This is a fast rush for the Iroquois that I made as a response to repeated losses at the hands of Japanese and Indian players, although it works against China too.
This strategy utilizes two key attributes of the Iroquois:
-Fast age-up politician that grants a free travois. This lets you age up fast and get a war hut up quickly (and for free).
-The Town Destroyer card. This increases your siege power more than the 6 tomahawk shipment, so it will come in handy when attacking an opponent's wonder.
It can be done by any Iroquois city that is at least level 10, but the higher the better.
The goal of the Wonder Destroyer is to harass your opponent with 5 tomahawks and a pumped-up Warchief at your opponent's under-construction wonder between 4:10 and 4:20 with more tomahawks on the way. By attacking the villagers building the wonder, you force your opponent to stop building the wonder to hide their vils or risk having them all killed, and thus the wonder would not be built anyway.
This works especially well against a forward Agra Fort or a Toshogu Shrine that is placed on slightly distant huntables because there is no TC for their villagers to hide in, and thus you won't be shot at while you destroy the fort.
In some cases, they may stubbornly continue to build the wonder, especially if they are nearly finished. This isn't a bad thing; it's actually good. You can still stop construction by killing all of the builders, and even if you don't, killing a few of them will slow his age time and mess with his economy.
-This rush is fast and hard-hitting, and when pulled off successfully it can force your opponent to resign before they even age.
-Even if they manage to complete their wonder, you will still have killed some of their villagers and delayed their age time, giving yourself an early advantage.
-Some wonders provide crates when the player ages up. With your tomahawks in his town, you can keep him off age-up crates and even shipped crates.
-There's a special treat for you if you're playing against Japan. If he ages with the Torii Gates like many players, his age-up military rickshaw will be yours to destroy.
-It relies heavily on one unit, because sending Town Destroyer instead of 6 tomahawks makes your Warchief the key to the strategy. This isn't a problem when taking down a forward Agra or badly-placed Shrine, especially against a careless player who won't check your Warchief for a stat change. It's a different story when he's focusing TC fire on your Chief when you're attacking a wonder that's close to him.
-Rushing so early will take a bit of a toll on your eco, but if you micro your economy efficiently, you won't have to sacrifice constant villager production to make those tomahawks.
-Your little army will be subject to TC fire. Most players that I have battled against do not build their wonder close enough to their TC to be able to reach your tomahawks/Warchief if you stand on the side of the wonder that is opposite of the TC, but this is not always the case (especially on an expert level). I'll explain how to handle this in the guide.
This strategy doesn't rely on many attributes, so the deck you use can be very flexible. You can add lots of unit shipments to it for an aggressive rush, or you can add 600 gold to age to Fortress while your opponent can barely get to Colonial (or not at all
Town Destroyer
This card increases the siege damage of your Warchief by 1400%, increasing it to 232. Although that may not seem like much because it only affects one unit, the boost it gives him is greater than the combined siege damage of the 6 tomahawk shipment, and it doesn't require population space.
You need a level 10 home city to get this card.
-3 Villagers
-6 Tomahawks
-700 Aennas
-4 Kanya Horsemen
-600 Food
-600 Wood
-Exotic Hardwoods
-New Ways
-8 Forest Prowlers
-5 Renegade French (cost:500 gold)
-3 Travois
-Agrarian Ways
-Infantry Combat
Here is an example of a deck that you could use.
In the small time before the game starts, click for one of yours villagers to go behind a group of huntables to herd them toward your town center. Each of the other 4 should go to a different crate. Remember to keep your villagers from bumping together, and use the garrison trick from
Queue up villagers as soon as possible, and use your travois to build a longhouse. As soon as your villagers are done gathering crates, send all of them to huntables, and set your town center gather point on huntables as well.
Don't let your Warchief do nothing! Make sure that he is gathering treasures (preferably food to quicken the age-up, but wood for tomahawks/houses is good too, and XP to earn your shipments faster).
