Timeline for the ultra-early Archer rush

[BillChin]

Good basic strategy, however, I believe an earlier archer rush may yield better results depending on the map and difficulty level. Maybe cut out the fourth city and burn gold to support units for a few turns until some cities are captured.

Four or five cities is close to ideal for a Swordsmen rush (my favorite). With minor changes, the outlined strategy can be modified to yield ten swordsmen about 20 turns later, depending on the map. Ten swordsmen is a much bigger stick than ten archers with 50% more offensive punch and better defense. Hill top cities with spearmen or better are tough enough for swordsmen. I would not want to tackle them with archers only.

It is lucky to only lose two archers taking five cities, many defended by spearmen (six listed in the casualty report). I would not count on players being able to repeat this on a regular basis. Odds for a veteran archer vs. a fortified regular spearman are about 60%. If the spearman is in a hill city, the odds plummet to around 35%.

[Harovan]

Of course, that is not always applicable. The charm of this strategy is, that it does not depend on resources, and you can prepare your forces even having not discovered Iron working yet. If you have already iron in a city radius, you can switch later to swordsmen. If not, this approach grants at least a minimum and does not force you to lose time to build a settler and a road to the city and the iron.

As for the combat: In America (precise Washington), I had luck. I had 2 archers killing spearmen and surviving with 1 hp left. 2 other archers made it to elites killing warriors and an archer (I forgot him to mention). When I razed the 2nd city, the elites did the trick. In the Iroquois campaign I was not that lucky. But 1 captured and 1 razed is usually all I need in such a campaign.

The units cost me 240 shields (12x20). The barracks don't count, as I can and will use them later. Imagine a Great Wonder, that gives you 5 AI cities and lets 2 vanish, would cost 240 shields. Everybody would say, that's imbalancing .

[Txurce]

Excellent post, Sir Ralph, with extremely useful documentation. This strategy is particularly useful for builders, as it allows you to get an early jump on the land grab, then settle into builder mode with a several-centuries headstart toward a peaceful win. As an opening strategy for warmongering, it is also effective, although it may not last as long as you would want, given archers' slowness and middling offensive firepower.

Yes, it could be employed sooner, with maybe 3 cities. Any earlier, and it becomes a different strat: less systematic, although perhaps equally crippling to nearby civs. Waiting for swordsmen puts you in direct competition with civs who have better swords (or MWs), so I don't quite get that option.

Like Shaka, I have no problem with an early GA, and so find this approach excellent for the Babs. For me, it's yet another way to launch a spaceship sooner, because my civ got off the blocks sooner. I ususally don't start my offensive with the Babs until I'm somewhere well south of 1000 BC, so this approach could provide me with a major gain.

Thanks again for spelling it out so meticulously.

[BillChin]

Originally posted by Txurce
Waiting for swordsmen puts you in direct competition with civs who have better swords (or MWs), so I don't quite get that option.

Try it, I think you will like it. Like I said, it is my favorite opening. It doesn't matter what the enemy has (Emperor difficulty and below), if the human player has a stack of ten swordsmen, the AI is going down, hard and fast. On Monarch and below, and proper planning and execution, the AI has two or three swordsmen total by the time the human attacks with ten.

The other advantages of waiting for swordsmen are that the computer may switch out of Despotism and no longer pop rush units (on Emperor). There is more margin for bad combat rolls when attacking with swordsmen compared to archers. Roads to the enemy are better developed so reinforcements arrive sooner. The best way is to build warriors and save gold for a massive upgrade when the iron gets hooked up.

Swordsmen Conquest is one of the best openings for novice players. Build time is short, and chance of failure is extremely low. If there is no iron, archers are an option. The player can get iron working by the time there are three cities and decide.

[nbarclay]

The ultimate early archer rush is probably my "archers explore" opening. The idea is that the first thing a city builds is a barracks and then it starts cranking out veteran archers whenever it's not in a position to build a settler. (Yes, it's a bit risky with lots of barbarians around.) When one of the exploring archers finds an enemy capital, others converge and they attack together. With a little luck (and it doesn't take a whole lot), I can take out an enemy capital before they have more than one or two other cities, which is absolutely devastating to the AI's hopes of ever being a major power.

Obviously, this only works with civs like the Germans or Chinese who start with Warrior Code. But it can be a powerful opening for those civs: lots of damage to the enemy for a relatively small investment. (I haven't tried it on Emperor; I don't know how the AI's advantage in starting units would affect things there.) One other thing: "Archers Explore" tends to hit at least one enemy before he has enough units to try to defend my attacking, which (so far) has let me get away with not escorting my archers with spearmen. That's an extra cost savings.

