Humans will have better chances of coming back... with a vengence.

Assuming that is we give them the chance to come back.

[ruby_maser]

Originally posted by GodKing
Humans are apt to be slower in REX than the AI. It can work.

Maybe because we handicap ourselves against the AI to make it a challenge, but I am not willing to assume that REX will be anything but generally equal between human opponents (barring some god-awful start location).

However, a team that tries to cripple someone elses REX is doing the same to their own IMHO. I think an early anything-rush is ill-advised against humans. This isn't a game against the one team you are rushing. While you are rushing them, you are losing parity with the teams that have chosen a more balanced opening strategy than regional genocide.

Early victories are no consolation for overall victory.

[Arnelos]

ruby_maser's argument here is the best I've heard yet on this topic. An EXTREMELY early rush (with warriors, for instance) would preclude doing some critical REX activities during that extremely early stage and make a military victory (even if that should happen, which is far from certain) extraordinarily hollow when all the civs not at war have well surpassed you with their REX work.

Any team that does it is essentially playing spoiler. I don't think anyone will seriously do this.

An early archer rush with veteran archers (building a barracks first) is a much more serious possibility (look for Glory of War to be the most likely to try this...). We need bronze working (spearmen) and masonry (city walls) ASAP.