Also,
When you get your first shipment, send 3 villagers.
You'll want to age with less vils than usual for the best result. 12 is preferable, 13 is acceptable, 14 is pushing it. You'll be clicking to age at about 2:40-2:50 with the fast-age politician.
Move 3 of your hunters to wood. Make sure your Chief is walking back to your colony now, because you'll need him. Also, don't forget to queue up a couple villagers. You should receive your 2nd shipment.
When you reach Colonial at about 3:10-3:20, send Town Destroyer as your 2nd shipment, and use your age-up travois to build a war hut immediately. It doesn't have to be forward, but that can be a good idea.
When your hut is up, queue a tomahawk immediately. Your first two new villagers go to huntables, and the one after that goes to wood, then the 4th to food. Repeat a "food, food, wood, food" pattern. Of course, if you pull off the strategy successfully, you shouldn't need to take that long.
Before your tomahawk is made, remember to raise it to five tomahawks because you'll definitely have the resources for that now. Your Town Destroyer shipment comes slightly before they do. When they come out, queue another tomahawk.
You should have them ready with your Warchief and converted guardians at about 3:55-4:05, then march to your opponent's town to harass him. You'll be in his town at about 4:10-4:20. Unless he aged fast, his wonder will be yours to mess with. Also, build a longhouse at this time.
Your first priority is to kill the villagers building it. If there's nobody working on it, it doesn't get finished, and thus your opponent doesn't age.
-Use your tomahawks to pick off vils and keep them hidden in your opponent's TC.
-Your Warchief will start attacking the wonder from the farthest possible place from your opponent's town center. If he is out of TC range, that's perfect. If not, don't panic.
-Your converted guardians can't do much against villagers or buildings, so use them to block off the wonder on the side closer to the TC to create pathing problems for villagers who try to escape the TC to build it. While they try to slip past, your tomahawks can pick them off.
Raise your queued tomahawks to 5 when you have the res to do so. They should arrive very soon. When they do, you'll earn your third shipment. Send 6 tomahawks.
When your opponent stops sending their vils out to build the TC, your 10 tomahawks and your Warchief will be free to burn down his wonder. However...
-Do not panic. It would take 12 shots to knock down your Chief. He has 232 siege attack, so he can deal a massive 2784 damage before he dies. In the time it takes to do that, your first 5 tomahawks (each with 20 siege for a total of 100) would have had a chance to attack 12 times for a total of 1200 damage, making the total 3984 damage.
-By the time the Chief goes down, your other batch of tomahawks will be in his town. Now you have 10 tomahawks attacking for a total of 200 damage. Your tomahawks die after 3 hits from a town center, but you would have 10 of them with 6 more being shipped and more training, so destroying the wonder should be a piece of cake.
-Your opponent may call irregulars out on you. When this happens, use your guardian to force them into melee, and attack them with some of your tomahawks. Your Chief and other tomahawks should keep attacking the wonder because it heals by itself, and you don't want it to repair the damage you've done. Just stall until the irregulars have 60 HP or less, then use your Warchief's crackshot attack. If a couple of them survive, they'll be weak enough to kill with a simple attack from a tomahawk.
Sometimes, instead of waiting for your war hut to be built to get tomahawks, you may want to use the big button tech at your town center instead. While you usually won't have 500 food immediately upon reaching Colonial, thus either delaying the tech or delaying villager production for a short time, it can be useful because the tech researches very fast and you don't have to wait for your war hut to be finished.
When executed perfectly, this strategy can be ridiculously irritating for your opponent to handle, and it's fun too. Here are some basic tips to remember:
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Good luck forummers!
ESO2: Kyle_The_Brave
Clan: Proud Officer of Trỉρℓε ΣņτễηţϠ, [TΣ]
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[This message has been edited by Emperor_Kyle (edited 02-07-2009 @ 11:44 AM).]