Nathan

[Txurce]

Bill, I tend to favor UU rushes in the ancient era, but on the rare occasion when I've played civs with no early UUs, I always rush with horsemen. They are cheaper and faster than swordsmen, and can survive a loss. Those factors, combined with their ability to upgrade all the way to cavalry, seem to make up for swordsmen's extra a/d point. That said, I can imagine how devastating a swarm of upgraded warriors would be.

What intrigued me about the ultra-early rush described here is how much earlier it occurs than either a horseman or swordsman rush.

[God]

Would this be any use on larger than standard maps?

[BillChin]

Originally posted by God
Would this be any use on larger than standard maps?

Warrior, archer or swordsmen rushes tend to be much weaker on most large or huge maps, especially with few AI opponents. Horsemen are ok. Knights are killer when there is a lot of open land. However, the build up to a Knight blitz is non-trivial and may take several games of practice to smooth out.

A warrior rush with one city, an archer rush with 2 or 3 cities, or a swordsmen or horsemen rush with 4 to 6 cities is much easier to execute, than building 10 to 20 cities and upgrading to yield 20 Knights. A lot of timing has to go right in terms of gold, units, tech for the Knight Blitz to form critical mass at an opportune time.

[jshelr]

Same idea as Sir Ralph. Slightly different spin. The neat thing about this approach is that it works a very high percentage of early games.

Map size is critical, but I'd have to vote for bowmen over archers. I've had great success with bowmen (rather than archers) using the Babs. It's true that you get an early GA, but that is not really so bad. It's also true that you must build barracks. These demerits will be more than overcome by Babs ongoing game advantages. In the early going, bowmen can attack anything available and they defend much better than archers. Survival of these units is very high. In a real sense, ten bowmen nearly represent twice the offensive force and twice the defensive force of a 5 by 5 stack of archers and spears. So, if you take a modest bite out of all neighbors relatively early, you will be the big cheese on your land mass headed toward knights. This strategy is not as powerful as the chariot upgrade on smaller maps, but I've found it works well on the larger maps I usually use, where building more than a few cities in the beginning is necessary. It's going to take long enough to get started on larger maps that you will normally be using either swordmen or horsemen in combo with bowmen. Hopefully, both!! But I've seen a veteran bowmen rush take control of the early game without help from either horsemen or swordmen. (Hint: play raging barbarians so that the AI civs get chewed up while you build the very survivable bowmen, avoiding warriors.)

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
Main objective is the enemy capital. It's usually the only city I can capture. After I got it, I may try to raze a few more cities, if enough forces remained.

If you take the capital and wait 10 turns, another city will grow its culture borders (thanks to its free palace), and can then be taken without auto-razing.

[Cookie Monster]

An excellent post Sir Ralph

I will definately give your strategy outlined above a go this weekend. Between Vel, Arrian, and you we all have be rejuvenated with new and current strategies. Hats off to all!

My question to you is this; what do you usually set your T.S.L rates to in the early game using this strat? I usually set my rates to 9.1.0 figuring I'll maximize cash flow but make a token attempt at research. Your thoughts would be interesting.

[Harovan]

I set mine at 8.2.0 mostly, as my cities produce much settlers and this makes often 9.1.0 to produce 0 beakers, which stalls the research entirely. 8.2.0 ensures your capital to produce 1 beaker.

Sometimes, I use a jungle city size-1 with 1 scientist and set the slider to 10.0.0.

[Cookie Monster]

Interesting.

I have noticed that it does take a while before I start seeing "beakers" produced but I just lived with it. Perhaps I shall try 8.2.0 for my next game.

Another weakness of mine is the tendency to not engage in even slight micromanagement. I think setting a citizen in a jungle town to scientist is a good benefit, one that I'm too lazy to take advantage of. Perhaps a little rethink is in order for me.

[Txurce]

Chinese Oscillating War Marathon

Before playing my first 1.21 (beta) game - Emperor, standard - I decided to shake up my strategy. If the map permitted, I was going to go for a domination victory, using the following strategies: Sir Ralph's four-city rush, Nato's bribery diplomacy, a radical focus on warfare - nothing but temples, barracks and offensive units, with the odd aqueduct and defender - and most important, a concerted effort to think ahead so that I could be effectively at war as much as possible. In other words, no medieval rebuilding for the Chinese... a civ I chose because they fit Ralph's early strat, the industrious trait allows for fast road-building in monarchy, my chosen government, and the Rider virtually demanded that i not take the Middle Ages for granted.

