SCAR (Single City Archer Rush)

[Cort Haus]

Inspired by OCC, I've had some success lately with building 3-4 vet archers from my first city more or less off-the-bat, and taking an enemy capital ultra-early. Obviously this is one for militaristic Civs (I was using the Celts).

You need some gold to sustain your first army, so get those roads in, but if you get the enemy capital, your unit support jumps to eight - allowing more archers to be built for the next civ's capital. These archers build fast, as by not building a settler the one city is large and turning out plenty of shields and gold.

Oscillating between capitals for a couple of rivals allowed me to ultimately get a conquest win on a tiny map (2-continent 'pangea') before 500AD, while only building one city in addition to my first. The rest were taken and not very productive, but they paid for support of a large army which the initial, uber-city could pound out.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Ah, offense right off the bat...

Even I'VE tried this on occasion. That's how attractive it is. The only thing is, when doing this, you have to be ready for the possible consequences - if you lose those Archers and don't take them out - you may well be screwed via a similar tactic rather soon.... Even if you do survive this loss, you will be behind straight away, struggling to keep up.

[mimi]

I think I'll give this a try. I tried the AU OCC last night and it was pretty fun. I did it peacefully but think popping over and crushing the neighbor civs in the first few turns would be rollicking fun.

What level would that work on though? I've tried an archer rush a couple times and it never works (my archers get killed on the attack or if they take it, the counter attack just gives them the enemy their city back 'cause I only have one or perhaps 2 archers left alive after the attack.)

So what do you do? Barracks, archer x 4 then attack? Or perhaps Barracks, archer x 3, spear x1?

I've done this sort of thing in the orig civ 3 (pre ptw) with the Aztecs and it works but only 'cause I can get to the enemy fast - I get to them with my first Jag and keep their worker pinned/eaten and eliminate their chances of creating additional settlements while waiting for other Jags to catch up and attack their capital.

[Arrian]

I've tried this, usually as China.

It can work, it can backfire. Lots of risk involved.

China is great for it, since you can chop to assist the builds. I'd go 1 warrior, barracks, archer, archer, archer, kill.

Once you do your damage, you had best settle down for some serious building, though, lest civs beyond your reach get too far ahead.

-Arrian

[Nor Me]

The Chinese are O.K. but I think this tactic works best as a mil/exp civ.
The reasons are that with a scout or 2, you can tell if this is a good idea early enough for it not to backfire too often and there is a chance of a second city or settler from huts if you don't build any. I tend to use the term Settlerless Archer Rush to include this possibility.

I tried this knid of thing on Monarch, standard continents/pangea and a mil/exp civ a few times and it worked reasonably every time. It might be a sensible startegy for those settings and certain aims.

This shouldn't be useful too often but by some coincidence I've used variants of it in 3 out of the last 4 AU games. The other one was the OCC.

[Cort Haus]

This is on Monarch (I doubt it would work on Emperor with all those freebie units they get) - and a tiny map, so with only 3 rivals there's not much chance of falling too far behind.

I didn't exactly settle down for any serious building though. I went after the next civ while preparing for the Gallic Swordie rush (under Monarchy) that would knife through the bulk of enemy cities. Using the OCC principle (one city is enough), you get plenty of shields and gold from your mega-city.

On tiny maps corruption is heavy for any city not very close to the capital, so captured cities don't produce, but they allow support of a large army under despotism. So instead of building settlers I built mainly archers to keep taking the enemies' capitals. With tiny maps there aren't too many civs to streak ahead, and 2 neighbours are usually close, so the archer's power is enhanced.

Even when it goes wrong, recovery is still possible on the tiny map. My first and second attacks against Paris failed, but my third (six archers) worked. I turned them on Germany and beat them down enough to be able to finish them later. Even though I had a terrible start, I eventually got the ancient conquest, though not my quickest. I doubt I'd have got away with it on a larger map.

