Successful Archer Rush: Can You Lose Afterward?

[Dominae]

cumi, what Arrian says is correct. The first Archer or two are not used for conquest but for disruption. Once you've done this and the AI has not seriously counter-attacked you, you can bring in another 3-4 Archers and start taking out cities. This second step is rquired if you want to extort techs, since typically the AI will not give up techs until it has lost settlements.

And yes, knowing when to push and an attack and when to build is very important (in all games). Crafting your ideal Archer-rush army will often cost you the skirmish, because the longer the AI has to build up, the more Spearmen you'll be facing. Ideally you only want to be facing Spearmen in the AI's capitol (unless the civ is Scientific, where you'll be confronting them in almost every city).


Dominae

[vmxa1]

I can not speak for Dom either, but I do not care about my rep, since I am not going to trade with anyone on a regular basis. I will do a trade here or there, but not that often. I do not bother to decalre war ever, I want them all to hate me, so I can have lots of fights.
Ok, I admit at Deity I will be a lot less beligerent.

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by vmxa1
... I want them all to hate me, so I can have lots of fights...

Yeah, it doesn't matter how nice you are, they will sooner or later stab your back anyway. So just give them what they deserve...

[Chemical Ollie]

I find archer rushes somewhat risky. If they succed, you will have a good chance to win the game, but if they fail you will struggle. I only try them if the enemy is weak and very close. I have tried AR on large and huge maps and found out that other tribes settled the land I wanted while I was away fighting.

[bongo]

At least the AI is less suicidal than in civ2...Ooh I just produced a cavalry, why not declare war to the human and wipe out his army of 200+ armor...

Will you eventually reach a point where the AI is too scared of you to ever declare war?

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by bongo
At least the AI is less suicidal than in civ2...Ooh I just produced a cavalry, why not declare war to the human and wipe out his army of 200+ armor...

Will you eventually reach a point where the AI is too scared of you to ever declare war?

True about civ2, but I once had a game on a huge map with conquest only. In that game I think two civs were left at around 2047 and one had only one city. I was just so big it was sick. That civ with one city declare war on me, now that is funny. The game would end in a few turns regardless.
BTW this was before PTW.

[cumi]

Dominae,

while I was reading the post in the "Civ-specific strategy: Germans" thread, I realized why am I not so succesful in my recent games with the "archer rush"-es.

I choose almost always French .

What should I do, if the tech needed for archers is not planed to researched? Should I buy it for Alphabet? What if the early contacted neighbour civ doesn't has it, too?


cumi

[Dominae]

cumi,

You can still do Archer rushes with the French, you'll just need to research Warrior Code first (or second, at the latest).

But the French and other non-Militaristic civs are not the best at "ultra-early" Archer rushes, since you cannot get those Archers out within the first twenty or so turns. So, if you really want to be sucessful at Archer rushes, you're better off selecting a Militaristic civ. Which (thankfully) makes sense.

Oh, and never wait for an AI to research Warrior Code for you if you want to rush. If you're the French and your neighbors are the Indians, are you going to wait until you contact another civ, hoping they're Militaristic, so that you can rush the Indians? That's not the spirit of a true warmonger...


Dominae

[Arrian]

Archer rushes aren't nearly as easy to do with non-militarists. I've done precisely one such archer rush - with the Ottomans - and only because I considered it an absolute necessity (the old "Strategic Choice" thread) and it worked rather well. The industriousness helps... I can't imagine doing an archer rush with, say, the Indians. Or even the Babs, despite their unit.

-Arrian

[Nor Me]

I can now do archer rushes as expansionistic non-militaristic civs.

You need one barracks if you are going to do a decent archer rush and you don't need any to harass civs with a couple of regular archers.

If you have to research warrior code, it might be too late. I'll often research possibly at 0% whatever the cheapest non-warrior-code tech happens to be in order to keep the option open if I get it from a hut. Meeting militaristic civs fast enough is also more likely.

It might not be quite as good in general but as an expansionist, you can see whether an early archer rush is a good idea in time to prepare for it.

My limited experience with archer rushes with civs that are neither militaristic or expansionist is mixed.

[Cort Haus]

With regard to the thread-question, it is possible for successful archer-rushing to also aid opponents, especially on pangea, or many-civved larger maps.

I once started by a chokepoint and using archers, quickly took down the civs first to the south, then to the north. I filled the southern land with settlers, but another northern rival filled much of the space up there, and eventually became a superpower. Winning was ultimately not a problem, but I couldn't declare an early 'checkmate' as a strong rival remained in the game, largely thanks to my rampant bulldozing.

Aside from such scenarios, the original premise is basically true : setting up a dual core civ wins the game and archer-rushing can help deliver this.

[Nakar Gabab]

A bump for a good thread, and a thought:

Scandinavia would be an excellent civ for hard-core archer rushing. Early AND late. Why? Well, they've got the whole expansionist (find) and militaristic (kill) thing going on. That's nice.

But they can also upgrade to Berserks (if you patched or modded, that is). So it seems like the Vikings are ideal for the early rush. Secure your dominance, then when Invention rolls around, hit people with 6-attack, AMPHIBIOUS assaulters long before anyone even thinks of fielding Cavalry. If the Archer Rush doesn't guarantee your victory, the Berserkergang surely will.

Thoughts? On Scandinavia? The Exp/Mil civs in general?

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Nakar Gabab

Scandinavia would be an excellent civ for hard-core archer rushing.{snip}
But they can also upgrade to Berserks (if you patched or modded, that is). {snip}

Thoughts?

I think that we can only really discuss the unmodded game (or the AU mod) in the context of this forum, otherwise everyone can just customise themselves a killer civ and say "look, this rocks!".

[cumi]

Originally posted by Arrian
Archer rushes aren't nearly as easy to do with non-militarists. I've done precisely one such archer rush - with the Ottomans - and only because I considered it an absolute necessity (the old "Strategic Choice" thread) and it worked rather well. The industriousness helps... I can't imagine doing an archer rush with, say, the Indians. Or even the Babs, despite their unit.

I tried yesterday an archer rush with Germans. The first civ I found (actually THE neighbour civ) were the Indians. rrrrr... those helpless Indians....those cheap german military units.... I sent out 2 archers and I captured ther nearest city hehehe.

Yes, it is a bit more difficult to do this with french, with whom I play usually.

The best option is to play with french, having the Germans as a friendly, trade-horny neighbour civ and a few hopeless/helpless other neighbour civs...

cumi

[Nakar Gabab]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
I think that we can only really discuss the unmodded game (or the AU mod) in the context of this forum, otherwise everyone can just customise themselves a killer civ and say "look, this rocks!".

Well, if you patched, I wouldn't call that "modded." I think the upgrade tree was fixed (changed?) in 1.14. I'm running the latest version of PTW and the Archer upgrades to the Berserk with no input from me.

I would argue that if a patch changes something in the base .bix file, and you change to that template without physically patching, you're still well in the bounds of the default game.