I started on the northwestern end of a large continent with India across from me, and Rome, then Japan, then Egypt below. I built two archer armies, then switched to horsemen as soon as I traded for HBR. I oscillated very quick ward with Rome and India, with results not as modest as they might seem. By 270BC, I had captured only two cities from each enemy, and my ten gave me a total of fourteen. More importantly, trading and extorting tech allowed me to catch up to the others in research, and switch to monarchy as I left the ancient era much sooner than ever before.

I kept chipping away at India while I researched my first two techs of the game: feudalism and chivalry. By 340 AD I had a swarm of upgraded Riders, and started my Golden Age as I destroyed India, and then knocked Rome off the continent. In these wars I amassed enough GLs to build the FP in Rome, build the Heroic Epic, and three armies (as well as Bach, a sop to my people). I looked forward to the inevitable: a Rider/Samurai clash - but as I took the cities Japan took from India and Rome, I encountered only swordsmen. I then made a ROP passage deal with Japan and attacked Egypt, which was defended only by WCs and... culture. They were the heavyweights, and I was a fly. I couldn't hold anything. So I turned against Japan until I encountered riflemen. This was just short of 700 AD. The Age of the Rider had been successful, but short (as usual). Its benefits were moderate land gains, a buildup of mounted units, and the extortion of tech. They also look pretty cool.

I traded for techs feverishly, and started researching military tradition in 700. (The other civs researched chivalry at about this point.) One key trade was gold and luxuries for nationalism, which
allowed me to mobilize my economy for most of the rest of the game. By 800 I had MT, upgraded the Riders to cavalry, and hit the Rising Sun like a tsunami. With only riflemen and a few samurai for defense, they were history 100 years later, too soon to have more than a couple of cities flip, despite my usual lack of defenders. I now had hopes of wiping out Egypt and maybe winning the game. Knowing Egypt's cultural dominance, my plan was tyo raze and build. It worked for all of one city... and then, in 980, my cavalry encountered a mob of infantry. I was stunned. More importantly, the war was over. I would never be able to beat Egypt with my no-research strategy, and researching all the way to motorized transport meant kissing my fast start goodbye.

And then I remembered the other guys. The Americans and Aztecs were on one continent, the Iroquois on an island below them. All they had were riflemen; I had a giant war machine pumping out vet cavalry. I left my old Rider armies on the Egyptian border as a deterrent, blew very little time rushing a fleet of galleons, and attacked with an embarrassment of ever-growing cavalry armies. The Americans and Aztecs were taken by 1255, in a capaign where I razed the first half of their cities, kept the last half as they expired, and then rushed settlers to fill in the scorched earth. The Iroquois were invaded in 1280. I razed nothing, but they had unaccountably left huge gaps of jungle in their territory. The Iroquois were extinct by 1300, and thanks to some rushed settlers, I won a domination victory in 1325 (5999 points), with a somewhat high 137,500 square-mile threshold.

My previous best was 1410, so I can attest that my old strat of mounted rushes and oscillating wars benefited significantly from the fast four-city opening rush, my draconian infrastructure, and maybe most importantly, minimizing the pauses between warfare much more than I ever had before... particularly in the Middle Ages. As short as they are, maximizing this period is obviously crucial when racing the clock.

The Chinese were a blast, but you can see the contortions I went through because I had no culture. Would religious have been better? Maybe, but I'm not sure if I would have built any cathedrals with a different civ, because only at the very end did I feel I didn't need any more troops. A better reason would be to trade the four turns of anarchy for post-war switches to despotism, and the rushing of temples (and maybe cathedrals).

[DFHNY]

PTW

archer rush worked OK for me last night on Monarch level std map using the new Celtic civ. It takes practice I guess, but your team of 5 archers and 1 spearman never seem to be ready on time (barbs, Germans very nearby, poor land, make a worker, dig an extra mine, etc. all take time). Germany's culture expands very fast so keep in mind it takes a while to get your team of 6 through his perimiter and into Berlin. Also, make sure you all attack at once. Hitting with the first archer to arrive is a no-no. Expect to hack through 3 or more spearman very early on in PTW on Monarch level in all but a few cities. You still get a free city of his if you win and ALL his tech which is nice (since taxes set on high). Watch out for culture flip of Berlin after you conquer it, this happens often.

Has anyone noticed that the very same spearman that was a pushover early in a war becomes quite hard to defeat later in the war? Does the AI change the odds as the war lingers on? I had 5 Celtic strongmen die against one German city, quite strange.