I started tiny maps as a trainer for dominating the home continent on standard continental maps. I wanted to try various ways of dominating the home continent, but I'd always insist on taking my Samurai (I was Japanese) across the ocean and spending hours on Sam/Cav bashing when I wanted to focus on ancient units - so I went to tiny maps to remove the termptation. Then I discovered the Celts, and wow - now I wanna start a thread about setting up GS rushes to slice and dice the enemy. This SCAR thing was some interesting fallout from the experiments, but not my 'strat of the month'

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Arrian
It can work, it can backfire. Lots of risk involved.
-Arrian

Yes but at this point you've only played for a few minutes, so restarting is not so bad. Not finding any civs is a definite problem, and failing to take the city is a problem too, but as an occasional diversion there's no faster route to a quick Civ thrill, IMO

[Arrian]

I wanted to try various ways of dominating the home continent, but I'd always insist on taking my Samurai (I was Japanese) across the ocean and spending hours on Sam/Cav bashing when I wanted to focus on ancient units....

Oh, I know the feeling. Sams/Cavs are an awesome invasion combo (IMO not surpassed until Mech Inf/Modern Armor). I love launching invasions overseas with Japan.

But domination of the home continent must come first. I almost never contemplate an intercontinental invasion if there is a viable civ left alive back home.

I actually don't use archers that much. With China, yes. With Germany, yes. With Japan and most other civs, no. Swords and horsies. Takes longer to set up, but you end up capturing more AI cities that way and having more shots at Leader generation.

-Arrian

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by mimi
I think I'll give this a try. I tried the AU OCC last night and it was pretty fun. I did it peacefully but think popping over and crushing the neighbor civs in the first few turns would be rollicking fun.

Indeed it rollicks - playing with the benefits of an OCC powerhouse without the restrictions on owning one city.

I've tried an archer rush a couple times and it never works (my archers get killed on the attack or if they take it, the counter attack just gives them the enemy their city back 'cause I only have one or perhaps 2 archers left alive after the attack.)

There's no counter attack if you hit them early. They'll have little outside the capital, and always give peace with all their tech and gold, giving you 20 turns to hit the second civ before returning to take their new capital. Bringing a spearman helps, but requires bronze (I trade for it). Unlike settler-bopping tactics, you actually want them to built cities (with culture) which can be taken and held to support units. This allows the capital to grow and become powerful.

So what do you do? Barracks, archer x 4 then attack? Or perhaps Barracks, archer x 3, spear x1?

A warrior-scout first, as Arrian said, to find the target then either of those 2, depending on whether you think they've built either an extra spearman or archer to defend their city with. Arrian says take three archers, and he has more experience of combat odds than I, but I like to take a spear along. The more units you take to attack with, the more they can build to defend with, but try it - it doesn't take long to try a few openings to experiment.

[Arrian]

Well, I would bring a spear along too if my object was to hit their capitol, because they will have warriors and perhaps an archer that can come out and hit your archers.

If I'm going for an ultra-early shot at someone's capitol, I might just build 2-3 regular archers, pull them together with the regular warrior (scout) and hit. That early, they probably don't have an archer (on Monarch. On Emperor, I think they start with 1). If they do attack with a warrior, your warrior will defend, IIRC.

But I typically use archers for harrassment, not conquest, so I'm not really an authority here.

-Arrian

[T-hawk]

Here's how the starting units work.

Regent: none, just the worker/settler/(scout)
Monarch: 2 defensive units, 1 offensive
Emperor: 4 defensive units, 2 offensive, 1 extra worker
Deity: 8 defensive units, 4 offensice, 2 extra workers, 1 extra settler

Defensive units are the available unit with the best defensive value. Scientific civs (that start with Bronze Working) get spearmen; everyone else gets warriors. Greece gets hoplites and the Aztecs get jaguars.

Offensive units are the available unit with the best attack value. Militaristics (that start with Warrior Code) get archers; everyone else including Japan gets warriors.

(Japan might be able to get chariots if their capital lands right on horses; I'm not sure.)

Germany is the only civ to get both free archers and spearman. So don't attack them with an early archer rush; and if possible attack a civ that's neither scientific nor militaristic.

[vmxa1]

At deity I have only rushed successfully once (ultra early). You need to time it so that they have sent most of their unit out. It is very hard and not worth the risk.
As you say, never against germany above Monarch.
At deity they send so many warriors at you if you start something it is very scary.