Wolf Rushing on a Gold Rush Map

Today’s article will be much shorter, and is inspired by the casting of a match between Chris and Halen by ZeroEmpires. This video can be viewed below. This strategy is worthwhile in 1v1 or team games, and is guaranteed to catch your opponent off-guard. It involves taking advantage of the large masses of wolves in the center of a Gold Rush map. It also works best if the difficulty is set to Hardest, as wolves are more aggressive and have more line of sight on higher difficulties.

Your build order doesn’t matter here, but I’d suggest getting a barracks up and building a spearman or two (they’re faster) once you get to Feudal. This guide will focus more on micromanaging, so I’ll assume that you’re following a standard strategy, getting a good eco going, etc.

Scouting

After using some sheep and your scout to do some initial scouting near your base to find your resources, send your scout to the center of the map to find all of the groups of wolves. It is useful to have a villager place a palisade foundation by each group of wolves that you find, as wolves do not show up under the fog of war. Once you’ve found all of the wolves, send your scout to have a good look at the enemy base. Then send him wherever you please.

Feudal Age

Start building your Feudal army (unless pocket in a team game, in which case you should Fast Castle). Either way, you want to have two Spearmen (or if Aztecs/Mayans/Incas in AoFE/AoF, two Eagle Scouts, or one Eagle Warrior + one Spearman in AoC) that are heading out to the middle of the map. Send them to each palisade foundation that you’ve placed, take a shot at the wolves, and start running (Scale Barding Armor helps here if your micro isn’t so good). If all goes well, you should have around 20 or more wolves on your tail.

Alternatively, if you’re willing to gamble with sacrificing a villager, then you can send a villager through the center, which on harder difficulties will attract every last wolf in the area. Make sure you have loom though, which you should by now anyway. Incan villagers do this quite well because they are affected by Blacksmith upgrades, giving them more armor to take hits from the wolves.

Either way, you want to ship your “Wolf Train” (a term coined by ZeroEmpires) off to the enemy base. Start attacking their villagers, and your pack of wolves will do the same. Generally, this will cost your opponent around 3 villagers, possibly even more if done right, or will force them to lose a lot of precious time with their villagers inside their TC (Town Center) while they use the TC to shoot the wolves. The eco lead you get here can be followed up by a flush or a fast Castle and Castle Age rush to wipe them off the map.

Beware Though

If your opponent is cunning, he might use a villager to lure the wolf train back to your base, giving you a taste of your own medicine. For this reason (and others), you want to:

1. Avoid depositing the wolves near their TC- hit their wood or gold eco instead, which will cause more damage anyway as the villagers will have a longer way to the TC.
2. Scout well with some troops (or your scout). If you notice them leading the wolf pack heading to your base, then kill their villager (or other unit) and use a unit to redirect the wolves back to their base.

It’s an unconventional strategy for sure, but there’s no reason to not use all the tools that you have at your disposal! Your opponent certainly won’t be expecting this, and I guarantee that you’ll be smiling or laughing at your own ingenuity.

“I suddenly remembered my Charlemagne! Let my armies be the rocks, and the trees, and the birds in the sky.” -Henry Jones Sr.

He forgot about the pack of wolves, but we didn’t…

Happy conquering!